Not sure if this is news here but Ehren Kruger who wrote some of the Transformers films received an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay for Top Gun Maverick. 2023 Oscars Best Adapted Screenplay Predictions - Variety
I've said this many times on the forum, but I truly think that Ehren Kruger's contributions to the movies are grossly underrated. The screenplays of these movies always go through several Bay filters when making it to the screen, but across his work on ROTF (as co-writer) and DOTM / AOE (as sole writer), Kruger brought quite a bit to the table. Plus he always came off as pretty well-versed in TFs in the BTS featurettes. Mainly, I thought it was interesting how in both DOTM and AOE he tried to give Optimus some semblance of an arc especially during a time when most other media was pigeon-holing him into an overly-stoic bore. He challenged Optimus with a mentor-gone-rogue in DOTM and a human betrayal story in AOE, allowing the character to have some genuine range for once. While obviously the final movie was very bloated, the whole dystopian future sci-fi angle of AOE I felt was a pretty interesting direction to go in following the relative finite feeling of DOTM. At the very least, when he was replaced by the 'writers room' for TLK you can pretty clearly see where everything goes off the rails (or at least, more off the rails than previously).
Kruger really wasn't the problem. Orci & Kurtzman were. (To a lesser extent, Rogers. I mean, he was behind Halle's Catwoman. Need I say more?) He, alone, wrote Age Of Extinction and aside from Bay making it overblown, the core story was actually quite good. Government conspiracies, wetwork, Transformers being used for parts and products, etc. If it had been in the hands of a more competent director, it would've worked. (And no, before anyone asks... Kruger was not responsible for *that* scene. That came about, on set, last minute.) AOE had moments of greatness that could've made a fantastic movie, but Bay and the producers ruined it. Not Kruger.
Kruger wrote Top Gun: Maverick? Damn, perhaps with better direction the films he worked on could've been decent.
Exactly. I don’t think the plots written by Kruger were the root cause of what went wrong with those films. It was solely the execution by Bay and co. that fucked it all up.
It's entirely possible he brings stuff to the table and builds up the product, but unfortunately the films he's been attached to are ones not especially known for good writing. I'd believe that he's one guy on a team and there's only so much he as one contributor can do to improve the final product. His rep is still going to end up shackled to that finished product. Maybe this changes that for him, though?
Well, after ROTF (where he was co-writer with Orci/Kurtzman), Kruger was the sole credited screenwriter on DOTM/AOE. I do think the production is a collaborative process in terms of them balancing the story Kruger comes up with with desired set pieces or character types / designs from Bay and other members of the production, and of course there's always going to be lots of random (and often juvenile) improv and thrown in elements during filming. So yeah, I'm sure some will still hold the "Romeo and Juliet" scene over him even though he most likely was not responsible for it.
Man, could've fooled me. lol Or perhaps he simply wasn't in any position to make the movies he worked on, well... NOT total doodoo. It's really hard to say for sure.
Only thing I have against him is that apparently the enemy scrotum scene was his idea (and disregarding the allspark in tf4). Other than that he seems very well versed in TF lore and brought some cool things to the Bayverse. I wish he had been in charge of the writers room instead of Akiva Goldsman tbh
If I'm not mistaken, RotF's screenplay was mostly written By Bay before the film went into production. The original writers from the first film were on strike as part of the big writers strike of 2007 so Bay essentially put together some template(possible with their unofficial input) in order to work out the action set pieces/locations before principle photography started. Then when the strike ended they got Kruger in as extra help to turn the screenplay into a film-able script while sticking to the parameters Bay set in a very short amount of time(pretty sure a rumor circulated, could also have been confirmed that they wrote RotF's script over one weekend while all 3 writers were living out of a hotel at the time as filming started the Monday after). That film was pretty much doomed from being a good film sadly. I also do think that Kruger was churning out scripts for DotM and AoE that were probably timed at 4 hour length films(which is normal for big budget blockbuster films as it allows for options in the edit with story/action set pieces) and knowing how much Bay loves his action scenes he probably preferred to keep everything they shot in even if it meant that some action scenes required set up therefor having to keep plot lines that other filmmakers would have just cut which is why alot of transformers films feel really bloated.
I don't think Kruger should be denied an Oscar nomination just because he worked on a Transformers film. I haven't seen Top Gun Maverick, but for those who have, was the story worthy of its nomination?
Ehhh it’s debatable. The story is extremely simple. But they managed to weave in a great emotional narrative and have great character arcs within a rather simple plot otherwise.
I don't believe for a second that Bay sees scripts for these films as anything other than a rough outline for adlibbing and explosions to use as a very loose backbone.
