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[william-james88]

To those who watched Transformers Rise of the Beasts, you may be curious about what was cut and how the movie changed during production. We will have 3 articles detailing different aspects such as a cut character, scenes we saw in the trailers and from the set videos that were cut, and the difference between earlier test screenings and the final film.

We already went over the the cut character and now we will look at what was cut/changed from the original trailer. Here it is, you'll probably notice some very different shots (like the one in the thumbnail).



Now compare that transformation for Optimus Primal to this one from the final movie and you'll see that it was completely redone.



The same goes for the Transformation moment of Cheetor as well, which is "shot" from the front in the final edit rather than from the back.

There is a lot more than this, but those are pretty big since we've been told that the CGI is the most expensive aspect about this movie and yet it seems we have different takes on the final battle with different animations, transformations and moments. Plus remember that shot of Rhinox in the cave? Not there either.



And the same goes for the final part of the first trailer where Elena sees Arcee.

There are also lines that were dropped such as:

Mirage saying “He eats planets, so uhhh way bigger than a planet”

Airazor saying “Optimus, we must trust each other to protect the home we all share”

Scourge saying “In the end, everything you ever cared for will be consumed”

You'll let us know of other moments you remember from the trailer that did not end up in the film in the end.

[Bounti76]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember Rhinox speaking at all in the movie, yet David Sobolov is credited as his voice actor. I remember Cheetor speaking one or two lines very briefly, but nothing from Rhinox.

[william-james88]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember Rhinox speaking at all in the movie, yet David Sobolov is credited as his voice actor. I remember Cheetor speaking one or two lines very briefly, but nothing from Rhinox.

Rhinox has one line, he says "clear the way" after Noah talks to him and Primal during the final fight.

[First-Aid]

And the same goes for the final part of the first trailer where Elena sees Arcee.

There are also lines that were dropped such as:

Mirage saying “He eats planets, so uhhh way bigger than a planet”

Airazor saying “Optimus, we must trust each other to protect the home we all share”

Scourge saying “In the end, everything you ever cared for will be consumed”

You'll let us know of other moments you remember from the trailer that did not end up in the film in the end.

To me, even if they weren't in the movie, leaving in the trailer makes sense from the standpoint that, although Unicron was briefly mentioned in TLK, I'd wager that the vast majority of the general populace/moviegoers probably aren't aware of what he represents. By leaving those lines in the trailer, it gives a very brief summary of just what is at stake to those unfamiliar to the Chaosbringer.

[william-james88]

Regardless of what you think of the Rise of the Beasts film, it shows that the director and writers did see the robots as the titular characters that they are rather than giant props in the background. Steven Caple Jr, the director was a fan of the source material and did good on his word to provide a Transformers movie with a focus on the Transformers as much as he could (we previously wrote why that's usually not the norm in these films). So it begs to reason why Wheeljack was such a change from his previous look, especially when he had a more accurate look in the Bumblebee movie. Well, it turns out that this decision and push was out of his hands according to this interview from UPROXX. From the interview below, we see that this more nerdy look came from the higher ups, be that Hasbro or Paramount (not that it matters, both companies must sign off on these decisions) and that Wheeljack's look was changed so that he can be more different from the rest of the cast, both in look and the personality inferred by the look. Also, we've gotten early designs of the film which show that Wheeljack's new design was done at a very preliminary stage of production, before Caple was even attached to the film. And it remained this way. Along with Wheeljack, ee have other "previs" designs to share with you from Fred Pashe, who also worked on Beast Machines back in the day. Enjoy!

"When I got into the film, they had already wanted the Wheeljack part of this picture, but they wanted to redesign it and actually lean more into the science and nerdy part of Wheeljack. They felt like the Wheeljack – I don’t know if this is the studio or Hasbro who was here before me – he was kind of falling into the lane of the other characters. Kind of tough. Ironhide, and those kind of vibes. Just didn’t feel like enough variety across the board. And so, for me as a fan, I was like, “All right, how can I keep some of the essence?” But I was like, I’m going to just dive deep into the lore and just gave him his whole sort of personality and a different look as we start to now develop and move on. But yeah, that was it. It was no shade or callbacks to the other Wheeljack at all. But people started calling Pablo Wheeljack, which I thought was kind of funny. And Cristo likes it too. He’s like, “I’m down for that.” Cristo Fernandez, who plays him, which is cool."

[Bounti76]

I mean, to be fair, he wasn't as bad as I'd thought. Also, at least his "glasses" served an actual purpose and weren't just an overly human aspect of the character design.

