Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a 2009 American science fiction action film based on Hasbro's Transformers toy line. The film is the second installment in the Transformers film series and the sequel to Transformers (2007). The film is directed by Michael Bay and written by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman. Taking place two years after the previous film, the story revolves around Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen), Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), and the Autobots allying once again in the war against the Decepticons, led by Megatron (voiced by Hugo Weaving). An ancient Decepticon named the Fallen (voiced by Tony Todd), seeks revenge on Earth and intends to find and activate a machine that would destroy the Sun and all life in the process.
This article is about the film. For other uses, see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (disambiguation).Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
- Roger Barton
- Paul Rubell
- Joel Negron
- Thomas A. Muldoon
Paramount Pictures
- June 8, 2009 (Tokyo)
- June 24, 2009 (United States)
150 minutes[3]
United States[2]
English
$836.5 million[6]
With deadlines jeopardized by possible strikes by the Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild, Bay managed to finish the production on time with the help of previsualization and a scriptment. Shooting took place between May and September 2008, with locations in Egypt, Jordan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and California, as well as air bases in New Mexico and Arizona. It is the last film in the series to star Megan Fox.
It premiered on June 8, 2009, in Tokyo and was released on June 24 in the United States. The film received generally negative reviews from critics. It won three Golden Raspberry Awards at the 30th Golden Raspberry Awards ceremony and became the highest-grossing film to win the Worst Picture award. The film surpassed its predecessor's box office gross worldwide with $836.5 million, making it the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2009. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound Mixing, at the 82nd Academy Awards. With over 11 million home media sales in 2009, it was also the top-selling film of the year in the United States. It was followed by Transformers: Dark of the Moon in 2011.
Plot[edit]
In 17,000 B.C., the Primes (the highest ruling Cybertronians) gather their energy, Energon, from star harvesters, machines that consume stars to harness their energy. The Primes have a sacred rule to never deplete a star that sustains life. One Prime violates this rule by building a star harvester on Earth, for which he was defeated by the other six Primes, and becomes "the Fallen", the original Decepticon.
In 2009, two years after the battle of Mission City,[a] the Autobots and the humans have formed NEST (Non-biological Extraterrestrial Species Treaty), a classified joint task force to eliminate the remaining Decepticons. Two of them, Sideways and Demolishor, are defeated in Shanghai, but the latter warns of the Fallen's return before being killed. Meanwhile, the Decepticon Soundwave hacks a military satellite to track and steal the last known piece of the AllSpark shard from a U.S Navy base in Diego Garcia. They use it to resurrect Megatron, and Megatron returns to the Fallen. The Fallen sends Megatron and his second-in-command, Starscream, to capture Sam Witwicky alive and kill Optimus.
Meanwhile, Sam, now attending college at Princeton University, has been seeing Cybertronian symbols since holding a smaller AllSpark shard; Megatron believes the symbols will lead the Decepticons to a new Energon source. The shard brings many of the kitchen appliances to life, which attempt to kill Sam and his parents but Bumblebee rescues them. Sam gives the shard to his girlfriend Mikaela Banes, who later captures the Decepticon Wheelie as he attempts to steal it. After being attacked by Alice, a Decepticon Pretender posing as a college student, Sam, his roommate Leo, and Mikaela are captured by the Decepticon Grindor before the Autobots save them. Optimus fights off Megatron, Starscream, and Grindor before Optimus kills Grindor. Megatron then kills Optimus while he defends Sam, and the Decepticons launch devastating attacks around the world, while Megatron and Soundwave hijack Earth's telecommunications systems, which allows the Fallen to send a message to the humans, demanding that Sam be handed over to him.
Sam, Mikaela, and Leo then find alien expert and former Sector Seven agent, Seymour Simmons, who reveals the Transformers visited Earth for a long time and the most ancient, known as Seekers, remained hidden on Earth. With help from Wheelie, they track down an elderly Decepticon turned Autobot Seeker named Jetfire at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. They use their shard to revive Jetfire, who teleports the group to Egypt. Along with Jetfire, Wheelie sides with the Autobots, and Jetfire sends them to locate the Matrix of Leadership, the star harvester's key, which could also be used to revive Optimus. The group finds the Matrix, whom the Primes sacrificed themselves to hide, in Aqaba, but it disintegrates into dust.
