The official, “real”, absolutely authentic and sanctioned announcement trailer for Michael Bay’s Transformers is now online, scored by Steve Jablonsky. Folks heading to Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man’s Chest should be able to catch this on the big screen. And so begins the countdown- 365 days until Transformers hits the big screen in 2007.

Being the geek that I am- I’ve seen the end of so many sagas I’ve been loving over the years, it was hard to imagine getting really excited again for another movie such as this. And although we’ve been talking about this on the boards for 3 years now, this is still a big hype builder. If you know me, you know I have a special place in my heart for Transformers- whether it be blasting the metal soundtrack from the 1986 movie, rocking all the DVD sets, collecting some of the new toys, or just talking about what fans lovingly refer to as Generation 1- Autobots waging their battle to defeat the evil forces of the Decepticons; I’m a geek through and through when it comes to Transformers. Hell, my ‘pajamas’ still include old, faded Transformers T-Shirts. I’m not going to go spoiler chasing for a year, but we could induldge just a little bit…

There’s a lot of debate going around the net about this flick, and it’s rough figuring it all out right now. Here’s what I know: Although orginally suspected, this is not going to take place in the ’80s. Transformers will star Shia LaBeouf (Constantine) as the unlikely hero, Sam- who I’m feeling as a parallel to Spike from the old days. He somehow gets an old Chevrolet Camaro as his first car- which somehow gets rebuilt as a 2008/2009 Camaro. Rock! We gots the most pics of this- check out this site for the new Camaro and some sort of Decepticon police car. On the right there is a leak shot of Bumblebee in ‘bot mode (laying down), click on it for a bigger pick.

Essentially the orginal shows, movie and toys are commonly referred to as Generation 1. There was a couple good series and several pretty lame ones that followed; which for the most part used the same character names but had nothing to do with each other- different timelines/stories/what have you… which are simply not Generation 1. Since Spielberg and Michael Bay have been saying it from the beginning, however, we can come to expect a story close to the original idea- pretty much the same characters, ideas and whatever else comes to be. We can count on Megatron, Prime, Starscream, Soundwave and Bumblebee as far as I know.

Ain’t It Cool News had a really nice interview with Michael Bay that you can read here. It’s a little lengthy, but reveals quite a bit about what’s going on with the film.

For the past few years I’ve been collecting a new series of Transformers toys called Alternators- modern day licensed cars that pay homage to the classic characters- which has made my world a little more Transformers than it had been for years, aside from the release of all the original series box sets. They don’t come out too often, and aren’t really tied to any cartoon show; just kinda geared to my age group I think. They’re a decent size, tricky to transform, and look wicked all over my shelf.

It’s been rough keeping the collection as complete as I can get it though, what with variant colors only available in Japan or limited store releases (that don’t get eaten by ebay scalpers)- which led to me spending a fair amount of time surfing Transformers websites getting info, and of course geeking out a little bit too. I’ll cap this off with some cool links you can explore if this is still holding your interest.

The Don Murphy Message Board, that being the same Don Murphy who’s been working on the film, has been a haven for conversations about the upcoming film for years now. Debates range from mass shifting, ‘alt’ forms for the bots- (no, Megatron is not going to be a gun, nor will Soundwave be a tapedeck)- and everything else you could imagine. In the same vein, the Michael Bay Message Board has it’s fair share of info about the movie too- there’s a ton of great pics to see there even if you don’t read a word of it.

Of course you want to keep an eye on the official site, but if you’re feeling saucy here’s some general Transformer pages I like to visit, and some of the links mentioned in this article.

• New Chevy Camaro to star in Transformers movie | Leftlane News - Car News For Enthusiasts
• Ain’t It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.
• Transformers Movie - Official Site of Transformers: The Movie
• Transformers Alternators Shopping and Price guide at http://tf.shoppertron.com
• BigBadToyStore.com - Toys, Action Figures, Vintage Toys, and Collectibles
• Don Murphy Message Board - TRANSFORMERS
• Transformers Alternators, BinalTech and Generation One reissue toys check list
• Lukis Bros Transformers Collector Site - [Transformers Cybertron, Energon, Beast Wars, G1, & more!]
• Transformers - Transformers Robots in Disguise - TheTransformers.Net
• The Transformers Archive
• TFormers.com - The Transformers source for Galaxy Force, Energon, Super Link, RID, Beast Wars, G1, G2, Asia, Takara, Hasbro, Asia, news, pics, events, comics.
• TFans.com - Your One Stop Shop For All Things TFormers
• The Allspark — Transformers, Galaxy Force, Cybertron News

Keep and eye on this message board thread for more of the autobot and decepticon news someone my age should not be posting.. all the time… for the next 365 days.

Filed under: Geek, Movies