New Transformers Posters, Trailers Out This Week

Michael Bay has made a lot of money on the backs of the Transformers franchise. The first three films have generated over $2.5 billion at the box office, and that doesn't even take into account the myriad tie-ins. Between toys, video games, apparel, and more, the Transformers name has been slapped on just about anything anything imaginable. Heck, Gambling.com even has a review of a Transformers slot game. But given the franchise's on-screen genesis as a bald-faced vehicle to sell merchandise, none of that licensing should be surprising.

What is slightly surprising is how long it took Bay and company to bring the Dinobots into the franchise. Since their introduction in the 80s, the Dinobots have been been among the most popular Transformers in every iteration of the robots in disguise (the benefits of transforming from giant robots into giant robot dinosaurs being a topic left for another time).

Months back fans knew the Dinobots would finally be coming to the silver screen in June's
Age of Extinction, and this week those same fans are being given opportunities to get a better look at the upcoming film.

During Monday's episode of The Voice, a teaser trailer featuring some new footage aired, promoting original music from Imagine Dragons that will be on the film's soundtrack. The band will also play at the movie's Hong Kong premiere. In addition to that footage, new posters have been released featuring better looks at the new looks of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, and later this week another new trailer will be released.

With a little over a month left before the premiere of the fourth Transformers film (the final one that Bay will be directing), the marketing machine is in full swing to drum up fan fervor, which this week's announcements and trailers make abundantly clear. Given the success of the past three films, the difficult to screw up concept of "giant robots fighting one another all over the globe," and the addition of the long-awaited Dinobots, the fourth movie in the franchise looks to continue printing money for all involved.

Transformers: Age of Extinction opens June 27 and stars Mark Wahlberg and Nicola Peltz.

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VGA Game Trailers Mega Post

Last week saw the return of the annual Spike Video Game Awards. The show, continuing the tradition of being more commercial than awards show, was back and bigger than ever. We wont go into much detail about the awards, really who cares about those, that's not what's important. What IS important is the world premier trailer galore we get treated to. Is it possible that next years crop of video games could even be remotely as good, or even better, as the large Game of the Year pool from 2011? Well, without farther ado, here are the highlights.



Not much to say about this, just watch the beauty and amazingness that is Bioshock. This game I'll call here and now will go done as Game of the Year next year. The trailer gives us a lot of gameplay footage and a couple surprises for the astute. I'll leave you with two words, flying Big Daddy.



This next one has generated plenty of interest in the last few weeks. We were previously treated to a teaser trailer that featured some stock riot and even 9/11 footage talking about a post-apocalyptic life. But in this trailer, which was revealed to be entirely captured on a PS3, was announced as being developed by Naughty Dog. That is big, these guys are behind the Uncharted series, the perennial Game of the Year contender.



Oh, Blizzard Entertainment do you ever make bad games? While accepting an award that seems to be along the Lifetime Achievement lines called Gamer God Award, Blizzard unleashed the Opening Cinematic for next years Diablo 3. This. Game. Looks. AMAZING.



Well look at this, another Metal Gear game. I'm going to let 'Revengeance' go because they are Japanese. So anyway this game stars Raiden of Metal Gear Solid 2 fame. the game is receiving an overhaul, name change and a new developer, Platinum Games maker of Bayonetta and Vanquish.



Well this is disappointing. Don't get me wrong I love Bioware and Command & Conquer. But this was a big tease. The buzz was that this was a new franchise Bioware was starting along side its new studio. But instead all we get is another Call of Battlefield Duty: Bad Company 9. But this is Bioware makers of The Old Republic, Mass Effect and Dragon Age all of which give them room to make something good in 2013.



Well, paint me surprised, I just commented about C&C complaining about FPS's but here is the next Rainbow Six. This one staring Tom Brady throwing footballs at enemies of America. This CG concept trailer shows some, not to happy, terrorist throwing a CEO type out a high-rise window and blowing him up before he hits the busy street below.



First thing first, these aren't your average Transformer games, no movie tie-ins here. Following the surprisingly well crafted Transformers: War for Cybertron this one again looks pretty dam good. Oh and let me add Grimlock to the business. Mecha dino for the win.



Last but not least is the return of a love/hate relationship from the resent past. Tony Hawk has swung maybe more than any other video game franchise not named Sonic between excellent and horrid, with the worst being the most recent. How do you move forward from there? Well you just graphically update the best entries in the series and release them as a single game. But this is still Pro Skater at heart, and they where some damn fine games.

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Transformers: Headmasters - The Japanese Collection DVD Review

Transformers: Headmasters was a Japanese series that followed a subgroup of Transformers after the original Transformers TV series. This collection contains the first 13 of the 35 rare episodes in this series.

This whole series is extremely dated. The first episode states that all of this is happening in the year 2011. It made me laugh and took me out of the episode really.

