GiantRobot Tagged Articles at Cinematical

What did you like the most about Transformers? Was it Megan Fox bending over an automobile hood? Shia LaBeouf learning to be a man behind the wheel of a yellow Chevy Camaro? Huge mechanical beasts suddenly emerging from the least likely hiding places? The military unit that found itself in the middle of an interstellar war in the middle of the desert? If it's the latter, you're in luck. Though the trailers and clips released for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen have focused mainly on the Fox and the 'Bots so far, the military men finally get their due in the latest clip. (Note: the image above is not from the clip, but gives off a similar vibe.)

Moviefone has a short, tantalizing teaser clip that focuses on a unit led by Josh Duhamel, which appears to have gone international (check the arm patches). It's nighttime and they're flying in on helicopters to deal with the latest "enemy contact." Tyrese Gibson gets to mutter my favorite two words so far: "Thermal ripple." Despite my huge reservations about the first film, it's hard to resist whirling helicopters, bombastic martial music, a cool nighttime setting, and giant robot action, especially when it's all packed into a clip that's barely more than a minute long. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen opens everywhere on June 24.

After the jump: Watch the clip!

Update: It's come to our attention that the giant robot is not a Transformer, but a Gundam from the Japanese anime. Real Transformers 2 premiere pics can be found after the jump. We say Transformers battle these giant things in the next installment. Whaddya think?

Grab your loved ones and go! Pray that there's still time left to find sanctuary! Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen enjoyed its world premiere in Tokyo earlier this week, and someone managed to snap a photo before running to safety! Why does the sight of a giant robot in Tokyo make me want to use as many exclamation points as possible?!!!

All credit to "smashfanatic," who posted this at Photobucket. (Check out a larger image of the robot below.) Setting up a giant robot falls into the category, "Really Cool Movie Marketing." I'm not even a fan of the first Transformers movie, but the sight of this sucker towering over Tokyo in the background may prompt me to buy a ticket. In addition to the Transformer pictured above, our old friend Bumblebee attended the premiere and posed for photos with Michael Bay and the cast. (We have that one of those images after the jump.)

Gallery: Giant Robot Towers Over Tokyo

You might remember that a similar stunt was pulled for the DVD release of the first film in late 2007. Patrick Walsh provided photographic evidence of an 18-foot-tall Bumblebee standing guard over West Los Angeles. Now, I'm obviously no expert on the Transformers, so which one is pictured above? And which one was it that roller-skated down the freeway in the first movie? I'd like to see that one roller-skating across America, a kind of touring Transformer. Even if you don't want to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen when it opens on June 24, don't you want to see a giant robot in your hometown?

Just the other night, I saw a giant robot smashing things. Of course, it was only a movie, but what if actual giant robots, like that giant mechanical monster glimpsed in the Terminator Salvation trailer, might stomp through your neighborhood in the not too distant future?

If that sounds too unrealistic, what about the prospect of "a robotic team of football players [taking] on the human World Cup champions" and winning, all by 2050? As reported by AFP and published at Breitbart.com, Osaka University professor Minoru Asada has high aspirations for his team of robotics experts, which first presented their project, Child-robot with Biomimetic Body (AKA CB2), in 2007. They've made good progress, claiming their baby Terminator is "slowly developing social skills by interacting with humans and watching their facial expressions, mimicking a mother-baby relationship." We've embedded a video below of the baby robot in action, which more closely resembles the Star-Child in 2001: A Space Odyssey than The Terminator. Creepy or cool?

"Public opinion in Japan may be more open to robots than in the West," the article notes, "where dark science fiction visions from movies such as [Blade Runner] and [The Terminator] have conjured images of robo-soldiers taking over the world. Thanks to such benign cartoon characters as Astro Boy, 'Japanese people have a friendly image towards robots,'" said one research scientist.

By the end of the year, US audiences will have seen competing visions: the robo-soldiers of Terminator Salvation and the much friendlier Astro Boy. Are you looking forward to a future filled with intelligent robots?