Transformers Movie Spoilers

The film will offer background about the origin of the war between the Autobots and Decepticons. The plot will be set in motion when 18-year-old Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) discovers his grandfather's pair of century-old glasses, improbably laser-etched with a map and information about the location of a key artifact, the "Energon" cube, which he then tries to sell on eBay. The movie will follow five separate storylines, which will all converge with a final battle between the Autobots and Decepticons, starting at Hoover Dam and ending in an American city that looks a lot like Los Angeles.

The film is seeking permission to be the first production to film the exterior of the Pentagon since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; the movie will also shoot in various cities, including L.A., Chicago, Detroit and Washington.

The film will feature a top-secret military unit called Sector 7.

Voice casting of the Transformer robots is being left until later in the production, except for Peter Cullen, who was previously named to reprise his role as Optimus Prime. In particular, producers wouldn't say whether Frank Welker, who voiced Megatron in the 1986 animated Transformers film, would voice the character in the movie.

The movie will use a mix of computer animation and large-scale puppetry to depict the giant robots. Megatron will appear as a plane, not a giant gun, as he did in early versions of the franchise.

The film's first full trailer will appear sometime during the holiday season this year.