Hip-Hop Autobots Cut From ‘Transformers 3’?

Hollywood visionary Michael Bay recently revealed that his upcoming sequel to 'Transformers,' the franchise's third installment, will not include the controversial hip-hop-spoofing Autobots that have been getting viewers up in arms since they appeared last summer in 'Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen.' The two robots, known as Mudflap and Skids, touch on some headache-inducing racial stereotypes. While different colors, both characters speak in heavy slang and ebonics. Neither bot can read and the Skids character sports a single gold front tooth.

"We're just putting more personality in," Bay said at the time. "I don't know if it's stereotypes -- they are robots, by the way. These are the voice actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it. I purely did it for kids. Young kids love these robots, because it makes it more accessible to them ... "

Well, a year sure changes things. Bay recently confirmed via his movie forum 'Shoot for the Edit' that "the Twins are not back in T3."

However, a batch of recent photos shows two cars sporting the same properties and colors as the original characters. Bay is renowned for spreading misinformation and deliberately messing with the nerdy, news-hungry fan base that follows the 'Transformer' movies as they are being made. 'Transformers 3' is currently filming in Los Angeles.