[Quantum Surge]

Previs Wheeljack is how Pablo Haters see him before praying to his Beewun form

[epyon927]

To be fair live action Hound wasn’t I pictured him to be. Pot bellied, middle aged with a beard! But he has a place as will Pablo Wheeljack!

[Brokebot]

To be fair live action Hound wasn’t I pictured him to be. Pot bellied, middle aged with a beard! But he has a place as will Pablo Wheeljack!

Yeah, I really didn't need a Hound that looks like me. I don't need the representation.

[D-Maximal_Primal]

To be fair live action Hound wasn’t I pictured him to be. Pot bellied, middle aged with a beard! But he has a place as will Pablo Wheeljack!

Hound is still one of the best bots to come out of the bay movies, and he and Crosshairs are probably the best to come out of AOE

[william-james88]

To those who watched Transformers Rise of the Beasts, you may be curious about what was cut and how the movie changed during production. We will have 3 articles detailing different aspects such as a cut character, scenes we saw in the trailers and from the set videos that were cut, and the difference between earlier test screenings and the final film.

We already went over the the cut character and the scenes in the trailer that were changed or removed, and now we have a detailed account of an early cut of this film seen in a test screening, so you can see how much the film has changed since. I'm personally sad to see that Cheetor calling Primal "Big Bot" was removed, along with the removal of the Transit scene of course. You'll let us know if you prefer this original version or not. This analysis was done by TF fan Cyborgraptor.

The first big obvious changes I’ll get out of the way are the beginning and the ending.

The scene I see everyone talk about, that's notoriously known for being cut, was the Transit fight. Funny enough, this scene was one of the more completed sequences in my cut, since the rest of the movie was still very much in production (about 80% pre-vis)



So the movie originally opens with an Optimus Prime monologue about how for the last few years, the Autobots have stayed hidden as they continued to be hunted by Decepticons, but he's still determined to find a way to get back home and take the fight back to Cybertron and there's a line about how "The hunted have now become the hunters..."

Visually you see stars that transition to the wet streets of NY as Prime drives through the city and pulls into a bus lot. He transforms (you see this in the 2nd trailer) and announces "I know you're here..."
A bus pulls out, revealing a Decepticon logo on the front grill, and transforms saying things like "You can't find us all, Prime. We'll get you eventually!" A fight ensues and it's pretty sick. There's a part where Prime grabs Transit's head and pushes it into a nearby bus and grinds it throughout the inside of the bus. Prime demands to know where the con's ship is, but Transit laughs and tells him that he blew up his ship just for the satisfaction of knowing the autobots can't get off this planet to save his Autobots back home, and even shows a hologram of Autobots being executed as they swear Optimus will return to save them (rough, right?) and this pisses Prime off. I don't remember the specifics of how Transit dies, but I know Prime uses his axe.(which, in my version, they borrowed the DOTM axe model AND that was actually the only time he used the axe in my cut iirc) The scene ends with Optimus dragging Transit's body, and dumping it into a nearby river, and as it floats, Transit lands on top of a revealed pile of cons so you know Optimus has been doing this for a while. HE monologues about not giving up on finding a way off Earth and back home. This then transitions to Noah back home.



As for the ending battle, there were a good amount of changes with how it was approached.


One was the original plan to destroy the control console using Airazor’s deceased spark as a bomb. I can’t remember how they lose the bomb, but they have to change plans using the codes Elena found to stop it instead.

Then there’s Mirage’s fate. In my cut, Mirage first turns into a shield like form and protects Noah from Scourge’s attacks, then the scene plays out like normal and he turns into the suit, but doesn’t hint at him being ok. This version ends on the assumption that Mirage sacrifices himself to become the suit and that’s it.

Then there’s the big change. Instead of Prime escaping from being pulled in by the transwarp key explosion, in my cut, he actually DIDN'T! He gets sucked up, and everyone assumes he died sacrificing himself. This leaves the movie with only 3 of the original Autobots (and Stratosphere) alive and everyone kind of feels like ****. (I think that shot was in one of the trailers or ads too?) This goes into Noah embracing his family, and that’s how the film ended.

The after credit scene reveals Optimus has survived the transwarp teleportation and drifts in space...towards Unicron. He floats inside Unicron where his two big eyes open, looking straight at Optimus. Cuts to black. (This change was also interesting since this was the only time we saw Unicron's eyes, as the earlier scene with Scourge and Unicron, after the museum fight, just had either a burning light or his planet form [hard to remember] looming over him instead)


There were a bunch of other small changes. Here what I can remember:

There was a shot of Airazor flying over New York after Elena discovers the Falcon vase.

