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TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION

The Abridged Script

FADE IN:

EXT. PREHISTORIC VALLEY

Some SNAIL SPACESHIPS make the entire world EXPLODE.

DIRECTOR MICHAEL BAY

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HA HA HA MAN I CAN’T BELIEVE I NEARLY DIDN’T COME BACK TO THESE MOVIES KABOOM KABOOM KRAKAKOW OKAY NOW LET’S DO SOME PLOT

EXT. THE ARCTIC

GEOLOGIST SOPHIA MYLES is examining a METAL DINOSAUR SKELETON which has BAFFLINGLY LITTLE to do with the T-REX TRANSFORMER from the TRAILER.

SOPHIA MYLES

Do you realize what this means, fellow geologist? It wasn’t an asteroid that killed the dinosaurs like in those foolish children’s stories, it was a bunch of aliens bombing the surface of the world and turning all dinosaurs into chunks of metal while somehow leaving all other living things completely alone!

GEOLOGIST

Incredible! And to think that all along we’ve allowed ourselves to be misled by EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE EVER INCLUDING STUFF THAT THIRD GRADERS KNOW.

SOPHIA MYLES

Well it’s important we let the audience know right away the sheer scale of rampant idiocy they’re in for. Seriously, people are actually going to have to use the phrase, “dumb even for a Transformers movie”.

INT. GOVERNMENT BUILDING

Head of CIA BLACK OPS KELSEY GRAMMER is plotting with top goon TITUS WELLIVER, which is somehow not a name that MICHAEL BAY PERSONALLY MADE UP.

TITUS WELLIVER

Fuckin’ Autobots! Even though they clearly saved our asses in Chicago, it fits my xenophobic worldview much better to lump all robots together as scum that must be destroyed!

(sighs)

It’s depressing that this attitude makes me the first believably-written character in a Michael Bay movie ever.

KELSEY GRAMMER

I agree! No more collaborating with robots, even non-evil ones! Now let’s go kill the Autobots by collaborating with an obviously evil robot.

THOMAS LENNON

(poking head in)

Hey, the President wants to know how things are going. Still hunting evil Decepticons while granting asylum to our friends the Autobots?

KELSEY GRAMMER

Uh, yeah, sure, hunting Decepticons only. You bet.

THOMAS LENNON

Great!

(goes to leave)

KELSEY GRAMMER

By the by, did I mention that I think the Autobots are dangerous unwelcome invaders and that we need to take our planet back from them?

THOMAS LENNON

...Uh, no... as a matter of fact, up until just then you seemed to be taking extreme care not to say anything remotely like that.

KELSEY GRAMMER

Oh. Never mind then.

EXT. COUNTRY HOUSE

MARK WAHLBERG tows home a big wrecked semi to his daughter NICOLA PELTZ.

MARK WAHLBERG

Honey, look what I bought! This thing mysteriously appeared in some movie theater, it looks like it’s been in a firefight with the military, and it’s got the Autobots symbol right on the front of it. Welp, time to scrap this perfectly ordinary truck for parts!

NICOLA PELTZ

Look, dad, you may score a lot of points right off the bat simply by not being Shia LaBeouf, but your go-nowhere salvage-slash-repair-slash-robotics company keeps dragging us deeper and deeper into debt! In a lot of ways it’s like I’m looking after you!

(pause)

That’s empowering enough, right? Me just saying I’m the mature one around here? I don’t have to actually do anything in this movie, do I?

MARK WAHLBERG

Come on, I know one day I’ll make it as an inventor. As soon as I work out the kinks, my gimmicky gizmos that you can probably already pick up on SkyMall are gonna change the world!

MARK heads back into the PELTZER PRODUCTS WAHLBERG ROBOTICS WORKSHOP and starts fiddling around with the TRUCK, which suddenly comes to life and turns out to be PETER CULLENBOT!

PETER CULLENBOT

(firing wildly)

DIE, HUMANS!!! KILL!!! DEATH!!! ...Huh, what a confusingly out-of-character introduction for me.

MARK WAHLBERG

Holy shit, a Transformer! You’re pretty beat up, you should let me fix you.

PETER CULLENBOT

Let you what? I’m a hyper-advanced living machine from outer space, while you messed up building a trash can on wheels that carries beer across the room.

