The Energon Pub

News Credits: 1235 · by **LOST Cybertronian** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 12:19 am

If you have been searching in vain for the DOTM Score CD, you have a much longer wait. Eagle eyed fans noticed that the Amazon listing is currently unavailable. Chris Knight on his Knightshift blog got ahold of Steve Jablonsky himself to inquire the status of the Cd. This is what Steve had to say:

Hi Chris
Nice to hear from you. As you probably know the score is now up on iTunes. The physical CD situation has been more complicated. I finished the album weeks ago, but we didn't actually finalize it until a few days ago. Michael Bay is really happy with the score and he wanted to check out the album before it went out. As you might imagine, he's a busy dude. He's been flying all over the world promoting TF3, making it difficult to get approval. But I was happy that he wanted to be a part of the soundtrack and I did not want to release anything before he had his say. The record company tells me they need 4-6 weeks to get the album produced and into stores, which would put us into August at this point. A lot of discussion went into this, but the decision was made to wait on the physical CD, and release some kind of special edition alongside the blu-ray release (maybe autographed copies or other goodies, we don't know yet).

I know people are probably disappointed. Believe me I wish I could get physical CD's out there tomorrow. But it's just the way things went this time around. I can see why Paramount would rather not release a score CD almost 2 months after the movie release. To them it makes more sense to do something special around the blu-ray/DVD. I understand that.

So anyone interested in a CD should rest assured that it WILL happen. It just won't happen until later in the year unfortunately.

These big movies are so complex sometimes!! I hope you've been well!

Steve

The score is currently available via Itunes

News Credits: 4 · by **KnightStrike** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 1:42 am

Great. I am beginning to think there is a curse upon all pre-orders. It sucks that its going to be the end of the year before this is available, provided they don't decide to scrap a physical release completely. However, why release it on iTunes and not CD if it wasn't Bay approved? Why would Bay have to approve the CD separately from the digital release? Packaging? And I hate seeing the phrase "Special Edition" anymore. Its usually just an excuse for inflating the price. The same CD I had pre-ordered for $13 is now going to probably be $20 or require you to buy a limited $50 BD/CD package to get it. :-(

by **griftimus prime** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 6:35 am

hell yes.

News Credits: 21 · by **dragons** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 9:06 am

that sucks it will suck big if it is only avaliable on bluray release not normal dvd i dont buy blueray i would choose to save 10 or 20 on normal dvd than on bluray dvd doubt it be avaliable on rasgular dvd bonus package spending 80 on dvd content for soundtrack when i could spend 50 on normal dvd bonus content.

:BANG_HEAD:

by **Kingpun** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 9:28 am

KnightStrike wrote:Great. I am beginning to think there is a curse upon all pre-orders. It sucks that its going to be the end of the year before this is available, provided they don't decide to scrap a physical release completely. However, why release it on iTunes and not CD if it wasn't Bay approved? Why would Bay have to approve the CD separately from the digital release? Packaging? And I hate seeing the phrase "Special Edition" anymore. Its usually just an excuse for inflating the price. The same CD I had pre-ordered for $13 is now going to probably be $20 or require you to buy a limited $50 BD/CD package to get it.

It's because they don't have to produce physical copies. Putting the thing on itunes is just a couple of minutes of keystrokes. For all we know Bay could have approved it yesterday morning. If he didn't like the album assembly or thought something important was missing from it and they had already produced the discs, they just wasted thousands of dollars.

I'm hoping whatever special edition we end up getting is more than just a delayed release. There's a few little moments I feel are missing from the itunes version. Maybe we'll get an expanded version.

by **Insidious** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 9:47 am

I was disappointed that the neat music that was attached to the first(?) major trailer wasn't anywhere in the film. Seems like a missed opportunity.

Ah well, minor shizz. I'll wait and snag it whenever it comes out.

News Credits: 609 · by **Razorclaw0000** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 10:04 am

The physical disk and digital release were produced at the same time, however, it only takes minutes for the digital version to appear on iTunes, while the physical copy must get a master disk produced, then the copies need to be produced, and cover art, and the whole package assembled and sealed, then shipped.

I definitely want a physical disk.

News Credits: 4 · by **KnightStrike** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 5:20 pm

Kingpun wrote:
KnightStrike wrote:Great. I am beginning to think there is a curse upon all pre-orders. It sucks that its going to be the end of the year before this is available, provided they don't decide to scrap a physical release completely. However, why release it on iTunes and not CD if it wasn't Bay approved? Why would Bay have to approve the CD separately from the digital release? Packaging? And I hate seeing the phrase "Special Edition" anymore. Its usually just an excuse for inflating the price. The same CD I had pre-ordered for $13 is now going to probably be $20 or require you to buy a limited $50 BD/CD package to get it.

It's because they don't have to produce physical copies. Putting the thing on itunes is just a couple of minutes of keystrokes. For all we know Bay could have approved it yesterday morning. If he didn't like the album assembly or thought something important was missing from it and they had already produced the discs, they just wasted thousands of dollars.

I'm hoping whatever special edition we end up getting is more than just a delayed release. There's a few little moments I feel are missing from the itunes version. Maybe we'll get an expanded version.

The expanded version is a great idea and one I'd be willing to pay more for. I'm kind of hoping that at some point they release expanded versions of the first two scores as well. Something like the double disk sets of the Star Wars original trilogy sets would be great, including all the material from the film and maybe anything cool that was cut. I would gladly shell out the cash for those if they were ever to come to light.

by **Kingpun** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 8:51 pm

KnightStrike wrote:The expanded version is a great idea and one I'd be willing to pay more for. I'm kind of hoping that at some point they release expanded versions of the first two scores as well. Something like the double disk sets of the Star Wars original trilogy sets would be great, including all the material from the film and maybe anything cool that was cut. I would gladly shell out the cash for those if they were ever to come to light.

Oh, I'd pull out my wallet so fast if that were the case. Even with the expanded material that leaked out from the first movie, there's still some great unused music you can hear in some of the behind the scenes features, like a longer version of the military theme as Lennox, Epps and co. are first arriving at the Soccent airbase. It originally was going to lead into a bit of the Autobots theme but that part was cut from the movie. Or it was just a suite version that never made it to the album.

And all of the unreleased music from Revenge of the Fallen has been taunting me since 2009.

News Credits: 2 · by **TransBat** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 7:35 am

I know this doesn't help those who still want a physical CD - but the DOTM Score is now up for purchase from the Amazon MP3 Store (Digital Download and will store this album in their Cloud Player for playback from multiple devices as well) for $15.99.

http://www.amazon.com/Transformers-Dark ... 200&sr=8-3

It's nice to have one more small choice of obtaining the music instead of just through iTunes. I quite enjoy Amazon's MP3 Cloud Player, and having access to my purchased (and uploaded music) to be streamed on almost any device I could think of (PC/MAC/Android Phone)