Empire Magazine Describes Previously Released Images

I posted this in the thread about Empire's pictures, but it needs more exposure certainly:

*Bay and LaBeouf confirm the Fallen is a separate character. End of.
*Egyptian hieroglyphics, like the one at the bottom of my post, turn out to be depictions of Transformers who visited Earth.
*Bay claims Megatron is not coming back and the tank is just a new toy.
*Around 40 robots.
*Budget is $200 million.
*Ramon Rodriguez is the one holding on for dear life to a pole while cars are flung.
*Devastator appears at the pyramid, he's probably 50 feet tall because that's the height of the camera crane they used on location.

What the? Forty?

Lemme try counting: Prime, Ratchet, Ironhide, Bumblebee, Jetfire, Starscream, Barricade, Soundwave, Arcee, Volt, Sideswipe, Audi R8, Trax & Beat, 7 Constructicons, Ice-cream truck twins, Fallen, Ravage.

25, if you count Arcee as three then you have 27. Who are the last thirteen? More of Soundwave's minions? Drones? Seekers?

Anyway I hope for quality screentime for the robots and better human characters.

I call BS on this. Beeeeeeeeeeeee-Esssssssssssssss.

Yeah if the tank art was unused from the first movie we would've seen it already. Maybe it just didn't make the cut, though.

I could've sworn we heard 40 robots before?

EDIT: You're right, in this shot though, I'm guessing it's Optimus, since it's about 30 feet and not extended at the full height. Maybe Devastator takes a swing at Optimus and knocks off some boulders?



EDIT 2: Bay lists Optimus' height at 28 feet, ILM lists it at 32 feet.

holy shit..40, is he joking, damn....and that Megatron part is so pathetic it stink like a farm of skunks.

Do want.
Seriously, the more we hear, the more excited I am for June.

I'm sure that almost half of the robots will only appear in the final battle and might not even get named.

only $200 Million for the budget? hmmm. the first one had minimal bot screentime because of budget constraints with $150 million...so how are they going to get 40 robots in there?

That was my first thought, asking how many robots there are could be like asking how many Narnians are there in a Narnia film.

Mayhaps they got the bugs in the system worked out. Part of the budget of the first one went to figuring out how to animate the bots,and now that they know the cinematic mechanics of the robots...

40 robots? Hell yes. Don't even care if they are nameless Bots and Cons showing up for a final battle, as long as it shows the war is much bigger than just 5 Bots vs 5 Cons or something like that, as was the cause in the first movie.

Exciting!

Wouldn't it be a bad idea to form Devastator in the open desert, since it's already established the US army kicks more ass than the Autobots? Unless Devastator has some wicked amount of firepower all over his body and can swat down jets like flies from hundreds of miles away.

That'd be cool.

A lot of concept work has been done already for the first film (Arcee, etc)

Models are already created, so less for R&D on that end.

Presumably the licenses carried over for Optimus, etc, so there's less money spent there. The main cast would have signed for multiple films (likely) so there's not going to be a lot of renegotiation there I'd imagine.

Bay's military connections are definitely paying off, filming on aircraft carriers, lots of extras, free fire ranges, etc.

And since the first one practically made it's budget back during the first week, I don't see a problem.

If anyone's curious, here's how Spidey 2 breaks down:
* Story rights: $20 million
* Screenplay: $10 million
* Producers: $15 million
* Director (Sam Raimi): $10 million
* Cast: $30 million
o Tobey Maguire: $18 million
o Kirsten Dunst: $7 million
o Alfred Molina: $3 million
o Rest of cast: $3 million
* Production costs: $45 million
* Visual effects: $65 million
* Music: $5 million
o Composer (Danny Elfman): $2 million.
* Total: $200 million

(Using Spidey 2 since Raimi and Bay seem to have similar sensibilities when it comes to cutting budgets for filming with practical stuff versus CGI)

Shia got paid $500k for TF1. Bay likely took a backend deal on DVDs, hence the fuss over HD-DVD's exclusive and then later Blu-Ray.

Spielberg likely got a deal on ILM due to his connections as well.

So, yeah, I don't see any problems really.

This goes back to everything they've said since July 2007: they worked out how to depict the robots, now they can have more fun. And simply $200 million shows Bay is still being careful, considering its still less than the $300 million extravaganzas that became more common in 2007.

Not just careful I believe. From what I've read, Mr. Bay and his financial team are somehow able to stick to the appointed budget most of the time, whereas others somehow start to throw money around and go way over that. It's not that 200 million isn't much, it's just that 300 million is alot and it's handled by less focused people (most of the time), resulting in money drainage.

Less is more. If you work with restrains, you will be able to focus on how you can improve something with the means you have. Just look at something like Star Wars..sure, the originals were campy, but if you look at the prequels, it becomes quite obvious Lucas doesn't know what the hell to do with all the money he has now, and wasting it all on special effects clearly doesn't make it a better movie.

