When the HD format war was still going on, Michael Bay, the director of this film, made it quite clear he preferred Blu-Ray to the now dead HD-DVD. Unfortunately Paramount had gone with HD-DVD and Michael Bay was frustrated that his work could not be seen in the format he felt was superior. The Blu-Ray edition of "Transformers" was watched particularly close when it was released to see if it lived up to the excellent HD-DVD version. Paramount came through with a very sharp and detailed picture and excellent soundtrack in Dolby HD.
The film itself stars Shia LaBeouf as a shy, introverted kid who gets a car from his dad that turns out to be a Transformer from another planet, sent to help save mankind from the evil robots, known as Deceptecons. He is joined, much to his amazement, by probably the hottest actress on the planet right now, Megan Fox, who shows in a number of scenes why she has that title. The cast is helped by LeBeouf's parents who steal several scenes, dad, played by Kevin Dunn, and his very concerned and hilarious mother, played by Julie White. The locked room scene is hilarious.
Basically, the plot involves LaBeouf, Fox and the good Transformers help defeat the evil robots, who have come to take over the planet and wipe out humanity. The cast includes Jon Voight as the Secretary of Defense, John Turturro as a comical, intense government agent, and Josh Duhamel as an Army sargent fighting the robots.
Extras on disc two are plentiful and in HD. A huge number of features are included and here is the list of most of them:
- Commentary: Commentary by Director Michael Bay
- Featurette: OUR WORLD:
- Featurette: The Story Sparks HD
- Featurette: Human Allies HD
- Featurette: I Fight Giant Robots HD
- Featurette: Battleground HD
- Featurette: THEIR WAR:
- Featurette: Rise of the Robots HD
- Featurette: Autobots Roll Out HD
- Featurette: Decepticons Strike HD
- Featurette: Inside the AllSpark HD
- Featurette: Transformers Tech Inspector (TBD) HD
- Trailers: TRAILERS (will play after the feature via a menu):
- Trailers: Iron Man Trailer HD
- Featurette: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE:
- Trailers: Transformers Teaser Trailer HD
- Trailers: Rise of the Autobots HD
- Transformers H.U.D. (Heads Up Display) Picture -In-Picture feature with a lot of trivia pop up info, animatics ,voice cast recordings
- BD-Live Features includes a downloadable skin and widgets and a my scenes collector
- Featurette: From Script to Sand: The Skorponok Desert Attack HD
- Featurette: Concepts HD
- Trailers: Trailers HD:
- Trailers: Teaser Trailer 1 HD
- Trailers: Theatrical Trailer 2 HD
- Trailers: Theatrical Trailer 4 HD
You can tell from this list that Paramount invested a lot in this disc release and came through with a good collection of extras making this disc set an exceptional value.
"Transformers" is a Michael Bay film with touches of Spielberg in the mix; lots of humor to off set the action, which is almost non-stop, a likable, humorous hero with hang-ups and a girl to win over, and incredible CGI effects. A true pop-corn movie, it is much more entaining than I ever thought. This 2 disc set is also a remarkable value.
