When I get the time, I'm going to type up my own version of AoE, that will correct it's mistakes, oversight, and stupidity, and make a smoother, less bloated story, without actually changing the core idea, or adding characters. Depending on its length, I'll post it here, or in my blog, or both. Expect it in a day or two.
A few changes I'd make, let me know what you think of them!: The Creators and their robot creations fight the Knights on Prehistoric Earth Instead of Lockdown willingly helping humanity kill Transformers, he's forced to because his ship crashed a few months earlier and has no way off Earth. The humans will kill him if he doesn't. Bumblebee and Optimus fight Lockdown at the beginning of the movie in a forest, along with facing numerous KSI bots. Bumblebee is killed after being overwhelmed, but Optimus escapes after taking grievous wounds and promising to avenge Bumblebee. While at Cade's, Optimus learns for the first time that humans are hunting Transformers using bots of their own. Shane is the same age as Tessa and isn't a secret to Cade Cade doesn't steal a drone Optimus meets with Ratchet, Sideswipe and Mirage who take the forms of a white and red ambulance, red 1990 Lamborghini Countach and blue 2000 Ferrari Enzo, respectively. They send Tessa, Cade and Shane to Simmon's house in Washington, DC where he lives with his wife Mearing and his caretaker Dutch, and they attempt to have them spread the message of KSI killing Autobots, which they can't do because they were all fired from the government. Dutch manages to hack into KSI's Chicago headquarters and turn off the city's Energon detectors. Optimus and the Autobots roll into Chicago, where the Yeagers learn Lennox works at KSI. They confront him and find out that most employees don't know that the KSI bots are killing Transformers. Lennox sneaks into the KSI HQ instead of Cade, and finds numerous dead Decepticon and Autobot corpses, including Bumblebee's. Instead of Brains being used by KSI, it's Igor, who intentionally uploads Megatron's brain into Galvatron's body. The Autobots kill him when they raid the base, and Lennox returns to his wife and daughter after the Autobots thank him. The Autobots also scan new vehicle forms when escaping. Stinger is made from Bumblebee's corpse, and Ratchet kills him in Chicago. Lockdown incapacitated Optimus, and afterwards a ship arrives full of others of his kind, much to his relief. He decides to abandon humankind. Optimus talks to Grimlock while captured, and the two strike up a friendship. Grimlock reveals that he and the other three Dinobots are the last of the Knights, a race of robots created by the Creators long before they created the Allspark. Optimus and Grimlock land in the Wulong Valley, but the others land in the city. The fight goes on relatively the same, and Scorn is killed by the Vehicons and Galvatron. In the valley, Optimus and Grimlock discover the Wreckers, who ride into battle with them. Darcy Tyril is killed by Vehicons. Speaking of Vehicons, they each have a unique design. No two-headed Shockwaves. Lockdown starts murdering humans alongside his small crew in Hong Kong. He has no more than half a dozen crew members, and they are killed by the Dinobots and Autobots, admittedly with effort. They also turn on the Vehicons, causing a three-way battle. Lockdown injures Optimus by pinning him to the ground with his sword, so the Autobots intervene. Lockdown kills Ratchet, but Grimlock kills him. Optimus takes Lockdown's ship to go search for the Creators in an effort to learn more about what Grimlock told him, and Grimlock goes with him. The other Auto/Dinobots are tasked with finding the remaining human-made bots and destroying them, and restoring ties with humanity. They are told to contact Optimus if anything goes wrong on Earth.
