Kurtzman and Orci on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

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Kurtzman and Orci on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Source:Scott Huver

October 14, 2009

After two tours of duty chronicling the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons, screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci took some time to reflect on their experiences, just in time for the Blu-ray and DVD release of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. SuperHeroHype.com transformed into a digital recorder to capture their thoughts on making the mythology, the moviegoers' response and, of course, Megan Fox.

On the polarized response to "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," with part of the audience loving it and part of the audience hating it:
Roberto Orci: Yeah, I expected it to be divisive. Sequels now are easy targets, number one; it was undertaken under the pressure of a writer's strike, which makes us targets; it was longer, which was a debate. It was bigger, louder, and longer than the first one. There was controversy on the first one as well.
Alex Kurtzman: It's very hard to gauge what is going to work for people, and what's not going to work for people. Because what one person says is way too long, my 12-year-old cousin says "I wish it was longer." That just totally confuses me. I think at the end of the day, Michael [Bay] has his rhythm and his pace, and he ends up determining how long he wants to make the movie.

On the advantages of writing for the "Transformers" pre-established cast:
Kurtzman: Knowing them and knowing their voices – It's huge! It's huge, and a great thing to have. We've made three movies with Shia, and he's an incredibly fun actor to write for in that he can do dialogue at any pace. Not every actor can do that. He really can run through things. Shia has a really good... I'll call it a "cheese alarm." If he thinks something is cheesy – which I think really means inauthentic – he won't want to do it. So when we are writing, we are often thinking of kind of knowing where his instincts tend to go, in terms of scene work and what he likes to do. For him, he cannot act a scene unless he feels the truth of it somehow. It has to be truthful. It can be funny, it can be broad, it can be lots of things – he can be talking to a giant robot, but there has to be some truth in it. If there isn't then he can't do it, so that's very helpful in terms of knowing what he's going to be looking for in a scene.

On the effects of economics on film content, and balancing studio requests and demands with storytelling needs:
Orci: I think it's affected the content in a global way. The movies that are being selected to be made tend to be, right now, this very escapist, fun, big, forget-your-life, kind of stuff. We're not seeing a lot of adult dramas. That's why we're writing these. The minute you are writing "Transformers" I think the economy comes in. But they want to be more conscientious budget-wise. Yeah, they do want more robots, but for a price. You have to make sure you do it at the right level.
Kurtzman: What that means is that your character story, hopefully, is strong enough to sustain the affordability factor. You won't be able to have a robot in every shot.

On having more freedom to fully invent the filmic mythology of "Transformers" over re-imagining elements of a more familiar and established franchise like "Star Trek":
Kurtzman: I think in the case of "Transformers" we didn't see it as re-imagining because there was no movie. It was just a cartoon. That was actually imagining like "What is this going to look like, because the cartoon is not... the standards of storytelling were so different when the cartoon was first invented. It was a cartoon. They literally didn't have the ability to do the live action version. So figuring out what the balance of robot to human time was going to be, what the axis point for the audience was going to be, who was the character they were going to follow into that world, why, what's that story? Finding the story of a boy and his car felt like, again, we didn't really take that off of anything. It was just like "Okay, what are the movies that this wants to feel like? Well, I think it kind of wants to feel like the movies we grew up on in the Amblin' vein. It felt like that led us to boy and his car."
Orci: In the case of Bumblebee, making him not a [Volkswagen] Bug but a muscle car, I think led us to making him more of an action character than was in the original series, where he was sort of the child and the youngest one. He hung out mostly with the kids. He is both closest to Shia, but also one of them – he's one of the soldiers. You find out he lost his voice as a result of war. It does change that a little bit, but so many things go into figuring out the character. You write it one way, then you get to see what the car looks like, then you try different voice actors, and different voice actors will bring different things to it that you adjust to.

On working with the world's most-blogged-about young movie actress:
Kurtzman: I think Megan was really interesting in the first movie because she was very surprising. There is a sweetness to her and that was what I think made the relationship dynamic work really well. I think that for us, knowing that it was going to be about her character dealing with whether or not the boyfriend that she was leaving, who was going off to school and leaving her behind, whether or not the relationship was going to survive – thinking about how that relationship was going to play out over the course of the movie I think gave us what we needed. We talked to Megan a lot in preproduction with that, we would have a couple of days where we would all sit in a room and talk about the script, go over scenes, and riff stuff out. I think that is where the actor's voices really become great, because you've been living in your head for so long and then you bring it to them. Then you start rewriting once they are getting their hands on it.

