No more Transformers sequels? Please, Jesus, let it be true

As the world braces for the money-shot of Michael Bay's third and most massive robo-jaculation since his last entry into the Transformers mega-conglomeration two years ago, it's increasingly looking like franchise star Shia LaBoeuf might be, uh, pulling out, so to speak. That would be the second serious loss to its human cast within the last year, and while the series could potentially last without the aid of humans at all -- actually, at this point, we're assuming it's like a Rise of the Machines scenario in the studio where humanity's only hope is if Steven Spielberg comes back in cyborg form from a future that is actually the past where he made movies that were good -- we're hoping against hope that this could be the death knell.

Co-star Megan Fox, of course was fired from the third installment last year after publicly comparing Bay to Hitler (she initially said she was pursuing other filmmaking opportunities), and given that Bay could have gotten roughly as much acting prowess out of a piece of wood with a face drawn on it, it's no surprise that she was pretty easily replaced with Rosie Huntington (basically another really attractive piece of wood with a face). Still, when you remove LaBeouf from that equation, that's just about every actor from the first two, and when you venture into the entirely-new-cast realm, that's the realm of straight-to-DVD.

And LaBeouf is hardly making bones about leaving. "Not because I don't like making them," he confided to Entertainment Tonight yesterday. "I love making them, I love [director Michael Bay], I love doing the movies -- I don't have anything else to contribute. I don't think you can take [my character] Sam anywhere." Congratulations on your deductive abilities, Shia -- that's been true for about four years.

Apparently, LaBeouf also has other, possibly more compelling reasons for getting out of the franchise, which he detailed yesterday in an interview with MTV News -- specifically, it seems Bay has been literally giving him one in the yarbles: "Would you like me to take my shoelace off, tie it around your nuts and then hang it from a chandelier on the ceiling?" he rhetorically asked the interviewer. "And then while you're up there hanging from your testicles, I need you to scream, 'Optimus!' which makes the testicle condense inside of the shoelace vise."

Too bad LaBeouf doesn't have nuts like this:

Then again, actually, let us all give praise to Jesus that he doesn't, that perhaps his own anguish may in turn spare the rest of the world the anguish of having to gaze upon the spectacle of testicles on a robot ever again.

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