Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)

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You have controlled your fear. Now, release your anger. Only your hatred can destroy me.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the first of two planned sequels to Transformers. It was released in North America on June 24, 2009.

The film is set two years after the events of Transformers. The Autobots have found a home in "NEST", a secret military unit created to eliminate the remaining Decepticons, and Sam is starting college and trying to leave his Transformer-laden past behind. The Decepticons are regrouping, however. Megatron is restored to life, and his master, The Fallen, schemes to activate an energon-producing Solar Harvester on Earth, which will destroy the planet and provide the Decepticons with enough energon to raise an army. The Harvester's location, and the means to activate it, are hidden within Sam's mind, leading the Decepticons to wage war across the Earth as they hunt down the human. Witwicky turns to some unlikely allies to escape and survive. Ultimately, the last of the Primes defeats The Fallen, destroys the Harvester, and proves the Autobots' greatest power is found in their unexpectedly-ancient alliance with the humans.

Director Michael Bay set out to greatly expand the film's scope with settings ranging across the globe, and a much larger cast of Transformers, with over 40 robots in all.

“	Revenge is mine!	”
—The Fallen

Japanese title: Transformers: Revenge

Chinese title (Taiwan): 'Transformers: The War of Revenge

French title: Transformers: La Revanche (Transformers: The Revenge)

German title: Transformers: Die Rache (Transformers: The Revenge)

Italian title: Transformers 2: La Vendetta del Caduto (Transformers 2: The Revenge Of The Fallen)

Polish title: Transformers: Zemsta Upadłych (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Ones)

Russian title: Transformery: Mest' Padshikh, cyrillic: Трансформеры: Месть падших (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Ones)

Serbian title: Transformersi: Osveta Poraženog (Transformers: The Revenge Of The Fallen)

Spanish title: Transformers: La Venganza de los Caídos (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Ones)

Swedish title: Transformers: De Besegrades Hämnd (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Ones)

Synopsis

In 17,000 B.C., a group of human hunters discover Transformers already on Earth, building a machine. One of the Transformers notices the humans, and his reaction is less than friendly.

Two years after the battle of Mission City, the Autobots have teamed up with the American soldiers, including Lennox and Epps, in a secret team named NEST under the command of the US military, but also incorporating soldiers from other countries such as the United Kingdom. Officially, the US government still keeps the Transformers' existence a secret.

Well, I guess you don't know everything about women yet.

NEST is hunting down the Decepticons on Earth. A region of Shanghai, China is evacuated to allow NEST to deploy with a cover-up of a toxic chemical spill occurring. As soldiers probe the region, they find the heat signature of the Decepticon Demolishor, who transforms and wreaks havoc on the roadways. His discovery prompts his partner, Sideways, to escape as well. Sideways is pursued by Arcee, Skids, and Mudflap, although Sideswipe, waiting for the Decepticon, eventually slices him lengthwise in half. Optimus Prime is airlifted to Shanghai and chases Demolishor through the city with Ironhide. Optimus shoots Demolishor several times in the head, while Ironhide shoots out his wheels, causing him to crash and fall of a bypass, badly injuring himself in the process. Before Optimus kills him, Demolishor delivers the cryptic message: "The Fallen shall rise again."

You will go to the Dagobah system. There you will learn from Yoda.

Meanwhile, Sam Witwicky is preparing for his move to college and dealing with his bipolar mother. His father is looking forward to enjoying a holiday in Paris, and Mojo has a new canine companion named Frankie. Sam is on the phone to his rather snarky girlfriend, when he finds a splinter of the All Spark lodged in his "D-Day shirt". He experiences a brief flash of images before the splinter burns him. Dropping it, Sam sees the floor catch fire as the splinter burns its way down to the kitchen, where it brings numerous kitchen devices to life. These appliancebots make their way to Sam's room and attack. He escapes to the garden, where the bots pin Sam and his father behind the water fountain. After Bumblebee has destroyed the kitchen robots (and part of the Witwickys' house with them), Sam hands the All Spark shard to Mikaela. His mother demands Bumblebee leaves. Sam then tells Bumblebee to join the other Autobots, as both of them need to move on. Sam and Mikaela have a slight scuffle over who should say the words "I love you" first, but they kiss and move on. Sam leaves for college, and no one notices a toy car in the lawn. It detects the splinter and signals Soundwave, who is stationed in orbit around Earth, disguised as a satellite, and Soundwave orders the truck to follow the girl.

Meanwhile, NEST is in a video briefing with General Morshower, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when they are visited by National Security Advisor Theodore Galloway, who has been dispatched to relay the President's concerns over the casualties in Shanghai. As Optimus relays the warning of "The Fallen", Soundwave takes control of the satellite transmitting the message. Galloway dismisses the threat, convinced that the only reason the Decepticons are interested in Earth is because of the presence of the Autobots. Therefore, he suggests that they may leave the planet. Optimus says that, yes, they will, but also warns Galloway that he may be wrong. During the conversation, Galloway reveals the location of the All Spark shard Optimus Prime had picked up after killing Megatron, and the location of Megatron's remains in the Laurentian Abyss.

Sam arrives at college with his parents and meets his roommate, Leo Spitz, who operates a conspiracy website and is convinced that alien robots are hiding on Earth. Sam feigns ignorance and goes to see if he can get another room, but his hunt is interrupted by his father and mother, the latter of whom has unwittingly purchased some marijuana-laced brownies. In the corridor, Leo points out Alice, another student he has the hots for. Sam is more concerned with tracking down his mother, who by now is roaming the school, informing random people about the state of Sam's virginity.

Soundwave dispatches his minion Ravage to Earth, where he infiltrates the NEST base on Diego Garcia. Ravage horks a swarm of microcons into an ventilation outlet, and they swarm down to the chamber where the All Spark shard is being held. There they combine into Reedman, who steals the shard and joins Ravage in a rapid escape.

Although he's due to have a webcam date with Mikaela, Sam is dragged to at a frat party by Leo. He suffers some sort of attack, seeing alien symbols which he is trying to write on a table with cake icing when he's approached by Alice, who attempts to seduce him. When Bumblebee shows up, she takes a ride with Sam, but Bumblebee does everything he can to convince her to leave, up to and including spraying her with an unidentifiable yellow liquid. Bumblebee then takes Sam to Optimus Prime, who tells him of the theft of the All Spark shard and asks Sam to speak with the government on their behalf. Sam refuses, saying that he has his own problems and does not believe that he is the right person for this task.

What is thy bidding, my master?

At the Laurentian Abyss, Ravage meets up with several Constructicons, who have placed themselves aboard a cargo ship, then dives with them to the bottom of the ocean, where the US military has dumped Megatron's remains. Using the shard and spare parts from one of the Constructicons (who is presumably killed), "The Doctor" is able to revive Megatron, who promptly travels to one of Saturn's moons, where the Nemesis is being used as a base by the Decepticons. He is awaited by Starscream, who is overseeing the spawning of a new army of Decepticons. After beating Starscream for leaving him to die, Megatron presents himself to his master, The Fallen. Although Megatron believes he has failed, The Fallen reveals that when the Cube was destroyed, the knowledge within the All Spark was instead transfered to Sam, and with it the means to locate a device capable of creating vast amounts of Energon. The Fallen commands Megatron to retrieve the boy and kill Optimus, the last of the Primes and the only person who can defeat The Fallen.

As he sits in Professor Colan's astronomy class, Sam suddenly reads through the entire reference book in a matter of seconds, before interrupting the Professor's lecture to scrawl more of the strange symbols on a blackboard and deliver a speed lecture on higher physics. After the Professor throws him out, he realises that the effects he's been experienceing may be linked to touching the All Spark shard. When he calls Mikaela to warn her not to touch it, the the toy-truck Decepticon tries to steal the shard, but Mikaela captures the tiny Decepticon. Mikaela promptly boards a plane to see Sam.

