The Untold Story of TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE

[Music] 1986's the Transformers the movie is quite possibly the single most important piece of Transformers media ever introducing characters and Concepts that became intrinsic parts of the franchise's lore which still echo across every new Transformer story told today in this video we're going to look at the evolution of the film script the multiple earlier versions of the story what was changed and what was kept on the journey to bringing the Transformers first big screen adventure to life it's Transformers the movie The Untold [Music] Story the story of the film begins in the summer of 1984 with writer Ron fredman fredman was a script editor of sorts of on the original Transformers cartoon who rewrote the show's dialogue for consistency and flavor and according to associate producer Flint Dilly he had a great contract that ensured he would have a writer credit on any potential movie mid of the series thus as production of the scripts for the cartoon's first season was wrapping up towards the end of the summer and production on the movie was beginning it was fredman who wrote the first story outline for the film now we don't know exactly how much of this outline was based on demands from Hasbro and how much fredman came up with himself but per fredman's own statements it's understood that Hasbro insisted that the story feature the death of Optimus Prime which fredman didn't agree with while fredman himself argued for the inclusion of a female autobot RC the artline served as a basis for the first draft script fredman then produced which was completed by February 1985 a mystery for years a copy of this first script was finally found by Transformers fan and archist Jim Sorenson while helping Flint Dilly to organize his Storehouse of paperwork in 2020 subsequently Jim and I did a presentation about the script at UK convention TF nation in 2022 accompanied by a series of unofficial artists impress sessions of Select scenes which is what you're going to see as I take you through this early version of the story fredman's first draft takes place an unknown amount of time in the near future almost all the characters featured in The Script are either brand new ones or taken from the first season of the cartoon the only second season characters that show up are Decepticon Jets thrust durge and Ramjet notably none of the auto robots established human allies like Spike with Wiki appear the story kicks off with an army of Decepticons with the Constructor con's front and center laying Siege to an Autobot steel mill which is defended by the film's primary Heroes youthful Autobot Hot Rod the elderly tanker a grizzled oneeyed Autobot who transforms into a Sherman Tank RC who acts as medic to those injured in the fight Wheeljack and their commanding officer Magnus a mighty warrior who boldly races into action to take out a Decepticon canon in placement blasting the mill with Napal like fire snow as a quick side note here the illustration you're seeing of Magnus is based on an early original concept by the movie's character designer floro deiri when it was replaced with the finished Magnus design de would rework this design and reuse it for Orion p in the cartoon episode War Dawn later in the year meanwhile Optimus Prime is on the way with reinforcements and more fuel for the besieged Bots at the steel mill he and the other Autobots are riding in vehicle mode on flatbed cars towed by a fre trium crewed by their human allies Colonel Rusty steel a dry witted Indiana Jones type Green Beret and the gruff General Blaze Megatron and the Decepticons appear to bar the Tran's way and Starscream tears up the tracks ahead to stop it but it transpires that using this big obvious mode of Transport was all part of a plan by Optimus to lure Megatron out and that the train is really a gigantic autobot named rails who converts from freight train to futuristic hovering bullet train and smashes Starscream out of his path then when the Autobots arrive at the Mill rails transforms again to to his robot mode a colossal fire breathing snake who breaks the back of the Decepticon Siege smashing crushing and melting the Decepticons and their Siege towers as R reeks Havoc Optimus Prime and Megatron have their final face off when hot rod spots Megatron reaching for a blaster he intervenes in an attempt to help his leader but Megatron exploits the distraction he creates to open fire on Prime though Gravely wounded the autobot leader uses the last of his strength to deliver a fatal final blow to Megatron as well the Decepticons take Megatron and Retreat flying off back to Cybertron while Rusty takes charge of the shocked and horrified Autobots and lays out a plan ratchet and one group will take the wounded Optimus back to headquarters for treatment while another headed up by Wheeljack will begin construction of a fleet of spacecraft to pursue the weakened Decepticons and finish them off once and for all