See I liked TLK when I first saw it for some minor stuff. At the same time I acknowledged it was very much a Michael Bay transformers film. I just thought the pacing was incredibly rushed and all the characters very useless. In short it had great concepts but a lot of them were executed poorly. Execept cogman. And the guy played by Sir Anthony Hopkins. Also hot rod is fun. And the knights as a dragon. You know what? All the whole knight and castle sections are cool. Everything else around them I’d say with confidence is lame.

 

What's funny is that I'm kind of the opposite, lol. I find the stuff with Hopkins' interesting in-theory, but I thought the movie indulged in it way too much. My favorite stuff was the Chicago/junkyard/abandoned town portion, and the Optimus vs Bumblebee stuff. For me the castle/sub parts kind of ruined the momentum of the adventure. Overall I feel like the medieval aspect would have been better as a separate film from the Cade/Autobots adventure (or maybe the other way around since it was called "The Last Knight").

 

Hah. Well you don’t say? I won’t deny they talked non-stop about it. That bumblebee fight with prime was pretty cool but had zero stakes to keep me interested.

 

See, i actually like #1 (minus the sophomoric potty humor and, ya know, the robot designs) and 3 was an OK mindless action movie with some jaw dropping cinematography (the squirrel suit insertion in Chicago really is a thing to behold) and an actual decent villain in Sentinel Prime (Megatron has never been more one-note then in Bayverse... but that's almost one more note then Shockwave got!!!), but man, 4 was just so much nonsense. The redesigns to look more human-proportioned, no clear reason why anyone was doing anything, the absurd nanite-transformations (that still makes me mad just to even think about), the "hey lets go to china because reasons!" third act... i didn't even watch it until it hit Blu-Ray the reviews were so bad, and it was such a slog it took me twice to actually make it through.

I would have gone to TLK if it sounded like it was better, but almost to a fault every review and lots of folks on here seem to agree it actually doubled down on all the worst aspects of AoE.
Consequently, i have yet to see it. I don't even know if i'd watch it on Netflix at this point...

 

The only thing I liked in AOE was the aftermath of DOTM, inclusion of Lockdown, killing of Ratchet, Dinobots, narrative about Creators.
The rest was bullshit and they doubled it in The Last Failure

 

Now as I said in my original comment, I’m gonna defend 4 here. I believe that they improved on a lot of what the Bayverse did, with the exceptions of some of what you mentioned. For one, Lockdown was an awesome villain who was threatening, designed nicely, and could monologue like Satan himself, something that only DotM could rival with Sentinel. Another thing is that they went back to a small cast, which gave the writers to develop the characters a little more, something that only TF1 was able to come close to. For instance, Drift is the robot who tries to imitate the ways of the samurai but is terribly bad at keeping cool, Crosshairs is the one with the cool technique and the trench coat who only really cares about himself, and Hound is the shoot first ask questions later heavy robot who has that classic John Goodman personality. Bumblebee is classic movie Bumblebee, no real depth but has the most connection with the humans besides Optimus. Now this might seem very controversial, but I really love what they did with Optimus (minus the design). You can see how hurt he is from the beginning when the race that he sacrificed his home, dignity, friends, and reputation for finally turns on him and he loses faith. Then they start killing his friends and hunting him and he really begins to wonder if he made the right choice. Meanwhile, Cade is trying to convince him that it’s just a mistake and that he has to have faith in what he believes in. And when he sees how much a human sacrificed for him (his friend, his house, his future, his daughter’s future) he realizes that, in the words of Captain Archibald Witwicky, No Sacrifice, No Victory. And as cheesy as it sounds and how much they might have been able to show it better, I think it’s really beautiful, which is why I love a complex Optimus Prime.

Now it definitely has its faults, for example the designs could have been better, there were very few real transformations, and many of the few that happened were those awful KSI ones. There was perhaps too much focus on the humans, as usual, and though Cade was necessary, his daughter’s relationship was not. I think Galvatron’s whole story arc was pretty unnecessary and could have been worked around, but it wasn’t too bad with the exception of his design and stuff. The Dinobots were marketed as the selling point of the movie, but they were hardly in it except as big explosion makers. But overall I think the goods more than make up for the bads, and I think that there was potential. Then TLK ruined it all.

 

I hold AoE as my favourite TF movie and you’ve basically got most of the reasons why. I do really like the designs though. Optimus has a seemingly regal appearance but he has very much the same warrior instincts of his known persona.
And while lockdown is simply a great villain. I love galvatron and the KSI drones. The fact that they are making their own versions of Optimus, bumblebee and background genericons in a factory in China just reminds me of KOs and I love it.
The dinobot’s introduction was pretty neat as well with Optimus convincing them to join his cause but not controlling them like how lockdown was keeping them in captivity.

