SOUNDWAVE REDUX... After posting this entry about him (and his tape cassettes) being out of place in the 21st Century, I thought I’d share these cool images I found online of Soundwave and Megatron’s other right-hand man, err, Decepticon; Shockwave. A fan updated the design of the two Waves and gave them the look of the robots you see in the live-action Transformers film. These are NOT actual movie concepts. Soundwave was suppose to have been in Michael Bay’s blockbuster, but fans were unsatisfied with his initial design (Soundwave was suppose to have transformed into a helicopter...but the role of evil chopper was given to Blackout instead), and Frenzy ended up becoming the Decepticon tape player in this year’s film. Soundwave is currently the top fan favorite to show up in the sequel...whenever that gets made. Damn WGA strike.


Courtesy of Transformers Live Action Movie Blog


Courtesy of timshinn73

Soundwave in his original design (from the 1980's cartoon)...

Twentieth Century Fox / Paramount Pictures

TEN YEARS AGO TODAY, the movie Titanic came out in theaters nationwide. The reason why I’m bringing this up is because the film was pretty popular during my senior year in high school. Even dudes who looked like gangmembers in my class say they saw the film at least 4 times at the multiplex, haha. No BSing. James Horner's orchestral score for the film was sold out for weeks at music stores everywhere (at least the compact disc version), and so was the "James Cameron’s Titanic" movie book (um, published by HarperPerennial) at major stores like Borders and Barnes & Noble. Also, Celine Dion’s hit song "My Heart Will Go On" was freakin’ being played on the L.A. radio station KIIS FM every other hour (okay, maybe I’m exaggerating with that part). The reason why I watched the flick in the first place was because my British Literature teacher (who worked at a Barnes & Noble bookstore and was able to hook me up with a copy of "James Cameron’s Titanic") was giving extra credit if my class showed him our ticket stubs. So how many times did I watch the 3-hour epic, you ask? Well let’s just say...the only other movies that I saw more than the 1998 Best Picture winner was The Phantom Menace (Hey, it was the first Star Wars film in 16 years. In fact, many Star Wars fans thought that Episode 1 was gonna surpass Titanic’s $600 million domestic box office gross. They were off by around $170 million), Revenge of the Sith and Transformers. How many times did I watch these three films, you ask? No comment.

Next year marks 10 years since I graduated from high school. I have no idea who’s planning the class reunion. Of course, in the Age of MySpace, Friendster and Facebook, are reunions even practical now? We may not see old classmates in person ever again, but at least we know what they’re up to by visiting their profiles on these websites (assuming they haven’t made their pages private, of course). Anyways, just felt like being nostalgic. That is all.

THE DARK KNIGHT Teaser Trailer... The preview is currently being shown in front of I Am Legend at regular movie theaters everywhere, and was made available online in High Definition Sunday night. Here are a couple of screenshots from the trailer...







I might watch I Am Legend again...but this time in IMAX. The reason being that I want to see the 6-minute preview to The Dark Knight that is shown in front of Legend. Heath Ledger is gonna be crazy as the Joker. "Why SO serious?"



All images courtesy of Warner Bros. Studios

I AM LEGEND... I saw the film last night, and it was pretty good. Kinda slow in some parts, but still pretty suspenseful. I’d have to say the movie reminded me of 2000’s Cast Away and this year’s 28 Weeks Later. It reminded me of Cast Away in that for much of the film, we see Will Smith just milling about...going about his everyday life while traveling with his companion dog Samantha around Manhattan. In Cast Away, we see Tom Hanks milling about for much of the movie while traveling with his companion volleyball Wilson around that uncharted island. I Am Legend reminded me of 28 Weeks Later in that at the beginning of 28 Weeks, we see Robert Carlyle (of The Full Monty fame) hiding with a group of strangers inside a house in the middle of a rural area...with all windows and doors boarded up with wooden planks so the folks will go undetected by zombies lurking outside. Also, Great Britain was quarantined by the U.S. military so that the virus that was unleashed there won’t spread to other countries (which it does...starting with France). In I Am Legend, Will Smith’s house (or should I say, mansion) has all of its windows and doors protected by giant metal shields at night, since the mutants (they’re never referred to as zombies in the film, but they pretty much have the same characteristics as the infected folks in 28 Weeks, and countless of first-person shooter games like Resident Evil) can only go out at night since they’re sensitive to the Sun’s UV rays during the day. They’re "vampire zombies", haha. Also, New York City was "ground zero" for the virus...and was suppose to be quarantined by the U.S. military. But much like in 28 Weeks, the effort in NYC failed. And well... I don’t want to spoil the rest of the movie for ya, but let’s just say that much of Earth’s 6 billion people were infected and killed. This is what I call a holiday film...



Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Studios

IRON MAN... I’m kinda surprised that it took me this long to write a Blog about next May’s film debut of this Marvel Comics superhero, what with the teaser trailer looking awesome and all (Robert Downey Jr. as scientist Tony Stark is hilarious...especially in this scene where a U.S. Army soldier is trying to take a photo with him inside a military Humvee: "I don’t want to see this up on your MySpace page. Please no gang signs. No throw it up, I’m kidding."), but oh well. The bottom-right image is a new photo of the armor-clad hero that was released by Paramount this week.



Iron Man will be released on May 2, 2008, and along with Downey Jr. stars a formidable cast consisting of Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Samuel L. Jackson.



Images courtesy of Marvel Characters, Inc. / Paramount

ARCEE... I’m pretty sure there are a lot of other fanboys (and fangirls?) out there picturing this scene in the movie, but what would be cooler and hotter than seeing Megan Fox ride a motorcycle through the thick of battle in Transformers 2? Not only a motorcyle...but one that transforms into an Autobot that’s just as agile in, um, robot mode as it is vehicle mode? Not only an Autobot...but a female Autobot? Yep, that would be awesome. I’m actually referring to Arcee, who was suppose to appear in this year’s Transformers but was dropped from the script due to a lack of screentime that would explain why there’s a chick who’s a member of the robotic race. Arcee was replaced by Ironhide for the film, and a motorcyle was still featured...in the scene where (in case you forgot already) Josh Duhamel’s Captain Lennox rides an Aprilia RSV1000R down the street while taking on Blackout.



Hopefully Arcee will be in the sequel, and knowing Michael Bay and his inclination to feature hot chicks and hot chick moments in his movies, the Megan-Fox-as-a-sexy-motorcyclist idea isn’t so farfetched. Just get the WGA strike over with so the screenwriters can finish the script ASAP (but still make sure it's a kick-ass screenplay) and Ms. Fox (I dread the day I have to call her Mrs. Green. Do research on Google if you don’t know what I’m talking about) begins motorcyle driving lessons. Have her practice enough that she doesn’t have to wear a helmet during filming...since covering up her sexy face and hair with plastic and fiberglass kinda defeats the purpose of having Megan ride a motorcyle in the first place (To hell with her going slow during filming and then altering the appearance of her driving speed in postproduction... I wanna see Megan GO FAST!! Haha). Hey, Carrie-Anne Moss did it The Matrix Reloaded. I think. Haven’t seen that bloated mess of a film in a long time.



FYI, I wasn’t the one who altered this Foxy pic below. Though I’m pretty sure Sam Witwicky would be even more aroused if Mikaela showed up on that purple cycle as Sam was getting chased through that parking lot by Barricade. Hell, maybe even Barricade would’ve been distracted by Arcee’s presence. Do Transformers mate? Just kidding.



All images courtesy of Dreamworks / Paramount