Transformers Facts That'll Change The Way You See The Franchise
Which Transformer was only added as a marketing gimmick for Chevy? What was the hardest scene Michael Bay shot for the entire series? Roll into these awesome details from the billion-dollar franchise.
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00:00Which Transformer was only added as a marketing gimmick for Chevy?
00:04What was the hardest-seen Michael Bay shot for the entire series?
00:07Roll into these awesome details from the billion-dollar franchise.
00:11The Transformers movies went on to become massive hits at the box office, but they weren't
00:15originally an area of intense focus for producer Don Murphy.
00:19Back in 2007, Murphy explained to Latino Review that his original goal when it came to turning
00:24toys into massive live-action movies was the G.I.
00:27Joe franchise.
00:28Murphy had undergone lengthy conversations with Hasbro about acquiring the film rights
00:32to the property, and Sony Pictures was even floating the idea of distributing this potential
00:37film adaptation.
00:39However, real-world events soon cut Murphy's ambitions for G.I.
00:42Joe shorts.
00:43The invasion of Iraq suddenly made the prospect of adapting that specific toy into a globally
00:47appealing franchise much less feasible.
00:50The then-head of Hasbro Films, Carol Monroe, proceeded to point Murphy in the direction
00:54of the Transformers property as another Hasbro IP he could adapt into a film.
00:59While Murphy didn't have any childhood nostalgia for Transformers, he did know that other close
01:04creative partners like producer Tom DeSanto harbored a passion for the franchise.
01:09Recognizing the fanbase for those robots in disguise, Murphy got to work on getting Transformers
01:14off the ground.
01:15The result was a pop culture phenomenon that would've never happened if Murphy's initial
01:19G.I.
01:20Joe plans had gotten off the ground.
01:21Now I know!
01:22And knowing is half the battle.
01:24Michael Bay's stabs at Transformers movies vary wildly in the characters they chronicle,
01:29and even the time periods they travel to, but they all tend to share one quality — a
01:33focus on human characters.
01:35We begin these tales with human beings like Sam Witwicky and Cade Yeager, and view gigantic
01:40sci-fi adventures largely through their eyes.
01:42With each new Transformers movie, the robotic characters get to be more and more prominent,
01:47but the humans are still at the forefront of the narrative.
01:49Believe it or not, there was a point in time when the original live-action Transformers
01:53movie would've been even more reliant on its human characters.
01:57Screenwriter Roberto Orci explained to IGN that the very first draft of Transformers
02:02was focused almost solely on the lead human characters played by Shia LaBeouf and Megan
02:06Fox.
02:07This version of the story leans more heavily on the realistic ramifications of a kid buying
02:11a car that turns out to be a robotic alien in disguise.
02:15That car is sensitive.
02:16I mean, $4,000 just drove off."
02:19Orci and company quickly realized that the inaugural draft just wasn't clicking, and
02:23subsequent rewrites took the skeleton of Sam Witwicky's storyline from the first pass and
02:28injected more material separate from this character.
02:31It's understandable — of course, Transformers fans would want more robots in Transformers
02:35movies.
02:36While iconic Transformers robots like Optimus Prime and Bumblebee made it to the world of
02:41live-action storytelling with Transformers in 2007, other fixtures of the franchise were
02:46not so lucky.
02:47One example was Arcee.
02:49One of the most famous lady robots in the entire Transformers canon, Arcee would've
02:53seemed like a slam dunk for inclusion into a big Transformers blockbuster.
02:57"...and you better stay close to me!"
03:00"...no, you'd better stay close to me."
03:07However, she was nowhere to be found in the franchise's first installment.
03:11Screenwriter Roberto Orci revealed via IGN that Arcee was originally planned to be a
03:15part of Transformers, but female Transformers were a concept that required too much time
03:20to sufficiently explain in that original movie.
03:23Wanting to avoid any potential complications, Orci decided to leave Arcee on the cutting
03:27room floor and save her for another day.
03:30Arcee would eventually get to join the live-action incarnation of Transformers through subsequent
03:34movies like Transformers Revenge of the Fallen and Transformers Rise of the Beasts.
03:39Today, some directors tasked with helming a blockbuster movie adaptation of a beloved
03:43nerd property are bound to spend a lot of time talking to the press about how much they
03:47love it.
