All language subtitles for Icons.Unearthed.S11E05.The.Sword.in.the.Energon.Cube.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-Kitsune_track3_[eng]

By 2011,
Transformers had completed

a trilogy of films.

The franchise had been so
successful.

Made a lot of money.

Once upon a time
in Hollywood,

that was enough.

But when your last film
netted over $1 billion,

you'd better have an encore.

We might as well
crank out a couple more.

Michael Bay's
ambition

had minted the franchise.

What is it like working with
the director, Michael Bay,

who from all accounts
appears to be insane?

Camera's not rolling, too
bad.

Now he'd lost a
leading man.

- It's over.
- Shia was out.

A leading lady.

She called him
Hitler.

He's infamous for
being a sort of tyrant.

And almost
someone's life.

One of those freak accidents.

If Transformers
was to keep going,

Can we even go bigger than the
last one?

They would need
to expand their horizons.

Paramount was after that
Chinese market.

Hong Kong, you can't lockdown
streets.

So you're in live traffic.

How's that gonna go?

Chaos.

The
franchise had crossed into

dangerous new territory.

The triads, they sent
some guys to come down

and do intimidation stuff.

My bodyguard front kicks this
guy.

Hong Kong was great.

After a triad of
films,

the fourth would extract a toll.

Fourth one is like a root
canal.

Would
anything be left standing?

That's a real house,
and they blew it up.

You can't believe
how dangerous that was.

Or should that be
any one?

It's just too tough.

But I hit the panic button,

So it really was shit
raining down on me.

Following
Dark of the Moon

there were dark rumors
surrounding the fourth
Transformers

and director, Michael Bay.

I heard him saying,
he wasn't gonna do it.

You say that sometimes when
you are sick and tired of it.

For Michael Bay,

Transformers had been
a wild ride,

and maybe it was time to
give someone else a turn.

I heard some rumors of
another director doing it.

That was not
Paramount's preference,

and it wasn't Bay's either.

He probably just thought,
"We can't stop now."

But Bay had one
condition

before he did the heavy
lifting on Transformers 4.

Michael wanted to do a small
movie

before he does another big one.

Something where he
could flex

a more modest creative muscle.

It was gonna be
Michael's low budget film.

A small art house
indie.

For $30 million.

A Bayhem.

It's called pain and gain,
Rusty. Don't be a little bitch!

A movie based on a
true story

about criminal bodybuilders.

I gotta get a pump.

Yeah, take a moment.

That's it, get it.

The speculation online is

that Paramount turned around to
him

and said that, "Look, we'll
let you make that film,

but you have to make another
Transformers film for us."

And then Michael was back to
doing it.

We got the gang back together.

With Michael
Bay back for the fourquel,

Transformers: Age of
Extinction ,

Paramount focused on
exporting American Bayhem

across the Pacific to a
potential audience

of almost 1.4 billion.

That Chinese market
was super-duper aware

of American films, and
it wanted its hunk of it.

Following
Dark of the Moon's

$165 million in Chinese box
office,

Hong Kong was the place to be.

Paramount was after that
Chinese market.

Paramount
announced it had partnered

with China Movie Channel

and Jiaflix Productions
to co-produce the film.

Paramount turned to us to
help them launch in China.

But changes
weren't limited to locations,

even the bots were getting an
overhaul.

One of the challenges
for me has been to keep up

personally with the sort of
evolving style of the robots.

Designer Ben
Procter had been there

from the beginning,

and even he couldn't
keep his bots straight

for the fourth film.

I started off with a more
sleek,

more robotic looking design,

Michael didn't like it at all.

What, did you forget how
to design a transformer?

I'm like, whoa, okay.

I guess I haven't been paying
attention

to how the style has evolved
over time.

I gotta catch up.

The robots
were becoming less robotic.

We're getting into much more
kind of

human characterizations of
the Autobots in particular.

What the hell are you saying?

Less like car parts.

Well, at least we're
picking cooler cars than this.

More humanoid.

- Ah!
- Like a person.

You all think you're
the center of the universe.

Like okay, we really are
pushing

toward this very human face

kind of embedded into
technology.

The bots now had
more facial expressiveness

than many human actors.

The goal of that is just to
give

more expression, more
relatability,

all the classic things that
you get out of the human face.

Human beings,
bunch of backstabbing weasels.

A little bit of a redesign of
Bumblebee,

he got more heroic-looking.

Come on, B, take him out.

He wasn't quite so cute.

Oh, hell no!

If the bots were
getting

an attitude adjustment,

their disguises needed an
upgrade too.

Michael wanted to somewhat
adjust

the whole mood or persona of the
Camaro.

There was a new graphic package

and new arrow devices.