gear isn't very happy about a human giving orders to Autobots but RC speaks up to get the Autobots to fall in line with Rusty's plan RC volunteers herself to be part of wheeljack's team which introduces one of the movie's big running gags wheeljack's an old-fashioned misogynist who thinks a woman like RC will only get in the way but in fact she's extremely skilled often spotting details he's overlooked and saving his neck multiple times ratchet's group takes Optimus back to Autobot headquarters which in the intervening years has expanded to Encompass the entire volcano having become a huge complex where Autobots and humans live and work together here we meet the autobot Springer described as a muscular Arnold schwarzeneger type human computer programmer Ellen Prentice and her son Daniel Daniel looks up to Rusty but Ellen's not a fan she prefer Daniel focus on his studies meanwhile tank ER consoles hot rod who's consumed with guilt over the role he played in optimus's injuries guilt that only deepens when after examination ratchet announces that Prime's wounds are fatal before he dies Optimus passes his life Essence called his Matrix represented by a small glowing figure of prime himself made of pure light to Magnus who becomes the Autobots new leader Ultra Magnus concurrently the Decepticons returned to Cybertron to enshrine the dying Megatron's life Essence in an n in their whole of Heroes but begin fighting about who's going to take his place as the new leader in the course of the fight a stray Blast from skywarp accidentally destroys the N intended to hold Megatron's Essence unnoticed by his brawling troops Megatron expires and with nothing to contain it his Spirit drifts off into space where it will evaporate into nothingness before that can happen however Megatron's Essence is seized by a ray of Cold Light and pulled across space to the planet Unicron a strange slab-shaped World covered in crystallin scales and undulating trees and grass there Megatron Converses with the voice of an unseen being that refers to itself only as the entity the care caretaker of Planet Unicron The Entity offers Megatron a deal enter his service and acquire him energy to feed the planet Unicron and in return he will be reborn in a powerful new body Megatron accepts and is recreated through the entity's power as Galvatron his body wreathed in the same steals that cover Unicron Galvatron returns to Cybertron where the Decepticons are still fighting over leadership and retakes command the anti light shines down on Cyber Dron transforming and powering up all the other Decepticons into new scale covered forms beginning with Starscream and the Jets The Entity orders the Decepticons to travel to earth and acquire the energy of the planet for him but as they depart the entity's light expands to cover all of Cybertron and the Transformers home world is destroyed collapsing in on itself and being sucked away across space through the beam of light for Unicron to feed upon the entity laughs off galvatron's rage and horror and under his breath Galvatron vowes Revenge back on Earth in preparation for pursuing the Decepticons the Autobots have begun construction of massive armored Shields which they intend to ship out to Earth's major cities to serve as defense in case of an attack while they're off Planet but when Galvatron and the Decepticons arrive their new entity given power allows them to cut through the shields like butter and destroy all the spacecraft Wheeljack has been building badly outmatched the Autobots are forced to abandon their headquarters and Scatter to the Four Winds after a short time skip the Decepticons are shown to have taken over on Earth where hunting parties of eerie black clad gapo like Decepticons now carry out sweeps in search of Autobot fugitives Rusty narrowly avoids being spotted by one of these sweet parties and rejoins a group of Autobots hiding out in the mountains where the news goes from bad to worse as Wheeljack and RC report that the Decepticons have constructed a cage around earth that is draining the planet's energy and beaming it off into space to Unicron leaving Earth with only days to live the camp is then discovered by The Hunting Party so the Autobots keep the cors busy while the humans escape on a raft via a nearby River Hound uses his Holograms to confuse the Cons with false targets and Sideswipe and Sun Streaker clobber them with steel beams with the humans safely away the Autobots then Escape under cover of a smoke screen created by an autobot named chemo hot rod and tanker are given the task of finding other scattered Autobots to form a crew who will head into space and find and destroy the source of the Decepticon strange new power a little later hot rod and tanker locate Springer in the desert and watch as he uses the leaping power for which he's named to take out an entire Decepticon unit led by Starscream solo Springer leads the pair to a nearby Autobot Refinery to recruit more troops they're attacked by