03:48Michael Bay, though, has never been one to play by conventional filmmaking rules.
03:52"...the movie cannot have tracks.
03:54See the tracks?
03:56See the tracks?"
03:58It's no surprise, then, that Bay has always been open about how he was downright contemptuous
04:02of the Transformers characters before he signed on to direct Transformers in the mid-2000s.
04:08As Collider reported, Bay recalled that he missed the boat on falling in love with Transformers
04:12back in the 1980s because he was too young.
04:15When he was first offered the chance to direct Transformers and attend a seminar at Hasbro
04:19outlining the franchise's lengthy history, Bay remained skeptical of the property.
04:23As he recalled,
04:24"...I really thought, what the f—k am I going to Hasbro for Transformers school?
04:28I thought I was going to learn how to fold up robots."
04:31However, once he dove deeper into Transformers lore, Bay was in trance with the universe.
04:36From there, Bay became a massive Transformers devotee, though he still sought to make the
04:40movie appealing to the kind of Transformers non-fans that he used to be.
04:45Transformers obviously wasn't Michael Bay's first stab at big-budget filmmaking.
04:49Thanks to productions like Armageddon and Pearl Harbor, Bay had already become synonymous
04:53with expensive spectacle movies.
04:55However, Transformers was no mere retread of what he'd done in the past.
04:59Notably, Bay's blockbuster filmmaking efforts before Transformers all centered on flesh
05:03and blood people.
05:04That changed with Transformers, which hinged its plot on towering robots that were brought
05:08into the live-action world by CGI wizardry.
05:11Bay worked with animators closely and constantly in post-production to make sure characters
05:16were as vividly alive as possible.
05:18Having to navigate the finer nuances of animated filmmaking wasn't charted territory for Bay
05:22at this juncture in his career, but it was that unfamiliarity that excited him when he
05:27set out to helm Transformers.
05:29Forget the Decepticons, one of the biggest foes the Transformers had to overcome was
05:33the Writers Guild of America strike from the end of 2007 to the very start of 2008.
05:39This event disrupted the entire film and television industry in North America.
05:43Few projects were safe.
05:44Not even mega-budgeted tentpoles like Transformers Revenge of the Fallen could be counted on
05:49to escape the writers' strike unscathed.
05:51In hindsight, director Michael Bay has been quite vocal about how many Revenge of the
05:55Fallen shortcomings emerged because of the attempts to make this blockbuster in the middle
05:59of the writers' strike.
06:01Bay explained to Empire that the pressure of an impending writers' strike ensured that
06:05the screenplay for Revenge of the Fallen was put together too hastily, with the primary
06:09narrative assembled in just three weeks.
06:12Not only did this provide a time crunch for creating a story in the first place, but the
06:15lengthy nature of the strike ensured that Revenge of the Fallen missed out on several
06:20months where its screenplay could have been polished.
06:23I am directly below!
06:25Enemy scrotum!
06:28Bay didn't lay every flaw in Revenge of the Fallen at the feet of the writers' strike.
06:32He also blames the film's incorporation of more fantastical elements as a key reason
06:36it came up short.
06:37However, it's clear the writers' strike did this movie no favors.
06:42It's often hard to tell the various robots apart from one another in the Michael Bay
06:45Transformers movies thanks to the character designs, as well as the rapid-fire editing
06:49style of the features.
06:51Not even die-hard fans of this franchise would be hard-pressed to name or remember Jolt,
06:55a blue Autobot who transforms into a Chevy Volt.
06:58Jolt's screentime in Transformers Revenge of the Fallen is minimal, he has no dialogue,
07:03and his only personality trait is having electricity.
07:06Jolt!
07:07Electrify!
07:08Turns out, the character's lack of noticeable traits was a byproduct of how late Jolt was
07:14added into the script.
07:15Screenwriter Roberto Orsi explained to The Hollywood Reporter that Chevy insisted that
07:20there be a robot in Revenge of the Fallen that could help promote the Chevy Volt.
07:24Considering these circumstances, it's no wonder Jolt was so forgettable.
07:29Transformers Age of Extinction didn't address or correct any longstanding problems fans
07:32and general audiences alike had expressed with the Transformers franchise, but that
07:37didn't seem to hurt the movie's box office prospects.
