Confirmed exclusively for the UK at the moment, the packages include an Xbox Elite, an extra controller and the related movie on USB (not DVD). You may also score some extra Microsoft points.

The offer is strange, not just because of the Hollywood branding or the lack of optical media. The offer is strange because Microsoft isn’t promoting the free download of either movie through Xbox Live. USB sticks? Really? [MCV and VideoGamer via Kotaku]

Actually, according to this frame captured from the Blu-ray edition, it appears two hours 17 minutes and 52 seconds in the movie, during the merge of Jetfire’s parts to Optimus Prime. [Transformers Live]

Digital Domain was already working on some secondary characters for Transformers 2 while George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic building the main robots like Optimus Prime. Yes, Transformers 2 had such a big budget that DD was hired just to ride shotgun.

One key moment of DD’s handiwork depicts the transformation of a girl named Alice—played by actress Isabel Lucas—into a lethal robot. The main shot, seen above, uses digital techniques like advanced particle simulation (physics) to tear 10,000 pieces of skin away from a girl’s body—the kind of high-concept graphics that require lots of software know-how, and computers to do incredible amounts of heavy lifting. It was the sort of shot that showcased everything DD could do.

When Michael Bay saw it, he found it lacking.

After watching an early edit of the movie, Bay had decided that although the wide shot of Alice was nice, the film was missing a close-up—he wanted 40 frames of the girl’s face as she began transforming.

The close-up wouldn’t take as much as the full-body master shot. Instead of 10,000 pieces of skin, only about 50 had to move. But because of time, budget and manpower constraints, this animation had to be done the old-fashioned way—working by hand. It meant that five guys would spend the next three months of their lives on less than two seconds of the finished film.

Computer graphics supervisor Paul George Palop walked me through their process of crafting the “very, very painful” 40 frames.

The goal sounded simple: Transform this closeup of a human into a closeup of a robot. Alice’s face would begin to shatter away, revealing a gruesome creature underneath. But to model in 3D over digital film takes some prep work. To make the effect look real, the guys would need to map the 2D film original shot into digital 3D space. Then they could add all the neat robot stuff.

First, the DD team cut out all of the background and extraneous objects (including Shia LaBeouf’s head), isolating the female figure. It’s the first step of a classic technique known as rotoscoping, a trick that predates Disney, in which animators overlay cartoon characters and other animation on top of live action backgrounds. (Now that CG has blended humans and cartoons, it’s probably safe to say that there isn’t a movie made now that doesn’t involve some kind of rotoscoping.)

With the basic 2D work done, DD used a laser scan of Lucas’ figure to create a perfect 3D map. The rotoscope plate was then laid over this map, allowing the animators to work with real image depth and geometry. We don’t have that exact shot, so we stole a still from the later wide shot to make the point. On the right, you have the 3D body scan model. On the left, you can see the 3D applied to the 2D figure.

One artist worked solely on the little skin plates that cracked away around Alice’s mouth. Each of these 50 or so pieces was hand-animated, frame by frame, to create the short effect. But to enhance the illusion of movement, artists applied extra texture to the tiles along with some displacement mapping to each tile’s edge, which essentially complicates the square shape into an array of small triangles. (See how they look all jagged in the version on the right?) Once the 3D-animated shapes were laid out, they had to be naturally lit, lest the girl’s skin look unnatural before she transformed completely into a metal monster.

In the meantime, the exact movements of the human Alice head needed to be applied to the newly animated robot Alice head, so that any movement from the former could be copied instantly in the latter.

Finally, all of the pieces were composited, rendered and placed on a newly drawn background. You’ll notice that beyond the obvious visual effects, artists beefed up Alice’s figure a bit. They rebuilt the end of her left arm and, while they were at it, added a bit more lift in the back of her hair. Even with a blockbuster megamovie deadline, there’s always time for last-minute styling.

After all of this meticulous work—three months of effort from digital effects masters—audiences everywhere got a bonus 40 frames of remarkable robotic transformation. Ironically, one of the movie’s chief complaints would be its length.

There’s an R2-D2 flying around in there somewhere. There’s a little bit of space junk thrown in there; see if you can find it. It’s a scene in the desert.

