Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Transformers 4: More Like End of Dark of the Moon

Badass Digest is reporting a few details from a source on what the various story goals are for Transformers 4 when Bay retakes the helm sometime next year. The story will not be a reboot but a true sequel, the story will not be told from Sam Witwicky's point of view, and the goal is more like the last hour of Dark of the Moon with more boom, military action and light on silly.
A source close to the production of Transformers 4 has cleared up some elements about the film. While the term 're-imagining' was thrown around, the fourth film will be a straight up sequel to the last movie. It just won't be told through Witwicky's point of view. As to whose point of view it will be told through, that's unclear right now, but it's also unclear which - if any - human characters will be back.

"Michael realized it needs to be more like the last hour [of Dark of the Moon]," this source told me. So expect lots of big action, lots of carnage, lots of military badasses, very few silly bits.
All of this is pure speculation. I doubt studio and Bay are even past the spitballing stage, tossing out random ideas while in meetings to discuss his two picture deal. I doubt any real movement on story will occur until after a writer is hired.

Really except for no Sam (since Shia LaBeouf says he is done), this is the same approach used for Dark of the Moon. Even as critics bashed the film, they often complemented the last hour of the film, The idea that Bay would take the parts that worked and extend them is pretty much the same formula he attempted (even if not always successfully) with the previous films.

As for the "hybrid" reboot story, even though Lorenzo di Bonventura used that term, he also said it was more about taking a story plot point and going in a new direction with it allowing for completely new characters to be used in the same universe.

The closest recent anology that I can think of for what I believe he means is Final Destination 5. (Spoiler) At the end of the film you learned that it was really a prequel to the very first Final Destination film. You had new characters, same over all themes and formula that tied directly into the series but was still its own seperate thing.

There is nothing stopping the next film from taking place with some other Transformers team on a NEST mission against an alien incursion (who says it always has to be Decepticons). The three films "real time" was a period of around 5 years where the Autobots evolved into essentially their own agency in the US government. This presents a lot of time, lot of missions, and world of story possiblities. All without having to use a single character from the first three films while still keeping it tied into those films.

That is even assuming Bay just doesn't jump the story ahead a few years with a new big bad. Transfandom wants Unicron but I just don't see it happening. I am thinking more along the linese of Jhiaxus. For the last nearly 30 years, Transformers has re-invented itself about every five years while staying true to its roots. No reason the movies can't do the same thing.

19 comments:

  1. Why not putting in two storyline heading down to the third act altogether?

    STORY 1 - Young new recruit (Hot Rod), acting like an Earth teenager, not following order from his leader (Ultra Magnus).

    STORY 2 - Spider-like and Squid-like deformed incoming robots (The Quintessons), looking to regain what could be they're first creation who turns out to be Dinobots, who not exacly knows where to turn they're allegiance fight off Optimus Prime.

    Third Act - The Young and reckless Autobot gets back the Dinobot on the good side while defeating the Quintessons and revenging Prime's ultimate sacrifice in a one on on fight against grimlock and gets title of the new Prime... Rodimus Prime.


    I dont know, but I like it!

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  2. There are SO many untapped original Transformers possibilities out there for Bayhem to explore. We have plenty of popular Autobots and Decepticons ready to take a prominent role.

    Could you imagine if the story was told by Blaster, Perceptor or even Grimlock?

    Sam's character was good and necessary for the first movie, we forced his importance in the second and third, but the last hour of the third movie proved we didn't really need him anymore.

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  3. Without Decepticons would be pretty stupid... I think keep the same Autobot team but add in G1 characters. Skywarp and Thundercracker would be pretty cool for some D'cons. More Cybertron too! so many possiblities!

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  4. They're plenty of characters to take over the decepticon role, we could have Cyclonus. They could have the triple changers, maybe the quintesons. They could probably lure in a bunch of people if they introduce trypticon. But I am really hoping for skylynx to get a bayverse debut, that and the dinobots.

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  5. New title: "TF4: The rise of Galvatron"... new trilogy

    TF4: The rise of Galvatron (villain: Galvatron)
    TF5: The return (villain: skorpion)
    TF6: Final Battle (villain: Unicron)

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  6. It will be Transformers' POV instead of Sam's POV. Transformers will have more role than the humans, given it a concentration to the robot story. Hopefully this give the next film in more sci-fi in space-adventure/space-opera. Earth have enough beating... a least for now.

    Something is going in the universe and this is a perfect time to get a new story moving. Hopefully Paramount hired the TF writer-- either Simon Furman or John Barber to teamed with Ehren Kruger... if one of them are available.

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  7. You people are just dreaming.
    What they mean with that is just that: 1) Michael Bay wants money and doesn't care about plot and characters, just like he did on Transformers3; 2) They don't have a clue what they are doing, they will come up with some patched up script of some sort with no real trilogy plan once again.

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  8. Martinus Prime2/16/2012 6:57 AM

    TFLAMB's idea of no Decepticons is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

    The analogy of Final Destination 5 would ruin the hole franchise, that prequel-analogy just implies a reboot/remake: other peolpe who are in a different way caught in the world of TF when the TF arrive for the search for the cube. A prequel to Sam's story, sounds dumb.
    For FD5 it didn't work either, it just looked stupid that none of them could figure out what was happening. Especially stupid, bc it had the same lead-actor from 4th film. The supprisingly prequel endscene, was a good thing, but does not help the franchise.

