WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN: The TRANSFORMERS Film Series

Transformers (2007)

>Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura was originally developing a "G.I. Joe" movie, which was scrapped after the American invasion on Iraq. Hasbro then recommended "Transformers" instead.

>Michael Bay initially declined to direct the movie, but was ultimately persuaded by producer Steven Spielberg.

>Early drafts featured only Sam Witwicky and Mikaela Banes. Bay added Captain William Lennox and his team to broaden the movie's audience and secure funding from the U.S. military.

>Early drafts featured Autobots Hot Rod, Wheeljack and Prowl. Bay liked the concept of a Decepticon police cruiser so much that he made Prowl into Barricade.

>Early drafts featured Decepticons Shockwave, Laserbeak, Skywarp, Blitzwing, Onslaught, Octane and Rumble.

>Later drafts featured Autobot Arcee, who was scrapped due to her diminutive size.

>Later drafts featured Decepticon Soundwave, who would transform into a helicopter, and his minion Ravage. Hasbro demanded that Soundwave's alt-form be music-related, so the helicopter became Blackout and Ravage was replaced by Scorponok. A boombox Decepticon was included, but deemed inappropriate for Soundwave and reworked into Frenzy, while Soundwave was scrapped.

>In early drafts, the Transformers didn't speak per studio demands, but writers Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman persuaded them otherwise.

>Liam Neeson was approached to voice Optimus Prime before the studio decided to bring back the character's original voice actor, Peter Cullen.

>Ewan McGregor was approached to voice Bumblebee before Mark Ryan was cast.

>Amanda Seyfried and Emma Stone auditioned for Mikaela before Megan Fox was cast.

>Bay was initially against casting Shia LaBeouf, believing him to be too old and too confident to play an awkward teenager.

>John Turturro claims to have modeled agent Seymour Simmons' mannerisms on Bay. Bay disputes that, others do not.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

>The movie was rushed into production due to the writers' strike despite having no script, resulting in a disjointed movie which Bay has openly renounced.

>During pre-production, Lee Tamahori volunteered to direct the movie at a lower price than Bay and aggressively lobbied for the job, even leaking his pitch on the internet to generate positive buzz for himself. It didn't.

>Bay attempted to create an elaborate misinformation campaign to prevent spoiler leaks, which failed and actually led to more leaks.

>Due to the troubled production, numerous characters and storylines were scrapped, including Autobot Springer, who transforms into a helicopter; Decepticon Tidal Wave, who transforms into an aircraft carrier; elderly Decepticon Ransack, who transforms into a WWI-era biplane; Massive Dynamics, a robotics corporation created by government to cover up the Transformers' existence; and the Fallen being trapped in a parallel dimension and only escaping in the third act.

>Early drafts featured a battle between the Autobots and Devastator which was scrapped due to the complexity of Devastator's CGI rendering process, which even caused one of ILM's computers to melt down.

>Autobot Jolt was a last-minute addition to showcase the Chevrolet Volt, to the point where he is unexplainably absent for long stretches of the movie.

>Barricade would originally return as an Audi, but the brand refused to be associated to one of the villains. They ultimately reconsidered, and the Audi R8 was reinserted into the movie as minor villain Sideways.

>John Turturro would originally voice Jetfire with a southern accent, but was replaced by Mark Ryan.

>Leonard Nimoy was approached to voice the Fallen before Tony Todd was cast.

>Jonah Hill was approached for Leo Spitz before Ramon Rodriguez was cast.

>Teresa Palmer auditioned for Decepticon Alice before Isabel Lucas was cast.

>>In early drafts, the Transformers didn't speak per studio demands

wew

>John Turturro claims to have modeled agent Seymour Simmons' mannerisms on Bay. Bay disputes that, others do not.

kek

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

>Michael Bay intended to leave the franchise after the third movie.

>Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman pitched the concept of Autobots and Decepticons joining forces to fight Unicron, which was rejected by the studio. They departed from the project shortly afterwards and were replaced by Ehren Kruger.

>Shockwave was announced as the main villain to cover up Sentinel Prime's alliance with the Decepticons.

>In early drafts, Optimus Prime would accept Megatron's truce and the Decepticons would return to Cybertron, but this was changed as Bay didn't want to leave loose ends.

>In early drafts, Sentinel Prime would kill the Twins alongside Ironhide, but Bay disliked the characters so much he preferred to ignore them altogether.

>In early drafts, Dino would be executed by Soundwave, while Que would be killed by Protoforms during the final battle. This was changed after Ferrari objected to "their" character being killed onscreen.

>Ramon Rodriguez was approached to return as Leo Spitz, but the character was removed in further rewrites.

>Megan Fox was slated to return as Mikaela Banes, but was fired due to disagreements with Bay, leading to the character being scrapped and replaced by Carly Spencer.

>Blake Lively, Anna Kendrick, Gemma Arterton, Amber Heard, Ashley Greene, Brooklyn Decker, Miranda Kerr, Bar Refaeli, Heidi Montag, Camilla Belle, Katie Cassidy, Lucy Hale and Julianne Hogue auditioned for Carly before Rosie Huntington-Whitley was cast.

honestly the source material is kinda dumb. their best shot at anything that wouldnt be dumb would have been on cybertron. no humans. it could be thought of as a prequel. 100% cg and any fan boys couldnt bitch because prequel

the second earth is added in then its why the fuck are alien robots humanoid. you could just pretend cybertron is whats left of earth long after humanity dies off

Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014).

>Michael Bay initially declined to return. Stephen Sommers, Roland Emmerich, Jon Turteltaub, Louis Leterrier, David Yates and Joe Johnston were approached to replace him before Bonaventura convinced Bay to return.

>Bonaventura merged two separate pitches, one centered on Galvatron leading an uprising of man-made Transformers and one centered on Lockdown hunting down Optimus Prime on behalf of the Creators, to produce the final script.

>In early drafts, Lockdown was assisted by "Widowmaker", a psychotic female Cybertronian bounty hunter, but the character was scrapped in further revisions.

>In early drafts, archaeologist Darcy Tyrell had a larger role, including a romantic subplot with Cade Yeager, which was scrapped in further revisions.

>Jason Statham and Dwayne Johnson was approached for Cade Yeager before Mark Wahlberg was cast. The character would originally only be featured in one movie and sacrifice himself in the end, but further rewrites expanded his role and changed his fate.

>Margaret Qualley, Gabriella Wilde and Isabelle Cornish auditioned for Tessa Yeager before Nicola Peltz was cast. The character would originally be the franchise's new co-lead, but further rewrites reduced her role.

>Brenton Thwaites, Hunter Parrish, Landon Liboiron and Luke Grimes auditioned for Shane Dyson before Jack Reynor was cast. The character would originally be the franchise's new co-lead, but further rewrites reduced his role.

Good news, the first thing you described is literally being made as we speak

Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)

>Michael Bay initially declined to return, but was ultimately persuaded to do so one last time.

>A Writer's Room overseen by Bay and the producers was created to create an elaborate "Transformers" cinematic universe and map out future sequels and spin-offs of the franchise.

>Bonaventura once again merged two separate pitches, one about a corrupted Optimus Prime returning to Earth amistd all-out war between humans and Transformers, and one about the secret connection between the Transformers and Arthurian lore, to produce the final script.

>Jean Dujardin was approached to voice Hot Rod before Omar Sy was cast.

>Stephen Merchant was approached to voice Cogman before Jim Carter was cast.

>Stanley Tucci was approached to return as Joshua Joyce, but the character was removed in further rewrites. Bay then offered him the role of the wizard Merlin.

>Tyrese Gibson was approached to return as Sergeant Robert Epps, but was forced to decline due to scheduling conflicts. He's reportedly already in talks for TRANSFORMERS 6 and TRANSFORMERS 7.