Alerted to multiple Decepticon contacts, NEST mobilises, but the Autobots are already on their way somewhere, and refusing to answer calls from their human comrades.

Afraid I was gonna leave without giving you a goodbye kiss?

Leo and Alice find Sam in the dorm room, freaking out and covering the walls with glyphs. Alice pushes Leo outside, and when Mikaela arrives, she finds Sam and Alice in what appears to be an intimate moment. It soon turns out, however, that Alice is a Decepticon as well. Mikaela, Sam and Leo flee as Alice hunts them, devastating the campus library; Mikaela eventually defeats her by slamming her into a tree with a hotwired car. The three humans try to get away but are captured by a Decepticon and delivered to the waiting Megatron in an abandoned building. Megatron orders "The Doctor" to remove Sam's brain in order to access the information from the All Spark shard, but Optimus Prime and Bumblebee arrive to free the three humans. Prime takes Sam and flees, but is soon overtaken by Megatron, Starscream and Grindor. In the subsequent battle, Prime kills Grindor but is impaled by Megatron and dies. The other Autobots arrive, saving Sam and causing Megatron and Starscream to retreat.

With the Decepticons unable to locate Sam on their own, Megatron decides that a show of force is in order to compel the humans to turn Sam over to him. Soundwave relays the mobilization order to the Nemesis and then tracks down Ron and Judy Witwicky in Paris. Decepticons, joined by The Fallen, enter Earth and cause massive damage in their transition forms, destroying a naval carrier in the Atlantic Ocean and attacking Paris, kidnapping Sam's parents. In a hijacked TV broadcast around the world, The Fallen reveals his existence to the world's public and demands Sam be surrendered to him. A manhunt for Sam is launched.

Ready are you? What know you of ready?

Sam, meanwhile, is hiding out with Mikaela, Leo, Bumblebee and the Autobot twins, Skids and Mudflap. Leo complains loudly about the strange turn his life has taken of late, and Sam rightly tells him to shut the hell up.

The Autobots return to the NEST base, where they are surrounded by the military. Galloway tells them that he has placed in charge of NEST, which is to cease all activities relating to the Decepticons. NEST is being stood down, and they are all to return to Diego Garcia, while the military draws up a coordinated multinational strategy, buying time by negotiating with the Decepticons. Though Lennox tries to argue, it's futile as Galloway pulls rank. Ratchet says the Autobots should leave Earth altogether, but Ironhide points out that it's not what Optimus would want.

Feeling guilty for Prime's death, Sam decides to solve the mystery of the symbols he's been seeing. The Autobots identify the symbols as Cybertronian, but since the language predates their existence, they cannot translate them. Leo eventually suggests they may ask his rival, "Robo-Warrior", owner of a competing website, for help. To everyone's surprise, Robo-Warrior turns out to be none other than Seymour Simmons, former agent of Sector Seven. Simmons reveals that the Transformers were on Earth some time ago, as symbols similar to those Sam is obsessed with have been found on numerous excavation sites around the world, and that Sector Seven discovered evidence that several Transformers stayed on Earth for some time. However, in order to read the symbols, they may need a Decepticon. Mikaela then interrogates Wheelie, who identifies the symbols as the Language of the Primes, and suggests they may track down one of the ancient Seekers, the Transformers believed to be on Earth. Wheelie identifies one as being nearby, in Washington, D.C.

Looking? Found someone you have.

At the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, they discover an old Decepticon named Jetfire, disguised as an SR-71 Blackbird. After some initial confusion on his part, Jetfire explains he has defected to the Autobots, inspiring Wheelie to follow suit. When Sam finishes writing down the symbols, Jetfire says that they were part of the Seekers' mission, and he opens a space bridge and teleports himself as well as Sam, Mikaela, Leo, Simmons, Bumblebee and the Twins to Egypt. He explains that thousands of years ago, the Transformers arrived on Earth on an exploratory mission under their original leaders, the Primes. The Primes had come to build a solar harvester, a device which can create Energon, the Transformers fuel, by destroying suns. The Primes had a single rule of never destroying a star with a living bearing world, but one of the Primes, forever known as The Fallen, despised the humans and tried to activate the machine. The Primes were unable to defeat their brother, but instead stole the Matrix of Leadership, the key needed to activate the harvester, and gave their lives to seal it in a tomb made of their own bodies. Jetfire further explains that only a Prime can hope to defeat The Fallen, and with the death of Optimus, they are doomed. Sam suggests that they may use the Matrix to revive Optimus Prime, which is backed up by Jetfire. They head towards Giza, dodging Egyptian police on the way.

In New Jersey, NEST are loading up to return to Diego Garcia when Simmons contacts Lennox to relay information about the new quest, and co-ordinates where they can drop Optimus's body. Lennox and Epps decide to trust the new information and go against their orders. Sam's group passes through a checkpoint, allowing Soundwave to poinpoint their location, but they reach the Pyramids of Giza, where they pick up the next clue, pointing to Jordan.

On the NEST aircraft, Lennox tricks Galloway into bailing out of the plane. Back in the US, General Morshower receives a communique from Lennox, and arranges to have assets in the target area.

In Petra, Sam's group discovers the Tomb of the Primes. Inside, Sam finds the Matrix, which instantly crumbles into dust into his hands. Sam collects the dust regardless, and he and Mikaela return outside where Simmons and Leo have spotted the NEST team parachuting into Egypt to begin preparing for battle near the pyramids.

This baby's got a few surprises in her.

Before Sam and the others can get back to Lennox and his people, the Decepticons start their attack. Bumblebee, Simmons, Leo, and the Twins draw their fire while Sam and Mikaela make a break for the soldiers. The Constructicons merge into Devastator, who proceeds to swallow Mudflap. Mudflap, however, is able to free himself, together with Skids, they try to slow Devastator down. While the Autobots and NEST fight the Decepticons, Starscream leads several other Constructicons in a search for Sam, and intending to use Sam's parents to lure him into a trap. Falling into the trap, Sam offers to hand over the Matrix dust to the Constructicon Rampage, but only to stall for time until Bumblebee is able to attack and destroy the Decepticon. Ravage attacks Bumblebee from behind, but is killed as well. Sam then orders Bumblebee to get his parents to safety while he and Mikaela try to reach Optimus Prime's body. A remote drone relays pictures back to Morshower, who launches Operation: Firestorm, ordering an immediate launch of pretty much everything they can muster.

How you get so big eating food of this kind?

In the meantime, Devastator has begun to to take apart the pyramid that has been built around the Harvester. Simmons calls a navy ship off the coast of Egypt and orders the use of a railgun. Meanwhile, Sam finally meets up with Lennox and Epps, but they're pinned down by Mixmaster. Jetfire arrives and kills Mixmaster and Scorponok, but is mortally wounded by the smaller Decepticon. Simmons relays Devastator's coordinates to the Navy, who score a direct hit on the giant with their railgun. Devastator is torn to pieces and topples from the pyramid. After an air strike takes out most of the other Decepticons, Sam makes a dash for Prime's body, but is caught in the blast of a shot fired by Megatron. While paramedics try to reanimate him, the Matrix dust gets spilled across his hand, and Sam encounters the dead Primes in a vision. The Primes tell him that he was destined to find the Matrix and save the life of the last Prime. Sam returns to life, which is enough to get him and Mikaela to admit that they love each other, and the dust in his hand turns back into the Matrix, which which he is able to revive Optimus Prime.

