The Energon Pub

[Professor Smooth]

From USA Today:

The motto of the Transformers has always been "more than meets the eye," but director Michael Bay wishes less had met the eye of sci-fi fans over the past year as raw images of his shape-shifting robots leaked online.

The appearance of each new vehicle or robot — sometimes mixed with hoax images — sparks furious debate among devotees of the pop-culture touchstone of 1980s childhood, and it has put Bay and studio DreamWorks on the defensive before their characters are truly ready for their close-ups.

Today, coinciding with the annual Toy Fair in New York, the studio plans an official debut of scenes and characters from the movie, in theaters July 4.

The leaked images have raised the bar for DreamWorks to impress those who think they've already seen it all.

In some ways, it's a high-end problem: What studio would not want people to be so curious about a film that they're breaking down firewalls to see parts of it?

"We're trying to protect the surprise. And you like to be judged on the final product," producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura says. "Ultimately, it's fantastic that they care this much. And it forces us to ask ourselves every single question going into it, because you don't want to disappoint."

Di Bonaventura and Bay say art department computers registered thousands of hack attacks during the production. "Someone hacked into my own personal computer and got my script," Bay says. "We know that because it had some of my changes on it. Isn't that insane?"

In another major reveal, the yellow vehicle Bumblebee was showcased online in the early days of the shoot last year, and some purists slammed Bay for changing the character from a Volkswagen Beetle to a sportier Chevrolet Camaro.

Photos of a full-scale mockup of Bumblebee in robot form, apparently snapped by a crewmember, were met with greater approval. Says Bay: "They took big pictures of it and put it on the Internet, and everybody thought it looked cool. But I was like, 'That is not what he looks like' because we couldn't do all the fine detail (on the stand-in)."

Though the leaks sometimes got ahead of the movie's marketing plan, they may have only created more curiosity about the Transformers movie, which is being executive-produced by Steven Spielberg.

Ryan Yzquierdo, 30, of Chicago, features some of the early shots on his Transformers fansite Seibertron.com, and says he is optimistic about the movie and liked the script, though some of the character designs disappointed him.

"But my family and friends who aren't Transformers fans love the new designs and think they're awesome," he says. "So maybe I'm wrong."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/new ... mers_x.htm

[jgilkinson]

Sat down to eat a quick breakfast and low and behold... i see scorpy's pic. Congrats on getting mentioned Ryan

[JazZeke]

Ooh! Name-dropping.

Hmm... I wish someone would mention the real reason why the fans resent the drastic changes to the characters. Superman's an alien too, but no one would get away with giving him green skin and four eyes to make him look more alien. So why does Bay think he could get away with it with the Transformers?

[SoulOfPrimus]

yeah, good job on getting into usa today, ryan. You earned it, and you came off as normal also, its a big leap for all us in the eyes of the normals...

[Bluebullet]

Thats horribly depressing. It just goes to show that Michael Bay doesn't know what the hell he's talking about(ex:"Everybody thought it was cool."). At least we have a voice in the media.

[Ultra Magnus]

Is Ryan ACTUALLY mentioned in an article of America's Newspaper??? H0ly SH!T on a stick! Kudos, bro! Seibertron till we die!

[Windracer]

That is freakin' AWESOME. Congrats on the USA Article!

[Predaprince]

What a bunch of bull. Bay is all trying to make it sound like the "leaked" pics ruined the anticipation of designs that would later be different.

Hello, the characters that we got to see months ago from said pics (Op., Megs, SS, BB) are just about exactly the same today. And there is the other merchandise that have their faces (as we know them to be) on them, so it isn't like Bay is going to just suddenly appear today with short vids of things that look completely different.

Like them or hate them, the designs are what they are and that's it.

With my rant out of the way, nice to see that they picked Ryan to talk to. I can't think of any other person to be the voice for the rest of us and I enjoy seeing that his comment was as it should have been (short, sweet, and concise).

[Cyber Bishop]

I just stickied this.. I think it deserves a sticky for a while.

