In-demand screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman were having a hell of a year. “Star Trek,” is the number one grossing film in the U.S. so far, and “Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen,” is poised to easily overtake it in a few weeks. But perhaps a little blemish on their writing record so far is them damn, racist robots in Michael Bay’s “ROTFL” that people are trying to peg on them — the writers of the script.
However, they’ve already said in various other interviews they are not responsible for RacistbotGate and creating or writing those characters. Furthermore, after seeing the minstrely Skids & Mudflap on screen Kurstzman told FSR they weren’t exactly psyched. “I wasn’t thrilled. I certainly wasn’t thrilled.” Orci doubled up on the sentiment, “Yeah, same reaction. I’m not easily offended, but when I saw it, I thought, ‘Someone’s gonna write about that.’ ”
More like their reaction was probably, “Oh, shit.” But they get it and understand why people are offended. “We sympathize. Yes, the gold tooth was not in the script, that’s true.”
“It’s really hard for us to sit here and try to justify it,” Kurtzman said despite Michael Bay trying to defend it and dismiss the criticism yesterday. “I think that would be very foolish, and if someone wants to be offended by it, it’s their right. We were very surprised when we saw it, too, and it’s a choice that was made. If anything, it just shows you that we don’t control every aspect of the movie.”
Translation: Like Pontius Pilate, we wash our hands of this debacle. You know where to find whatshisface; he can answer to all this. Kind amusing to see these guys throw Bay under the bus, he deserves it. [FilmSchoolRejects]