Just look
at that winning smile.

Very much like theater makeup

give it a dramatic look about
it.

And just like any
actor,

they're all looking for that big
break.

In every film we have
a continual new deck

of unused potential from the
franchise.

Hasbro had ideas
for toys,

I mean, characters to go in the
films,

and it was this man's job
to get them on screen.

I am Galvatron!

We knew after working with
Michael,

he's always like eager for
what's coming,

what's new, what's cool.

But Hasbro
needed to convince Michael Bay

to cast the toys it wanted to
push.

We kept throwing Hound out
there.

It's a bad idea.

Hound finally made its way
into a film.

Hell yeah, boom guy.

Transformers
movies had effectively

become the shop window
for Transformers toys,

meaning Michael Bay was the
shopkeeper

calling the shots on Hasbro's
toys.

He wanted a bounty hunter

that was gonna come and
kill Transformers.

- He's mine now.
- Lockdown.

Lockdown was one
character

receiving a promotion, hastily
repurposed at Bay's behest.

We had made that
character for a cartoon.

Hunting trophies.

And we were like, "Here's the
guy."

That was an example where
we knew he had a need,

and we put the right card on the
table.

Michael Bay
even began to transform

the way Transformers
transformed.

Michael was like, "Let's
do something different."

My first reaction was,

it's not really transforming a
car.

Huh!

But I liked it because it was
different.

We can build them ourselves.

This is not legal, this
is illegal experimentation.

Amongst all these
newcomers,

the Age of Extinction was
reanimating a breed of OG bots

not seen since the Reagan
administration.

If only we had some
dinosaurs working for us.

The Dino Bot's something
that people wanted.

You've got to be kidding me!

A strange idea, dinosaur
robots.

No way, no way!

That is also super-cool.
I had them when I
was a kid,

I loved them,
didn't have to make sense.

And if you
don't have to make sense,

you can do anything.

That was a particularly tricky
one

because they changed shapes so
much,

they seemed to like rotate quite
a bit.

That was one of the little
tricks that ILM did.

I was expecting a giant car.

Perhaps
the biggest extinction

in Age of Extinction
was the disappearance

of Michael Bay's leading man.

I'm gonna go.
Shia was out.

Shia LaBeouf was
moving on.

If you breathe a word
of what you've seen here,

we'll do time for treason.

Poor Shia LaBeouf,
that's all I have to say.

But I'm sure that
Michael drove Shia crazy.

Suddenly,
without the leading man

who had carried the
franchise all this way,

Bay needed a new hero
to come to his rescue.

Superman!
Well, not quite Superman,

but his savior was a
man whose acting muscles

Bay had certainly
noticed on Pain & Gain.

That's what I'm talking about.

But Wahlberg
would feel the pain

of fatherhood in his new role.

Dad!

Coming.

As the
franchise's first leading dad.

I am your father, okay,

and I have been busting my
ass to take care of you.

It was more of a love story
between him and his daughter.

This is a non-dating
household, okay?

You don't date, I don't date,
that's it.

Maybe you should.

And then he was thrown in
this Transformers world.

- I'll kill you!
- Don't shoot, don't shoot!

I think with any
reboot, they're trying to

appeal to a different
audience to get going.

Nobody wants to go to
the dance with their dad.

Not the case for
dad

and the newest Transformers
cast member, Titus Welliver.

When I told my sons,

my cool quotient shot through
the roof.

They were beside themselves.

It was a golden
opportunity

that went by the name--

James Savoy, I'm a federal
agent.

And in this world
he was in esteemed company.

The age of the Transformers
is over.

But the age
of top shelf acting talent

in Transformers was just
beginning.

Kelsey Grammer is a ruthless
guy.

You have no idea what
you're involved with here.

If you had to do a Star Wars
analogy,

he's the emperor, and I'm Darth
Maul.

His world as he knows it is
gone.

Perhaps something a little
more violent.

Stanley, extremely funny.

LOL. That's funny.

This was a
franchise now attracting

Hollywood's best actors.
All part of the plan.

Michael's also smart, right?

In the scope of the
unbelievability

of everything that's going on.

He populates those films
with serious actors

rather than sort of action
stars.

Do it!

And it lends a credibility to
it.

But whether
that credibility would add

weight to the franchise
remained to be seen.

For Transformers fourth
film, the Age of Extinction ,

a seasoned crew was assembled
alongside a new cast

with some fresh faces.

And it was great with Mark
coming in, a amazing actor.

And he said, he's like...

Don't work all night.

And he said, he's like,

"How about those trailers we
have?"

And I said, "Yeah, they're
really nice."

And he said, 'Yeah, we're
never gonna be in them."