This.

40 robots? That's a lot.

And Megs not coming back... I'l probably buy the toy anyway.

Danny Elfman is doing the score for ROTF?

Really? From what I heard in Hellboy II, that could only be a good thing.

Good to hear.

Say WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!? I don't believe that. This has to be Bay spewing out false information.

BULLCRAP! Try explaining the Megatron toy that showed up a couple of weeks ago.

Damn. That's a LOT of robots. This has to be false info also.

Who the fudgemonkeys is Ramon Rodriguez?

BIG.

Moar robots, less humans!

40? so how many toy/repaints does that work out to assuming they are all made? of the original 12 in the first movie, i have 94 different items counting exclusive/box sets.

those points sure sound fake as hell.....we saw the picture and its shia whos hanging on to the pipe not rodriguez...40 bots my ass....the fallen would never be confirmed as a chracter after all they did to keep it secret...megatron is def comming back..etc etc

fallen a separate character? im dumb so i dont know what that means. And megatron not being in the movie?? probably fake information

No. It's still Jablonsky.

Looks like someone didn't read that post closely.

Got a source on that Shia hanging on the pipe part?

It doesn't look a thing like Shia to me.

This sounds just like Stargate... Lame

Until this hit the stands, no?

Why does June have to be so far away!!??

I'm taking this all with a large grain of salt

Megatron not coming back makes me sad. So Soundwave isnt as loyal as we thought then?
Devastator is gonna be one heck of a monster by sounds of it.
Not sure if some of this is part of the misinformation campaign though... like The Fallen bit...

40 robots?? that sux if its true they will all never get toys...and i know i will like the one that never gets a toy lol

Wait a minute. If Transformers visited Earth long time ago. How come they don't find the allspark. Hooverdam was not build before 1930.

Holy crap, can we try and keep the spoilers off the front page please?

40 bots:

Hmmm, I reckon a lot of them will be background characters. Bay will want to focus on the characters that are there to promote new cars. Maybe they'll do some flashback scenes on Cybertron to establish back story, and the extra characters will just be in the background.

At any rate, with so many characters, you have to wonder if Hasbro will do as many toy-only non-movie characters as last time. They didn't do toys of the drones in the first film, so I don't expect toys of all 40, but I hope they do as many as they can.

As for Megatron not making an appearance, I think Bay's probably lying.

Good point,
also, when i see the hieroglyphes, i can clearly see a helicopter, and a sort of jet, well, for the jet, it can be a cybetronian jet..ok
but the chopper?...where a decepticon can scan a chopper on earth at ages of mythology??? it cant be a cybertronian chopper in the case of, that need air to fly, and no air exist on cybertron i think (no atmosphere)...

magic of "go hell logic, its a f*****g movie!" i guess...

YOu DO know there's a way to read the front page without movie content?

...Megatron NOT returning?! Then how do they explain the CGI image with Ravage?

Maybe Bay didn't know that the images got leaked.

The rendered image was leaked after Empire visited the crew at Giza. And I don't think Bay would likely have commented on that either.

I can see a tank, jet, and a helicopter in the hieroglyphs!! I think this is the work of Spielberg!! Remember Raiders of the Lost Ark? R2 was in the hieroglyphics!! WOW 40 BOTS YEAH!!! Thats just a toy? BS Indeed!!! Durn U Bay!!!

I think we've seen fire on Cybertron,
so it probably does have an atmosphere.
It's had one in almost every other continuity anyways.

I'm pretty sure Megatron will return somewhere in the movie..but hey, if he doesn't want to let the cat out of the back, why should he? There's still tons of people that won't know, and to be honest, we can't be 100% sure either.

It's better to at least keep it in doubt instead of him just admitting: 'ok, he's in it'.

Oh yeah.



How strange though a Spielberg production will explore the ancient astronauts idea so soon after he explored it in his last film:

well guys itl' be better when we see the movie the second time cause we know what all happens cause we've seen it before so its better to see it in theaters, then go find an imax theater

maybe we're thinking of two different pictures...im thinking of the one where shia is holding onto the white pipe while two cars are flipping in the air in the background

that makes no sense

thats actually a good point either there is 40 robots with many of them being background characters or there isnt 40 robots...which do you think is more plausible? i feel this will be a topic of debate on here in the comming months

maybe they visited earth before the all spark got there, or groups arrived together and fought to the death before they could reach it

That's Ramon.

I doubt that Megatron won't be returning. We've already seen his FAB toy and supposedly there will be a Leader Class toy. That's a few too many toys for a non-screen character, is it not?

and plus i read somewhere that scorponok revives megs with his own spark. so that might explain the whole "claw" thing. i just relized this when i wrote my comment

and once again, devasator could be one of the fallen's minions. if so, i sure wish i had him for a body gaurd.

Bay is so obsessed with missinformation, that hes probably confused himself... Transformers without Megs would be kinda suckish....

Nice find AB.