Some interesting news for TF5 from the weekly Planet podcast, official podcast of comicbookmovie.com As previously reported, the primary plot McGuffin for this movie is stated to be the staff of none other than Merlin. Laura Haddock's character is said to be his great descendant and as such is the only one that can wield the staff.


Spoilers ahead

Said staff is also said to be the only thing that can defeat

Spoiler

cybertron

, though it is speculated that the source actually meant

Spoiler

unicron

as the description they gave was that of a

Spoiler

giant evil transformer

Take this with a grain of salt, but the source for this info is said to be fairly reliable.

Link to the podcast: The Weekly Planet : 158 Logan Trailer For The Logan Movie

Skip to 13:41

 

Unicron? Sounds interesting, but I'm not sure I trust this Farley guy... 

 

Link?

 

The Weekly Planet : 158 Logan Trailer For The Logan Movie

TF5 stuff at 13:41

 

Cheers.

Well, putting aside the running bias from the hosts there - let's face it, they do no enjoy talking about the Movie-Verse - Merlin's staff seems to contradict what JoBlo said not directly but about Excalibur being the MacGuffin. Following JoBlo's scoop, paparazzi pics showed Wahlberg holding what looks to be Excalibur on the Detroit set of The Last Knight with Josh Duhamel and Laura Haddock looking on.

I believe the Weekly Planet's source is wrong and what is saying is false and contradictory to what's already previously rumoured.

 

Holy balls! If this movie rumor is true man this is going to be epic!

 

Wouldn't that be a cool twist. All this time, you have had The Fallen, Megatron and even Sentinel all trying to revive Cybertron (for the good of their race) yet we find out Cybertron is actually Unicron and not Primus. Would make a lot of sense as to why they wanted Cybertron revived and how so much corruption took place while on Cybertron. Would also make a lot of sense why all the things that could heal or help Cybertron have been hidden away, like the AllSpark and Matrix.

 

I don't think that slip up was a slip up. It kind of makes sense really, and would explain why an alien race would leave the allspark on a barren wasteland planet with the instructions to self-sustain itself with energy from lifeless solar systems. Which then if you factor in corruption of the fallen, and the lore aspects of that... Kind of makes sense really.

Plus you have the tongue in cheek self-mockery point of Bay himself making his TF universe as having been 'the spawn of unicron' to kind of both appease the fanbase/haters, and mock them at the same time.

That's been my running theory since movie 1 anyway.

And if true, kind of makes me really excited for this movie.
And the artifacts could be both. They get excalibur and the staff. Excalibur makes sense as a weapon that anyone deemed worthy could use, whereas the staff would need someone connected to it potentially biologically through a bloodline, because of biometrics.

 

I've been listening to the Weekly Planet podcast for quite some time now, and their sources have usually been reliable, so for once we might have a rumor here that is actually legit.

 

I couldn't think it was possible, but this movie is more jampacked with bullshit than ROTF.

 

It's funny how everyone is speculating on the story line and how deep it could go when we've seen nothing but unimaginative garbage in the previous four movies.

There are thirty years of comics and cartoons to draw from. The multitude of stories are just sitting there under Bays nose yet he continues to be so full of himself and approve scripts that any third grader could write (maybe even better) instead we get Nazis, the sword in the stone, Cade Yager, Bud Light, a black Rodimus and probably more farting humping racist robots.

Pass.

 

Oh god it is Rise of the Silver Surfer all over again isn't it?

 

LOL what?

"The multitude of stories are just sitting there under Bays nose." You mean the stories that have already influenced the movies? DOTM is inspired from "Megatron's Master Plan" and "The Ultimate Doom" and even has Megatron "deposing" Lincoln like in "Atlantis Arise." AOE's story has elements from both "Five Faces of Darkness" with bounty hunters hunting Autobots for the creators of the Transformers and Animated with Megatron manipulating humans and their technology and Lockdown being a neutral bounty hunter.

