Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a 2009 American science fiction action film, directed by Michael Bay and produced by Steven Spielberg. It is the sequel to Transformers (2007) and the second film in the live-action Transformers Trilogy. The plot revolves around Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), the human caught in the war between Autobots and Decepticons, having visions of Cybertronian symbols, and being hunted by the Decepticons under the orders of their long-trapped leader, The Fallen, who seeks to get revenge on Earth by finding and activating a machine that would provide the Decepticons with an energon source, destroying all life on the planet in the process.
With deadlines jeopardized by possible strikes by the Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild, Bay managed to finish the production on time with the help of previsualization and a scriptment by his writers Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and series newcomer Ehren Kruger. Shooting took place from May to November 2008.
Despite mostly negative reviews from film critics, it was a box office success, surpassing the all-time earnings of its predecessor in a month; its opening day, with $62 million in North America and close to $100 million worldwide, is the second highest Wednesday opening gross in history, and the fourth-highest single day gross of all time. With a total of $402 million in North America and $836 million worldwide, it was the second most successful film of 2009 (behind Avatar) and eleventh overall domestically, and the 23th highest-grossing film of all time and fourth highest of the year (behind Avatar, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs) internationally.
Plot
Thousands of years ago, there was a race of ancient Transformers who scoured the universe looking for energon sources. Known as the Dynasty of Primes, they used machines called Sun Harvesters to drain stars of their energy in order to convert it to energon and power Cybertron's All Spark. The Primes agreed that life-bearing worlds would be spared, but in 17,000 BC, one Prime, thereafter dubbed "The Fallen", constructed a Sun Harvester on Earth. The remaining Primes sacrificed their bodies in order to hide the Matrix of Leadership — the key that activates the Sun Harvester — from The Fallen, who swore to seek revenge upon Earth.
In the present day, two years after the events of the previous film, Optimus Prime is seen leading a special forces unit known as NEST (Networked Elements: Supporters and Transformers), a military organization consisting of human troops and his own team of Autobots (including newcomers Arcee, Chromia, Elita One, Sideswipe, Jolt, and the twins (Skids and Mudflap) aimed at killing the remaining Decepticons on Earth. While on a mission in Shanghai, Optimus and his team destroy Decepticons Sideways and Demolishor, being given a warning by the latter that "The Fallen will rise again". Back in the United States, Sam Witwicky finds a splinter of the destroyed All Spark, and upon contact the splinter fills his mind with Cybertronian symbols. Deeming it dangerous, Sam gives the All Spark splinter to his girlfriend Mikaela Banes for safe keeping, and leaves her and Bumblebee behind to go off to college. Upon arrival, Sam meets his college roommate Leo Spitz, who runs an alien conspiracy website, and Alice, a co-ed who makes unusually strong sexual advances on him. Back home, Decepticon Wheelie tries to steal the shard, only to be captured by Mikaela. After having a mental breakdown and uncontrollably writing Cybertronian language in class, Sam calls Mikaela, who immediately leaves to get to him.
Decepticon Soundwave hacks into a US satellite and learns the location of the dead Decepticon leader Megatron and another piece of the All Spark. Two Decepticons attack the base, retrieve the shard, and use it to resurrect Megatron, who flies into space and is reunited with Starscream and his master, The Fallen, in the Nemesis. The Fallen instructs Megatron and Starscream to capture Sam in order to learn the location of the Matrix of Leadership. With Sam's outbreaks worsening, Mikaela arrives at campus just as Alice — revealed to be a Decepticon Pretender — tries to attack him. An irate Mikaela, Sam, and his roommate Leo drive off, crashing into Alice, but are captured by the Decepticon Grindor. The Decepticon known as "The Doctor" prepares to remove Sam's brain, but Optimus and Bumblebee manage to arrive in time and rescue Sam. In a ensuing 3 on 1 fight, Optimus battles Megatron, Grindor and Starscream. Optimus kills Grindor and rips off Starscream's arm, however during a momentary distraction while searching for Sam, he is blindsided and impaled through the chest from behind by Megatron and dies. Megatron and Starscream retreat as the Autobot team arrives to rescue Sam, but too late to assist Optimus.
