Want to find out more about the Transformers 2 scene Michael Bay is shooting at Bethlehem Steel? Or how about the shoot scheduled at the Smithsonian? We have all the details. As always, if you don’t want anything spoiled, skip it! And while I’m 95% sure this information is legit, there is always the chance that this could be leaked misinformation from Bay (although it doesn’t seem like it). But for your safety, treat everything below as rumor.

The opening of Transformers 2 takes place at a Steel Factory in Shanghai, China (filmed in Bethlehem, PA), where the Autobots, the British SAS (Matthew Marsden as “Graham” and Andrew Howard) and Captain Lennox’s Military team (Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson) are chasing after a Decepticon Audi RS8. Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox are not featured in the opening chase sequence.

The autobots include a pair of robots called The Twins, which join together to form an Ice Cream Truck (pictured right). An ice cream truck is a great disguise for a transformer as no one would suspect. I’m guessing that one of the twins is white and the other is pink (but this is just a guess). This appears the be the coolest new addition to the autobot line-up. There’s one sequence where the Twins are speeding down a Shanghai street and split apart around a group of chinese children in the street, which should be pretty cool looking. At another point the truck crashes and the Twins split in two and have a brotherly fight. Yes, it looks like the comic tone of the original film is back.

Also involved in the chase is a hot pink ninja style motorcycle with black highlights which turns into Arcee (toy pictured below), a go-cart named Wheels / Wheelbot and Stinger (possibly a Porsche). Lennox’s team meets up with Ironhide on a Shanghai Street. I’m not sure exactly what happens but it appears that the Deception R8 escapes. All in all it seems like a pretty bad ass chase sequence.

Arcee was originally going to be a member of the live-action movie’s Autobot cast, but was later replaced by Ironhide.

The production has now moved to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum for a scene which takes place late into the film (I’m guessing about an hour into the film). Bumblebee and The Twins are left in the parking lot as Sam (Shia), Mikaela (Fox), Sam’s college roommate/friend Leo (a new supporting character played by The Wire’s Ramon Rodriguez), and Sector 7 Agent Simmons (John Turturro) distract the guards and sneak into the Smithsonian after hours. Simmons uses a radiation tracker (a call back to the first film) to find a SR-71 Blackbird in the museum.

Sam uses something called the “Splinter” (maybe a tiny piece of the alspark?) to activate the SR-71, which transforms into Jetfire. Jetfire as a Blackbird spy plane? Very Cool. For some reason he has a Decepticon logo, not sure why. Maybe he switched sides?

The involvement of a Constructicon Earth Mover pretty much confirms the rumor that the Constructicons and Devastator might appear in the film.

I’m sure we’ll learn more in the coming weeks as there is 80 more days of shooting to go. But so far what we do know has me very excited for Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.

contributing source: tfw2005, Rejects