Perhaps you are not as strong as the Emperor thought.

Just then, The Fallen teleports himself next to Optimus Prime, grabs the Matrix, and teleports himself to the pyramid, where he uses the Matrix to activate the Harvester. The soldiers and armored vehicles begin firing on the pyramid, but The Fallen raises the heavy weaponry with his telekinetic powers and destroys it all. Dying, Jetfire offers his parts to Optimus Prime, and then rips out his own Spark. Ratchet and Jolt then proceed to turn Jetfire's remains into a battle armor for Optimus Prime, who is then able to destroy the Harvester. Optimus then faces Megatron and the Fallen. After a brief but intense battle, Optimus defeats Megatron and kills The Fallen. After the death of his master, Megatron, who has been severely damaged in the battle, follows Starscream's suggestion and retreats.

Take care, you two. May the Force be with you.

With the battle won, the Autobots, NEST, Sam and his friends return to the USA on board an aircraft carrier. Upon his return, Sam continues to attend college, while Optimus Prime sends another message detailing recent events, so the shared past of Humanity and the Autobots will not be forgotten as it was before.

Quotes

"Gotta wonder... if God made us in his image, who made him?"

—Epps, as Galloway first witnesses Optimus' transformation.

"We've shed blood, sweat, and precious metal together."
"Soldier, you're paid to shoot, not talk."
[muttering] "Don't tempt me."

—Epps is not really happy with Galloway's plan to get rid of the Autobots.

"So let me ask: If we ultimately conclude that our national security is best served by denying you further asylum on our planet, will you leave peacefully?"
"Freedom is your right. If you make that request, we will honor it. But before your President decides, please ask him this: What if we leave, and you're wrong?"

—Galloway makes the U.S. government's position on the Autobot refugees clear, while Optimus Prime counters with a pointed argument of his own

"No, uh, it's just this friend of mine went to get you a tighter shirt."
"There is no tighter shirt! We checked!"

—Sam tries to deflect a pair of frat boys

"Sam, fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing."

—Optimus Prime, trying to convince Sam Witwicky to become involved in the conflict once again

"I know you’re pissed. I know you’re pissed because I tried to kill you and it's completely understandable. If somebody tried to kill me, I’d be upset, too."

—Sam Witwicky tries to relate with Megatron, to no avail.

"Is the future of our race not worth a single human life?"
"You'll never stop at one. [Unsheathes his left blade] I'll take you all on!"

—Megatron tries to justify killing Sam, but Optimus Prime disapproves based on the potato chip theory. The most epic beatdown of the film ensues.

Sam: "These symbols gotta mean something. Like a message... or a map. A map to an energon source. Can you guys read this?"
Skids: "Read?"
Mudflap: "Nuh-uh. We don't do a lotta reading."

—Literacy with Skids and Mudflap.

"Beginning. Middle. End. Facts. Details. Condense. Plot. Tell it."

—Simmons demands more coherent exposition from Jetfire.

"One man, alone..."
"Stop saying that!"
"...Betrayed by the country he loves."
"Oh, my goodness, I'm in the car with you. You're not alone!"

—Simmons being, well, himself, much to Leo Spitz's distress.

"Now I claim your sun!"

—The Fallen does the standard "I claim victory before I have actually won" bit.

"You picked the wrong planet! Give me your face!"

—Optimus Prime warns The Fallen of his violent fetish.

"Not to call you a coward, master, but, sometimes, cowards do survive."

—Starscream pitches his usual battle plan to an unusually receptive Megatron.

"Our races united by a history long forgotten and a future we shall face together. I am Optimus Prime, and I send this message so that our pasts will always be remembered. For in those memories, we live on."

—Optimus Prime's closing narration.

Main cast

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans	Others
Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) Bumblebee (Mark Ryan)* Skids (Tom Kenny) Mudflap (Reno Wilson) Jetfire (Mark Ryan) Wheelie (Tom Kenny) Ironhide (Jess Harnell) Ratchet (Robert Foxworth) Sideswipe (André Sogliuzzo) Arcee (Grey DeLisle) Jolt	The Fallen (Tony Todd) Megatron (Hugo Weaving) Starscream (Charlie Adler) Soundwave (Frank Welker) Ravage (Frank Welker) Reedman (Frank Welker) The Doctor (John Di Crosta) Alice (Isabel Lucas) Grindor (Frank Welker) Demolishor (Calvin Wimmer) Devastator (Frank Welker) Rampage (Kevin Michael Richardson) Mixmaster Long Haul Scrapper Hightower Overload Scrapmetal Sideways Protoform army An unnamed Decepticon An Insecticon Scorponok	Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) Leo Spitz (Ramon Rodriguez) Seymour Simmons (John Turturro) Major William Lennox (Josh Duhamel) Master Sergeant Epps (Tyrese Gibson) Judy Witwicky (Julie White) Ron Witwicky (Kevin Dunn) General Morshower (Glenn Morshower) Theodore Galloway (John Benjamin Hickey) SASF Agent Graham (Matthew Marsden) Professor Colan (Rainn Wilson) Fassbinder (Jonathon Trent) Sharsky (Walker Howard) Tova Simmons (Annie Korzen)	Appliancebots Dickbot the blender guy Ejector Dyson vacuum cleaner Microwave bot Waffle iron Cappuccino bot Garbage disposal bot Hand mixer Stand mixer CISCO Aironet Seven Primes Prime #1 (Michael York) Prime #2 (Kevin Michael Richardson) Prime #3 (Robin Atkin Downes)

• Bumblebee's lines as spoken by Ryan were cut from the final movie, but one scene where his voice could be heard was in a promotional video created for ShoWest 2009.

Errors

Filming / editing / technical errors

Goddamn papparazi get everywhere!

• When the Twins crash during their pursuit of Sideways, the pairs' voices are switched, with Tom Kenny's voice coming from Mudflap as he announces he is okay, and Reno Wilson delivering the admonishments as Skids punches him.

• During the Shanghai battle, when the ramp on the NEST C-17 transport is lowering to reveal Optimus Prime in the cargo bay, a filming crew can be seen inside the plane on the left side of screen.

• The vehicle modes the Twins scan already have personalized license plates on them.

• When Sam jumps from the second story of his house to escape the kitchen robots, a stuntperson who does not look much like actor Shia LaBeouf performs the stunt.

• During the scene in which Alice meets Sam at the party Sam gets a drink and the glass is full, then the camera angle changes and the glass is half full/empty then the angle changes again and the glass is full again.

• Bumblebee picks up Sam at a frat party in the evening. He then takes him to a graveyard where it's dawn. (In real life, the graveyard is located in Philadelphia, while the frat party is set a hundred miles north in Princeton. Still, even in New Jersey traffic, the trip wouldn't take all night.)

• During Sam's campus freakout, when he drops his notes on the steps, a blonde woman in a suit can be seen coming down the steps to his left, nearly reaching him. However, when the camera angle shifts, the woman is suddenly at the top of the stairs again.

• As Alice attacks Sam, part of the window behind them is taken up by a fan. When Mikaela throws the tool box, it smashes through a glass pane where the fan had been moments before, with the fan itself now resting against the wall under the Bad Boys II poster.

• When the Autobots are driving to Sam's college shortly before the Decepticons attack him, Arcee is completely absent from the group, while previously-unseen Jolt shows up in one shot in front of the others, then when the camera angle changes, he disappears.

• In the flyover shot of the barge on which the four Constructicons sit, a red bulldozer, a concrete mixer, a green dump truck and a yellow front-end loader are visible. After the flyover shot, the yellow loader disappears and is replaced with a yellow Volvo excavator.

