[Geass]

I've heard rock instruments placed in very well with orchestrated peices, they just where not the dominant part of the score. If any of you know of Toshihiko Sahashi, he does excelent use of orchestrated music with guitar incorporated in to the score, its an excelent example of guitar rock styles with orchestra dominated scores. (he did Gundam Seed series and FMP! series as well and soem others)

Here are some excerpts of the Wiki article for the soundtrack,

"Although the score is not finalised, DeSanto intends an orchestral version of the TV series' theme for the film. Stan Bush, who performed the songs "Dare" and "The Touch" for the 1986 film, is composing a song for this film."

(tangent coming up)

Amazingly though there is a reference about the film having an R rating in an early rough cut of the film, which I think would have been pretty neat, possibly putting giant robots in actual acceptable adult maturity appreciation of content rather than just a toy idea. Lucky though that Spielberg convinced otherwise for a PG-13 ratting.

Concercing the music on original score form the 1986 movie though, the selection of music that where in the score, weird al's contribution seems that it used the planet junk sequence where the autobots crash landed. I just downloaded it, and it seems the only thing logical it was used in.

(tangent ending)

Other songs used in the film where mostly pop songs, as well as even some music borrowed from an old commodore 64 game. I mean like lynk said, most songs in the 80s used in the film are a 1 in a 1,000,000 combination chance that it would sounf good at all, and if you happen to look back now, you wonder how the film actually carried on its own, with such a score with its edits and cuts to certain lyrics at all, and especially the taste.
(its like the "We built this city" song)

But I would have to say, bringing 80s songs in to the movie would be terrible taste, no matter how hard the fanboys scream and shit-n-piss their pants.
Sure bring back some people that worked on it, but its not childhood nostalgia time, its time to wake up and face the fact that having megatron shrink to a gun and have to weilded is really the anti-thessis of a super villian, and optimus has problems finding his trailer when he transforms.

Orchestral works with some mixed use of mottif stylings would probably be the dominant soundtrack in this film, and just by the sound of teaser (the one with a transformer attacking the beagle rover on mars) its going to be that way.

On a final note, if you want something from the past, make a new rendition, becasue frankly "The Touch" sounds awfully comical, especially when the 80s rockbands where becoming comercialized (ie "We Built This City" ) at their declining peak.