MARK WAHLBERG

No sweat, all my engineering incompetence just mysteriously evaporated and now I can do basically anything.

MARK fixes CULLENBOT, but then TITUS arrives with some GOONS, as well as cool-looking evil Transformer (who turns into stupid-looking gun-for-a-face Transformer) MARK RYANBOT.

MARK RYANBOT

CULLENBOT! I hate you for ill-defined reasons! I work for the aliens who built you, who want to recapture you now for reasons that are even more ill-defined!

CULLENBOT changes into his RUSTY OLD TRUCK FORM and tries to escape RYANBOT in his ULTRA-SLEEK EUROPEAN SPORTSCAR FORM, which doesn’t go as badly as you might think.

MARK WAHLBERG

Wait! What about us? That still leaves us to deal with the CIA hit squad!

NICOLA PELTZ

Hey, it’s Michael Bay. I’m sure some asinine contrivance will show up and save us.

JACK REYNOR

(appearing out of nowhere)

Hi there, I’m Nicola’s rally car driver boyfriend, who happened by sheer chance to be coming by in my rally car.

NICOLA PELTZ

There ya go!

MARK, NICOLA and JACK are chased halfway across the county by TITUS and his THUGS, while CULLENBOT gets chased halfway across the county by RYANBOT. Fortunately both chases go in basically the EXACT SAME DIRECTION so that all the GOOD GUYS can eventually ESCAPE TOGETHER.

PETER CULLENBOT

They’ll be searching for me, so let me change my form-

MARK WAHLBERG

Right, smart thinking.

PETER CULLENBOT

-into yet another huge semi-trailer with my signature red-and-blue paint job and the Autobots symbol embossed on my grille.

MARK WAHLBERG

Ohhh, change your form to be MORE recognizable. I was thinking of something else.

EXT. DESERT

CULLENBOT takes his pet humans to meet up with the remaining AUTOBOTS.

JOHN GOODMANBOT

I’ve got a robot beer gut and a robot beard, and I’m smoking a robot cigar, because these movies are more cartoonish than the cartoon they’re based on!

KEN WATANABEBOT

I’m a samurai

My first line is a haiku

Bay, you racist fuck

JOHN DIMAGGIOBOT

And they couldn’t round up a third famous actor, apparently. Although if you DO know who I am: yes I play a robot with attitude. No they never get me to say “Bite my shiny metal ass”. OPPORTUNITY FUCKING MISSED.

BUMBLEBEE

(irritating audio clips)

MARK WAHLBERG

All right, now that the team’s assembled, let’s all go to Stanley Tucci’s electronics company, whose connection to the hunting of the Autobots I learned by hacking Titus’s plotconveniencebots.

EXT. EVILCORP

MARK and JACK drive up to the front gate of STANLEY TUCCI’S COMPANY in BUMBLEBEE, and flash a FAKE ID that they made by having BUMBLEBEE zap images onto BLANK PLASTIC using his EYE LASERS (??????).

SECURITY GUARD

Okay, go right on in. And remember, this is literally the only security checkpoint in the whole facility, so feel free to wander wherever you want from here on out.

They drive into an AUTOMOBILE SHOWROOM where they find STANLEY has been building his own TRANSFORMERS.

JACK REYNOR

Look, they made a red version of Bumblebee!

MARK WAHLBERG

(squints, shrugs)

I’m gonna have to take your word for it. To be honest, I like most people can only even identify Bumblebee as “the yellow one”.

Then who should improbably pass through the room but STANLEY TUCCI, with SOPHIA and business associate BINGBING LI in tow.

STANLEY TUCCI

So anyway, as I was saying, my entire evil plan is as follows...

MARK puts on a LAB COAT and with this impenetrable disguise is able to follow and listen.

STANLEY TUCCI

So we discovered an element called transformium, and after saying “unobtainium” so much in The Core I can totally say that with a straight face. It’s what the transformers are made of, and that’s where they get their transforming powers!

SOPHIA MYLES

No, their powers come from the AllSpark, remember? In the first movie they used it to give transforming powers to an ordinary smartphone made out of ordinary non-transforming minerals?

STANLEY TUCCI

Look, if you pay that much attention to plot points then you’re not really our target audience, mkay? Anyway, I was able to map the genome of transformium-

SOPHIA MYLES

The - the GENOME? The GENOME of a fucking METAL?!

