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In two recent interviews, a US Weekly interview with Josh Duhamel, and a HeyUGuys interview with Laura Haddock, a previously unknown subplot of The Last Knight has been revealed: Haddock will be playing Vivian Wembley, an Oxford University professor and Mark Wahlberg's love interest in the film. In Duhamel's interview, he discusses filming one of the film's stunts:
We’re doing this big scene where we’re all about to jump for our lives from this thing, and we’re strapped tandem-style with parachutes. Mark is attached to Laura Haddock — his love interest in the movie — and then there’s me and Santiago Cabrera attached to each other, and I’m tandem-ing him down because he’s injured,” the actor explains. “Wahlberg comes up just before we start — before [Michael] Bay says, ‘Action’ — he goes, ‘Hey, are you guys tandem-ing together?’ I go, ‘Yeah.’ He goes, ‘Oh, so it’s like a love story.’ I was like, ‘Son of a *****. You get the girl [and] you’re making fun of me and Santiago over here because we’re tandem-ing.
In Haddock's interview, she discusses her experiences on set, as well as her opinion on Michael Bay's directing.
Check out the latter interview embedded below, join the conversation in the Energon Pub, and keep an optic or two on Seibertron.com for all the latest Transformers news!
Ever had a doubt that director Michael Bay is a genius? New live action movie Transformers: The Last Knight cast member Anthony Hopkins thinks so! In a recent interview with Yahoo News, the actor behind Sir Edmund Burton - a historian of sorts in the movie - compares Bay to Oliver Stone and Steven Spielberg, talks about him chatting about getting the right look and design for Cybertronians, and praises the brilliance of 'savants' like the explosive director.
Watch the interview embedded below, and join the conversation in the Energon Pub!
“I thought, ‘This guy’s a genius, he really is,‘” Hopkins told Yahoo Movies (watch above) last week at CinemaCon about his impression of Bay after meeting the director over breakfast to discuss the project. “He’s the same ilk as Oliver Stone and [Steven] Spielberg and [Martin] Scorsese. Brilliance. Savants, really, they are. He’s a savant.”
In Last Knight, Hopkins, 79, stars opposite the returning Mark Wahlberg as Sir Edmund Burton, an astronomer and historian who lives with Autobots on a sprawling British countryside estate.
We have discovered Jeff Haas has done an interview with James Roberts about the Lost Light comic. James Roberts talks about his writing process and ideas for the series. The way he speaks about his work really shows how dedicated he is to the series.
"The first few drafts of the script are usually in longhand – I have a tower of notebooks full of my barely legible handwriting. I refine the dialog when typing everything up, and then edit it all again by hand" - James Roberts
The article also touches on the characters and stories along with James Robert's thoughts. It is an interesting read because you get a feel for how deep the story is. He also shares his ideas about some of the characters in both MTMTE and Lost Light.
"Anode, being a totally new character – and someone who was unfamiliar with our regulars and their backstory ... I wanted a driven, funny, independent, ebullient, cheeky new character, with a unique set of skills.” - James Roberts
If you enjoy Transformers: Lost Light, make sure you check out our archive!
Welcome to the Seibertron.com Twincast / Podcast Episode #170, featuring several very special guests from our friends at IDW Publishing! Join ScottyP and Razorclaw0000 as they get the opportunities to interview IDW writer John Barber, editor-in-chief David Hedgecock, and Chief Creative Officer Chris Ryall at the recent NC Comicon in Raleigh, North Carolina. You can view our panel coverage at Seibertron.com as well.
Episode #170 "NC Comicon 2017" is available directly and in our RSS Feed, and should appear on iTunes and Stitcher Radio within 24 to 48 hours of when you see this news post.
First up, the team gets the opportunity to interview Barber and Hedgecock about Revolution, Revolutionaries, Optimus Prime, and more. We start off discussing how the editors, writers, and artists stay coordinated across a myriad of titles, including scheduling, planning, and easter eggs. The interview jumps off into the transition from Action Man to Revolutionaries.