Being a Japanese series I hoped there would be a English dubbed option on the DVD, however there wasn't such an option. The only setup option is to turn the subtitles on or off. The subtitles themselves are not great. The font is very small and hard to read against the the action in the background. Once in a while the subtitles would glitch out entirely and be completely unreadable.

The only special feature on this 4 disc set is an art gallery that is interesting to look at once. I thought there would maybe be some sort of feature on the history of the series or something.

Overall, I would only recommend this series for the hardcore Transformers fan. The dated look and problem ridden subtitles really hurt this DVD set.

I give Transformers: Headmasters - The Japanese Collection 3 out of 10 Decepticons.

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Transformers 2 Outselling Star Trek, Still Fails in Comparison

According to Fandango:

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen doesn't open till next week (June 24th), but as of this morning, the film already represents 45% of ticket sales on Fandango, the nation's leading moviegoer destination."

PCB Founder and Editor Garon can't wait to see this, but personally, I have no interest in this movie.

Someone at LatinoReview put it best by saying:

"I hated the first Transformers movie. Hated it. I thought it was two hours of Michael Bay telling the audience that they were retarded. Everyone in it was a comedian... the plot made zero sense, and the acting sucked. Combined with more explosions than the bombing of Iraq with Michael Bay's patented swooping camera shots, the film was a chore to watch from beginning to end."

Have fun with the sequel, I'll be at home watching Good Times.

Edit from Garon: WHATEVER!

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Transformers 2 ShoWest Footage!

*Exclusive* Transformers Revenge of the Fallen Footage from Bay Films/Michael Bay Dot Com on Vimeo.

This movie looks like it might be epic fun...

or an epic disaster.

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Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen Poster

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Today on DVD

Transformers is out today on DVD and HD-DVD. However if you can only choose one DVD to buy this week let it be Robert Rodriguez' brilliant half of Grindhouse Planet Terror.

Other releases:

The Hoax

A Mighty Heart

The Invisible

The Reaping

Normal Adolescent Behavior: Havoc 2

Roseanne Season 9

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip Complete Series

Macgyver Complete Series

Also, the excellent box set Angel: The Complete Series is exclusively available at Best Buy. This is two weeks before the official release date.

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Michael Bay has tantrum!

In response to yesterday's Paramount's High Def DVD Announcement (they signed an exclusive with HD, not Blu-Ray), Transformers directorMichael Bay has been quoted as saying on his forums "I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For them to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks! They were progressive by having two formats. No Transformers 2 for me!"

Suuuure Mr. Bay, sure.

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A Technophile enters, Obvious exits are N,W,S

I suppose I should introduce myself eh? I'm The Technophile (tech for short) and I'll be bringing video game reviews to the BEAST. So since this is my first post, I'm gonna throw things for a loop and NOT talk about a game. (at least not right away)

What I have first is a mini review of the new Transformers movie. I was privileged to see the movie last night at a special screening.

On to the review (spoiler free)

First off, I'm a huge transformers fan. I grew up with them. Being a also a fan of everything technology and robotic makes me the perfect transformers fan. This review is obviously biased a bit, but what review isn't? I will defiantly see this again, just for the fine touches that I missed the first time at the very least.

I feel pwnd. Absolutely pwnd by how awesome it was.

Whatever they did with Hugo Weavings voice deserves an award.

Having played the game and now seen the movie, Hugo's voice fits better with this particular version of Megatron.

It sounds like in parts almost like they mixed Frank Welker and Hugo Weaving?
I dunno, maybe it was just nostalgia.

Ironhide rules. Prime rules even more. Jazz is now one of my favorites (watch him carefully when you first see him transform)
Frenzy is a little spaz. Devastator and Starscream needed more screen time. Barricade is rad.

Almost every human with the exception of the military guys and John Voight (the military group is stereotypical, voight just phones it in) are very well acted and come off pretty believable for a movie with giant alien robots. Shia is a very talented kid, he’s got serious comedic timing. Megan Fox lives up to her name.

This movie is wall to wall robots. No cramming em in the last 30 minutes crap. The desert scene with blackout kickin the shit out of the base? Yea, that’s the opening. Seriously almost more bots then people. The movie is actually very funny at points. Not “omg that corny” funny (although there is a couple) but honestly amusing. Bay pokes fun at himself a few times. There is even a shot taken directly from bad boys 2, only with frenzy instead of will smith :D The ending is fucking excellent.

I'll leave you with one of a whole bunch of really really awesome lines.

"Again you have failed me Starscream"

Well, next up I'll have some reviews of Transformers the game, Cooking Mama on the Wii and Ghost Recon 2 for the 360. Also, mini-reviews of Carcassonne and Catan on XBLA.


Till then...

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