insecticons and more Decepticons on the way but when they reach the refinery help a witz in the form of the Dinobots Grimlock sludge and swoop blur a high-speed Advanced Scout described as a slow talking Jimmy Stewart sort and the refineries resident Brainiac manlar a large- headed Autobot scientist who turns into a radar truck manlar has invented an imuno destabilizer field that cuts the Decepticons off from the entity's power reverting them back to their normal forms and allowing the Dinobots to send them packing unfortunately the Decepticons are already developing a resistance to the destabilizer field so mlar and his crew agree to join the mission into space the Autobots all regroup in an arctic ice cave where Wheeljack and RC have been able to salvage a single spacecraft for the mission Rusty will be going into space with the Bots and bids farewell to Daniel and Ellen but then the Decepticons attack and in the chaos Daniel and Ellen are forced to board the ship with Rusty Magnus Springer blur and mlar as it blasts off hot rod tanker and the Dinobots fly alongside it while Wheeljack RC General Blaze and the other Autobots remain to continue the fight on Earth the Decepticons try to close the energy cage around the Autobots to prevent their escape but when the effort fails The Entity provides Galvatron with a spaceship so the Decepticons can pursue them mlar and Ellen work together to calculate the location of the Decepticon power source tracking it to the shadow nebula and MLA provides the humans with exos suits that enhance their strength as they're getting to grips with them the Decepticons catch up to the Bots and are heroes split up Hot Rod's group takes refuge on a nearby geologically unstable asteroid while magnus's team keeps the Decepticons busy intending to Blind them with flares then slip away and join back up with Hot Rod's team on the asteroid unfortunately Galvatron has sent laser beak to follow Hot Rod's team so so the cons know where the Autobots are and simply follow them the battle moves to the asteroid during which a Decepticon bombing run flings Hot Rod's group off into space then a galactic warp hurricane suddenly strikes causing the Decepticon carrier to crash into the asteroid Magnus can't pass up this for tuous opportunity to escape and continue their mission so his team are reluctantly forced to abandon Hot Rod's group and swiftly depart when Galvatron emerges from the wreckage and detects no Autobot life signs he believes all the Bots have died in the storm and the Decepticons return to finish matters on Earth the last Act of the film takes place across three different settings each following a different group of characters hot rod and tanker's group magnus's team and the Autobots on Earth hot rod and tankers group crash land on an alien planet planetoid hot rod and tanker land in the ocean where tanker is dismembered by a robotic squid and saved by hot rod hot rod puts the old bot back together and they set out to search for the Dinobots instead they encounter the alien sharkticons and when attempts to Plate them with the universal greeting fail they're taken prisoner the creatures have also captured sludge and swoop immobilizing them with stun sticks and have begun taking bites out of swoop tanker and hot rod are brought before the Shar deon's Masters the Quinton creatures with spindly bodies huge five fasted heads and mental Powers there they meet a fellow captive the rock robot granx last survivor of an expedition from lithon the planet of marble found guilty of trespassing on the Quinton world granx is thrown into a gladiatorial arena with the Sharons who devour him him watching the grizzly scene hot rod and tanker realize that the Primitive shark deons can only differentiate between enemies and other shark deons thanks to some simple sensors so when the two Autobots are tried and thrown into the arena a short time later they concoct a plan using grease and oil from their own bodies to Blind the shakon sensors and throw them into confusion however the quintones use their mental powers to telekinetically create new shock deons out of scrap metal that lack this weakness but just as all seems lost the Dinobots arrive Grimlock has freed sludge and swoop and they soon subdue the shock Toons hot rod forces the lead Quinton to probe space with its mental powers for the location of magnus's crew and the team departs to join them magnus's group meanwhile arrive in the shadow nebula where the sheer power of the entity's Brien waves knocks their shuttle out of the sky and sends them crashing down to planet unicron's Moon The Entity contacts Galvatron on Earth instructing him to come to the moon and finish off the Autobots for good but Galvatron decides to disobey the order and REM to continue the fight on Earth mlar sets about studying the substance of unicron's moon removing one of the crystallin SKS from its surface and this disturbance lets the entity know that Galvatron has not carried out his orders he contacts