I like the Aircraft carrier portion. I really just hope that Prime's a little more of an a$$kicker than Megatron's ragdoll

 

Based on the official responses to leaked material from the first film, my guess is that they will be using this leaked treatment.

 

Starscream with something to say.

Decepticons that are not jobber who can be fragged by the squishies.

Autobots in a truely bad spot.

Story.

Things to make the movie-verse it's own independant universe.

Yep all too good to be true  

Maybe if it just had more humans and more peeing.

 

Though far from perfect, I thought that the treatment was quite good, and I hope that the final draft of the TF2 script will have much of the same general plot. Since others have listed their views in a pro/con fasion, I will follow suit. Perhaps someone involved in the decision-making/writing process is listening to us, so it would be bad to keep my views bottled-up if there's a chance that they might be taken into account (though I don't expect the influence to be much better than the power my views on politics have when I vote for president).

So, to repeat what others have said:

Pros:
1. Soundwave, Hot Rod and Ultra Magnus.
2. Aircraft-carrier Nemesis (nice G1-homage with the water-based decepticon base).
3. Human elements are nicely intertwined, but not distracting from the important stuff, i.e., transformers (mind you, I thought the human-focus of the first one was appropriate).
4. The matrix, though I wish it were at least mentioned in the first one; now it's going to seem ad hoc.
5. Starsream disembowelling! That's so much cooler than blasting-to-ashes. Look, I'm a Starsream fan too, but you have to admit, he needs a brutal, medieval demise at the hands of Megatron.

Cons:
1. The allspark-energizer stuff. We need a better excuse for the decepticon return. That shard of the allspark Prime at the end of the first one seemed to suggest something useful.
2. Though the presence of the humans was nicely intertwined, it would be good to see Sam having more an active role than merely revenge-leverage. It's hard for me to think of what else could be done, but that's why I'm not making the big bucks writing the sequel. I hope they do better.
3. Oh, Sam's roommate. I don't mind the cultural differences, the racing stuff, but some of the particular jokes ("american cars can do that? wow") were lame.

Stuff that's not quite a Con, but needs to be handled with care:
1. Devastator. Forget about the name-swapping with Brawl--that's not the real issue. The real issue is how this is executed. Combiners, as someone else already pointed out, has the potential to look real cheezy. It also has the potential to look real cool, if done properly. I'm voicing concern, but not an objection.
2. Soundwave as a priest-thingy. Again, no objections; I'm just worried about how this one is pulled off. I'll trust that they can make this look cool. Mysticism definitely has a place in the TF universe--Prime's opening speech in the first film makes that clear in the second line. And it didn't sound out of place, at least to me.
3. The sector seven Simmons guy: I'm still not sure what I think of it in the first film. I guess I have mixed feelings about his return here.

 

that was a pretty cool treatment. i wouldn't mind seeing that story on film for sure. less people, more tfs, all good to me.

 

Duh. Re-reading some other posts, I have to be sure I second a lot more Pros.

Pros:
6. Autobots in a dire situation. Absolutely. Lucas proved that this is the right story for the second act of a three-act play when he ripped it off for Star Wars.
7. Turning the focus from humans/autobots to both sides. More decepticon character development is undoubtedly necessary.
8. Decepticon factions. That makes clear how the decepticons are just a screwed up bunch, with all their infighting. (Edit: Clipped out political statement).

 

While I can appreciate your enthusiasm, (and I may be possibly missing your sarcasm) you have to remember that this is the movie continuity, not the cartoons or comics. Sideways, Unicron, and Indestructible sparks may not exist in this reality. Sentient robots is one thing. I think they did it well, but if you add sentient robots with ghosts? Failure. The reason this movie did so well is it was well done enough for most fans to enjoy, and for non fans to as well, maybe even making new fans. They have to keep it as grounded as they can in some sort of scientific reality. I was just moved to respond to your post because it seemed so rabidly pro Starscream's ghost. Pro Starscream is cool, I felt he was waaay underused in the first movie, but if he dies at Megs' hands, he should stay dead. I am torn, because I like Megs and want Prime to get another crack at him in the next one, but if he's completely dead, he should stay that way also. But it would be a waste for him to have been offed for good with so little screen time.
Just my 2 cents.

