I just saw the new Transformers movie (no spoilers, I promise) and one thing you can expect are prominent product placements. You could make a game out of naming products in the new Transformers movie, especially gadgets. The Chevy Camaro (classic and new style) and a Nokia cell phone are prominent in the extreme. Among the gadgets was also an unlikely Apple Notebook being used by a certain government agency. I think the Nokia was an N-90 or 3250 twist phone – perfect shape for the gadget Transformer named Frenzy. It wasn’t enough to see the Nokia phone, it was actually named in the movie - identified as a phone by the company named Nokia from Finland, after one of the characters mistook it for a Japanese phone.

An Xbox 360 was also used in scenes. I wasn’t exactly sure what was supposed to be going on but the Xbox 360 appeared to ‘transform’ or crackle with some kind of energy during a climactic battle scene. We also got a clear shot of a 2 Gig Panasonic SD memory card. Not to mention a bevy of Cisco communications gear being used by the Department of Defense, which is more believable than seeing them use a Mac.

It’s only fitting there should be plenty of product placements and that a Transformers movie should be a highly commercial summer blockbuster - the franchise started out as a toy. Although I was still a kid at the time, they looked too much like a copy of either Shogun Warriors or Micronauts for me to really get into them. All of these were toys turned cartoons and comics. But Transformers are definitely part of the lexicon of us geeks who were destined to play Battletech games (either with dice or on PC). Colorful giant robots - what’s not to love?

Do I recommend the movie? Of course! Go see it now if you love giant robots in fully rendered CGI action.