Bumblebee explains humans aren't all bad to Optimus at the autobot meet up scene instead of before the museum. “The people…ZZzzt…They ain’t all bad..zzt.” In fact, the whole scene of Optimus, Arcee, and Bee waiting for Mirage and Noah outside the island was an additional scene. Same goes for Mirage explaining Optimus to Noah in the car. Since Optimus didn’t have his beginning monologue explaining the situation, they added this scene to do that instead.

Another widely known cut was the Wheeljack and Arcee relationship. When the Bots land in Peru, Arcee hears Wheeljack is joining and gets flustered. “Wheeljack’s coming…?” Later on, while Arcee is inside Wheeljack waiting for Noah and Elena, Arcee mentions how it’s been a long time since they've seen each other and Wheeljack embarrassingly says, “Yes, it’s been a while since you’ve been inside me…Erm, I mean…”. The final battle has Wheeljack be a little more concerned for Arcee too when they get swarmed.

One scene I wished they saved was when the Autobots are staking out the city in Peru, Wheeljack lends his glasses to Optimus to zoom in. so there’s a little funny look of Optimus wearing Wheeljack’s glasses that was sadly cut out.

There’s a cool line where the heroes are charging, Scourge just looks at them and says “Defend the bridge…” and that’s when a gate appears, releasing the terracon army, instead of them being materialized. Optimus has another little inspiring speech before charge too.

The lines about Optimus Primal’s name being an inspiration from Optimus’s name were added. Good, since I thought that it was bizarre that they all just glossed over that.

Airazor’s introduction to the Autobots was slightly changed since there was originally no Maximal planet opening. Like Optimus in 2007, she uses her eyes to show holograms of her planet for a quick scene of a bunch of generic beasts being chased by two Scorponoks and Scourge as he fires his blaster at them. She then shows Unicron and tricks Noah and Elena’s vision with holograms of as if Unicorn was in the sky, about to consume the Earth, showing them the threat that now faces them. If I recall correctly, Optimus originally thinks Unicron was a myth, but Aiirazor reassures him he’s real. The scene with Elena saying "It's not real. It's not real..." was there too.

Airazor and Elena had more communication between each other. In the scene where they’re waiting for Stratosphere, there’s a part where Elena mentions how she bets Airazor was “making bots turn their necks as she flew by” with Airrazor agreeing “ I did know to shake a tail feather or two.” In fact that whole scene was different. Stratosphere doesn't even show up. It’s just them grouping up and having more dialogue and then someone asks how they are going to get to Peru, smash cutting to them inside Stratosphere. Mirage makes a joke that they are probably going to crash, but Stratosphere responds saying they are safe inside him. Here, Noah and Elena’s dialogue was a bit different. I don’t think Elena ever mentions her dad and Noah explains that he’s worked with military people like Optimus before and doesn’t trust him.

Stratosphere still transformed in the film. The scene where he transforms with Bumblebee in hand was the first time you see him in my cut.

The scene with Noah and Elena going through the caverns and finding the empty key tomb was followed by the freezer attacking them, but after Noah blasts it, they get discovered by Cheetor and Rhinox. The Maximals chase the humans around the caverns for a while until Rhinox chases them to a crack only the humans can fit too. That's when they lead out into the jungle to be stopped by Primal. The first teaser’s shot of Rhinox is from this scene.

When Mirage says "Don't ask what part of my body it came from", Wheeljack follows up and says "He's talking about his butt."

Scourge's character was twisted between cuts too. He had some lines that made you know he was forced and tortured working for Unicron. When Scourge and Unicron have the meeting, Unicron ends it by threatening to make his life a living hell if he doesn't find the remaining Transwarp Key and Scourge responds to himself afterwards with “...it already is…”. When Scourge meets Primal after corrupting Airazor, there was some dialogue between the two that made it seem like they knew each other personally, but I can’t remember the exact words. Near his death, Optimus tells Scourge to stop the Transwarp keys, and Scourge mentions something like “It’s too late. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop the keyes now.” A lot of the new lines in the official cut make him seem more like a cookie cutter villain with only the drive to do what Unicron demands. Also, his design was the one from the promotional art and toys (possibly including a mustache, but I may not be accurate on that). They showed his final design for a split second in one of the more completed scenes, so I knew he was going to be changed eventually.

The scene at the end with the G.I Joe tease was obviously added in later, including the Elena redemption part. I was part of the focus group at the end, and I remember we all realized that Elena didn’t have any resolution to her arc, so I’m glad they added it.

Obviously this includes the Mirage surviving scene being a later addition too. Personally, I’m not a big fan of this decision since that just means everyone can get revived. Let's get Airazor back! Why not! Woo Hoo! No consequences! We can have our cake and eat it too!

