• The shirts have UK and European distribution, as well as a select few resellers in the US
• The shirts will be sold by places like IWantOneOfThose.com, firebox, Play and Forbidden Planet.
• Currently the rights are only for Transformers Movie characters, but if they sell well there could be designs for pre and post movie characters.

First off we would like to thank Paramount for inviting us to their exclusive Transformers Movie footage screening which took place today at the Oden West End in Leicester Square. The event was organised by Paramount for key press and licensing partners and attendance was invitation only. A lot of security was in place to make sure that no footage was leaked out. This including removing of all cameras and phones, metal detectors as well as the event being filmed by at least two cameras.

The screening, consisted of the four uncut scene previous shown in America at ShowWest and after the US Toy Fair.

The screening was kicked off with a few comments by Lorenzo di Bonaventura, one of the producers on the Transformers Movie, this seemed to come as a nice surprise to those in attendance. Lorenzo joked that the movie was "not just about the US military" although they would feature heavily in the featured footage. He wanted to make it clear that the scenes were still un-finished, some including non-rendered CGI animation, they used raw footage and temporary music. Interestingly though, he made no direct mention to the sound effects specifically during Blackout's transformation sequence, during which the original Generation One sound effect was used (although only in mid-transformation). Although this was quiet cool to hear, it really didn't seem to fit.

Lorenzo also noted that the four scene which would be shown had not been picked because they were "there favourite scenes" or "the most important", but purely as they were the most complete.

We would estimate that there were over 400 people in attendance ranging from Paramount employees, Hasbro UK, Titan Books / Magazines, various journalist and other Transformers Movie license holders. Simon Furman was also in attendance, as was Steve White, one of Titans representative at the event. We'll come back to product licensing at the end of the report.

Possible Spoilers - Scroll down quickly if you do not want to read, there is more non-spoiler information at the end.

As far as the the footage goes, it was the same four scenes shown in America. Blackout's attack on the Qatar base including him releasing Scorponok.

Sam Witwicky's light-hearted character building scene with Mikaela in Bumblebee. This scene got a few laughs showing Bumblebee changing the radio and breaking down. The Bee-otch air freshener got a few 'pops' from the UK audience.

The third scene, another light-hearted scene, focused around the Witwicky residence, with the Autobots larking around in their back garden. This scene is where you first hear the Autobots speak (in order - Optimus Prime, Iron Hide and Ratchet. Bumblebee just beeped). The voices were partly synthesised and reminded us a bit of Small Soldiers. It will be interesting to see how the BBFC react to the sexual references and language in this scene when it comes to the final rating of the film.

The fourth and final scene returned back to Qatar and the aftermath of Blackout's attack. This is the famous Scorponok vs the Marines scene, in which Scorponok looses the end of his tail right at the end.

How Scorponok appears in this scene, and how he is 'ejected' by Blackout, is very reminiscent of the G1 cassettes, and adds more fuel to the thoughts that Blackout was originally intended to be Soundwave.

End of Spoilers

Back to licensing. We didn't get a chance to speak to most of the people in attendance, as everyone ran out at soon as the screening was over, however we do have a few bits of new licensing information to report.

First up, Top Trumps have purchased a Transformers Movie license and you can expect these to hit the shelves in the summer. It will be interesting to see who appears on the cards, as there are not enough on screen Transformers to make up a set.

On the Transformers apparel side, there are new Transformers Movie tie-in T-shirts on the way, but with a difference. These t-shirts have a light up panel on the front which use different transitions to display the name of a Transformer (we saw the Bumblebee and Barricade ones) or an image, such as the outline of Optimus Prime's header the Autobot symbol. These t-shirts got a lot of interested, most noticeably from Titan Book so it could be that they will feature as prizes in a competition in the new Transformers comic. The T-shirts will go on sale on the 20th June, although we are not sure on the price point or who will be selling them.

Don't forget to visit the official website at www.transformersmovie.com and that you can view all of the official movie images in our Transformers Movie official image gallery.

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