AICN's Quint had a very private one-on-one pow-wow with uber-director Michael Bay, and the topic of conversation was extremely Transformer-centric. Click here to read all about the flick's pre-production designs, a handful of action scene animatics, and Michael Bay's gigantic dog. (Sounds like a great dane to me.)

A few choice snippets: "What hooked (Bay) was Shia LaBeouf's character, a teen that is getting his first car. He said that rite of passage for a teenage boy, that of getting your first car, is something he connected with and gave him a human angle to get involved emotionally with the story ... Of course, Shia's character ends up with a banana yellow '70s looking car with lots of wear... and of course, that car is a Transformer.


Director Michael Bay preps a scene from "The Island"

Bay later revealed that although this is the beginning of the movie, it isn't the first thing we see. Bay's words were, "We will actually see Cybertron," which is the planet where the Autobots hail from."

Also worthy of note is that IGN's scoopage on the cast names (Jon Voight, Bernie Mac, Michael Clarke Duncan, etc.) seems to be right on the money. Check AICN for a whole lot more.