I apologise if this topic was made before, but this forum is pretty quick and so many like-titled threads it's easy to miss if it exists. Hell, there are threads about what you'd change about the films, but I want to specifically "rewrite" TLK alone to be functional. Take the same basic story, and as many aspects as possible, and reconfigure it into an actual movie. For the sake of time I'm not going to rewrite the script or anything, but just give a big ol' summary-style plot rundown. Plus, posting this giant synopsis is easier avoided in it's own thread should you choose than having to scroll past it in another.

Get ready for a long, LONG post.

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I'd start the movie similarly with the battle in the dark ages, and similarly have Merlin tracking down the Cybertronian knights for help. He'd be less of a comedic drunk and more of a sad drunk, lost in a stupor over their dire situation and personal inadequecies. He pleads with the knight, whom we see clearly but with his face concealed by a mouthplate, and similarly is gifted the staff, which doesn't control Dragonstorm, but instead can control life energy itself (which ties into its function at the end as a siphoning device to steal Unicron's energy) and Merlin takes it. He thanks the knight and says he'll do anything he can to repay him, but the knight cryptically says that taking the staff is payment, and the twelve knights charge from their ship to the battlefield. They fight bravely, but the twelve knights can't keep up with the shear numbers of the opposing army, and so Merlin holds aloft the staff, and a wave of "magic" shoots out, obliterating the opposing forces. The day is one, and all cheer, save for Merlin who's horrified by the power he just witnessed and what the knights intend by giving it to him.

Cut to a far more visually impressive title scene than what we actually got.

Optimus drifts through space, eventually crashing on Cybertron like in the film, and is at first perplexed by where he is, but as he scour shis surroundings he picks out ruined structures and landmarks, deducing that this is a dead Cybertron. He despairs, realising he's far too late to save his home, until Quintessa's voice leads him down into Cybertron's core. He meets her, and she introduces herself as his creator. Optimus is aprehensive, and says that she wanted him back so bad, well here he is. He's immediately bound and shocked in a longer and more nuanced torture scene, Quintessa again slapping him and causing the red mark, which grows with every twisted word she uses to sway him. Optimus visibly resists, albeit fruitlessly, making it more clear she's brainwashing him and he's not in control. Once successfully turned she releases him and he stands there, zombified, pledging his allegience and asking her what he's to do.

Cut to Cade rummaging through the restricted area of Chicago, looking for robot refugeees that have shown up since AOE and taken shelter in the ruined city. All the while he's being silently stalked by Barricade in alt mode. He's looking for a ship they saw crash land, and talks with Hound over the radio about where they think it went down, until Cade finds it. It climbs the smoking wreckage and sees the knight inside, radioing to Hound about the weirdly ancient robot inside that doesn't look like any of the TFs that have arrived since. The knight awakens, and Cade tries to help before seeing his mortal wounds. Cade is solemn much like in the film where the knight attempts to give him the talisman, but he refuses it saying the knight should keep it. The knight places it on his arm and it forms a band Cade can't remove, and in his panic falls off the ship and is quickly set apon by Barricade who reveals himself similarly to TF1, and says Cade has something he needs. Cade fires his alien pistol but is only saved when the Knight detonates the ship, engulfing barricade and letting Cade escape. Barricade emerges unscathed but is saved when Bumblebee arrives, Barricade taunting Bee with a "remember me?" style quip, and the two have a fairly even fight with Barricade gaining the upper hand until Hound arrives, and he retreats. The three return to the junkyard where things proceed about the same as in the real film, save for Drift who comments of the recklessness of bringing a "mere child" on such a delicate misison. Bee gets indignant, and Drift mocks that he hasn't got leadership potential like Prime does. As Bee storms off Cade tells him not to let it get to him, that they all miss Optimus and are just dealing in different ways, which segues into Cade calling up Tessa like in the movie along with Hound's "you're a hell of a father, Cade." During this time we're introduced to Daytrader just like in the movie proper, fulfilling the same role for identifying what the talisman is. Daytrader warns that it won't come off unless it "wants to."

