Just because I love him. Here's a pic of Transmetal Cheetor!

Many people believed the corny title implies that Megatron, the leader of the Decipticons will be back for round two against Optimus Prime and the Autobots. Everyone went, "huh? What are they doing in this movie?. Oh man, Michael Bay is going to Transform this masterpiece into a piece of shit!" Well this is not exactly what people said, but maybe it is what they thought, haha. Another theory going around message boards and the internet that the fallen Autobots from the first movie will come back and take revenge against Optimus some how. It is a little bit better than the Megatron theory, but still crap. It was a good thing that there are dedicated Transformers fans and one pointed out that the 'Fallen' is an actual transformer from the deep pasts of Cybertron, the home planet of the Transformers. This part of the Transformer lore (if you may want to call it that) follows in the footstep of betrayal and deceit. Basically downfall and corruption of one; where one of the good guys turns into a bad guy. Anyway, back to the movie. The 'Fallen' transformer was one of the original thirteen Transformers created to battle Unicron, but one of them betrayed his creator and the other twelve. No one knows the original name but now that Transformer is known as the Fallen. It is a very awesome theory and it is much, much better than Megatron or a dead Autobot being resurrected and taking revenge. Now there are reports of behind the scenes of what is happening in the movie and extras are taping the behind the scenes footage of the movie, which is pretty spectacular stuff...actually no not really.

The first video that surfaced on the internet (that I know of) was posted on June 14 which showed Bumblebee in action...well more like the stunt driver driving the Camero. Now everyone knows that Bumblebee will return in the sequel, well no duh! It is the main character's car. Hasbro, the company that makes the toy series got in the action as well as they updated their Transformers website with the title of the film and releasing an update of what the movie will be about. Pretty much states the whole original thirteen and one betrays them all. The people also get to see a new Transformer, Arcee a female Transformer who is basically a spy/scout/assassin for the autobots. Its pretty cool that she transforms into a motorcycle (2006 Buell Firebolt?). The best part of the new footage being released from the people on set is that Frenzy, the little maniacal electronics transforming Decepticon is back, ready to wreak havoc on those who oppose him harhar. Here is a video demonstrating how the puppet masters control this puppet to make it look so real and scary at the same time.

Looking at this footage and the updates of the plot, anyone can say this movie will be great and better than the first. Also, there will be those that say the movie will be worse than, 'The Happening' but who knows for sure. Michael Bay is directing the movie so everyone should expect an action packed movie filled with explosions and destruction in every other scene occurring every five minutes!

For more up to date information, you can go to the unofficial Transformers 2 Blog and see the cool new stuff, and sexy Megan Fox haha.

Edit: I just saw a picture of Megan Fox on the set...yeah I'm going to have to rethink my last sentence...

Arcee - a female motorcycle from the original movie.
The Twins - An Ice Cream Truck
Stinger - A Porsche
R8 - Unknown, but possibly an Audi R8--the kind seen in Iron Man.
Wheels - Probably a version of the annoying "Wheelie" from the original series.
Jetfire - a Blackbird jet
Devastator? - An unconfirmed Constructicon Earth Mover.

The Confirmed Human Cast:

Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson. New to the 2nd movie are Matthew Marsden, Andrew Howard, Ramon Rodriguez and Nina Dobrev.

Jim Littler
6/10/2008
Source: Comic Book Movie

Vous vous demandez surement de quelle véhicule vient Arcee ? Et bien regardez:

Au niveau du conducteur, il se dit que sa soit cette femme qui conduise Arcee en mode moto.

 Det er ikke så mange som husker Elita One, eller Ariel som hun også heter. Den eneste rosa roboten i Transformersuniverset noen erindrer. Det du kanskje aldri fikk med deg er at dama til Optimus Prime faktisk endte med å lede sin egen herlige gruppe med kvinnelige autobots. Om dette var noe annet enn et håpløst frieri til småjenter er dog dessverre lite trolig. Det er kanskje unødvendig å påpeke at alle venninnene til Elita var i forhold med mannlige autobots, som kom for å redde dem da de var i trøbbel. Transformers wiki har lite å melde om damene.

