STACK #242 December 2024

MOVIE FEATURE

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KIDS SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS

After putting his heart into voicing young Optimus Prime, Chris Hemsworth laughed as he shared that his twin sons actually preferred Bumblebee after watching the movie. Words Gill Pringle ”I kept saying, ’Did you enjoy the film?’ And they’d say, ’Yeah, loved it. Pretty cool characters’. ’Yeah, Optimus Prime do you like that?’ And they said ’Bumblebee’. ’But Optimus Prime was cool,’ I said. And they said ’No, Bumblebee is my favourite,’” he said, grinning while shaking his head. ”So, it kind of humbles you right? It’s very humbling. Kids have a habit of doing that,” says the charismatic actor who has a 12-year-old daughter India and 10-year-old twins Tristan and Sasha with actress wife Elsa Pataky. But even Hemsworth, 41, agrees that Keegan-Michael Key’s Bumblebee is hilarious in this new film. ”I think what’s so surprising and enjoyable watching that character [Bumblebee] was we hadn’t ever heard him speak before. There’s such a wild sense of humour, such spontaneity, such fun…” ”It was such a cool thing, because everyone’s playing a different instrument and each character holds a different place in the film. And I just really enjoyed Bumblebee’s

Paramount Pictures’ initial reveal of Transformers One was literally out of this world.They attached a flat screen monitor to a module and live-streamed its assent to space, broadcasting the first-look trailer from 125,000 feet above Earth. Words Glenn Cochrane ”I t’s as close to Cybertron as we could get,” says director Josh Cooley of the studio’s usually a 3D fan, but I was blown away by how well it worked for this film.”

A big movie calls for a big cast, and lead actors don’t get much bigger than Chris Hemsworth, who plays a young Optimus Prime. ”The casting of Orion Pax was something that kept me up at night,” Cooley says of the casting

method of promotion. ”When I heard about it, I was like ’Oh, that’s fantastic!’ ”From the beginning, it was always an origin story,” he explains of the movie’s development.

Director Josh Cooley

”It was always Orion Pax and D-16 and why they became sworn enemies. There’s always been a lot of Transformers movies and cartoons, but this is a part of the story and

process. ”Knowing that this character

DYK?

enthusiasm, because what our characters are going through is quite dense and heavy, and it’s telling its own story. So, Bumblebee was a wonderful comic relief”.

eventually becomes Optimus

In the original toy line, the gold paint on Transformers

Prime, who has such an iconic voice, I didn’t want

figurines would often flake off. Rather than admitting a product defect, Hasbro incorporated it into the storyline, giving the characters a disease called ”Gold Plastic Syndrome.” (GPS).

the lore that’s never been told before. Also, being purely set on Cybertron, I thought that was really cool, too.” The movie takes us to the planet Cybertron, where we get to see the relationship between Orion Pax and D-16, the brothers in arms

anybody trying to force it to that position. It had to feel natural. So, when I heard Chris, I thought, ’Oh, there could be something there,’ and

we chatted and talked about Orion Pax’s arc as a character throughout this film, and how it can start heading towards Optimus Prime at the end. ”When

thoughtful about everything, and he’s great at having conversations about how to approach the character and how to keep the character with a young feel.

who would become the ultimate rivals, Optimus Prime and Megatron. ”We have a totally new look for Transformers here. We were very, very inspired by the original G1, which were fantastic designs that

”The character is a little bit careless and then has somewhere to go, so they

can eventually accept the responsibility of

• Transformers One is out Dec 18

I really wanted to bring to the big screen. And the look of the film,” he adds with a sense of awe. ”ILM did our animation, and they’re just killing it. It looks really cool and the 3D, as well, looks amazing. I’m not

we started doing the recording session, I got literal goosebumps and chills. It just felt right. He’s amazing. He’s super

becoming a leader. I’m just thrilled with what he did, and I couldn’t have made this without him.”

14 DECEMBER 2024

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