Cut to Sir Edmund Burton and Cogman, who discuss how late "he" is and that something's likely gone wrong. Burton is nervous because of their short time schedule and a call from Daytrader, who's secretly one of many of Edmund's contacts throughout the world, has Cogman off the America to retrieve Cade before anyone else does. Cue Barricade returning to Megatron, who have a similar exchange about Barricade discovering the Knight, and Megatron says it's just as "she" said, touching his red face mark. Megatron turns violent when Barricade explains the Knight is dead, meaning their only lead is gone with it, until Barricade mentions the Knight giving Cade something. Megatron deduces it must be a talisman he was told about, and almost trashes barricade before he reasonably excuses his failure by pointing out how they're outnumbered. Megatron cools down when he realises Barricade is right, and that they'll need more troops to even things out. This leads to a different kind of scene where Barricade and Megatron storm TRF (which isn't featured in prominence this time and is mostly just a holding facility instead of a Government task force) and threatens the humans to release his "crew" in a less Suicide-Squad-y intro scene where each 'Con is released with all their quirks and attitude. Megatron bemoans how this is all that's left, but they'll do, and immediately asks Barricade where they're going, who reveals he put a tracker on Cade's boot or something when they tustled.

Cade and the Autobots are doing what they do, Crosshairs working on his little flying cart thing, Hound arguing with Daytrader over whatever, just generally character-stuff. Drift and Bumblebee butt heads more, until they hear the sound of approaching engines, and Wheelie points out the tracker on Cade, who crushes it. The Autobots all take up positions when they see that one of the approaching vehicles is an alien jet, i.e. Megatron. They retreat into the derelict town as the two forces fight, Crosshairs commenting on why Megatron isn't Galvatron. Megatron drops a line about how he was restored when "she" came to him, even though he thought is was a dream, and she gave him his new body and old name back. The 'Cons force the Autobots into retreat and they scatter. They manage to kill at least Dreadbot before the heavy hitters like Onslaught and Nitro force the Autobots into an empty building and the 'Cons follow, only for the building to be dropped on them thanks to Crosshairs planting sticky bombs around it. The Autobots plan to beat a hasty retreat when Cogman meets them, and all the Autobots, not just Bee and Cade, board the old flying wing Transformer and head to London. There they meet Edmund Burton and all the refugee Transformers. There Edmund takes an exposition dump, but instead of the Merlin descendant stuff, the actual backstory is this: the Knight Cade encountered was one of the twelve knights of the dark ages who fled with the talisman from Earth. See, the talisman "unlocks" Merlin's staff, which is the energy-sucking ket to draining the life from Unicron. The Knights were planning just this, intent on stealing Unicron's energy before the mad Goddess Quintessa could use it for evil, but when they saw life had evolved on Unicron's surface, they couldn't doom the whole planet of innocent creatures, and so seperated the two items so it could never be used, and bonded the staff to Merlin so no one but he could ever weild the power. Merlin, being mortal and all, took that power to his grave. But Quintessa has grown so strong in Godlike power ove rthe eons the Knights feared she'd be able to use the staff anyway, and called the talisman Knight back so they could retrieve the staff and hide it away again on another planet. Cogman, an ancient descendant of the Knights and lunatic Headmaster, intercepted this message centuries ago and has been working with the Burton family since to prepare for this day. Quintessa, with Cybertron, is coming, and the two planets growing closer is awakening Unicron. So now it' up to the Autobots and Cade to recover the staff before Quintessa does. The talisman is semi-sentient like the movie, and is compelled towards the staff, and so they use it to find on a map where the staff is.

