Transformers: Movie Adaptation

Prime time

Transformers: Movie Adaptation is the title of IDW Publishing's four-issue comic book adaptation of the 2007 Transformers live-action movie. It was published weekly during the month of June, 2007.

Overview

The comic adaptation tells the same general story as the Movie:

• The Autobots and Decepticons have been fighting a war on Cybertron for over a million years.
• The AllSpark cube ended up on Earth.
• Captain Archibald Witwicky found Megatron in 1897.
• Blackout attacks a base in Qatar. Captain William Lennox and Technical Sergeant Robert Epps survive and are tracked down by Scorponok, who is then defeated in an airstrike.
• Sam Witwicky gets a car as a present from his dad, which later turns out to be the Autobot Bumblebee.
• Frenzy infiltrates Air Force One, finds information on Captain Witwicky and plants a virus.
• Barricade assaults Sam. Bumblebee arrives just in time to save him and Mikaela. After a fight with Barricade and Frenzy, he upgrades from a 1977 Camaro to the 2009 model.
• Optimus Prime, Jazz, Ironhide and Ratchet arrive on Earth, scan new alternate modes and tell Sam and Mikaela their story.
• Sam and Mikaela are searching for Archibald Witwicky's glasses when Agent Simmons and his Sector Seven colleagues arrive and arrest everyone. The Autobots free Sam and Mikaela, but Bumblebee is eventually captured by Sector Seven, as are Sam and Mikaela.
• Tom Banachek informs United States Secretary of Defense John Keller about the true extent of the threat.
• Everyone gets brought to Sector Seven's headquarters inside Hoover Dam, where they are given a grand tour. Megatron is kept there in cryo-stasis, and the AllSpark is also stored nearby. Simmons gives a demonstration of the AllSpark's capabilities.
• Frenzy infiltrates Sector Seven's headquarters and calls the other Decepticons. Megatron is freed.
• Sam, with Captain Lennox's help, is able to negotiate Bumblebee's release. Bumblebee shrinks the AllSpark and speeds off to Mission City.
• En route, they're intercepted by the Decepticons. Optimus Prime takes out Bonecrusher and Barricade.
• The battle in Mission City starts with Starscream blowing off Bumblebee's legs, while Jazz is killed by Megatron.
• Mikaela straps Bumblebee to a tow truck, thus giving him maneuverability in battle. Subsequently, Bumblebee destroys Brawl.
• Lennox starts an attack on Blackout using a motorcycle, destroying him.
• Sam, with the AllSpark, flees to a rooftop, but Megatron follows him. When Megatron causes Sam to fall, he's saved by Optimus Prime.
• Sam puts the AllSpark cube into Megatron's chest, seemingly killing Megatron, and destroying the cube with him.
• The Autobots briefly mourn their fallen comrade Jazz.
• The story ends with Secretary Keller ordering Sector Seven to be disbanded and the Decepticons' remains to be dropped into the ocean, Ironhide ending up with Lennox, Sam ending up with Mikaela as his girlfriend (and Bumblebee as his car), and Optimus Prime sending out a message to any remaining Autobots hiding in space.

Differences with movie

Since the comic adaptation is based on an earlier version of the script, it differs from the final movie in many details. Other differences may have resulted from certain points in the script being left vague on the details, thus leaving it to Kris Oprisko and Alex Milne to fill in the gaps with their own imagination. Furthermore, lots of scenes and details from the movie are also dropped simply for space reasons (the movie has more than two hours to tell its story, whereas the comic adaptation only has 88 pages in total). While the specific differences are discussed in detail on the pages for the individual issues, a few general observations deserve mention here:

• Glen is entirely absent from the comic adaptation. Furthermore, Maggie also only ever appears in two scenes (in issues 3 and 4). This causes a weird discrepancy between issues 1 and 3—in issue 1, operators on board of Air Force One detect Frenzy's intrusion into their network on their own; yet in issue 3, Maggie tells Sam that she "caught an alien hacking into Air Force One" (like she did in the movie).
• In the comic version, Simmons is portrayed a lot more rude (and less comedic) than in the movie.
• In general, nearly all of the more humorous elements of the movie are missing from the comic adaptation, which presents itself as straightforward Serious Business all the way. That means no Indian phone operator, no Mojo (except for one very brief scene), no instances of Sam making a fool out of himself, and no "Sam's Happy Time".
• Several times, scenes and lines are attributed to different characters as opposed to the movie, particularly in issue 3.
• Barricade's fate (which is left open in the movie itself) is explicitly addressed in issue 4 of the comic adaptation (although The Reign of Starscream later negates it).
• For some reason, Ironhide never speaks.

Creative team

The adaptation was penned by Transformers newcomer Kris Oprisko and drawn by Alex Milne, penciler of many Transformers projects for IDW and former license-holder, Dreamwave Productions.

Collections

• Transformers: Movie Adaptation TPB (June 5?, 2007) ISBN 978-1600100673

Includes a photo gallery "and much more"

• Transformers: Movie Adaptation TPB (Hardcover) (January 2008) ISBN 978-1599614847
• Transformers Movie Collection Volume 1 HC (March 17, 2010) ISBN 1600106439

International Printings

Spain

Transformers: The Official Movie Adaptation was translated and released in Spain by NORMA Editorial.

• ISBN 978-84-9847-205

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