Meanwhile, NEST forces and the Autobots land near the Giza pyramid complex and are attacked by the Decepticons. The Constructicons combine to form Devastator, who reveal the star harvester hidden inside a pyramid before he is destroyed. A majority of the Decepticons are annihilated by multiple airstrikes from the Navy and the U.S Air Force, but Megatron manages to kill Sam. The Primes speak to Sam, saying that the Matrix must be earned, not found and that he has the right to bear it by sacrificing himself for Optimus. They resurrect Sam and grant him the Matrix, which he uses to resurrect Optimus. The Fallen steals the Matrix from a weakened Optimus and uses it to activate the star harvester. After a wounded Jetfire sacrifices himself to allow his parts to be used for additional power and flight, Optimus destroys the harvester and kills the Fallen. Heavily damaged and distraught by his master's death, Megatron retreats with Starscream. The Autobots and their allies then return to the United States, and Sam and Leo return to college.
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
Major hurdles for the film's initial production stages included the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike as well as the threat of strikes by other guilds. Prior to a potential Directors Guild of America strike, Bay began creating animatics of action sequences featuring characters rejected for the 2007 film. This would allow animators to complete sequences if the Directors Guild of America went on strike in July 2008, which ultimately did not happen.[9][10] When asked about directing a sequel while promoting the first Transformers film, Bay said "you have your baby and you don't want someone else to take it".[11]
Screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who had written the first film, originally passed on the opportunity to write a sequel due to schedule conflicts. The studio began courting other writers in May 2007, but were unimpressed with other pitches and eventually convinced Orci and Kurtzman to return.[9] The studio also hired Ehren Kruger, who had impressed Bay and Hasbro president Brian Goldner with his knowledge of the Transformers mythology.[12] The writing trio were paid $8 million.[9] Screenwriting was interrupted by the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike, but to avoid production delays, the writers spent two weeks writing a treatment, which they handed in the night before the strike began.[13] Bay then expanded the outline into a 60-page scriptment,[14] which included more action, humor, and characters.[13][15] The three writers spent four months finishing the screenplay while "locked" in two hotel rooms by Bay; Kruger wrote in his own room and the trio would check on each other's work twice a day.[16]
Orci described the film's theme as "being away from home", with the Autobots contemplating living on Earth as they cannot restore Cybertron, while Sam goes to college.[17] He wanted the focus between the robots and humans "much more evenly balanced",[18] "the stakes [to] be higher", and more focused on the science fiction elements.[19] Orci added he wanted to "modulate" the humor more,[20] and felt he managed the more "outrageous" jokes by balancing them with a more serious plot approach to the Transformers' mythology.[21] Bay concurred that he wanted to please fans by making the tone darker,[22] and that "mums will think it[']s safe enough to bring the kids back out to the movies."[23] Two elements were added late into the film: the Autobot Jolt—as General Motors wanted to advertise the Chevrolet Volt—and the railgun that kills Devastator, a new acquisition by the United States military.[24]
In September 2007, Paramount announced a release date for the sequel to Transformers in late June 2009.[25] The film was given a $200 million budget, which was $50 million more than the first film,[26] although Variety put the budget spend at over $210 million, after rebates.[5][1][27] Some of the action scenes rejected from the first film were written into the sequel.[28] Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura later stated the studio proposed filming two sequels simultaneously, but he and Bay agreed that the idea was not the right direction for the series.[29]
Prior to the first film's release, producer Tom DeSanto had "a very cool idea" to introduce the Dinobots,[30] while Bay was interested in including a Transformer who transforms into an aircraft carrier, a concept which was dropped from the 2007 film.[31] Orci claimed they did not incorporate these characters into Revenge of the Fallen because they could not think of a way to justify the Dinobots' choice of form,[17] and were unable to fit in the aircraft carrier.[32] Orci later admitted that he was dismissive of the Dinobots because he does not like dinosaurs, saying "I recognize I am weird in that department."[33] However, he became fonder of them during filming because of their popularity with fans.[34] He added "I couldn't see why a Transformer would feel the need to disguise himself in front of a bunch of lizards. Movie-wise, I mean. Once the general audience is fully on board with the whole thing, maybe Dinobots in the future."[35] When asked on the subject, Michael Bay said he hated the Dinobots and they had never been in consideration for being featured in the movies.[36]
