Act One
- Starscream returns, now self-declared leader of the Decepticons.
- Rallies the others around his goal is a new energy source derived from the Allspark that rests on Earth. Plans overheard by Hot Rod.
- Soundwave leads a faction that is still loyal to Megatron and with his followers battles Starscream and co and gains control of the resurgence ship Nemesis
- Sam and Mikaela are in college, her at community and Sam in New York. Still together.
- Sam and Bumblebee have a strained relationship since the city of gridlock makes driving a car impractical.
- Shige, unspecified Asian, is Sam's roommate and learned English from Baywatch closed caption. Guessing he is the comedian role that Anderson was for first movie.
- Nemesis slams into the ocean, destroying an aircraft carrier and taking on its form. IE Nemesis becomes a transforming aircraft carrier (something rumored to be in the sequel for a month and more).
- Soundwave takes on the form of a "large, military-grade focused sound laser" while the other Decepticons take on military vehicles that where on the downed carrier.
- Megatron's crushed lifeless form is retrieved and placed in a Cybertronian chamber. Since sound is a form of energy, therefore making Soundwave an unlimited source of energy, he is able to heal other Transformers and restore Megatron. The reason mainly because the merging of the Allspark with Meg's spark caused an overload and shutdown of his system rather then death.
- The resurrection’s side-effect results in dependency on Soundwave for energy but (I think), Meg's wouldn't like depending on anyone for survival so needs something from Prime to complete his return and sends his minions to capture Sam as leverage.
- Hot Rod lands on earth to warn Prime of Starscream's plans and coordinates for unknown energy source. The alt form, Ferrari F430, is taken from a "high-profile action movie director’s car (a cameo perhaps for Bay?).
- Autobots head to Las Vegas, with Hot Rod (with Mikaela) running ahead of them due to his speed.
- Bumblebee also heads to Vegas with Sam and Shige in tow (after a scene involving street racing).
- Mikaela finds Agent Simmons, who now works for LUXOR in Vegas, to get the location of the object.
- Everyone but Sam and company form up at the home of Linus Ellison, descendent of the Sector 7 founders.
- The second source, "City of Lights" is an orb that stores the Allspark's excess energy that was collected while being studied by Sector 7 and is used to meet the United States energy needs. The electrical conduit for the orb runs from Hoover Dam to Vegas, in effect Vegas was built to hide the orb much like Hoover Dam was built to hide the Allspark.
- The Luxor (the black pyramid) provides the access point to the orb (hence Simmons working there) resulting in a White House ordered evacuation of the entire city.
Act Two
- Sam and co still heading to Vegas, Shige still unaware of Bumblebee is a robot; watch their dorm destroyed by a giant robot on TV. Sam recognizes that means he is in danger.
- Creation Matrix is introduced and contained within Prime. The Allspark provides life, the Matrix provides the Transformers with a soul and free will. Without the matrix the Transformers are soulless primal beasts ("hence the cell phone, Xbox and Mountain Dew machine"). Decepticons therefore came from the Allspark and Matrix but used free will "to follow a path of evil". (Very slick and very obvious, I feel pretty stupid for not thinking of this).
- At this point, Starscream wants the Orb and Megatron wants the Matrix.
- Meanwhile Sam and co reach the roadblock of traffic from the evacuation of Vegas and come head to head with six construction vehicles...who merge to form Devastator.
- While trying to escape Ultra Magnus and his car load of Transformers arrive to attack Devastator and defend Sam. Meanwhile Shige pees in his pants (thinking BB wouldn't like that). A vicious battle ensues.
- Devastator is slowed buying time for a tactical retreat down Route 66 to Vegas (historic American landmark, worth googling).
- In Vegas, the largest defense force ever assembled is ready as Starscream's faction arrives in protoform.
- The force is intercepted by protoform Autobots (so three groups of Autobots) resulting in a free-fall battle until forced to break for crashing landing to Earth. The fight is rejoined and moves toward Vegas.
- Once the fight reaches Vegas, the military learns that the Decepticons no longer effected by the sabot rounds making them ineffective in the battle.
- The assault continues above ground while below Mikaela watches as Ellison and Simmons wordlessly hatch a plan.
- Night falls as the Autobots defense of the Luxor barely holds. Reinforcements arrive in the form of Sam and co. pushing back Starscream's faction.
- Sam and Shige are escorted down below as Skorponok drills through to the underground bunker undetected.
Act Three
- Skorponok is detected and despite best efforts from the military below ground, manages to sever the orb from the electrical conduit, stopping the flow of energy to the nation, plunging cities and Vegas into a blackout.
- Military re-enforcements arrive in Vegas, only to discover they where infiltrated by Megatron's forces and destroyed.
- The military lies in waste, the Autobots outnumbered and exhausted, Megatron's forces begin their assault.
- Seeing the odds, Ellison makes the call to go to the Stratosphere Tower and release a Sector 7 built electromagnetic pulse that would destroy all electronic systems within 50 miles including the Transformers and the orb. Despite knowing it would kill them; Optimus approves of the plan and orders the Autobots to clear a path up the strip.
- Soundwave, overhearing the orders, moves to intercept.
- Prime, Magnus and Hot Rod stay to defend the Luxor, the others move to defend human's move to the tower.