Man of Action
Next, we jump into discussion of scheduling and some of the post-holiday delays in several of the ongoing titles. If you've been at all frustrated or curious about the scheduled releases of books and what can happen along the way to delay these plans, you'll want to tune in to this interview!
No delays on this banner being awesome!
Shifting towards Optimus Prime, we discuss Barber's transition from editor to writer and the implications to his process before moving onto some deep discussion on the Thirteen Primes, upcoming issues of Optimus Prime, and even the possibility Unicron in IDW.
Galactic Patience
We finish up with some "just for fun" questions. Answers to these shouldn't be taken too seriously, or as canonical material - or should they? Tune in to this part of the interview as our guests are great sports about some of the goofiest questions we could cook up.
John Barber once again being a good sport
Finally, we catch up with Chris Ryall on the show floor and talk some ROM. Our chat includes a look at why this character ended up in the shared Hasbro Universe after the long wait its author went through to bring it into reality. Also, we find out whether entities such as Lost Light's Galactic Council are aware of the Solstar Order and its influence.
Not all Dire Wraiths are evil...
We wrap up our time with Chrischarger with a couple questions related to both the More Than Meets the Eye Revolution one shot and the true nature of some Dire Wraiths. Plus, a teaser on the actual identity of the Masked Bear!
Also a great sport for taking our questions right there on the show floor!
Our sincerest thanks to the entire team from IDW, the organizers of NC Comicon, and a special thanks to IDW's Steven Scott for his tremendous coordination assistance. We hope you enjoyed our coverage of NC Comicon and hope you stick around for more IDW and Transformers news. Thanks for listening!
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In the latest Hasbro Pulse newsletter, we have an in-depth chat with Hasbro Transformers toy designer Sean Carmine Isabella, talking about two characters part of the cast of animated series Transformers: Robots in Disguise: Starscream and Blurr. The two were added to the aesthetic of the show, while keeping some of their G1 elements (and some of Prime's, in the Decepticon's case) - check out below to find out more!
Epic Redesigns: Retrofitting Starscream & Blur into “Robots In Disguise”
Tapping into the rich history of Transformers lore, famed G1 Decepticon, Starscream, and heroic Autobot, Blur, are getting a Robots In Disguise overhaul. So what exactly went into detailing these classic characters? We went right to the source for the answers—Hasbro Senior Product Designer on Transformers, Sean Carmine Isabella.
About the Designer:
Designing many of his favorite childhood characters, Isabella builds new play experiences for the next generation of thinkers and explorers. Before he worked on heroic robots battling the forces of evil, Sean designed toys for brands such as Littlest Pet Shop, Easy Bake Oven, and FurReal Friends.
So, why Starscream?
“Being an ‘80s kid, the idea of high flying fighter jets always sparked my imagination. No one encapsulated this for the Deceptions better than Starscream. Drawing jets and spaceships is something of a hobby for me so getting the opportunity to work on reimagining a classic character, (and a jet no less!) was a dream come true.”
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What elements of the G1 Starscream sculpt inspired this redesign?
“We wanted to hold onto certain iconic design traits to maintain his epic look—such as his chest exhaust design, graphic pattern on his wing, his overall color scheme, and his twin null ray blasters.”
What was your motivation behind Blur’s build?
“Blur’s a fast talking, speed loving Autobot. We wanted his design to evoke the same sense of speed to be true to the core of the character.”
Was there a specific G1 element you focused on keeping or updating?
“We looked at his classic Cybertronian mode that debuted in the 1986 film and reimagined how this vehicle mode would exist in a modern Earth setting.”
The GI connections certainly don’t stop with these bots. Tune in to Transformers: Robots In Disguise to find out if some of your favorites are getting a modern makeover.
As this week sees the first issue of the new IDW series post-Revolution, featuring Transformers characters Kup and Blackrock, plus Action Man and GI Joe - and written by continuity wizard John Barber, with art by Fico Ossio - Comicosity were able to have a chat with the two creators to promote thebook and give us a little more information. Check out some snippets below, the full piece here, and look out of our review of the issue soon!
