From Wizard/Toyfare:
http://www.wizarduniverse.com/movies/transformersmovie/003482974.cfm
‘TRANSFORMERS’ REVEALED
ToyFare gets a sneak peek at the upcoming live-action movie!
On Tuesday night, at the American International Toy Fair in New York, a screening was held for toy industry professionals of 25 minutes of footage from the upcoming “Transformers” movie directed by Michael Bay, and ToyFare was there!
The event, sponsored by Hasbro, DreamWorks and Paramount, kicked off with a brief question-and-answer session with Bay, DreamWorks President of Production Adam Goodman and Hasbro President Brian Goldner. (Recording devices were strictly forbidden at the event, and even cell phones were surrendered at the door.) Goodman talked about how relatively young studio DreamWorks was looking for a potential franchise, and pointed out that this would be the only new franchise bowing this summer, in a season of big sequels. Bay revealed that he almost passed on what he called “a toy movie” until he remembered that when he was a teenage intern at Lucasfilm, he was dead certain that “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was going to suck, so maybe he was wrong about this one, too.
At the conclusion of the Q-and-A, the trio quickly vacated the stage to show the footage, reminding everyone that the sound, lighting and special effects weren’t finished and that they still had 140 days to get it all done, which is “a long time in Hollywood.” (The actual robot animation was about two-thirds rendered, and one-third placeholder animation.) Bay said that these weren’t the best scenes, but they were the ones that were closest to completion.
Here are descriptions of the four scenes that were shown, and needless to say, SPOILER ALERT!
THE INFILTRATION
We open on a team of soldiers aboard a helicopter flying home from a mission. All look like they’ve been through some rough times, and they’re talking about what they’re looking forward to when they get home: One says weekends at Fenway Park, another says his mother’s alligator steaks and Captain Lennox (Josh Duhamel) says he’s looking forward to seeing his newborn daughter for the first time. The helicopter lands, and Lennox gives a local boy he knows a chocolate bar.
Cut to another helicopter flying across the desert. A radar operator picks up its signal and informs his commander of a bogey. After warnings to turn around are ignored, two fighter jets are scrambled to escort it to the base. When one of the pilots reads off its tail number, the number is revealed to belong to a helicopter that went down in Saudi Arabia months earlier. As Lennox talks on a video phone with his wife and baby, the mystery helicopter lands and is instantly surrounded by army trucks with mounted guns. A shot of the mustached pilot shows his image flickering, revealing circuitry underneath the skin. In the control tower, the radar fails, then the power. Lennox’s call is cut off.
Suddenly, the helicopter’s rotors sweep back, and the helicopter starts to fold in on itself. The distinctive sounds of transformation as heard in episodes of the 1980s cartoon series are clearly heard over the clanking and grinding of machinery re-forming. The mass of metal unfolds and a robot looms over the trucks. Bullets and rockets are instantly unleashed on all of the trucks, the tanks, anything within range. A glowing blue rocket is fired, and on impact it unleashes a wave of energy that overturns vehicles and shatters glass a quarter-mile away.
Lennox runs through the compound, sweeping up the local boy we saw before and racing to join his men as they take refuge by some heavy tanks. The safety of the location is dubious, as flaming tanks and helicopters are dropping from the sky. A rocket-propelled grenade fired by one of Lennox’s men seems to slightly wound the robot. He shrugs, and a section of his back breaks away and becomes a giant insect before tunneling into the ground.
The robot tears the roof off the communications tent and grabs hold of a giant computer. Screens show flickers of what he’s downloading: information about the military. The commander tells one of his men to shut down the connection, but the switch is inaccessible, so he takes an ax off the wall and cuts the connection the old-fashioned way.
THE CONFRONTATION
On a bright, sunny day, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) pulls up to the curb in his beat-up yellow Camaro, his friend in the passenger seat. Looking across the grass at the pond nearby surrounded by high school kids, Sam sees Mikaela (Megan Fox), the girl he likes from school. While his friend climbs a tree, Sam awkwardly watches him, and is approached by Mikaela’s boyfriend, who remembers him from a disastrous football tryout. After they trade some insults, Mikaela steps between them and tells them to cool it. When she asks her boyfriend if she can drive his truck, he refuses, and Mikaela storms off on foot.
Returning to his car, Sam yells at his friend for embarrassing him, and as he notices Mikaela leaving on foot, the car radio turns on and scans the stations until it finds the Cars’ song “Drive” and the words “Who’s gonna drive you home?” are heard. Sam immediately realizes what he has to do and kicks his friend out of the car. Pulling up alongside Mikaela and stammering out an invitation, he persuades her to accept the ride, but is humbled when she asks him if he’s new at school, despite the fact that they’ve been going to school together since the first grade, and apparently have all of their classes together.
