The Energon Pub

I was watching the special features on disc 2 of ROTF, and was watching the part (forget what it is called) where they show the rough computer graphics scenes that were used to set up shots before any actual filming took place.

If this is considered a spoiler by anyone (I can't imagine it would be), then stop reading here.





Anyway, one of them shows the Arcee bikes (all red at this point in the development of the film) chasing after what would become Sideways in the actual movie. They must not have gotten permission from Audi yet to use the R8, because Sideways here is the Lamborghini Reventon from the ROTF video game. He looks incredible, with a very cool transformation and robot look. The Arcee bikes combine (not they're 3 different color) and attack Sideways. Interestingly, they don't really combie into a larger anthropomorphic robot, like in the novelization, but rather sort of form a robotic wheel, which each of the three wheeled "legs" rolling over and over, like a big attack wheel. This is similar to how Demolisher is shown in the animatics. He doesn't just roll on the one wheel, but his two wheels roll over him, end over end.
At this point Sideswipe comes around the corner, transforms, and does a lot of rollerblading over to Sideways (a lot more rollerblading around obstacles than he did in the movie). Sideways is not back in car form, and Sideswipe kills him just as he did in the movie. Interestingly, in the novel he didn't cut him in half, and the narration to this animatic says that they just had Sideswipe cut him in half as an experiment, to see how it would look.

So, this is an interesting bit of seeing how the movie MIGHT have looked, plus seeing a halfway point between where the movie diverged from the script.

For me, the best part is that my three favorite ROTF characters are Sideswipe, the Arcee bikes, and the Lamborghini Reventon from the game, and here they all are together.