Exclusive Interview: Robert Orci
The Transformers screenwriter talks tech and offers up a few sequel suggestions.
Previously, Orci and Kurtzman worked onThe Island -- a movie which had a compelling premise, but soon collapsed beneath the weight of Bay's impulse to reduce conflict to its most physical form. Orci hopes that such will not be the case withTransformers, which he recently discussed with IGN in an exclusive interview. In addition to talking about the purported "realism" of a world in which robots transform, Orci explained his creative process when working on projects likeTransformers and addressed the many influences and necessary forces (like, say, the fans) who helped shape his latest script.
IGN Movies: When Paramount first tapped you to writeTransformers, what was the one thing you knew you needed to get right for the film to work?
Robert Orci: We came in ready to not do it. [Steven] Spielberg asked us to come in and talk about doing it, and we had to "see" it; we don't want to sign on and say yes just because you're asking. So our approach was to say there's got to be a real human element to this. It's going to have to be a little bit of the paradigm or the point of view, and absolutely I agree that the path should be a boy and his car. And that was enough for us to realize that was the entrance point to the movie that we were able to [develop] the rest of the movie from. It was essential for us to know what that human story would be just as a starting point and then extrapolate the rest.
IGN: Many blockbuster action movies are moving towards a sense of realism -- explaining the larger than life elements a laBatman Begins. How much was the science or technical plausibility emphasized when you started to write this particular story?
Orci: Realism was important. We knew going in to this that people think of this as a toy or a cartoon, and yet there's elements of fun from that you didn't want to lose. So it was absolutely walking a fine line between making it as real as possible, and also keeping a sense of fun. That way we relied less on scientific explanations and more on the structure of the movie and how you find out when and how people react to it -- that was much more of a contributor to what's realistic than saying they are a nanite-based silicon DNA sentient computer, or whatever. So it wasn't absolutely a goal. We weren't trying to rely on explanations; we were trying to rely on the language of structure to get us there.
IGN: How much technical discussion was there in the script about how the robots literally transform? Do you write "Optimus transforms" and leave that to the effects people or do you think about the scientific legitimacy of their machine parts?
Orci: In the first draft, we wrote a version of Optimus Prime's transformation and Spielberg read it and said, "Guys, in this next draft really take your time describing the transformation. Savor it; spend a paragraph on like the different things you might be able to see. I want when ILM gets it for them not to be able to think the head can just pop out of its ass." We got that note of just milk it, and we milked it as much as we could and they took over when they got it. But the ethic of making sure it was complicated and making sure the gears, that they were doing non-cheating transformations that were spectacular and not just [made up].
IGN: What kind of research did that require?
Orci: It was more about how it should look and feel as opposed to saying "…and then the actuator becomes the Achilles heel." It was more about that and then letting ILM figure out the genuine physics, but it was about how much time it should take and the things you might see. We didn't have to do any kind of engineering-degree kind of stuff.
IGN: Have we reached the point now where pure flights of fancy are outdated? Is the era over for movies likeIndependence Day, where everything is over the top and completely unrealistic?
Orci: You mean where [audiences] need a little more explanation or internal logic? I think so. I mean, I think you want that every time; obviously, you're going to get away with stuff occasionally, but certainly our approach is to not try and talk down to anybody. Spielberg particularly is very like logic-oriented, so he didn't want to let anything go. But yeah, audiences are so sophisticated now that you can't try to pull a fast one. There are some dramatic reasons sometimes -- you can skip something over for dramatic reasons knowing you should have already done that according to the right theory, but not to cheat your script.
IGN: How much film language do you include in your scripts, since you're going to have Michael Bay coming in to create these epic set pieces?
Orci: We tend to be very detailed about that. We're very detailed about our action, our transitions; we put visual transitions in the script, line transitions in the script. We learned from our TV training to make everything as director-proof as possible [laughs], meaning don't assume anything about what someone else is going to bring to it. It's got to all be on the page. Obviously, Michael Bay brings a whole lot to it and takes it to another level, but we don't start with the assumption that someone's going to handle that action sequence so just write "action sequence" here. No, write it out and make sure you get a sense of what the movie is supposed to feel like and the blocking of the action on the page.
