How would you have done ROTF differently?

[Nigel]

Assuming the same basic plot, what would you have done differently in making Revenge of the Fallen? (If, indeed, you would have done it differently. Perhaps you thought it was just right as it was.)

Here's my vision.

No The Fallen. Introducing The Fallen rewrote established mythology unnecessarily and, moreover, diminished Megatron's character. The recovery of Megatron would therefore have been instigated by Starscream and Soundwave.

The Matrix would have been discovered by way of the knowledge imprinted on Sam by the Allspark sliver. It may still have been the key to the ancient machine, but perhaps more likely it would have been a device of great power, something of a "brother" to the Allspark.

Though Jetfire would now not be explaining the existence of the Matrix, he would still have had a role in directing Sam to its rough location. He would not be ancient, but rather an Autobot who had been seeking the lost Allspark, discovering the presence of the Matrix on Earth during his quest.

Leo would perhaps have been cut from the film. Aside from leading Sam to Simmons and taking out the Smithsonian guard, he was a largely dispensable character. His role might have been better served by retaining Glen from the first film.

Devastator would not have been sidelined. All he really did was stomp around with Simmons for a bit before being dispatched at long distance. There should have been just one set of Constructicons (avoiding the confusion of multiple identical Decepticons), who would have taken part in the desert battle as individuals; just as it looked like the Autobots were about to win, they would have combined into Devastator and turned the tide. A cliche, perhaps, but I think it would have been a better use of the character. The quarry sequence would therefore have been scrapped.

Binary bonding. Sam and Prime dead and in possession of the Matrix was screaming out for a melding along the lines of Optimus and Hi-Q into Actionmaster Prime. A non-Transforming Prime probably wouldn't be good for the films and it would probably be best to keep Sam as an autonomous character, so I would envision the outcome to be more like a Powermaster. This would allow the newly-revived, more powerful Optimus Prime to fight side by side with Jetfire (rather than sacrificing Jetfire) to defeat Devastator and Megatron.

Finally, on a non-plot point, if possible I would have had less of the twins and more of Sideswipe and Arcee. Possibly they could have been Sam's companions instead of the twins.

[Cullen]

Pretty much agree with all of that Nigel, especially your first point about Fallen Dave. It didn't really make sense to even bother reviving Megatron given he wasn't head honcho and didn't really do much for the rest of the film. If he was going to be in the film I would have had Megatron betray him in the final sequence in order to assume his role.

I definitely thought that Sam was going to binary bond to Optimus and that he was the Matrix/All Spark (you know the old 'you don't need the McGuffin to defeat the bad guy, you just need to believe in yourself' cliche).

[Rich]

I would have made it shorter. And yes, getting rid of the Fallen, who has never been a good idea, would be the best way to do that. The twins too, would bite the dust.

This thread does remind me of the one thing about the film I would def not change, and which I think I've failed to mention in my rambles so far: Sam running about with the Matrix in his sock, so stupid it was brilliant.

[Nigel]

It does bring an entirely new meaning to Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots.

[Rich]

Sorry, off topic, but on The Fallen, I am really still astonished that the film actually did feature the guy, and didn't just refer to Meg's return. If the same guys write the third film then I'm going to have to reread/watch every TF tale ever to find the worst plot device they could possibly include; there must be something suitably daft in one of the Botcon comics or DD Gi Joe crossovers. That said, it will surely be be Super God Transformer Battles featuring Unicron and Primus. I'm almost sure that prior to the first film being finished, one of the writers or that producer idiot said that Unicron might work in number 3.

[charlesrocketboy]

Yeah, I'll go with Nigel's suggestions and making it shorter.

Also, I'd show a Transformers origin and make it completely contradict the Original Thirteen and both Primus/Quintessons for no other reason than because I CAN.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Martin's version:

Shanghai sequence - pretty much the same, except Prime offers to accept Demolishor's surrender, but Demo goes to smash some civilian humans and Prime reluctantly takes him out.

I don't bring Megatron back at all. I don't intrdouce the Fallen. Shockwave takes the place of both, with Starscream as his second-in-command.

Sam has absorbed the essence of the Allspark shard, which is now in his head as Bob Budiansky's Creation Matrix.

Shockwave has Ravage and his pal steal the other shard (as per Bay's film), but finds that it only contains enough power to give life to a few new Decepticons - the Constructicons. He takes over an oil field by the Pyramids in Egypt. He uses Pretenders and the Constructicons' disguise modes to cover it up, but makes it his base of operations. He builds an energy siphon of some kind under the Great Pyramid that will somehow spell the Earth's doom.

Alice the Pretender assigned to shadow Sam finds that he has the essence of the Allspark, and therefore the ability to create new TF life. Shockwave, Starscream and the unliving Jetfire kidnap him. Prime rescues him, the forest battle takes place, Prime dies and Sam escapes with the other Autobots.

Shockwave and the Decepticons attack openly and demand the handover of Sam.