Additionally, Transformers in medieval times or dabbling in wizardry is nothing new with "Man of Iron," "A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court," and "Madman's Paradise." TLK is hardly the first and probably will not be the last in featuring knights and wizards.

As for Cade Yaeger, the Transformers have almost always had human allies, from Spike to Buster to Jack Darby to Sam to Cade. How is this any different form most other parts of the franchise?

Also, there have not been any robots humping since 2009.

I don't care if other people like the movies or not, but if they don't like them they should dislike them for actual reasons.

As to this rumor, I would take it with a huge grain of salt.

Also, "giant evil Transformer" does not necessarily mean Unicron. It could be that giant hydra.

 

We also saw the staff at the hands of knights in Scotland.

 

It was *a* staff that could anything a random alien staff is. That had NOTHING to do with what the Weekly Planet's source is trying to state.

 

I honestly think trying to do high fantasy in complete and utter contrast to the franchise's roots - seriously, the G1 cartoon shouldn't be the only goddamn thing from G1 being sourced for this - in the current entertainment period is the absolute worst possible direction to go in. It looks like a clean attempt at trying to wedge in on the current 'trend' which happens to be high magical fantasy - Game of Thrones, Warcraft, Dr Strange, etc.

It is a bad move to try and wedge in on a well populated demographic just because the money is there. Look what happened when Twilight got big and suddenly there's a whole slew of mediocre vampire films. Walking Dead heralded in a bunch of zombie movies.

Transformers should be leading. What those moron writers are doing is instead following. Because it's the popular flavor and it would get approval from the execs without having to really make something special on its own merit. So maybe in that sense, it is very much like the G1 cartoon - writers crapping out shit that looks good to only the people who need to approve it in return for a paycheck.

 

How is high fantasy contrary to the franchise's roots? Transformers by its very nature is fanciful. It has always had the goofiest, most ridiculous stuff in it. Also, not all of the sources or potential sources I mentioned were the G1 cartoon. "Man of Iron" was a story in the G1 Marvel comics, and Animated does not fall under G1 by any stretch. Having fantasy in a Transformers film is actually embracing the goofy, over-the-top nature of the brand.

Frankly, I would rather them go high fantasy than have another round of the Autobots and NEST fighting Decepticons or the Decepticons stealing Energon from some terrestrial power source.

Also, how in the world are the writers "morons?" Have we seen their work on this particular film yet?

 

It's Warhammer Fantasy to Warhammer 40K.

Except it isn't. If the film actually embraced the goofy, over-the-top nature of the brand, then the Autobots would be more than a bunch of fucking supercars, two trucks, and a camaro. The uniformity of the brand in that light is sickening to put it mildly.

...you do understand that "high fantasy" is literally nothing than the exact thing you just described, except they all look like rejects from Lord of the Rings, right? Autobots Vs. Decepticons over an energy war is the entire franchise full stop.

Don't need to:

Akiva Goldsman - project lead. Because driving the original batman franchise into the ground so fucking hard with the shitty Batman and Robin is only one devestated film franchise, so why not give him another one to utterly destroy?

Brian K. Vaughn - Under the Dome is not my cup of tea.

Michael Chabon - Spider Man 2. You know, the one that bait-switched Rhino and had Green Goblin just because? The one that was so unpopular that it was what forced Sony to give Spidey movie rights back to Marvel?

Nicole Perlman - I'll admit, GOTG makes me hopeful...her name being nowhere near associated with TF5 does not.

Lindsey Beer - something called Kingkiller Chronicle which google says is a 'fantasy trilogy' novel. Which is planned to get a film series surprise surprise.

Cheo Coker - the Luke Cage netflix series was alright but goddamn it had one of the worst final season episodes ever. The climatic battle was boring and yet the rest of the episode even more boring.

John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein - associated with Spider-Man: Homecoming, which nobody's seen so no idea about these two.

Joe Robert Cole - listed for People vs OJ Simpson and Black Panther. Former didn't interest me, latter hasn't been released yet.