New cast, new
crew, same Michael Bay.

And he said, Michael's
amused...

You think you've finished a
scene,

and then all of a sudden he
throws you into another scene.

I said to him one day,

"You're a bull that carries
around his own China shop."

Some different people that
have been on prior Michael Bay,

"I'm never working with that
ever again."

They come back.

Well, not quite
everyone.

After the tragedy on the
set of Dark of the Moon ,

It was an unfortunate mishap.

Bay's stunt guru,
Ken Bates,

opted not to return.

That meant his replacement, Mike
Gunther,

was coming in cold on a
production that was coming in
hot.

Okay, fire.

Most of the crew had
already done this movie,

everyone kind of knew how he
worked.

His process,

he works at just a different
speed.

Just wondering what
you're doing standing around.

Let's get to work.

And I had come off of a huge
franchise.

All right, we're good to go.

That you never turned
your back on family.

Mike thought his
work on

The Fast and the Furious was
fast,

but compared to the speed of
Bayhem.

- Fast was like...
- Ah!

And Michael Bay was like--

That was a huge learning curve
for me.

So a lot of it was just
homework.

Three, four, five, like that.

And to get up to speed.

Ride or die.

I mean, it is a huge
difference.

Bay was operating
on a whole different level.

Michael has a tendency,

he can see what's not there,
and that is an adjustment,

'cause on a regular practical
movie, you can see everything.

The Transformers
were now literally

more than meets the eye,
invisible on set,

but still cast a massive
footprint

that was impossible to ignore.

This CG character is stepping
on cars and throwing cars.

And most of it
is in Michael's head, right?

But 20 foot invisible
robots were the easy part.

This was the hardest part
for me.

In other movies, it's like,
"Hey, this is what we want,

this is what we mapped out",

his is more like, "Ah!"

Michael Bay liked
to work off of a schedule

that actually only existed in
his head.

You go there, you think you're
prepped,

you have everything lined
up, you've rehearsed,

you're like, "Yep, we
are ready, bring it."

And he's like, "Nope,
we're not shooting that."

You just kind of take a deep
breath--

Count to 10.

Well, you gotta be kidding me.

Michael's a pisser to work
with,

and it happened right away.

And what happened
was,

Titus Welliver found
himself on security detail.

And so this was day one.

Security blanket
detail.

He goes, "Where's Titus?"

And I go, "Hey Michael, I'm
right here."

And he goes, "Oh, okay."
So we'd shoot that.

And then, "Where's Titus?"
"I'm right here, Michael."

"Are you gonna be doing that
for the next six months?"

"I'm always going to be at arm's
length."

And he laughed, and he is like,
"Good, good, good to know."

And if Bay could
improvise,

then his actors would have to,
as well.

We'd be getting ready to shoot
a scene,

and he'd have the script
in his hand and he'd go,

"I don't like any of this
stuff that you're saying.

What do you wanna say?"

And I'd kind of go, "Ooh,
I don't know, I mean--"

I'm seriously pissed we're
not getting paid for this.

"Think of something."

You got 10 seconds.

And we're just gonna shoot
it.

Seven seconds.

- Okay.
- If I have to.

Much of the chagrin of the
writers that were in earshot.

Afraid not.

And then Titus
delivered

the zinger heard
around the world,

or in this case, the set.

The big line that I improvised

that people quote to me on
the street all the time is...

You don't have a warrant?

My face is my warrant.

If you're
wondering if Michael Bay

sometimes goes too far
in pursuit of perfection...

He's a perfectionist.

...we need to go to
Texas. Why Texas?

Texas is where we accidentally
burned up that house,

but...
Yes, you heard that right.

We burned a house.

But it was just a
set, right?

Do you wanna see the property?

- That's a real house.
- That's the real house.

Somebody's family
home

made the ultimate sacrifice
for Transformers.

They blew it up.

Ah!

They blew it up.

The smoke was coming
from where it shouldn't be.

Caught the house on fire
accidentally.

Sorry, I shouldn't be
laughing.

And as long as
it was happening on the set,

Michael Bay was going to direct
it.

Michael Bay's downstairs
yelling,

telling the fire department
to go there, go over there.

The owners must be
really like...

Su casa es mi casa.

We're gonna lose the casa.

It didn't ruin the house,
but just damaged it nicely.

- In other words...
- We had to rebuild it.

...total Bayhem.

Bayhem.
Things happen.

That's a Michael Bay film.

No location was
safe

from Bay's creative vision.

They did a lot of extensive
filming

at GM Design for the fourth
movie.

Like the shoot
at the General Motors

Technical Center in Michigan.

Every one of General
Motors future products

were presented to the board of
directors

in this presentation room since
the 1950s,

so it's very hallowed ground.

