The Smarmy Carny

More than meets the eye

At long last, the trailer for the live-action Transformers movie is available for viewing at Yahoo! Movies. The trailer is available in WMP and Quicktime formats, including high definition Quicktime formats.

This trailer gives us glimpses of a few transformers, including Optimus Prime and Bumblebee.

Die hard Transformers fans have already spoken up with the usual fan qualms, but the movie looks to be exciting and entertaining for fans, both old and new.

Voting has been going on for The New 7 Wonders of the World. The contest is run by the NewOpenWorld Foundation and started out with 200 possible sites for the new seven. The choices have now been narrowed down to 21 choices:

1. Acropolis — Athens, Greece
2. Alhambra — Granada, Spain
3. Angkor Wat temple — Cambodia
4. Chichen Itza Aztec site — Yucatan, Mexico
5. Christ the Redeemer — Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
6. Colosseum — Rome
7. Easter Island Statues — Chile
8. Eiffel Tower — Paris
9. Great Wall — China
10. Hagia Sophia church — Istanbul, Turkey
11. Kiyomizu Temple — Kyoto, Japan
12. Kremlin/St Basil's and Red Square — Moscow
13. Machu Picchu — Peru
14. Neuschwanstein Castle — Fussen, Germany
15. Petra city — Jordan
16. Pyramids of Giza — Egypt
17. Statue of Liberty — New York
18. Stonehenge — Amesbury, United Kingdom
19. Sydney Opera House — Australia
20. Taj Mahal — Agra, India
21. Timbuktu city — Mali

If you're interested in what other sites were considered, check out the previous list of the Top 77 nominees.

Head over to the site and read up on how to vote by phone or online. Registration is required.

Since most people can't name the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, here they are:

1. Great Pyramid of Giza
2. Hanging Gardens of Babylon
3. Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
4. Statue of Zeus at Olympia
5. Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
6. Colossus of Rhodes
7. Lighthouse of Alexandria

The primary reason that most people can't name the Seven Wonders is that only one of them still exists today. Four were destroyed by earthquake, and two were destroyed by fire. The Pyramids have withstood the test of time, and are the only Wonder to survive past the year 1500.

An alternate list of New Wonders was created by USA Today and Good Morning, America. The list included 7 Wonders along with an 8th viewer-selected Wonder.

1. Potala Palace — Lhasa, Tibet
2. Old City of Jerusalem — Israel
3. Polar ice caps — Polar regions
4. Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument — Hawaii, United States
5. Internet
6. Mayan ruins — Yucatán Peninsula, Mesoamerica
7. Great Migration of Serengeti and Masai Mara — Kenya and Tanzania
8. Grand Canyon — Arizona, United States (viewer-selected)

Transformers – Autobots

The live-action Transformers movie is scheduled to be released on the 4th of July, 2007. That's exactly 7 months away from the original date of this post!

Thanks to my son, I have been rewatching the old Transformers series that I grew up with (available on a 20th Anniversary Special Edition DVD) as well as watching the new Transformers Cybertron series.

If nothing else, Transformers in all its forms is a great taunt-fest. If you need great trash talk lines, you'll find plenty when you watch Transformers.

The official movie site still has more content to add, however you can already view the teaser, download wallpapers,

Though it's expected anyway, I'm glad to see that Starscream will be in the movie. On Black Friday, I bought a 14.7" tall Transformers Cybertron Supreme Starscream for my son. It's for Christmas, but I want to bust it out of the box and play with it before then. For a list of other characters appearing in the movie, watch the extremely informative the Yahoo! webcast Q&A with the writers (Windows Media Player required). They discuss many facets of the movie, including working with Hasbro, the role of humans in the movie, and working with director Michael Bay.