STANLEY TUCCI

Like I said, I was in The Core, I’m no longer capable of using science terms correctly. Either way, the upshot of it all is we can make our own Transformers. Like Welkerbot over here! He came out weird though... we keep trying to build him to look like Cullenbot, but every time he winds up looking like the evil Weavingbot. I don’t understand it, we’re so careful in our calculations based on data downloaded directly from Weavingbot’s severed head!

(actual line)

ALGORITHMS!!! MATH!!!

SOPHIA MYLES

Sadly, that’s still the smartest anybody ever sounds in this movie.

DIRECTOR MICHAEL BAY

WOW THAT WAS A LOT OF TALKING LET’S HAVE MORE ROBOT FIGHTS

The AUTOBOTS burst in, smash a bunch of stuff and go face off with STANLEY!

PETER CULLENBOT

You monster, you’ve been getting your transformium by melting down the Autobots that Kelsey and Titus have been killing!

STANLEY TUCCI

Yeah, so?

(pause)

Wow, am I on cocaine or something? I’m not even a little nervous about these giant angry robots? Apparently I’m just gonna stand here in the Autobot-melting room and talk shit to their faces. Oh well, so I had your friends hunted down and killed, whatcha gonna do about it, bitch?

PETER CULLENBOT

I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do! Despite my oath to never kill a human, I swore that when I found the man responsible for all this I’d KILL HIM! SO WE’RE GOING TO quietly leave.

(awkward pause)

(leaves)

DIRECTOR MICHAEL BAY

WAIT I MESSED UP THAT WAS ANOTHER TALKING SCENE QUICK LET’S JUMP TO A CAR CHASE

As the AUTOBOTS leave with MARK, NICOLA and JACK, STANLEY sends WELKERBOT after them! WELKERBOT immediately starts DESTROYING RANDOM VEHICLES.

STANLEY TUCCI

(observing remotely)

Huh, some of our tech has gone rogue and is murdering civilians. This is mildly perturbing. I may even be a trifle vexed.

(pause)

Okay for real, these are not normal reactions. I either need to get onto or off of some serious medication.

FRANK WELKERBOT

Come here, Cullenbot! I’m actually Weavingbot come back to life, obviously, and by my count it’s my turn to kill you this time!

WELKERBOT chases CULLENBOT around, continually TRANSFORMING by briefly turning into a 90s SCREENSAVER. But before this scene can start MATTERING IN ANY WAY, RYANBOT shows up in his SPACESHIP!

NICOLA PELTZ

Whuh oh, Ryanbot’s coming after Cullenbot! This is fucking dangerous, I’d better hide. And what better hiding place than directly underneath Cullenbot DUUURRRRR

RYANBOT’S SPACESHIP picks up CULLENBOT and NICOLA with its TRACTOR BEAM! And by “TRACTOR BEAM” we mean it catches them in a FUCKING NET.

EXT. BRIDGE

MARK, JACK and the AUTOBOTS sneak aboard the SPACESHIP while it is momentarily PARKED. While the AUTOBOTS go after CULLENBOT, MARK and JACK go after NICOLA.

MARK WAHLBERG

Crap, robot guards! Fortunately we happen to have stumbled across a room full of gun-swords. Unfortunately I’m still an electronics geek with no combat experience, and the guards are still killer robots whose guns are built right into their bodies. There's only one way this can logically go.

(slaughters all robots)

Wait. But.

(scratches head)

Meanwhile, the AUTOBOTS locate CULLENBOT.

JOHN GOODMANBOT

So how do we get off the spaceship now? The laziest possible solution would be for us to just find an escape pod. Wanna just do that?

PETER CULLENBOT

You underestimate Michael Bay. The ACTUAL laziest solution is, it turns out that the part of the spaceship Ryanbot imprisoned me in is itself a second, smaller spaceship which can detach and fly away. Without anybody in the cockpit of the main ship being tipped off.

JOHN GOODMANBOT

We’re ALREADY IN an escape pod? My god, it’s the lazy screenwriting singularity! I’m legitimately impressed!

All the good guys GET AWAY.

PETER CULLENBOT

Now in order to figure out our next move, we need some more exposition. I assume that’s why we introduced some annoying little robot earlier, let’s let him say his thing so he can shut up and go the fuck away.

