BotCon 2009: Transformers RotF Q&A

Orci and Kurtzman

At noon Friday, Roberto “Bob” Orci and Alex Kurtzman took the stage to great fanfare, as hungry congoers expended much-needed life fuel to heap praises upon these hardworking writers. The duo immediately declared a moratoriam on all Star Trek discussion because “this is Transformers time”. We’ll see how that turned out at bit later…

Follow us on this magical journey of parallel silicon-based evolution, mistaken identity, car aficionados, the viability of massive mechanical deities, and much more!

“We’re listening”

Right off the bat, Orci and Kurtzman dispatched any fear that the writer’s strike had harmed the film. In fact, they felt that the strike helped them focus, as they had turn in a completed story outline before the beginning of the strike. Michael Bay and company went off on a lot of the pre-production process with just this outline, at a time when “even calling us could have been seen as ‘iffy’”. Once the strike was over, they claim that Bay locked them in a room and checked up on them every few minutes to make sure that they were indeed working on the script. In response to a question (asked later in the panel), the writers felt that the addition of Ehren Krugar was both necessary and a breath of fresh air. He was chosen in particular because of his immense knowledge and love of Transformers, but didn’t exactly petition for the job. For all of these reasons, they feel a better film will result.

As a first sequel to their own work, Orzi and Kurtzman felt it was important to observe a few personal rules. First, they did not want to make this movie “just because”, and felt the need for a story to drive it along – which makes them meeting their pre-strike deadline all the more amazing. Second, they wanted the returning humans – specifically Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox’s characters – to have a reason to be there. While the Autobots are learning if they will be able to coexist with the Earth’s natural inhabitants, Sam takes a parallel journey to try and live a normal life after something extraordinary happened to him.

Q&A

Well, that was pretty much everything I wanted to know! Fortunately, many fans had questions I hadn’t thought of. Of course, the declared moratoriam on Star Trek was lifted almost immediately, as nearly everyone thanked them for finally making Trek interesting and (quoting one fan) “Better than Star Wars”. Speaking of which, the question came up surrounding rumors that Leonard Nimoy would be voicing The Fallen (or some other character). Orci and Kurtzman were not sure he made it into the film in time, and believe that at best they were able to do was a shout out. (citation?) (Apart from his role as Galvatron in the original 1986 animated feature, Nimoy is also connected to the current Transformers film through his wife, whose nephew is… Michael Bay!)

So many questions! Why weren’t there more characters in the first film? Why didn’t they have more screen time? Who was responsible for picking the ones that made it in? Why no females in the first film? The answer to most of these questions had to do with the studio being unsure if the idea of live-actions robots could even work. This lead to the weirdness of the execs openly asking of the robots should even be able to talk. “Of COURSE they should talk,” Orci replied, playing himself in the re-enactment of their discussions. But, apart from selling the idea, they had to make sure it was technically feasible as well. So we see more humans in the first film for this reason, but also because the cost of any one robot “is several million dollars per minute”, and they are entirely fictional constructs. By comparison, humans tend to work for much less, and can actually be there for production. Besides, what’s the point of being a robot in disguise if you have no one to hide from? Eh? Ehhhh?

Now that the film has proved itself, they have more resources and more freedom to make story decisions. Whereas a female robot might have been a hard sell originally, this time around no one will even question it because, “duh, they’re characters!” All the same, Orci and Kurtzman do try to explain how things work with their own private technobabble that they struggle to keep out of the film proper. It’s important to know where this stuff comes from and how it works – so long as it relates to the story beat at hand.

Orci and Kurtzman have to give their props to the humans, though, especially Shia LaBeouf. He had to work with an actual, crushed hand. With all the stunts he was doing himself, he could have done further, permanent harm. But that’s just how dedicated he is. Would they give any other guy 30 DVDs (of movies he hadn’t seen before) while he was laid up in the hospital if he weren’t so completely rad? I don’t think so.

That’s the meat of it, but there were lots of other interesting questions:

• Is the giant steam shovel Demolishor or Scavenger? Turns out there’s a story reason for this confusion! Similar with the Blackout versus Grindor issue. Hmmm…
• What about Dispensor the Dew Bot, the Xbox 360, and all the other characters who came alive during the fight in Mission City? Clues for their fate will be in the second film, but “Don’t expect him to have settled down with a Pepsi machine to raise a family.” Aww…
• Michael Bay is directly responsible for a few of the odd characters. He wanted to inject more comedy with the robots, and Skids and Mudflap were chosen because of their less robust histories and ingrained appearances. But speaking of ingrained appearances, the switch of Sideswipe from a Lambourghini was Bay’s call – he’s a big car affecionado, and the writers don’t get much say for those alt modes. The “twin” idea is addressed differently in the film, since there’s no Sunstreaker (probably with Skids/Mudflap). As for the ice cream truck? Again, fits into the comedy goal. Speaking of the ice cream truck…
• Ah, combiners! Why do they suddenly show up in this film, and is there any overarching explanation for it? Apparently not! It’s not as if they spend the movie talking about “Megatron’s deadly new weapon” of combining robots, being this newly developed technology that only a select few can do. According to the writers, it just sort of “happens”. They feel that mechanical beings being able to combine with each other is just a natural extension of their physical state. When we see it onscreen for the first time, it’s going to be something of a surprise.
• A few fans expressed their desire to see if Unicron would be in the next film. Rather than comment on the subject, instead the writers asked completey open-endedly what the pros and cons were of his inclusion. Does this mean they’re considering it…?

Regardless, here’s looking forward to Transformers 3: Megatron vs. the Enterprise!