Jeff Pinkner - Fringe and The Dark Tower. Fringe really lost me at some point with too much 'Lost' vibes - been years so don't recall specifics - and The Dark Tower is - you guessed it! - yet another 2017 high fantasy film currently in the works.

Nicole Riegel - a novelist, but goddamn I think the interview says enough about why I have concerns here.

Geneva Robertson - no film credits, just screenplays. And something about Tomb Raider but again that only works against hard sci-fi.

This is the complete list from the TF movie blog so if I missed anybody, blame them.

What? I've never even once heard of this.

That's not entirely taken from Europeans dressing up in armor and riding horse into each other. Concepts of chivalry, honor, and such are noted to be found in multiple cultures outside of the fucking European continent. Samurai are often considered/portrayed both as Japan's version of the European knight with the code of honor, as well as many samurai films being lifted wholesale with a western cowboy makeover, often with nigh-identical titles (Fistful of Dollars = Yojimbo to the point they actually lost a lawsuit over this, Seven Samurai = The Magnificent Seven, etc.).

You don't need 1500s knights to have a group of noble warriors with a high code of conduct in the same manner. I mean, the Jedi are called knights namely because they are like sci-fi future versions of them. And Prime long ago demolished any idea he is even worthy of being among that number - what he did to Grindor would never be acceptable to a 'knightly' group because they at least would have some fucking standards about how to kill people that doesn't involve literally ripping their faces apart by the cheeks.

 

First off, I would not use "sickening" to describe anything in Transformers.

Having said that, what does over-the-top and goofy have to do with alternate modes? You do realize that the films have had D*ckbot the Blenderbot, Devastator's wrecking balls, Laserbeak transforming into a pink Bumblebee, Stupid Drones on Lockdown's ship, and all sorts of crazy robots and over-the-top stuff.

Which is funny, because you criticize the films for being too serious at times, and then other times criticize them for being too over-the-top. Which is it? Because I honestly don't think you hate the films for their execution at this point. You hate them for simply existing. When TF 4 was announced you decided in your head that it was horrible, and then you made up a bunch of reasons why it was horrible without even watching it, and when you watched it (if you even did) you had already made up your mind. You have already decided in your mind that TLK is going to be horrible regardless of its execution, so I don't know why you even bother at this point.

So Beast Wars, Beast Machines, the Generation 2 Marvel Comics, Rescue Bots, and Age of Extinction aren't part of the brand then? Yes, most stories will have some version of the Autobot-Decepticon war including some of the ones I just mentioned that are not entirely focused on it. However, official Transformers fiction can feature whatever factions or characters as long as there are sentient, sapient, transforming alien robots present. It can feature Autobots, Decepticons, Predacons, Maximals, Quintessons, Unicron, Sharkticons, Junkions, Vehicons, Lockdown, Star Seekers, the Cybertornian Empire, Ogrebots, Deshrekticons, Lepre-Cons, or you name it and it can still be Transformers.

If you have a preference that is perfectly fine, but Transformers can be lots of things.

First, I love how you use the Jedi as an example of noble knights. In the Clone Wars Jedi sliced through thousands of intelligent, feeling Geonosians in gruesome ways, and yet they are for the most part considered noble.

Second, knights in real life weren't always these perfect, chivalrous noblemen. They were often jerks and bullies (although I am not saying they were all jerks either). TLK is likely going to feature Arthur as the more romanticized version, which is perfectly fine given that it is a work of fiction.

Third, Optimus is a military leader in a war that has seen many millions or billions lost. He never tries to prolong the suffering of his often genocidal enemies, but he needs to end the threat they cause as soon as possible. Some times that means killing Decepticons in quick yet gruesome ways. Additionally, there is no indication he actually enjoys killing. It is simply a reality of war.

 

There are 2 Cybertronian Artifacts of importance in this movie. A Sword (rumored to be a key) and the source of merlins power (his staff) which was given to him by "The Creator". And Merlins staff is the artifact that has made its way through history and coveted by many over our history.