Date: May 21, 2006

Source: IESB
Author: Robert Sanchez
A Second Look At The Transformers Script!

Last week El Mayimbe over at LatinoReview put up his review for Michael Bay 's Prime Directive, A.K.A Transformers. While the script was a few months old and there have been up to four revisions, I have been told that the story is essentially the same, and that is where the problems arise.

Mayimbe's review gave this older draft an A+, in my humble opinion that was a little too gracious. You see we also got our hands on a few scripts this week, one being Chris Nolan's The Prestige, second being Resident Evil 3, third Tony Scott's Déjà Vu and finally Prime Directive A.K.A Transformers.

Let's start off with saying that the descriptions that Mayimbe had on the first 10 pages are dead on and if the film continued at this pace it would be incredible.

Yes, Soundwave does get himself on Air Force One and some pretty good action develops mid-flight. The Decepticon is on a mission that involves hacking into the governments' computer systems. While that all sounds great, I have a problem with him being a boombox that transforms to a 4 ½ foot tall robot. Don't get me wrong he sounds creepy and very evil but at the end he gets his ass kicked by Maggie.

My problem is that Soundwave always had somewhat of a leadership role. He had a presence that at times even rivaled Megatrons' but in this draft of the script he is no more than a skinny freaky little robot that shoots discs from his chest.

On a side note, according to reports all over the web, this robot has been renamed Soundbyte. Soundwave might be mentioned and will make his appearance in the second movie, if they make one. Let's hope this revision is true!

So far as the human counterparts of the story, there is way too much time devoted to Sam and Mikaela. The movie based on this script should be called "Sam, Mikaela, and their Transforming friends."

Don't get me wrong, there are great moments where we see Brawl and Bumblebee have some awesome fight scenes. But, here is a slight problem. Brawl is a cop car in this draft and most Transformers fans know that Brawl is a tank. The M1-Abrams tank from the script is called Devastator which also doesn't make any sense considering that name belongs to the giant combining robot.

Devastator was the Decepticons' big muscle. Comprised of the six Constructicons, it was a green and purple beast, big enough to kick even Optimus Prime arse over the horizon. Once again, in this script he's an M-1 Abrams Tank.

I will stay away from spoiling too much but let me mention that is a very cool scene where Optimus Prime is explaining to Sam and Mikaela where they come from and who Megatron is. He uses a 3-D hologram and shows a battle image from Cybertron, we get to see craters, carnage and destruction for miles. We even get to see Megatron killing an Autobot, very cool!

When we think of Transformers, the first two names that come to mind is Optimus Prime and Megatron. In this version of the script we get to see Megatron briefly in the beginning of the film and for a few seconds when Optimus shows the holographic image to Sam and Mikaela. We really don't get to see Megatron until the 87 th page of a 111 page script. Disappointing? You bet!

Here is something that will get most hardcore fans quite upset, Megatron is not a gun nor is he a tank or canon, he is in fact an alien jet.

And that is my biggest problem with this script, Megatron has to resemble what the fans remember from the cartoons and comics. He has to be a canon, tank or something of that nature, not an alien jet.

The third act holds up pretty well, a battle scene that will have Transformer fans across the board very happy. And by the end of this film it is quite obvious that this is the first of many films.

In this script, most of the third act takes place in the Nevada desert and in or around Hoover Dam. This is something that I am to assume has changed considering that Quint over at AICN has said that we will see Optimus and Megatron battle in Downtown Los Angeles.

Michael Bay has gone on record saying that this is not the final script and that the names are also not final. This is a sign of hope, as long as Megatron is not an alien jet then we are doing just fine. If he casts Cullen and Welker we will be doing great.

Update! I almost forgot to mention one the most stupid scenes in the script. For reasons that I won't get into we see an I-Pod, X-Box 360 and Plasma screens sprout legs and transform just a bit. We also don't need "More Than Meets The Eye" comments through out the film from different characters.

Stay tuned this week as we take a quick look at Chris Nolan's next film The Prestige and Tony Scott's Deja Vu.

Stay tuned to the IESB for further updates!

More Headlines from IESB...