It crossed my mind what direction would you guys have taken the films and what would you have done differently if you were mike bay?

 

The number of ways things could have gone is almost limitless. Within the basic frame work of the core ideas and with the number of characters it's pretty much only limited by imagination.

If it was me well I'm a huge fan of movie villains so the most important thing for me would have been crafting great movie villains for the heroes to overcome.

 

I personally would of made the Decepticons win the first two movies, and the autobots finally coming back heroic like in the last movie.

 

I would've had the 'Cons win all three movies.

Or at least make it so they're not all disposable cannon fodder that can be taken out with a stick.

 

it is the core of great movies.

Really interesting villians make people hate to like them and hence the movie way the more enjoyable as you arent stuck on one side of the fence rooting.

I personally would have totally gone with more core elements but bring them up to speed for the live action aspect. The movie got alot of elements right in some of the design aspect but I feel the lost the overall Transforming feel to the movie.

The designs are never really shown transforming completely in a way that doesnt make me go oh movie fudge. I would have appreciated seeing more actual transforming its not like you have to account for every gear. but how about just the car parts we see and make it work.

Black out was as close as we got imo. We needed more of him and baracade.

Not to mention you ever notice how the autobots never use the altmode for anything but a car chase there never was a situation where the alt mode had a special purpose. closest was bumble bee driving and diving to save mikaela and sam.

Ironhide also would be a complete redo his original character had a certain likable nature to him even though he was gruff but the movie iron hide is just boring and not really effective as a good character. Yet they try so hard to make him be one. He is outside of bumble bee and prime the most seen bot across both movies.

 

I would've kept much of it the same, primarily because it worked. The peripheral annoyances such as toilet humor, I'd have cut from them.

 

I would have added more toilet humor. We needed more shots of giant robot balls.

 

I really thought about this.

Okay, we all know the very first scene with Blackout at the base, right?

There was a sense of menace and wonder that was utterly lacking from every other scene in the entirety of either movie from that moment on.

I mean it was so promising at first. An aircraft that they know was lost comes flying in. Something is very wrong. Shockingly, it transforms into something unbelievable, something that tears an entire Army base apart single-handedly. It cannot be stopped or even really damaged. It goes for their computers, quick thinking stops it from achieving its goal, but it goes on to destroy the base and kill everyone save a small squad that managed to get away then is chased down by something else unbelievable, something that they and multiple support aircraft barely manage to drive off, damaging the little one only slightly.

The next time we see a Decepticon it's somehow sneaked about Air Force One. It got to one of the most heavily guarded objects in the USA...and it isn't even interested in the POTUS! It kills secret service agents, it blows past our best computer security, then it sneaks off, totally undetected and is actually met by yet another one of its kind right at the airport!

There is a sense of brutal force, guile, and the emphasis on "robots in disguise". They can go anywhere, be anything, and we can barely hurt them. Who can help humanity in its time of need, when we barely even understand what the threat is?

Have some more interaction between the 'cons. They work together, they must have some sort of interpersonal relationships. Shorthand it, a word here, a look there, maybe Frenzy and Barricade find Blackout's methods lacking in subtlety. Maybe they're glad Bonecrusher need not be called in. Maybe they're concerned that if Starscream finds out about the Allspark before they find Megatron they fear there will be trouble. Implying things about unseen characters can tell us a lot, can set up expectations for later.

Enter: the Autobots. If we must have Sam and his annoying life, at least stop using the cheap movie tricks to make us care. Show us his potential, show us anyone but the panicked, flailing mess LeBouf portrays him as. Show us some of his inner reserves of strength, reserves that shock even him. Show him being capable of something, anything at all!

