I don't intend to be back for very long but I have recently been seeing fans say something that I feel warrants a response due to how completely untrue it is. TLK doesn't work as a sequel to AOE; sorry I've heard fans say many things but this is just bizarre; I mean let's take a look, warning this will contain spoilers and will also be quite lengthy. In AOE we find out the creators hired Lockdown to capture optimus and bring him back to them for an unknown purpose. We also find out that Optimus is a member of the knights of Cybertron who Lockdown has been catching for the creators, once again for unknown purposes. It is stated by Lockdown that whatever the creators are planning is meant to start a clean slate; it is also said that they don't like the transformers being involved in Earth's affairs because it upsets the cosmic balance, and they built the transformers to be obedient. At the end Optimus obtains one of the seeds which has been shown to be capable of being used as a tracking beacon; optimus then flies into space to track down his creators and discover why they wanted him. That basically summarizes what we got about the creators in AOE now let's go into how TLK follows it. In TLK After deducing the creators location Optimus powers himself down and drifts through space in stasis until he reaches his location (we even hear a faint recording of Optimus saying take me to Cybertron, he didn't just drift there randomly it was his destination) Optimus arrives on Cybertron where he confronts Quintessa who confirms she is his maker. Quintessa then accuses Optimus of ruining the world she built; she then places her mark on Optimus tainting him. We find out that Quintessa wanted Optimus to retrieve her staff that the knights stole from her which only a member of the knights would likely know the location to, she then intends to use the staff to siphon the energy from Earth to kill Unicron and restore Cybertron. She then brainwashes Optimus into doing her bidding. In this same movie we find out Unicron is the Earth and his presence is what draws Transformers there and their presence on the planet and involvement with humanity is slowly awakening him. The idea that TLK counteracts anything we were told is just not true, everything about Quintessa matches what Lockdown said about the creators. Quintessa's motives fit with what we were told and reveals why Optimus and the knights were targeted, her feelings on the transformers war matches what Lockdown said and her methods of controlling optimus fit what Lockdown said about why they were built. AOE ends with Optimus leaving to confront his creators, TLK shows Optimus finding and confronting his maker. AOE we see the creators cyberforming Earth to make the transformers, In TLK we find out Earth is Unicron creating a deeper reason why Earth was used to make them. Regarding the creators story TLK directly continues it from where AOE left it and remains consistent with everything we were told, Quintessa is who the creators were working for, further building on Lockdown's line, we all work for someone. Regarding the knights there wasn't much to counteract since all AOE told us was that the knights exist and optimus and the dinobots were among them. That's it you can't counteract something that isn't there. We know the transformers rebelled against the creators and TLK reveals that the ancient knights rebelled against Quintessa by stealing her staff so she could no longer control Cybertron's fate, why else would they steal it. The knights are revealed to be on Earth during King Arthur's time however it's shown that they didn't arrive they were already there before Merlin met them. So this doesn't counteract anything. Lockdown's line about collecting the knights is pretty straightforward he thought he did; no one knew about the guardians or if they were even still alive. So this isn't a counteraction either. AOE introduced the knights and revealed the creators wanted the remains of them for some reason. TLK reveals what that reason was. TLK continues the Knight story. TLK reveals why the creators wanted Optimus, why they were targeting the knights and just what tied them together, what the knights goal was and what their beliefs and morals were. It shows Optimus confronting his maker, what her intentions were and how the transformers and humanity's interacting were upsetting the cosmic balance. TLK followed up on everything AOE set up, and did so in a way that worked with what AOE told us about those plot points or in some cases built them from pretty much nothing; AOE didn't establish anything about the knights so you can't counteract it. This doesn't even include things like Cade's arc which continues where AOE left us, with him on the run with the Autobots; sending Tessa away to keep her safe and pretty much losing care for having a life worth living. His arc is a perfect mirror to Optimus's arc from AOE and both Optimus and Cade's arc across both movies comes full circle in the Knight's judgement scene. The TRF arc is about as direct a sequel to AOE as you can get, building on the transformer and human conflict AOE started and doing something no transformer movie giving it a very definitive conclusion, the scene where TRF rips off their badge concludes the conflict between the two species that AOE kicked off. TLK even explores many of the same themes as AOE, betrayal, redemption, family and faith. The only stuff TLK didn't continue is KSI and that's because it concluded in AOE. The only inconsistency worth mentioning is Galvatron being Megatron again and even this isn't difficult to piece together at all since Megatron has the same red mark Optimus does. AOE and TLK are a full on two part story. TLK builds upon AOE to such an extent regarding character arcs, themes explored and plot points introduced, that it could almost be one 5 hour movie. Rather you like that five hour story is entirely up to you but the idea TLK doesn't work as a sequel to AOE is just not true. Saying it didn't follow up on what was set up with the Creator arc is false; saying it didn't continue plot points character arcs, and thematic ideas introduced in AOE is just not true. TLK does work as a sequel to AOE to such a level that they could almost be one very long movie.
