Edmunds Ducati Article Confirms Arcee Combiner?

Edmunds has a brief article that discusses the use of Ducati motorcycles in Terminator Salvation and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Specifically, they are a new source, outside of the novelizations, to confirm that the Arcee bikes do have a combiner mode.

The Hypermotard ("super biker") will fight for good in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen when that film opens on June 24. The Ducati will join with two other motorcycles to create Arcee, a female Autobot to stop the Decepticons as they return to Earth.

RetroSBK actually created the three Arcee bikes (well probably more since have stunt, hero, and backup bikes for each character) but looking at their website Ducati motorcycles seemed to be used as their base for their customizations. Thanks to Jon for the link.

Alternate Trailer With Terminator Salvation, Museum 2 (Updated)

Based on a report from Trent, it looks like Michael Bay decided to go ahead with releasing alternate cuts of the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen trailer with Terminator Salvation (which is getting savaged by reviews so no threat to goal of TF2 claiming box office champ).

For some reason I have not seen this trailer talked about anywhere. I even posted it in the IMDB forums and everyone that has replied said it didn't show at their theatre. The trailer contains: a longer cut of BB in the garage (shorter than showest though), sideswipe doing his thing, a new shot of Arcee, both of the twins talking (something about not being able to read), extended shot in the school library, and more that I can't remember. Just a heads up for you to be looking around for it!

- Trent

Now keep in mind that theatres don't have to bother using any trailers they get so just because an alternate cut exists doesn't mean it will being showing with Terminator 4. Hopefully any alternate cuts that get produced will show up online so Transfans worldwide can enjoy them.

Update: NightShade87 also verifies an alternate cut in the comments, only he saw it with Night at the Museum 2.

At my local theater, I had the opportunity to prescreeen a copy of Night at the Museum 2 and the new cut trailer was on there. Some of the footage was old, but more than half was new. Here's what I remember seeing that was of note:

-Bumblebee crying (Showest footage)
-Twins actually speaking (Sam shows them a tattoo on his arm and they say they can't read. If you listen VERY closely, one of them sounds like Spongebob. XD )
-Galloway and Epps having a conversation that goes like this
"It looks like a normal truck"
*Optimus transforms* (this is a better, fuller version than the T.V. spot)
Epps: "Freaky, right?"
-Better images of Arcee, but I didn't see her fully combined.

Don't remember if there was anything else noteworthy, but I'll make a second look just in case. Please remember that trailers are only selective to certain theaters and it may or may not be on the Night At the Musuem 2 that you watch.

Speaking of Terminator, here is a mix-up of T4 and TF2 trailers called "Transforminator" that Yoboy found for your entertainment.

New Movie Stills from Paramount

Paramount Pictures has released some more images from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen that hint at some of the action and the human characters. About half of them have been previousily released and below are a few new ones (at least to me). The full gallery can be found here.

LA Times Profile On Bay

As part of a sneak peek of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the LA Times also wrote a profile on director Michael Bay where he discusses his career and working on TF2. Below are a few highlights and the full article can be found here.

"This one," he said, "is barely going to make it to theaters. You have no idea how complicated my life is."

With this new film, he describes the "huge canvas" of its visual effects in terms of computer memory -- at Industrial Light & Magic, the San Francisco effects house, the first "Transformers" movie took up an astounding 15 terabytes; the new one required 140 terabytes. "That breaks every record," said Bay, who is far more Barnum than Bergman.

"The way I do it, we work hard, we work fast," Bay said. "We shoot 12-hour days. . . . One thing I can't stand about Hollywood is waste. I've gotten to be a very, very efficient shooter. On average, these type of sequels run in the $230-million to $240-million range and we're shooting this for a flat $200 million. A lot of these directors have second unit the entire time, that's millions of dollars just wasted. We do it all ourselves."

Bay likes to conserve his budget so he can film in exotic places that other directors find too difficult to access and, along with emphasis on pyro work and stunts, gives his productions the vibe of daredevil tourism. On this new film, he "weaseled" his way into the Giza pyramid complex in Egypt ("We were the first movie in 30 years to shoot physically on the pyramids") where he shot with a 150-member crew for three days and, a few days later, he took his team to the top of the rock-carved architecture of Petra in Jordan, where military helicopters ferried 36 loads of gear to the perilous perch.

The choppers, by the way, were thanks to a Jordanian prince who loved Bay's first robot movie, while in Egypt it was Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, who turned out to be "a big fan of 'Transformers,' " Bay said, sounding surprised himself.

