A whole passel of stills from the summer movie "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" has been released, and this one caught my eye right away for obvious reasons.
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That’s right: there’s an astronomy textbook in the movie!
Now, I don’t know who this guy "R.A. Colan, PhD" is — he’s not listed in the American Astronomical Society — but he’s going to get a lot of textbook sales out of this.
And hmmm… RA in astronomy lingo means Right Ascension, basically longitude on the sky (latitude is called declination, if you’re curious). But it seems too much to ask for Michael Bay to put something with actual intellect into a movie. It must be coincidence.
June 4th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Hmm… someone needs to stop using the fake tanner.
anyway. That’s cool. I always like the fun little details in movies, they’re the most interesting.
June 4th, 2009 at 11:09 am
I’m pretty sure that’s not a real textbook.
June 4th, 2009 at 11:09 am
If that’s what caught your eye in that picture… I’m sorry. Please hand over your Man Card and walk the other way.
j/k
June 4th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Transformers ROCK!
I cannot wait, I get warm and fuzzy thinking about it.
June 4th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Textbook? What textbook….
June 4th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Um, …book? What book? Oh, that book. So I looked up R.A. Colan…. I’m sorry what was I saying? Anyway, um…. Oh, right. I totally agree, she’s hot.
June 4th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Space faring alien robots that transform into a big rig. We’ve managed to turn this into a billion dollar franchise.
It does truly make you believe that anything is possible. That and Megan Fox.
June 4th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Given what’s known about the movie plot, I doubt you’ll like much they’ll say about astronomy. Glyphs and carvings of an alien race of robots found in pyramids all over the world? I wouldn’t be surprised if she just talks about planetary alignment or some such nonsense.
June 4th, 2009 at 11:22 am
The book is probably a fake, made by a prop master with a sense of fun and more knowledge of science than Michael Bay. Unless it’s specific product placement, productions try to avoid including anything identifiable from the real world.
June 4th, 2009 at 11:23 am
No such author and no such book as far as I can surmise.
June 4th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Yeah, I did a search on Amazon and nothing came out. Like Jon B said, it’s probably a prop made up so they didn’t have to pay for its use.
June 4th, 2009 at 11:23 am
What-JonB-said. It’s almost certainly ‘just’ a prop. The author’s name is often an inside joke among the crew – it’ll be someone’s kid, or someone on the staff.
June 4th, 2009 at 11:24 am
They are probably checking peoples Horoscopes in it.
June 4th, 2009 at 11:27 am
I’ve looked at that photo for a good minute or two and have yet to find a book.
June 4th, 2009 at 11:34 am
I agree, book, what book? Oh, the one my girlfriend will hit me over the head with when she reads this comment.
June 4th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Colan? Phonetically it sounds like genitive case of ‘knees’ in Polish. Can’t be coincidence… I just don’t know why are you writing about textbook in the reference to this picture?
June 4th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Book or no book I can’t see that film. My ex-wife made me watch the first one and it destroyed all my childhood memories.
Mind you, the sequel does have Mike Patton providing one of the voices…
June 4th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Book?
June 4th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
It is a code. Phil found the first part, RA for right ascension. Now we just need the declination and some numbers. There must be something important in the sky there.
June 4th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
I think she’s part oompa-loompa.
June 4th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Gene Colan, comic book artist?
June 4th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I give Michael bay a lot more credit for irony since he did this commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiHsxQJ9ZOo
June 4th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
I don’t believe I ever seen any textbook in any field where the author(s) have their degree on the front cover…and I’m a big browser of university bookstores. Some insider wanted to see their name with a PhD next to it, perhaps. So, I’m with everyone else…prop book.
June 4th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Tribute to Gene Colan perhaps?
June 4th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
*growls @ Rift* Oh wait….dang, she IS hot….
June 4th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Well, there is a Roberta Conlan associated with a number of astronomy books – specifically she was the editor for the Cosmic Mysteries series of Time Life books from the early 90′s. My mom bought them for me as birthday present – not terrible but typically lightweight like most Time Life stuff.
Still, unless she is related to somebody on the crew it’s a tenuous link at best.
June 4th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
If she was holding a copy of The Big Orange Book she’d be about perfect.
June 4th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Googling for “R.A. Colan, PhD” (with the quote marks) returns just one hit: this page.
June 4th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Well, there IS such a thing as an “ascending colon,” and IIRC, it is on the right side of the body, for people with non-inverted internal organs.
June 4th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
I must be getting old. She looks like she’s auditioning for the
Taco Bell “Volcano burrito” ad…
June 4th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Colan might be a play on the colon “:” used to notate coordinates in sexagesimal systems.
June 4th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
If it’s really the “tenth edition” I’d suspect the author would be considered pretty successful. So it’s a fake — unless the author were so successful as to pay for a placement!
And good grief, fellas, did you all go to some special school somewhere? Nearly a dozen posts with the same bindingly obvious joke.
June 4th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Come on! Move your hands! I want to see the picture on the cover of the astronomy book!
June 4th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Anything that brings more women into science in general and astronomy in particular can only be good, even despite the inevitable affronts to science we can expect in Transformers 2.
June 4th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Likely the name is some sort of homage on the part of the props department on the movie, the name of one of the interns or some sort of inside joke.
I did a tv show last year that involved a bunch of college students. All of the books in the show were written by people with the same names as kids on the prop master’s son’s baseball team.
June 4th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Transformers = Win
June 4th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
How could yu guys not see the book, it’s the thing getting in the way of a perfectly good picture!
June 4th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
@hale-bopp:”Come on! Move your hands! I want to see the picture on the cover of the astronomy book!”
I bet it shows a crescent moon with the stars directly behind it…
June 4th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
That’s probably the first and only time she has ever had anything to do with astronomy, but maybe this site can change that.