Mirage seemed more insufferable in my cut. I remember rolling my eyes more than half the time he spoke. I think he’s better in the official cut. I wouldn't be surprised if Pete D. ad libbed some better lines.

Mirage’s head crest was white, like what we see in some promotional material. Also he never had the weird Vader mask thing. Don’t know what that was about.

When Mirage turns into a garbage truck, they made it more clear the back half was a hologram.

Optimus’s character arc was a little wishy washy in my cut. He seemed to not like humans at all for the majority of the film until Noah decides not to shoot the Transwarp key. Then, after the whole Airrazor death scene. Optimus makes a speech about how great humans are and how wrong he was. It was a bit jarring how quick Optimus decides to trust humans and protect Earth. I'm glad they gave Optimus a bit more scenes with Noah to pad out the trust and care he develops for Earth. This speech also had Optimus say “For Cybertron!” Primal says “For Earth!” and Rhinox jumps in and says “For HOME!” and they all turn to Rhinox and Noah says “You can talk!?” . The scene in the trailer about “How big can this guy be?” was also in this scene, but was obviously cut out.

In the final battle, Cheetor says the line “We’re right behind you, big bot!”

Primal kills Battletrap the same way, but Optimus wasn’t there to help kill him and make the joke.

When Airazor is escaping with Elena and the key, my cut had the DOTM track “I’m just a messenger” with a bit of a jungle beat playing. I wish that was still there.

When Primal fights the corrupted Airazor, Airazor doesn't talk back or says to kill her, she's completely farrell. Also Primal snaps her neck instead of crushing her chest.

When Unicron is entering through the transwarp portal , he sucks the energon from around the area, including where Bee is, causing the energon to go through Bee first. Also Bee is considered dead in my cut. There’s no lines about possibly saving him, so they just like carrying around his body, I guess?

Primal says "Maximal maximize" instead of calling out Cheetor and Rhinox specifically

When Unicron drops Scorponoks onto the battlefield, Noah yells what those things are, and Primal responds “Predacons….”

Like Optimus's axe, his swords were the first trilogy swords that were probably place holders until they designed the new ones

Noah gives the final speech alone, since Prime was teleported and assumed dead.

[TK415]

If Optimus floated to Unicron at the end of this movie, does anyone have a guess as to how the story could have gone after that?

[Solrac333]

I think it's messed up that the "higher ups" only see smart characters or characters as nerds and should look like geeky nerds.

[-Kanrabat-]

I think it's messed up that the "higher ups" only see smart characters or characters as nerds and should look like geeky nerds.

They don't know how the real world works outside their office walls so they rely on stereotypes and tropes.

[Dr. Caelus]

I'm glad thwy changed Scourge. The story of the tortured thrall is great when you actually devote time and energy to it and have their rebellion impact the plot (e.g., Darth Vader, Marvel's version Galvatron), but when it's just some throwaway lines to make you feel sorry for the punching bag it feels like shallow sentiment annd cheap stakes. At best you get a character like Beast Wars Rampage who just ends up feeling unfinished.

Scourge reminded me of IDW Overlord and that was fine. Unicron is an awesomely powerful being who has annihilated countless civilizations; he shouldn't have a hard time either finding or conditioning a zealous sadist to do his bidding, so why have a herald who is mopey about it?

Edit: Now that Unicron has had a proper introduction, they could make Cyclonus the BBEG of the next movie and Galvatron the BBEG of the next after that. Then they would have time to build Cyclonus up as a sympathetic character (callback to IDW) so that he could help save the day by betraying Galvatron.

As far as Wheeljack, it was always weird that in G1 he went from his alternate mode beimg a practical utility van large enough to carry another bot to being a racecar too small and too conspicuous to be useful.

[Stormshot_Prime]

For how little he was ultimately in the Final Cut, that’s a bit weird that they pushed it so hard. But again, when I think of the movie and how much I loved it, Wheeljack doesn’t come to mind.

A lot more cut content than I realized, I thought it was just the Transit stuff. Now I’m wondering if we’re gonna get a Director’s Cut version of the movie, Alien 3 style.

(Also can we see Megatron? Beast or otherwise?)

[CobraKai]

Some things i like, like the Transit fight, the rest i think were changed for the better. I do hope, since that transit fight was almost done, that it makes it into an extended edition of the movie. I think it would actually help with the pacing as theres a big gap of TF action between the opening and the museum.

[D-Maximal_Primal]

If Optimus floated to Unicron at the end of this movie, does anyone have a guess as to how the story could have gone after that?

Just bear with me a quick second, to pull up an old fan theory that ended up false:

Notice how Optimus took a shot from Scourge that just skimmed the lower left side of his face, and notice how Scourge's real face has his main injury in the same spot.