But for Michael
Bay,

hallowed ground became ground
zero

for pure rubber burning Bayhem.

No, no,
you gotta calm down!

- It's crazy!
- Stop!

We did not know.

B, stop going psycho!

That Michael Bay was
gonna do those donuts

in our historic building.

You can smell the burned
rubber, is full of smoke,

and there are guys trying to
chisel

the melted rubber off of the
floor.

But no, these chisels
weren't able to get it off.

Michael Bay to
GM, "Just put it on my tab."

So Michael Bay just paid
for a whole new floor.

In pursuit
of automotive grit,

Michael Bay took his crew into
Motown's darkest recesses.

- After all...
- Michael, he's a car guy.

And this was a car
movie

as much as one about robots.

What kind of cars are those?

- They're so scary.
- But...

You had to be really careful
in some of these places,

there were still asbestos
and lead and everything else.

The former Packard
Automotive Plant in Detroit

was so rich in history,
you could taste it.

We had to wear masks sometimes

where it's not good to breathe.

It wasn't Chernobyl.

Well, since we
are talking about Chernobyl,

Who's got the factory shade?

Out of curiosity, I Google it.

It says, considered to
be next to Chernobyl,

one of the most dangerously
toxic places on the planet.

And Bay's a total germophobe.

So I go over to Bay,
and he has this habit,

he does this with his T-shirt,

when he is thinking he goes like
this.

He chews on his shirt.

So I come over and I go,

"Hey, Michael, did you know
this?"

And he goes, "Ah, that's not
true."

And I go, "Yep, here."

And I show him on the iPhone,

and he looks and he goes,

I bet you wish you
could see my face right now.

Are you kidding?
If we were wearing gas masks,

I don't think we're safe.

If Titus
was hoping for safety.

Kill them all.
Pleasure.

Where
Transformers was headed next.

Up on the top of that
building,

there was a bit of a chase up
there.

Would only
be a disappointment.

You can't believe
how dangerous that was.

Leaving a trail
of destruction in its wake,

Age of Extinction moved to
Asia.

Plenty of time for
improvements in China.

And as Paramount
tried to tap

into the sleeping giant.

Paramount was after that
Chinese market.

Even their Chinese
partners

could only smooth the road so
far.

China has a different set of
rules.

Especially
when it came to filming

action sequences in the island
metropolis of Hong Kong.

Hey, hey, hey!

In Hong Kong you can't
lockdown streets.

So you're in live traffic,

that is a different experience
too.

That was bad
enough when shooting cars,

but shooting supercars,
that was gonna be Bayhem.

We kind of
come up with the plan,

and this is how it's gonna work.

You're creating a rolling block,

you'll have three or four cars
in front

and three or four cars in back

that act as your moving
roadblock.

And then you're shooting
everything

in the middle in live traffic.

I don't wanna die like this!

And if Hong Kong
called for

gorilla style filming,
Bay was ready to answer.

Bay goes, the way that
we're shooting this,

it's gonna look like you're
doing 50, 60 miles an hour.

Titus would be doing his own
driving,

and the good people of Hong Kong

might be doing their own stunts.

Right before the first
AD comes up and goes,

"Those will not be stunt people
or background performers,

those are real people."

That's great right before the
take.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm trying to book it,

but I'm being hyper-careful.

is on her tail.

At one point a lady steps off
the curb.

Get off, you-
And I'm like,

around her,

but I gotta have my Savoy face
on.

So it's just chaos.

Camera
operator, Jacques Jouffret,

had a front row seat.

Bay says to him, "That was
killer! How was it for you?"

- Great time.
- He's French.

He too make like Steve McQueen
in the car.

He said, "I was shitting my
pants."

Lots of fun, lots of fun.

- So I guess I did my job.
- Box them in.

Jacques's job
was to capture all the Bayaos.

- Bayhem.
- Uh, right, sorry.

I can't shoot there.

We gonna shoot there,
rolling on the ground.

And he's doing his things.

"Ah, looks great, let's go."

And then, okay, we go over there
quickly.

Okay, done, let's go over here.

Hong Kong was great.

Ah!

But if Bay and
company thought they

now had control of the Hong Kong
streets, they were wrong.

The triads control a lot.

Triads being the
notorious Cantonese mafia.

No baksheesh had been paid to
them,

so they send some guys to come
down

and do intimidation stuff.

Ah!

Extortion at
the hands of a Chinese gang

sounded like something out of a
movie.

And outta nowhere this guy
appears,

and he's got an air conditioning
unit,

and he just launches it at us.

Ah!

My bodyguard front kicks this
guy,

and the guy sails, just flies.

Classic Kelsey, it goes.