Galvatron on earth once more and mentally tortures him into leaving the planet at once Wheeljack RC and the other Autobots watch him go and their Spirits boyed by the Revelation that ultramagnus still lives press forward in battle against the other Decepticons Who Remain with Wheeljack now finally starting to really appreciate RC's abilities and with the hint of romance now blooming between them detecting the Decepticons of approach the Autobots on unicron's moon set up decoys basically cardboard cutouts of themselves to lure Galvatron and his man into range of explosive charges they've planted Magnus instructs Springer and the humans to make a break for safety while he blur and manlar battle the Decepticons but Rusty seeing the autobot Leader's plan as suicide attempts to stay and help him fight as he does so Rumble tries to force Daniel to watch as durge kills Ellen but Daniel Masters his exo suit and saves his mom from the corns proving his independence to her however a second wave of Decepticon soon descends forcing Springer and the humans to follow magnus's plan Magnus manlar and blur hold the line to cover their escape and are killed sensing the presence of Optimus Prime's life force Galvatron Cuts Magnus open and removes Prime's Matrix to take as a prize placing it in a bottle likee pendant around his neck his mission accomplished he departs to renegotiate terms with the entity meanwhile Springer and the human's Escape Route leads them through a strange fog Bank to a dried out riverbed likee area where they're confronted by the junk on an eccentric tribe of road warrior style robots led by the Nazi helmet wearing wgar Springer guides the humans in transforming their exos suits to flee from the strange new newcomers but the junon are able to capture them luckily Hot Rod's group arrives and makes peace with the junon presumably using the universal greeting but the script is missing a page here so we can't say for sure Grimlock befriends a large junkie on named scrapo and rgar provides the group with a print out of data which Ellen decodes it reveals that the entity was in fact created by the junkie On's ancestors to serve as a un Universal protector but something went wrong and it became evil the junk on had to live behind the veil of fog to be free of it fortunately the print out also reveals the entity's weak spot but the script's missing another page so we don't know exactly what it is Galvatron attempts to break his contract with the entity by threatening to destroy the planet Unicron with a thermal charge but unsurprisingly the charge has no effect the autobot forces then arrive and touch down on Unicron surface just in time for the truth to be revealed The Entity and the planet Unicron are one and the same being thanks to the energy provided by the Decepticons The Entity now has the power to transform to robot mode and break the orbit it has been trapped in for Generations the tree trunks and grass on the planet's surface are but hairs on the back of its colossal hands the robot mode entity heads for Earth to finish devouring it while the Dinobots and scrapo distract him the other Autobots Venture inside his body where Springer and tanker battle his immune system of metallic leeches while hot rod and the humans head for the weak spot at his core Unfortunately they discover that the opening to the core is too small for any explosive to fit through but hot rod senses the presence of the weapon they need and the group returns to the surface to recover Optimus Prime's Matrix from Galvatron Galvatron refuses to hand it over and tries to destroy both himself and the Matrix preferring nothingness to a world in which he cannot rule but Ellen finally gets the hang of her exoit and surprises Everyone by Kung fuing the Decepticon leader into submission Matrix in hand the team returns to the core once more where Daniel the only one small enough to fit through the opening climbs in and opens the Matrix optimus's life force destroys the entity from within while hot rod leads the Autobots in evacuating the entity's exploding body Galvatron is sent hurtling off into space on a piece of debris while Our Heroes all triumphantly return to the healed restored Earth for a victory ceremony at the new Autobot headquarters [Music] after fredman handed in the first draft creative director Jay ball called up Flint Dilly to get his input on it as Dilly tells it he and ball concluded that the script was basically incoherent and took it upon themselves to create their own script called The Secret Of Cybertron written in a single week this script combines select ideas from fredman's script with an earlier idea Dilly had for an episode called Journey to the Center of Cybertron and involved Optimus Prime traveling to the heart of the Transformers world and using his Matrix to transform the planet into a robot mode to battle The Entity Dilly has always said that very few people ever read this script but the existence of a piece of concept art by floro