ANNOYING LITTLE ROBOT

In exchange for their help catching Cullenbot, Ryanbot gave Kelsey and Titus a MacGuffin that blows up a city-sized chunk of the world and turns it all into transformium.

JOHN GOODMANBOT

Ah yes, that’s how those snail-spaceship aliens created the Transformers hundreds of millions of years ago, and in the process killed the dinosaurs.

(pause)

Don’t know why they didn’t blow up, say, Mars instead. Or any of the billions of planets WITHOUT an existing ecosystem to murder.

ANNOYING LITTLE ROBOT

Anyway, Stanley is buying the MacGuffin so he can convert some desert into a whole bunch of priceless transformium. But Welkerbot is going to steal the MacGuffin, blow up a city, turn the resulting transformium into Decepticons and kill all humans!

MARK WAHLBERG

Hang on. Welkerbot - who is really Weavingbot, remember - plans to detonate an alien artifact in a major city so he can make a bunch of evil Transformers and take over the world? Isn’t that the EXACT SAME PLOT from the first Transformers movie?!

ANNOYING LITTLE ROBOT

Eh, they’ve all been about stopping an alien artifact from going off and wiping out mankind. This one’s just slightly more exactly the same than the others.

DIRECTOR MICHAEL BAY

HEY YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD BE A COOL PLACE FOR ROBOT FIGHTS IS HONG KONG LET’S GO THERE FOR THE REST OF THE MOVIE WITH VERY LITTLE EXPLANATION

INT. STANLEY TUCCI’S OFFICE IN HONG KONG

STANLEY gets a phone call from MARK WAHLBERG.

MARK WAHLBERG

Stanley, your evil plotting is going to accidentally cause the apocalypse! Now, I know you’re good deep down because you’re an inventor like me. Yes, that’s the full extent of my logic.

STANLEY TUCCI

Damn, you’re right, your “loveable nerd” stereotype trumps my “evil businessman” stereotype! Fine, I’m a good guy now. In fact, since it’ll take a while for you and the Autobots to fly your hijacked spaceship to Hong Kong, for the next fifteen minutes I’m actually going to be the primary protagonist. Despite the fact that I MADE A NEW WEAVINGBOT OUT OF GROUND-UP AUTOBOTS, FOR FUCK’S SAKE.

KELSEY and TITUS deliver the MACGUFFIN to STANLEY.

STANLEY TUCCI

Bad news guys, I’m afraid I’m going to have to put our evil plan on hold. So no Evilcorp stock for you, and no transforming robots for your military, sorry.

KELSEY GRAMMER

What was that? “Thanks for the MacGuffin, our evil plan is still going ahead as far as you know, bye bye now evil man with many trained assassins at his beck and call”?

STANLEY TUCCI

Oh, that would have been a much smarter thing to say. Can I get a do-over?

Fortunately then WELKERBOT takes over all of STANLEY’S TRANSFORMERS and BUSTS OUT and starts WRECKING SHIT, allowing STANLEY to slip away in the confusion with BINGBING LI. A whole bunch of GIANT EVIL ROBOTS START TEARING HONG KONG A NEW ONE, but WHO CARES ABOUT THAT when we can watch a NERDY WHITE GUY get chased by RANDOM GOONS.

STANLEY TUCCI

Craaap, the CIA death squad are catching up to us!

BINGBING LI

Luckily, we can always rely on Michael Bay’s insultingly stereotypical views on all other races.

(does martial arts)

RANDOM ASIAN BYSTANDER

Abso-fuckin’-lutely!

(does martial arts)

STANLEY escapes to a RANDOM ROOFTOP, where MARK and the AUTOBOTS show up in their SPACESHIP about TEN SECONDS LATER.

STANLEY TUCCI

I’ve just been running around frantically, how the hell did you know where to find me?

MARK WAHLBERG

That’s easy, we simply OH NO IT’S TITUS NO TIME TO TALK! Hey Titus, ignore Stanley and the MacGuffin, I’m the one you want!

(runs)

TITUS WELLIVER

Aha, got you now!

(chases Mark)

Wait, no you’re fucking NOT the one I want. How could I fall for that for even a second? Damnit!

MARK spikes TITUS in the face with a FOOTBALL and then pushes him out a WINDOW, which is pretty much the most embarrassing way you can die with your clothes on.