IGN: Knowing that Bay would be directing this, did you intentionally include any of his trademark visuals?
Orci: We were not asked [at a time when] we knew he would do it. They sort of asked us, "What do you think of him for the movie?" And we were like, "Actually, that's a good idea and we will develop something with him in mind." But you never know; our target was to write something that we wanted to see, that Michael Bay would want to see, and Spielberg would want to see. That was our holy trinity of what we wanted, hoping that if we hit all of those targets it would be good for the audience. We'd worked with them before on other movies, so we were able to predict a little bit, and the movie itselfTransformers dictates a certain level of scope and action that was going to be natural to appease Bay as opposed to writing specifically for him.
IGN: Having now done films for both Bay and J.J. Abrams, how much do you find that you end up tailoring the script as a whole to a director?
Orci: When you're lucky enough to know that you're targeting a director, you do tailor it a little bit because that's a luxury in a way -- to know that you might get the person you want. [But] in general the first couple of drafts we very much make it about what we want to see, and then as it becomes real who might jump in, we go a little bit toward them. But again, it's got to be if they're right for the material. This isn't something we're inventing from scratch; it's something that has certain requirements on its own and does have to be serviced first. But it's nice to know who you're writing for, both actor-wise and director-wise.
IGN: How tough was it to combine the human and robot stories inTransformers? For example, there's the scene where the Transformers are hiding behind Spike's house while he interacts with his parents about what he's doing in his room. How do you merge the set pieces with the human moments?
Orci: In terms of how hard, it was very hard. The first draft was almost exclusively just Shia and Megan -- that was basically what the entirety of the movie was: A kid realistically is trying to get his first car, and then it turns out to be this thing. He's going to have parents because he's that age, and then [more development] as opposed to, "Would it be funny if…?" It was more, "This is maybe what would actually happen if you were a kid and suddenly realized you had this thing." So it came out of that and we looked at it as a byproduct of being in a realistic situation. My parents have knocked on the door when it's locked, your parents knocked on the door when it's locked. So we've all been there, or got our first license, etc. Then the second draft is where you need to open up the world and that's where the other stories came in. Having done the first draft with what is essentially the spine of the story, Shia, that was able to be then stretched out and the rest of the world intercut with it. But yeah, that was a pain in the ass; normally you would want everything to be in that first draft, and it wasn't quite right. So we had to go back and turn it into what it is.
IGN: With summer tent pole movies there's an impulse to reduce them critically to thrill rides or popcorn entertainment. Do you think there is larger emotional significance that audiences can extract from films likeTransformers?
Orci: A little bit of both. We want there to be genuine humanity and all of that kind of stuff, but we couldn't escape thinking about the world we live in today. It opens on an attack in the Middle East, and you couldn't jump more into sort of present day than that. And then the government is wrong, they reduce and simplify what they think is happening on the wrong people, and yet the soldiers remain heroic. So there's absolutely a reflection of what we're in today without sort of being moralistic or have a gigantic message hitting you over the head. We do approach it a little bit that way and make it more than just, "OK, how do we get the robots fighting with each other as quickly as possible?" In fact, we knew that was a given, so it was how do you build that up so it's a payoff, or believe it by the time it happens? We very much structured the first hour as a thriller, very much what's going on? What's that? As opposed to coming in on them flying around and talking and all of that kind of stuff.
IGN: How much fan consideration infiltrated your work, either when you started writing it or once the groundswell of skepticism started appearing on the Internet?
Orci: We started by making sure what we knew we wanted to see, and wrote a draft or two. And then once we had a sense of what that should be, we jumped with both feet into interacting with the fans. From that point on it became very influential and we've been talking to the fans for over a year, and you can't talk to them as much as we did and not have it influence your thinking. They were actually a voice in the room with us. We used some of their stuff, we'd take their stuff to meetings -- "they're saying we need more dialogue, man, you can't have Transformers that don't talk" -- so it was more influential than we ever imagined, and probably more influential than any movie ever, I would say.
IGN: Is that a good thing to you?