[Milanion]

I think this is cerainly worthy of a sticky.

[† Sunstorm]

my family and friends that are not TF fans thinks the design looks stupid compared to the normal ones "thats not prime and what is that silveralien?" my brother said

[jonusjaxon]

Yay, Seibertron!

[Blozor]

That absolutely rules for you, Ryan.

Seriously, you own what I consider the premier Transformers resource online. With all the work you've put into this website, it's about time you get officially recognized.

[chrisjbrandon]

Yeah man, congrads to Ryan for getting the site & himself metiontioned in a nationally syndicated newspaper!

[Wheeljack35]

No pic??

Ryan your not wrong

I have no idea what your family and freinds are thinking

[Alex Kingdom]

Congrats on the media exposure Ryan. Shame Michael bay appears to be totally deaf/blind to the thousands of TF fans that dont like the movie designs.

Yours AK

[Quaternion]

Seibertron.com is the best Transformers website on the net, so I'm not surprised that it was mentioned rather than any of the others.

[Zeds]

Word is spreading...

[City Commander]

Yup, this is the best tf site on the web. The best for info, the most well-designed etc. Well done to ya Ry for getting ur name in there! You've earnt it.

[Acecool]

Congrates on the article......

I can't hold it in any longer, **** BAY. I think one or two people said that bumble bee was cool in the full sized robot. **** him for misrepresenting us. He is a hack.

[Seibertron]

Thanks for all of the thanks my friends! It was pretty cool going to a news stand here in New York today to buy a paper that has my name in it. I had just left the Statue of Liberty and took my usual obsessive number of photos of Ms. Liberty. Maybe she should get her own gallery.

I opened up the paper to the news stand guy that sold me the paper and I said "You know all of those random people you read give quotes in the papers you sell?" I pointed to my name and said ... "That's me!" I'm sure he didn't really care but we briefly chatted about Transformers for a few minutes and I told him quickly about the movie coming up. I thanked him for selling me the newspaper with my name it it, he shook my hand and off I went back on the subway from Southern Manhattan back to Times Square.

Only a couple more hours and I'll get to see Bay, Dreamworks and Paramount unveil whatever it is they're unveiling today here in New York. I'll report back about it later tonight.

[Down_Shift]

A shame they didn't use any thing other then the sentance and a half at the end from your interview. Well congrats on getting in the news man. Any publicity is good publicity.

[Seibertron]

A shame they didn't use any thing other then the sentance and a half at the end from your interview. Well congrats on getting in the news man. Any publicity is good publicity.

Yeah, it's interesting how a 15 to 25 minute interview was condensed into 1 line basically. LOL. Oh well! I thought it was a great article, despite disagreeing with a few of the statements from Mr. Bay.

I highly doubt there were external hack attempts on his personal computer. Do you know how hard that would be to do? I'm a professional programmer and I don't know the first thing about trying to hack into someone's computer somewhere. I imagine it was an internal hack job or something ridiculous like his computer being left on and someone copied the file for the script. I'm a firm believer that a lot of things like this are simply human error (no firewall, computer left on, copied it to a disk, sent it to someone via email and "trusted" that it wouldn't get out.

It just seems like if someone gained access to Michael Bay's computer that they would go after his personal banking information first rather than trying to get a hold of a Transformers script. That's a lot of work just for a movie script.

Of course, it could all be true and I'm just ignorant of how rampant hack attempts are searching for files and such.

[tile_mcgillus]

Amazing how they can sugarcoat the fanbase's reaction so seamlessly. Like the only major complaint we had was that Bumblebee isn't a Volkswagon Beetle...even though he hasn't been one in a long time due to Volkswagon's reluctance to allow their cars associated with violence. Nevermind the fact, he sold the license to GM and has all Autobots (sans Optimus) showcasing prominant GM cars (This is what Don Murphy said). I guess history is written by the winner or the guy with the most money. Reason number 4,500,565 why the media in America is the bane of my existence.

Oh and congrats Ryan.

[ShGarland_1383]

Congrats on the article, Ryan.