• During the North Atlantic sequence, on the submarine U.S.S. Topeka's sonar, there are "five contacts" diving down to Megatron's location, and "six contacts" going up after his resurrection. Since one Constructicon was killed to repair Megatron, shouldn't there be only five contacts going up as well? Keep in mind, Scalpel is too small to register on sonar, but Ravage is just large enough.

• When the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt is sunk by Decepticon transition forms, its hull number of 71 can be seen on the bridge island. However, when it sinks, a hull number of 74 can clearly be seen on the bow of the landing deck. CVN-74 belongs to the U.S.S. John C. Stennis, a carrier that shows up later in the film and was also the carrier used for filming.

• While the NEST team and Director Galloway are on the C-17 headed to Egypt, Prime's body appears and disappears from shot to shot.

• When an aide to Morshower shows him a map indicating that Lennox's NEST team have airdropped in Egypt, the location marked is actually on the eastern side of the Red Sea, in Jordan. Oops.

• In the quarry when Devastator forms, the Twins go from grimy and dust covered to showroom floor clean within two shots.

• Once again, the MQ-9 Reaper drone is referred to as the more well-known MQ-1 Predator. The drone is powered by a propeller, which can be seen when the (real) drone takes off. However, due to the usage of footage from the 2007 Transformers movie, when the (CGI) drone approaches the battlefield, the propeller is absent, replaced by a jet engine. Also unfortunate is the fact the real drone with the propeller is white, while the CGI drone is black. Oy.

• As the humans and Autobots run from the bombs being dropped on the Decepticons, a damaged Ironhide ejects the cannon on his left arm. In later shots, the cannon is back on his arm.

• It is established in the forest battle that Optimus Prime's mouthplate was destroyed in the fight. When he resurrects and fights the Fallen, he has a mouthplate again.

Story / continuity errors

• Most of the NEST and American soldiers are seen using small-caliber arms such as assault rifles, machine guns and sniper rifles against the Decepticons, despite the previous film establishing that "high-heat" sabot rounds were the only means of penetrating Decepticon armour. Even if they somehow figured out how to make small caliber ammunition achieve the "high heat" required to damage Decepticon armour, it is extremely unlikely that such low-powered weapons would do any meaningful damage that warrants such widespread usage. After all, in real life, you can't kill a tank with a machine gun, well, unless you're in G.I. Joe.

• The notion that a big metal box (containing a complex electronic mechanism shouting to be released) would ever make it through airport luggage screening is a bit on the implausible side. The novelization of the film attributes this to Mikaela's Epic Hotness distracting the guard into just letting her through; she also claims that the box contains expensive mechanic's tools which might look strange in an x-ray. Neither explanation is present in the film itself, however.

• When Alice attacks Sam and his friends, the box Wheelie is imprisoned within is taken along, but the box is not seen when Mikela and Leo escape from the foundry in Bumblebee (the box should still be inside the wreckage of the car Mikaela hotwired at the college).

• Given the Autobots are part of NEST and are dependent on the US Air Force for transportation around the world, it is not clear why Major Lennox had to be alerted to the fact the Autobots were on the east coast of the United States. Do the Autobot normally go on unexplained joyrides?

• Tasers do not cause those tased to go into convulsions.

• Where does Mikaela get the padding and gauze to bandage up Sam's hand?

• When Jetfire teleports to Egypt, Wheelie is seen landing by him, but disappears until the group reaches the border guards. After they arrive at the pyramids, Wheelie is seen rolling in with the quartet of humans, but is never seen again.

• There's no rational reason for Simmons to climb the pyramid after Devastator. It looks like he's enabling the Navy ship to "fire on his position", which is useful when the firer can't see the target. However, as we find out just before the railgun is fired, the ship can see the pyramid. (And railguns are line-of-sight weapons, anyway.) So, Simmons didn't need to climb; he could have stayed someplace safe, called the ship, and told them, "Take a look at the pyramid, and shoot the giant robot tearing it up." It's also hard to believe he wasn't crushed by the flood of pyramid stones, which at one point are raining down on all four sides of the structure.

Geographic discontinuities

The on-film splicing together of disparate filming locations is a common movie phenomena; however, we wouldn't be good pedants if we didn't point out a few of the more glaring disconnects.

• The Shanghai "industrial district" is... interesting, to say the least. There's a company sign that translates as "Empire Import and Export" (which would be the Chinese equivalent of a US company named "Soviet Import and Export") right next to a huge steel mill, dozens of civilians are being evacuated... and at least Demolishor thought that a giant mining excavator wouldn't be terribly out of place there.

• The aerial view of Princeton University is immediately followed by a ground shot of the dormitories at the University of Pennsylvania.

• After Lennox is alerted of the Autobot operation on the US east coast, he orders NEST to move out. By the time Optimus Prime is killed in battle with Megatron, it appears Lennox's transport planes are already over the United States, and by the end of the day, the NEST troops are at a US air base. Given the great distance between Diego Garcia and the United States, the short time it took them to arrive to the US is implausible.

• Grindor drops the car with Sam, Mikaela and Leo inside into a factory just outside a huge city. Yet when Optimus Prime and Bumblebee rescue them and flee, they almost immediately reach a huge forest that was nowhere to be seen in the aerial shot of the factory.

• When Jetfire is activated at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (actually the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, an annex of the Smithsonian) in Washington, he leaves the exhibition center and exits into the desert location of the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (aka The Boneyard), which is in Tuscon, Arizona. When Jetfire breaks out of the building, we can see a composited image of the Boneyard's rows of planes, so it's arguable that in this universe the middle of Washington DC happens to be a desert full of old planes, and no buildings and... you get the point. Michael Bay actually admits this to be a deliberate choice in his audio commentary for the movie, and suggests that "most people in Taiwan" would probably never notice the error.

• The movie gives the impression that Giza in Egypt and Petra in Jordan are in close proximity to each other—within eyeshot, even. In reality, the two locations are about 416 kilometers (258 miles) apart. What makes this even more problematic is the fact that Egypt and Jordan don't share a common border—there's a country named Israel between them, whose existence isn't even mentioned in the movie...

• Furthermore, the movie gives the impression that the Pyramids of Giza are located near the coast—the soldiers and tanks deployed from amphibious vehicles arrive at the battle site almost immediately. In reality, the closest sea shore, the tip of the Red Sea, is still over 70 miles away from the Pyramids. Worse, when the railgun is fired, a monitor screen shows footage of the pyramids with the ocean in the foreground, making it appear like they're no more than a mile or two away from the shore. Worse still, this is immediately followed by a shot of the pyramids that shows nothing but desert in the direction the railgun shot is coming from.

