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Transformers One is upon us and the Seibertron.com Twincast / Podcast is thrilled to welcome two of the movie's voice actors onto our latest episode. The voice of Soundwave and longtime Twincast Podcaster, Jon Bailey, plus the voice of Jazz, Evan Michael Lee, highlight an energetic discussion of the new film that you won't want to miss! Host Scotty P alongside Counterpunch, Megatronus and Mr. Starscream go along for the ride and still bring you some fun toy talk after the movie chat, so stick around for that too.
Episode #359 “One” is available directly and in our RSS Feed, and should appear on Apple Podcasts and many other Podcatcher sites within 24 to 48 hours of when you see this news post.
Here's what we discuss in this episode:
Transformers One has hit and we sit down with voice cast members Jon Bailey and Evan Michael Lee to talk all about it. Some spoilers are present, so if you came to this post just to see how to avoid spoilers, jump to around the 1:11:00 point in the audio.
The episode finishes up with a lightning round of Bragging Rights
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Transformers One had its first screening in France at the Annecy Festival. While it did receive a standing ovation, that is a common occurrence in premier screenings in France, but fans there are giving us some tidbits that they can share. We will share those below but before we also have the runtime confirmed to be 94 minutes. Also, we learned that there are no pop songs in the film, it's all score.
- film is not shallow, it is instead best film of the franchise so far
- pacing is very quick
- no pop songs in the film
- a lot of cameos
- no time skips or flashbacks, easy film to follow
- Transformers we see the most are Orion Pax, D-16, B-127, Elita-1, Sentinel Prime (leader of Cybertron) and Airachnid
- film is unbelievable fun, amazing action packed and side-splittingly hilarious
- Rise of Orion to Optimus and fall of Megatron is handled as best as it could have been
- film is gorgeous
- voice acting is really good
- kinda between Lego movie and first Avengers movie, innocent on the surface but dar underneath
- a lot of G1 references
Also, a new poster was unveiled for this first screening, it shows Optimus and Megatron in their final forms in the film.
You probabably noticed that yesterday's reveals did not seem numerous enough to fill a whole wave of Studio Series toys. Well that's because the wave will be made up mostly of repacks, and we now know their contents thanks to listings on Entertainment Earth. You'll notice that 86 Bumblebee and TF One Prime are not there and that's because they are in their own specific case that retailers can order all year round.
Core wave 10
Actual breakdown not given but an 8 figure case includes
SS86 Steeljaw
SS86 Ratchet
Bumblebee Movie Rumble
Deluxe wave 25
2x TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES DLX TF7 BARCELONA (ROTB Wheeljack)
1x TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES DLX MV6 SUNSTREAKE
2x TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES DLX WFC SIDESWIPE
3x TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES DLX WFC DECEPTICON
Voyager wave 25
1x TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES VOY MV6 SHOCKWAVE
2x TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES VOY MV6 SKYWARP
Leader wave 15
1x TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES LDR MV6 MEGATRON
1x TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES LDR AST TF86 SWOOP
Really good news for the Transformers brand. While the upcoming animated film is trying different things with the Transformers lore (like the characters discovering Transformation), it is testing very well, better than even TMNT Mutant Mayhem, as it is said to be the best tested animated feature in the studio's history.
Word is that Paramount’s upcoming summer animated tentpole Transformers One is the best tested feature toon movie in the studio’s history and will surprise many.
In other fun news, Chris Hemsworth was at the panel and gave a shout out to Peter Cullen who he claims helped him figure out what best approach to use for voicing the character of Orion Pax. This news comes to us from John Campea, who was in attendance. His breakdown of the Transformers One content begins at the 13 minute mark though some fans may be triggered by his comments since he does use very vulgar language towards fans who refuse to accept anything but G1 in their Transformers media.
And here is a quick interview with Brian Tyler Henry and Chris Hemsworth:
Any fan of Transformers The Last Knight ... Drift? Well he will have a toy coming out next year in the Studio Series line. JTPrime17 wrote all of next year's slate which you can see below. It also includes a figure from the upcoming ReActivate video game. And for those wondering what the Level A figures are, they are a sub-class made up up popular characters that stores can order to ensure that popular characters are on the shelves. It should be a different price point from the rest and there will be the same subclass in other Hasbro lines, like Marvel Legends which will have Iron Man and Captain America.
Fun news for Americans, several new exclusives in the Buzzworthy Bumblebee line are being found in Target stores. Here is a breakdown of the sightings:
- Transformers Rise of the Beasts Jungle Mission 3-Pack, which has Cheetor, Mirage and Airazor (finally) found by 3P Desperation in Daphne, Alabama
- Transformers Studio Series Rise Of The Beasts Optimus Prime found by Taureanstar in Mooresville, North Carolina
- Transformers Studio Series 86 2 Pack, featuring a dying Prowl and Ironhide, found by CringeMcCringle in Bainbridge, Ohio (AOE Grimlock was also found at that location and has been out for a little while, but just a heads up in case people don't know)
To those who watched Transformers Rise of the Beasts, you may be curious about what was cut and how the movie changed during production. We will have 3 articles detailing different aspects such as a cut character, scenes we saw in the trailers and from the set videos that were cut, and the difference between earlier test screenings and the final film.
