Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, longtime writing partners and two of the writers on the last two Transformers flicks, were chatting up the press recently because of the release of the DVDs of the two summer movies they worked on: Revenge of the Fallen and one of the year’s other big hits, Star Trek.

While they’re beginning to work on a Star Trek sequel, as previously reported they’re not doing Transformers 3.  So why is that?  Sci-Fi Squad has the answer:

Why have you decided not to be involved with Transformers 3?

Orci: We’ve been working on Transformers longer than I was in college. I feel like we have our degree in Transformers now.

Kurtzman: The franchise is so wonderful that it deserves to be fresh, all the time. We just felt like we’d given it a lot and didn’t have an insight for where to go with it next, and said, “You should do it right.”

Orci: The studio was nice to say, “Oh, yeah, if you guys want to come back then come back.” But, we never want to do that, unless we have an idea. We always think the best idea should win, and that means opening it up to everybody.

Aside from Star Trek 2, they’re also working on Cowboys & Aliens with Jon Favreau and Robert Downey, Jr.