Transformers references

In addition to carryovers from the previous film, various concepts and characters are derived from previous iterations of Transformers:

• The whole concept of "Transformers disguised as a human" used for Alice is inspired by the Pretenders. Roberto Orci even used the term "Pretender" during an interview before the movie's release. However, a Transformer with an "organic" alt-mode instead of an external shell is a concept more reminiscent of the Beast Era.
• The Generation 1 iteration of Jetfire is frequently portrayed as switching from Decepticon to Autobot (he's usually a young and technologically up-to-the-minute 'bot, however.)
• Soundwave and his ejectible minion Ravage both have Generation 1 counterparts. Movie Soundwave even has the same voice actor as 1984 cartoon Soundwave, using the same voice, though without the synthetic vocal processing that made the cartoon voice so distinctive.
• Sideswipe bears little physical resemblance to his Generation 1 namesake, but is a vaguely similar character archetype, and he does have that characteristic door armor hanging from his elbows.
• Generation 1 Arcee was the first female Transformer with a starring role, and was likewise a pink-colored girlbot. The idea of Arcee the pink girlbot as a motorcycle dates back to Energon.
• Devastator, the combined form of the Constructicons, was the first combiner robot in Generation 1.
• The characters are new, but the names "Sideways", "Demolishor", "Mudflap", "Skids", "Jolt", "Rampage" and "Wheelie" are not. Likewise for the concept of "Seekers".
• Optimus Prime dying and coming back to life has been done times beyond counting.
• Prime combining with another 'bot to form a Super Mode which increases his power (and often gives him flight capabilities) is a trope that has occurred in many recent Transformers series (Robots in Disguise, Armada, Energon, Cybertron.) In Armada, a different Jetfire was his most frequent combination partner. This is the first time the other 'bot had to die for it to happen, though.
• The Fallen is based on a comic book character that made his debut in the 2004 miniseries The War Within: The Dark Ages. In fact, according to Hasbro, he is the exact same character! (It's complicated.)
• The Matrix of Leadership is one of the franchise's oldest MacGuffins.
• Energon (mentioned though never seen) is the Transformers' power source in numerous incarnations, beginning with the original cartoon.
• The concept of a protoform as the first stage of a Transformer is a reference to the same concept introduced on the Beast Wars cartoon.
• Though it is almost certainly not an actual reference (it's a pretty generic and predictable sci-fi trope), the solar harvester is quite similar in function to the Solar Needle from the Generation 1 episode "Changing Gears", sucking energy from the Sun to produce energon. Both devices would have destroyed the Sun if allowed to fulfill their function.
• The same is true for Sam having Cybertronian knowledge pumped directly into his brain via a sacred Transformer talisman, which is reminiscent of Buster Witwicky's similar situation in the Marvel G1 comics.
• A newspaper is sucked into Devastator that headlines a photograph and accompanying article about a mysterious appearance by Shockwave.
• When Mudflap and Skids first appear in their Ice-Cream Wagon disguise, they play the Transformers Theme Song in a very "ice-creamish" way.

Other editions

• A slightly longer edit was shown in IMAX theaters, which featured some brief additional scenes filmed with special IMAX cameras. An exclusive deal with Paramount resulted in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince not being shown in IMAX theaters until two weeks after the movie's regular theatrical launch.
• It has been suggested that some international versions of the movie had the words "suck my" in the "Decepticons suck my popsicle" slogan on Skids and Mudflap's ice cream truck mode blanked out, hence only reading as "(Decepticon logo) [blank space] popsicle". This was not done across the board, however–theaters in those very same countries also showed uncensored versions of the movie. Another explanation for this would be that different theaters simply used different lightings settings, which effectively rendered the words "suck my" (which were written in dark red on a black backdrop to begin with) invisible, with no actual intention of "censorship" behind it.

Prequel material

Titan Magazines Transformers movie comics

While the Decepticons were disgusted with the pro-Autobot propaganda of Bay's first documentary #13's Star Screams, they were quite optimistic about the second film. Starscream took a strong interest in it, going to the trouble of personally convincing Soundwave to be in the film 15's Star Screams.

The Decepticons promised this new documentary would show a glorious Decepticon victory #10's Star Screams—whether it was in the script or not. #18's Star Screams

Shockingly, even they were under a non-disclosure agreement regarding the script; Starscream fearfully referred to a greater power keeping him quiet. #22's Star Screams Talking about it could even undermine the Decepticon war effort! #23's Star Screams

In the same week the film came out, the Decepticons suddenly became unhappy with it and the detente period ended. Bay, Kurtzman, and Orci are once again marked for extermination for their propaganda films. #1's Law and Disorder

Titan Magazines Revenge of the Fallen movie comics

The sinister, unseen figure of the Fallen is secretly gathering a Decepticon army on Cybertron. Skids and Mudflap, slacking off there at the time, accidentally discover this and flee to Earth to warn the other Autobots. Training Day An attempt to kill them fails Dogfight!, but due to their rep of telling tall tales, no one believes them. It doesn't help when they accidentally help Grindor escape capture. Learning Curve The Fallen's agent Soundwave decides to use this, and first frames the twins as turncoats Reversal of Fortune, then has them freed by their 'Decepticon allies' so they'll be hunted down.

After a few days of this, the twins began to regret ever getting involved, and Soundwave offered them sanctuary in the Decepticon army and the embrace of the Fallen: an offer they were eager to accept... Outlaw Blues

Adaptations

Main article: Revenge of the Fallen Movie Adaptation

Children's adaptations

Sequels

Two sequels to the first Transformers movie were greenlit in the wake of its success, with Revenge being the first. Although Michael Bay had previously stated that he might need a break from giant space robots before tackling a third film, he confirmed a July 1, 2011 release date on his blog.

IDW is going to do a comic sequel, Nefarious, which is lead into by Tales of the Fallen issue 5.

Home video releases

Revenge of the Fallen was released by Paramount Pictures on DVD (as both a 2-disc special edition and a regular single disc version) and Blu-ray on October 20th in the United States, and November 30th in the UK.

Theatrical posters

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  Teaser poster
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  Theatrical poster
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  International poster
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  Prime poster
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  Bumblebee poster
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  Wait...Starscream gets a poster but Megatron doesn't? That's just wrong.

Reception

Transformers: ROTF has mostly gotten pretty hideous reviews, but that's because people don't understand that this isn't a movie, in the conventional sense.Michael Bay Finally Made An Art Movie, Charlie Jane Anders, i09.com, June 24, 2009

[The critics] never seem to understand that I make movies for people to take a ride and escape.forum post by Michael Bay, shootfortheedit.com, June 25, 2009

Rarely have critics been more disconnected from what audiences want and love.John Horn, The Los Angeles Times, June 29, 2009

Revenge of the Fallen had its world premiere on June 8th, 2009, in Tokyo, Japan. Michael Bay, Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Isabel Lucas and Ramon Rodriguez attended.. Other countries such as South Korea, the United Kingdom and Germany followed over the course of the next few days. The United States premiere was held on June 22nd, 2009, in Westwood, California, during the Los Angeles Film Festival for the second time.

In the week leading up to the United States release, while the film had been released in Japan and the United Kingdom, Revenge of the Fallen was ranking 38% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.com. As American reviews were added into the ranking on June 24, the movie's freshness slipped slowly to 22%. RottenTomatoes.com's consensus was that "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a noisy, underplotted, and overlong special effects extravaganza that lacks a human touch." Roger Ebert, who had given the first Transformers film three stars , gave Revenge one star, and remarked that "if you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together." Todd Gilchrist of Cinematical.com said Michael Bay "has exceeded even the possibilities of sequel-driven 'moreness,' combining his own muscular, high-gloss sensibility with the conventions of blockbusters past, present, and probably future to create a monolithic action masterpiece that feels destined to be the biggest movie of all time." Michael Phillips from the Chicago Tribune said "the first, comparatively lucid Transformers was a headache, but I sort of enjoyed it....Revenge of the Fallen is more like listening to rocks in a clothes dryer for 2½ hours." Roger Ebert went back for more in a second article, declaring not only that Revenge of the Fallen was awful, but that it'd ruined action films FOREVER. In the face of many harsh responses to his own critique, Mr. Ebert went back a third time, not just deconstructing the film but also declaring that fans who claimed to perceive it as "great" were simply wrong.

Needless to say, we're all crying our eyes out.