Make Bumblebee a damn character! The voiceless thing is a cheap way to get out of it. Bumblebee has a life, he has wants and desires of his own. What are they? Who is he, this supposed "important" character? Have him tell Sam of the terrible price his world has paid, how all he knew is lost, how he is a refugee, alone, trusted to find something of utmost importance, their source, their life, their god. Show us how he has grown to care for Sam and this world, how the little struggles in Sam's life have come to be important to Bumblebee as well, how he understands the value of these people. How he understands what his leader meant when he told him of them. That way, when he protects Sam from Barricade, we give a damn.

Then he decides that Sam should meet his leader. Cullen makes it effortless. Prime commands respect by his very presence, his nobility seeps out at every moment. Have a little more interaction among the Autobots as well. Instead of giving us "giant 'bots on the lawn" and poor attempts at humour, have them wait, talking amongst themselves. We can learn that Ironhide doesn't care much for these swarming little creatures. We learn of Ratchet's clinical interest, how he hopes to keep the war from breaking out here, among these delicate beings.

Keep the basic structure, just make the character interactions better. A few moments between Jazz, Bumblebee, and Sam/Mikaela can show how much Jazz appreciates human culture, what they have created. The movie needn't be bogged down by this, but enriched by it. A little moment of Jazz talking music with Mikaela would later make us care, make us horrified, when Megatron tears him in two.

I will keep bringing Predator up again and again but it's so true. Without wasting time, without slowing the movie down, we learn that Blaine and Mac are like brothers, we understand why Mac flips out when Blaine dies, we have a quiet moment while Mac waits by Blaine's body for their trap to spring. We give a crap when someone who could easily have been a disposable mass of meat with a minigun dies. Hell, after seeing the Predator's behavior, we cheer when Dutch has defeated this seemingly unstoppable foe, and we understand its question to him as well.

Look at this.
YouTube - "I'll bleed you" from first Predator

and especially this:
YouTube - "Predator": Blood Brothers' Revenge
Seriously, look at it!
Why is this so much better than the half-assed crap we got for Jazz's death, huh?

"We'll miss you, Blues."
"Jazz, Prime."
"Whatever."

The first clip? Great little character moment. Instant tension, took thirty-one seconds to establish.

FX are all well and good, but it doesn't cost much more to put characterization in amongst the explosions and transformations. Bay is just not good at that. I cannot think of a single movie of his where I gave a shit about any of the characters and whether they lived or died unless the actor was so charismatic on their own that they overcame the weak material.

That's my major problem with the movies so far. The TFs run the gamut from barely being characters to being props at best.

The heart of the franchise has always been the range of characterizations. Why do we like Thundercracker? Physically, he is identical to the other Seekers, but his personality gives us something more to chew on. Smokescreen is a riot. TFWiki calls him "Liar. Cheater. Compulsive gambler. Meet Heroic Autobot Smokescreen, kids!". One episode centered around him, and we know who he is and what he's like.

The toys are great, but notice who gets all the repaints and redecos and remolds? The characters people like. Dinobot has a ton of figures for a reason and it's not just "dinosaurs are cool". There are lots of dinosaurs, but only one of him.

Unless the writers and director understand this major point, the movies will, to me, never be worth remembering.

- Coeloptera

 

Kind of funny you brought that up because when I was watching that Transformers Prime clip where Bumblebee uses his car mode to make the jump I was wondering why they never did anything like that in the movies.

I don't know I guess with them being robots I was expecting them to do some wild stuff like in the Transporter movies with their car modes. But like you've said we've pretty much been confined to it being used just to get from point A to point B without walking.

 

Cut the cheap toilet humor, but keep some of the clever-er bits. Some of the crude humor is fine, cuz people crack jokes like that in real life all the time, but some of it was over the top. And we dont need robot balls.

I would have had an over-arching plot for all three movies, with a full reveal of their plans in the second movie and the third devoted entirely to the autobots finally winning.

And I would have lifted the overall decepticon goal straight out of the 3 part Ultimate Doom.

 

It's just a movie, dude. It's not a remake of Predators, it's completely different.

