Transformers has been a household name for 30 years. While there have been many iterations – the original ‘G1’ series of the ‘80s, the reedited ‘G2’ in the early ‘90s, the CGI wizardry of Beast Wars and Beast Machines, and the Japanese/American co-productionTransformers: Armada – the rise of Michael Bay’s tetralogy has – if you will forgive the pun – transformed and expanded the storied franchise to the point where Hasbro held its own convention-within-a-convention this morning to celebrate the many, many, many ancillary versions of the brand.

The breakfast expo included a Transformers museum, footage from multiple concurrent TV series, a build-your-own-Transformer buffet, a beta test of a free MMOG, a variety of nostalgic and ironic repaints, a preview of upcoming toy lines, a selection of non-toy ancillaries, and even a few of the brand’s shepherding executives. Hit the jump for details, pictures, and video.

Celebrating “Crime, Death, and Resurrection,” the Behind the Music panel at Comic Con paid tribute to the work of composers in enhancing genre TV and film. The panel opened with a highly-applauded reel of the composers’ work: Jeff Russo for Fargo, James Levine for American Horror Story, Daniel Licht for Dexter, Steve Jablonsky for Transformers: Age of Extinction, Brian Reitzell for Hannibal, and Christopher Young for Deliver Us From Evil. Actor Shane West (Salem, Nikita) moderated.

During the Q&A the composers discussed the challenges of writing music for the horror genre, the synthesis of developing continuing working relationships with the same directors or creators, and teased upcoming projects.  Additionally, Young talked about pitching himself to compose the score for Marvel’s Doctor Strange. 

The day after the world premiere of Transformers: Age of Extinction in Hong Kong, I landed an awesome extended video interview with producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura.  Since the franchise launched in 2007, he’s produced all the films along with projects like G.I. Joe, Red, Side Effects,Stardust, and many more.  While we already posted what he had to say about Joe Carnahan’s Five Against a Bullet, G.I. Joe 3, David S. Goyer’s The Breach, the possibility of a Transformers/G.I. Joe crossover movie, and the Dead Rising digital series, it’s finally time for what he had to say about making Age of Extinction.

During the interview he talked about how the story came together for the film, how and why they finally brought in the dinobots, the way they work with Hasbro, how breaking the story led to introducing a new kind of character to the Transformers movie mythology, where the film could go in future sequels, how adding a legitimate action star in Mark Wahlberg changed the dynamic of the human component of the story, and more.  Hit the jump to watch and make sure to see Transformers: Age of Extinction in IMAX 3D if you have the option.  The film will take up the full IMAX frame about 60% of the time and the 3D is great.

Stanley Tucci is one of those actors that shines in every genre and role.  I won’t list his great resume, but check it out on IMDb and you’ll see someone that has consistently done excellent work for almost three decades and acted in over 100 projects.   He’s also a writer-director helming projects of his own like Big Night, The Impostors and Blind Date.  In his latest role for Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction, Tucci plays the head of a tech company that develops weapons.

At the Hong Kong press day for the film, I talked to Tucci about working with Bay, the new technology that was used on the film (like the new IMAX 4K 3D digital camera), playing a role that’s serious while also providing levity, filming the action, and getting to work with Alan Rickman on his movie A Little Chaos.  Hit the jump to watch. 

Kelsey Grammer is having a great summer.  Not only did the talented actor return to the X-Men franchise for an awesome cameo in X-Men: Days of Future Past, he’s got a role in The Expendables 3, and he got to play one of the villains in Michael Bay’s  Transformers: Age of Extinction.  And this doesn’t count all of his other roles in upcoming films.

As a fan of Grammer’s work for what feels like my entire life, it was a really cool to get to talk to him last week in Hong Kong the day after the world premiere.  He  talked about what it was like to work with Michael Bay, working with new technology like the new IMAX 4K 3D digital camera, how he got involved in X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Expendables 3, and more.  Hit the jump to watch and click here for all our Transformers: Age of Extinction coverage.

