USA Today recently interviewed Director Michael Bay and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura on the set of Transformers 3 and revealed some plot details, the villain and some of the mistakes they won’t make in the third installment that were made in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

• The new film features Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) taking his first tenuous steps into adulthood while remaining a reluctant human ally of Optimus Prime. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura says that “Shia has this great line: ‘You know, I’ve saved the world twice, but I can’t get a job.”
• Regarding the criticism of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Bay says, “I’ll take some of the criticism. It was very hard to put (the sequel) together that quickly after the writers’ strike (of 2007-08).”
• Bay added: “One thing we’re getting rid of is what I call the dorky comedy,” So the twins, the two bumbling, slang-spewing robots? “They’re basically gone,” he says, though John Turturro returns for comic relief.
• Bay calls the second film’s villain, The Fallen, “kind of a (expletive) character.” The new movie’s foe is certain to make fans of the original ’80s incarnation smile: Shockwave, the robot cyclops-turned-laser-cannon, who became dictator of their home world of Cybertron after the other Autobots and Decepticons journeyed to Earth.
• Transformers 3 delves into the space race between the U.S.S.R. and the USA, suggesting there was a hidden Transformers role in it all that remains one of the planet’s most dangerous secrets. “The movie is more of a mystery,” Bay says. “It ties in what we know as history growing up as kids with what really happened.”
• Bay says “This one really builds to a final crescendo. It’s not three multiple endings.” He goes on to say, “As a trilogy, it really ends. It could be rebooted again, but I think it has a really killer ending.”

USA Today also confirmed that the movie will be 3D, though no mention was made about whether it would be shot in native 3D or converted in post-production.

Transformers 3 hits theaters on July 1st, 2011 and stars Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Kevin Dunn, Julie White, Ken Jeong, Patrick Dempsey and Alan Tudyk.