Possible Reason Why TLK Was Messy (Unicron a Last Minute Addition?)

Discussion in 'Transformers Movie Discussion' started by BeePrime_WFCTX_106023, May 28, 2018.

  1. BeePrime_WFCTX_106023

    BeePrime_WFCTX_106023 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 30, 2013
    Posts:
    1,083
    News Credits:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    192
    Likes:
    +527
    I have been thinking about this for quite some time, and it just recently occurred to me. Don't know if anyone remembers, but there was a leak back in October 2016 on Instagram and Facebook, that the reason why Earth has been so connected to the Transformers is because the Omega Lock was underneath stonehenge. The leak said the reason tht the Allspark came to Earth, the reason sun harvesters were built on Earth, the reason the Creators came to Earth and used the seeds to farm the Dinobots, the Ark initially was designated to arrive on Earth but crashed into the moon, was because Earth was connected to Cybertron as the Omega Lock was buried in Earth. It is also mentioned that a group like the Knights of Templar and The Masons existed throughout history to protect this info, which is partially true as in the film this group is the Witwiccans and they protected the Staff of Merlin. That would make the rest of this leak most likely true and reliable.
    I was just watching the ending of The Last Knight where Megatron is in the middle of Stonehenge and the big pillars come out of the ground and it reminded me of this. What if this leak was entirely true, and Unicron was just a last minute addition? Maybe the staff of Merlin was the Omega Key, and instead the Omega Lock was what Megatron wanted to activate. It would explain why Quintessa's statement to Optimus regarding "Unicron and Primus" feels forced and disconnected to the film continuity, and even why Unicron is hardly even fleshed out in the film. Maybe even Quintessa was a last minute addition along with Unicron, and instead Optimus was actually going to meet the true Creators who appeared in AOE.
    I also believe that all of the scenes with Anthony Hopkins discussing Unicron were probably reshots as well as the John Tuturro scenes when the two are conversing on the phone (which in the film also feels forced and rushed). I remember Michael Bay posting on his Instagram that he just finished filming Tuturro's scenes but this was in April, two months before TLK's release. This would definitely make Tuturro's scenes last minute (at least his scenes where he is conversing with Burton). My further speculation is that the scenes of Unicron's horns popping up around the world must have been added in like Novemeber, after this leak (which was in October) yet before the teaser trailer in December which had the Africa desert scene with Unicron's horn.
    Adding Unicron into the movie was essentially creating a new film in a poor way, similar to the way Justice League was changed midway filming.
    And making all these last minute additions in November wouldn't be enough time to compose a cohesive film for a June release date, which explains why TLK is so messy and convuloted, specifically the Unicron plot point. Why did they decide to add in Unicron at the last minute, Idk? Maybe Hasbro forced them? But the Omega Lock plot would have made this movie less convoluted, confusing, and more connected to AOE and the other previous films. If it indeed was Hasbro who forced Unicron, then that would unfortunately make TLK Hasbro's fucking fault (at least partially).

    Also in the leak, it is explained that Hitler was obsessed with the Occult which made him somehow involved. My guess is that the WW2 battle with Hot Rod and Bee at Churchill's place was intended to be a battle for the Staff of Merlin. Maybe Hitler stole the Staff and the ally forces, Churchill, Rod and Bee were fighting to retrieve it. This would explain why Michael Bay said Churchill would be smiling in his grave and be deemed a hero after watching the film, because what was intended was for Churchill to help the Autobots and be deemed a hero, maybe even be a member of the Witwiccans.
    Here is the actual source of the leak
    Transformers 5: The Last Knight

    This may be written kind of sloppy, I'm just trying to get it all down out my head.
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2018
    • Like Like x 5
  2. Galvatross

    Galvatross Dom Dom, Yes Yes Veteran

    Joined:
    Aug 24, 2013
    Posts:
    7,394
    Trophy Points:
    292
    Likes:
    +10,825
    I think there are a few reasons TLK was messy.

    One, after Aligned did not do to well Hasbro tried forcing the Aligned lore into the Bayverse.