This week on The Collision, we’re joined by freelance film critic Curt Holman to talk about Transformers: Age of Extinction.  We talk about the film’s huge box office, critical reaction versus general reaction, why the franchise continues, how it fits into the blockbuster landscape, the directing style and filmography of Michael Bay, and much more.  As always, we finish up with our recommendations.

Click here to listen to the new episode of The Collision, click here for the previous episode (“Game of Thrones: Looking Back at Season 4″), click here to add the podcast to your RSS, and click here to find us on iTunes. To keep up to date with The Collision, you can follow us on Twitter at @MattGoldberg and @AdamChitwood.

If you’ve been around the site for a while then you may remember my love for Boy Meets World which I professed in this DVD review nearly four years ago. That devotion in mind, I’m choosing to write about last night’s premiere of Girl Meets World in this week’s opening paragraph in spite of the fact that I’m a 27-year-old man. While the pilot may have been a little too on the nose about GMW being young Riley Matthews’ chance to discover the world like her parents did before her, I still enjoyed the heck out of it. Played well by Rowan Blanchard, the character of Riley looks to be a great blend of Cory and Topanga as she is hopelessly awkward around the new boy at school and stresses out about the possibility of missing a homework assignment in a way that young Cory Matthews would have never dreamed. Another highpoint of the episode is Corey Fogelmanis‘ turn as Farkle Minkus and a fresh take on BMW‘s Stuart Minkus character (I’m going to assume that Farkle is Stuart’s son though I don’t believe that was revealed in the pilot). Regardless of how GMW pans out, I’ll always have its predecessor to hold near and dear. Along those lines, I’d love to see GMW be successful not for me but so adolescents today can have something other than Dog with a Blog to call their own.

All Disney Channel sitcom reactions aside, this week’s Top 5 features our Transformers: Age of Extinction interviews and review, the first trailer for Brad Pitt‘s WWII pic Fury, Shane Black being tapped to helm a Predator sequel, our Snowpiercer interviews and review, and the first trailer for Life After Beth starring Aubrey Plaza and Dane DeHaan. As is typically the case, a brief recap and link to each of the above can be found after the jump.

Believe it or not, the technology does not yet exist to make 30-foot tall transforming battle robots, not in a practical manner anyway.  So the big bots of Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction are left up to ILM’s visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar and his team of up to 350 artists.  I got a chance to talk to Farrar, along with a small group of journalists, while on set in Detroit, which was masquerading as Hong Kong before Bay blew the whole thing up.

In addition to the movie’s robot redesigns, Farrar talked about the difficulties of shooting in multiple formats, advantages of shooting practical effects on set and digitally augmenting them later, and the process of digitally recreating buildings and entire cities.  Hit the jump for more from Farrar on the behind-the-scenes process of visual effects.

Going into Transformers: Age of Extinction, I wondered who was excited for this movie?  What in the marketing convinced them that, to quote the tagline, “The Rules Have Changed”?  If anything, these movies hew closely to the rules of the franchise: Create as much mayhem as possible, make the plot insultingly stupid, the characters should be dull as dishwater, and bonus points for squeezing in any racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.  Yes, these movies are “criticproof”.  They’re not for people who watch movies for a living; they’re for people who want to “turn off their brains”.  But the latest Transformers is the most mind-numbing yet.  It’s an exhausting experience that tries to do everything, and yet accomplishes absolutely nothing.  It doesn’t excite.  It doesn’t engage.  It just wastes time and space.