- Starscream, thinking the advantage is his, moves to attack the Luxor to claim the orb.
- The fight up the strip against Soundwave's troops results in a kamikaze move by two Autobots that opens the lines but also kills the military specialists for the EMP.
- Sam and Mikaela ascend the tower under assault from a Deception with Bumblebee trying to defend. Eventually Bumblebee wins forcing the weak Megatron to enter the battle and clumsily but effectively stopping the EMP and possibly killing Mikaela.
- Soundwave attacks Starscream's faction with a sonic pulse that also hits Prime who was chasing a determined Hot Rod that had ordered his retreat orders.
- Soundwave uses that opportunity to rip the Matrix from Optimus and brings it to Megatron restoring him to full strength.
- First order of business to regain the role of undisputed leader of the Decepticons by taking out Starscream those results in a dogfight in the Grand Canyon.
- The defeated Starscream's last act of defiance is a message to his faction on Cybertron, "I have prepared the way..." resulting in a mass exodus from Cybertron to Earth. (HMM so TF 2 Vegas battle is what Helm's Deep was to the Two Towers, with I guess TF 3 having a battle that will be like Return of the Kings Minas Tirith - if true sweet)
- Movie ends with the Autobots recovering in Ellison's compound, Optimus severely wounded, Hot Rod determined to right his wrong (I guess getting the matrix from Megs), Sam feeling betrayed by Prime with the death of Mikaela, and Mikaela regaining consciousness, the forcefield of the Bumblebee defeated Decepticon failing after having protected her from the destroyed Tower.
- ...to be Concluded in TF 3.
My take is this is a wish list script that is not going to happen as written simply because its too expensive. The main ideas are good, but with 6 seperate Transformers "teams" total in the script, probably more then a few will go to the wayside. The ideas here are very good though and the epic feel is something to drool over. If one thing that could be an easy cut it is the addition of Shige. He is basically Sam as an Asian kid. Sam's humor was sarcasm, Shige is situational. Sam was "omg, he Transformed" and so is Shige. The film already has a Sam and doesn't need another. The ending has an unfinished feel to it, but then so did Pirates of the Caribbean 2 amd that didn't hurt the box office any. The Constructicons are an idea that should carry over no matter how many drafts. The teaser trailer would need one thing, and one thing only, and that is the merge to form Devastator. There is a noticable lack of characterization but to be honest I can't say that I care. Its Transformers doing big things in big ways. When playing Transformers as kids, I didn't imagine conversations and angst, I imagined them beating the snot out of each other in creative ways. That's this treatment on a city wide scale.
I don't know if the script is true but there are touches in the draft that seems authentic and in some cases realistically answer some fan concerns from the first movie, beats that now seem intentionally done. If this isn't the script, maybe it should be. It has an epic feel that Transfans always wanted to see in the cartoons but rarely got. The focus definitely shifts from the humans to the Transformers. In this draft, it seems it would be easier to count the scenes that don't have Transformers then ones that do. If this is the script though, it’s an expensive one, like in the $200-$250 million range because it probably would break a few records for visual effects. It also meets the needs of pre-production for the sequel, as provides enough to indicate what sites, sets, cast, and Transformers (but leaving plenty of latitude in this regard for Bay, Hasbro and the digital effects studios) are needed. Should add that even if this treatment is real, the movie is still two years away so this and the final version could end up having nothing in common.
Thanks to Maximus and Frank S for the links to a copy of the script.
Update from Don Murphy's site:
1- Some idiot posted some stupid storyMurphy is referencing the report that Orci, Kurtzman, and Kruger are in negotiations to be the writing team. However, Murphy does have a history of denying leaks that later turn out to be true. Also, nothing helps say "pay up" then having a treatment ready before the writer's strike begins on November 1st. In the end, like most rumors, we really will not know until someone official confirms information (rare) or the day the movie is out.
2- Apparently it was good.
3- It thankfully wasn't real, because, well writers don't start writing
till deals are done and they aren't.
4- Not one single person/fan/stooge/alleged friend alerted me to the
situation which, HAD it been real would have been bad for the film, not to
mention illegal.
Another Update:
More information is coming up online that indicates this treatment may be real (other then Murphy's very angry denial). According to TFormers.com, the leaked treatment came from CountingDown.com, a Dreamworks owned website, before it was pulled down. How true this is, I don't know as TFormers is posting this bit of information two days after this site posted about the same leaked script.
In additon, ComingSoon.net reports that "Spielberg told us there are going to be multiple "Transformers" films that [Shia LaBeouf] is signed on to do and that there's already a story for the second one, but production depends on the pending writer's strike." This is further backed up by IESB.net "they have a story that will be turned in a couple of weeks. If they get it before pre-strike great if not oh well. T2 not certain to be pre-strike but he believes that they can put it together quickly if they meet the deadline." This contradicts Murphy's statement of "don't start writing till deals are done and they aren't."
Finally at Michael Bay's forums, Nelson (head admin) posts that the script isn't fan made reminding readers "It's a treatment...far cry from a shooting script." Which is an excellent way to summarize this entire post and to know things will change. At this point, I believe this treatment is the real deal and while the big ideas will make its way into the film, not all of them will.
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