On how working with digital creations can also be a boon to screenwriters during the filmmaking process:
Orci: Because you are able to animate the robots after the fact you are playing with the dialogue up until the last minute. With "Star Trek" once it is shot, it's shot. So [in "Transformers"] scenes can be created after the fact, scenes that weren't in the original script at all. You get the opportunity to make stuff up after the fact, which was the cool thing about "Transformers."

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hits Blu-ray and DVD on Tuesday, October 20th.

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Posted by: Jackie Chan's Twin Brother on October 14, 2009 at 12:58:26

great movie looking forward to part 3

Posted by: OptionalPlayer on October 14, 2009 at 13:18:46

They have to stop doing what they're doing and rethink the entire concept of The Transformers.

Fantastic Four was **** and it got a reboot. Despite it not being a year yet, The Transformers is already in dire need of one.

Both movies were garbage (albeit the first one was an Academy Award winner compare to the second)

Posted by: mojo jo-jo on October 14, 2009 at 13:19:49

i was so excited for the movie to come out that i lost track of what day it was this past monday thinking it was the 19th. lol! can't wait for this to come out already!

Posted by: mojo jo-jo on October 14, 2009 at 13:20:49

technically, this will be the second reboot for Fantastic Four, fyi... just saying.

Posted by: Anti-Venom on October 14, 2009 at 13:53:18

This movie had writers?

Posted by: itsmetrev on October 14, 2009 at 14:09:29

I like how they deflected the "Hate" question to the length of the movie. People didn't hate it because it was long they hated it because of the crappy content and massive holes in the story.

I HATE Michael Bay. His vision is horse ****

Posted by: Anton Ego on October 14, 2009 at 14:37:58

Saith Orci: "Yeah, I expected it to be divisive. Sequels now are easy targets..."

He seems to have missed the fact that the reason the movie was ripped was because it SUCKED.

Posted by: daniel clavette on October 14, 2009 at 14:38:20

That is cool movies and i will buy it on dvd and also i can,t to to see transformers 3 in 2011.

Posted by: Eternal Knight on October 14, 2009 at 14:48:57

Worst movie of last summer, and possibly the worst of the big budget summer movies I've ever seen. Period! it was utterly boring and nonsensical, and I will not be giving up my hard-earned money for a third installment in any format.

Posted by: oldespeed2 on October 14, 2009 at 14:59:32

Yeah I agree this was the worst movie of last summer, along with Terminator Salvation.

Posted by: sccitylhh on October 14, 2009 at 15:05:30

Haha, they keep evading the possibility that movie might have sucked in their answers.

For the Transformers films to truly find their way, Bay must go. Period. I would have been happier with Brett Ratner directing these movies. And I HATE Brett Ratner.

Posted by: Archangel0263 on October 14, 2009 at 15:13:10

It kills me when those screenwriters say they have seen all of episodes or read all of the books but still come up something totally different. The two movies were okay and brought us something new to watch other than the typical comic book based movies, but they could have done a lot better.

Posted by: Sherlock on October 14, 2009 at 15:34:01

You know that the problem with Transformers 2 was Michael Bay, it wasn't the writers. Orci and Kurtzman have done a lot of good stuff (Star Trek, Fringe, polished Watchmen, MI3, Alias). The sad thing about Transformers 3 is that a lot of you nerds will go see it just because Optimus Prime is in it, supporting more bad filmmaking instead of punishing it. Anybody that cares about the quality of film will not go see another Michael Bay production ever again.

Posted by: Dr. Jersey Shore on October 14, 2009 at 15:48:55

Peter Cullen and the CGI were the only 2 things remotely good about this film.

The story(?), acting, and "humor" was pathetic

Posted by: Farting Robot from ROTF on October 14, 2009 at 15:50:44

Someone please reboot this franchise now. We don't need a 3rd Bay-verse version.

Posted by: Johny b on October 14, 2009 at 16:10:43

cannot wait for the third one and cant wait to buy the dvd next week

Posted by: The Merc With The Mouth on October 14, 2009 at 16:17:35

Have a story faithful to the Transformers mythology and get rid of the stupid canned jokes. Transformers is science fiction not a comedy. South Park could very well be right. "There is no God because Michael Bay is allowed to keep movies." Have J.J Abrams or Jon Faverau or Bryan Singer direct.