Dei of a robot mode Cybertron seems to suggest otherwise to quote Dilly he and PCO were convinced that the secret of Cybertron was the greatest script ever written by anybody for any reason but executive producers Joe ball and Tom Griffin didn't share their enthusiasm for it and it was rejected sadly this script has never been founded thus its precise contents are unknown but Dilly has always said that he reused several ideas from the the story for the season 3 premiere five faces of Darkness including the idea of the Quinton being the creators of the Transformers the basic concept of Journey to the Center of Cybertron meanwhile would eventually become the second season two-parter the key to Vector [Music] Sigma with the secret of Cybertron off the table it fell to Dilly and ball to start fresh taking the bones of fredman's first draft and restructuring it into a new outline tightening up the story finalizing characters names roles and personalities and incorporating requests from Hasbro to feature more toys from the 1986 product line the new outline was completed in March and from there fredman wrote an entirely new script which which was delivered in April then had a few pages revised in May this version hit the same big story bullet points as the first but now arranged into a form that was much closer to the movie we know today the second draft is set 5 years in the future in terms of characters it places much greater emphasis on hot rod maturing to become the true new Autobot leader at the end of the film than the first draft did as he's transformed by Optimus Prime's Matrix into Rodimus Prime in turn Ultram Magnus is played as a more fallible figure than the Bold hero of the first draft depicted more as just a soldier struggling and failing to fill optimus's shoes Wheeljack and his bickering relationship with RC are dropped and RC is moved over to become part of magnus' shuttle crew rather than staying on Earth tanker is reworked to become the pickup truck cup but but the character remains basically the same personality-wise while blur's personality is overhauled to introduce his fast talking gimmick Rusty Ellen and Blaze are taken out but Daniel Remains the only human featured in the film Rusty's Indiana Jones style personality is given over to Springer The Entity is renamed with fredman thinking of several Alternatives including absorber amalgamator and M car before settling on ingestor and Optimus Prime's Matrix and Megatron's Essence are both renamed life Sparks the additional new toys that Hasbro requested be added to the second draft could be split into two groups figures from the 1985 product line who would continue to be sold in 1986 with whom audiences would already be familiar thanks to the first and second seasons of the cartoon and and brand new toys currently in development for the 86 line 1985 characters added or given bigger roles included the Dinobots who the second draft introduces earlier replacing reals as the big Autobot reinforcements in the opening battle the Constructicons who now combine into Devastator for a big showcase fight scene with the dinos perceptor who replaces manlar as the scientist on Ultram magnus' crew Blaster who joins the cast in a supporting role and the triple Changers blitzwing and astr TR who are given prominent moments amidst the action brand new 1986 characters added include wheelie and Autobot child encountered by Hot Rods group on quintessa who effectively takes the role of scrapo as a FR to the Dinobots and galvatron's new minions Scourge and cyclonus to incorporate these two new Decepticons into the story the second drafts version of the Decepticon fight in the Hall of Heroes includes them shattering several of the other urns enshrined there releasing the life Sparks of other dead Decepticons that drift off into space along with Megatron it's these additional life Sparks that ingestor then uses to create Scourge and cyclonus Scourge was specifically conceived to be the leader of of the gapo Decepticons featured in the first draft fredman described those Decepticons as a sweep party meaning a party that conducts sweeps but somewhere along the way the name got reinterpreted a bit literally and sweeps actually became the name of these evil Huntsmen who were reimagined as identical copies of scourge also created from Life Sparks by ingestor cyclonus 2 was meant to have his own Armada of nameless duplicates at this point but this idea was almost entirely phased out for the finished film in it only a single cyclonus duplicate appears before Vanishing a few seconds later and never being seen again brief digression here the LIF spark concept led to an interesting little mistake in issue number 0 of the British Transformers comic while working on the movie tie-in story Target 2006 writer Simon Ferman was using as reference a version of the script that contained at least some lingering reference to the lifes spark idea he wound up misinterpreting a stage direction that said cyclonus is