I've merely staked my life.

Oh my!

What's this all about?

Several of them came down

and they approached Bay on the
set.

And these two
gangsters weren't recruiting

Michael for a love triad.

And one of Bay's bodyguards
was a former SAS guy,

literally picked this guy up

and planted his head into the
concrete.

And I don't know, after that
everything seemed to be fine,

kind of the cost of doing
business there.

And the
one thing more dangerous

than Hong Kong streets?
Hong Kong rooftops.

Wahlberg and I, we tried to do

as much of our stunt stuff
within reason.

Very difficult to shoot
that, very dangerous.

Very small, very crowded.

We barely had six and a half
feet

between us and the ground.

When you're working in the
States,

and you're rigging something,
you'll have rock and roll truss,

and you build this whole truss
system to keep people safe.

In Hong Kong they don't
have that, they have bamboo.

They string it together and
when you're 25 stories up,

and you're like, "Oh, hey,
is this bamboo gonna hold?"

They were running on
essentially rooftops

of little tiny apartments
that people actually lived in.

They had to go in
and reconstruct

with some
plywood sheeting,

so that it was strong enough,

so that the stunt guys could run
around

on the top without falling
through.

Like what, this is wild.

Wahlberg goes, "This, I
really don't like it at all."

And he's like, "Yeah, I don't
either."

Mark is an exceptionally good
athlete,

he's a very physical guy,

and I think audiences pay to see
his face

opposed to the double coming in.

You gotta be kidding me!

That's a long way
down.

He goes, "Would you
rather do this scene,

or you and I do a kissing
scene?"

I'd rather do a kissing scene
with you,

as long as it was on the ground
floor.

Bay squeezed
all the action he could

from his leading men, but
someone always wanted more.

I was sent a script.

That proved to
be crucial for Titus Welliver

and his blossoming career.

My manager says,

"You're gonna meet with
the producers of "Bosch."

And I said, "Oh, to play what?"

- And he went, "Bosch."
- Bosch?

I read through it and I went,
"Wow, what a great character!"

Enter a dramatic
conflict

of the kind no actor likes.

It's in conflict
'cause there was a scene

that was gonna shoot in
Shanghai.

If you change your mind
over the weekend, let me know.

Will do.

This was a
conflict with Michael Bay,

and more terrifying than a
triad with an air conditioner.

Ah!

I step on an elevator in
Hong Kong,

and there's Michael Bay and
Ian, executive producer.

And Bay goes, "Hey, he's
just talking about you."

He said, "This Bosch character,
is it a good character?"

And I said,
"It's a great character."

And I said, "Any actor
would give

their blood supply
to play this character."

And he said, "So you wanna do
it?"

And I went, "Very much."

And he went, "Okay."

And he turns to Ian and he goes,

"We don't need Titus in
Shanghai."

And he goes, "Go call
your reps and tell them

you're free to go do Bosch."

Mariachi Plaza.

So it was partly
thanks to Transformers

- Chief?
- Titus was able to become...

Bosch.

And while his
story had a happy ending.

So it goes.

ILM's was about to
take a hit.

I could see that we
weren't gonna make it.

After a 10 month
shoot,

Age of Extinction was set to
become

the biggest Transformers movie
yet.

We're going to prove who we
are.

Great for
the marketing department

with a summer release only
months away.

What we're about to do
is gonna be kind of scary.

I could see
that we weren't gonna make it.

Visual effects
supervisor, Scott Farrar,

- had a big problem.
- IMAX.

Even if it
measured only 70 millimeters.

Is 70 millimeter film,

it's eight times the amount of
space

compared to that original
35 millimeter frame.

The processing time of this
larger frame,

one frame would be 138 hours to
render. One frame.

So I thought, we're not gonna
make it.

But release
deadlines didn't care

about special effects render
times.

We absolutely had to be sure
we would hit the finish date.

I hit the panic button with the
company.

So Scott called for
backup.

We had to bring in extra
processors,

we rented stuff from Disney,

we used stuff

across the bay from Pixar.

It got concerning.

We charge together.

Sometimes it takes
a village.

Transformers: Age of
Extinction

the fourth film in the
franchise was released

on time in June of 2014.

Oh, man!

I'm still gonna patent this
shit.

But all the pain
was worth it

for the cast and crew.

I think it's badass.

Love it.
Well, I hate it.

Fourth one is like a root
canal.

Yeah, it's not good.

Sequels and remakes, bunch of
crap.

Listen, honestly, I could
barely get through it, so.

But fans loved
Michael Bay's root canal enough

for it to become the biggest
grossing film of the year,

netting more than $1 billion
from its $210 million budget.

Now that's a transformation
everyone likes.