Posted by: Draven_Corvinus on October 14, 2009 at 16:23:51

Hey Archangel you know what kills me? When fan boys get all up in arms about a movie that's based on a cartoon that's based on a TOY and are upset because of a lack of story.

The movie was exactly what it was billed as, a big budget popcorn movie about alien robots blowing things up. Get over yourself.

The cartoon didn't even really have engaging storylines, although I'll say the 86 movie made me cry as a child. But seriously, it's not Gone with the Wind fellas so get bent.

Posted by: fettdave on October 14, 2009 at 16:46:30

Where was Shia's "cheese factor" when Spielberg told him, "Hey grab that vine and swing like Tarzan. We're going to add a bunch of CGI monkeys to go along with you?"

Posted by: Josh Olmos on October 14, 2009 at 17:13:08

The movie was terrible because of the writing which was piss poor. Lame jokes, annoying jar jar characters, boring "plot." Length had absolutely nothing to do with it. I love how he also blames the sound guys for his crappy film.

Posted by: authorNYSE on October 14, 2009 at 17:28:02

RT @Draven_Corvinus

Hey Archangel you know what kills me? When fan boys get all up in arms about a movie that's based on a cartoon that's based on a TOY and are upset because of a lack of story.

The movie was exactly what it was billed as, a big budget popcorn movie about alien robots blowing things up. Get over yourself.

The cartoon didn't even really have engaging storylines, although I'll say the 86 movie made me cry as a child. But seriously, it's not Gone with the Wind fellas so get bent.

Posted by: comicfan1129 on October 14, 2009 at 17:33:43

God I'm sick of the "it's based on a toy line" excuse,The Dark Knight was based on a comic book and it managed not to be a racist piece of crap,that was chock full of plot holes.This crud just shows what some people will accept as entertainment.

Posted by: DJDamage on October 14, 2009 at 18:01:23

If all goes as planned in Bay-world. Part 3 will be more explosions, more robots rolling around so fast that you cant make out if your looking at its head or a$$, more terrible trash out of the Mom, and possibly a transformer that speaks like a person from the middle east, to cap up the racist crap. You know ... a Popcorn Movie. Right?

Posted by: FULLMETAL777 on October 14, 2009 at 18:05:51

to Draven_Corvinus

the cartoon doesn't have an engaging storyline?!

its confirmed the ass doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. i just watched season 1 & 2 and all the time i kept thinking how some of those episodes storylines TOWER over that degenerate piece of garbage called tf2! they were science fiction tales not bubble gum sissy brain fart crap like the story these lowlife writers came up with!!! anyone who says tf2 was great really doesn't pay attention to storylines obviously because if you did, you would see how much this movie distorts the first one (which i liked alot). you guys just watch movies just for eye candy!! i was so hyped over this movie, i though a sequel would be better like xmen 2, terminator 2, or star trek 2 wrath of kahn! instead its more like teenage mutant ninja turtles 2! all they needed was vanilla ice singing "go robot go robot go!!" i swear the movie is the worst excuse for a screenplay. why doesn't bumble bee talk when his voice was fixed in the first film? why doesn't humanity know that robots exist if jon voight had a press conference and told the whole world in the first movie!!! why do wee need a robo slut to seduce sam? thats so unimaginative (terminator 3 rip off). why do we need oversaturated 6th grade humor when the film is pg13! why do the parents need to be in egypt? why do we need two stereotype robots that to emulate a "black person"? why do wee need horrible dialogue like jon tuturo "gee if i don't stop the fallen, he's going to destroy the sun, well, not on my watch, no way mister" the guy was talking to himself walking up a pyramid, who the hell talks to themselves like that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! can you tell i hate thi movie?! i seriously HAD friends that liked this movie and i never called them again becasue it means their idiodic morons and i can't roll with degenerates!

Posted by: cantbelieveyourstillwhiningabouttransformers on October 14, 2009 at 18:43:47

Seriously people- please stop crying about a film you clearly dislike and go do something with your life.
It's a film based on a toy series, it's not ef'n Shakespeare- take it or leave it.

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