Chromia

"Chromia is a rough-and-tumble blue collar trucker gal, which means, of course, that she's Ironhide's girlfriend. She's not afraid of getting dirty, which is good, because she probably always is."
Annen trivia om Chromia er at hun transformerer til en minivan. Perfekt for å kjøre ungene på fotballtrening, mao.

Moonracer

"She worries that others, either friends or enemies, don't take her seriously and dismiss her as simply being cute. But she'll show them. She'll show them she too can be hardcore."
Tøffa. Ikke pell meg på nesen, du liksom. Dama til Powerglide.

Firestar

"Practical and unprepossessing, she is nonetheless particularly useful during thefts of Decepticon Energon cubes, as her vehicle mode is capable of transporting large numbers of them. "
Ok, så hun er getaway-bilen? Dama til Inferno.

La oss heller ikke glemme de to gjenværende medlemmene av Elitas gjeng, de to ikke-navngitte autobotene. Nettopp. De har ikke navn. La oss kalle dem grønn og oransje.

Ved siden av disse fem feiende flotte fembotene, kan man også finne en syvende fembot, Arcee. Hun er også rosa! Ved siden av å være femboten som har datet flest mannlige autobots i universet, er hun kanskje mest kjent for sitatet "War seems to be too tough particularly for females." Dette vil muligens Women in Black istemme, selvom de trolig har et noe ulikt utgangspunkt enn en stakkars autobot.

Jeg har sett det påpekt tidligere andre steder at kjønnsspesifiseringen av Transformers er totalt urimelig. Om roboter har kjønn, betyr det at de kan formere seg? Er ikke kvinnelige roboter, i ikke-gynoid form helt uinteressant? Ingen av dem hadde pupper i utgangspunktet. Det er kanskje en seier for kroppstyranniserte jenter?

Men hva om autobotene opplever ekte kjærlighet, slik androide og gynoide roboter av og til gjør i fremtiden? Som når Athena (evt. Sharon Valerii, om du vil) blir gravid med Helos barn i Battlestar Galactica. (Cylonene kan ikke reprodusere seg i mellom foreløpig dog) Hvordan føder en autobot? Det melder seg mange spørsmål, ikke bare om samspillet mellom biologi og teknologi, men også om hvorvidt slike hensyn er verdt å diskutere i det hele tatt. Blablabla reproduksjon. Er eksistensen av kvinnelige autoboter faktisk et innlegg i diskusjonen om biologiske kjønnsroller? Betyr det at reproduksjon ikke vil være knyttet opp til kjønn i fremtiden? Eller var det slik et sted i fortiden, Transformers er jo historie, må vite. Om de ikke hadde vært så jævla reaksjonære (der var det ordet igjen), hadde det kanskje vært mulig å fronte den overbevisningen.

ps. Takk til kvinnekongen for å gjenoppta diskusjon omkring gynoide roboter. Mer om det etterhvert.

Andre lite nevneverdige kvinnelige autobots i TV-Transformers:

Nancy

Pasifist-bot fra Paradron, aka sykepleierbot

Hulk return. Hulk am strongest. Hulk smash. I'm used to reading these lines, but they didn't come. I'm utterly confused by most of what's going on, but that's where I'm supposed to be. I trust Jeph Loeb implicitly. I'm looking forward to what happens next.

Well, they haven't brought back He-Man, so I'm reading the next best thing: Conan. Well, maybe Conan is better than He-Man. This comic has pictures, but the captions make me feel like I'm reading a book, and not in the bad way. I can almost hear the old historian telling of the Cimmerian and how he came to be king. The thing that intrigues me most about these Conan stories is that many of them are based on stories or fragments by Robert E. Howard.