During production, Bay attempted to create a misinformation campaign to increase debate over what Transformers would be appearing in the film, as well as to try to throw fans off from the story of the film; however, Orci confessed it was generally unsuccessful.[32] The studio went as far as to censor MTV and Comic Book Resources interviews with Mowry and Furman, who confirmed Arcee and The Fallen would be in the picture.[37] Bay told Empire that Megatron would not be resurrected, claiming his new tank form was a toy-only character,[26] only for Orci to confirm Megatron would return in the film in February 2009.[38] Bay also claimed he faked the leaking of daily call sheets from the first week of filming, that revealed Ramón Rodríguez's casting,[39] and the appearance of Jetfire and the twins.[40]
Filming[edit]
Principal photography lasted from roughly June to November, 2008. Inspired by its use in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, three action sequences in Revenge of the Fallen were shot using IMAX cameras.[22] Although screenwriter Roberto Orci suggested that the IMAX footage would be 3D,[41] Bay later said he found 3D too "gimmicky". Bay added that shooting in IMAX was easier than using IMAX stereoscopic 3-D cameras.[42]
The majority of interior scenes for the film were shot in the former Hughes Aircraft soundstages at Playa Vista.[43] From June 2–4, the production filmed an action sequence at the Bethlehem Steel site in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which was used to represent a portion of Shanghai.[14][44] Afterwards, they shot at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.[45]
The crew moved to Philadelphia on June 9, where they shot at a defunct PECO Richmond power station, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, the Eastern State Penitentiary, Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia City Hall, Rittenhouse Square, Wanamaker's, and historic Chancellor Street, which represents a street near Place de la Concorde in Paris.[46][47]
The production moved to Princeton University on June 22.[48] Filming there angered some students at the University of Pennsylvania, believing Bay had chosen to reshoot scenes at Princeton and script Princeton's name in the film. One shot that was filmed in the University of Pennsylvania was the party scene, filmed at what students call "The Castle". "The Castle" is home to the Psi Upsilon Fraternity. However, neither the University of Pennsylvania nor Princeton gave Bay permission to be named in the film because of a scene that both institutions felt "did not represent the school" in which Sam's mother ingests marijuana-laced brownies.[49]
Release[edit]
Theatrical[edit]
Revenge of the Fallen premiered on June 8, 2009, in Tokyo, Japan.[100] After its UK release on June 19, it was released in regular and IMAX theatres in North America on June 24,[101] although some theaters held limited-access advance screenings on June 22. Linkin Park held a special show after the premiere at the Fox Theater, Westwood Village on June 22, during which they performed "New Divide" live for the first time. The IMAX release featured additional scenes of extended robot fighting sequences, which were not seen in the regular theater version.[102]
Home media[edit]
The film was released in two-disc Blu-ray and DVD editions, and a single-disc DVD version on October 20, 2009, in North America.[103] Michael Bay has revealed that the Blu-ray release of the film, produced by Charles de Lauzirika, features variable aspect ratio for the scenes shot in IMAX format. A special “Big Screen” IMAX edition was available exclusively at Walmart.[104] Home versions include over three hours of bonus content and several interactive features, including "The AllSpark Experiment", which reveals Michael Bay's plans for a third movie in the series. At Target, the DVD and Blu-ray versions includes a transformable Bumblebee case. Both two-disc editions are the first to include Paramount's Augmented Reality feature, which allows the user to handle a 3-D model of Optimus Prime on a computer by moving the package in front of a webcam.[105] First-week sales of the DVD reached 7.5 million copies, making it the best-selling DVD of 2009. The Blu-ray version had the best first-week sales of 2009, with 1.2 million units.[106] Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was released on 4K UHD Blu-ray on December 5, 2017.[107] The film grossed $276 million in home sales.[108]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