Despite the overwhelmingly negative reviews, Revenge of the Fallen poised itself quickly as a blockbuster maelstrom. It grossed $16 million in its opening midnight showings alone, an all-time record for Wednesday openings and a second-best for openings on any day of the week behind The Dark Knight. After the full Wednesday was over, Revenge of the Fallen had grossed $55 million in domestic ticket sales, surpassing the previous Wednesday release record, held by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by over $10 million. By the end of the first five days, Revenge of the Fallen had taken an estimated $201.2 million in the United States, just shy of The Dark Knight's record $203.8 million 5-day US total. In the same period, international markets took in $186.1 million, bringing the 5-day worldwide total to $387.3 million.

Paramount's U.S. exit polling revealed several intriguing facts: While the 2007 Transformers movie viewership skewed 60-40% toward men over women, the split for the new film was more even at 54% male, 46% female. More than 90% of those surveyed stated that Revenge of the Fallen was as good as or better than the first Transformers movie. Surprisingly, about 67% said the film was "excellent", an even better score than for Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman's critically acclaimed 2009 Star Trek movie.

After two weeks in most markets, Revenge continued to defy critics and dominate the U.S. box office, narrowly defeating Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs on the Fourth of July weekend, finishing with upwards of $300 million in the U.S. and a similar figure in international markets. As of September 6, 2009, Revenge has grossed more than $829 million worldwide (versus $708 million for Transformers), including $400 million from US box offices alone (versus $319 million for the first movie).

On October 20, Revenge sold 2 million copies of its DVD/Blu-Ray release in the first 24 hours.

Awards and recognition

On February 1, 2009 it was announced that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was nominated for seven Golden Raspberry Awards. It was awarded three of them, for Worst Picture, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay. This presumably represents an improvement from 2007 film, which received only one nomination (Jon Voight in the Supporting Actor category) and no wins.

On February 2, 2009, it also announced that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was nominated for an Academy Award for Sound Mixing. On March 7, it lost to The Hurt Locker.

Controversies

• A huge flap revolved around the characters of the "Twins", Skids and Mudflap. Many critics and viewers believed them to be racist stereotypes of poorly educated black American teenagers. Much evidence points to the pair actually being stereotypes of poorly educated white American teenagers, trying their best to sound like hardcore black urban gangsters... though it's still a racist stereotype of dubious taste. Director Michael Bay, when confronted with those accusations, claimed that the personalities of the two characters had been primarily created in the recording studio by voice actors Tom Kenny and Reno Wilson. Wilson (who is African-American himself) was sad to learn his way of speaking was apparently offensive to himself. Screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci confirmed that this portrayal of the characters hadn't been in the script, and admitted that they could understand the controversy.

• At least one reviewer claimed to find a repellent "anti-Arab subtext" to the movie's climactic scenes, which involved the damage or destruction of various Middle Eastern landmarks. The editors of this wiki are somewhat less than convinced.

• Along the same lines, Chinese viewers reportedly criticized the depiction of Shanghai in the opening scene of the movie. Apparently, depicting an industrial area as "very shabby" is an "insult" to an entire country, as is the destruction of parts of the city during a battle between alien robots. Regardless, Revenge topped the box office in China, dethroning 1997's Titanic as the most successful movie of all times there.

• The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, a lobbyist group that already complained about the first film, is currently trying to lobby the Federal Communications Commission into tightening regulations for marketing movies rated "PG-13" and associated merchandise to children. The basic reasoning behind their complaints is that Revenge contains "intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, brief sexual humor, and language" and "would have been rated R fifteen years ago", and yet Hasbro's associated toys are advertised during TV programs aimed at children. Hasbro themselves appear to be still undecided about their official position regarding the more "mature" tone of the movies and its ramifications for the brand's public image, having left several questions to this effect unanswered.

Production staff

• Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman recruited Ehren Kruger to help them write the screenplay. Michael Bay and producers Don Murphy, Tom DeSanto, and Lorenzo di Bonaventura also returned.

Development details

Cast and crew signing on

On May 30, 2007, a month before the official release of Transformers, DreamWorks announced that two sequels were already being planned. Megan Fox had already been confirmed for the first of those sequels twelve days earlier, while Shia LaBeouf had already confirmed his participation in an—at that time still theoretical—sequel in November 2006. Director Michael Bay, meanwhile, only once briefly questioned his involvement in a sequel in August 2007, when Paramount Pictures announced that Transformers would be released on HD DVD, but not on Blu-ray Disc. Bay quickly changed his mind, however, and Paramount would later release the first movie on Blu-ray anyway, after the HD DVD had been abandoned.

In September of 2007, Paramount officially announced the first sequel for June 2009. Bay was given a budget of $200 million, and ultimately managed to come in $4 million below that.

The Transformers screenwriters, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, initially hesitated writing the sequel, but ultimately had a change of mind. In October 2007, Ehren Kruger was confirmed as a third writer, who, according to Kurtzman, brought in a "fresh perspective", and who reportedly impressed both director Michael Bay and Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner with his knowledge of Transformers mythology.

In April 2009, Roberto Orci confirmed that cartoon voice actor Frank Welker would voice Soundwave. Welker had previously been considered as Megatron's voice actor in the first movie, but ultimately Michael Bay had given that part to Hugo Weaving instead. Both Bay and the writers were also hoping that Leonard Nimoy could voice a character in the movie. Even though Nimoy openly asked Bay to simply give him a call, it ultimately never worked out: after watching his guest appearance on Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Bay selected Tony Todd - whom he worked with on The Rock - for the voice of The Fallen instead.

Writing and production

For the movie, Orci and Kurtzman searched the various Transformers comics and cartoons for "the most elemental bad guy", and eventually found one in The Fallen.

In addition to that, they wanted to include many things in the sequel that hadn't made it into the first movie, including the Decepticon Soundwave. Likewise, the Matrix of Leadership had initially been intended to be used in the first movie, but for fear of confusion with the Matrix movies, the cube had been renamed into the All Spark. In return, the Matrix in Revenge of the Fallen bears more resemblance to the Generation 1 Matrix.

In late 2007, during pre-production for the then-untitled Transformers sequel, the Writers Guild of America went on strike, but according to all parties involved, this didn't slow down preparations of the movie much in the long run. Screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci turned in their first outline of the script the night before the strike officially began. During the strike, director Michael Bay used the script as a basis for preparing the movie. After the strike had ended, Kurtzman, Orci and Ehren Kruger continued their work on the script, based on Bay's changes. One consequence of this development was that Michael Bay and Hasbro had selected some of the new Transformers characters that were to appear in the movie during the strike, because of the long production run of the toys, while they had legally not been allowed to consult with the screenwriters. The "Twins", Skids and Mudflap, are Bay's creation.

In early June of 2008, DreamWorks, Paramount and Hasbro officially confirmed the movie's title to be Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. A few weeks later, Roberto Orci confirmed that there would be no "2" in the title.

Principal shooting began in June 2008 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Other shooting sites were Philadelphia, the campus of Princeton University, Long Beach, the Holloman Air Force Base and the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Some scenes were also shot in other countries, at the Pyramids of Giza and in Luxor, Egypt, in Jordan and in Paris.

According to director Michael Bay, Revenge is the first movie in about 30 years to be given permission to shoot at the Pyramids of Giza, and the first movie ever to film on top of Petra. He obtained permission to film in Egypt by contacting Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's council of antiquities, who turned out to be a fan of the 2007 Transformers movie.

During the time of shooting, actor Shia LaBeouf suffered a severe injury of his left hand in a car accident. Ultimately, however, filming was only briefly halted, and his injury worked into the film, thereby not adversely affecting the filming schedule. For the movie, director Michael Bay earned himself an entry in the Guiness Book of Records for the "biggest explosion on film with actors present".