So it's off to the sea, where everything's better down where it's wetter, take it from me. But before they can get there, the Decepticons have tracked the plane they took to London and are in full assault. Many a chase between many varieties of vehicle and robot is had. Each Autobot demostrates their skills (such as Cogman's ability to rap 'Whoa bitch" whilst driving at breakneck speeds) against likewise unique and skillfull Decepticons, and only through cunning and temwork do they manage to take down Mohawk and wound Onslaught. Megatron almost grabs Cade and Bumblebee were it not for the timely arrival of Hot Rod, the youngets and most skilled refugee from Edmund's sancturary, who just barely manages to escape with Bee and Cade, who make it to the submarine Transformer who actually transforms and barrage steh Decepticons until they retreat. The old sub (lets call them Tidal Wave) takes Cogman, Cade, and BB and HR undersea to the old Knight's hiding place. There they at last find the staff, but oh no, that Megatron just won't quit, and he follows them. As he looms over the Autobots, the Knight reactivate, and Megatron is massively outnumbered until Prime arrives who, to Bumblebee and Cade's horror, stands side-by side with Megatron and attacks the knights. They knock them around as Cade and Cogman flee through the ship, now rising once the staff was taken, ready to siphon Unicron's energy as per its original function. Megatron and Prime both blast free of the ship, and Hound, Drift and Crosshairs watch from land at the impossibility of Megatron and Prime teaming up.

Drift turns into a helicopter and flies up despite the frustrated pleas of Hound and Crosshairs to not go alone. But just as the two loom over Cade, Megatron attacks Prime, who's incredulous at the idea of anyone resisting Quintessa, while Megatron says his ambition is too powerful to be controlled. He wants Unicron's power for himself, and steals the staff. But when he does, Quintessa's influence grows with her anger at being betrayed, and Megatron is forced to take the staff to her. Optimus is left to fight the Autobots, who are easily overpowered. Hot Rod gets knocked right into the ocean leaving Bumblebee to fight alone, and he's almost killed via wrist-stabber when Drift jumps in between, taking the hit. This shocks Prime out of Quintessa's control, not that she cares with the staff in her possession now. Optimus is distraught, and Drift admits his respect for Bee's bravery before dying, and as Optimus realises all he's done, Bumblebee speak in his real, pained voice for Prime to keep fighting, and that they need a leader. The Knight Ship shows up thanks to Daytrader, manned by refugee Transformers from Edmund Burton's castle. Hound and Crosshairs momentarily mourne Drift aboard the ship. Unfortunately, Megatron's Decepticons have likewise regrouped with an army of demonic warriors of Quintessa, and the fight is on. Optimus leads his Autobots against Megatron's Decepticons once again, and eventually Prime and Megatron are at it again in Quintessa's chamber where Cade follows, intent of using the talisman. Big ol' fight, and in the insuing conflict, Megatron's ambition and hatred of Optimus -over-write Quintessa's control, and he turns on her. Cade find sthe talisman leaves his arm, and he throws it to Prime, who sues it to take the staff and break it in half. Quintessa freaks the fuck out and goes berserk, and zaps all the Autobots whilst the Decepticons look on. Cogman cheekily gets the jump on not Nitro, but Onslaught, and pops his head off (which keeps protesting even once disconnected) and hijacks his body for a sneak attack on Quintessa. This gives Megatron a chance to shoot her, but like the movie she just sort of vapourizes but everythign think's she's been destoryed. Everyone bails as Cybertron begins to shudder as it drifts away into space. The Decepticons (minus Onslaught's body, but his head being carried away by Nitro or someone) decide enough is enough, while the Autobots gather victorious, but saddened by the loss of Drift. They properly mourne their heroic friend, (Hound: "I'm gonna miss his fortune cookie crap.") and Optimus looks up to Cybertron, now at a "safe distance" from Earth, and he leads his Autobots to Cybertron where they can lay Drift to rest "at home."



Whew. So, what do ya think? Better, worse? Does it create as many problems as it solves? What would you add or change? I tried to keep it less fanwanky and more just a good TF story where the TFs are just as much characters as the people, with the same basic plot of Knights and Unicron and Quintessa and shit because that's clearly setup for the future. Cut out everything useless and keep the movie's grand scale but without the grand mal it gave me.

 

Better. Much better! 