"We're still not quite sure how he does it when he's directing," says screenwriter Alex Kurtzman, who worked on both "Transformers" films. "People who work closest with him call his method 'Bay-os' because it feels like wartime chaos. There are explosions going off in every direction and half as many cameras flying all over the place, and you stand there thinking none of it's going to make any sense, then you watch the scenes cut together and realize something shocking: He's choreographed a ballet. He knows exactly which pieces he's going to use from each camera and he'd already cut the scene together in his head."

"To make a movie like 'Transformers,' " he said, "you have to shut out everything that's out there . . . we work on it every single day for two years."

He sounded skeptical about directing a third "Transformers" and still surprised that he made the first two. Steven Spielberg came to him with the pitch 3 1/2 years ago, but Bay, no fan of superhero cinema, thought a franchise about alien robots sounded like "a very bad idea." He changed his mind when he considered a dark, realistic tone instead of a shiny, cosmic tale.

In recent weeks, Bay has been in a public spat with McG, whose "Terminator Salvation" has giant robots that Bay feels look too much like "Transformers." Bay has had a number of feuds (because, he explained, "I say what I think") but it turns out that sometimes the explosions are fake. With a wink, he admitted that he phoned McG to turn up the volume. "I told him, 'We're like boxers going at it this summer,' " Bay said. "We have to have some fun with it."

Personally I always liked a realistic tone to Transformers. It has always fit the franchise like a glove; just see last two seasons of Beast Wars and pretty much all of Machine Wars. It just takes creators with the right approach and open mindedness to get the full potential. Shoot the comic films and the like that work best (Spider-Man, Batman, X-Men, etc) work best when writers and directors approach it as very real rather than tongue in cheek. If they are unable to take the material seriously then they are no appropriate for the job, thankfully something Steven Spielberg recognizes. As for the McG/Bay thing, it was essentially two guys comparing sizes ("my movies is bigger", "no mine is", etc) and contained no Transformers 2 information so I just chose to ignore it.

UK, Japan Release Date Changes

Glancing at the official global release date site (also on top left column), good news for the United Kingdom and Japan as they are getting Transformers 2 earlier than the rest of us. Now the release date for the UK is June 19th and for Japan it is June 20th.

This may be a result of the planned premiere parties in each country. The world premiere of the movie is on June 8th in Tokyo, Japan and the UK's premiere party is for June 15th in London. The United States premiere has not yet been announced.

Orci, Kurtzman Talk Ehren, Lack of Trilogy Plans

Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, while taking about Star Trek, also discussed Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with Newsarama. Below is a few segments with the full article here.

Did the success of the first one allow you to go even bigger with this installment?
Kurtzman: Certainly the movie is bigger, but that is definitely not how we thought about it. We feel like the action scenes in these movies are a given to some degree, but they always have to have a serious emotional context or they mean nothing. That means you have to have a small character story at the heart of whatever movie you’re making. For us, it was really coming up with an emotional story that we believed in and felt was sequel worthy.
Orci: And yes, it’s bigger. We have more resources for effects and some of the locations which are just gorgeous and amazing.

NRAMA: With all the destruction they caused, how does the government view the Autobots?
Kurtzman: The Autobots are in partnership with our government, but not everybody here at home trusts them. There’s the question of whether the Autobots are really welcome on this planet, or aren’t they? That’s part of the story that plays in the relationship with the military and soldiers they met in the first one. Because Mission City was under a communication black out, the world is not fully aware of The Transformers. It’s become like the Area 51 which is something that plays out in the movie. Can the secret be kept?

NRAMA: Ehren Kruger is also credited on this script. How much input did he have?
Kurtzman: He was our partner. We all wrote it together. Two weeks before the writers’ strike, we all agreed to do it and literally had a short time to come up with an outline.
Orci: We lived in a hotel room together for three months. Director Michael Bay would come every day to check on our progress. Ehren was on one side of the room. There was a dividing door and Bob and I were on the other side. At noon, we would meet in the middle and trade pages, go back and forth to our respective sides, read each other’s work, and give notes. We were a partnership of three on that one.

NRAMA: Do you see these Transformer films as complete stand alone stories or a trilogy?
Kurtzman: That was not our conscious intent. And Michael was very clear too. We just wanted to make one big gigantic Transformers movie at the time.

Voyager Long Haul in Packaging

TF08.net has posted a look at Voyager Long Haul in his packaging. He is a pretty sweet looking figure and quickly becoming a must have for me. Thanks to Yoboy for the link.

Voyager Long Haul Bio

Long Haul is too bitter to be an effective soldier on his own. Despite the fact that he is part of one of the most destructive and terrifying Decepticon squads of all time, he is often treated as little more then a cargo hauler. Other Decepticons sling their gear into his bed without a second thought, and order him to carry it around for them. Rather than confront them, he'd rather grumble about it privately, then stop on the way and destroy whatever he's been given responsibility for.