Sponsors and partners

Hasbro

Hasbro once again acted both as a licensor and actively participated in the development of the movie. Together with the first Transformers movie, the G.I. Joe movie Rise of the Cobra and several other planned movie projects such as Monopoly, Stretch Armstrong and Battleships, Revenge of the Fallen marks the beginning of a new company policy for Hasbro, believing that the new "the movie of the toy" strategy will be more lucrative than the old "the toy of the movie" concept, which involves hefty licensing fees. Still, director Michael Bay receives an 8% cut of all toy sales from the Transformers movies. During the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, when nobody was legally allowed to consult with the screenwriters, Hasbro and Bay selected several of the new Transformers characters that were to appear in the movie.

US military

The United States military also supported the movie again, providing vehicles, shooting locations and military personnel that appear as extras in the movie. Due to scheduling coincidences, Revenge of the Fallen was given a larger support by the US Department of Defense than G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra, which was produced at the same time. Initially, Bay had intended to include German Bundeswehr soldiers in the movie (presumably as members of NEST or on board the AWACS plane), but even though the soldiers were eager to participate, the German government denied the request.

General Motors

American car manufacturer General Motors once again provided vehicles that were used by the Autobots as their alternate modes. Returning from the first movie were the GMC Topkick (Ironhide), the Hummer H2 (Ratchet) and the new Chevrolet Camaro (Bumblebee), the latter this time as a slightly updated Z/28 model as compared to the first movie's concept car model. Newcomers for Revenge of the Fallen are all from the Chevrolet brand, namely the Chevrolet Beat (Skids), the Chevrolet Trax (Mudflap), a new Chevrolet Corvette Stingray concept car (Sideswipe) and, as a last minute addition, the new Chevrolet Volt electric car (Jolt).

In total, General Motors provided 67 vehicles, 52 of them being prototypes not intended for sale. As a consequence of the 2007-onwards financial crisis, however, General Motors reduced their financial support for Revenge in April of 2009.

Director Michael Bay estimates that, without the support of General Motors and the military, production of the movie would have cost $10 million more than the $195 million ultimately spent. Coinciding with the release of Revenge of the Fallen, General Motors reported that sales of the new Chevrolet Camaro were so strong that orders were outrunning the supply, even though the car was being sold above MSRP in many places. A direct connection to the movie, however, could not be proven.

Product placement

As in the first movie, numerous companies signed a deal with the filmmakers which allowed for their product being featured in prominent places in the movie. A Mountain Dew vending machine can be seen in Leo's room, computer screens feature visible Cisco logos, Sam and Mikaela intend to communicate via iChat, a huge HSBC logo is seen at Times Squre in New York City, a Budweiser bottle is prominently featured in one of the Paris scenes, CNN is everyone's preferred news channel, and a giant IMAX logo is seen inside the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. In return, Mars heavily advertised Revenge of the Fallen with their chocolate candy brand M&M's.

Changes before, during and after production

• The three Autobot motorcycles were at one point meant to combine into a larger robot, but this was ultimately abandoned for unknown reasons. Concept artwork for this combined mode has surfaced, and this feature was mentioned in the novelization and appears to remain in the toys.

• According to comic book writer Simon Furman, the Dinobots had been in an early draft of the movie's plot, but were dropped from the cast very early in development.

• According to the pre-visualization animation from the movie DVD's bonus material, Sideways was originally supposed to have a Lamborghini alternate mode as compared to the Audi R8 seen in the film.

• Springer, an Autobot who transforms into a V-22 Osprey, was to be a character in the movie, but was dropped from the cast during production. However, he was dropped so late during production that Hasbro still released Legends and Robot Heroes versions of the character based on the abandoned movie design–in the first waves of their respective assortments, no less.

• Likewise, the Deluxe Class Breakaway and Scout Class Depthcharge and Ransack toys are based on designs Ben Procter had originally created for the movie. Breakaway had the early working name "Firestorm", while Ransack was originally conceived as a Ford Model T.

• Soundwave was originally intended to come to Earth and scan a black Chevrolet Silverado pick-up truck as his new alternate mode. The Deluxe Class Soundwave toy still retains some elements of this abandoned concept in robot mode, particularly a Cybertronian version of the Chevy grill and small headlights on the lower torso.

• Several plot points about the Dynasty of Primes were dropped from the final version of the film, but feature prominently in the adaptations. In the original version, the Dynasty was founded by Thirteen Primes, eleven of whom were killed by The Fallen, with the sole survivor sealing the Matrix in the Tomb of the Primes by himself. The Fallen returned to Cybertron and killed all the Primes' descendants, save the one hidden from him who had no knowledge of his ancestry: Optimus. Additionally, The Fallen would have been revealed to have promised Megatron the powers of a Prime, which Optimus would expose as impossible during the final battle around the harvester, causing Megatron and Starscream to leave The Fallen to his death.

• The Fallen was originally supposed to be trapped inside a triangular sarcophagus as seen in Alliance. Alliance writer Chris Mowry reportedly nearly spilled his coffee when he watched the movie for the first time and saw The Fallen just sitting in a chair inside the Nemesis.

• One scene that didn't make it into the final movie would have explained Alice's sorta-human disguise: In it, Leo watches a TV ad featuring an Alice in Wonderland animatronic from an amusement park, which heavily resembles Alice. The scene was featured in the comic adaptation and the novelization. It's unclear if the scene has actually been filmed; however, the movie still features the follow-up scene in which Leo shows up to tell Sam something about Alice, only to see her robot tongue strangle him.

• Sam was to have been established as a new vessel for the AllSpark, absorbing its knowledge, which would have explained how he managed to get a scholarship to Princeton. When he was dying in Egypt, the knowledge of the AllSpark would then have transferred to the dust within the Matrix of Leadership, which was created by the AllSpark. The movie would have ended with Optimus showing Sam that he'd recovered the Matrix, which now replaced the Cube as the AllSpark's physical form.

• Another possibly dropped plot point involved an explanation for the government's cover-up of the Mission City battle in the first movie. The robots would have been declared the creations of a company either named McClaren Robotics or Massive Dynamics, which allegedly had gone rogue by accident. This is referenced in Alan Dean Foster's novelization of the movie (where the company is named "Massive Dynamics"), the junior novelization The Last Prime and IDW Publishing's comic adaptation (where the company is named "McClaren Robotics"). A McClaren sign is also briefly seen in IDW's Alliance issue 4. An extensive casting call list leaked to the internet in April 2008 listed a "Massive Dynamics CEO" as one of the new characters. Presumably, actor Steve Tom was originally intended to play the character in the movie. His official website is listing him as appearing in Revenge ever since July 2008, even though he isn't actually listed in the film's credits. Back in July 2008, IMDB also listed Tom as playing the role of McClaren Robotics' CEO, wheras Theiapolis Cinema listed him as the CEO of Massive Dynamics at the same time. It's unclear if the scenes featuring Tom were cut or dropped from the script before they were even filmed.

• Epps' wife, Monique, was also supposed to appear in the movie together with Lennox's wife Sarah. The casting call from April 2008 lists her under the working name "Theresa". The original plan was that Sam would contact Epps and Lennox by calling their wives and asking them to pass on information to their husbands. This scene appears in the novelization and in IDW's comic adaptation; in the movie, the wives are never seen, and instead of Sam, it is Simmons who contacts Epps and Lennox directly.

Disinformation

In October 2007, an alleged treatment for the (at that point still unnamed) Transformers sequel surfaced on the internet. While producer Don Murphy soon claimed that it wasn't real, Michael Bay's website administrator "Nelson" countered by suggesting that it wasn't a fan creation, then referred to an ambiguous post he had made a few days earlier, in which he had hinted that information might be spread that would not be entirely reliable. What followed was a brief back-and-forth with Murphy accusing Nelson of "stirring shit up", which prompted Nelson to counter that he had better sources than Murphy.

