Posting on the Don Murphy message board, Transformers and Transformers Revenge of the Fallen writer Roberto Orci has confirmed that himself and Alex Kurtzman will not be returning to write a third film.
He goes on to state later in the same discussion thread that Ehren Kruger will be taking on full writing chores for the third movie, and assures fans that Mr Kruger knows his Transformers.
Autobot 47
tl;dr
Since I'm also registed at shootfortheedit.com/forums as the same name, I've opened a thread with a poll called "What I don't want to see in TF3". So head over and cast your vote or write them in the thread. I hope Michael Bay reads them.
Ruthie
Peter Jackson has a horror movie background and that worked well for the LOTR movies.
Hey, you quit too soon. The rest of the thread is as fun and entertaining as you could imagine.
And this is what the movies are really all about: appealing to a broad base in order to expand the franchise. I know of several people who jumped onto the TF bandwagon because of the first movie, only to be underwhelmed by ROTF for many different reasons. It's the general audience's by-in that will make or break TF3.
Oddly enough, there is a very strong story amid the mess that was ROTF; however, it was masticated by the "too smart by half" approach. Shame that.
*crosses fingers and toes and eyes* I'm investing a lot!
ManiactoaLaco
I really don't know if this is a good or bad thing..
MTL
General Magnus
Guess we need to tell that to the Seekers and some other transformers then…
omegagoalie
Yeah. There was NEVER one bot that shared another bots mold or look..Ever. Especially not any of the Seekers.
transtrekkie
Ok, I'll give him a chance to screw everything up. Ok, kidding. Seriously though, I actually have a real crystal ball and even I don't know what's going to happen.
Wheeljack_Prime
Shared bodytypes is a plothole? Gosh, that's NEVER happened before in TF fiction…
Ash from Carolina
Between Orci, Kurtzman, Kruger and even Bay dipping into the writing it's really hard to say exactly who wrote what. All we really have to go on is people going hey not me it was the other guy.
So who knows maybe Kruger wrote some the good bits like Prime not being blind to the fact that Humans can be just as nasty as Decepticons or maybe he wrote the parts that made some of us cringe.
Third movie is his chance to shine since the story is his puppy now. Maybe the pessimistic crowd like me is right or maybe the more optimistic people are right, but until we get to see Kruger's story we are all just making our educated guess as to if he's up to writing a nice sci fi/superhero story that we will like.
General Magnus
I think Grindor fought a bit. Granted he was fighting against the leader of the Autobots, so he did not had much of a chance.
Eric
Grindor didn't even have to be in the movie at all. A few quick rewrites here and there, and they could have Blackout take Grindor's place.
Or is Grindor Blackout? Silly me, I'm still pissed off about that unresolved plot hole.
But Blackout's/Grindor's/useless Decepticon drone #12's death, IMO, just wasn't really satisfying. If Simon Furman can kill off a character, he'd make Blackout's/Grindor's/useless Decepticon drone #12's death the best of all the deaths he's done, because Blackout/Grindor/useless Decepticon drone #12 would rather actually FIGHT and then die then just show up and let Prime rip his face off like a serial killer.
Wheeljack_Prime
I'm not too keen on Simon being anything more than a consultant. Other than a few [choice and overdone] individuals, a lot of the characters he writes act quite interchangably and nondistinct
shroobmaster
I'm yet to see him pull anything cooler than Grindor's death,
TFfan08
This ^^
Give Kruger a chance. Give him a chance!
Eric
What are you playing at? Simon Furman could at least kill off the unimportant characters in creative ways! Can he do less?
Chris B
I'm disappointed to see Orci and Kurtzman go because I really respected that fact that they would interact with the fans. But I'm willing to give Kruger a chance. If its true about him being well-versed in the mythology, then he's already gained a few points in my book. Though if the claims that he was partially responsible for some of the more cringe worthy moments in ROTF are true, then that' s a concern.
Just have to wait and see. I'd like to think that TF3 will benefit from the fact that they wont lose 4 months of development time due to a writers' strike.
aprim
I would like to see the Autobots lose a battle! Maybe they can bring Dev back as a asskicking robot instead of a tool! I mean he was such a monster but wreaked almost no threat.
Megatron should really kick some ass the first half, or even have a battle that the autobots have to run and lose something.
I can't see what they can do, Prime beat the crap out of everyone before the Jetfire Upgrade, after he had the matrix he really made light work of the Fallen and Megatron. I would of like to see him meet someone that wasn't such a pushover. Dinobots would spark my interest but I scared of what bay may do with something like that.
shroobmaster
That's something I can agree with, except for the factory battle (movie's highest point) you're not thinking "I wonder how they'll get out of this one", just "I wonder how the AUTOBOTS will destroy the Decepticons this time"
Ash from Carolina
Fingers crossed he can bring some of that on the edge of your seat feeling that the good guys might not win this time. I mean you think Prime is a hero now just imagine if it's written so you didn't feel like winning was a forgone conclusion.
shroobmaster
That should be no problem, in many of his movies you get the feeling that the bad guys gonna win, hell in Arlington Road they even DO win!
Ash from Carolina
I guess you could call it maybe science fiction/superhero. Sure they are robots but they fill the same rolls that superheroes and super villains fill. Heck with Jetfire's teleporting they even seem to be headed back to what would pass for superpowers if they were an organic character.
Since Kruger has never written any superhero type films then who knows maybe that will be the thing he's really good at, or maybe he will not be good at.
Of course if he wants my confidence then at some point Kruger needs to talk about the importance of the villains to a film and how he'd like to get away from bots that appear without being given some sort of personality.