We already went over the the cut character and the scenes in the trailer that were changed or removed, and now we have a detailed account of an early cut of this film seen in a test screening, so you can see how much the film has changed since. I'm personally sad to see that Cheetor calling Primal "Big Bot" was removed, along with the removal of the Transit scene of course. You'll let us know if you prefer this original version or not. This analysis was done by TF fan Cyborgraptor.
The first big obvious changes I’ll get out of the way are the beginning and the ending.
The scene I see everyone talk about, that's notoriously known for being cut, was the Transit fight. Funny enough, this scene was one of the more completed sequences in my cut, since the rest of the movie was still very much in production (about 80% pre-vis)
So the movie originally opens with an Optimus Prime monologue about how for the last few years, the Autobots have stayed hidden as they continued to be hunted by Decepticons, but he's still determined to find a way to get back home and take the fight back to Cybertron and there's a line about how "The hunted have now become the hunters..."
Visually you see stars that transition to the wet streets of NY as Prime drives through the city and pulls into a bus lot. He transforms (you see this in the 2nd trailer) and announces "I know you're here..."
A bus pulls out, revealing a Decepticon logo on the front grill, and transforms saying things like "You can't find us all, Prime. We'll get you eventually!" A fight ensues and it's pretty sick. There's a part where Prime grabs Transit's head and pushes it into a nearby bus and grinds it throughout the inside of the bus. Prime demands to know where the con's ship is, but Transit laughs and tells him that he blew up his ship just for the satisfaction of knowing the autobots can't get off this planet to save his Autobots back home, and even shows a hologram of Autobots being executed as they swear Optimus will return to save them (rough, right?) and this pisses Prime off. I don't remember the specifics of how Transit dies, but I know Prime uses his axe.(which, in my version, they borrowed the DOTM axe model AND that was actually the only time he used the axe in my cut iirc) The scene ends with Optimus dragging Transit's body, and dumping it into a nearby river, and as it floats, Transit lands on top of a revealed pile of cons so you know Optimus has been doing this for a while. HE monologues about not giving up on finding a way off Earth and back home. This then transitions to Noah back home.
As for the ending battle, there were a good amount of changes with how it was approached.
One was the original plan to destroy the control console using Airazor’s deceased spark as a bomb. I can’t remember how they lose the bomb, but they have to change plans using the codes Elena found to stop it instead.
Then there’s Mirage’s fate. In my cut, Mirage first turns into a shield like form and protects Noah from Scourge’s attacks, then the scene plays out like normal and he turns into the suit, but doesn’t hint at him being ok. This version ends on the assumption that Mirage sacrifices himself to become the suit and that’s it.
Then there’s the big change. Instead of Prime escaping from being pulled in by the transwarp key explosion, in my cut, he actually DIDN'T! He gets sucked up, and everyone assumes he died sacrificing himself. This leaves the movie with only 3 of the original Autobots (and Stratosphere) alive and everyone kind of feels like shit. (I think that shot was in one of the trailers or ads too?) This goes into Noah embracing his family, and that’s how the film ended.
The after credit scene reveals Optimus has survived the transwarp teleportation and drifts in space...towards Unicron. He floats inside Unicron where his two big eyes open, looking straight at Optimus. Cuts to black. (This change was also interesting since this was the only time we saw Unicron's eyes, as the earlier scene with Scourge and Unicron, after the museum fight, just had either a burning light or his planet form [hard to remember] looming over him instead)
There were a bunch of other small changes. Here what I can remember:
There was a shot of Airazor flying over New York after Elena discovers the Falcon vase.
Bumblebee explains humans aren't all bad to Optimus at the autobot meet up scene instead of before the museum. “The people…ZZzzt…They ain’t all bad..zzt.” In fact, the whole scene of Optimus, Arcee, and Bee waiting for Mirage and Noah outside the island was an additional scene. Same goes for Mirage explaining Optimus to Noah in the car. Since Optimus didn’t have his beginning monologue explaining the situation, they added this scene to do that instead.
Another widely known cut was the Wheeljack and Arcee relationship. When the Bots land in Peru, Arcee hears Wheeljack is joining and gets flustered. “Wheeljack’s coming…?” Later on, while Arcee is inside Wheeljack waiting for Noah and Elena, Arcee mentions how it’s been a long time since they've seen each other and Wheeljack embarrassingly says, “Yes, it’s been a while since you’ve been inside me…Erm, I mean…”. The final battle has Wheeljack be a little more concerned for Arcee too when they get swarmed.
