Yeah, I'm more inclined to chalk that scene up to another case of Bay trying to find quirky causes of conflict that of course have a sexual element to them, than an actual thought out inner turmoil plot point - that's just not Bay's style. If he's trying to convey character motivation he'll spell it out with a hammer (kind of like letting us casually know that Cade is a scientist). And were that truly Walberg's underlying struggle, I don't think he would be so embracing of...hell, the Irish guy, forgot his name, at the end of the movie. Yeah, they've been through a lot, and yeah, the guy risked his life for his daughter, but he's still not going to overlook the legal, but very unethical scumbaggery that had been going on for years.

Also you need to remember that Bay's 'true to life' is very different to the rest of the planet's 'true to life'. Frankly, any depth people may find with these movies is completely accidental.

 

We all can say that, but until you're in the midst of a battle with giant robots and save each other lives as well as your daughter's/girlfriend's life, we don't really know how they'd act.

That's what I took away from it.

I feel like this is part of the whole "questions issues with movie, questions gets explained, explanations are pushed away due to preconceived notions about Bay and reasons" spiel I keep pointing out.

 

...so the film was not actually about Transformers, but about Cade Yeager getting constantly screwed over?

I mean, if the film had been called The Life of Cade Yeager then that would be okay, I guess. But it's not, it's titled Transformers: Age of Extinction. A film that's supposed to be built around transforming space robots should have the main plot be about the transforming space robots, not some random joe's existential mid-life crisis somehow being the most important moment in the entire film.

 

Possibly, but while my assumption that any sort of depth is very uncharacteristic of Bay is preconceived, it was most DEFINITELY reinforced by elements of that movie...hell, reinforced by elements of that very scene (Cade, pointing out in his Boston accent that the boyfriend wasn't from Texas due to his accent). Maybe you're right, maybe the world tumbling down around Cade wasn't pointed out enough by the late notices, his best friend/employee asking if he's going to be paid for the job they're doing, the bank/realtor bringing prospective buyers to the the farm because it's about to be foreclosed upon, his daughter doubting his business sense or his ability to pay for her college, etc. I guess yes, the legal statutory rape of his daughter was a necessary next step.

You know, maybe you're right, maybe it really was Bay or the writer's intention for that to be the next aspect to Cade's being broken before building himself back up. Though if that's the case, it was a poor decision, handled very badly (really, a f'n printout of the card kept in his wallet?), and something that the film would have been better off without. So yeah, I guess it's entirely possible it was intended to be a last straw or something, but it was still a terrible scene, making a character who's intended to be a hero a child molester who found a loophole in the law. So yeah, yet another reason the franchise needs rebooting.

 

On Earth.

On Earth.

And yet, it's not the most important moment in the film. Surviving until the end is. That's even in the title, with the extinction part. All the odds were beat.

You guys know that humans are integral part of these movies. Not only to save on CGI, but a "what if" scenario.

Like I said before, it's our world. They came to Earth. Are we supposed to just pretend like they aren't here?

 

for me it started good and got better  

 

Wait, so you're saying that if Prime's faith in humanity wasn't restored by the mid-life crisis speech...why would he have done anything more to protect the humans after that?

"Save on CGI"


Riiiiiiight...



We didn't get actual Decepticons because "they needed to save on CGI" but the short-lived Oreo Vending Machine and a fucking Rainbow Dash cameo were so important.

That's...basically what the US Government is actually doing in AoE given they're letting an entire alien species who have been established in previous films to have diplomatic relations between just get killed off and then melted down into shitty knockoffs.

 

They should just reboot it. The first one was passable, but ever since then they're easily worse than the Star Wars Prequels.

 

I'm not here to argue but the thing about Cade is probably true why else dedicate time to him at all.

A reoccurring idea in Age of Extinction is the theme of family this is shown through the numerous similarities of Cade and Optimus. Cade's life is going to hell he can't get real work his house is on auction he's stealing power from the power plant. His wife is dead and his daughter and him are completely strained due to him not wanting her to repeat the same mistakes he did.

Optimus's life has been going to hell since well the beginning his planet is gone endless amounts of his friends are dead he really doesn't have a home since Earth really doesn't want him there and he has a strained relationship with the humans he regards as children not wanting them to make the same mistakes his kind did. Cade's life is completely destroyed when his friend pretty much betrays him then dies. His finds out Tessa hasn't been honest with him and his family completely falls apart.

