Transformers: Age of Extinction (yes, I'm going there)

Originally I had absolutely no inclination to write anything about the new Transformers movie that came out this past weekend. HOWEVER, upon seeing it I just don't think I can contain myself. This isn't a review by any stretch of the imagination, like pretty much everything else on this blog, this is just an very opinionated dialogue. Warning, heavy spoilers below. Proceed at your own risk.



I'll be honest, I knew this movie was going to be bad. Appallingly bad. So I lowered my standards accordingly and managed to come out of the theater surprisingly not disappointed. This is just to say that the movie managed not to drop below my expectations. So in celebration of that, I am going list what I enjoyed about this movie rather than what I didn't (since there are plenty of people tearing this thing apart limb from limb).

Positives:

- No Sam Witwicky/Shia LeBouf (so tired of the character and actor)
- No Sam Witwicky's parents (same reason)
- The movie wasn't a commercial for the US Military for once (instead it was a commercial for the Chinese Government, but I digress)
- Frank Welker as Galvatron (I avoid spoilers so I had no idea about this and was pleasantly surprised when I heard his voice in the movie, yay!)
- No potty humor or robot genitals (thank god)
- Continuity from TF3 (something that was sorely missing from previous installments)
- Kelsey Grammar and Stanley Tucci (wonderful actors who were underused)

Aaaaand that's about it. Unfortunately the positives are more of what isn't in the movie than what is, and that is pretty bad news for something that represents the hobby I love. So there, I actually had some good things to say about the movie.


OKAY, I can't help it, I have to post the negatives. This list was mostly compiled by Scorpio on TFW and I modified it to reflect all the problems I had with the film.

Negatives:

- Opening action scene with creators does nothing to explain why they only Terraformed part of Earth with the Seeds
- Unnecessary scene with KSI discovering the effects of the opening credits in the Artic
- Random Transformers metal is called 'Transformium'
- Shane was an unnecessary character
- Unnecessary realtor scene
- Never explained how Lockdown and Attinger met to form this alliance
- Chase scene felt too long and got boring, why didn't they use the guns sooner
- Jump scene during the car chase felt 'too planned', admitting they've done it before doesn't help either
- Lucas dies and after 2 scenes he is never brought up again
- Attinger somehow has the power to get the police, military and ATM's on his side without the president knowing.
- Autobots have randomly been waiting in a canyon for four years
- Crosshairs is an asshole who shouldn't be with the Autobots
- Optimus gets enraged over seeing Ratchet despite not caring about Jazz or Ironhide in prior films
- So the president has no idea what is happening with KSI and hunting down Transformers, what about the whole 'keep earth human' campaign and the propaganda posters? Surely he must have seen the faces of Bumblebee and Optimus
- Nobody ever brings up the fact that the Autobots saved the planet three times now
- Cade only knows about the events of Chicago and not the events of the first two movies
- Attinger is referred to as working for 25 years as a founder of KSI however later its stated he's been working against Transformers since he founded KSI. So he's been doing this for 25 years and The Autobots only notice now?
- This is the fourth body that Megatron has had and the second time he has been resurrected in the series
- Galvatron could have looked like Optimus and we could have gotten Nemesis Prime, instead they brought back Megatron again
- Why would Megatron bother making his face look obviously evil, surely that ruins the whole 'hiding until taken to Hong Kong' thing
- Megatron somehow survived DOTM, learned about The Seed and the Autobots automatically guessed his plan solely from Brain who may have been mind-linked with Megatron...
- Megatron immediately calls himself Galvatron by choice despite the scene supposedly their to highlight Megatron taking over the drone
- If all the KSI drones have the ability to split into cubes when attacked, why do they all die so easily when they can avoid the attacks easily
- Why doesn't Lockdown's ship have a way of telling that part of it has left, surely its something you would notice being that size
- Magical Transformers sword can turn into a gun that is able to be held and fired by humans
- Brain disappears immediately after giving the humans this news
- Hound says he is out of ammo and then proceeds to fight over another few waves of enemy with ammo including his 'bullet cigar'
- Unnecessary milk drinking scene
- Unnecessary bud light scene
- Unnecessary romance plotline with Tucci and Li Bingbing
- Random boggle eyed creatures on Lockdown's spaceship
- Random 'tongue alien' scene
- Hound murdering random aliens on the spaceship, remember these are innocent alien prisoners
- Gun-Sword's are used to control the ship and reveal the weapon storage
- Hound's last stand goes on for way too long and its boring as their is no tension for whether he will live or die
- Dinobots alt-modes are never explained
- Dinobots not talking
- Dinobots not fighting anyone other than Optimus (In Robot Mode)
- Dinobots being essentially useless
- Unnecessary magnet scene
- Tessa and Shane are too involved in the final battle with Lockdown
- Attinger scene mirrors Dylan scene from DOTM
- Optimus no longer cares about humans, despite obviously caring about humans in the KSI scene
- If Lockdown only wants Optimus, why does he go after Cade after impaling Optimus
- Optimus doesn't try pulling the sword out his chest
- Super murder-y Optimus Prime
- Optimus says that the person in charge will die... so he would have tracked down and murdered Attinger anyway
- Optimus NEVER asks why the creators want him back or who they are
- Optimus randomly gains the ability to fly
- Deus Ex Grenade...
- Lockdown's grenade does not look like the 'grenade' in the final battle, it looks like the 'seeds' used in the opening
- Tucci is forgiven for creating Galvatron
- Nobody cares that Galvatron/Megatron is still on Earth
- Optimus abandons his team who he promised would be taken off Earth
- Big spaceship over Hong Kong at the end of the movie
- Dinobots left to frolic through flowers...
- Optimus's final lines don't make sense, saying that people don't need to know where they came from or why, yet going to find out anyway
- Non sequitur storytelling
- Pandering to the Chinese Government

Ugh, it was just...awful. I don't plan on going back to see it again. I can't waste another 2:45 hours of my life. Too much random crap going on at the same time and waaaaaay too long. They could have cut a good hour out of that movie and not lost a thing. I need to watch the 1986 movie now. If you haven't seen it yet, beware; if you have, bless you for having the stomach to sit through it all.