The Energon Pub

http://www.comicmix.com/news/2009/06/29/didnt-like-transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen-blame-the-writers-strike/

I found this article and decided to share it with you. I think it raises some good points.

Better writing wont make the movie better. It might make a novel better. ILM made a great movie, Period.

Better writing would have made the movie much better.

The WGA should have gotten their heads out of their asses. They cost a lot of time for quality television shows and some movies. RotF was one of them. This does not excuse Orci and Kurtzman, because as talentless as these 2 are, even without the strike they couldn't turn in a respectable script. Bottom line, the TF franchise NEEDS NEW WRITERS.

I wish they could have gotten Simon Furman to write it. He would have needed a WGA membership, but whatever. Even in the constricted time caused by the strike he could have churned out something a lot better than what we got.

I really did feel the writer's strike did take its toll on the movie. Honestly I hate unions they all suck. Yeah they had a purpose at one point, back when the workforce was paying the equavalent to $1/hr these days to their workers and treating them like slaves, and working children to death etc, but nowadays Unions are completly worthless, and just cause problems. Here's what I Think:

#1. There are enough rules set by the government to keep employers in-line. And if the employers step out of those boundaries they tend to get hit by a Class action law suit!

#2. There's so much competition in the workforce that if you don't like your job you can just go get another one, which keeps employees providing better benfits, and plenty of Paid time off, and hell even employee discount programs!

And as far as writers go, They can negotiate with a director all they like! Why in gods name does anyone in Hollywood need a Union?

Rodimus Prime wrote:Better writing would have made the movie much better.

The WGA should have gotten their heads out of their asses. They cost a lot of time for quality television shows and some movies. RotF was one of them. This does not excuse Orci and Kurtzman, because as talentless as these 2 are, even without the strike they couldn't turn in a respectable script. Bottom line, the TF franchise NEEDS NEW WRITERS.

I wish they could have gotten Simon Furman to write it. He would have needed a WGA membership, but whatever. Even in the constricted time caused by the strike he could have churned out something a lot better than what we got.

Completely agree with you.

is this why right after the forest fight the movie turns horribly bad and boring? I thought the whole first hour of this movie was awesome then the second after the forest fight it started to suck and the optimus and jetfire combo fight the cgi looked really craptastic.

Thats why i posted this a week ago.

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=54820

i blame the strike & having second string writers in the first place. The movie would've been so much better if not rushed.

Why's everyone attacking the writers? They wrote Star Trek and that came out awesome!

Galvatron628 wrote:Why's everyone attacking the writers? They wrote Star Trek and that came out awesome!

Exactly! So why couldn't they do that with RotF?

Because they didn't care. They did it for the money. They could care less about the product. Unlike with Star Trek. Perhaps because to them Star Trek was more valuable, and they knew if they screwed up Star Trek, the fanbase was going to kill them.

Rodimus Prime wrote:

Galvatron628 wrote:Why's everyone attacking the writers? They wrote Star Trek and that came out awesome!

Exactly! So why couldn't they do that with RotF?

Because they didn't care. They did it for the money. They could care less about the product. Unlike with Star Trek. Perhaps because to them Star Trek was more valuable, and they knew if they screwed up Star Trek, the fanbase was going to kill them.

And the Transformers Fanbase isn't going to do the same? Bringing up Star Trek is kind of an interesting point, as plenty of fans of Star Trek do not look upon J.J. Abrams 'Star Wars' fondly, but other fans and the general public responded well to it. We're getting almost the same reaction here, where the fan base is reactions are mixed, but general audiences are reacting positively based on the article about exit polls.

I do agree getting new writers though, Kurtzman and Orci are not to my taste. I'd honestly prefer someone like Ron D. Moore (90s Star Trek, Reimagined Battlestar Galactica).

I guess I could buy the writers strike playing a role.

However...

There are too many things left open without any clear cut answers. That's the mark of poor writing, no other way around it.

The only things we know are a handful of survivors on both sides and virtually everybody else is left wide open as well as other things.

Cryosis Prime wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:

Galvatron628 wrote:Why's everyone attacking the writers? They wrote Star Trek and that came out awesome!

Exactly! So why couldn't they do that with RotF?

Because they didn't care. They did it for the money. They could care less about the product. Unlike with Star Trek. Perhaps because to them Star Trek was more valuable, and they knew if they screwed up Star Trek, the fanbase was going to kill them.

And the Transformers Fanbase isn't going to do the same?