Alternative Galvatron Arc When I saw the trailer where Lockdown spoke for the first time, I had suspicions that he wasn't talking to Optimus Prime when he said "You weren't born, you were built." There's no way they're going to do the Quintessons, I thought to myself. In a lot of the trailers where Optimus got shot, I saw a Transformer's arm rise in the lower left corner, like he was getting up. Since no one else matched that color scheme, I assumed it was Galvatron... and with Lockdown rising menacingly above an injured Prime, I thought he knocked out Prime. So instead, Lockdown delivered his wham line to Galvatron. Put it all together, and a very different scene played out in my head... In this version, the artificial Transformers weren't remote-controlled drones, but sentient machines (to maximize combat efficiency), but had inhibitors to limit their curiosity and were force-fed lies: they believed they were actual Transformers and after the Battle of Chicago, saw the others as out-of-control, joining with KSI to capture and imprison them for their own good. As such, Galvatron wasn't Megatron reborn, but his "successor" (like Stinger is to Bee). In his battle with Optimus, Galvatron's curiosity dampeners were damaged and with Lockdown spitting on what the Great War came to, e.g. allowing such miserable lifeforms to build Transformer knock-offs, Galvatron questions what he believes. KSI Command panics and wants to pull Galvatron out, overriding his systems and putting him in pain. Lockdown has his "you weren't born, you were built and now they want you back" shtick and Galvatron recalls to base with Stinger. On the way, he thinks about what Lockdown said... and later in the movie, rebels and vows to destroy humanity for manipulating him, starting with KSI. Also in this version, the KSI bots transformed regularly. Dissolving into nanobots seems a little too complex for their human designers, at least in my opinion. They still didn't have Sparks, which would serve as a critical point in Lockdown's conversation with Galvatron and later, Galvatron's rebellion. I thought all of this in my head after seeing just one trailer... it sounded shorter in my head. What do you think?
This is easily one of the dumbest things I've read. No offense. So the entire fight with Optimus and Lockdown that was in-focus? Hound going nuts on Vehicons? The highway chase? All the shots of Dinobots munching and crunching? All that and more that didn't happen, huh? Or is it just because ANY shots of humans during TF fights counts as "focus on them?" Give me a break.
That ONLY fight I feel didn't give enough attention was the fight between Optimus and Galvatron. Not only was it short, some of the action was on the edges of the screen and focused on Tessa hiding behind the car with camera going back and forth in between her, Cade, Prime and back in very quick succession. The other fights in the film were well shot, but this one imo was harder to wrap around and left me a little sea-sick trying to see the robot fight going on.
Eradeg? But at the same time, it was less of a fight, and more of a tussle before being broken up. It wasn't a full-on battle, and when it was important it did show the combatants from the proper angle ("That is why I have no fear") And the "robots fighting on the peripheral" is very effective for getting across the size, speed, and chaotic nature of a fight so grand scale. It's easy to forget the robots are giants without the few shots from a human point of view to really show that yeah, they're huge, and when they fight it's crazy. And like you said, no other fight was really like that. It was also the only fight to have a human scampering around their feet trying to escape, again emphesising the chaos.
People here are talking as if AoE has the worst plot of any transformers continuity. Apart from the comics, TFP, and arguably Beast Wars, All continuity's have huge plot holes and generally don't make sense. Look at G1, that show, even for an 80's show was pretty bad. Characters popping out of nowhere (I swear bay homaged that with the introduction of Dino and Que in DOTM, and again in AoE) only a few eps actually felt worthy of a decent story. Don't get me started on the Unicron trilogy, while i like Armada, holy crap it was rushed to hell. Energon was all over the place, and Cybertron, while being the best of the 3, was still corny as hell. RID was okay, but still characters came from nowhere and to this day i still can't work out what the overall story was about. Fortress Maximus just seemed forced in. Animated was okay, and a big improvement but still had it's problems, the animation style felt like i was watching Transformers: The Teenage Years. But despite all this, we watch the show because of the characters we love! Sure characters get changed, personality wise but that happens all the time. Sure Hound resembles Bulkhead and Kup, but it's just another itteration of the character and he was great! I'd rather have AoE's story than any of the "fix's" everyone is typing in here. The fix's are things you want to see for the fandom, but the fact is these films target much more than just us. I do agree with Mr Chaos however, that Lockdown should of spoke to Optimus longer, mentioning the Allspark etc but that's just a continuity thing, for all we know something like that is in the deleted scenes or something. Sorry to be a kill joy here, but AoE or any of the films do not need fixing (maybe barring ROTF) They are no different from the cartoons and pretending they are is just stupid.
I'm not singling out AOE. Every show can be changed. I just love seeing different perspectives and ideas, and since AOE just came out, I thought it was appropriate while it's still fresh in everyone's minds.
That is kinda addressed in the movie though. Brains said they transferred megatron's memories - and when Optimus is fighting Galvatron on the highway - he shoots him through the hole in his chest (where the spark should be) and says something like "you have no spark/soul" - to which Galvatron replies with something like "yes - and that is why I have no feelings".