Revenge of the Fallen was a box office success, earning $402.1 million in the U.S. and Canada and $434.2 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $836.5 million, being the 37th-highest-grossing film of all time domestically.[109] Revenge of the Fallen grossed $16 million from midnight showings, at the time the most ever for a Wednesday midnight debut.[110] For 13 years, it achieved the biggest previews for a Paramount film until 2022 when Top Gun: Maverick ($19.3 million) took it.[111] The film proceeded to beat Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix's record ($44.2 million) for the biggest Wednesday opening in history,[112] bringing in $62 million in total receipts on its first day (until The Twilight Saga: Eclipse topped this record with $68.5 million in 2010),[113] additionally ranking it as the second biggest opening day ever at the time, behind The Dark Knight.[114] The film grossed $109 million on its first weekend, the seventh-largest in history at the time, and brought in $200 million in its first five days, putting it in second place behind The Dark Knight's $203.7 million for the all-time biggest five-day opening.[115] It would hold the record for having the highest five-day Wednesday opening gross until it was taken by The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($204.6 million) in 2023.[116] Its gross from Friday to Sunday was also the biggest June opening weekend for one year, breaking Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban's record ($93.7 million), until Toy Story 3 claimed that record the following year ($110.3 million).[117]
Revenge of the Fallen remained #1 at the box office for two weeks straight by a close margin before being overtaken by Bruno ($30 million) and the second weekend of Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs ($28 million). Initial studio estimates showed a tie between it and that weekend's new release Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, but the actual totals showed Revenge of the Fallen taking the #1 spot yet again with $42.3 million.[118] Also, it was the first film of 2009 to reach the $300 million mark in North America.[119] On July 27, a month after its release, the movie reached $379.2 million in the US, which brought it into the top 10 highest-grossing movies ever in that country as of August 2009.[120] Among 2009 films, it was the second-highest-grossing in the United States and Canada, behind Avatar,[121] and fourth globally behind Avatar, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.[122] Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 53 million tickets in the US.[109]
Critical response[edit]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 20% based on 250 reviews, with an average rating of 4.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a noisy, underplotted, and overlong special effects extravaganza that lacks a human touch."[123] On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 35 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[124] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[125]
According to The Washington Post, Revenge of the Fallen was Bay's worst-reviewed film at the time of release, faring even worse than Pearl Harbor (2001).[126] Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times described the film as "in-your-face, ear-splitting and unrelenting. It's easy to walk away feeling like you've spent 2 hours in the mad, wild, hydraulic embrace of a car compactor".[127]
Roger Ebert, who had given the 2007 film three stars,[128] gave the sequel only one, calling it "...a horrible experience of unbearable length", a phrase which later became the title of his third bad-movie-reviews collection. Later in his review, Ebert discouraged movie-goers from seeing the film by saying "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. Then close your eyes and use your imagination."[129] He later wrote on his blog about the film, "The day will come when Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will be studied in film classes and shown at cult film festivals. It will be seen, in retrospect, as marking the end of an era. Of course there will be many more CGI-based action epics, but never again one this bloated, excessive, incomprehensible, long (149 minutes) or expensive ($200 million)."[130] Ebert would continue to lambast the film (and, sometimes, the Transformers franchise in general) in other movie reviews and responses to letters and emails sent to him. Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers called it "beyond bad, it carves out its own category of godawfulness" and did not give the film any stars, considering that "Revenge of the Fallen has a shot at the title 'Worst Movie of the Decade'."[131] He later named it as the "worst film of the decade". Other reviewers, while still critical, were less damning of the film, The A.V. Club gave the film a "C−", complaining about the writing and length, but mentioning the effects and action scenes were impressive.[132] Among positive reviews, Amy Biancolli of the Houston Chronicle called it "a well-oiled, loudly revving summer action vehicle that does all that's required, and then some",[133] Jordan Mintzer from Variety said it "takes the franchise to a vastly superior level of artificial intelligence",[134] and Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly wrote that "Revenge of the Fallen may be a massive overdose of popcorn greased with motor oil. But it knows how to feed your inner 10-year-old's appetite for destruction."[135] A review from Empire said :"What saves it, just about, are the effects. At times the frame is so packed with whirring cogs and twirling cranks that you could replicate the effect by staring at the innards of a domestic appliance, but when these CGI moto-men from another world duke it out, the images are often so screwy it’s impossible to do anything but sit and stare."[136]