Sam, Bumblebee and whoever find where Shockwave has stashed the unliving Jetfire in a museum. Sam gives Jetfire life. Jetfire is as entertaining as in the film. Jetfire space-bridges them to Egypt and shows them where Shockwave's base is. For some reason they are stuck there. They call in the Autobots and NEST with Prime's body. The big battle takes place. Sam eventually gets to Prime, brings him back to life, Prime combines with Jetfire, etc., etc.

Edit: Better yet, have Shockwave take out all the Autobots except Ratchet when he takes out Prime, and string them all up from the ceiling inside the Pyramid.

Martin

[Benn]

You know, I can't shake the feeling that I've seen this before somewhere...

[Kingoji]

Cut out the pretender entirely. If they needed something to escape from when they left the college, it would have been better to bring back Barricade.

[grahamthomson]

Jun 25, 2009 6:07:46 GMT Kingoji said:

Cut out the pretender entirely. If they needed something to escape from when they left the college, it would have been better to bring back Barricade.

I do miss Barricade; he was my favourite Decepticon in the first film.

They could have worked a "frat" party scene and included kegs, bongs, and a bukkake on the ugliest freshman girl to get all the humour they wanted and then Barricade could have turned up to, heh heh, stop the party.

[The Doctor]

I would have fimed it in Esperanto.

-Ralph

[Nigel]

I think the twins were speaking in Esperanto half the time.

[karla]

I would of brought in Bruticus

[Shockprowl]

Ok, I have given this much thought.

1st. Take out the freakin' Twins. Sorry Twins fans, but I HATE them. They stole scenes/etc from Bumblebee, when Bumblebee could have been the robo characterisation I/we were so desperate for.

2nd. Keep Fallen Dave (maybe). But don't have Megatron as his second. Maybe Fallen Dave rescues and restores Megatron, and convinces Megatron to join his cause. This would give us the chance for some Megatron characterisation. Maybe Megatron had been following the legend of Fallen Dave, and is doubting at first that Fallen Dave really is Fallen Dave but then is convinced to join him, and maybe Soundwave could have been involved in this conversation (maybe Starscream too, whome Fallen Dave has already got 'on board'). Alot of scenes there, but I think something like this would have added so much depth to the Decepticon characters.

3rd. Take out some of the human characters, and give their roles to Autobots. Bumblebee instead of Sam's roommate, for example. Ratchet finds out about Simmons.

4th. Megatron has a normal looking left arm.

5th. Assuming Bay wouldn't remove all of the sex/juvenile humour, at least remove it from the dramatic build up parts of the film.

6th. Sam's parents say goodbye to him at the start of the film, and then that's it! No more parents!

7th. Lose the colleage scenes. Sam starts colleage, has his flashy do in class, and then is attack. Loadsa time save right there for Robot Characterisation.

8th. Fallen Dave's Decepticons are introduced near the start, and they are the ones we see at the end instead of all the Randomcons.

9th. More slow mo running from you know who.

[Mark_Stevenson]

I wouldn't have let Michael Bay anywhere near it.

That is all.

Mx

[kayevcee]

I'd have hacked about half an hour off it for a start, as other people have said. I'd take an underling (such as Shockwave) taking over from a weakened Megatron rather than a never-before-seen-or-heard-from super-con like Fallen Dave.

Definitely some fallout from the destruction of the Allspark- even as far as new Autobot arrivals stripping Optimus Prime of his command for destroying not only the power source of their homeworld but also their only means of reproduction (according to the first film, anyway).

Instead of the ending being 45 minutes of generic Decepticons being casually taken out one at a time by the Courageous Fighting Men And Women Of The Good Old U S Of A I'd finish up with a giant, knock-down, drag-out fight with all of the Autobots, a few rebellious Decepticons and any humans that are still alive (i.e. not many) against a 300ft robot tyrannosaurus with missile pods on its back and lasers in its eyes. Preferably on the Moon. Because I f***ing CAN, that's why.

-Nick

[KnightBeat]

I would start in the present day, focusing upon Sam going to college and his new life. The film really needed to be re-grounded in reality and gradually expand the Transformer role again. Sure they are out there, but portray them as a covert force working with the humans. Sam attempts to balance his college life with a new role with the autobots. Perhaps give him some small task monitoring public knowledge on the Transformers. Expand the Alice role to show her gradually gain his trust and (gasp) actually place some strain on his relationship with Megan Fox.

I would introduce the Transformer origins as a product of the Autobot containment operation. Optimus and co. gradually become aware of the growing number of Decepticons on earth, leading to speculation that the Decepticons are searching the globe for something. Over time we learn that they are trying to find a new big-bad who is able to unite their fractured forces. Like Kayvevcee, my version of the film would drop the entire Fallen plot line - The Fallen and his cohorts are too similar to the Alien Vs. Predator movie. Instead, I would replace The Fallen's pyramid scheme with Marvel and IDW's Shockwave Vs. Dinobots story. Shockwave tries to bleed the ancient earth of energon, Dynobots take on dinosaur modes to get up and close to his operation. Big fight, get buried for millions of years, etc.

