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Trivia / Transformers Film Series

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  • Author's Saving Throw:
    • The decision to cancel the sixth planned film and reboot the franchise (without Michael Bay directing) can be seen as this due to the declining quality of the films. On the other hand, the now final film ends on a cliffhanger and there will be no ending for the franchise.
    • Bumblebee is clearly trying to be one, with the change of director, a lighter tone and more G1-accurate character designs. See its own page for details. Critically, it has paid off big time.
    • Throughout all the films there has been a certain dissonance between the toys that are released versus the characters that have time in the films, either those with smaller roles get the large toys or vice versa or otherwise not looking much like the way the character actually appears on screen. The Studio Series line released in 2018 became an enormous hit for introducing new, more accurate molds of popular characters from the films but also with an attention to relative robot mode sizes. This includes a larger Leader class version of Blackoutnote , larger Voyager class version of Bonecrushernote , what is considered the only genuinely good version of Grimlock note  and, eventually, eight separate Constructicons that will form Devastatornote .
  • Backed by the Pentagon: Somewhat odd, considering almost every Decepticon from the first film was a military machine, and the Pentagon typically doesn't support scripts that make the military look bad. The fact that the US Armed Forces kick a considerable amount of ass in the first three movies, and the movie producers pointing out that the Decepticons picked US military machinery because it kicked the most ass, is what convinced them to sign on.
  • Cash-Cow Franchise: The most popular sub-series of the enormous Transformers franchise. It's made nearly $5 billion at the box office, billions more in home video and TV revenue, and has generated various spin-off media such as comics, books, and video games. Not to mention tons of merchandise.
  • Cast the Expert:
    • In a directing version, Michael Bay has directed many car commercials in his time. His base understanding of how to film and light cars on camera made him, incidentally, ideal to teach CG animators how they would look.
    • Most of the military extras that shows up were actual military personnel. Most of the time, they don't even have a script beyond director Michael Bay telling them to say and do what they'd do in the situation.
  • Cast the Runner-Up: Steve Buscemi was originally considered for Simmons. He would later voice Daytrader in Transformers: The Last Knight.
  • The Character Died with Him: Dino indirectly qualifies as he likely died in The Purge between DOTM and AOE; Francesco Quinn passed away months after DOTM came out, and no voice actor replaced Quinn.
  • Creator Backlash:
    • Megan Fox has had a history of badmouthing the series and its director, and behind-the-scenes drama (most notably her saying Bay had a Hitler-like dictator persona on set and several members of the crew responding by anonymously praising Bay while bashing Fox in an open letter without Bay's approval) was why she did not return for the third film. Interestingly, Bay laughed off her comments until Steven Spielberg (who is Jewish) asked him to fire her because he was insulted that Fox would compare his friend to Hitler.
    • Many of the major players of the film series have expressed regrets towards Revenge of the Fallen. Michael Bay in particular apologized for Revenge of the Fallen, and promised better results for Dark of the Moon.
    • Eventually the franchise became this for Bay. He was essentially forced to keep making sequels like clockwork, and being unable to make a more personal movie until the franchise took a three-year hiatus. Ironically and hypocritically, executive producer Steven Spielberg, who bemoans the lack of originality in Hollywood, pressured Bay to keep making more sequels.
    • Downplayed with Hugo Weaving. After the films were done, Weaving said that he wasn't invested in his role as Megatron, but expressed genuine regret that he didn't care too much for the role that is so beloved by fans. Michael Bay was offended and sniped at him for the backlash.
    • In a rather late addition, Travis Knight revealed that he disliked Michael Bay's take on Bumblebee.
    • Peter Cullen has expressed dismay at some of the more aggressive lines he is given as Optimus, and particularly singled out the line in Age of Extinction where Optimus vows to kill Harold Attinger as the line he felt was the most out of character. Peter has remained a trooper and does as asked, but he's expressed sadness at the more aggressive Optimus we see in the sequels.
  • Creator's Pest: Michael Bay has gone on record to say he hates Arcee, and happily killed her off, without much of a sendoff. He even openly said so in an interview prior to Revenge of the Fallen. IDW stuck a big middle finger up to that a few years later in their Dark of the Moon prequel comics by having all three sisters as alive.
  • Cut Short: The series ended up being canceled and rebooted after the failure of Transformers: The Last Knight and the success of Bumblebee, right when the former film ended on a Cliffhanger.
  • The Danza: Glenn Morshower as General Morshower in ROTF and DOTM.