This time Michael Bay
didn't hesitate to resign,

and the studio was looking
a long way down the track

while they had Bay onboard.

I think the Marvel
Universe sort of spurs on

The Transformers Universe
to keep creating new movies.

If Paramount was
going to compete with Marvel,

it would take some planning,

after all you don't build
a universe in a day.

Paramount had said,

"We're gonna have just a
bunch of writers come in

and do roundtable with
the next five movies."

Transformers had
gone

from a simple animated series.

You just gave me a great idea

Do the classic
trope.

A boy and his car.

But by the time the
films had

Optimus Prime
riding a T-Rex...

Okay, here's something we
haven't had

in any of the movies
yet, so let's do this.

...it would
be a surprise to no one

when the fifth movie
was set to go medieval,

with knights...

Ah!

Kings specifically.

King Arthur, exactly.

And yes, circular
furniture.

Medieval England.

Like, what?

But his writers
assembled to push play.

God, I thought that the fourth
one was gonna be the last.

Others hit pause.

And some people didn't come
back.

They're like, "Hey, it's just
too tough."

It's tough, it is.

I had my moment.

Everyone it
seemed was taking a breath.

The fifth one came about,

and Michael just had to
have Camaro as Bumblebee.

It could not be another brand.

We're able to put together a
good deal.

This was also
going to be a big deal

even by Michael Bay's standards.

For him his expectations were,

"Hey, we're going bigger."

And I was like,
"Man, can we even go bigger
than the last one?"

That remained to be
seen.

Okay.

But at least
the big stars were back,

including a pumped Mark
Wahlberg.

Mark told us
he was so excited.

We were hesitant.

We were like, "Are you sure?"

And we're like looking at each
other.

I'm like, "Did he forget?"

Also back in the
frame.

I wasn't in four, and I
thought that's it for me.

A man who thought
his time with Transformers

- had come and gone.
- They were moving on,

going in a different direction,
which I got.

But then they called me for
five.

Let them know up top that we
lost control of the weapon.

You never know, it's Hollywood.

This time Bay
was casting for laughs,

and there was one actor
he couldn't resist.

Brother Simmons,
fear not.

I never had a brother.

Feels nice.

He loved working with John,

and yes, he gets a great kick
out of John.

Beach time, ready?
Whoo!

Glenn Morshower was also
reporting for duty once more.

Well, that's fantastic.

"Ready to do it again?"
You bet, let's go, roll camera.

Stanley Tucci returned
in a less menacing form

with his John Cleese
influenced Wizard, Merlin.

- It is I, Merlin.
- Oh, we're doing that?

He's just one of those guys
that's really quick on his feet.

Big personalities just sort
of clashing and...

When it comes to his craft.

And even cinema
royalty was joining the cast.

Hello there!

Sir Anthony Hopkins.

At last, Cogman, it begins,

He loved the way
Michael worked on shoot.

But even acting
royalty might not be enough

if Transformers comic
turn turned out to be

striking the wrong note.

Cogman?
Hello!

You ruined the moment again.

And with the
likes of period heavyweight,

Jim Carter, lending his voice to
Cogman...

I was making the moment more
epic.

...the fifth film
was betting big on a concept

that went all the way back

to the very first Transformers
movie.

Hey!

No, not that one.
This one.

This thing, this monster
planet.

You remember Orson
Welles?

I am Unicron.

He put it so
beautifully.

Unicron.

And Unicron is the big bad guy

slash evil entity within the
universe.

Or as its
originator called it--

Unicron is the ultimate black
hole

that absorbs everything
and lets nothing out.

Not sure I can think of him
that way.

The point being--

But he is the biggest evil
entity,

and he's like one of these
epic characters that--

You exaggerate.

That it's almost
unrealistic to think

that they should show up
because they're too big

and too powerful.

Perhaps I misjudged
you.

Robots, even
big ones were one thing,

but cosmic entities.

You had problem with a 30 foot
robot

talking to a six foot human.

How do you take a planet
character and interact?

This is my command.

So we always like to talk
about Unicron at Hasbro,

but we never really wanted
it in the movies, per se.

Unicron
was back in the movie.

Excellent!

But no longer a
black hole.

The place you call
Earth

has another name, Unicron.

It remains to
be seen if it sucked like one.

The fifth installment in
the Transformers franchise

had an experienced venerable
cast.

I am what they say.

The Last Knight
even had a real knight,

but special effects makeup
guru, Howard Berger,

was very hands-on dealing
with one cast member

who was a robot in need of a
disguise.

Cade, what's with the C3-PO
rip-off?

Don't kill the messenger.

Well, Cogman was
always gonna be CGI, but--

Ah!

