In 1983 Hasbro bought the license of the Diaclone and Micro Change toys from Takara, then commissioned Marvel Comics to come up with a story-line and character names for the toys. The result: Transformers. Despite Tonka releasing the cheaper Gobots line six months earlier, Hasbro's Transformers took the toy market by storm in 1984, raking in US$150 million that year. At the peak of the toy line's popularity, The Transformers: The Movie hit theaters to further capitalize on its success, but the film polarized fans and collectors with the death of Optimus Prime and majority of the original characters. As Hasbro took full control of Transformers from Takara by the late 1980s, sales declined until the toy line was discontinued in 1991. After the failed Generation 2 reboot, Beast Wars rejuvenated the franchise in 1995. In 2007, the live-action Transformers film solidified Transformers' position as Hasbro's flagship toy line.
The fake story of the art found beneath the depths of the ocean from a 2,000 year old ship wreck. Damien Hirst and the crew recount the moments various discoveries are made, the myths and legends surrounding the find.
An unsettling yet visually fascinating documentary presenting the history of nuclear weapons development and testing between 1945 until 1963. Narrated by William Shatner, features extremely rare film segments from top secret government archives and startling footage of nuclear bomb tests conducted by Great Britain and China, plus the largest atomic explosion ever created by Russia, and de-classified U.S. footage released to the public as recent as May, 2006. Whether being exploded under the ocean, suspended by a balloon, shot from a cannon or even detonated in space, these weapons are capable of devastating destruction - the quality of these images is as startling as are remarkable.
David Attenborough concludes his epic history of the evolution of flight with an exploration of the highly advanced fliers that dominate our skies today – the extraordinarily diverse skills of the birds, and the sonar-guided precision of the bats. He encounters some of our planet’s most remarkable fliers – from peregrine falcons dive-bombing starlings over Rome, to hummingbirds hovering in the cloud forests of Ecuador. In a spectacular finale, he visits Gomantong cave in Borneo to witness the mass exodus of a million bats.
The 80s was also an age of innovators and icons, of style and substance. In this chapter, Dylan Jones celebrates some of the stars who created the timeless legacy of the 1980s. From stellar BBC archive performances from the likes of Madonna, Depeche Mode, Sade, Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys and Tina Turner to iconic MTV-era gems from Billy Idol, Eurythmics, U2, Janet Jackson, Prince and many more. It also features rarely seen archive television footage from the BBC vaults, including Terry Wogan interviewing Grace Jones, Bruce Springsteen on the Old Grey Whistle Test and Adam Ant performing his own stunts in a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Prince Charming video.
This is the story of Gerald Cotten and the many people who ended up with empty bank accounts after investing in his Bitcoin cryptocurrency exchange, QuadrigaCX. What does a crypto exchange do? The movie explains it concisely and it almost makes sense: A guy like Cotten takes an investment, converts it to Bitcoin and trades it in hopes of turning a profit, kind of like a stock day trader does. Cotten ’s described as a nerdy guy who felt like an outcast, but found a community of like-minded types in the cryptocurrency world. Cotten was in India when he got sick and unexpectedly died; he was 30. At the time, QuadrigaCX was Canada’s biggest crypto exchange, holding north of $200 million. But nobody could access the keys and passwords to the company’s accounts and, against conventional wisdom, the company had no safeguards to stop such a thing from happening. Everyone who invested their money was left grasping at empty air. Internet forums foster ideas such as Cotten faked his death and took the money. The journalists and forensic accountants who lend the voice of reason, explores the oddities in the Cotten narrative, ruling out some of the crazier stuff in a quest for the truth.
In 2007, the live-action Transformers film solidified Transformers' position as Hasbro's flagship toy line.