Let me put it this way: Michael Bay's Transformers films (and Star Wars) are the reason for me wanting to pursue a career in the TV and Film Industry. I personally think they're great films with great characters and take some great ideas from the lore to implement into the films. Transformers, Dark of The Moon and Age of Extinction have great stories and I like the concept for Revenge of The Fallen, though I will admit it's the weakest of the 4. And with the 5th instalment on it's way due for release in 2017 (they originally said 2016 but the majorly f***ed that up), I have chosen to compile a list of 7 things I want to see in the new film. It's your classic countdown list so no need to go over the rules. Also their is a heavily minor spoiler for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
7. Don’t add tonnes of new Autobots.
A thing I found really great about the 4th instalment is the fact there about five Autobot’s in the whole film. It makes the interactions between each of the characters more personal and give them more personality. In the first 2 films (minus Optimus) they don’t have much personality and come off as either over acted, wooden……. or severely racist. In the third, some characters do actually expand their characteristics and have more personality. Like the first film, Age of Extinction has only a small amount of Autobots which allows a lot of good moments between them and allows them to have a lot of personality (more in AOE). When it comes to the 5th film, the number of Autobots should remain the same. These being Drift, Hound, Bumblebee, Crosshairs and Optimus Prime. If you add more, you end up making the film massively overcrowded with the Transformers characters and be like ROTF and DOTM. You can maybe add two…… MAXIMUM!!!! Examples being Ultra Magnus and Powerglide.
6. Bring Back Steve Jablonsky.
Steve Jablonsky is the man behind the amazing score for all four films. I am a sucker for movie scores and I believe Jablonsky is on his way to be the next John Williams and Hans Zimmer. He created the incredible “Optimus” theme for the 2nd film, the epic “Battle” theme of the 3rd film and the emotionally pumping “Dinobot Charge” theme of the 4th film. He is incredibly talented and without him, someone else composing the score for these films is like someone else other than John Williams composing the Star Wars scores. It will feel incredibly wrong. He's done great collaborations with Skrillex, Imagine Dragons and Linkin Park. Jablonsky is the man who should be the one who does the score.
5. Less Scenes Dominated by The Human Factor.
A big problem that a lot of people have with the TF films is simply; too many scenes with humans and not enough with the Transformers. 1 and Revenge of The Fallen had this. We spend to much time with the human characters and sometimes it makes the Tformer characters as extras with a few lines here and there. Dark of The Moon moved away from this slightly as there were a lot more scenes with the Transformers, mainly scenes that involved Bumblebee, Optimus and Sentinel Prime. However the human characters were the main focus still. AOE had it has 50/50 once we pass the one hour mark, Which benefits the Autobot characters well as explained in my fifth point. Also when looking at the films, the Decepticons are only in a few scenes prior to the final act. Then they have a massive presence throughout the final battle sequences. Number 5 needs to have more screen time with the Transformers characters and less of the human factor. Though the human characters are beneficial to setting a film on present day Earth, We're here to see giant robots, not humans.
4. Another "Battle of Chicago" Style Final Act.
4. Another "Battle of Chicago" Style Final Act.
One of my all time favourite fight scenes in any film is the last hour of Dark of The Moon. The Autobots are massively outnumbered, we get amazing fight sequences, incredible effects and a great one on one final battle between Optimus Prime and Sentinel Prime. A lot of people will disagree with me on this but....Transformers 5 needs that kind of final fight scene. If you don't like it for the story, it's a great visual masterpiece and shows how real the Autobots are even as CGI characters. The fight will need to follow a specific formula.
1. Start with the initial combat scene. The heroes entering where the final battle is to take place and maybe engaging a few enemies.
2. Have the Autobots and human characters split and have them engaging in two separate fight scenes and eventually come back together.
3. Show the return of Optimus due to he flew off at the end of the Age of Extinction.
4. Kill a character we've come to love whether it be Autobot or Human.
5. Have the final fight between Prime and whoever the main villain is for the film.
It's a formula I think that will work and make the fight a memorable one.
3. Two Separate Narratives.
With what happens at the end of Age of Extinction, there's now the opportunity for two stories to be told. You can have one featuring Optimus hunting down the Creators and running into Unicron and the second having Cade and the Autobots hunting and fighting Galvatron and the new Decepticons and then both narratives link and come together by the final act. Both stories will need to obviously make sense but this is also the opportunity to be creative. The Optimus story can be very lore based and a CGI environment. They can delve into Transformers history and can make way for the multiple sequels that are planned. With the Cade and the Autobots story, that can be character driven. Show how much they've grown as a team and family as the fight the Decepticons and that and make the death of one of the characters in the final battle all the more traumatic and all the more heartbreaking.
2. No Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime.
My earliest memory of the Transformers is the 2001 series Transformers: Robots in Disguise and Unicron Trilogy which features the series' Armada, Energon and Cybertron. I didn't even start watching the original 1980's cartoon till around the time the first live action film came out and my first exposure to that was the animated film which is ...yeah it's pretty fantastic. I then watched the series then by the time I got to season 3 and Rodimus Prime was now the leader of the Autobots....put it this way; I hate Rodimus Prime. He is impulsive and keeps comparing himself to Optimus saying he'll never be good enough as him and on several occasions is willing to give up leadership with a snap of the figure. He's essentially a teenager going through puberty and its f***ing frustrating to watch. I tend to skip season 3 and only watch the beginning of the season and the end of the season. When an article was published late 2014 on a story that turned out to be false, Rodimus was meant to come in and Optimus was to die...again. If this was true, it would have been a crap a terrible move on both Michael Bay and Paramounts part and you would have pissed off a lot of fans. Even if they have plans to add Rodimus into the mix, Please for the love of God, Don't.
Here are a few honourable mentions to thing I want to see in Transformers 5:
Unicorn
More Galvatron
No mcguffin devices
And old character from the first trilogy
Combiners
1. Optimus Prime as The Main Character and Focus Point of the film.
As previously stated in point 7, with so many characters a lot of then don't have time to expand on their characteristics and/or stories. This happened to Optimus in the first 2 films however his character expanded in 3 & 4. In 5 the focus should be on him and his story and how his departure at the end of AOE has affected the Autobot team on Earth. Have Optimus occupy the majority of scenes like Finn and Rey in The Force Awakens. Also the film should focus on his journey to fight the Creators, him delving into Cybertronian history and behind the scenes, allow Peter Cullen to flesh out Optimus more. Also this would be a perfect time to have this movie incarnation of Optimus Prime return to the classic character traits which he is known for and not have any major out of character moments that have happened in the last 4 films. And for god sakes not kill him. Also a great thing would be to expand on the friendship between Prime and Cade as it was a great attribute in AOE and can be expanded on in 5. This film should essentially be Optimus' story.
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