In April 2008, director Michael Bay claimed he had initiated a huge disinformation campaign in order to prevent content details from the movie being revealed to the public before he wanted them to. Ultimately, Bay himself turned out to be the main source of genuine disinformation, despite claiming that only what he said was 100% true. Therefore, the disinformation campaign mostly hinged on fans believing in its existence, and rejecting any genuinely "leaked" information, including set photos, statements by third parties such as Hasbro or IDW Publishing and stolen toy prototypes, as "disinformation". Screenwriter Roberto Orci eventually admitted that the disinformation campaign wasn't really working.

In June 2008, when principal shooting had just begun, a call sheet was leaked to the internet, which revealed the casting of Ramon Rodriguez as a character named "Leo", the appearance of an Audi R8 and Arcee as well as a character with the working name "Stinger". Furthermore, an ice cream truck that had just been spotted on the Bethlehem set a day earlier was hinted to be two characters only referred to as "The Twins". Lastly, the call sheet revealed that the next shooting location would be the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, where an SR-71 Blackbird would be revealed to be a Decepticon named Jetfire. A character named "Wheels" was also supposed to appear in that scene. In July 2008, Bay then claimed that fake scripts, treatments, "wrong schedules and call sheets with fake scenes on them" had been deliberately leaked to the internet.

In August 2008, after a Chevrolet Volt vehicle had been spotted on the set of Revenge, General Motors reluctantly admitted having provided the car to the production crew, and that the car would indeed appear in the film, but claimed that it was no production vehicle (i.e. some details may differ from the final car, similar to Bumblebee's Concept Camaro in the first movie). Chevrolet also claimed that the Volt was only used for one or two days of shooting, and that it would only "appear in the movie very briefly", and "not as a Decepticon or Autobot", so it would "not have a Transformer nickname". (While it's true that Jolt was a last-minute addition to the movie, the car was spotted again later at a different set.)

For the longest time, Bay upheld the position that Megatron would not return in Revenge of the Fallen. After concept designs of Megatron's new alternate mode had surfaced (some of which would later turn out to be designs for the RPM Megatron toy), Bay insisted that this was "just Hasbro coming up with a new toy", and Megatron would not appear in the movie. Following officially released evidence to the contrary (including Megatron's brief appearance in the February 1 Superbowl TV spot and the February teaser trailer), screenwriter Roberto Orci confirmed that Megatron would indeed return. Shortly afterwards, Bay retracted his claims, but not entirely, suggesting that Megatron would only appear in a flashback scene "from the long lost past", despite the fact Megatron could be seen pinning Sam Witwicky to the ground in the aforementioned TV spot and teaser trailer. He also denied that Megatron would transform into a tank.

Bay and/or Paramount also tried to have information prematurely revealed by third parties contained after the fact: During San Diego Comic-Con 2008, in an interview on July 25th, comic book writer Simon Furman revealed that the film would feature a character named The Fallen, which was a character they had created for Dreamwave's The War Within: The Dark Ages. Three days later, IDW Publishing writer Chris Mowry corroborated the claim in an interview with MTV Splash Page, calling "The Fallen" the main villain of Revenge. Arcee was also confirmed in the same interview. Less than a week after this, however, Michael Bay reiterated that everything leaked thus far was part of his alleged disinformation campaign, and that only a handful of people involved with the production of Revenge of the Fallen had actually seen the script, contradicting IDW's interviews where their representatives confirmed that they had the script. Additionally, Bay claimed the only truth about the film revealed up to that point was Sam going to college. Curiously, on August 5th 2008, after a fan had pointed out the contradiction to Bay, all references to The Fallen (and Arcee) were removed from the aforementioned interviews, as well as any references to IDW Publishing having the script.

Other (in)famous instances of disinformation included an alleged sighting of both Jazz's Pontiac Solstice vehicle mode and voice actor Darius McCrary on the Bethlehem set (it's possible that someone mistook an Audi R8 or the Chevrolet Corvette concept car for a Pontiac Solstice, and McCrary might have genuinely visited the set out of sheer curiosity) and an "update" to a (legitimate) casting call that contained nothing but fake character names and descriptions, including a funeral director who would allegedly bury Simmons. It's unclear whether any of these were instances of deliberate disinformation on behalf of Bay, or just attention-seeking fans coming up with made-up "scoops" on their own. Futhermore, three Barricade's Saleen Mustang prop vehicles were spotted on a truck bed in Culver City, California, in March 2008, more than two months before principal shooting for Revenge started. It's unclear if this was an instance of deliberate disinformation, or just a genuine move of the vehicles with no further intention beind it.

Notes

• The official title of the film is Revenge of the Fallen (with a lower-case "t" in "the") even though it is apparently referring to The Fallen (with a capital "T" in "The").
• Leo's room features posters for Naruto, Cloverfield, and Bad Boys 2.
• During the scenes set in and around the deli in NYC, posters for the bands Catch Twenty-Two and Voodoo Glow Skulls are prominently featured.
• Even though Revenge features mostly domestic voice actors for the foreign market dubs, Frank Welker voiced Soundwave not only in English, but also in the Italian dub. As a result, in the Italian dub of the movie, Soundwave speaks with a strange, foreign accent. Welker is also incorrectly credited for voicing Soundwave in the German dub, even though Soundwave's actual German voice actor was Horst Lampe, who previously also voiced Ratchet in the German dub of Transformers Animated. Welker is also credited for an unspecified voice role in the Latin Spanish dub, most likely Soundwave again.
• The prequel novel introduced other Autobots into the ranks of NEST—Longarm, Salvage, and Knockout. They were present up until the events directly leading into the Shanghai incident, but were not present for any of the events featured in the film or adaptations. The Veiled Threat
• In July 2007, only a week after after Transformers had premiered in the USA, nearly two years before Revenge of the Fallen was to premiere and half a year before a script would actually be written, a "synopsis" for the (at that point still untitled) sequel to Transformers was posted on IMDB, containing vague guesses for a potential plot direction based on the first movie (Starscream returning to Cybertron and taking command of the remaining Decepticons–which would actually happen in IDW's The Reign of Starscream comic–and "Skorpinox" [sic] stealing Megatron's body from a military base, in contrast to the first film's actual ending), including several glaring spelling and grammar errors. The "synopsis" was eventually exposed as the work of Next and xXx: State of the Union director Lee Tamahori, who wanted to use it as a pitch to offer himself to Paramount as a cheaper alternative for Michael Bay. Regardless, the "synopsis" was still heavily featured by other websites, including foreign theaters and media, despite multiple evidence (trailers, official information provided by Paramount, leaked information about the involvement of a character named "The Fallen") suggesting that the alleged "plot" was pretty much bunk. The fake synopsis still persists in some places even after Revenge has already hit theaters, despite being directly refuted by the film itself.
• While Transformers used 20 terabytes of disk space for visual effects, Revenge of the Fallen used 154 terabytes.
• The Chinese name for Revenge of the Fallen was called "Decepticon Strikes Back" for a while before the title was changed into "The War of Revenge" in theaters and media in Taiwan around mid to late 2008.

External links

• Dreamworks/Paramount's Transformers Movie website
• Hasbro's Transformers homepage
• Designer portfolios: Josh Nizzi, Ryan Church, Duncan Crawford, Paul Ozzimo, Steve Jung, Ben Procter, Sean Haworth
• Interview with Michael Bay 02/09/2009 — Collider.com