 

While AOE has it's own faults, I can defend it better than TLK at least.
I could understand what they did to Prime's characterization. They made him flawed.
Strayed from your typical upstanding fine looking hero everyone looked up to. Boyscout.

I could take AOE's some shits but can't TLK's most of shits.  

TLK was originally planned a 2-parter plot. But they strayed from that plan. And the final product seems so much condensed or better term, compressed. The mentioning of "Earth is Unicron" is downright shoving it from nowhere. Then they showed "Unicron's HORNS" just to make the "shoe-horning" justified.

What I'm also disappointed is the wrecked Cybertron's atmospheric entry of Earth.
Wrecked or not, Cybertron is a planetary body. They forgot to put the scientific logic (at least) when two massive bodies imminent collision's effect on Earth's ground. Heck at least the G1 episode "Ultimate Doom" managed to show and explained the effect when the decepticons are managed to teleport Cybertron above Earth. Tidal Waves, Weather disruption, etc..

They did not even show the Global Scale of Reaction when Cybertron made it to Earth.
They only focused on scientist, experts, intel officials that are worrying about the phenomena.

Good thing TLK ditched AOE's transformium gimmick. I really hate it. I always see that VFX as a cheat from doing "real transformation sequences" as portrayed from the 1st 3 films.

 

Yeah I did like that more of the characters transformed in the film. Made the designs more believable. Although the transformium transformation is a cool detail that makes sense for the KSI drones as they aren’t alive and don’t have a defined biological structure like the other characters. Yes it is a total cheap and easy way to do a transformer. But so are the broad scape of knockoffs.

 

Yeah actually I am a fan of a good majority of the designs, mainly Drift, Crosshairs, Bumblebee, and Stinger. The only reason I don’t completely like Optimus is because it’s hard to envision the transformation (although it became much more believable with the Challenger figure) and it just doesn’t feel enough like Optimus. I normally think that most characters should be able to look different, but Optimus should look like he turns into a truck. I do like the design on its own though. I also like how Bumblebee isn’t the majority of the robot parts and is just about as important as anyone else. And yeah the China thing was cool; I just wish they actually transformed. Definitely a favorite of mine.

 

I can’t see how you could possibly think that.
Least convoluted?

The plot with King Arthur and Merlin.
The plot to get Merlin’s staff.
The plot with Transformers and also humans living in the destroyed section of Chicago.
The plot with Megatron siding with the US government.
Optimus meeting “The Creator”, Quintessa.
Quintessa turning Optimus evil.
Cade and "the amulet" that is also Excalibur but I had to read on TFWiki that it was supposed to be Exaclibur.
Bumblebee was in World War II with Hot Rod.
Earth is Unicron

And those are just the items that were explored in the movie.
Many things were just thrown out there with no explanation at all.

The Witwickans are a secret order that has protected the secrets of The Transformers for generations?
Sam Witwicky is a member of this order even though he knew nothing about it?
The Mini-Dinobots?
The Seed from the last movie? Forgotten.
Earth is Unicron? I know I listed that as part of “the plot” but it had nothing to do with anything.
Megatron has the same mark of corruption on his face as Optimus.

And probably the most ridiculous, Bumblebee can regenerate!
This is not explained nor even really mentioned in the movie.
It’s possibly the secret to Transformers immortality and they just don’t even talk about it.

How can a movie that shows robots dying all the time but has one robot that can magically put himself back together and no one acts like that’s a factor to be considered not be convoluted?

 

Yeah.. TLK have so many plot holes compared to previous films.
Bee's indestructibility is like saying the franchise can't afford to kill off Bee due to his popularity.

 

Yeah like where the fuck did that come from!? Not even a prequel comic to explain it!?

 

@Digger
Prequel Comic.. Now that you mentioned it.
The Trilogy while it has it's own flaws and plot holes, tie-in comics from IDW seems to cover most of it.
Story about Sector 7, Early relationship between Prime, Sentinel and Megatron, the capture & rescue of Brains, etc...
At least that's for the TF franchise fans to read it.

I don't think AOE and TLK had a single IDW comic tie-ins to bridge gaps and support some movie plot holes.

I wonder about the novelized version of the films.
I never read a single novelized book of a certain films.
Can it be considered the movie's "Original Cut" or just a text version of the whole theatrical cut?

 

AoE did have a couple comics. TLK basically had nothing though.