I know how hard it is to do
interactive.

Ouch!

This bot was only
4'5",

and his very human scale
created a very human problem.

Cogman is touching things

and handing things to people.

And you know if you're a CG
creature,

this starts to become
very, very difficult.

He's playing the pipe organ.

What?

Yeah, that's not a
metaphor.

So we had green sticks
and things like
that.

It wasn't working out.

I'm so clumsy.

CGI hands were
hard,

but digital fists hit
the VFX team even harder.

There's a big fight where
Cogman fights Mark Wahlberg.

Man, what's your
problem? No, no, no. No more!

And I'm watching it, I'm like,
"Hmm, it doesn't quite work."

But I do so very much
want to crush his windpipe.

They were doing green screen
hands,

and I'm like, "That's
gonna be a nightmare."

Ah!

And I was friends with Jason
Smith, the VFX supervisor,

and I went over, I said, "What
would make your life easier?"

Having hands.

I have those.

And Howard
decided to lend a hand.

- Wait a minute!
- In fact a whole arm.

Gotta have practical stuff
like up to the shoulder,

so we built these full
gauntlets.

Whoa!

Whoa man, slow down!

It worked out great.

While Howard
and his team struggled

with integrating practical
and digital effects.

Ah!

You, drop it!

Josh Duhamel was
dealing with

something so analog, he could
smell it.

I would come home after work
every day

on these big battle scenes.

But I remember driving home from
work,

I'm like, "God, I smell like
poop."

You sure she didn't just fart?

Since the
first Transformers movie,

the formula for Bay's explosions

required specific ingredients.

They would pack these square
sort of

cylinder looking things with
dirt

and cork and soil and all these
things,

so that when they blow up,

dirt's flying everywhere.

Never thought much about it.

Did the second one.

Did the third one.

By the fifth one I was like,
I still smell that,

like the vague odor
of feces.

Smells good.

I realized that they
put actual like manure,

like fertilizer manure into
these things,

so it really was shit raining
down on me.

You mother couldn't have
used anything else but manure?

Well, that's
that mystery solved.

I'm not dropping shit!

And while cow
patties dropped on Duhamel,

Michael Bay dropped his
leading man into situations

that threatened to flatten
him into a pancake,

especially when it came to
the climactic final scene.

When Mark is getting
beaten up like crazy.

Ah!

From all the water.

I was looking at his face

and it was starting to
get like swollen in here

from getting hit so much with...

Holy sh--!

Like all right, maybe we
should stop in a little bit

'cause Mark's actually getting
pummeled by the waves here.

But there was no
respite,

they wanted the final battle
to be bigger than God.

Come on, we gotta get
to the top!

Like it's all, there's all the
water

and all this crazy stuff, and
he's fighting a Decepticon.

That meant it was a
rush,

both onscreen and off.

We shot that for weeks.

Which sounds
like plenty of time.

But only at a certain hour
because of the lighting.

And we would shoot on stage all
day long,

and then at four o'clock
we had to be out there

standing out in the back lot.

It was all for
the sake of a golden hour

or two in the Detroit sunshine.

It went on and on for weeks,

and it was every day at 4:00
'cause that light,

that light was so beautiful,

and we only had like
two hours, that's why.

And Michael would be out there
like,

"Let's go, roll, roll.
We gotta do this!"

You're talking about
this incredible platform

that was built.

Hold it!

Hydraulic pumps that
were left and right,

and you had the water.

I can't even wrap my head
around the amount of planning

and engineering and building

that it took just to
pull that one bit off,

but that's big movie making.

No, that's
Michael Bay movie making,

trademarked with his signature
Bayhem.

I see it, I see it!

Oh, you arrive on the
set, you arrive in a city.

Okay, what can we blow up?

Oh, we can destroy that.

Okay.

Definitely do that a lot.

Bay and his
crew did it so much in fact

that nothing was off-limits,

not even a World Heritage Site.

- Genius!
- That's Stonehenge.

Michael kept saying, we were
gonna shoot at Stonehenge.

I was like, "How's that gonna
go?"

I mean, isn't that kind of
sacred?

They wanna do what?

The script called
for Stonehenge

to receive enemy fire,

and Michael Bay could
feel history beckoning.

Of course, they have to blow
it up.

Okay, that is the dumbest
idea you could possibly have.

And Stonehenge, they said,
"Oh, you can't be here."

I mean, this is
Stonehenge.

Gotta shut it down!

But it's also
Michael Bay.

When it comes to making
his movie, he is determined.

Of course, let's
not forget Michael's mantra.

We're going bigger.

This is so insane.

But Michael
picks these places,

and then he makes them happen.

It's fun to watch the chaos that
ensues,

but it's a fun chaos.

