Transformers [UA Edit]

Transformers: The No Subtitle Edition. (I gave up bothering to think of one, so I'm just sticking with the plain title.)


Yeah, I know...everyone and his dog is editing Transformers nowadays. And I figured I should get some of my cuts out there so that by the time I finally finish it, it doesn't just look like I ripped off everyone else. Plus, this might stop me from clogging up other people's threads with my patented, "Oh man, that's what I was gonna do!"â„¢

So far, there are still big chunks that I haven't even touched yet, (like the infamous "Sam searches for glasses" scene. ) so this list is only what is already actually done. (Not including clean-up tweaks.)



*Classic transformation sound effect added to any scenes where the length of the transformation is enough to warrant it.

*New opening titles.

*Mikaela is introduced for the first time when Sam is running away from Bumblebee. No school, no lake, no drive home.

*Sam's friend is gone. No drive to the lake, no dog-washing.

*Removed readout on Air Force One that lists Captain Witwicky's first name incorrectly.

*No Frenzy flipping the bird. He still 'sneaky-walk's across the tarmac though...probably one of the only sight gags I actually laughed at.

*Sam no longer arrested. (Although still fluctuating...depends on how other edits go.) I have a shortened, less-silly Precinct scene in case the arrest is kept.

*No news playing the next morning at Sam's home. A semi-familiar song instead.

*Hacker subplot remains, (to justify their appearance at later points of the story) but big chunks of it removed.

*Barricade no longer scans Sam with his extendo-probe.

*Little re-ordering when Sam yanks Mikaela off her bike. Fixed up terrible looping of Sam in one shot. Less chatter after Barricade is shown running towards them.

*Replaced rock music with score cue when Barricade is chasing Bumblebee.

*During the chase, there's a really terrible time cut (early day to night) so I moved two other scenes in between the two halves.

*Bumblebee no longer locks the doors or shuts off the engine. (Incidentally, Bumblebee no longer has engine trouble of any kind. It just doesn't make any sense to me.)

*Removed Mikaela's "They know your name." right after Optimus gets up in Sam's face for the first time.

*So far, I've kept the entire Autobot intro scene. I cut three or four versions so far, but wasn't happy with the flow of any of them. Still WIP.

*Dropped Ratchet explaining Bumblebee's voice. (Also gone is Bee getting it back at the end. There's simply no mention of Bee speaking in this version.)

*Optimus no longer uses a hologram to start his 'History of Cybertron' story. It's just kind of weird...the holo makes Sam and Mikaela act like the road is destroyed, but then the perspective shifts to being for the audience only, as the next time we see Sam and Mik, they are just looking at Optimus and listening.

*During the story, Optimus mentions Archibald Witwicky, and we get a cutaway of Sam saying, "My Grandfather." Yeah, we get it...it's only been mentioned about a thousand times already. Cut.

*In the Sector 7 car, removed mention of Sam's arrest and Mikaela's 'bad dad, bad girl' back-story.

*Removed Simmons' blathering to Optimus. He just gets out a "Hi there." Before Optimus orders him out of the car.

*Removed more Mik back-story and some of the pointless back-and-forth between Sam, Mikaela, and Simmons.

*No Bumble-Pee, nor any shots of Simmons afterwards. There's not a speck of info in that material that is needed. Also removed Simmons from 'Bumblebee captured' scene.

*Frenzy does not grow his body back.

*No Nokia-bot. No Mountain Dew, XBOX or 'steering wheel' (?) bots. In this edit, the AllSpark is never shown fixing or creating robots. The way it is used to create life should (IMO) be more mysterious, and certainly more difficult than just bumping into someone while holding it.

*When Bee is about to touch the AllSpark, removed Epps saying, "Okay...He doin' somethin' He doin' somethin'"

*Re-ordered the good guys leaving Hoover Dam, intercutting with Megatron's unfreezing. Megs no longer yells, "I am Megatron!"

*All the scenes in the radio room are gone. So long, you expendable characters, you.

*Removed visit to pawn shop to acquire radios.

*Completely re-ordered most of the city scenes, such as...