    Two, I think the writers were given too much free reign this time around, they put in whatever they wanted and ignored whatever they didn't like, and they tried appeasing too many people. I think so much of the negative reaction to some of the previous films was so knee-jerk that the production ignored damn good things in them.

    Did you miss old characters? Well here's Barricade, Simmons, Lennox, Wheelie, and Topspin! Except most of them don't do much! Did you like DotM? Well like in DotM Cybertron is coming to Earth again! And there's a cameo by Starscream's head, except it's strangely intact! Did you want traditional Decepticons? Well we'll introduce them in a few minute scene, and they'll get some lines, but they'll mostly die quick deaths!

    Did you like AoE? Well we're not going to mention Galvatron! We're going to have "Prime's maker," but we're not going to delve further into the origins of Transformers or even clarify whether Quintessa is a Creator. We're going to minimize Hound, Drift, Crosshairs, and the Dinobots. Want to know more about the Knights? Well in this movie things about them will not be compatible with what was said in the last film. We're also going to make the universe smaller after hinting a larger one.

    TLK is what happens when you try to please everyone with a Transformers movie; you end up pleasing much fewer people. The 2007 film, RotF, DotM, and AoE all knew what they were and made no apologies for the directions they took, nor did they apologize for their predecessors in the sequels. TLK felt like it didn't know what it was, and it felt like an apology that was not needed whatsoever.

    Which is funny, because most of the biggest complainers were never going to like Transformers 5 anyway, so they might as well have simply tried making a film that pleased people who liked the new direction the previous film took.
     
    • Like Like x 3
  3. TFXProtector

    TFXProtector TFW2005 Supporter

    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2011
    Posts:
    27,038
    News Credits:
    8
    Trophy Points:
    392
    Likes:
    +38,501
    I don't think people ever read the news on these sites anymore. Bay confirmed he himself went into the writer's room and grabbed two different scripts and merged them into what is now TLK. That's why it's such a mess, nothing more, nothing less.
     
    • Like Like x 6
  4. Galvatross

    Galvatross Dom Dom, Yes Yes Veteran

    Joined:
    Aug 24, 2013
    Posts:
    7,394
    Trophy Points:
    292
    Likes:
    +10,825
    Whether it was Bay or someone else who combined the stories is unknown. I just remember Lorenzo being the one to mention it:

    Transformers: The Last Knight's Story, Characters Revealed - IGN - Page 2

    “There was not one idea that won the day for this movie. It ended up being two ideas,” said di Bonaventura. “One is, in the Transformer's mythology, billions of years ago, and one is hundreds of years ago. So in that sense, those two ideas came together. At first, we thought maybe they were two different movies, and then they came together.”

    I also suspect the writers were a problem given the following:

    New Still From Transformers: The Last Knight And A Writers Room Interview - Transformers News - TFW2005

    The last film in the franchise was, Age Of Extinction, was “kind of an outlier,” Bay explains in the new Empire. “Because of losing Shia and just figuring out where we were gonna go. It was testing the waters a little bit. This gets us back in the groove”.

    Bay’s writers, meanwhile, tell us how they quickly realised that pretty much anything they asked for, they’d get. They had written an English castle-dweller called Sir Edmund Burton, who holds secrets of Transformers lore. “We said, ‘He’s an Anthony Hopkins-type character,’” says co-writer Ken Nolan. “And two days later Michael’s like, ‘So, we’ve got Anthony Hopkins.’” Another new character is Cogman, a psychotic robot butler (“He constantly wants to kill people,” says co-writer Art Marcum) who has been excitedly described by Spielberg as “the greatest four-and-a-half-foot character since Yoda”. Co-writer Matt Holloway, a Downton Abbey fan, one day said as an aside, “It would be so funny if Jim Carter voiced this character.” A short while later, Bay announced, “Jim Carter — we got him.” “It’s good to be Bay,” says Nolan. “Everybody says yes.”
     