All you fanboys whining about the movie need to chill. No possible way any movie could be made to appease anyone, but the movies appealled to the masses - i.e. non transformer fans - and made a shitload of money. That's all that mattered.

But for the record, I would have let the Nolan brothers write/direct it. Even though I'm a sucker for Bay's cheesy heroic shots and overly triumphant music, plus the fact he loves to blow up stuff.

 

Yeah, you tell him, bro. You take his thorough, well-thought-out response and shit all over it. That'll teach him to bring brains to a gun fight. How dare he tell us what he thinks would make a good movie?

I agree. This and dog humping. These are essential elements to any classic film.

Where would any of Hitchcock's movies be without the random scenes of animals fucking in the woods?



Coeloptera has a sexy brain.

 

There's a million different ways a Transformers movie could've gone, and all of these ways could've retained the same core concept. Really, it's only a limit of imagination to the different ways you could make a Transformers movie.

 

I'm not sure why there is this idea that either you can appeal to the masses or you can appeal to the older fans but you can't appeal to both. I think there are more than enough examples that show films don't have to be either new fans or old fans but that there is plenty of ground in the middle. You don't always have to throw out what your old fans might be looking for just to appeal to a new set of fans.

Plus is it really so insane that after 25 years people would want something that would stand up as a classic sci fi movie rather than something that might be forgotten once some other effects film becomes the next big thing. Maybe it's just a little crazy to dream of being an Aliens 2, a Star Wars, or a Lord of the Rings but it's not a totally insane dream that a Transformers epic couldn't be made.

 

Personally, nothing different.

As it is now. It's following close enough to what I'd expect.

1. Arrival to earth
2. The fallen.
3. Shockwave.
4. Heralds of Unicron, and what happened to cybertron. (includes buildup, and megs becoming galvatron) Cliffhanger about where did the 'heralds' come from. At this point, I'd also do a massive push on the allspark radiation exposure to sam, making him starting to become a mechanical life form himself, eventually into becoming hot rod. Since he's the only other being given the okay by the matrix.
5. Unicron fully awakens, revealed to be Cybertron itself, wrapping the entire series up, including explaining why the allspark was left on cybertron to begin with. It keeps unicron abated, and creates new life to sustain the cube on its mission to keep unicron in check.

Anything after could dive into the origins of who built the allspark, and unicron's origins. (Meaning there's other living mechanical life out there in space somewhere.)

 

Mikaela. Nude scenes. That is all.

LOL

 

Then future movies will get worse and worse because no one exercises any standards anymore, and it will be their fault when one day they wonder why we are watching "Fart: the Movie".

Because you reinforced the idea that audiences are morons for whom thinking is too difficult.

Those people are responsible for Twilight, they are responsible for Justin Bieber. They pay for crap, they get crap, served up hot, just like they ask for it.

FUCK. THAT. NOISE.

Forget "appeasing" anyone. I'm no GEEWUNner. I liked BW, I liked Animated, they offer different things. Bayverse? Offers jack shit aside from actually just being about Transformers.

FX? Big deal. Avatar annihilated RotF in terms of FX. Explosions? Pfft! Seen better, better filmed too. Hot chick? Please. We got leagues hotter on freaking TV every week.

It was forgettable tripe. Decades down the line, people still love Predator and the first two Alien flicks are classics. They have tons of action, explosions, people being butchered, skinned, and they were even R-rated. Ten years from now people in general will barely remember there even were Transformer movies. How many people talk up The Island or Pearl Harbor?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

This is for you, end everyone else who says "Well, it made money."
YouTube - Mr. Show - More money equals better than

It's satire. Very keen satire.

- Coeloptera

 

You had me nodding in agreement at "Twilight".

 

I would have liked more of the optimus and megatron dynamic as brothers who once governed over cybertron together and what made them on opposing sides

 

I had a whole script written... maybe when the Bay movies are said and done, I'll be able to get it to Hasbro. BIG maybe.