 

This fixes a lot of the issues that the movie has for sure and it helps make the good stuff that was kept from it even more impressive and relevant. They should hire you to do scripts for future movies.

 

I haven't got time to read it, so i'm just gonna assume it's better than the story we got!

 

I like it - about the only thing I miss is the absence of Viviane, but as a writing tip says, "murder your darlings."

 

It's basically the TLK without Vivian, Izzy, Sqweeks, Dragonstorm, TRF, the scientist guy, half the convoluted history stuff, or Simmons, with all that time redistributed for a tighter, more focused narrative around Cade and the Autobots versus Quintessa and the Decepticons, with a less confusing backstory of the Knights and Quintessa.

It's not even that I personally dislike those aspects I cut, but they were easily rendered unimportant by just rewriting the narrative to be more coherant. Like why Vivian and Cade as chosen humans? Why not just Cade, the character that's actually been established, and why make him a destined Knight and not just a guy who was there because he's friends with the TFs? Why have Izzy and Sqweeks, two characters with literally no purpose whatsoever? Why make Optimus entirely irrelevant to his own story when just letting him have Vivian's hero moment, now absent without her, so it actually seems like he had a reason for being there? Etc.

I basically tried to make eveyr aspect as not-pointless as possible, and anything that I couldn't, I just cut out and replaced its time/space with character moments or much needed exposition for thing slike why Megatron works for Quintessa. (hell, I didn't even explain it, just alluded to it, and was surprised how much it worked just by mentioning that yes, he works for Quintessa and she gave him his new body offscreen with her God powers somehow. That's more than literally nothing, which is what TLK had)

Like I said, I didn't mind Vivian, but her whole thing was that only she could touch/use the staff... but Optimus, Megatron, and even Quintessa could all touch/use it somehow without issue, rendering her totally pointless. (and the whole, "oh, this technology is specially coded to your DNA so only you can use it" thing is kinda trite in sci-fi to start, but TLK was the concept at it's absolute most shallow and unecessary) And considering Cade did absolutely nothing with the talisman (it neither led them anywhere nor did anything besides block a single blow then vanish) it being some hyper mystical excalibur sword thing and not just a fancy compass seemed utterly pointless.

Pointless and irrelevant are two very common words when discussing TLK.

 

Pretty fun. And I like Daytrader being one of the contacts

But I see Alliance as Deep Dive, not Tidal Wave.

 

Someone give this man a TARDIS and a Michael Bay disguise!!  

 

I like more than I don't. I think you have some excellent ideas that I am sad will not come to fruition. What I really liked was more presence of decepticons throughout. a death, a heroic one at that for the autobots. A prime megatron possessed team up, and a headmaster. The only real thing I liked originally that you changed was the suicide squad scene. Here's what I would do since you asked for input, and I said this elsewhere:
The decepticon barter happens almost immediately in the story and they are hired to track Cade and do so to Chicago where they kill canopy and steelbane as Cade is trying to help him. Then the decepticons lose and leave trf, and Cade tells trf how stupid they are. I like decepticons killing canopy.
Now I would also add these random things to the existing story
*Megatron and crew acknowledge drift as a former decepticon
*the final battle when all seems lost the dinobots emerge from the knightship.
*i loved the idea of the Cuba haven, but I want a true wrecker cameo, or one that matters.
* finally I would have a post credit scene where megatron and barricade go back to the trf facility for "reinforcements" quintessa is there with them and she says to megatron "as promised your brothers are back" we cut to her beginning to touch the locked away, dead, stored bodies of shockwave, soundwave, and starscream.

 

Excellent work, Split! I missed Izzy and Viviane but I get it, you explained your logic just fine so it's cool.  

 

Cheers everyone.  

Never even occured to me to just move the Decepticon introduction up.

This would also be nice. Could even just be a bit of banter. Maybe this could feed into the subplot about Drift and Bee's animosity.

