Transformers: The Last Knight Super Fan Event

On March 21 2017, Paramount Pictures, at the behest of Michael Bay, flew in fan-journalists from around the globe to an unusually gray and drizzly Hollywood California for the Super Fan Event, a promotional tour for the upcoming The Last Knight film. TFWIKI.net's Greg Sepelak was on hand and on average mostly coherent for the trip.

The Event

Monday, March 20

The day of travel. No big news here so if y'all want that, jump down to Tuesday.

I was awake at 5am EST to get on my nonstop to Los Angeles International Airport, arriving there at 10am PST, finally arriving at the Loews hotel just off of Hollywood Boulevard about 11am... where the rooms were not yet ready. Now, this is not a drag on the Loews staff, as they had apparently been unusually swamped that weekend with a massive number of guests all checking out on Monday, leaving the cleaning staff with a loooooooooooooooooooong list of rooms to take care of as soon as possible, and a long list of people checking in as well. I'm sympathetic even when I'm really really tired. I didn't actually get to a room until about 4:30pm (EST again, so 7:30 "my" time), at which point so ready to die.

When I wasn't napping in the lobby, I did wander along the Hollywood Walk of Fame, checking out Grauman's Chinese Theater (though I had been unaware that Peter Cullen and Optimus Prime had left their hand (and tire) prints in the cement out front), and looking for the important stars on the Walk... and the CVS. Really needed sinus drugs.

At this point I should note that Hollywood Boulevard is less glamorous than Hollywood would have you believe. Were it not for the stars in the sidewalk and a couple of locations like the Theater, Ripley's Believe It Or Not!, Madame Toussad's, etc... it'd really be just another retail-focused downtown street, with both upscale and "downscale" areas. And most of those "name" locations are pretty tightly-packed into a couple blocks.

Paramount was hosting an informal get-together for the attendees at the Dave & Buster's in the shopping center adjoining the hotel later that evening. I mostly just popped in (after an actual in-bed snooze and light shower) as I also had loved ones coming up to visit for a quick hello and hangout. After a bite at Johnny Rocket's, some shop-wandering, and game-time at Dave & Buster's, they hit the road road home, and I plopped back into bed, because tomorrow was going to be very, very full.

Tuesday, March 21

Universal Studios

9am, in the lobby to get on the bus. There were a little over 20 people this time, several from the first Detroit visit, but Paramount had brought in international fans from as far as China and Australia this time.

First stop was Universal Studios Hollywood for a go on Transformers: The Ride – 3D. BotCon 2014 attendees may remember this, and while The Ride itself has not changed, the park definitely had. The Harry Potter portion of the park, under construction back at BotCon, was open and fairly busy even on this cool, damp Tuesday morning. The Simpsons seemed to have taken over even more real estate, with more Springfield shops and restaurants, including a small-scale Duff Gardens. We were largely spared Minions, thankfully.

Before The Ride, we got in line to have our pictures taken with Bumblebee outside the main ride hangar. (Sadly, Megatron was not due to appear until a good hour after we would need to leave, forcing us to find other sources of being rudely and hilariously insulted.) Our handlers corralled us away from the gift shop (later! LATER!) and into the expedited line.

For several folks in the tour, this was a first go. For those of us who'd already been on it... well, The Ride is a hard thing to prepare for even if you know what's coming. It's a simulated rollercoaster ride aboard the Autobot Evac, and even though the car is only bouncing and rocking in front of a series of 3D movie screens, it does a tremendous job of fooling you into thinking you're doing things like, oh, plummeting dozens of stories at breakneck speed or being dragged through a city skyline (and through a building or two) on Starscream's tow-line. Well-timed puffs of hot air and mist only add to the sensation that snaps your brain into "oh crap" mode for just long enough. (As an aside... fooling the brain for "just long enough" comes up later on. You'll see.)

The original plan was to ride twice, but a combination of heavy Los Angeles traffic delaying our arrival (look it rarely ever rains in southern California so several days of drizzle may not paralyze the city but it sure as hell will slow it down bigtime) and our pressing neeeeeeeeeeeed to get to the gift shop meant only one go.

The gift shop had also changed since BotCon 2014 in small but notable ways. The exclusive Deluxe Evac, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee toys have new packaging, a modified and cleaner take on the Age of Extinction merchandise packaging with big character portraits up front. The Kre-O Kreon 4-Pack of park characters has been re-done with the revamped 2015-style Kreon, plus giving Evac some new chromed bits. And plushies! Yes, a 10-inch plush Evac! I'm kicking myself now for not buying one, but things were quickly getting expensive... especially since the park had in some of the Cyber Battalion figures, the only place in the US to buy them. And at $32.95 a whack, I could only justify one... Starscream. And you know what? As a one-off oddity purchase, he's pretty dang great. The store also had the whole of the first wave Robots in Disguise "Combiner Force" toys... but nothing of Titans Return that I saw. Interesting.

Soon it was back on the bus (through a part of the park they don't let guests through, ha ha!), and on to our next destination...

Wednesday, March 31

Four hours is enough sleep, right?

Okay I got little to nothing here. The flight back was early and uneventful (other than re-affirming that Delta apparently doesn't think seats need cushioning), and whatever theoretical jetlag the 3-hour time-jump might have inflicted was lost in the swirling miasma of abstract concepts that my circadian rhythm had mutated into well before this trip.

But I'm back and have relayed this information to you. Enjoy, let's?

Notes

• The badges given for the event oddly have the date as March 23, aka Thursday, aka when most of the folks should have made it home by. I sure hope they were home by then.