    • Like Like x 1
  5. NemesisPrime12

    NemesisPrime12 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2017
    Posts:
    1,213
    News Credits:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    187
    Likes:
    +1,215
    1. The writers don't seem watched the previous installment. They scrapped the previous history and created their own thing to start a movie universe.
    2. The producers decided to crammed several storylines for TLK
    3. Bay reached his fatigue
     
    • Like Like x 3
  6. Ephland

    Ephland Let's Go Rangers

    Joined:
    Oct 31, 2008
    Posts:
    12,862
    News Credits:
    6
    Trophy Points:
    362
    Likes:
    +7,400
    It was messy because of the writing and directing and acting.
     
    • Like Like x 3
  7. Livingdeaddan

    Livingdeaddan DEFIANTLILHORDE

    Joined:
    Apr 24, 2009
    Posts:
    5,495
    News Credits:
    7
    Trophy Points:
    287
    Location:
    京都市
    Likes:
    +3,742
    I was gonna say some stuff, but I'd just be paraphrasing.
     
  8. Livingdeaddan

    Livingdeaddan DEFIANTLILHORDE

    Joined:
    Apr 24, 2009
    Posts:
    5,495
    News Credits:
    7
    Trophy Points:
    287
    Location:
    京都市
    Likes:
    +3,742
    I'm surprised you even noticed all that stuff. I watched TLK twice and it's not difficult to watch in the way that say ROTF is, but I think that's because it's so mind numbing narratively and visually hypnotic that by the end I'm just looking at the pretty colors.

    Admittedly my expectations for rotf were astronomical compared to the "might see drift transform or whatever idk" approach to TLK.

    Hoping Bumblebee won't feature the same clusterfuck approach to planning the Bay helmed movies did.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  9. theswimmer06

    theswimmer06 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 30, 2017
    Posts:
    163
    Trophy Points:
    72
    Likes:
    +184
    Simply put, TLK had the most inefficient story with adding yet another earth destroying macguffin that actually didn't needed to be chased this time. Why unlocked a weapon that was locked for a reason. Production was pretty much caught in the moment that they didn't bother to vet stories.

    You forgot the "Secret History of the transformers" that ended up shown to be earth centered. This automatically backs up people claim of writers making their own verse: They didn't try to be efficient and utilize past macguffins or ,at best, refer to the Allsparks Hieroglyphics or at least government reprints which would ultimately line up with AOE's expansion.

    Mix all this poison with the fact that some of the writers worked for Marvel..... It makes you baffled to no end.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2018
  10. Ash from Carolina

    Ash from Carolina Junior Smeghead

    Joined:
    Mar 24, 2007
    Posts:
    15,966
    Trophy Points:
    337
    Likes:
    +3,232
    I think a factor not to be overlooked is Paramount just kept playing it by ear instead of having a solid plan for the franchise. That movie did okay somewhere in the world, well then I guess we will just throw together another movie.

    Oh crap I guess we need to crank out a sequel kind of worked when Transformers first came out but taste in entertainment changed and unfortunately Paramount got caught off guard by the changing expectations of ticket buyers.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  11. jaws

    jaws Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 20, 2006
    Posts:
    5,100
    News Credits:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    337
    Location:
    OHIO
    Likes:
    +3,400
    Unicron should have been a separate entity not the Earth.
     
  12. BeePrime_WFCTX_106023

    BeePrime_WFCTX_106023 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 30, 2013
    Posts:
    1,083
    News Credits:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    192
    Likes:
    +527
    I wish people would stay on topic. My main point of this thread was to discuss the old leak from October and thus my speculation that Unicron was a last minute addition. I've been thinking about that for a long time and feel really strongly about it, and I wanted to share it with others for discussion. Maybe I should've reworded the title to "Unicron was a last minute addition...possible evidence" because my focus isn't how TLK was messy. I know TLK was messy for many different reasons, but the "last minute" Unicron addition I've been speculating on may have played a more major role. I didn't intend for this thread to be another TLK hate fest, we already have a ton of those. If the mods can change this thread title that'd be great.