I'm going to miss Cable and Deadpool. Even though Cable hasn't been in the series for a few months, it's remained incredibly entertaining. Cable is getting his own series soon, but I can only pray that Marvel gives the Merc with a Mouth another space to kill, maim, and make absurd references. I also want to see Bob, agent of H.Y.D.R.A. come back. "But, Rud! What about the plot of this final issue?" How else can you end a Deadpool comic series than Dinosaur-Venom symbionts. The only reason I used the word "symbionts" there is because ol'e Wade hammered the point home. While stabbing dinosaurs in the head.

This month, IDW answered the age-old question, "Why the fuck is Arcee a female Transformer?" in their Arcee Spotlight. Man, oh, man. They completely stripped the character down to her concept art and built her back from scratch. First off, she isn't the simpering waif that she was in the cartoon. This howling mænad tears through Autobot and Decepticon alike if they stand between her and a goal.

Here's a little history behind the character:

Arcee was first introduced in the 1986 classic Transformers: The Movie.

Reasons given: None. There was some vague precedent about female Autobots, but they weren't explained either.

Primary Funciton: Becoming a surrogate mother for Daniel Witwicky.  Other functions include odd sexual tension with Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime.

Next Introduction: Marvel Comics.

Reason: The humans were complaining that the Autobots were sexist. Most hilarious argument ever.

Humans: You're sexist! You only make man-bots!

Optimus Prime: We're robots. We don't reproduce sexually. We have no gender.

Humans: SEXIST!

Prime: Fine. How about this. Her name's Arcee.

Humans: She's PINK! SEXIST!

Prime: (mutters something under his breath)

Primary Funciton: Vague romantic interest for Hot Rod/Rodimus.  Other functions include Damsel in Distress, and Damsel who kicks the crap out of Decepticons.  Again, why romance when your species doesn't have sex?

But now, lo and behold! We have a halfway decent Sci-Fi reason for gender among Cybertronians and a fully intriguing result of said gender. As Arcee herself recounts, "Jhiaxus [a Cybertronian genius/mad scientist who liked to screw around with whatever passes for evolution when you're a transformer] arbitrarily decided to introduce gender into our species... Because he was curious. Because he could... left me to this maddening maelstrom of contradictory sensory input." So, introducing gender to a genderless species induces madness. Who'd'a' thunk it?

Do you know the two characters that decorate the banner of this site? Casual Transformers fans would know that they are Arcee, the most famous female Transformer, and Ratchet, the beloved Transformer medic. However, hardcore Transformer fans would recognize where the pictures came from. They're both pictures from Dreamwave Productions, a Canadian company that once published Transformers comic books.

Dreamwave eventually folded when it went bankrupt in 2005. Its legacy, however, lives on. Matt Moylan, a former Dreamwave editor, is the writer and artist of today's Webcomic Overlook subject: Lil Formers.

Lil Formers may have its origins in a concept Matt developed: a humorous Transformers comic for Dreamwave Productions. While that original idea never saw print, Lil Formers has found some success in media outside of its website. The website TFW2005.com hosts the comic and includes several exclusive strips. The webcomics is also published in the Transformers Official Club Magazine.

The main attraction of the webcomic are the superdeformed versions of the Transformers. (If you are unfamiliar with the term, "superdeformed" is the anime vernacular for "Muppet Babies.") Pretty much ever character is fair game. Megatron and Optimus Prime, you'd expect. Beloved but obscure secondary G1 characters? Sure, why not? Beast Machine Transformers? To be expected. Obscure Hasbro products? OK, that was a bit of a surprise.

According to the Lil Formers website, Matt first came up with the idea from a similar webcomic called "Superdeformers." Alas, the comic itself seems to have disappeared completely from the internet, so I have no idea how similar it really was. Going by the name, though, you can guess that they were stylistically similar.