I liked the Cuba bit, (I love Simmons to boot) but the movie jumps around so much already just between the two Earth factionss, Cybertron, and London, and it ultimately didn't do anything. Even slimmed down it's a bit overloaded, and the actual film was bloated and schizophrenic between all the different locations and subplots. You had TRF, morshower, Megatron, the Decepticons, Quintessa, London, the Autobots, Cuba, the scientist, and probably something else I forgot.

That wouldn't really work in my version since Megatron openly betrayed her and Quintessa was presumed dead. (I'd keep the after-credits scene where we see her in the desert in human disguise) However, I also don't have all the Decepticons die for no reason (only Mohawk and Dreadbot, as the two most expendable, with Megs, Barricade, Onslaught and Nitro all surviving) so the need to "resupply" on 'Cons is mitigated. (Plus new Decepticons could always show up later as being in hiding since neither my version nor the actual TLK explicitly mention all Decepticons being imprisoned) While it would be nice to have the "popular" 'Cons back, since none of them were especially well-developed or served their traditional roles, they don't really serve a purpose the new group isn't capable of. (in fact the new group is quite a pleasant parallel, with Nitro as the new Starscream, Onslaught as Shockwave, and Barricade as Soundwave basically)

 

Sorry I am on an iPad and typing is tedious, I meant to suggest the post credits as my change to the last knight as it is not yours. My reasoning isn't just fan service, I feel the originals play an important part in the lore and seems like everyone is revived in this continuity (well megatron) I just think as post credit stingers go it would've excited more, and given us a chance to see these characters again..maybe it is fan service idk.

Anyway regardless your version was entertaining and as I said, well thought out and in some cases "better" which is sad because you've only had a few days to speculate and fabricate a new story, where as the writers room had more time, and monetary motivation. But who knows they could've handed in a bad ass script and editing, and on set changes chewed it up. I wish we could get the scripts to the films! So much would be answered

 

My version of TLK would be a Transformers movie set entirely during Arthurian times. I want to see more of Stanley Tucci's Merlin because I loved his performance.

 

Ah, I see. That makes more sense.

Yeah, I wish we could have the "main" guys back. It's one of the reasons I want a reboot. I'm ready to see the next live-action interpretations of these characters and, y'know, get them back.

Wanna hear a dirty little secret?

I made it up as I went along. :x A while after I posted in the user review thread my idea for Drift dying, I started typing this big post and basically made it all up in a couple of hours or so after I came home. A few hours is all it took to take TLK and scrub away all the biggest chunks of grime and confusion. It's not even perfect, it shouldn't be after barely an afternoon of typing on the fly, but the actual writers couldn't come up with something a little more like this in all their months of scripting?

 

Wish this was the movie that I and four other people took a trip to see. The real one was simply too cluttered and weirdly put together. There was little by way of reason or rhyme in the film. This seems to fix most problems.

Me, I probably would have done something nearly entirely different from the movie. Like, actually connect the plot to AOE and keep Prime's character arc going, for example.

 

Also lets not forget Wong, the user who gave us spoilers that later turned to be fake, and he confessed and said he was drunk..he said he was drunk..and rereading his stuff actually made me mad because most of it I prefer to what we got! He was drunk?!

Yes your "secret" is sadly familiar as after Rotf orci and Kurtzman only had a few weeks cuz of the writers strike and blamed that for what we got, I was 23 at the time and remember thinking "hell weeks? I could rewrite Rotf in days to be better than what we got...

I'll say it again though we have yet to see ANY of these scripts, and until they appear we won't know who is to blame fully, especially because I find the novelizations of these films much better stories than the screen version(granted that happens with a lot of books) but all I know is bay was given a script for DOTM and Peter David one. David wrote the book and it is one of my absolute favorite transformer reads I couldn't put it down I read it before seeing the movie, then I saw the movie and threw my 3D glasses

 

It's a cleaner storyline. Kudos.

 

Even though I'm Seeing TLK Tomorrow.

I Like.

 

Now that's interesting.

 

It was good until about halfway through, then it went "eh" like TLK was.