>>Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman pitched the concept of Autobots and Decepticons joining forces to fight Unicron, which was rejected by the studio.

>we could have had Unicron 6 years ago

>>Bonaventura merged two separate pitches, one centered on Galvatron leading an uprising of man-made Transformers and one centered on Lockdown hunting down Optimus Prime on behalf of the Creators, to produce the final script.

This is so obvious.

>honestly the source material is kinda dumb

You could say this about so many things that have been adapted well. If you come at an adaptation with little respect and write it off as stupid then what you get is trash like the transformers movies and most superhero movies from the 80s and 90s.

It's amazing that one single person has made all of these considering all of the problems that they have. Michael Bay obviously doesn't give a shit and is only there for the money. He ignores absolutely all criticisms and seemingly doubles down on them sometimes. I realize that humans have to be in these movies, but how about making the movies shorter instead of 3 hours long with 2 hours of lame human stuff? I'd also love for them to try to piece together a cohesive story. I mean, you're being paid hundreds of millions of dollars so the least you could do is put in a little effort.

They're box office juggernauts. People respond to Bay's style, so he keeps giving what they want.

> Bay initially declined.

Fuck you Spielberg.

>In early drafts, Sentinel Prime would kill the Twins alongside Ironhide, but Bay disliked the characters so much he preferred to ignore them altogether.
Haha wow didn't realized even he hated them!

>Blake Lively, Anna Kendrick, Gemma Arterton, Amber Heard, Ashley Greene, Brooklyn Decker, Miranda Kerr, Bar Refaeli, Heidi Montag, Camilla Belle, Katie Cassidy, Lucy Hale and Julianne Hogue auditioned for Carly before Rosie Huntington-Whitley was cast.
Man Bay was busy on the casting couch. :P

>In early drafts, the Transformers didn't speak per studio demands

If they don't speak, they are not truly The; them being sentient everyman is pretty much core to the whole idea of Transformers.

>Bonaventura merged two separate pitches, one centered on Galvatron leading an uprising of man-made Transformers and one centered on Lockdown hunting down Optimus Prime on behalf of the Creators, to produce the final script.

>Bonaventura once again merged two separate pitches, one about a corrupted Optimus Prime returning to Earth amistd all-out war between humans and Transformers, and one about the secret connection between the Transformers and Arthurian lore, to produce the final script.

lorenzo pls

Didn't he create them? The writers hated them, I thought Bay loved them?

It's like Hollywood is hostile to interesting ideas or anything different.

Unicron is Lovecraftian and I don't see the Hollywood suits or Bay ever truly embracing Unicron's creepy disturbing menace.

More details.

>The script featured the Matrix of Leadership, but producers felt that'd confuse audiences due to the MATRIX series and the Allspark was used instead.

>Sam's parents originally had a pretty minor role. Instead of Sam and Mikaela going back to his house to get the glasses they'd have to sneak into school to get them from Sam's locker, evading a bunch of guards and janitors and then the Sector Seven agents who arrive to aprehend them.

>Barricade was supposed to get killed by Optimus right after Bonecrusher, but Bay liked him so much that he cut the scene so Barricade could come back in the sequel. Then all that stuff with Audi and the Writer's Guild happened and Barricade ended up only showing up on "Dark of the Moon" to die. But then he got retconned into being alive again in "The Last Knight".

>Lennox's buddy Fig, played by Amaury Nolasco, was supposed to succumb to his injuries during the battle with Scorponok, but test-audiences liked him so much they cut the scene so he could be back in the sequel, yet he never did.

>Simmons was supposed to be the movie's designated asshole, but John Turturro's wacky performance was so endearing that the character ended up becoming a recurring comic relief.

>Megatron was originally a "Spark Cannibal", who rips out other Transformers's Sparks and eats them, and that's how Jazz was supposed to die, but the idea was eventually deemed too edgy and scrapped.

