Besides Australian Jessica Gomes, the latest Transformers: Age of Extinction flick features some exotic and gorgeous bodywork
Like me, you
probably have fond childhood memories of a favourite cartoon. Mine was
Speed Racer, which I watched every Saturday morning sitting on the
hardwood floor in front of a black and white TV.
School mates could draw the Mach 5 perfectly; I couldn’t and still can’t. I learned then that words can also create images.
About the same time the old TV was traded in for a new Magnavox with
colour, I traded the Mach 5 in my mental garage for something more
realistic and with flames.
The Batmobile, like the Barris-mobile from the TV series, was so
cool. I set fire to my gokart trying to covert a tin can into a
scaled-down copy of the Batmobile’s afterburner.
I’m certainly not going solo when I say a great car is a quality of a
good cartoon and the rule applies equally well to TV and to movies.
Thunderbirds Are Go, Bullitt, LeMans, Grand Prix, Mad Max, Ronin, The
French Connection, Smash Palace, Little Fauss and Big Halsy
(motorbikes), Magnum PI, Gumball Rally, and the Bond and Bourne flicks.
What’s on your list?
Transformers the animation series and the movie series must be on
someone’s list. Transformers, the cartoon, celebrates its 30th
anniversary this year, giving the movie series a ready-made audience.
Both have been big money earners for toy-maker Hasbro and for Paramount
Pictures.
The five movies (including the original 1986 The Transformers: The
Movie) alone have grossed almost $US3.8 billion in global box office
sales to out-earn Batman, Fast and the Furious and Star Trek, and
Transformers is almost equal in earnings with the Spiderman franchise.
To director Michael Bay’s credit, he creatively adapted the animated
series to appeal on screen to an international audience, mainly
targeting teenage boys and those of us who sat on hardwood floors
watching Speed Racer. Bay hit his target audience and Transformers won
the 2007 MTV Award for best movie.
The formula is simple.
Transformers is about machines, and you expect to see cool cars. Bay
delivers in the latest Transformers: Age of Extinction with a mix of
exotics like the Pagani Huayra, Lamborghini Aventador and an aging
Bugatti Veyron bodied in carbon-fibre with a rich blue overcast. Even an
original British-built round-nose Mini appears in several scenes.
The Veyron transforms into the Autobot Drift; a Japanese samurai
voiced appropriately by Ken Watanabe, who played the lead in The Last
Samurai. You’ll also recognise John Goodman’s voice as the Autobot
Hound.
More subtle is the Indian Motorcycles sweat-browned cap Mark Wahlberg
dons. The movie, though, is a show piece for General Motors. In
addition to Bumblebee – morphing into a 1967 Camaro and into a 2014
Camaro – you’ll see black Cadillac SUVs, a Chevy Volt and even a mid-60s
Pontiac GTO and a late-50s Chevrolet 3100 pick-up in early scenes.
Bay honours the city of Pontiac for its support of the film with a
wall-sized original Pontiac Division American Indian neon sign in
Wahlberg’s barn where Optimus Prime, bodied as a 1973 Marmon cab-over
truck, is being rebuilt.
As the yellow 2014 Camaro, Bumblebee wears a new front fascia with a
less dramatic grille and smaller headlight fixtures. The tail-lights are
basically a less interesting pre-production mockup of the 2014
twin-panel design which replaces the quad-lens layout used from 2009
(MY2010) to 2013. The rear spoiler appears to be the Camaro accessory
spoiler from the Chevy Performance catalogue.
The bonnet and
front fenders look stock, so the grille change appears to be only a
revision to the front plastics. These can’t be hints to future Camaro
styling cues, no way. Hopefully, the coming 2016 Transformer movie will
give us a good look at what may be the seventh-generation Camaro. Nonetheless, it is obvious GM Design missed an opportunity to create
hype about Camaro during a year when Ford launched the new Mustang.
Of course, the new Corvette C7 appears as the Autobot Crosshairs. At
times product placement is too intense, and the movie seems like a GM
dealer promo. Ultimately, GM dropped the ball again with the new C7 and
its limited screen time. Here’s the perfect car to create a great chase.
It never happens; instead the main driving action features a Global
Rallycross-spec Barina/Sonic/Aveo in a strange four-seat configuration.
GM involvement is deep. So deep the film features a scene shot inside
GM’s design studio in the main product review hall, and Ed Welburn,
GM’s vice president of global design, has a brief speaking role. And
he’s convincing!
A few action scenes are also shot at GM’s Milford Proving Grounds on the high-speed testing circuit.
The real star of Transformers is Optimus Prime, whose distinct voice
is the creation of Canadian actor Peter Cullen. He has voiced Prime in
the animated series and the movie series, and Cullen will continue to
voice Prime in the next two movies.
Cullen is interesting in that he’s not a big man. His natural
speaking voice fits his light physical size, yet he somehow creates the
deep, authoritative voice of Prime. Don’t forget Optimus Prime is a
diesel prime-mover. How do you impersonate a diesel and make it
believable?
“I went back to my voice study days where I could develop more
resonance through volumes of air and opening of chest and head
cavities,” he said of creating Prime’s deep vocal range.
“I also did the voice of Eeyore in Winnie-the-Pooh,” he mentions as
we chat about his 30-year career as Optimus Prime. When you listen to
Eeyore, the voice isn’t too different from Optimus. Both are deep, as
Cullen explains. The difference in each character is how quickly Cullen
delivers the words and how he extends the vowels to give confidence to
Prime or reluctance to Eeyore.
Cullen’s years with CBC radio are heard in his perfect, direct and
clear enunciation. The calm authority you hear in Prime’s voice Cullen
credits his brother, a US Marine Corps officer, as the influence. You
believe through Cullen that Prime is a warrior.
With all the vocal qualities of a leading man, Cullen has a keen
Hollywood eye for on-road talent too. He’s owned four Corvettes,
starting with a 1956 three-speed manual. That was replaced by a ’65, and
he makes the point of saying “both were used”.
Manuel Carrillo from Corvette Forum spoke with Cullen about those
‘Vettes and shared his notes. You can visit CorvetteForum.com to watch
Carrillo’s interview.
“A ’78 Anniversary was new,” Cullen continues and thinks for a
moment. “I didn’t have one during the 80s.” He then had a 1990 black
Roadster.
“I thought of getting the new C7. My son drove it in Chicago; he’s a
stuntman working for Transformers. I saw the new Corvette. Man, I should
have bought one. They’ve come a long way,” he says.
Cullen, though, desires for his next Corvette something with more
chrome and class. He’d gladly lighten his pockets for a ’59 or ’60
Corvette – you know with the toothed grille. “The styling just brings
back so many great memories,” he says.
Coincidence? Watch closely at nine minutes and 44 seconds into
Transformers: Age of Extinction. You’ll see the left half of what looks
to be a ’60 or ’61 Corvette. Cullen may have missed it. Optimus doesn’t
appear on screen for a few more minutes.
