With Michael Bay setting out to Destroy All Retinas with his noisy monstrosity/$200 million surreal art piece Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen — and now reportedly looking to make a smaller, intimate movie as his next project — we got to wondering what a giant robot movie would look like if it were in the hands of some of cinema’s more idiosyncratic auteurs. Can Autobots and Decepticons find love under the steady hand of Ang Lee? Is there a lonely, confused female Transformer drifting into Sofia Coppola’s orbit? Michael Bay, take note: that little understated drama you’ve got planned — we hear it’s a remake of Truffaut’s The 400, um, Explosions — might just benefit from our synopsises.
Wes Anderson
A kooky family of Autobots living in far off Uzbekistan have finally come to terms with their father’s disappearance. However, one day, out of the blue, Septimus Prime arrives on their doorstep — closely followed by the police. The family transforms into a train (led by Midnight Express), crossing the forbidding terrain until they reach the sea in a journey of discovery. On arrival, Septimus reveals he is in fact an impostor, Sentinel Prime, playing the role of his best friend, who had died in a horrible submarine accident.
Martin Scorsese
Jolt paints himself yellow (much to Bumblebee’s chagrin) and becomes a Taxi in the mean streets of New York City. Having to take on Decepticon passengers all the time (like Skorponok) is not only uncomfortable, but wears down his logic circuits, to the point where he starts whipping himself in front of the mirror. He sees Optimus Prime’s inability to finish off the Decepticons as the root cause, and plans an assassination. On the way to his final assignment, he is accosted by a young whore (Megan Fox) who convinces him that Prime is up in her loft. Rushing in, all guns blazing, Jolt accidentally kills Starscream, Grindor and Soundwave, becoming a hero in the process.
Sofia Coppola
Two young married Autobots live in the city of the Decepticons. Sideswipe must go out every day to collect much needed spare parts, leaving his virgin bride Arcee to fend for her three selves. A Decepticon calling himself Galvatron happens across from her in the hotel bar, where they strike up a friendship. The friendship blossoms, but hits a snag when Galvatron reveals he is in fact the reanimated Megatron. The virgin suicides.
Ken Loach
In this searing indictment of the English class system, a meandering group of drunk Autobots attempt to hunt down and kill Megatron, screaming out ‘Mega! Megaaaa!’ into the night. They stumble upon him in a secluded South American village (after several months) and then make the surprising discovery that he is in fact the mother that gave them away for adoption. A tearful, oily and slightly uncomfortable reunion ensues.
Baz Luhrmann
An all-singing, all-dancing robot troupe from the planet Cybertron come to Earth for the annual intergalactic, ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ competition. After Optimus Prime has a flat during preliminaries, Bumblebee must take his place — even though he has never downloaded a dance programme! He illegally downloads the greatest dance numbers in movie history, shamelessly plagiarising them at the final and snatching victory from Mixmaster, the reigning champion.
M. Night Shyamalan
All the Transformers on planet earth are slowly dying, switching off for no apparent reason. A small boy discovers that even though they can travel through the vacuum of space, resist the fiery birth of re-entry and slam into the solid ground with no ill effects — they weren’t in fact waterproof. Rainfall proved their undoing. Someone asks why they went to a planet covered in water. In a ‘twist’, they fall over, clutching their chest. Dead. The end. Shut up. That’s the end.
Tim Burton
Slice-obot, a hairdressing Autobot, accidentally chops off the head of a human customer, and is sent to Transformer hell where he must constantly transform for fallen Decepticons, who outnumber hellbound Autobots five to 1. However, whilst transforming, Slice-obot discovers he can become a magical tin-plated bagpipe, the warbling tunes of which explode the heads of the dead Decepticons, leaving the gates of hell unguarded and him able to return to the world of the living, just before Christmas.
Quentin Tarantino
Gouts of oil splash the screen as a group of Decepticons raid a downtown bank. Unluckily for them, the police have an insider in their gang — Traitorbot — he is more than meets their eyes. Traitorbot is accidentally shot as the robbers escape, and slowly leaks to death as the police cordon tightens. In a shocking moment, a policebot has his nuts removed.
Michael Moore
A hard-hitting, if slightly opinionated, documentary exposing the GM executives who burn billions on technology that create cars that are also robots, and then get Michael Bay to direct the commercials. Subsequently mistaken for ‘films’, they make more money than selling cars, and a cover up ensues. In a unique counter conspiracy, the US military uses these ‘TransMoorefers’ in Iraq, with the money that should’ve gone to Halliburtons’s ‘Save the Children’ fund now spent on Halliburton’s ‘Kill the Children’ fund.
Ang Lee
Megatron and Starscream become trapped on a remote sheep planet. Unable to quit the planet because of its denseness, they soon settle to live together, galactic domination put on the backburner. In the cool planet nights, the two robots seek warmth, and find they are far more compatible than a Mac and a PC. Soon, animosity is ‘transformed’ into a lifelong love, although there are some ac/dc complications to iron out.
