CAPE CANAVERAL — NASA’s Kennedy Space Center came under attack from the merciless Decepticons this week. However, Optimus Prime and his valiant band of Autobots fended them off, and then stood watch over the space center for the remainder of the week – along with the cast and crew of “Transformers 3, The Dark of the Moon.” Although the set was closed – there were some interesting revelations about what one can expect to see in the third installment of the highly-successful film franchise – including a very special guest star.
Journalists that were present on Oct. 7, for the delivery of STS-133’s payload were treated with the sights and sounds of Hollywood. Although these reporters and correspondents were kept on a very short leash the journalists present still managed to see the Autobots leader in truck mode, some actors in black soldier gear and some other tantalizing tidbits.
Numerous KSC employees have been selected to act as extras in the film. This serves the purpose of creating added realism to the film. Instead of training someone to “look” they know what they’re doing – more-likely-than-not those are the actual workers who do that job at America’s spaceport everyday. Outside of this film being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to appear in a big budget summer blockbuster, it also provided an opportunity to rub shoulders with real and upcoming movie stars.
Already, John Turturro, the actor that portrays Agent Simmons in the film has been spotted wheeling in and around the Vehicle Assembly Building. Shia LaBeouf (Sam Witwicky) has been seen with his character’s new love interest Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (Carly) wandering the set.
There is however one star whose presence in the film has been kept top secret. Her identity however, is crucial to the plot of the film which is said to revolve around the space age. She is none other – than the space shuttle Discovery. That’s right, the orbiter that returned America to flight twice is revealed to actually be a transformer. That is at least what sources close to the film are saying. Michael bay, the film’s director, had his computer hacked during the filming of the first Transformers movie and has been notorious about spreading disinformation.
For NASA, having a motion picture film at KSC is a no-brainer. The Transformers series of movies is very popular with children and young people and this allows them to relay the NASA story to a whole new audience.
“This does give us the chance to open up what we do, real space exploration to audiences that we may not already have in a blockbuster film,” said NASA’s KSC News Chief Allard Beutel. “We’re talking about a worldwide audience and it’s a natural fit in the sense that it is sci-fi and real space exploration but also it allows us to get into the theatres and let kids see what we do, inspire them to look into what NASA is all about and reach an audience we may not normally reach.”