>Optimus Prime would originally kill Megatron by punching the Allspark through his chest, but Spielberg felt that Sam needed to be the one to deliver the killing blow to complete his character arc.

>Bay liked Bonecrusher so much he named his dog after him and then included the dog in all the sequels.

>Mikaela Banes
>Michael Bay

What did he mean by this?

The cartoons were dumb yes.

But the comics and some of the vidya are a whole different ball game; they have a huge ton of Marvel/IDW/Dreamwave material to draw from that could make for all kinds of weird and wonderful stories.

They have characters like Starscream, Shockwave the master of pure logic (comics), Grimlock the arrogant but noble warrior (comics), Mirage the wavering homesick snob, Swindle (fuck think how fun would he be?), Sunstreaker the vain sociopath, Beachcomber the hippie, Thundercracker the noble Decepticon, etc...they had so many fun characters and they instead made lame generic Hollywood caricatures.

I mean, Runamuck and Runabout are literally perfect comedy foils yet Bay gave us the Twins and Dreads.

>>The script featured the Matrix of Leadership, but producers felt that'd confuse audiences due to the MATRIX series and the Allspark was used instead.

I believe that especially since critics of ROTF said they ripped off The Matrix for putting it in there.

But honestly they couldn't have made it a sphere and called it Vector Sigma?

>Optimus Prime would originally kill Megatron by punching the Allspark through his chest, but Spielberg felt that Sam needed to be the one to deliver the killing blow to complete his character arc.

The Transformers must play second fiddle in their own movie, said Spielberg.

>>Early drafts featured a battle between the Autobots and Devastator which was scrapped due to the complexity of Devastator's CGI rendering process, which even caused one of ILM's computers to melt down.

What the fuck.

>Vector Sigma?
Watch your slagging language!

>Optimus accepted Megs' offer in early drafts
>we could've had a Optimus/Megs team up if not for Bay hating ambiguity

"Revenge of the Fallen" got the neater stuff.

>The movie originally featured a lot more of Optimus Prime's and the Fallen's backstories. Basically, after the Dynasty of the Primes sacrifices themselves to hide the Matrix of Leadership, the Fallen returns to Cybertron and slaughters their descendants, but Optimus is hidden away and survives. He grows up without knowing he's a Prime and becomes brothers-in-arms with Megatron, but when Optimus finds out the truth Megatron gets butthurt and ends up being seduced by a weakened Fallen into forming the Decepticons and the war begins.

>The Fallen's relationship with Megatron was also pretty different. Megatron only followed the Fallen because the Fallen promised to make him a Prime. In the final battle, Optimus reveals the Fallen doesn't have that kind of power, and Megatron gets double-butthurt and betrays the Fallen, leaving on his own.

>The Twins were supposed to be Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, but that was changed in favor of the (presumably) child-friendly Skids and Mudflap.

>Arcee was supposed to be a single consciousness divided in three bodies that can combine, in order to solve the scale problem. But at some point this was axed in favor of just three female Autobots bikes and they all died anyway.

>Soundwave was supposed to join the final battle in Egypt, but they didn't find room for him.

>There's a deleted segment that reveals that "Alice" got her alt-mode from an life-like Alice in Wonderland animatronic from Disneyland.

>There's an extended deleted comedic segment where Sam gets in touch with Lennox's and Epps's wives and gets them to relay coded messages about Optimus through house decorating arguments that the guys don't figure out at first, all while the movie's designated asshole, Secretary Galloway, is listening in.

People say if Bay left we would get a good TF movie.

But from all the evidence in this thread, Bay is only one of the franchise's problem's. Most of the problems are Hollywood itself rather than Bay.