    Also, if Unicron wasn't added in, and instead the connection between Earth and Cybertron was the Omega Lock, the film would have connected better to the others. It would have been a more cohesive film even with the two scripts being meshed together. We wouldn't have Quintessa either, and there'd be more connection to the Creators, the Ark from TF3, the Allspark, etc. So let's discuss that, instead of turning this into a useless dead thread.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  13. LegionofMordor

    LegionofMordor Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 17, 2014
    Posts:
    162
    Trophy Points:
    92
    Likes:
    +197
    Should of just kept it simple with The Last Knight. Maybe based it loosely on the 86 animated movie. I don't think having Unicron and Quintessa are the main problems of TLK.

    The title should have been Transformers: The Rise of Unicron or something. No TRF or that kind of crap, this time Autobots gets a sanctuary similar to Autobot City in a island outside of the UK. There, sir Edmund is the caretaker of this island and works with them.

    While Optimus finds Cybertron and survivors of the planet. They have been enslaved by Quintessa and many of them transported to a prison planet. Unicron shows up, devours the planet, and Optimis managed to escape with a few new autobots.

    On Earth, Galvatron is still Galvatron. He leads some of the surviving KSI cons, and named his best warriors for Cyclonus and Scourge. With this, you still keep the continuity of AOE.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2018
  14. SilverOptimus

    SilverOptimus Movie News Monster Moderator News Staff

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2009
    Posts:
    11,469
    News Credits:
    54
    Trophy Points:
    362
    Likes:
    +17,430
    I believe @MegaPrime1007 is onto something.

    If we take a look at all the info we know, especially the info from the making-of segments for TLK, we can understand that TLK is a product of two very conflicting scripts mashed together.

    One script is set in Medieval time, a story about King Arthur, Merlin and a group of Transformers. The second script is a World War II story. None of them got any potential to feature Unicron.

    Quintessa on the other hand may have been on the King Arthur script considering the fact that she is the original owner of the staff. Essentially, don't we all know of such an Arthurian character? Morgan Le Fay. Pretty sure it was this Sorceress who got turned into Quintessa. Maybe it was Quintessa who posed as Morgan Le Fay in the Middle Ages.

    Coming back, Unicron may have not played any part on any of the original scripts.

    So, if one script is set in Medieval time and the other in a World War II setting, where's Cade's story? Could it be that a third story was thrown in which included Unicron?

    If you look closely, the Arthurian segments and the small World War II segments are actually well written (albeit their contradictions with previous movies). But the modern segments are, well, like something a kindegarten kid threw together the night before his homework was due. It's possible that the modern segments were haphazardly thrown together to make a movie set in modern times.

    Remember the part where the writers said "character like Anthony Hopkins"? It's because they are sewing together the two scripts and adding the modern segments to tie it all together. And this is where Unicron came to be.

    Of course this is all speculation, but for me, it kinda makes sense.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  15. Moy

    Moy Constructicons!

    Joined:
    Jun 22, 2007
    Posts:
    11,216
    News Credits:
    11
    Trophy Points:
    362
    Likes:
    +5,976
    In the end it's evident they had three films that would have worked out. A world war II TF movie that included sector 7, JetFire, seekers (rotf) and of course Bumblebee and HotRod.

    The TF medieval story would have been good too. But the allspark would need to be relevant again, somehow to save cybertron.

    And if those films do well, the last one would be the unicron story. In this movie they would reveal a lot more of cybertronians past on cybertron and who Primus and Unicron are.
     
  16. Dmhead

    Dmhead Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 22, 2011
    Posts:
    994
    News Credits:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    202
    Likes:
    +1,918
    We can discuss this and that about why this movie flopped at the box office until the cows fly home, but people need to remember the main reason: Michael Bay. You can have the writers for Titanic for this film, but Bay will always have the final say. His gigantic ego and arrogance are well known in the movie business. I think there were some great ideas that could have made this film more watchable, but Bay probably sidelined all of them, and made the final product.
     
    • Like Like x 4
  17. Galvatross

    Galvatross Dom Dom, Yes Yes Veteran

    Joined:
    Aug 24, 2013
    Posts:
    7,394
    Trophy Points:
    292
    Likes:
    +10,825
    I do agree the "Transformers: Knights" story was one of the stories merged, but even though we see Bee and Hot Rod in WW II, I don't think the WW II story was the other one given the following:


    The Knights Story is the story from hundreds of years ago. My guess is Unicron being the Earth is the story that's billions of years ago.