  • Defictionalization: The Wreckers appeared in Weaponized Car form for the opening pace laps of the 2011 Daytona 500.
  • Disowned Adaptation:
  • Enforced Method Acting: Most of the stunts were performed live, with no CGI. While safety measures were put in place, Shia LaBeouf was really holding onto a statue 20 stories up and the actors were fully briefed on what kind of explosives were used to create the Scorponok sand explosion.
  • He Also Did: Mark Ryan, the voice of Bumblebee, Jetfire and Lockdown, is best known for playing Nasir in the 1980s series Robin of Sherwood (the first ever Middle Eastern Merry Man who became a Fountain of Expies, inspiring most famously Morgan Freeman's character in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves but also several other Sherwood bandits).
  • Money, Dear Boy:
    • Apparently, the only reason Megan Fox didn't quit after the first movie.
    • Similarly, Hugo Weaving freely admits to phoning in his performance, a comment that Bay evidently took personally.
  • Money-Making Shot: The know how to make a Big Damn Movie, with appropriately big trailer scenes
    • Bonecrusher splitting a bus in half, then tackling Optimus in the first scene.
    • Devastator simply forming itself together in the second.
    • The Driller splitting a high rise in half in the third.
    • Multiple scenes between Optimus and Grimlock in the fourth.
    • Optimus and Bumblebee fighting in the fifth.
  • The Other Darrin:
    • Frank Welker replaces Hugo Weaving as Galvatron's voice. It's unknown whether this is intended to be an in-universe result of the new body or just a plain old case of The Other Darrin. The fact that he is back as Megatron in the fifth film implies the latter.
    • In Dark of The Moon, Sideswipe is voiced by James Remar instead of André Sogliuzzo. In a confusing audio mix-upnote  Barricade spoke with Soundwaves' voice, thus technically Jess Harnell was replaced by Frank Welker.
    • The video games based upon the films often have different voice actors for several characters for cost reasons or due to the movie's casting of a character for the movie proper not being revealed until it's close to release or already released. However, it seems that if Optimus is in some tie-in material, you can expect that Peter Cullen will voice him.
  • Permanent Placeholder: Mark Ryan was the person on set to be the voice of all the different robots, before other actors would portray them in post production. In different films he ended up cast as Bumblebee, Jetfire and Lockdown.
  • Playing Against Type: Mark Ryan previously voiced the heroic Bumblebee and Jetfire. Now he voices Lockdown, a cold, fierce bounty hunter.
  • The Red Stapler: There has been an increase in the popularity of twin black racing stripes for custom paint jobs, whether or not they are yellow, Camaro's or even sports cars.
  • Role Reprise:
  • Show Accuracy/Toy Accuracy:
    • One of the eternal demands of the fans. Despite the divisiveness of the films, the toys are of an unbelievable high quality. This is especially surprising given the thousands of parts that make the movies' CG models, yet they were still able to create this Optimus Prime toy.
    • Takara's gone a step further with Buster Optimus Prime.
    • Leader Class Starscream also leads to rejoicing.
    • And then there's the Studio Series line. The premise of the entire line is to make new versions of characters from across the movie series, with particular attention to them being in scale with each other (as well as redesigning characters that had inaccurate toys due to an evolving character design with the movies). This resulted in characters like Blackout and Bonecrusher getting better toys than originally released.
  • Throw It In!:
    • Michael Bay is a fan of playing around with the script. Shia was hired based on how well he could improv. Also, the reason Sam's friend Miles starts climbing a tree at the lake party is because the actor started doing it in between takes and Bay thought it was a goofy thing the character would do.
    • DOTM is introducing a "third" form for the Transformers, a battle-ready vehicle mode reminiscent of M.A.S.K.. The reason seems to be because Michael Bay saw the sub-line of the previous movie toy-line called "Stealth Force" that presented a very similar mode and liked the look. The Wreckers' NASCAR altmodes appear to have this form as their only vehicle mode (specifically, armored versions of the #42 of Juan Pablo Montoya, the #48 of Jimmie Johnson, and the #88 of Dale Earnhardt, Jr.).
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Sam would've originally had the nickname of "Spike", and while the door was open for him to gain it in the sequels, it never happened. "Spike" does eventually get used in the fourth movie...as a nickname for Scorn, the Spino-Bot.