The final 45 minutes would follow a broadly similar path to the actual film. Shockwave is re-discovered and brought back online. Jetfire is discovered and leads them to the dinos buried with some random macguffin in Egypt. Big fight between Shockwave and Prime's forces. Prime dies in a dramatic way and we (as the audience) actually care. Dinobots arrive on the scene to fight new Decepticons, but gradually become overwhelmed with the sheer number. Sam and Co. manage to resurrect Prime with the macguffin, who subsequently combines with Jetfire to defeat Shockwave. The Autobots, military and random humans share a big group hug.

As an epilogue, show the Decepticons capture the macguffin and use it to resurrect Megatron in preparation for the third film.

[KnightBeat]

I would also include a Jazz hands joke.

[Deleted]

Ok here goes -

Give the Fallens voice actor back to megatron.

Remake megatron as a better designed robot possibly more like the original.

Remove the Fallen, the twins, the giant stupid wheel bot from the shanghai scene and the pretender although maybe keep the female as an actual human cause she is hot.

Have bumble bee gain a proper voice and stop ripping of wreckgar.

Have more john turturro

Make the matrix an actual object that Optimus prime has to put in his chest.

Have Michael Bay pop up at the start of the movie and name every transformer so we know he hasn't just thrown some random ones in to get blown up.

Get rid of the little leg humping decepticon.

Give Ravage two eyes.

Remove the entire suped up optimus scene.

Don't make devastator a giant hoover.

Have more rail guns.

Remake Jet fire as a quality transformer not some geriatric fart machine.

NEVER EVER Allow Peter Cullen to say the words punk ass decepticon ever again.

Get rid of the silly shrek style fight slowmos.

Aw I can't finish this I'll actually be here all day. the movie was a travesty of the highest order

[Fortmax2020]

I thought Tony Todd did quite well as the Fallen's voice. I wonder if he could do a good Megatron?

[The Doctor]

I thought Tony Todd put in his usual highly professional performance. The man is a legend. He wasn't given much quality material, alas, but I had no problem with him doing Fallen Dave's voice.

-Ralph

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Jul 29, 2009 9:11:21 GMT @starscreamsghost said:

Remove the entire suped up optimus scene.

Ooh, no, gotta keep that. Like the Pretender, it was a fine concept taken from Masterforce, the best TF cartoon series.

Remake Jet fire as a quality transformer not some geriatric fart machine.

Jetfire was great!

NEVER EVER Allow Peter Cullen to say the words punk ass decepticon ever again.

He didn't say it. That was Ironhide's line.

I also liked the way the Matrix became more like something in Sam's mind than a physical object, because it harked back to the original Creation Matrix of the early comics in 1985. I was sorry that they gave it the name 'Matrix of Leadership' from the animated Movie though, rather than use its original name.

Martin

[charlesrocketboy]

Jul 29, 2009 20:10:16 GMT Grand Moff Muffin said:

Ooh, no, gotta keep that. Like the Pretender, it was a fine concept taken from Masterforce, the best TF cartoon series.

Nah, it'd be taken from the Unicron Trilogy. That's what it's Jetfire he combines with.

[legios]

I presume that Martin is referring to Masterforce as it is the first place that the "Heroic Leader unites with another member of his team to power-up" was done, and serves as the root for all that kind of stuff within Transformers. (Unicron Trilogy is just johnny-come-lately-whippersnappers. *waves robot stick*)

Karl

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Jul 30, 2009 11:42:56 GMT charlesrocketboy said:

Jul 29, 2009 20:10:16 GMT Grand Moff Muffin said:

Ooh, no, gotta keep that. Like the Pretender, it was a fine concept taken from Masterforce, the best TF cartoon series.

Nah, it'd be taken from the Unicron Trilogy. That's what it's Jetfire he combines with.

Yeah, but that nicked the _original_ idea from Masterforce. OK, it's an evolution of an idea that began with Masterforce then.

Prime/Jetfire in ROTF certainly looked a lot like God Ginrai, even in the way all the bits of Jetfire flew onto Prime separately like the bits of Godbomber, rather than combine in the normal way.

Haven't seen the Unicron Trilogy. Not likely to. (I don't even know if it's a comic or a cartoon!)

Martin

[The Doctor]

The 'pretender' idea in ROTF was so stupidly done I'd like to see it done again, but with some (any) intelligence this time please!

-Ralph

[jameso]

I think the Prime combining with Jetfire thing was definitely lifted from whichever of Armada/Engergon/Cybertron it happened in.
Which leaves me to wonder if the Pretender idea was from Masterforce or if the writers came up with on their own.

[charlesrocketboy]

I'd assume came up on their own after hearing what the Pretenders were. "The human shells are human sized" isn't that innovative an idea, it's the only thing that makes the Autobot Pretenders work (unless you make up some giant humans).