    But again, the source says a direct sequel, so I'm guessing they will go on with Lennox or/and Epps. The main NEST will keep assisting the Autobots.

    I also hope the POV is from the Transformers themselves now.
    I really hope it'll include 1 or 2 combiners, Superion and Bruticus! Triplechangers would be awesome too!
    I prefer to bring back Megatron, but I also think it would be a good thing to introduce Galvatron. You can't constantly bring him back.
    And ofcourse 1 must: GRIMLOCK he has to be introduced!

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  9. Well at least it sounds like its going in the right direction. If and thats a big If they get rid of 70% of the goofy doofy toilet humor and focus on a great story and plot and have more longer death matches between bots and not just Prime and Megs, I would rather see more death matches then Devs or Driller. And also alot more transformations, Iwas hoping to see a great transformation when Sentinal arrived but basicaly got nothing. They got a little better with character development between bots but they got to be better, more focus on Transformers than humans. If they just do those few things people will respond in a positive way but the question is is will they listen to us Trans fans this time, I dont know, we've been screaming from the roof top over and over and I just dont know if they will ever ever change there approach with half the movie being goofy and doofy. We got 3 years to get are point across and I think we can pretty much agree on those few things they must change.

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  10. No decepticons would be the dumbest move ever.

    Albeit Dinobots are cool it is hard to write them into a reality setting. As they where designed in the era of dinosaurs. It could be done (eg many millenia ago (again) Dinobots got buried under rocks after a battle with Shockwave. IDW: Spotlight Shockwave
    Now they are freed.


    I dislike Hot Rod/Rodimus

    I would like to see a team of Ultra Magnus, Nightbeat, Prowl.

    Decepticons being led by Ratbat. Who runs the world-financials and crisis. Using money he shuts down Nest. Decepticons hidden /acting as autobots assassinate humans / hunt lone autobots.

    Galvatron as a seperate identity: okay. No Unicron!

    Megatron headmaster? heh

    More Transformer vs Transformer beat'em ups. No weird things like:
    End battle of DotM: at one point Optimus gets help from Bumblebee, Sideswipe. Then when he loses his arm no autobot is near to help.

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  11. We are going to have one long dicussion over the next 3 years, its kind of wild when you realize that all of us one way or another are going to go through alot of change over the next 3 years and I wish you all well and I'm looking foward to this and I'm in the Transformers universe for the long hall, I aint gonna lie I love this shit its something to look foward to, the movie, the games, Prime and all related topics. I beleive the Transformer universe will be around for a real long time, shit I'll be 60 years old and still love this shit, look at Lenord Nimoy still a geek and a great grandpa.

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  12. @AnonymousFeb 16, 2012 06:39 PM: 3 years? It's 28 months from now until Transformers4 gets released. It will be filmed from April/May 2013 to October/November 2013 just like previous movies.
    28 Months is not 36 Months.. it's way less than 3 years.

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  13. Feris Othman2/18/2012 2:15 AM

    I think Unicron is possible. If those who worked on Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer & The Green Lantern could make a 'planet-eating' monster/being, maybe it is a possibility.

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  14. Thats totaly unbeleivable, 28 months is not 36 months and its also way less than 3 years? WOW!! sounds good though.

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  15. or they can go full CGI!!!!!!

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  16. I think they should have sam and carly get married and lennox and epps retire and they have some sort of big party for them all in the beginning where they all sort of say bye to the autobots. Then have the autobots re-build the zanthiem ship from dark of the moon and go back to cybertron to see the damage from the space bridge blowing it up (Since, Shockwave, Megatron, Sentinel, Starscream, The Fallen (TF2) and Soundwave are all dead and there are no known decepticon rulers in cybertron). Have the autobots come across some sort of new ruler or they find some allies that they bring back to Earth and create some sort of story out of that. OR have a prequel to TF1 where they have already been on Earth and they meet sam as a little kid but at the end Sams memory gets erased and he doesnt remember them when he meets them in TF1.

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  17. What if they started a whole new series, like how the War began? LIke War For Cybertron kind of feel?

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  18. Oh come ooonnn...
    I won't watch a new film without Decepticons! Bay, just leave TF already!

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  19. Knowing how Bay likes to purposely put out disinformation, I think the no Decepticon thing is fallacious-especially given the logo, which clearly implies the Decepticons will have the upperhand in TF4.

    IF I had the $$$$$ & influence to effect the story for the next films, here's my wish list:

    1)NO MORE stupid racial stereotypes, toilet humor, or needless sexual innuendos;

    2)Add the following characters:
    *AUTOBOTS: Optimus, Elita-1, Chromia, Moonracer, Firestorm, Ultra Magnus, Springer, Inferno, Broadside, Perceptor, Omega Supreme, The Aerialbots-why not????, Hound, Cliffjumper, Beta, Brawn, Prowl, Sunstreaker, Blaster w/Eject, Rewind, & Steeljaw, Arcee, Minerva, Alpha Trion, Vector Prime, Bluestreak, Ricochet, Tracks, Warpath, Cosmos, Red Alert, Dinobots, Protectobots
    *DECEPTICONS: Sunstorm, Skywarp, Thundercracker, Astrotrain, Blitzwing, Octane, Stunticons (perfect for Bay's penchant for smash & flash), Tidal Wave, Dirge, Thrust, Ramjet, Bruticus, Counterpunch/Punch, Insecticons, Galvatron, Cyclonus
    OTHER: Quintessons, Kranix
    *Some human presence*
    *Cybertron flashbacks*

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