What’s next? Bar2-D2 serving cocktails to Tony Stark in Iron Man 2? Hopefully, yes. [VH1 via Star Wars Blog]

Check out this newly-released clip of the incoming Transformers 2, in which kitchen appliances transform into small evil robots. It’s like Michael bay has rolled Transformers, Gremlins, and Beverly Hills Chihuahua all into one. This spells d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r.

AU: You can sort of see the Dyson Transfomer in this clip. Also, here’s my spoiler-filled review.

[Topless Robot]

The truth about Transformers 2 is that it’s a BIG movie, in every sense of the word. Michael Bay likes making shit explode, and he has a field day with this film. The robots are huge, the explosions are massive, the gratuitous shots of Megan Fox’s body are frequent and the laughs are solid. Even the running time is big, running at 147 minutes. By the time you walk out of the cinema, you feel like you’re coming down from an insane Red Bull binge.

The film starts off relatively modestly with a scene from about 20,000 BC where cavemen and primitive Transformers battle it out to the tune of an Optimus Prime voiceover about how our two races have a history. Then it cuts to present day China, where the Autobots and the US military are rounding up and hunting down Decepticons. Cue massive explosions, robot-on-robot battles and other special effects eye-candy. This is where the film excels: the special effects do look magnificent – you believe every moment of the robots transforming and battling it out on the streets of Shanghai.

So far so good. We move from Shanghai to Shia LaBeouf and his move to college, and the plot starts moving forwards. There are some nice comedic moments, some Megan Fox skin, some Isabel Lucas skin and then BAM! Isabel Lucas is a Transformer! A hot, college student Transformer! Because Transformers can now transform metal into skin…

To be honest, while actually watching the film, I took this turn of events in my stride. But afterwards it stood out like a geeky tech journalist at a film premiere – a machine made of metal can’t transform into a human – that’s just stupid. At best, they’d be able to transform into a Terminator-like skeleton thing, not some hot young chick who tries to get into Shia LaBeouf’s pants before killing him or something. Fortunately, that sequence is over fairly quickly and the film moves on, but not before it leaves a salty flavour in the back of your throat that tastes like logic being overthrown by the allure of hot chicks and fire.

The film moves on with some more explosions, battles, Transformers, Megan Fox and explosions. I’m not going to spell it all out for you here. Instead we’re going to skip forward to near the end of the movie where Bay decides to throw in a (figurative) nuked fridge. Let’s put it simply: Shia LaBeouf dies, and is then visited by a bunch of Transformer angels who tell him it’s not his time to die and bring him back to life.

What. The. Fuck.

It was literally like Michael Bay was sitting behind me in the theatre with a cold bucket of water, waiting to pour it over me at that precise moment to completely rip me from any suspension of disbelief. Transformer Angels? What the hell were they thinking? Just like in the last Indiana Jones film when Lucas nuked the fridge and Shia LaBeouf became Tarzan, you end up so shocked by the absurdity of this moment – even in a film about transforming robots – that it almost completely ruins the entire film.

And that’s just the problem. Transformers 2 was never going to have the strongest plot. It was never going to have the best acting performances. It was never going to have you leaving the cinema thinking “well that was an intelligent film”. What it was going to do was give you enough action and robot porn, plus a few laughs along the way, to make you forget about the world for a couple of hours. And when a single scene in a two hour movie is so bad that you actually turn to the person next to you and ask them “What the fuck”, it’s going to taint the entire movie experience.

And that’s what that one scene did for me. On the whole I managed to ignore the gaping plot holes and cliches and enjoy the robot CGI and explosive action ride. There are a couple of things – like the Matrix of leadership and the Devastator – which reminded me of the original Transformers cartoon movie and my youth playing with the toys that I thoroughly enjoyed. But even after a couple of days trying to come to terms with it, I still find myself thinking about the absurdity of Transformer angels bringing Shia back to life. I can’t help but think it would have been much better for him to just stay dead…

[Transformers on Giz]

There aren’t any official pics yet – the pic above is by Filip Osowski and was designed as part of a competition for “rejected transformers”. But the move makes sense – no other vacuum cleaner is quite as striking as Dyson’s range, and if you could imagine any vacuum transforming into a man-killing robot, the DC25 would be it…

I really thought this “Transformers 2: CGI Megan Fox Even Hotter This Time” behind-the-scenes footage was a joke by those guys at LandlineTV. Apparently, I was very wrong:

Apparently she really needed some CGI retouching. (Please, somebody please tell me this is not real.)