One scene I wished they saved was when the Autobots are staking out the city in Peru, Wheeljack lends his glasses to Optimus to zoom in. so there’s a little funny look of Optimus wearing Wheeljack’s glasses that was sadly cut out.
There’s a cool line where the heroes are charging, Scourge just looks at them and says “Defend the bridge…” and that’s when a gate appears, releasing the terracon army, instead of them being materialized. Optimus has another little inspiring speech before charge too.
The lines about Optimus Primal’s name being an inspiration from Optimus’s name were added. Good, since I thought that it was bizarre that they all just glossed over that.
Airazor’s introduction to the Autobots was slightly changed since there was originally no Maximal planet opening. Like Optimus in 2007, she uses her eyes to show holograms of her planet for a quick scene of a bunch of generic beasts being chased by two Scorponoks and Scourge as he fires his blaster at them. She then shows Unicron and tricks Noah and Elena’s vision with holograms of as if Unicorn was in the sky, about to consume the Earth, showing them the threat that now faces them. If I recall correctly, Optimus originally thinks Unicron was a myth, but Aiirazor reassures him he’s real. The scene with Elena saying "It's not real. It's not real..." was there too.
Airazor and Elena had more communication between each other. In the scene where they’re waiting for Stratosphere, there’s a part where Elena mentions how she bets Airazor was “making bots turn their necks as she flew by” with Airrazor agreeing “ I did know to shake a tail feather or two.” In fact that whole scene was different. Stratosphere doesn't even show up. It’s just them grouping up and having more dialogue and then someone asks how they are going to get to Peru, smash cutting to them inside Stratosphere. Mirage makes a joke that they are probably going to crash, but Stratosphere responds saying they are safe inside him. Here, Noah and Elena’s dialogue was a bit different. I don’t think Elena ever mentions her dad and Noah explains that he’s worked with military people like Optimus before and doesn’t trust him.
Stratosphere still transformed in the film. The scene where he transforms with Bumblebee in hand was the first time you see him in my cut.
The scene with Noah and Elena going through the caverns and finding the empty key tomb was followed by the freezer attacking them, but after Noah blasts it, they get discovered by Cheetor and Rhinox. The Maximals chase the humans around the caverns for a while until Rhinox chases them to a crack only the humans can fit too. That's when they lead out into the jungle to be stopped by Primal. The first teaser’s shot of Rhinox is from this scene.
When Mirage says "Don't ask what part of my body it came from", Wheeljack follows up and says "He's talking about his butt."
Scourge's character was twisted between cuts too. He had some lines that made you know he was forced and tortured working for Unicron. When Scourge and Unicron have the meeting, Unicron ends it by threatening to make his life a living hell if he doesn't find the remaining Transwarp Key and Scourge responds to himself afterwards with “...it already is…”. When Scourge meets Primal after corrupting Airazor, there was some dialogue between the two that made it seem like they knew each other personally, but I can’t remember the exact words. Near his death, Optimus tells Scourge to stop the Transwarp keys, and Scourge mentions something like “It’s too late. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop the keyes now.” A lot of the new lines in the official cut make him seem more like a cookie cutter villain with only the drive to do what Unicron demands. Also, his design was the one from the promotional art and toys (possibly including a mustache, but I may not be accurate on that). They showed his final design for a split second in one of the more completed scenes, so I knew he was going to be changed eventually.
The scene at the end with the G.I Joe tease was obviously added in later, including the Elena redemption part. I was part of the focus group at the end, and I remember we all realized that Elena didn’t have any resolution to her arc, so I’m glad they added it.
Obviously this includes the Mirage surviving scene being a later addition too. Personally, I’m not a big fan of this decision since that just means everyone can get revived. Let's get Airazor back! Why not! Woo Hoo! No consequences! We can have our cake and eat it too!
Mirage seemed more insufferable in my cut. I remember rolling my eyes more than half the time he spoke. I think he’s better in the official cut. I wouldn't be surprised if Pete D. ad libbed some better lines.
Mirage’s head crest was white, like what we see in some promotional material. Also he never had the weird Vader mask thing. Don’t know what that was about.
When Mirage turns into a garbage truck, they made it more clear the back half was a hologram.
Optimus’s character arc was a little wishy washy in my cut. He seemed to not like humans at all for the majority of the film until Noah decides not to shoot the Transwarp key. Then, after the whole Airrazor death scene. Optimus makes a speech about how great humans are and how wrong he was. It was a bit jarring how quick Optimus decides to trust humans and protect Earth. I'm glad they gave Optimus a bit more scenes with Noah to pad out the trust and care he develops for Earth. This speech also had Optimus say “For Cybertron!” Primal says “For Earth!” and Rhinox jumps in and says “For HOME!” and they all turn to Rhinox and Noah says “You can talk!?” . The scene in the trailer about “How big can this guy be?” was also in this scene, but was obviously cut out.