Aaron Long: Revolution merged the Hasbro properties into a shared universe, with Revolutionaries now spinning out of the event. What will readers be seeing in this series?
John Barber: Lots of fast-paced action and big world-building. The Revolutionaries team is made up of Mayday (who’s a G.I. Joe agent), Kup and Blackrock (who are Transformers), and Action Man (who’s English). So they’re already kinda all over the place to start with, but right off the bat they have to team up with Rom and the Micronauts to fight the Oktober Guard and the new Storm Shadow. Nothing’s off the table!
So we’ll be seeing big crossovers between characters, plus we’ll be going all over the world. If you’re a fan of the Hasbro characters—from the comics or the toys or the cartoons—there will be little nods, or returns to places and ideas from all over. Remember when Cobra had a base on the moon? We do. And we’re trying to pull in things from all over the history of the characters—like, I don’t know if anybody was expecting the Sgt. Savage and his Screaming Eagles relaunch of G.I. Joe, but that stuff plays a role.
If you’re not familiar with this weird stuff, no worries—we’re introducing all these ideas, not expecting you’re an expert. But that said, we’ve done our homework.
[...]
AL: The ongoing cast consists of Action Man, Blackrock, Mayday and Kup. Can you dis-cuss how this mix of characters was decided upon to anchor the title?
JB: At the Revolution writer’s retreat, Cullen Bunn suggested that since Action Man’s comic was a limited series, he’d be without a home post-Revolution. (Action Man, not Cullen, who has a nice home). So it might be good to have A.M. looking over what everybody else was doing—like, his mandate might be to monitor everybody worldwide. And Mairghread Scott sort of riffed on that that you could do with it, suggested it could be a little like Global Frequency and have self-contained stories about this world. And I wound up getting elected to write it because I’d done Action Man and sort of knew a lot about where the universe was going. (In the comics, I mean. Certainly not in real life).
So, I thought if we made this a team with Action Man, really gave this a different feel, it’d be a good fit to add the Transformers character Blackrock, who’d just be coming out of the Titans Return story. Blackrock is a tech-CEO who discovered his memories were false and he’s a Cybertronian. He’s Cybertronian, but his alt-mode is basically a human.
I knew we’d want somebody from G.I. Joe, but I suggested we could sort of push things here and use this to develop a new character, or anyway to build up a character Andrew Griffith and I had set up in Transformers, but who’d now be in G.I. Joe. We gave Anya Jones the semi-obscure out-of-use Joe code-name of Mayday, and she’s become sort of the leader of the team—Action Man is still new to the job; Blackrock is new to this life; so Mayday has the experi-ence with aliens and military tactics.
Kup was originally going somewhere else, or so I thought, but then it turned out Kup wasn’t really going to fit into that other series, and I thought he was too good a character to lose track of, but he wasn’t really essential to what Kei Zama and I were going to do in the Optimus Prime comic… but with about a half-second’s thought, I realized Kup’s an old soldier, and the idea of getting him together with this young, mostly-inexperienced team was just the thing Revolutionaries needed.
FO: Well, when I came on board the cast was already set. And I think they picked a great set of characters. Plus it feels a lot more tightknit and relatable than Revolution. Working on a smaller cast allows us to develop these characters more, and John is writing them awesomely. For my part, I focused on working more detail into their design. I got the chance to redesign Blackrock and it´s definitely a new look for the character, closer to his cybetronian nature. And well… I got carried away and kept going with Mayday: new armor suit! We did keep her hairstyle though… Nah, in all seriousness I wanted them to look the part of a lead character. Action Man´s design was pretty awesome already.
[...]
AL: Fico, with Revolution and now Revolutionaries you’ve penciled the vast majority of Hasbro characters. Are there any particular characters or a particular group that you get the most excited to work on?