The layout and theme of the comic remains unchanged from the beginning: the first strip is not all the different from the last strip. There's the narrator's set-up, the joke, the superdeformed Transformer, and the sparse, non-intrusive background. Repeat for the next strip. In a way, it's no different from those New Yorker strips. However, Lil Formers bears more similarity to the caricatures drawn by street cartoonists. You know, the ones that draw you with a big head and a dramatic pose and placed in a "funny" situation that seems more like an afterthought.

And I suppose that among the Transformers fans, there are people that find this webcomic cute. I mean, I try to avoid things like BotCon, so I have no idea. Me, personally, I had a hard time find it funny, and many times it seems more than a little nitpicky.

Take this strip where pokes fun at the confusion between similar-looking Transformers Rumble and Frenzy. I have a hard time believing that this situation happens all that often. I mean, I know they look similar, but if you were a collector, wouldn't you be the kind of guy obsessed enough to memorize this astounding piece of trivia in the first place? And if this is one of those digs aimed at a pointless and repetitive question being asked on a message board (which I suspect it was), isn't this basically the cheapest way to cater to an audience? And if you were going to take a dig at repaints, why not take a shot a the Seekers, who in my opinion are way more confusing?

There's another issue at play here: placing the author's voice and opinions into the mouths of Transformers that I love. This isn't characterization: this is airing a complaint, but shoe-horning the dialogue into the mouth of a familiar cartoon character. I doubt this was Matt's intent, but in a way it seems like a phony and cheap ploy to make your claims more valid.

As a point of comparison, look at this strip from Shortpacked! It does the same thing that Lil Formers is doing: David Willis is complaining about something he didn't like about the Transformers movie. And unless Optimus actually said "Meh" in the movie, then he changed the dialogue too. What's the difference? Shortpacked! Optimus generally acts like the character, while in Lil Formers, Optimus Prime acts like ... well, acts like Matt Moylan watching the Transformers movie.

I guess that boils down to the core why I really can't recommend Lil Formers unless you're a bigger Transformers geek then me. There are too many in-jokes, too many references to obscure Transformers trivia, and a tendency to overreact like the Simpson's Comic Book Guy when editorializing. To top it off, the jokes and references that I do get are just not that funny.

RATING: 2 stars (out of 5)

So I leave you with this parting notice: sometimes I like to check what search terms lead people to this site. Most of the time, it's something normal and mundane, like "transformers 1986 bumblebee" or "who wants to be a superhero season 1." But sometimes I come across a rather intriguing term.

Like "Sexy Arcee."

I plugged that term in "Google," and sure enough, this site pops up. However, there is another site that has a hilarious piece of fan fiction. It involves Arcee getting DNA from Hulk Hogan ... the traditional way. It's all obviously tongue in cheek.

I'm not linking it here (because it's probably a violation of the Wordpress.com "no pornography" policy), but know that somewhere on the internet, you're going to find EROTIC ARCEE/HULK HOGAN FANFICTION.

(Heh. That'll get those search engines hummin'.)

Transformers Energon Arcee is a short gal, about half the height of the movie version. Oddly enough, this might be the right size. When she's transformed into a motorcycle, she's actually about the right scale when compared to movie Transformers like Barricade, Ratchet, and Ironhide. One assumes that this would have been the height portrayed in the movie.

The transformation is simple, but clever. The challenge with female transformers is for the vehicle to retain the curviness inherent in the female form. (This, by the way, is not necessarily sexist. The truck chest of Optimus Prime, for example, does recall the pecs and abs of a male.) Arcee succeeds; her thighs, for example, transform into the motorcycle gas tank. And for some reason, I dig her little high heels.

If I had only one complaint, it's her arms. They are rather stubby. Her hands don't actually grasp anything, and her Energon crossbow is mounted to a peg on her forearm. This is problematic for posing. When Arcee holds her gun, her arm must be outstretched and her body must be perpendicular to the direction the crossbow is pointing.

Otherwise, Arcee is a great toy. It unique, because she's one of the few female Transformers in existence. The transformation is easy to do and quite intuitive. Arcee is fun in both modes, though I do prefer the nice motorcycle mode.