We cry and bitch a lot about it, but this is gonna be it. Compared to us the common Trekkie is much more psychotic when it comes to his/her favorite pop culture icon being totally ruined for the sake of money.

Galvatron628 wrote:Why's everyone attacking the writers? They wrote Star Trek and that came out awesome!

i have a strong feeling ST was finished or near finished way before the strike. Actually -I'm 100% sure it was. ST was originally supposed to come out in Dec. '08 or earlier. The movie was done well in advance. U have to remember that JJ's great directing helped ST too.

blame the studio/investors for rushing the crap outta ROTF --they wanted to see a quick turn around on their $ and they got it. Killing the quality of the final product for our beloved TF franchise. If they waited, they could've reaped the benefits -possibly more $ than it's making now + good reviews. Win-win-win for everybody. Nope. Greed f&*%d us over bigtime.

Greed didnt fvck me over. I still liked the movie.


The fandom that overly hates the movies is still a minority for the most part, granted for now its a very vocal minority but it's still minor.

The "general audience" that the movie was made for has ppl that like it outweighing the ones that didnt, you just arent seeing a web article dedicated to every one of them.

nice quote/disclaimer Robinson.

vectorA3 wrote:nice quote/disclaimer Robinson.

Hmmm. I thought TF2 plot line concerning the resurrection of Prime and Megatron were more plausible than the black hole theory in Star Trek.

But I do like Star Trek far more as an over all film than TF2. But Transformers is a young franchise compared to Star Trek, or even Batman for that matter. Give it time, it'll find it's footing. TF2 still was an enjoyable film, and has decent WOM. If it didn't, it never would have had the audience it did for it's opening day, but similar to with what happened to Terminator Salvation.

Robinson wrote:Greed didnt fvck me over. I still liked the movie.


The fandom that overly hates the movies is still a minority for the most part, granted for now its a very vocal minority but it's still minor.

The "general audience" that the movie was made for has ppl that like it outweighing the ones that didnt, you just arent seeing a web article dedicated to every one of them.

Agree.

I'm more so part of the general audience then I am the tranfan base. Before the TF1 movie, I hadn't bought a transformer or watched a transformer show in at least 10 years, probably more like 12-13. Watched G1, was a little past the targeted age of BW's, and from then on I never looked back.

I'm rather enjoying the movies for what they are - entertainment.

but it seems more like Bay's priority on this was to make $, regardless of how good the story would be. I know this thread is more about -strong script = excellent movie, but that's what i'm feeling at the moment about Bay

Ack, once again the strike rears its ugly head. I do hope they at least pick better writers for the next one. I don't mind Micheal Bay, but maybe he could take a step back and let Spielberg direct the final movie.If it is a trilogy that is. I don't see why they need to make more than 3, but who knows. I thought the first one was amazing and the second one was good. Lets hope the third one is better. Hopefully the writers strike doesn't wound anything else. I don't have much expectations for G.I.Joe anyway, Just wanted to see Snake Eyes fight Storm Shadow and that's in the trailer so BAM. Awesome.

I think the last half of ROTF did seem very rushed and out of place at times, so this definitely does explain why that is.

SoundWave88 wrote:is this why right after the forest fight the movie turns horribly bad and boring? I thought the whole first hour of this movie was awesome then the second after the forest fight it started to suck and the optimus and jetfire combo fight the cgi looked really craptastic.

That would be correct. All the blame can't go on Orci and Kurtzman though. They did write the script, but like all Hollywood scripts, someone came in after and did rewrites and added extra stuff. That guy was Ehren Kruger, and you can thank him for the twins.

Kruger was in there right with them, they all worked it at the same time.

Rodimus Prime wrote:

Galvatron628 wrote:Why's everyone attacking the writers? They wrote Star Trek and that came out awesome!

Exactly! So why couldn't they do that with RotF?

Because they didn't care. They did it for the money. They could care less about the product. Unlike with Star Trek. Perhaps because to them Star Trek was more valuable, and they knew if they screwed up Star Trek, the fanbase was going to kill them.

I don't buy this at all. I seriously don't think that when they set out to do this story, they just wrote somthing,just to say they wrote it. This is after all their bread and butter. How they get work. I think many are just expecting to much.

SoundWave88 wrote:is this why right after the forest fight the movie turns horribly bad and boring? I thought the whole first hour of this movie was awesome then the second after the forest fight it started to suck and the optimus and jetfire combo fight the cgi looked really craptastic.

Ya, it really did start to make me cringe once we got out of the forest scene.