Created from Life spark and the result was a confusing scene where cyclonus claimed he was rebuilt from a Decepticon named LIF spark another toy plan for 1986 was the autobot citybot Metroplex this inspired the addition of an Autobot City to the second draft of the film which replaced the steel mill and Autobot headquarters in the first act action but clearly nobody had been provided with much information about the toy as the film's depiction of the city doesn't really match the figure most notably of course it never transforms into a robot mode only moving between City and battle station forms before ever seeing the toy floro deiri created his own entirely original designs for the city including the one you're seeing on screen right now which transforms from City to Fortress by rising up out of the ground and closing around itself like a fist Deary notes that he also created a second design styled after New York and when he was instructed to redesign the city to better match the Metroplex toy rather than start from scratch he admits to Simply pasting a few toy based details onto this design creating the finished look seen in the film another group of new toys in production for 86 were five wild animal themed robots who could combine into a giant Super Robot these were the figures that would eventually be released as the Predacons but at this early stage in development they were envisioned as an Autobot team named the anib Bots who were added to the second battling Devastator alongside the Dinobots but fredman was provided with no information about the figures beyond their alternate modes and the fact they combined and so let his imagination run wild writing the team as merging into the four-legged lightning breathing dragon Beast now obviously this had nothing to do with what Hasbro was developing for the toys and had to be cut from the film but it got far enough before that happened that art for Dragon Beast was produced by deiri it's with instances like this in mind that I think Reals in the first draft could have been the result of fredman being directed to include the toy that would become astr trian but only being told that it was a triple changing train and again letting his imagination go crazy that's just my personal Theory but I think it's plausible other new products incorporated into the Autobot City battle included blasters cassettes which at this point were going to be a robot a lion a tiger and a scorpion all real prototyped and patented toy designs which were also set to be included in the season 2 episode Auto Bop later in 1985 fredman named the robot bolts the lion cubby the tiger stripes and the Scorpion Stinger but somewhere along the way plans changed the toy line replaced the tiger and the Scorpion with a second robot and a rhino and they were all given new names the robots eject and Rewind The Lion steel jaw and the Rhino ramhorn amid the changes they were dropped from autobo and the film was adjusted accordingly but while new toys meant the addition of new characters the opposite was also true the only confirmed casualties in the first draft were Optimus Prime Ultra Magnus blur and manlar but after he was given a list of toys that were being discontinued meaning that it was okay to kill the characters the second draft sees Freedman begin adding the scenes of death that the film would become infamous for in less toy motivated changes the second draft introduces the idea of the Autobots having a Bas on one of cybertron's moons and the Decepticons hijacking a departing shuttle and killing its crew to launch their Siege on Autobot City also it drops the idea of all the Decepticons being powered up by ingestor in Starscream specific case rather than G increased power he's killed by Galvatron when he takes back command significantly Cybertron is not destroyed rather the Decepticon simply sand ingestor all the energy they have stockpiled on the planet which gives him the strength to break his orbit and begin heading towards Cybertron itself earning galvatron's ey by eating two of its moons along the way including the one on which the Autobots are based the whole idea of the Autobots scattering across earth and hot rod and cup having to gather a crew is dropped with the Autobots now simply taking off aboard two shuttles to escape the Decepticon attack and the long rambling space battle that followed is massively cut down ditching all mention of the asteroid and the hurricane and instead involving Hot Rod's team being shot down and and magnus's team escaping the Decepticons by faking their shuttle destruction however the idea of a third plot line centered on Earth remains with Scourge and the sweeps staying behind on the planet to drain its energy and send it to ingestor and an Autobot gorilla team led by Blaster combating their efforts but still it's Cybertron rather than the earth that now serves as ingestor final Target and the setting of the film's climax the second Ra's version of The Adventure on quintessa removes