As you may recall, the legacy of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is so tarnished that even previously cheerleading director Michael Bay has basically disowned his work. As the director told Empire:
"We made some mistakes.The real fault with [Transformers 2] is that it ran into a mystical world. When I look back at it, that was crap. The writers' strike was coming hard and fast. It was just terrible to do a movie where you've got to have a story in three weeks."
It certainly must be, judging from the plot and dialogue in Transformers 2. Not that Orci and Kruger have any hard feelings -- in fact, they seem surprised the film happened at all.
Orci: Two weeks before the [2007-08 writers] strike, we handed him a 30-page treatment, then he went off, he turned it into 70 pages. He started prepping the movie, and because of the time constraints he got totally locked in. We were locked in a hotel room for three months because the strike had just ended, and it was five blocks from Michael's office. So it was me, Ehren and Alex [Kurtzman] in a hotel room every day so he could drop by at noon, see what we had, take pages, and then go prep the movie because it's gotta go shoot!
Kruger: Many of those things, under a normal process, would have been considered a first draft outline. And then suddenly you're locked into some of those things. And at that point it becomes very difficult -- and very expensive -- to try to rework macro ideas.
The script for Revenge of the Fallen was kind of like a first draft outline. You don't say, Ehren! Here's hoping with additional time, Kruger was able to turn in more than just an outline for Transformers: Dark of the Moon before shooting commenced. Otherwise, 30 Rock might be very prescient: by the time Transformers 5 rolls around, it has a good chance of being written by no one.
ยท ROUNDTABLE: The Writers Behind Summer's Biggest Blockbusters (Exclusive Video) [THR/Risky Business]