After Bee gets his legs blown off, he hands the AllSpark to Sam straight away. Sam no longer stands around forever while everything happens around him...now, Brawl attacks and Sam immediately takes off with the Cube without being told to. Mikaela runs off to get the tow truck after Sam has run. No, "You're a soldier now!" crap, (Yeah, they use a teenage boy because they can't spare one soldier?) and less of the Autobots telling Sam to run when they could just take the Cube themselves. There is no longer a specific plan to run the Cube to a building or signal choppers.

When Brawl attacks, Jazz is the first one to take him on, not Ironhide.

Ironhide no longer does his show-off move where he fires into the ground so as to somersault over a screaming woman in slo-mo. I've joined the first part (driving, starts to transform) with the second time we see him (Diving sideways while firing at Brawl.)

Optimus now arrives directly after Megatron kills Jazz. No more Megs standing around for no reason.

Removed Sam cowering while Starscream fights with Ironhide and Ratchet. After Starscream lands, Sam gets back up and keeps running, and Megatron immediately lands and starts chasing him. Sam has no plan, he's just running to get away.


*No "I'll drive, you shoot." The look between Bee and Mik beforehand is plenty. No "Shoot, shoot!" either.

*Sam no longer has a flare when on the roof, no attempt at a chopper hand-off or chopper destruction. Megatron comes busting through the roof as soon as Sam runs out onto it.

*When Optimus is thanking Sam, "We are in your debt..." I've inserted a well-known line from the 1986 film.

*When Optimus is handed the remains of Jazz, I removed the "Awww" from his dialogue. The sad, "Jazz." Is good, but the "Awww" seems a little comical...corny somehow.

*No rock song finale. I actually don't mind the song, but I wanted the ending to be more sombre, so I've stuck to score. The end credits use score only too.

*No Optimus voiceover in either the opening or closing scenes. Yeah, everyone loves his closing speech, but it doesn't tell us anything crucial we need to know. If I could have gotten it out clean, I might have kept it but I wanted the song out more than I wanted the speech in.

Still toying with the Autobot arrival to Earth. The score is great here, but I haven't decided yet if that's enough to save a sequence that's half cool, half terrible, all unnecessary.


More info to come when I have some. I work slowly and sporadically though, don't hold it against me.


Edit: Previews removed by Paramount. I guess I'm lucky I didn't get my account closed again.

sounds like a hell of an edit.

Thanks Nom.

Preview clips added to post. They're on YouTube, so if they're removed soon don't be surprised.


Also, one new change made just now. The message on Sam's phone that Simmons plays back is now the exact thing that Sam actually said, whereas before it did not match. (The preview clip was made before this change.)

*Replaced rock music with score cue when Barricade is chasing Bumblebee.

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I dont think that putting Optimus Theme in that scene is a very good idea...

btw - there is no such robot as "Brawn" - Brawl or Devastator (as subtitles say).

I'd say that your changes are too much for me, but good luck with it anyways

Enson said:

I dont think that putting Optimus Theme in that scene is a very good idea...

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What makes it a specifically Optimus theme? It shows up several times, and in only one of those is Optimus on his own. Either way, I'm using it as more of a general Autobot theme, intended use be damned.

Enson said:

btw - there is no such robot as "Brawn" - Brawl or Devastator (as subtitles say).

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Gah, you're right. Confused myself with the G1 Autobot Brawn. :-o

But yeah, the tank is Brawl as far as I'm concerned. The Devastator tag isn't in my edit.

I'd say that your changes are too much for me, but good luck with it anyways

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Thanks. And plenty of TF edits on the way to choose from. ...not to mention the very well-regarded Resparked, naturally.

What makes it a specifically Optimus theme?

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Well, maybe you're right, I've just checked in the movie, and there is another theme when Optimus transforms in mission city and I thought it was the same one as his first transformation.

The Devastator tag isn't in my edit.

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That's good. And what about second use of the same footage of Barricade and Blackout's Moustache-man hologram.

Thanks. And plenty of TF edits on the way to choose from

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In fact I like first TF movie as it is, but on the other hand Revenge of The Fallen needs editing badly (and I'll do it myself as soon as i get the dvd).