07:40In fact, Age of Extinction became the biggest feature of 2014 at the worldwide box office
07:44and the only title from that year to crack $1 billion globally.
07:48Other sequels were inevitable, but given how lucrative this franchise was, Paramount
07:53Pictures wasn't just settling for doing a straightforward sequel.
07:56This studio was now harboring ambitions of Transformers becoming the next Marvel Cinematic
08:00Universe, an expansive saga spawning countless spinoffs.
08:04In March 2015, news broke that Akiva Goldsman and Michael Bay, among others, were spearheading
08:09a writers' room that would figure out multiple different projects set within the Transformers
08:13universe.
08:14The ambitions were high, and the dense lore attached to the Transformers franchise beyond
08:18the live-action movies gave these potential new features plenty of material to utilize.
08:23However, the potential of this writers' room has yet to fully come to fruition.
08:27While the spinoff movie Bumblebee did premiere in 2018, it took another five years for Rise
08:32of the Beast to jump into the fray.
08:34The underwhelming box office performance of Transformers The Last Knight in 2017 probably
08:39forced Paramount to pump the brakes on those big plans for an endless Transformers cinematic
08:43universe — at least for a while.
08:46What was that?
08:47That was a mistake."
08:49Michael Bay is no stranger to battle sequences, especially after doing a decade of Transformers
08:54movies.
08:55But the filmmaker explained to Fandango that the fifth entry in this saga, Transformers
08:59The Last Knight, contains the most arduous action sequence in his career.
09:03Bay openly admitted that he'd never done a period-era medieval battle involving knights
09:07before he shot the opening fight sequence of Transformers The Last Knight.
09:12Most of Bay's big action sequences involved car chasers and elements discernibly attached
09:16to the modern world.
09:17Suddenly, being thrust into the landscape and battle tactics of a period-era setting
09:21was an incredibly daunting task for Bay.
09:24Bay also had personal problems informing why the sequence was so challenging, as his dog,
09:29Bonecrusher, who had appeared in several previous Transformers films, died the night before
09:33he shot this sequence.
09:34The loss of a pet impacted Bay profoundly, and it made the concept of going to shoot
09:39a big action sequence the very next day a surreal experience.
09:42However, with so many practical tools, including countless horses and extras ready to go for
09:47the shoot, Bay had to buckle down and direct a battle sequence like no other in his filmography.
09:53The result was a set piece that took three days to shoot, but did leave Bay feeling incredibly
09:57accomplished once it was finished.
10:00Michael Bay spent an entire decade of his life making Transformers movies.
10:04A decade is a long chunk of time, and while Bay didn't exclusively direct Transformers
10:08movies over those ten years, he still dedicated most of his life in that time span to battling
10:13robots.
10:14Naturally, with the benefit of hindsight, Bay has a lot of complicated thoughts about
10:18immersing himself in one fictional world for so long.
10:21Bay reflected to Unilad that he did have some regrets about being so ingrained in the Transformers
10:25world for so long.
10:26He said,
10:27"...I made too many of them.
10:28Steven Spielberg said, just stop at three, and I said I'd stop.
10:32The studio begged me to do a fourth, and then that made a billion, too.
10:36Then I said, I'm gonna stop here, and they begged me again.
10:39I should have stopped."
10:40"...Five's good.
10:41Five's good.
10:42It is sad.
10:43You're right.
10:44It is sad, okay?
10:45But five's good."
10:46Before he directed Bumblebee, Travis Knight was a director and artist strictly associated
10:50with stop-motion animated features.
10:52Specifically, he was the man running Laika, the outfit behind groundbreaking films like
10:56Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, the latter of which Knight also directed.
11:01His career up to this point was built on totally original animated properties, which made the
11:05idea of him helming a live-action spinoff of the Transformers movies a puzzling proposition.
11:10However, Knight explained to Polygon that he'd been a massive Transformers fan ever
11:14since he was a kid.
11:16This especially informed the prologue set on Cybertron, which was jam-packed with shout-outs
11:20to vintage Transformers media, such as a more classical depiction of Soundwave.
11:25On paper, Knight may have seemed like a strange choice to helm a Transformers spinoff, but
11:29his adoration for those robots in disguise ensured that he was just right to give Bumblebee
11:34a spin as its director.