 

Hi! Welcome to the vast minority!

 

I just hope it doesn't end up being

humans...garbage...ultra lame grade 3 joke...garbage...advertising...garbage...humans...battle scene


I thought the last (the only) battle in the first movie was great but if they give me an hour and a half of trash with only one real battle/action scene at the end again I don't know if I can take it.

 

My 2 cents:

I loved it.

Less humans, more Bots & Cons, Cons vs. Cons, the real Devastator, Magnus, Hot Rod, darker tone.

Now the "probablies":

- This is probably the pitch submited by Ehren Kruger (sp?) to the production to get the screenwriter job. Wich he got.

- It was probably "leaked" to get fan reaction.

- Judging from the last "leaked script" debacle, the final script probably will be pretty close to it (no, I don't believe Nelson).

 

To avoid any further discussion on the issue, I've clipped out the perceived political comment. Let's get back to the discussion.

I'm still hoping that parts of this will remain in the sequel. While it wasn't perfect, it did have quite a few elements that I think would really work in the sequel. We'll wait and see though. I don't want to get excited until we know more and have more confirmed. Likely, that's a long time off (relatively) still.

 

That kinds sucks. The treatment was pretty good. Although, it would've been better with Grimlock! Now, they can go and fix that little omission.

 

I don't think Grimlock would translate well into the movieverse. He's too much of a Decepticon-oriented character to make an Autobot, what with his brutal sense of justice and guerrilla attitude. There's just no real way to make it work on a movie screen.

And I really hope they do use this as the actual movie script. It was amazing visualizing the amount of warfare that was really happening. When they tagged the first movie with "Their War. Our World." this is what I had imagined. While I understood why, I was a bit downtrodden there were so few Transformers in the movie. This would do more than justify that.

 

I suspected it was not real due to the TF screentime compared to the TF 1 script. And I figured it wasn't real because of the names (Hot Rod, Matrix, etc.). That being said, I liked what I read for the most part. I don't think Hot Rod and Magnus need to come in just yet. And the use of Devestator as a big guy who fights Autobots in the middle of the film seems like a waste of a perfectly good Decepticon. However, elements such as the rivalry between Megs and Screamer and the dark tone to the ending would be perfect for the second installment, setting up something huge in the finale. Good thing Galvatron and Unicron are nowhere to be found; they'll be overdone for the past five years.

As someone else pointed out, I suspect that we'll see something that at least resembles this story in the end. New names, probably no Matrix (that is basically what the Allspark was), and maybe a climactic Prims v. Megatron battle done the right way (TF 1's was ok, but not nearly epic or long enough). Just hoping the bots have some time to really develop their characters this go-round.

Overall though the script sounds too much like TF 1: new power source discovered and both sides want/need it, a well known landmark in the US has a secret no one knows about that pertains to said power source. But if the bots have character and are done justice, then this will trump the first one story-wise. BTW, I like the new Soundwave. I can see him as a high priest. And I love the Megs/Screamer rivalry. Hopefully we'll finally get that done right.

And finally, remember almost two years ago when Tom DeSanto summed up the plot for TF 1 with "the Matrix is here and both sides are fighting to claim it"??? And lo and behold we basically got Matrix Quest: The Movie. So, who's to say this treatment doesn't wind up being the framework for TF2???

 

To me there was too much in this treatment. I doubt they would triple the number of on-screen transforming characters in the sequel. Not to mention ironhide, ratchet and barricade were all missing.

I would expect some elements in TF2, some in TF3.

 

Why do people keep saying this kind of thing? If the character fits into the movie, they have all the right in the world to be written into it. People wanted more characters, so they're using recognizable characters.

 

They weren't necessarily missing, they just weren't mentioned.

 

Yeah, it was freaking awesome, so of course they won't use it.  

 

Like my buddy Pimpimus Prime said:

"yeah, they also said the leaked script for the first movie wasn't
going to be used and it was 90% unchanged in the end."

 

viral marketing and "leaked" info is very popular these days. i honestly wouldn't be surprised if the final movie at least resembles the bare bones of this treatment.