Not sure if this counts as news, as the item in question is homemade and not historical. But I worked plenty hard on it regardless.

For this 35th anniversary month. I have analysed, combed through and typed up Ron Friedman's 179 page second draft for The Transformers The Movie. This is the script as it was marked "completed" on April 27th, 1985. Not including the duplicate and additional pages that were scanned, which come from the May 2nd revisions.

This is not the actual outline that existed before writing of the draft began, which is somewhat different. Rather taking the story and events from the actual script and condensing down to 20 pages.

The outline can be read in full at: Sunbow and Marvel Productions Script/Storyboard Archive: Story outline of Ron Friedman's The Transformers The Movie script

 

Fascinating! Thank you for putting the summary together. Optimus Prime’s expanded role in the finale is very interesting, as is Megatron’s plight during the Hall of Heroes sequence. I’d love to see this version in movie form someday.

 

Poor Brawn. Chewed to bits by the insecticons

 

Damnit. Now I want a toy of "Glass Warrior Robot", and he's not even a freaking character!

I liked some of the extra character interactions here, like Hot Rod pulling a "reminds me of the time..." Joke on Kup, and Kup busting a gut laughing. The extra little flirtations between Hot Rod and Arcee are also cute. At least most of them, wish she was a bit more sharp tongued with him like the ones we actually got in the movie.

Unicron ripping himself apart at the end of the movie also makes a lot more sense now if it's a vestigial carry over from this script (like the armada).

Also love Grimlock going "yup everything checks out.... Wait a minute, I neverasked you about my friends!" With the Quintesson. And the Dinobots making fun of him for being "sensitive", even though Sludge doesn't even know what that means.

There's some really fun stuff in here. Still overall happier with what we got in the final movie (specifically stuff like the Matrix rather than Optimus' little pixie ghost, Quintessons being floating eggs, and especially Unicron not being named Ingestor. It's a good name, just not for something like Unicron), but there's some aspects from this that would have elevated the final film as well.

 

Personally, I thought Arcee was written really badly in this. She just exists to flirt with and/or be a damsel for Hot Rod to save and play the gallant hero. The one time she really gets to try and fight, she is grabbed and pulled away by him. Sort of sends the idea that she is not an equal, she is not a warrior. Even in 1985, that was a dated way of looking at things.

 

There's some pretty great details that I wish were kept in the final film, at the very least we still have this record of it.

Maybe she's not an equal warrior? What's wrong with that? We know ones like Chromia and Elita-One exist, they don't all need to be gun-toting soldiers, I've always pegged Arcee as being more traditionally feminine anyways. She could still be their equal while just not being a fighter, there are plenty of 'male' bots that aren't really fighters either.

 

I don't know about that, but in the Marvel TF Universe 86 Movie TF "Universe" bio of hers, she was one 'bot you wouldn't want to cross. At least that's how Budianski wrote it (don't even mention the 180 turn around on the Quintessons , which may have been an intentional obfuscation)

 

That's why I wished she teased and made jabs at him more like the final script. In the finished movie, Arcee would sorta make fun of Hot Rod whenever he tried to act macho for her (like when she expressed concern for him getting stuck outside the city, only for her to call him stupid when he acts tough).

Arcee's main appeal to me was always the fact that she was very much a girl. She's far more feminine in G1 than any of the other named female characters. But of course, I did also love that she could still hold her own and kick someone's ass if she really needed to. A lot of people's answers to "fixing" Arcee is to completely strip her of her femininity and just make her a warrior who happens to be pink and sometimes wear lipstick (so much so that Simon Furman straight up made her a dude who was forceably turned into a girl against her will, which is revolting and insulting to LOTS of people), which I've never understood, because to me at least, the whole appeal to have girl characters is to have girls not dudes with long hair and hips. They can still be bulky and badass, but they're still girls, like Strongarm! She's one of my absolute favorites.

She definitely wasn't better in this script. I just liked that her and Hot Rod had some extra moments of awkward flirting. I've always personally been a fan of their dynamic in the movie, I think it's cute, the whole "both definitely like each other, but the girl doesn't mind teasing the guy for trying to hard" is more interesting than just "the girl swooning over the big tough guy" like we got when she hooked up with Springer in s3.

That's just me though.

Shifting back to the script itself (so this thread doesn't degenerate into a "girls are smelly" arguement), I actually wish the running gag of Springer translating Perceptor for Ultra Magnus came up more in the final film. I also wish that the whole prisoner revolt happened on Quintessa, though being given weapons by the Quintessons to fend of the Sharkticons is a bit too far for me.

 

Just wanted to say, as we leave anniversary month behind. If anyone wants to take my work and compress it down further into something like, say a TFwiki article on this script. Then be my guest.