>>The movie originally featured a lot more of Optimus Prime's and the Fallen's backstories. Basically, after the Dynasty of the Primes sacrifices themselves to hide the Matrix of Leadership, the Fallen returns to Cybertron and slaughters their descendants, but Optimus is hidden away and survives. He grows up without knowing he's a Prime and becomes brothers-in-arms with Megatron, but when Optimus finds out the truth Megatron gets butthurt and ends up being seduced by a weakened Fallen into forming the Decepticons and the war begins.

what the fuck this is awesome. why didn't we get this?

Lee Tamahori is such a fucking hack. The highlight of this guy's career is Die Another Day.

> Why didn't we get this?

Because it was not about humans. Every TF movie must be about how special snowflake the humans are.

>At one point Wheelie was going to be a mute.

>There's a deleted segment where it turns out there's another old senile Decepticon Seeker hanging out at the Smithsonian alongside Jetfire. His name is Ransack, and he follows the gang to Egypt to challenge Jetfire to a duel for betraying the Decepticons. He goes on a lenghty ritual just to fire a single ineffective shot at Jetfire (impotence joke, I guess). Jetfire then kills him.

>The Twins were supposed to kill Devastator, but the U.S. Army wanted to show off their new rail gun (yeah, it exists), so they had to write it into the movie.

>Rachael Taylor was approached to return as Maggie, the hot hacker from the first movie, but declined.

>Anthony Anderson was approached to voice Jolt, but the character was so last-minute that there was no time to animate him speaking.

>Bay approached Beetlejuice from the Howard Stern show to play the border officer that lets Sam & gang pass because he's a fan of the NY Yankees. They had a major scuffle during the meeting for some unknown reason and Deep Roy got cast instead.

>Reportedly that scene where Jetfire explains the Fallen's backstory was redone more than a dozen times because of how much information it had to dump into the audience.

>The movie was oficially completed only 12 hours before the premiere.

>but the U.S. Army wanted to show off their new rail gun (yeah, it exists)

Wonder if that's why the fucking thing was in the new Resident Evil movie where Chris' team fucking do more damage than the zombies.

>caused one of ILM's computers to melt

>Michael Bay initially declined to direct the movie, but was ultimately persuaded by producer Steven Spielberg.
Why does Spielberg give a shit?

Devastators balls probably caused that.

I love these threads

furthers the jew agenda of melting and corrupting the brains of the goy cattle

no unicron, no joy.

Bay does a lot of stuff wrong but also does a lot of stuff right.

>Megan Fox's audition process for "Transformers" apparently involved washing Bay's car in a bikini. And Rosie Huntington Whitley apparently edged out the competition on her audition by showing up in a see-through shirt and no bra.

>The scene from "Transformers" where Lennox gets intercepted by an annoying call center operative while trying to reach the Pentagon was based on a real life incident that Bay had heard from a soldier.

>The horndog college professor played by Rainn Wilson in "Revenge of the Fallen" was based on one of Bay's own college professors who kept hitting on the students.

>Bay jumped out of a plane for real to film the skydiving sequence from "Revenge of the Fallen".

>Bay claims one of his proudest moments is when Spielberg first saw Devastator and said ''that's fucking awesome'', because Spielberg usually never swears.

>During filming for "Age of Extinction" in Hong Kong, Bay was approached by local crooks who demanded protection money to film in the area. When Bay refused, one of them threw an air-conditioner at him, which he dodged. He included a scene in the movie where Mark Wahlberg throws an air-conditioner at one of the villains.

>If one listens to the Death of Optimus track, it's a bit longer than what is played in the film. This is due to a scrapped part of his death involving his body crumbling into dust

Probably for the better. Turning gray and lifeless is bad enough. Shriveling up into dust just borders on comedic overkill with the drama. Would have been like if the Iron Giant's death had given birth to a new star or some shit.

>One of the worst Bond movies.

>A high point

Bay should have been making GI Joe all along.

Some neat concept art.

Arcee from the first movie.

Arcee's combined form from the second movie.

Springer, the Autobot helicopter from the second movie.