FRANK WELKERBOT

Are the humans done fighting yet? Okay good, the evil robots can come back into the movie now! DECEPTICONS ATTACK!

AUTOBOTS wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the DECEPTICONS, repeatedly dismembering them in ways that couldn’t be done with FLESH-AND-BLOOD CHARACTERS without getting your movie BANNED IN MOST PARTS OF THE WORLD.

JOHN DIMAGGIOBOT

It’s no good! We’re outnumbered, and Goodmanbot is running out of crappy one-liners! If only there were yet more marketable action figures we could add to our lineup at the last minute!

PETER CULLENBOT

As it happens, our stolen spaceship does have some more of Ryan’s prisoners in it. They’re the other members of the ancient order of elite warrior robots I belong to.

JOHN DIMAGGIOBOT

Ooh, you mean the Primes?

PETER CULLENBOT

Uh, no, the OTHER ancient order of elite warrior robots I belong to. I’m talking about the Knights, which seems to consist of me and four forty-foot-tall non-speaking beast robots that turn into dinosaurs.

JOHN DIMAGGIOBOT

One of those things is not like the others.

CULLENBOT releases the KNIGHTS.

T-REXBOT

RAAAHHH I FIGHT YOU NOW FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER!!!

(pause)

Okay, the fuck kind of disguise is this? At what time and place ever is a giant metal dinosaur going to blend in? Have I adapted to hide out exclusively in the prop department at Industrial Light and Magic or something?

CULLENBOT and T-REXBOT fight for EXACTLY LONG ENOUGH TO INCLUDE IT IN THE TRAILER, then CULLENBOT WINS.

T-REXBOT

Gee, thanks for just standing around while I got my ass kicked, other Knights. Fine, I guess we swear undying loyalty to the Autobots or whatever.

The AUTOBOTS and the KNIGHTS go back to fighting the DECEPTICONS, and the fight turns in the GOOD GUYS’ FAVOR. At one point BUMBLEBEE fights FAKE BUMBLEBEE.

BUMBLEBEE

I’d just like to go on record as saying that a scene where an alien robot fights his evil clone atop a two-headed pterodactyl has no right being this tedious. Seriously, where’s Malachai Nicolle when you need him?

(gruesomely decapitates enemy)

FRANK WELKERBOT

Shit, my guys are losing! Time to slink away like a coward, AGAIN.

(flees)

Sensing a sudden MAIN VILLAIN VACUUM, RYANBOT reappears. All the AUTOBOTS and KNIGHTS get conveniently preoccupied with the remaining DECEPTICONS, leaving CULLENBOT to fight RYANBOT alone.

MARK WAHLBERG

Oh no, Cullenbot’s doing this fight by himself! I better go in to help him, kind of like how an injured gerbil might try to help a tank fight a helicopter gunship.

MARK heads in and predictably is NO USE WHATSOEVER. Then KELSEY SHOWS UP!

KELSEY GRAMMER

Yes, here I am, appearing out of nowhere, presumably just so I can be ki-

(unceremoniously shot by Cullenbot)

But in that moment of distraction, CULLENBOT gets STABBED THROUGH THE HEART by RYANBOT!

PETER CULLENBOT

Ack! I die! Goodbye, cruel world!

(pause)

...Um, or not. Huh, that totally killed me in Revenge of the Fallen.

RYANBOT goes to kill MARK, but then NICOLA and JACK decide to be USEFUL IN ANY WAY AT ALL and pull the SWORD out of CULLENBOT, so he can STAB RYANBOT AND CUT HIS CHEST AND HEAD VERTICALLY IN HALF, HOLY SHIT!

STANLEY TUCCI

Huzzah, the world is saved! And I will use my vast fortune to help Mark’s family now, since I’ve pretty much turned into Santa Claus.

PETER CULLENBOT

Whereas I must go and confront the alien creators who were controlling Ryanbot. Farewell!

(blasts off into space)

MARK WAHLBERG

Fighting snail aliens in deep space, huh? How the hell are we gonna have that movie be set on Earth with mostly human protagonists?

DIRECTOR MICHAEL BAY

DON’T WORRY I’LL THINK OF SOMETHING NOW IS THERE A WAY FOR ME TO MAKE THESE CLOSING CREDITS OUT OF EXPLOSIONS AND TITS

END.

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