I hope somehow Hot Rod dies...I just want my childhood to get it's vengeance.

That's great that Nimoy is on board. I wish he was just...Galvatron. One step forward, two steps back for Bay.

That's interesting because Nimoy pretty much downplayed and made fun of his last go-around with the Transformers.

That's awesome news. Nimoy originally wanted to voice the Fallen in ROTF but Bay picked Tony Todd instead. Assuming DOTM is the movie ROTF should have been, this'll be a great swan song for Nimoy.

Transformers: Dark Of The Moon To Receive Dolby 7.1 Treatment

Cool to have another old school voice on board. One of my favorite old school Transformers scense was in the '86 movie where Galvatron shoots Starscream:

"Megatron, is it you?"

"Here's a hint." (Proceeds to kill Starscream)

In fairness, Transformers: The Movie was made in the 80s when even well-liked animation was still seen as an inferior medium. This movie had the added stigma of being a toy commercial. Personally, I still feel they did a terrific job with it, but introducing new toys to sell was the only mandate from Hasbro. It's pretty easy to see how an actor from Nimoy's generation would consider a project like that something of a skeleton in his filmography closet.

What's interesting is that the whole "introduce new toys" aspect kind of worked in the movie's favor story wise. While I doubt many who didn't view the TV series watched the movie, I have to say it's one of the few TV based movies that can play just as well to non-regulars as regulars. Most of the TV characters are gone after the first few minutes and it creates a standalone story with different players.

It really does, and I honestly think it's a much more interesting movie than a lot of folks give it credit. Just offhand, how about the fact that Optimus Prime dies, whereas Megatron is recycled--thereby managing to outlive the hero? There's some philosophical ground to cover there, in the relationship between heroism and death. It's a movie very much about sacrifice, camaraderie and redemption, all universally-recognized themes.

Hot Rod gets a bad rap, but it's a common storytelling device to have the protagonist err grievously early and need to redeem himself as the hero later. Plus, they had the good sense to retain the Dinobots (four of the five, anyway) and they're always fun...in a way that no one in the Bay live action movies so far has managed to be.

Plus, it gave us Unicron. Thanks to him, I have found myself fairly unimpressed by nearly anything else I've seen on the big screen that relies on scale to wow me. Oh, you're a bunch of bugs that somehow represent Galactus? Big deal. I've seen a planet eat another planet. So far, nothing I've seen has reached the scale of Unicron. I'm jaded, I'm sure, but I just feel like no other writer is imaginative enough to even try something like that again. Surely we now live in the age of CGI where it could be done, but still nothin'. Bay wanted me to be impressed by an aircraft carrier being destroyed in the last one. Sure. Except I've seen a planet eat another planet.

While gearing up for the release of "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," director Michael Bay has not been shy about his desire to right the missteps in "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen": putting more focus on writing a better story, making the action more accessible, yet "epic" in scale. Based on the footage and trailer MTV News saw on the Paramount lot before a candid chat with Bay on Thursday, it looks like he's making good on his word.

We can't get into specifics, of course, but with regard to the trailer — the 2-D version of which will roll out in theaters on April 28, while a 3-D version will hit in front of "Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides" — it takes the intrigue of the teaser trailer, plus the intensity from the action-packed 30-second Super Bowl spot and adds enough mind-blowing, mesmerizing robotgasm goodness to leave even the most passive of fans slack-jawed. Or googly-eyed. One of the two.

We also saw snippets of returning and new supporting castmembers, a possible Pink Floyd tie-in and a tantalizing, yet not at all overwhelming, 3-D sizzle reel.

Speaking of his latest and likely last "Transformers" installment, Bay began by admitting that he is not trying to capture the magic of the first film.

"You're never going to match the innocence of the first movie and the wonderment," he said. "The genie is out of the bottle there. This one, I think, is a more mature story line. It's definitely darker."

He later explained that the new movie has more of the aliens' backstory. "You learn a lot more about the hierarchy, there's a lot more history of what they've had on Cybertron," he said.

Bay also went into his reasoning and reservations behind the decision to shoot in 3-D, and what (actually, who) convinced him to go ahead with the new technology.

"[James Cameron], at the last minute, goes, 'Mike, come on,' " Bay recalled, imitating the "Avatar" director's enthusiasm with a slightly deep and gravelly inflection in his voice. "This is like my idol. He goes, 'Mike come on, we've done everything.' I'm thinking, 'I haven't done everything.' "

Cameron pushed him to try out this "new toy," and that despite all the headaches that are added to the filmmaking process with shooting in 3-D, he's glad he did it.

"3-D, it's pretty great when you see these robots interact in the space," he said.

Other excitement added into the mix for "Dark of the Moon" are the souped-up action sequences, specifically a scene that involves base jumpers jumping off the Sears Tower and literally flying through downtown Chicago.

"There's a lot of action stuff I've never done before that's pretty cool," Bay said of what makes this installment stand out. "I want to make up for the second one, and I want to leave the franchise as best I can

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/166...hael-bay.jhtml

Sure Michael, whatever you say! It'll be the same loud, empty spectacle that all of your films are.

so, he's going to make a time machine, go back and give us the Transformers we were promised from the start?

(the 80's themed live action version)

Shockwave banner

http://l.yimg.com/img.omg.yahoo.com/...1904134749.jpg

Nice. I love how he has enough 80's flourishes despite being inkeeping with the robot designs of these movies.

ditto.

I dig it. I'd love to find out that Shockwave here will be similar to the way he was in the Marvel Comics series in the 80s. For those who didn't read it, Shockwave was a far more ruthless and cerebral Decepticon leader than was Megatron (who was shown as emotionally erratic and less intelligent than Shockwave). That's the kind of villain that makes heroes look good.

dittoČ.

If the movie looks anything like that banner, this may actually be good...

Shockwave looks great.

Supposedly this is the design for Soundwave's Earth Form:

http://i56.tinypic.com/15pq1yh.jpg

Its from the DOTM video game, but I think its fair to say theres a strong chance of him being in the movie.

Either way, the design looks great, and is consistent with the overall much better design work that we've seen from TF3 so far.

Ok, that looks pretty fucking awesome. Way more serious in tone than the previous two.

Hey, I saw a robot transforming in the trailer. They must have left that in accidentally.