The end of 2013 is here with final toy linkfest of the year. Its been a good year in toys with Generations line, Takara's new additions to the Masterpiece line and most of the 3rd party makers knocking out some outstanding Transformers that often put Hasbro's and Takara's offerings to shame. As the the galleries show, 2014 is going to be the same, especially as Hasbro shifts to the Transformers 4 toyline. In 3rd party news we have a look at not Galvatron, not Menasor, not Ratch, and not IDW Fortress Maximus. Hasbro abd Takara are doing another repaint of MP Prime, more Generations coming, and few other official products. Other topics include Botcon 2014 has a location and time, Gingerbread Prime, new The Touch video, and movie statues. Per usual also have a bunch of new video reviews including look at latest Masterpiece Prowl, not Motormaster, not Brainstorm, new not Throttlebot, not Swoop and more.

3rd Party Galleries
Unique Toys Mania King - This 3rd party figure recreates the original G1 Galvatron but with a whole lot more detail and color scheme while keeping his Cybertronian alt mode. No estimated release date or price.
FansProject not Menasor - After a bit of a delay, the final piece of Fansproject's Intimidator combiner is coming next month. Diesel (aka not Motormaster) is set for release by the end of January for $150. Hit the link for the look at their final combiner and head below for a preview review of Diesel and Intimidator. Another gallery is here.
iGear not Ratchet - Hit the link for a re-release of iGear's not Ratchet release from early last year. This version is about $30 cheaper as they eliminated most of the unnecessary accessories that came with the figure. I got the first version and do recommend getting as it is a faithful re-creation of the G1 Ratchet robot and vehicle modes that fits with the Masterpiece line. Out now for $100. Read More »

Merry Christmas!
For the third year in a row ('11, '12) the voice of Beast Wars Megatron David Kaye wishes all a Megatron Christmas.

It isn't much but at least its something. Entertainment Earth posted the below three licensed products for Transformers: Age of Extinction that show off a touch of new the design for Bumblebee and Optimus Prime along with a look at the head of Grimlock. Hopefully this is the start of more reveals via toy s and more.

Finally a little bit of "new" Transformers: Age of Extinction news. The quotes are new are intentional as the info being provided was already revealed as part interviews on a Chinese website but still its something. In an interview with The Daily Beast to discuss his next movie "Lone Survivor", he talked a little bit about his TF4 character Cade Yeager.

With Transformers: Age of Extinction, did you agree to do that one for your kids?
Well, it was exciting because it was the first time my kids were really interested in a movie I was doing. Any time they see me with a gun, like Contraband or Pain & Gain, they want to see that, too, but they can’t because of the language and all that stuff. But I loved working with Michael Bay, and I thought he had a really interesting way to make it new, different, and fresh. Plus, being in movies that have the potential to be hugely successful allows me to make smaller movies that I’m really passionate about.

What’s going to make this Transformers different? The first one was OK, but then the sequels were a total mess.
It was a tighter script, and its own stand-alone thing. I think the emotional core of it, the human element, is going to be extremely powerful. It’s an ordinary man trying to do extraordinary things to save his daughter and keep her alive—and this boyfriend he didn’t know anything about. He’d had a child when he was in high school and his wife passed away, and the promise he’d made to her was that she wouldn’t date any boys until she graduated and that she’d be at the graduation—because we weren’t due to the pregnancy. So there’s an anchor to it and a realness to it that I like a lot.

[Then, an assistant comes in and places a brace around Wahlberg’s neck.]
I hurt my neck in Hong Kong, and it hasn’t gotten better yet. I just woke up in the morning and couldn’t move, but still had to shoot 10 days of crazy action.

Yep, the TF4 news front remains as quiet as a mouse. Until then on the comic front. IDW Publishing has released their publishing plans for March 2014. The Transformation: Regeneration comic ends its planned run, closing out the TF Marvel-verse for now while the Dark Cybertron story also concludes with a promise of a major character death. For the full details of IDW's other books including GI Joe, Star Trek, and more click here.

In relation to Dark Cybertron, senior editor John Barber spoke with Newsarama about the relationship between IDW and Hasbro that resulted in unexpected story point yet to be revealed. "Working with the Transformers team and getting these comics out in the toy packages, all while building to an epic story that’s satisfying to existing fans. I think that’s a big moment for us—and there’s this amazing thing happening near the end of “Dark Cybertron” that I couldn’t believe it was going to make the jump to the toys,” teased Barber. “But I can’t talk about it yet, which is a lame answer but it’s really a fun twist on a well-known premise. It was something that originated—I think, if I remember right—with Mark Weber on Transformers brand team, and More Than Meets The Eye writer James Roberts and I couldn’t believe it was an idea on the table, let alone that it would be reflected in the toys. Sorry to have to be really vague about it."
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While Michael Bay has confirmed that the first teaser trailer for Transformers: Age of Extinction is coming on Super Bowl Sunday (2/2/14), Deadline has now provided the length. At a record $4 million price tag, Paramount as bought a single 30 second slot. In the past, after a commercial airs on during the game it becomes available online so see little reason that would change here, especially since the goal is to announce the movie to the widest audience possible in the States (last year's game audience was 108 million).