After Prime's death, The Fallen is freed from his captivity and Megatron orders a full-scale assault on the planet. The Fallen speaks to the world and demands they surrender Sam to the Decepticons or they will continue their attack. Sam, Mikaela, Leo, Bumblebee, the twins and Wheelie regroup, and Leo suggests his online rival "Robo-Warrior" may be of assistance. They then proceed to where Robo-Warrior is, who turns out to be former Sector 7 agent Simmons (John Turturro). Simmons informs the group that the symbols Sam has been seeing should be readable for a Decepticon. Mikaela then releases Wheelie, who can't read the language, but identifying it as that of the Primes, directs the group to a Decepticon seeker (who they later learn switched his allegiance to the Autobots) named Jetfire. They then find Jetfire (disguised as the SR-71 in the center of the museum) at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center and reactivate him via the shard of the AllSpark. After teleporting the group to Egypt, Jetfire explains that only a Prime can kill The Fallen, and translates the symbols, which contain a riddle that sets the location of the Matrix of Leadership somewhere in the surrounding desert. By following the clues, the group arrive at the tomb where they ultimately find the Matrix, but it crumbles to dust in Sam's hands. Believing the Matrix can still revive Optimus, Sam collects the dust and instructs Simmons to call Major William Lennox to bring the other Autobots and Optimus's body.
The military arrives with the Autobots, but so do the Decepticons (many unnamed and of various models which arrive via orbit), and a battle ensues with the Autobots outnumbered and the humans outgunned but managing to inflict casualties. During the battle, Decepticon Devastator is formed and unearths the Sun Harvester from inside one of the pyramids before being destroyed by a US Destroyer's railgun with the help of agent Simmons. Jetfire arrives and destroys Mixmaster, but is mortally wounded by Scorponok. The Air Force carpet bombs the Decepticons, but Megatron avoids the bombings and fires at Sam, killing him. While dead, Sam is contacted by the Dynasty of the Primes who, acknowledging his courage and dedication to Optimus, revive him and "earned" the Matrix of Leadership. Sam goes on to revive Optimus just before The Fallen ambush him and his allies, slaughtering a few soldiers and taking off with the Matrix to activate the Harvester. Jetfire sacrifices himself so that Optimus can combine with Jetfire's parts to fly to the Harvester and ultimately stop The Fallen. He successfully destroys the Harvester with a well-placed shot. Immediately, Optimus engages The Fallen and Megatron in the ruins by fighting non-stop with his new parts from Jetfire, blast Megatron's jaw off, and kills The Fallen by spearing him with his own spear, ripping off his face, and then punching through the Fallen's chest and ripping his spark out. Although the battle was over, Megatron refused to surrender and goes back to the Nemesis with Starscream. The film ends with Optimus alongside Sam on an aircraft carrier, sending another message into space hoping to find more Autobots, saying that the humans and Transformers both share a common past. During the credits, Sam is seen returning to college.
Cast
Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky
Megan Fox as Mikaela Banes
Josh Duhamel as Major William Lennox
Tyrese Gibson as USAF Chief Master Sergeant Robert Epps
John Turturro as Seymour Simmons
Ramón Rodríguez as Leo Spitz
Kevin Dunn as Ron Witwicky
Julie White as Judy Witwicky
Isabel Lucas plays Alice
John Benjamin Hickey as Theodore Galloway
Matthew Marsden as Graham
Glenn Morshower as General Morshower
Erin Naas as the Arcee/Chromia/Elita One rider
Rainn Wilson as Professor R. A. Colan
Deep Roy as an Egyptian guard
Voice acting:
Peter Cullen voices Optimus Prime
Mark Ryan voices Jetfire
Reno Wilson voices Mudflap
Tom Kenny voices Skids and Wheelie
Jess Harnell voices Ironhide
Robert Foxworth voices Ratchet
André Sogliuzzo voices Sideswipe
Grey DeLisle voices Arcee
Hugo Weaving voices Megatron
Tony Todd voices The Fallen
Charlie Adler voices Starscream
Frank Welker voices Soundwave, Reedman and Devastator
Calvin Wimmer voices Demolishor (credited as "Wheelbot")
John DiCrosta voices The Doctor
Michael York voices Prime #1
Kevin Michael Richardson voices Prime #2 and Rampage (credited as "Skipjack")
Robin Atkin Downes voices Prime #3
Production
Development
In September 2007, Paramount announced a late June 2009 release date for the sequel to Transformers. A major hurdle that was overcome during the film's production was the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, as well as possible strikes by the Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild. Bay began creating animatics of action sequences featuring characters rejected for the 2007 film. This would allow animators to complete sequences if the Directors Guild of America went on strike in July 2008, which ultimately did not happen. The director considered making a small project in between Transformers and its sequel, but knew "you have your baby and you don't want someone else to take it". The film was given a $200 million budget, which was $50 million more than the 2007 film, and some of the action scenes rejected for the original were written into the sequel, such as the way Optimus is reintroduced in this film. Lorenzo di Bonaventura said the studio proposed filming two sequels simultaneously, but he and Bay concurred that was not the right direction for the series.
Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman originally passed on the sequel because of a busy schedule. The studio began courting other writers in May 2007, but as they were unimpressed with their pitches, they convinced Orci and Kurtzman to return. The studio also signed on Ehren Kruger, as he impressed Bay and Hasbro president Brian Goldner with his knowledge of the Transformers mythology, and because he was friends with Orci and Kurtzman. The writing trio were paid $8 million. Screenwriting was interrupted by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, but to avoid production delays the writers spent two weeks writing a treatment, which they handed in the night before the strike began, and Bay expanded the outline into a sixty-page scriptment, fleshing out the action, adding more jokes, as well as selecting the majority of new characters. The three writers spent four months finishing the screenplay while "locked" in two hotel rooms by Bay: Kruger wrote in his own room and the trio would check on each others' work twice a day.
Orci described the film's theme as "being away from home", with the Autobots contemplating living on Earth as they cannot restore Cybertron, while Sam goes to college. He wanted the focus between the robots and humans "much more evenly balanced","the stakes [to] be higher", and more focused on the science fiction elements. Lorenzo di Bonaventura said that in total, there are around forty robots in the film, while ILM's Scott Farrar has said there are actually sixty. Orci added he wanted to "modulate" the humor more, and felt he managed the more "outrageous" jokes by balancing it with a more serious plot approach to the Transformers' mythology. Bay concurred that he wanted to please fans by making the tone darker, and that "moms will think its safe enough to bring the kids back out to the movies" despite his trademark sense of humor.
Before Transformers was released, producer Tom DeSanto had "a very cool idea" to introduce the Dinobots, while Bay was interested in an aircraft carrier, which was dropped from the 2007 film. Orci claimed they did not incorporate these characters into Revenge of the Fallen because they could not think of a way to justify the Dinobots' choice of form, and were unable to fit in the aircraft carrier. Orci also admitted he was also dismissive of the Dinobots because he does not like dinosaurs. "I recognize I am weird in that department", he said, but he became fonder of them during filming because of their popularity with fans. He added "I couldn't see why a Transformer would feel the need to disguise himself in front of a bunch of lizards. Movie-wise, I mean. Once the general audience is fully on board with the whole thing, maybe Dinobots in the future." However, upon being asked on the subject, Michael Bay said he hated the Dinobots and they had never been in consideration for being featured in the movies.
During production, Bay attempted to create a misinformation campaign to increase debate over what Transformers would be appearing in the film, as well as to try to throw fans off from the story of the film. However, Orci confessed it had generally not been working. The studio went as far as to censor MTV and Comic Book Resources interviews with Mowry and Furman, who confirmed Arcee and The Fallen would be in the picture. Bay told Empire that Megatron would not be resurrected, claiming his new tank form was a toy-only character, only for Orci to confirm Megatron would return in the film in February 2009. Bay also claimed he faked leaked daily call sheets from the first week of filming, that revealed Ramón Rodríguez's casting, and the appearance of Jetfire and the twins.
Filming
Filming began in Los Angeles, California, in May 2008. The former Hughes Aircraft soundstages at Playa Vista served for filming the majority of interior scenes. From June 2, three days were spent on an action sequence at the Bethlehem Steel site in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which was used to represent a portion of Shanghai. Afterwards, they shot at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. The crew moved to Philadelphia on June 9, where they shot at the defunct PECO Richmond power station, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, the Eastern State Penitentiary, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia City Hall, Rittenhouse Square, and historic Chancellor Street (which represents a street near Place de la Concorde in Paris), and Wanamaker's. They moved to Princeton University on June 22. Filming there angered some students at the University of Pennsylvania, believing Bay had chosen to reshoot scenes at Princeton and script Princeton's name in the film. However, neither the University of Pennsylvania nor Princeton gave Bay permission to be named in the film because of a "funny 'mom' scene" that both felt "did not represent the school" in which Sam's mother ingests Marijuana-laced brownies for comedic effect.
Three days of filming were spent in Egypt.
Bay scheduled a break for filming beginning on June 30, turning his attention to animation and second unit scenes because of the potential 2008 Screen Actors Guild strike.[44] Shooting for the Shanghai battle later continued in Long Beach, California. The crew shot at Holloman Air Force Base and White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico during September. The two locations were used for Qatar in the 2007 film, and stood in for Egypt in this film. A scale model in Los Angeles was also used for some close-ups of the pyramids. Shooting at Tucson International Airport and the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group's aircraft boneyard took place in October under the fake working title Prime Directive.This location was delayed from July. Filming also took place at Camp Pendleton and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.
The first unit (including Shia LaBeouf) then shot for three days in Egypt itself, at the Giza pyramid complex and Luxor. For security's sake, the shoot was highly secretive, but according to Lorenzo di Bonaventura, a crew of 150 Americans and "several dozen local Egyptians" ensured a "remarkably smooth" shoot. Bay earned the Egyptian government's approval to film at the pyramids by contacting Zahi Hawass, who Bay recalled "put his arm around me and said, 'Don't hurt my pyramids.'" A fifty foot tall camera crane was used at the location. Four days were then spent in Jordan; the Royal Jordanian Air Force aided in filming at Petra, Wadi Rum and Salt because one of the country's princes liked the 2007 film. Filming continued at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, with second unit shots of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. The cast and crew finished on the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis on November 2, 2008.