TLK sort of works well as an AoE sequel but there is a fair amount of disassociation too. The creators are now replaced by a creator, Galvatron is not mentioned once and is replaced my Megatron with no explanation, there is no explanation as to why Prime was just floating around in space. There are probably other issues like this.
1. The other Creator could be Unicron 2. Galvatron became Megatron at the end of AoE, he said "we shall meet again prime, for i am reborn. 3. He froze? Pretty sure he wasn't built to fly around in space
1. It's possible that she's really the head creator and she has other creators working for her. 2. That is a valid complaint which I'm surprised that it wasn't at least mentioned how he got the upgrade.
Haha, I completely forgot that Optimus took the seed with him at the end of AOE. Good job finding another plot hole while trying to pretend there are none! The fact that Quintessa has absolutely no interest in the Dinobots and that the Dinobots have absolutely nothing to do with the plot revolving completely around the knights does in fact contradict it or at least cast a shadow over the relevancy of calling them knights in the previous film. Quintessa states that there are twelve knights and the Dinobots get zero mention in the movie in any way to do with the central plot. Nobody knew about them? What? Quintessa hired Lockdown specifically to track down the knights, who Quintessa CLEARLY was aware of considering her motivations in this movie completely revolve around them. Those twelve knights are the instigators of the entire plot. There is absolutely no way you can spin the story and pretend that she or Lockdown was unaware of the whole reason she needed the knights. This is a plot hole. Honey No. Also, the words you're looking for are "contradict' and "contradiction".
I have some questions about these 12 Knights too. Ok we know there were a lot more Knights than the 12 that formed DragonStorm. As we see the Green knight (Steelbane?) in Chicago, Skullitron and 2 more Knights that wake up in the ship (that OP killed) and many more that didn't wake up. But Quintessa says her 12 guardian knight took the Staff from her. Yet when we see the 1 red knight talking to Merlin early in the opening and he says Dragon Guardian Knights Combine, the camera pans over him and Merlin to show them already taking flight. Yet the red one ISNT part of the combiner? So did the 12 take the Staff and bring it to this Red Knight in the ship? And there were really 13 Knights there? Also was the ship buried in the mountain side the same ship under the water and over the years, that part of the land was taken over by water? Or were there 2 ships?
No actually it doesn't. They were never referred to as knights in AoE, simply legendary warriors. Lockdown had all kinds of creatures and aliens on that ship.
True but they were "Knights" were they not? The issue was The whole Knights of Cybertron and the story we got with Dragon Knights was what Bay wanted to do in this new movie but with the Dionbots, not Dragons. Hasbro forced Bay to use the Dinobots early in AOE sothey went with the dragon theme for the new movie and totally dropped the Dionbots as legendary warriors theme. It was clear they were Knights of Cybertron in AOE. And Lockdown even said he's collected all the Knights lol.
Lockdown said that he had collected all the knights and then locked Optimus Prime in the same room as them. Plus they're designs are all based on knights. Its pretty clear that they were supposed to be the knights Lockdown needed.
It's pretty vague really. They may have been originally intended to be knights but TLK doesn't actually contradict what Lockdown said. As I pointed out there were lots of things in that ship, pretty sure not all of them were knights. The shizzle spitting monster and super tongue were not knights, were they? Maybe Lockdown had already dropped off what knights he had, he certainly wasn't intending on keeping Optimus there permanently.