June 4th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Right Ascension Colan?
Right up the ahhh nevermind.
June 4th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Remember Phil, Michael “I’m a talentless hack” Bay is responsible for your favorite movie.
You know… the one with Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck?
I personally wouldn’t waste my time on a Michael Bay movie anymore. For me, Transformers = EPIC FAIL, WHO CARES, ETC.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
I hear there will be a nice CG cameo by Sagan…
June 4th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Is that Bar Refaeli?? I love Israeli’s …
Looking forward to the sequel! looks like the world hangs in tyrannous peril again thanks to Megatron and his cronies.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I got a similar kick out of spotting some of my graduate Physics textbooks in certain scenes of Spider-Man 1 and 2.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
This is actually a very important part of the movie. i read the book that was realeased and (*POSSIBLE SPOILERS*)that is the text book that sam reads in the matter of seconds(whitch you might of seen in the trailer)after the allspark fragment altered his brain. afterword, sam mikeala, ex-agent Simmons, and Leo(sams collage room-mate) are in ejept, after Jetfire sent them there through a poral he created. he then reilized the stars were in a formation that he reconized from that textbook. this helps the plot.
P.S.
R.A. Colan is sams collage proffeser. he wrote the textbook in the movie. (R.A. Colan is played by Raine Wilson, who is Dwite in the Office)
June 4th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
I hate to be a smart-alec, but it occurs to me that equating RA on the cover of that textbook with “Right Ascension” is just another, albeit unusual, case of pareidolia.
June 4th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Cool picture
June 4th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Girl? What girl?
June 4th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
I’d suspect a book cover would often be faked or else altered (unless the publisher wants to fork out $$$ for advertising).
Other ways of confusing a n00b: put them in front of an old telescope, give them the geographical coordinates for the site, point out the hour angle disc and declination disc, and ask them what the RA is for the object being viewed.
I find BA’s explanation of RA confusing though (although correct, the reader is unaware of the frame of reference). Now I was hoping to find a link to the Royal Astronomical Society or Naval Observatory glossary explaining Right Ascension, but this CalTech page will do:
http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Glossary/Glossary_R.html
June 4th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Usually when a book is predominantly displayed it means that we’re going to meet the author.
June 4th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
That girl is fake as ****. I bet she can’t even spell ASTRONOMY.
June 4th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Quick, Phil, register the name, and get the contract to write the book.
Hurry!
June 4th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
HOT!
June 4th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Spoiler Alert: After a series of quick cuts and fast music the book explodes.
June 5th, 2009 at 2:59 am
Her name is Isobel Lucas.
June 5th, 2009 at 5:29 am
Michael Bay doesn’t actually do the writing or any of the prop making or costuming beyond “No man, that won’t be explosive at all!!!” so someone in the team might’ve thought it was a cool joke. Aside from that: what’s with women making themselves orange enough to be in an episode of the original star trek? She’d be pretty if she wasn’t all alieny.
-SH.
June 5th, 2009 at 7:40 am
Hot babe with an astro book… Dear Mr Bay, please stop reading my mind while I sleep — my dreams are not for public consumption.
June 5th, 2009 at 9:02 am
No such book on either Amazon or Barnes & Noble. The Library of Congress has no listing for an author named “Colon, R. A.”
June 5th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
The astronomer in T2 is played by the guy Dwight from The Office – well, so much for not stereotyping scientists.
June 5th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Um, guys, I just found this. SPOILERS ALERT!!
http://transformers.moviechronicles.com/2008/04/
It seems that Colan, the author of the mysterious book, is the Shea LaBeouf character’s professor at Princeton. Use the Search function to look for the word Colan, as the page is a bit long.
And if I’m not mistaken, he should be played by Rainn Wilson, the same actor who played as a teacher in The Last Mimzy, a very good sci-fi movie for kids.
June 5th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
RE: Kyle,
Spell check, do you have it?!
June 5th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
To Chris @ #54:
No, actually, the book might be a transformer itself.
June 5th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Ha! and Oops!
Kyle @ #45 beat me to it. I should have read all the comments first before posting #60.
June 6th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Nice hair.
…, anyway, as I was just saying, she doesn’t seem to need a prop for anything.
June 8th, 2009 at 10:13 am
I’d buy a perpetual motion machine if she was selling it.
June 12th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Well at least it was not Introductory Astronomy and Astrophysics by Zeilik and Gregory. What a god awful astronomy book.
June 14th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Random book placement… I’ve seen all 3 volumes of Feynman’s Lectures on Charlie’s desk in “Numb3rs”… (I’m pretty sure it was his office, not Larry’s.)
June 19th, 2009 at 5:46 am
Can’t wait to see it!
PS: For anyone interested theres a Transformers 2 tickets giveaway contest on
http://www.transformers2.net/560/movie/transformers2net-tickets-giveaway.htm
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:52 pm
i’ve seen transformers 2 at the cinema
and this time they included an tx style
cyber babe like kristanna loken in t3
and the tranformers 2 version is in a sexy
white dress instead of red leathers was also
different the movie is far better than the first
and it was great i give transformers 2 a 20 out of 10.
frankie smales
(transformers 2 movie fan)
June 30th, 2009 at 9:24 am
[...] for aeromental.com was, but apparently they can’t handle the load from the movie. However, the textbook appears to be completely fake. So, it appears to me that what could have been a very cool puzzle within a movie has turned out [...]
June 30th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
who is that hot girl?
July 1st, 2009 at 7:57 pm
While you all sit here and bicker about a book that was placed in just for story line purposes, you all seem to fail to notice that the alignment of the “three kings” which pointed to the sunrise, only happens on one day out of the year, the morning of December 25. The event happened in the movie several months too early, so congratulations for missing the biggest of all the mistakes.