Optimus is betrayed too and like Cade left on the run the autobots are depicted as a dysfunctional family who argue and bicker just as much as the Yaegers do like Cade Optimus is the one who keeps them together he even implies he had to pretty much raise Bumblebee at one point. In the end Cade tells Tessa to leave while Optimus pretty much tells his Autobots the same going to face Lockdown himself.

Tessa refuses to leave her father and goes back while he's telling her to leave. Bumblebee refuses to leave Optimus and goes back for him while Optimus tells him to leave which he refuses. Both Optimus and Cade have lost so much Optimus much more, but in the end both have faith and fight on both risk their lives to protect their family. Basically in a lot of ways Cade is a human Optimus before he was broken, Attinger is a human Megatron though Attinger is actually probably closer to a human sentinel. Do I think this was accidental no I really don't there seem to be many similarities for it be accidental so I don't think it was.

About the wasted CG Decepticons were never meant to be in this film also I don't think removing those would make much of a difference budget wise that's about fifteen or twenty seconds I don't see that adding much.

The alliance was ended they were given sanctuary unfortunately the one in charge was Attinger he reported everything and lied about the rest. The autobots were meant to be in hiding because of Chicago no one would expect to actually see them perfect timing for an extermination.

As for the topic I admit there have been missteps but for me it's been getting better and better despite some obvious flaws.

 

Did well then dropped off terribly and since then has very slowly been climbing up...like really slowly.

 

I honestly don't see how making her 18 would have wrecked the entire movie.

Over protective dads don't stop being over protective because their little girl turns 18 so are we thinking Cade is going to approve of her boyfriend just because she was 18 instead of 17?

She wouldn't be the first or last person that could not go to college right after high school. It seems like with the family situation that there would be enough struggles between go off to college to make her own life better or stick around because in a lot of ways her dad still needed her.

In a movie that was already going to run way too long to take all that time just to say why it's okay for a 20 year old to have sex with a 17 year old is just a waste of the viewers time and feels like more padding in a film bursting with padding. We already know Cade doesn't like the guy long before the movie puts the brakes on to explain a weird quark of state law.

 

On top of all that, it's kind of nonsensical how Tessa and Shane would have ever met, given Tessa would likely still be in high school at age 17 whereas the 20 year old Shane is somehow driving a sponsored rally car professionally.


There's Red Bull, Royal Purple Oil, Goodyear, all three of those are major names as sponsors for racing.

Which means Shane's probably not too short on a little extra cash. Funny how at no point does he offer to provide any assistance to his cash-strapped girlfriend's family if scrapping a shitty old cab-over is somehow Cade's main plan of sending her to college.

 

First off I don't hate any of the movies. They all have plenty of things I like, but none of the options 100% match my opinion. I'd vote for another option..."start mediocre and get much better," with the 2007 film and ROTF being enjoyable but mediocre, DOTM good, and AOE great. I guess the "started off good, got steadily better" works best personally for the simple fact that I don't dislike any of them; I appreciate them all for some reason. However, here are my reasons for my opinion.

-The more recent major villains (Sentinel, Lockdown, Galvatron) are considerably more competent, consistent, and fascinating than 2007 Megatron or the Fallen.
-The movies have gotten considerably more focused on the Transformers as characters as time has gone on, and the plots have gotten more focused on the Transformers side of things. Just compare Optimus in the 2007 movie/ROTF to AOE or the other AOE Autobots to the ones in the first trilogy. In AOE Prime actually has a character arc. Even Ratchet and Brains have brief but important roles in AOE. Ratchet is better characterized in his one AOE scene than in all of his scenes in the entire first trilogy combined. Many of the human characters (Attinger, Joyce, Savoy) have dialogue that is largely focused on Transformers in some way or another (although Simmons is also largely focused on the Transformers side of things as well in the first side of things). That's one thing that isn't mentioned enough...although the robots can't appear onscreen all of the time due to budget reasons, a lot of the human dialogue is still focused on the Transformers' story. Finally, even giant CGI creations like the Driller, Dinobots, and Lockdown's ship appear on screen longer than Starscream does in the first film.
-The voice acting has gotten better as time has gone on with the additions of Welker, Nimoy, and others. Cullen's best Optimus performance ever is perhaps his AOE version.
-I find DOTM's and AOE's plots to be considerably more engaging, interesting, and logical than those of the first two films.
-The Optimus-Cade friendship is better than the Bumblebee-Sam one, although to be fair I think the Bee-Sam friendship is good, too, but there were times it could have been better in the second and third films.
-The human-Transformer interaction and inter-Transformer interaction is much better as time goes one. In the first movie the Decepticons all occupy the same space, but Megatron acts a lot of the time like his underlings aren't even there. ROTF has some great Starscream-Megatron interaction. The African scene in DOTM is one of my favorites in the first trilogy. Even though Galvatron's minions are all drones that don't speak I like how he actually actively commands them in China and Hong Kong.
-I find the action to be better choreographed and filmed more coherently in the last two installments, especially AOE.
-The later installments try more interesting things (Space Race conspiracy, Sentinel's betrayal, bounty hunters and humans working together to capture Prime and destroy other Transformers, Creators, Transformium, KSI Transformers). Consequently, the latter Movieverse is a considerably more interesting fictional universe.
-Yeagers>Witwickies. I find them more relatable, and Cade's a better ally than Sam. Granted, I think Shane's character is really bad, but that actually almost works because you 1) enjoy seeing him get put in his place and 2) he's kind of "just there" in most of the scenes he appears in. Yes, he's on the screen, but his presence doesn't take away from the other characters, human or Autobot, because he's "just there" in most instances.
-Seymour Simmons is much better in the sequels than the first film, despite a certain scene in ROTF.