The car’s ignition switch flips to the “off” position, and slows to a halt at a scenic overlook, tuning the radio to a romantic station. Sam apologizes, but Mikaela opens the hood and shows that she knows her way around a car, thanks to her father. When she mentions that a lot of guys (like her boyfriend) are intimidated by her skills, Sam asks why she still dates him, and she starts to walk away again, obviously uncomfortable. Sam goes to drive after her, and the car starts up with no problems.
CULTURE CLASH
As Sam’s parents watch the news about meteors falling to Earth, a convoy of five vehicles moves down the road behind his family’s house. The convoy is led by a red-and-blue semi truck with blue running lights, and the Camaro is one of the other vehicles. As Sam’s father goes to take the trash out, Sam runs up to the back door out of breath. As they talk, Sam sees the robot form of Optimus Prime rising up above the trees, and the robot Bumblebee peeking his head around the corner of the house, pantomiming for Sam to be quiet. Sam does everything he can to keep his dad from coming outside, eventually saying he loves him, and he’s a handsome man.
His dad gone, Sam tries to get the robots to settle down, but as they pace the backyard, Optimus steps on a birdbath. Sam cries out in panic, and Optimus rumbles, “My bad.” Sam’s Chihuahua pees on Ironhide’s foot, and Ironhide’s hands turn to guns as he aims them at the dog. As Sam scoops up the tiny animal, Ironhide tells him he has a rodent problem and offers to eliminate it, but Sam convinces him that it’s just a dog and harmless.
After telling them to chill out, Sam runs upstairs and starts searching his room for his great-great-grandfather’s glasses, which the Autobots seem to want, as they immediately lift Mikaela up to Sam’s bedroom window to help. Sam quickly cleans up his room as Mikaela offers to help look around, and he just barely stops her from opening a box that obviously contains pornography.
Sam asks her to tell them he can’t find the glasses, and looks out the window to see that the Autobots have all disguised themselves in car mode—smack-dab in the middle of his lawn. He yells at them, and they change back, only to have Bumblebee walk into a power line and electrocute himself. He falls into a greenhouse, and seems to be experiencing both pain and pleasure from the shock. (Contrary to early reports he would be mute, he actually talks about what he’s feeling.)
Meanwhile, another convoy, this time of government-issue SUVs, pulls up out front, and men in suits surround the house. Agent Simmons (John Turturro) asks if Sam’s father is the descendant of Archibald Witwicky, while other agents use devices to scan the now-empty backyard for signs that the robots were there. When Sam and Mikaela come downstairs, Simmons scans Sam, and the readings are off the chart: Sam has obviously been in direct contact with the aliens, and he’s coming with them.
At this point, the lights came up and we were asked if we wanted to see another scene. The entire theater cheered and clapped. “You’re not the target audience,” joked Bay, as he signaled for one more clip.
THE SURVIVORS
Lennox and his team (and the local boy) are making their way through the desert after surviving the attack at the base. As they pass an old electrical tower, something causes it to uproot and topple over. As they wonder what it was, a sharp, mechanical tendril rises up from the sand behind Lennox. Sergeant Epps (Tyrese Gibson) opens fire on it before it can strike, and the giant insect reveals itself before tunneling under the sand again. When it next pops up, it impales one of Lennox’s men before going back under.
In full panic mode, the men fire into the sand and flee in the direction of a small village, where the locals see the soldiers running from a mechanical monster and start to panic themselves. As the soldiers seek refuge behind a low wall, Lennox and the boy go to the boy’s home to get a phone. When Lennox goes to use the new cell phone they give him, he’s stalled by an apathetic customer service rep on the other end of the line, who needs a credit card number to connect Lennox with the Pentagon.
After fishing a card out of Epps’ pocket, Lennox manages to call in air support. When a radio-controlled drone shows the Pentagon what they’re facing, they decide not to take any chances. Two A-10 Warthogs (made famous as G.I. Joe’s Cobra Rattlers) strafe the metal scorpion as the soldiers on the ground coordinate fire and recommend larger bullets. Eventually, severely damaged, the scorpion flees underground, leaving behind a writhing piece of its tail.
After the screening, everyone received a gift bag containing a black rubber Transformers bracelet, a battery-powered cell phone charger engraved with the Transformers logo and two black T-shirts, one men’s size and one women’s size, with a rendering of movie Prime on the front and the Autobot logo and “7.4.7.” on the back, referring to the movie’s July 4 opening.
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*Shrug*
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