the quinton's mental powers and hot rods plan to Blind the shakon sensors and the Dinobots are never captured instead the dinos search for hot rod and cup but when they arrive at the Quenton Fortress they're deliberately pointed in the wrong direction by the guard at the entrance this is where wheelie comes in leading the Dinobots to where they need to go then pointing the Autobots to the ship they need to escape the planet notably the quenon are still described as having bodies at this point but their depiction does move closer to what we see in the finished film as it's revealed that their large heads are their true form their bodies are only prostatic and their heads can disconnect from them and fly around in a big change from the first draft the junk on have no connection to ingestor who now has no explained origin instead of unicron's moon the junk on live on the planet junon where magnus's team sets down to make repairs the battle on the planet of junk does still involve the Autobots tricking the Decepticons with decoy models of themselves but it's changed significantly rather than using 2D cutouts to lure the cons into a trap the Autobots use moving three-dimensional models of themselves constructed by perceptor to fool the Decepticons into thinking they've all been destroyed while they escaped to safety in reality only Ultra Magnus dies sacrificing himself to make the ruse convincing and ensure his comrades get safely away but unlike the first draft he doesn't stay dead being rebuilt by the junkans After hot rod befriends them as in the first draft Galvatron still attempts to destroy the planet Unicron with a thermal charge which Unicron simply absorbs here it's what provides the final bit of energy in gestor needs to transformed to robot mode the climax plays out much like the finished movie with hot rod confronting Galvatron inside in gestor and being transformed into ramus Prime by the power of optimus's Life spark which he then releases to destroy ingestor from within one notable difference though is that while escaping ramus finds the two moons ingestor earlier consumed intact within his body and releases them to resume their orbit around Cybertron [Music] after handing in the second draft fredman's involvement with the film ended it was now the job of Dilly to massage the script into its finished form for which he received the credit of story consultant this process reportedly involved many rewrites with contributions from many different writers to the point that Dilly calls the finished movie a Frankenstein of different ideas and drafts and people we don't know precisely how many discret drafts Dilly went through during this lengthy process but we do have access to one more full version of the script dated August 1985 this is the version of the script that's been available online since the '90s it's very close to the finished film outside of a couple of deleted and Alternate scenes and it illustrates the various changes made to the the story in the course of the many Summer rewrites by this point the decision had been made to advance the setting of the film to 20 years in the future rather than just five to the Year 2005 which allowed an adult version of Spike with wi to be added to the cast stationed on a second Autobot Moonbase and for Daniel to be reimagined as his son other new ideas introduced by the time of this draft included the Autobots escaping Earth by using a tactic they once employed in a past battle off the planet beta 4 which involves causing asteroids to collide with each other to create a debris field that blocks the pursuing Decepticons long enough for them to get away Hot Rod's crew being dragged down to quintessa by a huge mechanical claw that reaches up to grab them instead of Simply shot down the Quinton being the Servants of Unicron who hunt down those who Escape his wrath and Ultra Magnus spe being drawn and quartered by the sweeps at the climax of the battle on junon instead of being blown to bits now as it happens all these new ideas wound up being taken back out of the film but it's apparent that the August draft or one very much like it was used as reference in the creation of Marvel's comic book adaptation of the film released in summer 1986 as the comic includes all this deleted and Alternate material but perhaps the single biggest change the rewrites leading up to this draft introduced which survived all the way through to the finished movie and required many structural changes to the story was the decision to abandon the concept of Life Sparks firstly this change sees Megatron have to be dumped into space on the journey back to Cybertron while still alive rather than having him die and his spark float off likewise the other Decepticons transformed by Unicron are changed to be established characters jettisoned alongside Megatron rather than spirits of the nameless Dead released from the Hall of Heroes the influence of the concept can still be seen in the finished film though the flickering