    Besides, the WW II story I saw, Operation Skyfire, dealt with a Decepticon leading Nazis and an aircraft Autobot in some jungles being found by some US military members.
     
  18. Autobot Burnout

    Autobot Burnout ...and I'll whisper "No."

    Joined:
    Sep 18, 2008
    Posts:
    45,102
    News Credits:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    467
    Location:
    [REDACTED]
    Likes:
    +40,126
    And they would have been just as BAD as TLK anyway. Because the films have just completely abandoned the idea that Transformers are actually special as opposed to any other generic alien race that's been inexplicably fucking with human history since the dawn of recorded history. Like, for a race whose namesake ability is to shapeshift, the films just do so little with it anymore. It's either forcefully shoehorning in bullshit about how the Transformers have been interfering with humanity across time - with ROTF being the worst because The Fallen, the first Primes, and the other Cybertronians shown in the opening flashback don't even transform or really look like anything passed off as Cybertronian in any of the five films - or going to extreme lengths to minimize the Transformers as actually looking more alien in favor of as human as can possibly be, which means minimalist kibble and humanoid proportions all around. And the gimmick of TLK just underscores how the films treat the Transformers as the least interesting thing about them because the Decepticons are less than worthless, Prime being evil lasts for five minutes, the namesake of the film is that horrid character Cade Yeager (who would be shot dead in an instant because he's such a liability), and suddenly all the generics and Optimus look like crappy tin knights not because of anything to do with culture or that's just how the Transformers originally looked back in the 1500s, but because they wanted knights and dragons in a sci-fi film and so that's the new design aesthetic.

    The issue is the films really just don't give that much of a shit about the transformers, while at the same time trying to rub the audience's face in how they influenced human history with theirs. But if the actual Transformers are bland and boring as all hell, then what the fuck are people going to care about the film suddenly becoming a boring history recap of a boring set of characters who really just fight each other and do not much else? Hell, the only reason people care about Unicron on this website is because we KNOW the history of the character - to the general public, he's just another world-ending class threat like the last five films, and he'll be stopped before he can actually do anything truly significant because the Transformers films haven't had the stones to let the bad guy win in literally any sense in the past decade.
     
    • Like Like x 3
  19. uruseiranma

    uruseiranma Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 2, 2007
    Posts:
    2,485
    News Credits:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    312
    Likes:
    +418
    The general idea I got after seeing the film, was that Michael Bay was just really, really, really tired of Transformers, and just wanted a paycheck.

    Thinking over the film and watching it, I definitely was of the agreement with Lindsay Ellis in one review/chat she did with Andre "The Black Nerd," when she said the film lacks "sincerity."

    The film is this massive ball of confusion, hate, anger, and much more. I think Cogman is probably the film's 'avatar,' in that he seems to think he's important to the overall story, while being a giant, angry, douche about everything.

    I think that was what really turned me off about the film: I found very little to enjoy about it. It reminded me a bit of my experience when I first heard of Bay, watching films like "Armageddon" and "Pearl Harbor," except PH actually had a scant few moments that made me entertained.
     
  20. Moy

    Moy Constructicons!

    Joined:
    Jun 22, 2007
    Posts:
    11,216
    News Credits:
    11
    Trophy Points:
    362
    Likes:
    +5,976
    I don't think a TF movie based on WW2 would have been terrible if it was in the hands of a different director.
    I personally liked the design given to the fallen and his unused concept. The primes were cool too.

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    But not seeing him transform was passable because he teleported and was an ancient cybertronian. He despised the humans and wouldn't care about blending in. And I was okay with that. But characters like Cogman, Shockwave and squeaks for example, needed a transformation or two on screen.

    After TF3 it was time for a movie without Bay, in space or movie based on cybertron.

    The knight thing could have worked too but they screwed that up so bad. It was obvious they wanted some game of thrones in their movie, because they figured, well people enjoy dragons, let's give'm a 3 headed one.

    I believe the main reason TF5 was a cluster fuck was because paramount didn't give a crap about continuity and transformers as characters. TF5 was the last time they fooled many fans.