I love talking to Michael Bay because he always says what he thinks and doesn’t hide behind media-trained answers.   While many vilify him no matter what he does, Bay has an original style and eye for framing that I think is unique and cool.  In addition, no matter what he’s done previously, he always manages to push the boundaries of technology and special effects to another level, like his latest movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction.  Loaded with almost non-stop action, a great new villain (Lockdown), Dinobots, and an ass-kicking Mark Wahlberg, Transformers 4 really is the beginning of a new chapter in the Transformers universe.  Also, Bay has peppered in a lot of interesting questions about the history of the Transformers and I’d imagine the next sequel (or sequels) will unravel the mysteries.  While Bay could have just done another Autobot vs Decepticon story and most fans would have been satisfied, I’m glad he pushed the franchise forward with new characters and questions.  I look forward to where it goes from here.

The other day, I landed a great video interview with Michael Bay the day after the world premiere in Hong Kong.  He talked about expanding the universe, the challenge of making a Transformers movie, what new film technology has excited him, using the Phantom camera on a cool action scene, why he doesn’t use a 2nd unit director, whether he’ll return for Transformers 5 and where the story might go, how he’s always wanted to make a movie about poaching, and a lot more.  Hit the jump to watch.

Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction stomps into theaters this Friday, but if you need a little additional content to help you decide to see it, well then you’ve come to the right place, my friend!  A new clip was released today that centers on the relationship between a father (Mark Wahlberg) and the boy (Jack Reynor) who’s attempting to date his daughter (Nicola Peltz).  We’ve seen cars that turn into giant robots (and vice versa) and rampaging destruction that wipes out entire cities, so it’s nice to get this humorous moment between two human characters.

Also starring Kelsey Grammer, Stanley Tucci, Sophia Myles, Li Bingbing, T.J. Miller, Han Geng, and Titus Welliver, Transformers: Age of Extinction opens in 2D, 3D, and IMAX 3D on June 27th.  Hit the jump to watch the new clip.

Loaded with almost non-stop action, a great new villain (Lockdown), Dinobots, and an ass-kicking Mark Wahlberg, Transformers: Age of Extinction really is the beginning of a new chapter in the Transformers movie universe.  Also, throughout the fourth installment, director Michael Bay has peppered in a lot of interesting questions about the history of the Transformers and I’d imagine the next sequel (or sequels) will start to unravel the mysteries.  While Bay could have just done another Autobot vs Decepticon story and most fans would have been satisfied, I’m glad he pushed the franchise forward with new characters and questions, and am looking forward to where it goes from here.

A few days ago in Hong Kong I landed an exclusive video interview with Nicola Peltz and Jack Reynor.  They talked about what it was like to work with Michael Bay, filming the action, deleted scenes, working with new technology like the new IMAX 4K 3D digital camera, future projects, and a lot more.  Hit the jump to watch.

Ever since it became clear that we would have both Transformers and G.I. Joe franchises at the multiplex, fans have been curious to see if a crossover movie would ever materialize.  After all, mixing and matching Transformers and G.I. Joe toys was a staple of many childhoods, and Hasbro is behind both feature film adaptations.  The former film series remains one of the more successful franchises in rotation, with Michael Bay’s fourth film, Transformers: Age of Extinction, poised to make a hefty amount at the box office as well.  As for G.I. Joe, a third film is now in the works with Dwayne Johnson at the center as Roadblock.

Steve recently sat down with producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura in anticipation of the release of Transformers: Age of Extinction, and he asked di Bonaventura (who produces both Transformers and G.I. Joe) if a crossover might ever happen.  The producer explained that there’s no need for a mash-up movie when both franchises are going strong on their own, but didn’t rule out the possibility in the far future.  More after the jump.

In a movie like Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction, the poor human characters are expected to keep up with the 30-foot-tall, super-powered robots in relentless action scenes.  Tasked with getting the actors in shape and shepherding them through these challenging sequences is stunt coordinator Mike Gunther, who took time out of his busy schedule to talk to our visiting group of journalists.

While the crew was setting up a massive stunt sequence most of the day, Gunther talked to us about the variety of stunts on display in this film, working with Mark Wahlberg and Bay, training the actors for the stunts, performing practical stunts around the spaces where the robots will eventually be added in, and the process of shooting these action sequences.  Hit the jump for the full interview.