Could have had this bitch slutting around, trying to get Sam to ride her. Instead we get

...and mankind wept.

Breakaway, the Autobot jet that was also briefly considered for the second movie.

Deep Charge, the Autobot stealth ship, also a dropped concept from the second movie.

You're talking about transformers you enormously stunted dribbling dipshit.

>Unicron is Lovecraftian
Since when? The closest he came to being straight up supernatural was when he was apparently fed through the hatred caused by the Cybertronian wars. Everything else, he's been a pseudo machine god or just a not-Galactus.

Mixed up my posts there.

Again, Ransack, the other old Decepticon, also from the second movie.

And then there's Steeljaw, the Wreckers' robo-dog from the third movie.

And then there's the Widowmaker from the fourth movie.

Try not to fall in love.

PERSONEH SHAPPEH MORYAR

>Bay jumped out of a plane for real to film the skydiving sequence from "Revenge of the Fallen"
Wasn't it Dark of the Moon?

Joshua Joyce was based. He should have been one of the leads.

>Bay claims one of his proudest moments is when Spielberg first saw Devastator and said ''that's fucking awesome'', because Spielberg usually never swears.
I awwwd

Yes, thats how bad his career is.

Great reading comprehension, user.

Prime Arcee was best aesthetic. Way too much kibble in the first three movies.

Man, I wish Arcee was an actual character in the franchise, I really like that design

I wish we would have got him. He's adorable.

but in any of these versions did they ever consider making a reference to "Herby" the love bug being a transformer?

Ya know they tried to keep everyone in scale for the first movie no mass shifting and they succeeded for the most part.

But the big macguffin can shrink down to travel size and that's okay.

I still wish they would have split some of Screamer's mass into a sword and shield or something. Anything so he would have been less Doritos shaped.

Just misread the tone user. Thought you were gonna defend Die Another Day.

Lets have some good robots.

...

>Didn't he create them? The writers hated them, I thought Bay loved them?
I believe it's that he loved the idea behind them, but ended up hating the final results, especially when they ended up being one of the most criticized aspects of ROTF

>Optimus Prime would originally kill Megatron by punching the Allspark through his chest, but Spielberg felt that Sam needed to be the one to deliver the killing blow to complete his character arc.
notably negative reaction to this is one of several reasons why Optimus got more and more psychotic and involved in killing each movie's villains as the series progressed

notably for the first movie design, it got a toy as part of the first movie's line, while the combined mode is possible to pull off with the toys for the trio, although it's a bit neutered compared to the concept art

Breakaway did end up getting a toy(I own his Decepticon repaint/remold Thrust)

Deep Charge also got a toy made

as did Ransack, albeit fairly different from the concept art there

Steeljaw did get included as an accessory for one of the Wreckers, can't remember which one though

The Dreads were cool though.

>>Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman pitched the concept of Autobots and Decepticons joining forces to fight Unicron, which was rejected by the studio. They departed from the project shortly afterwards and were replaced by Ehren Kruger.

Good. That's what they get for fucking up Star Trek Into Darkness.

>>In early drafts, the Transformers didn't speak per studio demands, but writers Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman persuaded them otherwise.
god bless O&K

>Bay liked Bonecrusher so much he named his dog after him and then included the dog in all the sequels.
i love bay

>Watching this Michael Bay garbage

>watching good movies

...

ROTF could have been the best movie if it werent for that writers strike

Im one of the 12 people who actually enjoyed it but keeping everything they cut and trimming the fluff would have made it amazing

>>Michael Bay initially declined to direct the movie, but was ultimately persuaded by producer Steven Spielberg.
You're breakin' my balls Spielberg! You're breakin' my balls!

They must have used Nvidia

You think the reboots will allow for new designs? Think maybe oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo I dunno, maybe something a little more boxey?

>RotF movie was officially completed only 12 hours before the premiere.

Whaaaaaaaat. That's fucking nuts.