FO: Well… It´s hard not to get excited to draw Blackrock with the new design. I also enjoy drawing Mayday a lot. I really feel it´s important to have a strong female character, and I very much love paying attention to every detail on how we portray her to reinforce that. She rocks.
Action Man has the best lines, John is really bringing life to all these characters so it’s hard not to enjoy drawing all these characters.
And lastly, I´m always exited to see them pop out of the pages with Seba’s colors. He is doing a fantastic job, as always.
After last month's appearance in UK news outlet The Guardian of the Transformers comics, in their current IDW incarnation ('Kiss me Chromedome' if you missed it), we have another article and interview - with comics writer Bob Budiansky and animated series writer Bryce Malek!
While a lot of the material is most likely not new - board admin Burn, who notified us, remembers seeing most of it previously - the fact that the Transformers are in mainstream news coverage once more is worth celebrating enough, especially as we lead into a Paramount movie year and this has little to with it at all, being about the origins of the franchise's fiction. Check out some snippets below, and the whole piece here!
Bob Budiansky [...]
A lot of the names came from my own experiences of pop culture. Ratchet, a medical robot, was inspired by Nurse Ratched from the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Ironhide came from the old TV show Ironside. I was trying to humanise them, give them relatable qualities, such as “this guy likes jazz”. People ask how I came up with so many personalities in a weekend, but at Marvel we were creating new characters every day. That was the job.
One name I’m proud of is Megatron. Back in 1983, the threat of nuclear war felt very real – and destructive force was talked about in megatons. At first, Hasbro rejected it for sounding too scary. Gently I said to them: “Well, he’s the main bad guy. He’s supposed to be scary.” Luckily, they changed their minds.
Bryce Malek [...]
Some writers pitched really inappropriate stuff for a kids’ show, such as the Transformers meeting space prostitutes. Oddly enough, no one ever provided us with any of the toys – we worked from photocopies of designs. I actually went out and bought a few but I never got Optimus Prime. He was too popular. You could never find one.
Not entirely related to the Transformers movie-verse - in fact, there is practically nothing at all here - but a new interview over on CinemaBlend with comics creator Rob Liefeld has shown how Akiva Goldsman, the producer in charge of the Writers' room that produced the scripts to be used in the upcoming The Last Knight, Bumblebee spin-off and probably more sequels after those, approached the whole shared universe of Hasbro properties. Check out the relevant snippets below!
Since 2015, Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman has become a big name in the world of cinematic universe franchises. In collaboration with Paramount Pictures, he not only created a braintrust that would help formulate the future of the Transformers series, but also went on to do the same thing with Hasbro and brands like G.I. Joe and ROM: Space Knight. We haven't seen an actual product from this process just yet, as none of the developing projects have made it to release -- but the methodology is continuing to spread, as the same approach that's going into the construction of the recently-announced Extreme Cinematic Universe.
[...]
[Liefeld:] So I kind of was thinking, 'I'm going to go to this meeting and maybe I'll get a good look at some Dark Tower stuff,' and what ended up happening is he goes, 'I want to hand you this giant black leather-bound equivalent of a phone book,' and it said, "The Transformers Bible." This thing is awesome and Akiva goes, 'I just want you to know, there's only eight of these in existence. Michael Bay has one, I have one, the head of Paramount has one, and the five other people involved have them.' So I flipped through it, and it's every treatment, outlines, screenplay, for the lineup of Transformer films that they have planned, that he was a showrunner for...
So he said to me, he said, 'It's pretty cool, right? I'm like, 'Yeah!' He's like, 'I ran this room; this is what we came up with. This is what I did on behalf of Paramount.' He goes, 'In a couple months, I'm going to go run the Hasbro room, and we're going to do the same thing for ROM, Micronauts, G.I. Joe. We're going to put together this Hasbro Cinematic Universe, and then he said, I would like to do yours next. And I said, 'Uhhhhhh, Okay, WOW!'
Goto Page: <<1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 58 total news articles in this section, 10 per page.
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