Keep in mind DOTM and AOE both unfortunately follow ROTF, and that tainted the way many people saw them. I think the two most recent entries are by far the stronger half of the Movieverse, but in the end we all see things differently, and the more I think about it that's the way it should be. Without different opinions and preferences there wouldn't be the great diversity of Transformers fiction and toys we have in the Transformers brand....G1, Bay movies, Beast Wars, Beast Machines, Animated, IDW, Generations, Masterpiece, Robots in Disguise, Rescue Bots, etc. Fan preferences for different aspects of Transformers has enriched the Transformers brand tremendously. That is how I see things at least.

 

I'm on a glitchy-ass old cellphone right now so I'll have to address the glut of puritanical nonsense in this thread at a later point. But in the meantime...

LOLWTF

Are you serious?!?

As the movie plainly establishes, they've been dating for THREE YEARS. That's PLENTY of time for him to have picked up a few decent endorsments on the racing circuit since high school, ESPECIALLY with "the best hands in the business" going for him.

Speaking of which, even for a daddy's girl, she had an AWFUL LOT of expensive music festival posters and cowgirl boots all over her bedroom, not to mention a pretty nice laptop.

I'm sure Shane was MORE than happy to cut her in on their shared racing profits, but his life-savings went into the foundation of that enterprise. A few awesome endorsements (one of which he JUST got) don't exactly mean he's swimming in money deep enough to singlehandedly put his gf through college right away, ffs.

Great write-up, but WRONG-O, my good sir!

 

 

Oh I'm well aware from watching the film that one of the Trax drones says "piece of sh#t" when it shoots down the ship over Hong Kong. I meant "non-sentient." The way I see it is that some of the KSI Decepticons, while non-sentient, are programmed to say various things kind of like video game characters during game play. But they don't interact in the same way that say Starscream, Laserbeak, or Soundwave would. Still, I love how Galvatron actually does actively speak to them.

 

I agree with most of what you said especially revenge tainting it for others. However I also believe a select few scenes tainted revenge if all or even most of those humor bits weren't there I think the movie would be better regarded than the first specifically for the reasons you stated. No way of confirming it if you disagree go ahead nothing wrong with that.

I love all the movies but I admit I find the first two highly flawed. The third I have a few issues with but not many. I can't think of any real issues I had with the forth naturally many will disagree which is fine but for me probably one of the best and most satisfying movie experiences I have ever had.

 

What's kind of interesting with where the franchise is going in the future is how it's produced a split among fans.

You've got one group that is happy as is and if Paramount wants to do Transformers 12 directed Bay then they are looking forward to buying a ticket.

But even with the talk of a big writers room other people have given up hope on the film franchise ever being able to turn things around into something they wanted.

 

I always figured the ksi drones where a lot like the ultron drones. They are just extensions of Galvatron. He controls, or controlled, what they did. Thus when they speak it was just like Galvatron expressing his emotions through one of them.

 

Started strong with TFTM, dipped with ROTF, got pretty good again with DOTM (my favorite of the live action films), and then dipped again with AOE. Guess all the even-numbered films turn out to be crap while the odd-numbered ones are pretty decent.

 

all of this could have been fixed if that car was a Transformers like it was suppose to be.