In the final battle, Cheetor says the line “We’re right behind you, big bot!”
Primal kills Battletrap the same way, but Optimus wasn’t there to help kill him and make the joke.
When Airazor is escaping with Elena and the key, my cut had the DOTM track “I’m just a messenger” with a bit of a jungle beat playing. I wish that was still there.
When Primal fights the corrupted Airazor, Airazor doesn't talk back or says to kill her, she's completely farrell. Also Primal snaps her neck instead of crushing her chest.
When Unicron is entering through the transwarp portal , he sucks the energon from around the area, including where Bee is, causing the energon to go through Bee first. Also Bee is considered dead in my cut. There’s no lines about possibly saving him, so they just like carrying around his body, I guess?
Primal says "Maximal maximize" instead of calling out Cheetor and Rhinox specifically
When Unicron drops Scorponoks onto the battlefield, Noah yells what those things are, and Primal responds “Predacons….”
Like Optimus's axe, his swords were the first trilogy swords that were probably place holders until they designed the new ones
Noah gives the final speech alone, since Prime was teleported and assumed dead.
To those who watched Transformers Rise of the Beasts, you may be curious about what was cut and how the movie changed during production. We will have 3 articles detailing different aspects such as a cut character, scenes we saw in the trailers and from the set videos that were cut, and the difference between earlier test screenings and the final film.
We already went over the the cut character and now we will look at what was cut/changed from the original trailer. Here it is, you'll probably notice some very different shots (like the one in the thumbnail).
Now compare that transformation for Optimus Primal to this one from the final movie and you'll see that it was completely redone.
The same goes for the Transformation moment of Cheetor as well, which is "shot" from the front in the final edit rather than from the back.
There is a lot more than this, but those are pretty big since we've been told that the CGI is the most expensive aspect about this movie and yet it seems we have different takes on the final battle with different animations, transformations and moments. Plus remember that shot of Rhinox in the cave? Not there either.
And the same goes for the final part of the first trailer where Elena sees Arcee.
There are also lines that were dropped such as:
Mirage saying “He eats planets, so uhhh way bigger than a planet”
Airazor saying “Optimus, we must trust each other to protect the home we all share”
Scourge saying “In the end, everything you ever cared for will be consumed”
You'll let us know of other moments you remember from the trailer that did not end up in the film in the end.
It was a tight race but Transformers has claimed the number 1 box office spot for this week-end, both domestically and internationally. Domestically, it got 60 Million dollars compared to Spider-verse's 55 Million. However, it should be stated that Spider-verse outperformed Transformers during the actual week-end. The reason why Transformers ends up on top is due to the earlier showings during the week. The film also made 110 Million internationally (so everywhere other than the US and Canada) which gives it 170 Million in total. Also please note that it made 40 M in China showing that it's still a big market for the brand (however, Paramount/Hasbro see only 25% of revenue from Chinese theatres).
While these numbers aren't amazing as they once were, remember that Dark of the Moon opened to 97 M domestically, the numbers do show that whatever stain there may have been in the past which lead to disappointing returns for The Last Knight and Bumblebee might be in the past. The domestic numbers are 3 times what they were for Bumblebee 5 years ago, proving that there is still a a demand from these films, and not just from fans. The reason these numbers surpass industry estimates is due to the higher number of tickets that were bought on the spot in proportion to presale tickets (which are largely purchased by fans), when compared to Super-hero movies. This means that Transformers really is in a league of its own, appealing to general movie goers rather than simply being backed by a big fanbase. And that happens to be exactly what Paramount was going for, with it's vague sense of continuity and choosing to not distance themselves too much from familiarity and the live action movie brand and aesthetic.
Another really important point is that the diversity angle did pay off. The film did heavily market its inclusion of people of colour and the breakdown of ticket sales shows that, domestically, it was people identifying as Hispanic which made up the largest viewership. This has never happened before for a Transformers film. Here is a full breakdown:
32% Hispanic
31% Caucasian
21% Black
16% Asian/Other
While this is all good news, no one can predict how the Flash will perform next week. Next week's box office performance will let us have a better idea of how strong this film's box gross can be and we'll keep you up to date on it.
Since the movie has been released internationally, and spoilers are already being discussed online, the marketing for this film and questions asked in interviews are going full hog on them. This particular interview does give a detailed breakdown of where this film is in the timeline if anyone was still curious. Of course, please remember, there is a difference between what the studio may be marketing the film as to the general audience and what makes any sense.
The detailed timeline is discussed at the 1 minute mark but the interview quickly goes into full spoilers afterwards. They do have a title card and a blaring siren letting you know to close the video. Also, please be aware that discussion regarding this clip will lead you to a spoiler discussion for the film.
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