It would be rude of me not to touch on the history of the whole brand! Well in 1984 Japanese company Takara produced the toyline which was later purchased by Hasbro. The original name given by Takara was Diaclones and Micromen, this was later changed by Hasbro to what we know it today. The idea behind the toy was to shift the seperate parts of the robot and create a vehicle or device and change back again which is where 'more than meets the eye' and 'robots in disguise' came from. The toyline split the toys into 2 factions, autobots and decepticons, the general goody and badies arrangement. Optimus Prime being the leaser of the autobots and Megatron being the leader of the decepticons. An animated film was then produced a year or two later and the 'stars' of the film were then more readily available to purchase, the cartoon then continued on. The original set of transformers designed were known as generation 1 or gen 1 which holds the most die hard fans, these characters appear in this film and apart from the slight adjustment to bring them up to date, they are easily recognisible.

The transformers planet, Cybertron, had been destroyed by Decepticon leader Megatron after him trying to obtain the allspark, a powerful cube of energy that could give almighty power to its owner. After searching through the galaxy, megatron located it on earth. As he tried to retrieve it, he was trapped in ice in the arctic and discovered by Archibald Witwicky who unknowingly activated Megatrons navagational system and the location of the allspark is burned into Witwickys glasses. This led the decepticons and autobots to earth but by that time all spark as well as megatron had been moved to the hoover dam to be worked on by scientists to discover advanced technology.

Sam Witwicky, a descendant of Archibald, is an everyday teenager trying to make money to get his first car. One of his auction items on ebay are the glasses and after Frenzy infiltrates air force one, he advises the other decepticons to his location. Autobot bumblebee is already on earth and locates Sam before the decepticons do and becomes his guardian angel, disguised as a Chevy Camaro. In the original cartoon he is a VW Beetle. As the decepticons search for Sam, Bumblebee summonds the rest of the autobots, Jazz, Ironhide, Optimus Prime and Ratchet who arrive on earth and disguise themselves as vehicles.

Sam Witwicky (Shia Labeouf - Disturbia, Bobby) An everyday teenager looking to raise enough cash for his first car. Has a crush on Mikaela who seems to be way out of his league. A half geek half comedian type character.

William Lennox (Josh Duhammel - Win a date with Tad Hamilton) Army Captain who is part of a special ops command team in Qatar who stumble into Scorponox and Blackout

Reggie Simmons (John Turturro - The Good Shepherd, Mr Deeds) A slapstick character who is head of sector 7, a government agency looking after the allspark and megatron

---Voices---

Megatron - Hugo Weaving. Known mainly for playing Agent Smith form the Matrix. Original voice Frank Welker did audition for the role but wasnt strong enough

Director Michael Bay audo commentary, featurettes OUR WORLD which included early art concept and love for the brand, how the actors were selected, battleground and how to fight giant robots and THEIR WAR which featured Rise of the robots, the distinction between the original hasbro production and the film's portrayal, working with chevy in designing bumblebee, military advisors on the decepticons air weaponry, all spark info. All this plus more than meets the eye feature, and the desert attack with scorponox from paper to sand, trailers and some easter eggs. Obviously not leaving out the ABSOLUTELY AMAZING picture quality that blu ray gives. The fight scenes are amazing and the colour of each transformer is just top drawer.

Best Film 2008 MTV Movie Awards
Jury Merit Awards for Special Effects
4 awards from the visual effects society including best single visual effects sequence
2 awards for the score

Live the dream