Bay stated he found the climax of the 2007 film to be weak, partly because it was shot across five different city blocks, making the action confusing and hard to follow. On this film, the final battle in Egypt was devised to make it easier to see what was going on.
Effects
Hasbro became more involved in the designs of the robots than in the 2007 film, and they and Takara Tomy suggested to the filmmakers that combining robots be the main draw for the sequel. They insisted on keeping the alternate modes of some of the returning characters similar, so people would not have to buy toys of the same characters. Bay used real F-16 Fighting Falcon and tank fire when filming the battles. Many of the new Autobot cars supplied by General Motors were brightly colored to look distinctive on screen.
Scott Farrar returned as visual effects supervisor and anticipated moodier use of lighting as well as deeper roles for the Decepticons. He stated that with the bigger deadline, post-production will be a "circus".The producers expected that with a bigger budget and the special effects worked out, the Transformers would have a larger role. Peter Cullen recalled, "Don Murphy mentioned to me, 'Only because of the tremendous expense to animate Optimus Prime, he'll be in just a certain amount of [the 2007 film].' But he said, 'Next time, if the movie is a success, you're gonna be in it a ton.'" Michael Bay hoped to include more close-ups of the robots' faces. Farrar said the animators implemented more "splashes and the hits and the fighting on dirt or moving, banging into trees, things splinter and break, they [the robots] spit, they outgas, they sweat, they snort." Shooting in the higher resolution of IMAX required up to 72 hours to render a single frame of animation. While ILM used 15 terabytes for the 2007 film, on the sequel they used 140.
Orci hinted the majority of the Decepticons were entirely computer-generated in both robot and alternate modes, making it easier to write additional scenes for them in post-production.
Music
See also: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - The Album and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - The Score
The score to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was composed by Steve Jablonsky, who reunited with director Michael Bay to record his score with a 71-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Scoring Stage.
Jablonsky and his score producer Hans Zimmer composed various interpretations of a song by Linkin Park called "New Divide" for the score.
Awards and nominations
Revenge of the Fallen was nominated for Best Sound at the Academy Awards and for Best Science Fiction Film at the Saturn Award. It also won 5 Scream Awards for Best Actress, Breakout Performance-Female, Best Sequel, Best F/X, and Scream Song of the Year. On MTV's 2010 Movie Awards, Revenge of the Fallen was only nominated for one category: Best WTF Moment (Isabel Lucas turning into a Decepticon).
On the other hand, it was nominated for 7 Razzie Awards including Worst Actress for Megan Fox (also for Jennifer's Body), Worst Supporting Actress for Julie White, Worst Screen Couple (for Shia LaBeouf and either Fox or any Transformer) and Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel, winning three in the Worst Picture, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay categories.
Box office
Despite mostly negative critical reception, the film yielded an impressive turnout, as indicated by its box office figures. Revenge of the Fallen grossed $16 million on its midnight premiere, at the time the most ever for a Wednesday midnight debut. The film proceeded to achieve the biggest Wednesday opening in history, bringing in $62 million in total receipts on its first day (until The Twilight Saga: Eclipse was released), additionally ranking it as the fourth-biggest opening day of all-time behind The Dark Knight and later The Twilight Saga: New Moon and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. The film grossed $108.9 million on its first weekend, making it the biggest weekend gross of 2009 (until New Moon was released) and the eighth-largest in history, and brought in $200 million in its first five days, putting it in second place behind The Dark Knight's $203.7 million for all-time biggest five-day opening. It was the biggest June opening weekend for one year until Toy Story 3 claimed that record.
Revenge of the Fallen remained #1 at the box office for two weeks straight, by a close margin. Initial studio estimates showed a tie between it and that weekend's new release Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, but the actuals showed Revenge of the Fallen taking the #1 spot yet again with $42,320,877. Also, it was the first film of 2009 to reach the $300 million mark in North America.
By July 20, 2009, less than a month after being released, Revenge of the Fallen had surpassed the all-time earnings of the 2007 Transformers movie. Also, on July 27, a month after its release, the movie reached $379.2 million in the US, which brings it into the top 10 highest-grossing movies ever in that country as of August 2009.
As of January 8, 2010, the film is reported to have grossed approximately $402,111,870 in the United States, along with an estimated $434,185,358 from foreign countries that totals up to approximately $836,297,228 worldwide, making it the fourth highest-grossing film of 2009, behind only Avatar, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