And if you think it's weird for me to be posting pictures of a toy on the web, here's an even odder site. Remy's Transformers has a whole gallery devoted to Energon Arcee, including this glamour pose.

If you feel so inclined, he also has a whole gallery devoted to movie Arcee, including this rather disturbing pose.

Just picked up a Transformers Universe Arcee. Though her arms are stubby, she's still fun to transform. Here she is with Beast Machines Blackarachnia. Both gals will be in the new 2008 Transformers Animated series. It's about time the two most popular female Transformers had their day in the sun. I'll do a proper review of these two toys individually, but first, here's a few photos to give you an idea of what the toys are like:

UPDATES:
Blackarachnia toy review
Arcee toy review

Arcee is not the first female Transformer. She had at least four predecessors, but honestly the most I remember of them (Elita One, Firestar, Chromia, and Moonracer) is that they were snogging with their Autobot counterparts on Cybertron. It was a treacly, stomach churning moment. Arcee is the most famous because she was the first one to have an actual personality: a tough, level-headed gal who can hang with the boys.

She was also originally slated to be in the Transformers movie, but was dropped and replaced with Ironhide. So why did the Pink Phenom get the boot?

There are two main reasons. The first is from screenwriter Robert Orci. Here's an excerpt from an interview conducted on IGN.com:

IGN: Were Soundwave and Arcee the two characters you most would have liked to see in the film? Or who would you have liked to include that you couldn't?

Orci: Those two were kind of the main ones, but a few different Transformers came in at various points to serve the story, but the story dictated certain other things. But those are the two main Transformers. I would have liked to see Arcee, but the idea of a female Transformer needs its own explanation, and there just wasn't going to be enough time. It would have been like, "Oh, that's convenient. They're trying to appease women with a pink Transformer." So rather than having that happen, let it just be a straight shot and speak for itself right now.

The second reason, cited on the Teletraan-1 Transformers wiki, was that poor fan reaction, mainly that Arcee wasn't G1. (OK, technically she was G1; I think the fans meant that she didn't exist previous to the landmark original animated Transformers movie.)

In the end, I think this was for the best, since the design for Arcee looked downright cadaverous:

Had they run with this character model, Robert Orci had nothing to worry about. This Arcee is simply an asexual robot with a high-pitched voice. (I'm sorry, but I like my female robots to look like they were designed by Hajime Sorayama. Like original Arcee.)

Also complicating matters was that she was supposed to transform into a Buell Firebolt motorcycle. Motorcycles do not make good transformers. It's why the Gobots lost the Great Robot Wars of the 80's: the main bad guy was a weak motorcycle-based robot named "Cy-Kill." Where there supposed to be scenes where Arcee was driving herself? I'm imagining this scenario in my mind right now, and it's somewhere between embarassing and totally lame.

But although Arcee was a no-go for the first movie, there's no reason she should be passed up for the second. Here are the reasons why:

I think, though, that the writers should rethink Arcee's transformation. There's the riderless motorcycle dilemma, as mentioned above. But there is also the size disadvantage. Her smaller size was supposed to be a plot point, but the whole idea of Arcee striving despite her size sounds hokey, nto to mention somewhat degrading since she's the only female character.

So, if Arcee's not going to be a cycle, what should she be? Probably a combination of the following:

So given the above three criteria, what fits?

Chevy Corvette

Pros: Lots of curves, high-performance; will look good doing stunts
Cons: Probably does not have the bulkiness that Michael Bay desires

Vauxhall VX220

Pros: Yes, this car is actually a GM car; being British, will be good excuse for Arcee to sport a nifty accent
Cons: Joe Sixpack can't typically buy a Vauxhall, so why should GM bother marketing it?; a little anti-Brit grievance called the War of 1812

Chevy HHR

Pros: Probably has the bulkiness that Michael Bay so desires
Cons: Looks like it's built for hauling Wonder Bread; wait a minute, isn't this a thinly disguised PT Cruiser?