Iron Man<\/em> cartoon)! There was an even earlier script being auctioned that they missed out on, sadly, but it went for something like $2500 to $3000, so it’s not like they didn’t try. RQ87 and I spent last night reading it and commenting on it, and… it’s interesting! There’s some wildly different stuff taking place, especially during the attack on Autobot City, and the stint on Quintessa features all the same elements but used in different manners, though a lot of it is close enough to the final revision.<\/p>\nIt’s hard to exactly pinpoint the tone of the script. I mean, people remember the movie as dark because a huge amount of the 1984 cast are killed callously yet casually, but there’s still nonsense like Wheelie’s presence and everyone dancing to Weird Al. This early draft has gruesome deaths galore<\/strong> (Ironhide and Ratchet are melted together<\/strong>; Gears and Windcharger are bombed to pieces<\/strong> with their body parts raining down<\/strong> on Blaster; Megatron is violently shattered<\/strong> by a falling statue; Sharkticon heads are exploded<\/strong> en masse… need I go on?) and due to spending more time at Autobot City after the opening battle, the attitude feels a little more bleak. And then, completely contrasting this, we’ve got Unicron (or Ingestor as he’s called) making straw slurping noises when consuming energy, the Dinobots acting like Beavis & Butthead, and lots and lots of weirdness. I know the finished movie has tons of mood whiplash, but holy crap.<\/p>\nMost interestingly, “Life Sparks” play an important role in the story. The Matrix is totally absent, so Magnus becomes leader after Optimus gives him his Life Spark (which is described as a tiny ghostly image of whoever the spark belonged to), Galvatron steals it from him at Ingestor’s command (at least, I presume<\/strong> he commands it – the dialogue is often so terribly written I just tuned it out, especially when half of Ingestor’s speeches are just him going “aaaaaahh!!” for no good reason)<\/span>, Hot Rod becomes Rodimus after winning it back, and then Optimus’ spark uses the last of its energy to destroy Ingestor. Rather than Megatron and the other Decepticons’ bodies being used to make Galvatron and his homies, Megatron’s Life Spark and those of ancient Decepticons stored in the Hall of Heroes (where Starscream’s coronation takes place)<\/span> are merely given new bodies and names. I’m very thankful they changed it, as not only is it incredibly silly to think of a tiny ghostly Megatron crying about his demise to Unicron, but it’s just a bit hamfisted that Prime’s spark is the only thing capable of beating Ingestor. Also it’s just… weird<\/strong><\/em>. It’s really creepy imagining Megatron being crushed until he’s splintering into a thousand pieces, and seeing a tinier ghost version of him contained inside his torso. The dudes can’t even die in peace, they’ve got to float around for a bit before they dissipate into nothingness. What a really miserable existence.<\/p>\nIt’s an interesting and imaginative script, but it ain’t perfect, and aside from nice little extras like seeing more of the 1984 Autobots (Wheeljack and Sunstreaker survive!) I think the finished product is better overall. I get the impression Friedman is a good guy for ideas, but not so good at actually writing them; a lot of the action scenes come across as hard to follow, and a lot of his dialogue is just plain bad<\/strong> – I don’t think Optimus Prime says a single memorable line! There’s also the fact everyone referring to Arcee as a weak ol’ fembot, and not much is done to try and disprove that (does she actually do anything<\/strong> in this script?), and Daniel’s presence is never explained at all; Spike isn’t in this so there’s not even the relation to justify his existence, and it’s just really weird having a young little kid tagging along into deep space and all. Then again, this is the only participation Friedman had in the Transformers<\/em> series as far as I’m aware, so I guess one can try and excuse the faults. It’s not like this version was actually used for the finished film or anything.<\/p>\nTo a non-Transformers<\/em> fan there’ll literally be nothing but nonsensical nonsense that’s not even a good read (I still think the first Super Mario Bros.<\/em> movie draft is good to read on its own), but to a follower of the series I’d say it’s worth checking out for the curiosity value.<\/p>\nNo doodle today. Sorry, bro.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yikes, how many weeks has it been without a new blog entry? I didn’t exactly mean to give the impression I’d died or gone textually mute or something, but I didn’t exactly have anything worth saying, either. Regarding site updates…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,26],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-site-talk","tag-transformers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}