There was considerable negative reaction to the characters Mudflap and Skids, who some perceived as embodying racist stereotypes. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times said that "the characters [...] indicate that minstrelsy remains as much in fashion in Hollywood as when, well, Jar Jar Binks was set loose by George Lucas".[137] Critic Scott Mendelson said "To say that these two are the most astonishingly racist caricatures that I've ever seen in a mainstream motion picture would be an understatement."[138] Harry Knowles, founder of Ain't It Cool News, went further, asking his readers "not to support this film" because "you'll be taking [your children] to see a film with the lowest forms of humor, stereotypes, and racism around."[139] Bay (the director) has attempted to defend the film as "good clean fun" and insisted that "We're just putting more personality in."[140] Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman responded to the controversy with "It's really hard for us to sit here and try to justify it. I think that would be very foolish, and if someone wants to be offended by it, it's their right. We were very surprised when we saw it, too, and it's a choice that was made. If anything, it just shows you that we don't control every aspect of the movie."[141] Tom Kenny stated in a late 2020 interview that he was hired as a placeholder for the role of Skids, but that Michael Bay ended up using his voice in the final version of the film; a decision that Kenny admitted he was embarrassed by.[142]
Actor Shia LaBeouf was unimpressed with the film, stating "We got lost. We tried to get bigger. It's what happens to sequels. It's like, how do you top the first one? You've got to go bigger. Michael Bay went so big that it became too big, and I think you lost the anchor of the movie...You lost a bit of the relationship. Unless you have those relationships, then the movie doesn't matter. Then it's just a bunch of robots fighting each other."[143] Bay has admitted his disappointment with the film and has apologized, saying the film was "crap" and blaming the 2007–08 Writers' strike, saying "It was very hard to put (the sequel) together that quickly after the writers' strike (of 2007–08)".[144][145]
Accolades[edit]
In a year-end poll administered by Moviefone, the film won in both the best and worst categories. It was voted the "worst film of 2009" by 24% of those surveyed, while also winning the vote for "best action movie" again with 24% of the vote. Fox's performance was voted the worst by an actress that year, and she was also voted the year's sexiest star.[146] Comcast ranked the film as the 4th-worst sequel of all time.[147] Empire named the film the 25th-worst movie ever made.[148] In June 2009, David Germain from the Associated Press called the film the "worst-reviewed $400 million hit ever".[149]
Revenge of the Fallen was nominated for Best Sound Mixing (Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, and Geoffrey Patterson) at the 82nd Academy Awards.[150] The film won five Scream Awards, for Best Actress (Megan Fox), Breakout Performance-Female (Isabel Lucas), Best Sequel, Best F/X, and Scream Song of the Year ("New Divide");[151] and two Teen Choice Awards, for Choice Summer Movie Star: Female (Megan Fox) and Choice Summer Movie Star: Male (Shia LaBeouf).[152] Revenge of the Fallen was also nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film but lost to Avatar,[153] Satellite Awards for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound,[154] a VES Award for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Feature Motion Picture,[155] a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble,[156] and an MTV Movie Award for Best WTF Moment (Isabel Lucas turning into a Decepticon).[157][158] Shia LaBeouf, the film and Megan Fox was nominated for a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite Movie Actor, Favorite Movie and Favorite Movie Actress.[159] Revenge of the Fallen received each nomination at two Golden Trailer Awards ceremonies: Best Teaser (2009) and Best Animation/Family TV Spot (2010).[160][161]
It was nominated for seven Razzie Awards including Worst Actress for Megan Fox (also for Jennifer's Body), Worst Supporting Actress for Julie White, Worst Screen Couple (for Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox) and Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel,[162] winning three in the Worst Picture, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay categories at the 30th Golden Raspberry Awards.[163]