Just saying.

The line from Unicron about Scourge not dying with his planet might have been added after they went away from the Optimus in space ending. Which, funny enough, mirrors the end of the Netflix WFC cartoon with Nemesis Prime.

[Sabrblade]

I guess nobody noticed these names written at the bottom of the second group shot:

Sandstorm Scorponok DoublePunch

[noctorro]

If Optimus floated to Unicron at the end of this movie, does anyone have a guess as to how the story could have gone after that?

Just bear with me a quick second, to pull up an old fan theory that ended up false:

Notice how Optimus took a shot from Scourge that just skimmed the lower left side of his face, and notice how Scourge's real face has his main injury in the same spot.

Just saying.

The line from Unicron about Scourge not dying with his planet might have been added after they went away from the Optimus in space ending. Which, funny enough, mirrors the end of the Netflix WFC cartoon with Nemesis Prime.

I think the original writers/creatives had some cool and interesting ideas.

And then the corporate morons who know nothing about character writing and story writing came in with their demands and we ended up with this.
All the good and interesting parts were reduced to 1 line of dialogue. World building kept to a minimum and just here and now interaction and reactions.

Anybody remember Iron Man 1? Where talented people made a great movie with sci fi and action?

[primeisboss]

I saw the movie for the second time last night and I noticed that the transwarp key looks similar to an ancient mastodon bone. This is probably just a coincidence, but thought it was cool.

[Dr. Caelus]

I think the original writers/creatives had some cool and interesting ideas.

And then the corporate morons who know nothing about character writing and story writing came in with their demands and we ended up with this.
All the good and interesting parts were reduced to 1 line of dialogue. World building kept to a minimum and just here and now interaction and reactions.

This is pretty normal writing. You have pages and pages of notes with various conflicting ideas, and you pick a set that don't conflict and spam your first draft with them. Then you cut, again and again, removing the stuff that doesn't 'hang together', stuff that slows the story too much without moving it forward, and stuff that -oops- does actually conflict with the other things you wrote. You leave a few dangling threads to give yourself as much flexibility for a sequel as possible while still giving the story closure.

Anybody remember Iron Man 1? Where talented people made a great movie with sci fi and action?

Iron Man 1's world-building consisted of actually having the generic government agents refer to their organization as SHIELD (well, technically I think they didn't) rather than DOD, NSA, FBI, etc., and introducing Nick Fury after the credits.

Iron Man 1 only introduced the 10 Rings as a stereotypical terrorist organization indistinguishable from the villains in True Lies. Their actual goals and value were left vague at best, and their leader was a forgettable mook.

Iron Man 1 introduced Obadiah Stane, whose characterization was 'greedy and deceptive'. That was it. He wasn't even that deceptive; Tony was just really naive. He dies.

Iron Man 1 introduced Tony's brief savior/mentor (whose name I'd have to look up, TBH). He dies faster than Obiwan Kenobi.

Iron Man 1 introduced James Rhodes, the responsible, practical black man exasperated by the antics of his eccentric white bestie.

Iron Man 1 introduced Pepper Potts, the hyper competent woman stuck working in the shadow of an egomaniac, but effectively runn8ng his business while also dealing with an inappropriate amount of his personal life. But it's okay because she falls in love with him.

Iron Man 1 inytroduced Happy Hogan. He's the director.

Most importantly, Iron Man 1 introduced Tony Stark. It did that with a ton of tropes that, while faithful to the character, are still pretty shallow. His character is dynamic, but he's the only dynamic character in the movie, and his characterization is stillbmoreorless left unexamined until Iron Man 2 starts to dive into his history with his father, his alcoholism, and the start of his PTSD - all of which is kind of touched on too lightly because it was genuinely too much to tackle in a movie that has Iron Man, Warmachine, Black Widow, (the arguably over-developed) Whiplash, Pepper and Happy, Nick Fury, and Justin Hammer packed into it.

[william-james88]

Just a fun fact, don't know if this is in the wiki either, but the most famous macguffin of all time is the Maltese Falcon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin

And this film's macguffin is inside the statue of a falcon.

[First-Aid]

Just a fun fact, don't know if this is in the wiki either, but the most famous macguffin of all time is the Maltese Falcon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin

And this film's macguffin is inside the statue of a falcon.

Ha! Good point! Never thought about it. Sooooo...instead of the Maltese Falcon it's the Warp-Keys Falcon?

[bluecatcinema]

Finally got around to watching this today, and I thought it was fantastic. Great visuals, compelling story, awesome action, and endearing characters. Especially Peter Dinklage as Scourge.