purple Flames seen at the base of the statues in the Hall of Heroes were originally designed to be the interred life Sparks of past Decepticon leaders the bigger consequence of ditching life Sparks is that Optimus Prime's spark is replaced in the story with a physical Talisman of leadership which returns to using fredman's original name for the concept The Matrix compared to the earlier drafts in which the ability of prime spark to destroy ingestor is pretty random and not really foreshadowed the Matrix is presented as the prophesied tool of his defeat and thus becomes the object around which the whole film revolves knowing it can destroy him the destruction of the Matrix is what Unicron now demands Galvatron do for him instead of providing him with energy and obtaining The Matrix is what gives Galvatron the confidence to challenge Unicron as compared to just being armed with an ineffective thermal charge and this all goes hand in hand with the other big change the whole third act twist that ingestor and Unicron are the same being is dropped in favor of depicting Unicron as a living sentient planet from the outset already roaming the Galaxy consuming other worlds rather than being trapped in an orbit thus in this version of the story he doesn't need the Decepticons to provide him with energy which in turn means that there's no longer a point to the whole subplot on Earth and it's cut entirely accompanying this change to unicron's depiction the role of granx the ill- fated robot made of rock encountered by hot rod and cup on quintessa is notably expanded with the addition of a prologue to the movie that shows granx escaping the destruction of his world lithon at unicron's hands this becomes the reason for his capture and execution by the Quinton in accordance with their role in this draft as unicron's servants during the development of this prologue the idea that granx and his Rus were Rock robots was a abandoned and they were reimagined as wholly mechanical life forms a decision that it seems reasonable to assume might have been influenced by the news that rival toy company Tonka were producing their own toy line and film about transforming Rock robots that same year the rock Lords accordingly by the time of the August draft granx originally named after granite a type of stone was renamed cranic key differences between between this draft's iteration of the prologue and the finished version are that Unicron consumes lithon by dissolving it with an acidic mist and the lithon are depicted as Transformers able to convert into spaceships which is how kronic escapes the death of his world the finished film changes this so that kronic simply boards on ordinary ship but like other material from the August draft the early version remains in the comic book adaptation [Music] that effectively brings this look at the development of the script of Transformers the movie to an end where the film itself begins there would be multiple small rewrites even after this point with two more slightly different versions of the script being used as a basis for the film's primary dialogue recording sessions in September and for the finalized story story boards that were drawn up between October and December but the differences were positively minor in comparison to how far the story had come since the previous year both the recordings and the story boards still contain a fair bit of material from the August draft that would later be deleted but some standout examples of scenes unique to these versions include brief speaking appearances by Inferno and gears for which actors Walker edmiston and Dawn messic remain credited a death scene form Mirage blown to bits by Megatron and perhaps most famously Red Alert being gunned down by the Constructicons as he tracks and sideswipe engage them when they tear into the city all these and more were progressively trimmed out during animation and editing over the months that followed until finally the movie as we know it today was released in August 1986 if you'd like to learn even more about the differences between the various versions of the movie script check the description below and you'll find links to the various drafts outlines storyboards and more all hosted at the sunbo Marvel archive alongside mountains of other paperwork from Transformers and other shows there are tons more little details in there so many I simply can't cover them all read them for yourselves and you'll agree the story of Transformers the movie is beyond good beyond evil Beyond Your Wildest [Music] [Music] imagination

Channel: Chris McFeely

Views: 372,247

Keywords: hot rod, rodimus prime, galvatron, ultra magnus, arcee, springer, blurr, perceptor, blaster, dinobots, kup, mentlar, tanker, cyclonus, scourge, unicron, ingestor, tftm, flint dille, ron friedman, floro dery, sunbow, marvel, secret of cybertron, quintessons, sharkticons, kranix

Id: HgcX9kGUpDw

Length: 46min 51sec (2811 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 07 2023