Transformers 2

With production in full swing, a lot of new information is coming out of Michael Bay’s Transformers 2.

Vehicles Used
As far as vehicles used the 3 Can-Am Spyders, an Ice Cream Truck, Bumblebee (not in Shanghai), Ironhide, 3 NEST Hummers, 2 Trikes, Go-Kart, 10 Shanghai dressed police vehicles, Audi R8 and a NEST semi. Also a Chinese Police helicopter and 2 Blackhawks all equipped with spotlights.

Smithsonian Air and Space Museum
Production’s location is the Smithsonian Air and Space Mueseum. The schedule is June 5 to Sunday June 6. The cast will include Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, John Turturro and Ramon Rodriguez. Based on the scenes it appears they are hunting for something Decepticon related at the museum after hours involving the SR-71 Blackbird (with a Decepticon insignia) that is there.

There is also a mention of “Splinter”. I am not sure if that is a TF or an Autobot artifact for the film. As someone in the comments noted, this could be the piece of the All Spark that Prime removed from Megatron at the end of the movie.

Transformers
Known Transformers at the sites was Ironhide and Bumblebee (at the Smithsonian). Additional NEW Transformers from what I can tell is Arcee (combines from 3 Can-Am Spyders or 2 Trikes), The Twins (the Ice Cream Truck), Stinger (a Porsche I think), unknown Decepticon (Audi R8), Wheels or Wheelbot (the Go-Kart?), Jetfire (the Blackbird) and a “Constructicon Earth Mover”.

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It has been confirmed, the sequel to Transformers will be titled Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. Want to find out more about the Transformers 2 scene Michael Bay is shooting at Bethlehem Steel? Or how about the shoot scheduled at the Smithsonian? Slashfilm.com has all the details.

The opening of Transformers 2 takes place at a Steel Factory in Shanghai, China (filmed in Bethlehem, PA), where the Autobots, the British SAS (Matthew Marsden as “Graham” and Andrew Howard) and Captain Lennox’s Military team (Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson) are chasing after a Decepticon Audi RS8. Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox are not featured in the opening chase sequence.

The autobots include a pair of robots called The Twins, which join together to form an Ice Cream Truck (pictured right). An ice cream truck is a great disguise for a transformer as no one would suspect. I’m guessing that one of the twins is white and the other is pink (but this is just a guess). This appears the be the coolest new addition to the autobot line-up. There’s one sequence where the Twins are speeding down a Shanghai street and split apart around a group of chinese children in the street, which should be pretty cool looking. At another point the truck crashes and the Twins split in two and have a brotherly fight. Yes, it looks like the comic tone of the original film is back.

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Photos from the shoot of Transformers 2 has hit internet. Looks like there was an explosion at Bethlehem Steel, and a military standoff with some big giant robots down the street.

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The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that a bunch of the original Transformers cast has signed on to return for the sequel. Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and John Turturro will reprise their roles in Michael Bay’s Transformers 2.

For non-human cast, Autobot Jazz will make a return in Michael Bay’s Transformers 2. TFW2005 has confirmed that the silver/gray customized hardtop Pontiac Solstice GXP vehicle prop arrived on the set of the Transformers sequel early Friday. A second tipster also spotted Darius McCrary, the voice of Jazz from the original film, also on set.

For those who might not remember, Jazz played a large role in the final battle, providing cover to a disabled Bumblebee, despite being outnumbered three to one. Jazz was later viciously torn in half by Megatron on top of tall building. His death was mourned by Prime and the remaining Autobots, but it was never revealed what Optimus did with the remains. In the mobile phone Transformers game, Jazz was brought back by Ratchet using the last piece of the Allspark

Soundwave confirmed to appear in the Transformers sequel. When Michael Bay was developing Transformers, rumor had it that Soundwave would make an appearance but it never happened in the original film. According to IGN Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (screenwriters) have confirmed that Soundwave is included in the script for Transformers 2.

“We had to get Soundwave in there. You know, we had Ravage in an early draft of the first movie and Soundwave, and we couldn’t do it right and I think this time hopefully we’ll have the ability to do it.”

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According to Rotten Tomatoes Michael Bay has already already finished writing the story for Transformers 2.

“I’ve been writing Transformers 2. We’ve got our characters all designed. I always write all my scripts, my movies anyway so at least I’ve got something to give the writers. It’s like a template. We have a really good outline so I worked on that,”
“We had to because I want to make my date. I’m not going to let the strike take me down.”

“When you do your first movie, you break the back of it. Now we can have a lot more fun. We can actually make the depth of these characters more fun and a lot more interesting characters. To see actually what you can achieve visually, you never know. When you go into a movie, you never know visually. I think I’ve got a lot of fun, interesting, funny characters.”

Bay is a great visual storyteller, and with him involved at the core story level will he make Transformers more cinematic? Wait and see.

Transformers 2 is scheduled to hit theaters on June 26th 2009.

Rotten Tomatoes

The success of last year’s Transformers already has the sequel in its early planning stages, and even if the proposed June 26th 2009 date doesn’t stick, we’ll be sure to get lots more in terms of interesting robots. Director Michael Bay’s in his blog promise us this:

For the millions of viewers that logged on this year I want to thank you for the support. Transformers 2 will be coming soon. The new robots are really really unique and there are a lot of them this time.

But as many people have complained, the robots were sometimes difficult to tell apart in the heat of the action. Hopefully Bay will go some ways to fixing that.