Enson said:

And what about second use of the same footage of Barricade and Blackout's Moustache-man hologram.

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Both gone. I don't dig repeated footage.

In fact I like first TF movie as it is

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Even better. Having the official disc as your preferred version is always the dream.

Those clips look great so far.

Sluggo said:

I have the instrumental version if you need it.

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It isn't that one, but I appreciate the offer. I'll also keep it in mind for any other spots, if that's okay.

Just say the word. It could be a nice nod to the old movie.

I think there are two different 'classic' Transforming sound effects. There's a sound effect when they turn into a robot where the sound moves up, and then when they turn back into a vehicle they transform down again. It sounds like you are only using the transforming up into a robot sound effect.

Nitpicking: although your placement and timing of the transformation sounds is spot on, you should pay attention to which kind you use.

There are two types of transformation sounds; vehicle to robot and robot to vehicle. The first one in your first clip is correct, going from low to high pitch for Barricade transforming from car to robot. The second one is incorrect; when Barricade transforms from robot to car you used the same sound when it should have been the high to low pitch one.

Otherwise, I agree with most of your changes. Looking forward to this one.

Well spotted Gibson. No prizes for second place, Blue.


I made that choice because of the SFX I have. The transformation sound I have is a 'movie-fied' one, which is a mixture of the Bay style clanking and the cartoon style. It meshes well, whereas I couldn't get the true cartoon one to truly feel like it belonged. Even the film itself has this problem...the one that you hear when Blackout transforms for the first time has a oddly different fidelity to it than the rest of the sound effects. To my ear, at least.

That said, I'm still working on the audio for this, so I may give it another try. I'm not putting in much effort to up the G1 on this though, that headache belongs to Reave.


EDIT: I've just flicked through the edit, and switched all the 'to vehicle' transformations back to their original form. Seeing as I was only supplementing some of the transformations anyway, it's not too much of a change.

Oops - completely missed that post, there.

If you need help with Transformers sound effects, I'm your go-to guy. Just PM me and we'll work something out.

Thanks Blue. Never did find spots for those other audio grabs you gave me, but still have 'em just in case.

Oh man, that's what I was gonna do! :wink:

Low blow! I haven't said that in a couple of months.

Looks interesting and I'm really looking forward to it:

*All the scenes in the radio room are gone. So long, you expendable characters, you.

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if there's no radio signal sent for the army - why do you keep the hacker subplot at all? This is basically the only thing they do. Of course it is strange when the blonde girl and the black guy suddenly appear - but this whole subplot is really slowing the whole movie down.
By large segments of the hacker plot will be gone - how large and what will remain?

btw. will you rip Transformers 2 apart to?

Sunarep said:

if there's no radio signal sent for the army - why do you keep the hacker subplot at all?

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My first pass dropped the hacker stuff, but I reinstated it for two reasons. The film was starting to become a little short for my liking, and having Maggie and Glen around during the Hoover Dam scenes felt unconnected and unjustified to me. ...They (the early scenes) also gave me some precious "cut away to..." material that I really needed in the first half of the film.

By large segments of the hacker plot will be gone - how large and what will remain?

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I still haven't locked the cut, but as it stands now the scenes (or parts thereof) that remain are:

Maggie copies data. (15 seconds.)
Maggie goes to Glen's house. (70 seconds.)
They unlock the data and the Feds arrive. (40 seconds.)
Donut scene. (150 seconds.)
Voight comes to get them. (20 seconds.)

I'm not so sure any more of how much I removed. Seems to be less than I thought. It's more a trimming of each scene than an outright removal. Hopefully they'll breeze by for those people who hate them.

btw. will you rip Transformers 2 apart too?

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I wasn't gonna bother originally...but now I'm kinda looking forward to it.

Timing can be pretty funny sometimes. This is finished now. New edit list will be attached to edit page when it goes up...there's a fair few bits and pieces that have changed since I last updated.

Sorry to anyone who thinks two [edit: Make that three] versions of the same flick at once is too many, but choice is the spice of life. IDIC and all that.