It is beautiful!

And what's more
fun than bombing Stonehenge

back into the Stone Age?

I wonder if anybody
that watched the movie

when they first saw Stonehenge
on the screen thought,

"Oh, they're definitely blowing
that up!"

They definitely
were,

just not the real thing.

I mean, they built a fake
Stonehenge

that we could then deal with.

And deal with it, they did.

From the ancient fields of
Sussex,

the Bayhem moved to London.

With time running out,

Michael Bay was about to do
something

he would only do in an absolute
emergency.

From the south of England,

the shoot moved to London where
filming would be a breeze.

It's really difficult
to film around London.

If you've ever been to London,

it is the most insane traffic.

I just have so much road rage.

The chase sequence, we had
to maintain a certain height.

Westminster.

Yes, we did a car chase there, yes.

But what
made this chase riskier

was the time they didn't have.

The sequence is really
written for like two days,

and we're trying to do it in two
hours.

The other thing
they didn't have, a director.

Bay was stuck in an edit suite

thousands of miles away in LA,

so the director made plans
to do something he loathed.

He does everything.
There's never a second unit.

Let someone
else shoot the movie.

Spiro Razatos is the authority
on shooting car chases.

He worked with Bay on
Bad Boys II ,

so Spiro already knew
one very important rule.

Nobody shoots second unit,
nobody's gonna shoot second,

I'm the only one that shoots my
action.

But even
Michael Bay has a limit,

and he had reached it.

He was exhausted, I mean, he
was editing

all the way till the middle of
the night.

He'd say, "Listen," he goes,
"I'm super-tired, I trust you."

Trust was
a good thing because--

We had expensive cars
that you couldn't wreck.

Michael Bay, which it better
look like

you're wrecking the cars, and
you're not.

And you were in a place

that if you crashed hitting
one of those buildings,

would've sent us packing or
in jail.

The buildings
in question were located

in the heart of London's
Trafalgar Square.

Get outta the way!

And this
being a Michael Bay film,

those arches weren't
going to be driven through

so much as some, well...

Let's see if I'm the
authority on the matter.

He wanted to crash
the car into the arch.

- Of course, he did.
- You're outta your mind!

So why not
just do this all in post?

The audiences can tell.

So the only way we could
crash into these gates

without damaging them was to add

our own wall in front of it,

pad it up really well, and
then decorate it and paint it,

so that it looks like part of
the wall.

Don't let us get caught,
Cogman!

It had to fit the Michael Bay
crash,

but at the same time it
couldn't damage the arch.

B.

I could see myself never
working again in this business.

Everybody was just on
top of their game, but--

Only one
man's opinion mattered now.

Because it's Michael,

I'm just waiting for him to look
at it,

and I'm kinda like putting my
head down

waiting to see what he's gonna
say.

- Bay gave his blessing.
- Good boy!

With The
Last Knight in the can,

all that remained was to see,

if fans would give their
blessing

to what was the biggest
Transformers production yet.

When The Last Knight was
released in June of 2017,

fans and critics agreed,
size isn't everything.

It was a lot of movie,
I think, for two hours.

I think he was just like,
"Hey, I'm going big."

There was
no doubt it was bigger,

but was it also bloated?

They could have, I think
could have paired it back maybe.

First one and the second
one performed so well,

and I think they were trying to
figure out

somewhere to go with five.

I wish we had a more core
story spine.

If we just throw more and more
in,

we have more opportunity to do
more stuff.

And at at its core, you're not
giving a full story that way.

Throw everything at the
wall, see what sticks.

And nothing in that film was
really good,

nothing really landed.

The box office spoke for it,

the rating spoke for it,

the fans spoke for it.

The Last Knight
grossed

just over 600 million worldwide,

and is believed to have lost
Paramount around 100 million.

That raised an obvious question.

Hey, so are we nearing the end
of the road with this thing?

Was the
Bayhem finally at an end?

Do you need a new voice coming
in?

He's probably tired of
seeing robots after awhile too.

So what was Bay
thinking

after five films spanning 10
years?

You think there might
be anymore Transformers ?

I would've expected Michael to
go,

"Really?"

Paramount wasn't
laughing

or snorting over a movie

that had become the first
Transformers film to lose
money.

I hated that film.

It was one of the only films
in the cinema that I watched

that I nearly walked outta the
cinema for.

With audiences
walking away for the first time,

franchise fatigue
appeared to be creeping in

to Paramount cinematic colossus.

There's a point where
you do get burned out,

and Transformers are awesome,

but in a way they are a
one-trick pony.

Five films down,
Paramount needed to come up

with a new trick to
avoid The Last Knight

becoming the last time for
Transformers.