Orci: It's different if I'm writing an original thing that no one has any right to say a god damn thing [about], but this is something that we all own as fans, and that has to be taken seriously, I think, for the project but also from just a P.R. kind of a way.
IGN: How much has the presence of the Internet changed or affected the way in which you write or work?
Orci: It's just raised the bar. I remember eight years ago when we sold our first movie, it was a political thriller and it had all of the latest sort of classified sort-of stuff that you could find on the Net that now everybody knows. Back then, you could actually write a techno-thriller that was technically accurate and sell it just because nobody knew about it. Now everybody knows it, so now the idea of relying on your great research is over; just because you know everything about nanites does not a story make. So it forces you to dig deeper, which I think is good; it's good for the business, even though it's very frightening. Anyone can now write a screenplay because you can read a million of them online. So, great; now you've got to be that much better. And if you're not, someone's going to take your place, which may be bad for you but good for the business. I think it's good.
IGN: I don't know how much the movie cost, but I was completely amazed at how you guys would be able to come up with a viable follow-up for this movie that wouldn't cost a billion dollars. Having created theTransformers mythology in this film, have you thought about what might be a next step?
Orci: It's crossed my mind, but we pretty much wanted to make sure that the first movie was just a good movie. Period. And then sequels would just take care of themselves. Even if we tried to develop a story in which no sequel is possible, they would find a way to do it, so we didn't feel like we had to lay [groundwork] per se. We wanted to not be arrogant enough to think about our "master trilogy" and just be true to what's a good movie. And then if it's good, then it will lead to other things. However, inescapably, certain ideas were going to come up, and in discussions [ideas] got moved. I'm sure you know Soundwave was going to be in it; Arcee was going to be in it. Those ideas were big enough that they weren't going to get the kind of attention they were going to get when we were introducing the franchise. We thought, "Well, maybe in a sequel." But it's not like we were saving them because we knew exactly what was going to happen to Soundwave in part two. It was very much about let's just do a good movie, and then we'll focus on other things later if we're lucky enough.
IGN: Do you feel like your script was successfully translated to the screen? For example, there doesn't seem to be much of a larger civilian world outside the conflicts of the robots and the humans directly affected by their actions. Is that a product of the directorial translation or the way you wrote it?
Orci: There were early conversations and early drafts of the script where [the robots] were going to attack multiple places in the world at once, and we went back and forth on that. But ultimately it was a script decision that what's there is what we were hoping for -- luckily.
IGN: Were Soundwave and Arcee the two characters you most would have liked to see in the film? Or who would you have liked to include that you couldn't?
Orci: Those two were kind of the main ones, but a few different Transformers came in at various points to serve the story, but the story dictated certain other things. But those are the two main Transformers. I would have liked to see Arcee, but the idea of a female Transformer needs its own explanation, and there just wasn't going to be enough time. It would have been like, "Oh, that's convenient. They're trying to appease women with a pink Transformer." So rather than having that happen, let it just be a straight shot and speak for itself right now.
IGN: What were you most surprised about when you finally saw the finished film?
Orci: I was surprised at how realistic they look. We knew the technology was there finally and we knew it was going to be great; that was how we sold Michael. We showed him video of how cool it could be, etc. But I think just the way it was integrated with Michael's camera moves, it's hard to fully anticipate the impact of that. We didn't know it was going to be that cool looking.
IGN: What else is coming up for you?
Orci: As producers, we've got a romantic comedy set up with Sandra Bullock and it shoots in March, calledThe Proposal. We are rewriting the political thriller we did back in the day and it's calledThe 28th Amendment. Hopefully that will go. We have a [project] at Warner Brothers called2012; it's about the end of the world, that's supposed to happen in a few years and actually with Michael Bay attached.
IGN: How do you differentiate between projects you want to write and ones you want to produce?
Orci: Just good material. It can be any genre as long as there's something there that's not just the research that we were talking about. There's actually a fresh story -- it all goes back to story for us, obviously, so to be a producer or writer [comes down to] is there something that's fresh to us. Also, working with good people is a big part of it and trusting the people you are around -- being in a pleasant place with pleasant people around. Maybe it sounds wrong for material, but it matters [laughs].