Chinese website M1905 has posted a bunch of video from the various Hong Kong sets of Transformers: Age of Extinction. Sprinkled in the set are interviews with some of the cast. Most of the videos are in Mandarin but you can catch a lot of behind the scenes stuff as Michael Bay, Jack Reynor (Shane Dyson), Mark Wahlberg (Cade Yeager), Nicola Peltz (Tessa Yeager), Stanley Tucci and the crew work. TFW2005 was able to gleam a few story tidbits (below). The full set of videos is here. As for the sword image to the left, that was found by GabrielPrime and seems to an image of the Cybertronian sword that Mark Wahlberg's been carting around on many of the film's sets.

- Reynor: Shane is secret Irish race car driving boyfriend of Tessa's due to dad's no dating rule. Gains trust of Cade by saving Tess and Cade's life early in the movie.
- Tessa's mother is dead, result is Cade being over protective of her.
- Cade and Optimus become friends due to their (similar) code of ethics.
- Prime forced into situation of choose doing the right thing over his own life while Cade must choose between himself or his daughter (guessing translation problem because choice is always obvious for hero characters, Prime especially)
- Li Bingbing's character is owner of a factory in China (guessing something to do with the rumored Chinese Transformers)
- One Cybertronian speaks Mandarin only.
- The movie's third act takes place entirely in Hong Kong.

As teased last week, Entertainment Tonight Canada as aired their report from the set of Transformers: Age of Extinction. The two videos are thanks to YouTuber jedz316. It likes like the ET Canada visit was back around June 16th when the cast and crew were in Taylor, Texas filming. They added some footage from ET USA's Chicago visit but I am just going by the background and the like when the host was talking to Mark Wahlberg and Nicola Peltz. Unlike ET USA nincompoop of a reporter, it seems Canada's host came to the set a bit more informed as she asked relevant questions including try to draw information from Wahlberg about the Dinobots (he refused to answer). (via Seibertron)


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After a long absence, Michael Bay took to his official website to post a response to recent articles covering his comments about Transformers: Age of Extinction. Apparently he didn't like what was written. My best guess is he is referring to the recent Yahoo article where he suggested the difference between TF4 and previous entries is it will have less goofiness and appear more cinematic. Personally I just thought it was a typical sequel question with an expected "raise the stakes" type answer with nothing negative intended by his responses. My best guess is the more mainstream movie sites decided to go the other way on interpreting his answers. Any way from a fan perspective the key piece of news is he officially confirms the first trailer for the movie will arrive for the Super Bowl on February 2, 2014.

I Do Not Apologize For Any Transformers Movies

It is a drag talking to reporters on sets. Why? Because often times they take your words and skew things to their liking. Then the crazy, lazy game of reporting on what other writers story’s reported me saying and suddenly it becomes skewed Internet truth. So I waste my time to restate exactly what I did say, again.

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A new image with found by TFW2005's yizhi521 provides the first look at the toy version of Transformers: Age of Extinction Optimus Prime. The class is hard to determine but the level of detail makes me think its either voyager or leader class. The look closely matches the official image of Prime.

In an interview with /Film, IMAX SVP Hugh Murray discussed the use of IMAX in filming including Transformers: Age of Extinction. In the interview /Slash provides a bit of a laymen perspective on the question along with the VP's comments. I admit that most of it doesn't mean much to me (cost and "worthiness" of the film factors in to my IMAX decision more then "how" it was filmed) but in regards to TF4 it seems it a tiny bit of film history by being the first to film in digital IMAX 3D. I think before it had to be filmed on much bulkier "traditional" 70mm film stock. Assuming Trnasformers 4 proves worthy of its bigger size, it could lead to more films using the new camera technology. Which could be good if the studios learned the lessons of the 3D debacle and recognize that not every single film deserves the IMAX treatment. Any case, the TF4 segment below, full interview here.

What are the different IMAX cameras?
Up until now, every feature film shot in full IMAX (of which there have been only a handful – The Dark Knight, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Dark Knight Rises, Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, Star Trek Into Darkness and now The Hunger Games Catching Fire) has filmed with a 65mm 2D IMAX film camera. IMAX has a 3D film camera available, but most filmmakers find it too big and loud to actually use. (Star Trek Into Darkness is the only of those films to be exhibited in IMAX 3D, but it was post-converted.) It wasn’t until recently that IMAX created a 3D digital camera, which will allow 3D capture in full IMAX. The first filmmaker to use that is Michael Bay on Transformers: Age of Extinction. That camera is much smaller and lighter than the other IMAX 3D cameras and will be used quite a bit in the future. There is no 2D digital IMAX camera, but one is being developed. Murray explains some more:

[The 3D digital camera] offers the full height aspect ratio. Our camera is based on a digital camera called Phantom. It’s a 3D camera, so we used two of their sensors and the reason we picked them was they were the closest sensor size to IMAX film frames. They’re not quite as big as IMAX film frames, but they are very close. They allow us to use the same lenses that we developed for our 3D film camera, which is much bigger and heavier.  This 3D digital camera is very light and compact and easy to use.

Grammy nominated Steve Aoki may be working with Michael Bay on Transformers: Age of Extinction soundtrack. He tweeted, with image, "Discussing war politics between the autobots & decepticons over dinner w/ #michaelbay s4te #transformers4" The musician worked with Linkin Park on their recent album "Recharged". Considering the band has provided a single for the three previous Transformers films, probably not a reach to assume Bay was discussing possibilities for Aoki to team up with the group again to create a track for Transformers 4. (via TFW2005)