    • Optimus Prime was originally going to be voiced by Liam Neeson, and the animators were instructed to model Prime's body language off of him. One of the producers encouraged Michael Bay to get Optimus' original voice actor, Peter Cullen, and Bay decided after the audition that no one else could voice the character.
    • Soundwave was among the cast of the first film, but the production team couldn't agree on a way to portray him, so they left him for the sequel. Blackout, Barricade and Frenzy became Decomposite Character's, all serving roles Soundwave would've in one way or another.
    • Arcee was in the initial Autobot line-up, but was replaced by Ironhide when the writers felt it would take too much time to explain a female robot. The issue would go unaddressed in Revenge of the Fallen when she debuted there.
    • Princeton University was going to be named in Revenge of the Fallen as Sam's university, but Princeton refused to allow it after learning of the pot brownie scene.
    • The Fallen would've been sealed in a sarcophagus, something that made it into IDW fiction, but he ended up just sitting in the Nemesis in the film, something that shocked Chris Mowry (who took pains to write the complicated subplot). Also, Megatron was originally to deliver the global ultimatum, but it ended up going to The Fallen to give him more screen-time.
    • Optimus would've been Not Quite Dead, only in stasis lock after the forest battle.
    • Ransack, an ancient biplane Seeker was to briefly harass Jetfire before literally being Curbstomped to death.
    • A subplot regarding The Fallen falsely promising Megatron Primehood was dropped.
    • Sentinel Prime was originally Ultra Magnus; as a Development Gag, the design ILM fashioned for the Magnus character is the face that Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong stumble upon (the one the dust collapses onto).
    • A scene where Sentinel observes the world's need for more playgrounds was cut, as was a meeting between Optimus and the President (the latter was likely cut to to the total likelihood of Obama filming a scene for a movie while, you know, leading the free world).
    • Mudflap and Skids would've returned only in a minor role, and then getting killed off, but due to the sheer critical backlash against them, Bay excised them from the film almost entirely (they can still be glimpsed in a brief scene at the NEST HQ).
    • Que/Wheeljack would've fallen into the Chicago river and have been killed by aquatic Decepticons. Similarly, Dino/Mirage was going to be killed by Starscream, and his corpse would've been used to taunt the hostage Autobots,
    • Megatron and Optimus would've explicitly teamed up against Sentinel, and killed him together with his own cosmic rust gun. Megatron, weary of the war, would've sincerely asked for a truce so he could leave to find and rebuild Cybertron, and Optimus would've allowed it. In the film proper, Megatron is less than sincere (still pointing a gun at Optimus and condescending him), and Optimus tears his head off.
    • A scene from Age of Extinction featuring Tessa dancing with Bumblebee and Hound was shown in the TV spot trailer but ultimately cut from the final film.
    • Lockdown would've had a poncho and a design more evocative of his Animated counterpart.
    • Concept art of Velociraptor, Apatosaurus, Stegosaurus, and Parasaurolophus Dinobots can be found. The Velociraptor, Slash, was intended to be featured in the film, while the Apatosaurus Slog and Stegosaurus Snarl were only featured in the toy line.
    • A silver-toned upgrade for Optimus was planned and heavily featured in the toy line but was ultimately cut.
    • A sixth film was planned and would've continued from the storyline in The Last Knight, but it was cancelled due to the film's poor performance and Hasbro ultimately deciding to retool Bumblebee from a prequel to a Continuity Reboot of the film series, thus ending the Bayformers series.
    • Peter Cullen reprises his role as Optimus Prime for the Michael Bay films, but he does not reprise his role as Ironhide. Frank Welker returns as the voices of Soundwave and Ravage, but his other characters (Megatron, Frenzy and Laserbeak) have new actors. He was going to portray Megatron once more, but Michael Bay decided that Welker's voice didn't match his vision for Megatron. Though he would get to voice Galvatron in AOE, and ultimately reclaimed the role of Megatron in TLK.
    • Amusingly, Frank Welker's brief lines for Shockwave in DOTM sound an awful lot like his G1 Megatron voice. Fans have also noted (often derisively) Soundwave sounding similar to Doctor Claw... which, amusingly is because Soundwave's voice is the same as Claw's; the vocoder effect from G1 was what made them different.
  • You Look Familiar: Mark Ryan was the person on set who would voice all the robot characters to give the actors someone to react and respond to, while the official voice actors would record their lines months later. Ryan would go on to be cast in a number of voice roles across the films, most notably providing Bumblebee's few lines in the first film, Jetfire in Revenge of the Fallen and Lockdown in Age of Extinction.

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