I really do appreciate TLK finally introducing Unicron into the films, and for ending on some sort of hook.

That said, I think they did a poor job of establishing Unicron and what his existence means in the context of the plot. Obviously they want to save most of him for the next film, but that doesn't do this film any favors in giving a clear explanation as to who he is.

First off- there's not a ton of gravity to the actual reveal. When Quintessa says "Earth [...] has another name, Unicron", that should be a huge bomb being dropped. Instead, it's spoken somewhat nonchalantly against a wide shot- a close up of Quintessa delivering the line would have sold the gravity more. Optimus' reaction is also rather muted, and he simply describes Unicron as "Cybertron's ancient enemy". It's also shown as a wide shot with Optimus being electrocuted as it happens, so it's not really conveying any amount of dread or foreboding whatsoever. We as Transformers fans know that Unicron means business, but to the general audience and for the chronology of the film, it just feels weightless and an empty threat.

I do like the idea of Pangaea's spreading out shifted the horns of Unicron across the Earth, and that Stonehenge is the center point ("maw"?). But we have no sense of why the Earth being Unicron is a bad thing, and what Unicron's presence means in terms of the WHY of robots constantly arriving on Earth (which is one of the central questions of the film). Nitro taunts Optimus that he "blew his chance to kill Unicron", and really, what's so bad about Quintessa's plan to drain/kill Unicron other than it also happening to be Earth? There's no indication of why the "dangerous secret buried deep inside the Earth" is actually dangerous. If anything, we needed a clear indication that stopping Quintessa's plan was a double-edged sword.

Again, they likely want to save as much of Unicron as they can for the next movie, but just giving a decent picture of the stakes he represents would have done wonders and kept people hyped for the next chapter.

 

"Great ideas that were executed horribly" is a running theme of this franchise.

 

Very true

 

The movies kind of made 'the end of world' scenarios feel stale at this point due to increasingly lazy direction.

I don't think Unicron was a bad idea....
They even blew their chance to explain why Transformer artifacts are always buried on Earth.

With the Bumblebee movie, I hope small consequences matter more.

 

  There really could've been anything under that spoiler tag!

 

Haha then I guess it worked!!  

 

Onslaught's death,Canopy's death,Unicron,Dreadbot,Talisman,Knights,Daytrader,blah blah blah blah blah,

 

Namely because they keep putting the stakes so high all the time.

Honestly, if they bothered to tone that shit down to 'the Deceptions will nuke a city because reasons' then they could work off something simpler.

As it stands, Unicron as Earth was a fucking terrible idea because we're never gonna fucking see him transform without all of humanity horribly dying. And guess what the films will never, ever do!

 

If it's not a botched film, it's not a Bayformers flick.

 

Why can't the Decepticons just have one movie where they're stealing energon, and the Autobots need to stop them? Simple! Cut, print!

 

The movie operates under the assumption that not only does everyone know who Unicron is, but that everyone knows what this version of Unicron is. Remember when TF1 showed Megatron in a flashback so we could clearly gauge the villain before he was shown proper? We needed that here, with a shot, even if it wasn't clear, of Unicron as Unicron so the word meant something. Maybe just a shot of a world with a dark, silhouetted Unicron in planet mode looming over it.

Everything was botched in TLK.

 

Yes, especially with The Last Knight. Cybertron dragging it's remains across the Earth while the mass is between the Earth and the Moon. Forget it, Earth is done, all life extinct. Cybertron should have collided with Earth immediately, and killed everyone...

 

I honestly think we were cheated out of a great film premise with AoE, beccause the murdering all the Autobots offscreen (while the Cons basically got off scott-free) because humans are fucking dumbasses was utterly lame. You can have characters exist in a setting that don't appear for God's sake!

But no, what we should have gotten at some point is a film about the humans of NEST and the Autobots they're partnered with going on missions to fight Decepticon operations (with or without human allies, like terrorists and extremists who hate western civilization more than the alien invaders who totally will kill them when the alliance no longer is beneficial), all the while slowly building up to the reveal that the Decepticons have a super weapon that will nuke Washington DC or something.

Hell, I believe a simple rewrite of AoE where the Autobots aren't pointlessly slaughtered would actually improve the film dramatically. Instead of going after the Autobots, KSI excavates the Dinobots (with Decepticon help) and basically uses them as false flag attack drones (through remote control ala Cerebro-shells), and then the KSI drones mop up the dinos before the bots ever get there, discrediting the Autobots. In turn KSI secretly kills and melts down Dinobots who they can't control with the shells, using the metal to make the KSI knock-offs. However, Grimlock eventually manages to escape and find refuge with the Autobots, transforming after Ratchet removes the shell, and allies the dinobots with the Autobots to expose KSI. All the while, the new Decepticons led by Lugnut - taking the reigns (since Starscream died) of his idol to acomplish Megatron's goals posthumously - have been providing supplies to KSI to distract and discredit the Autobots while the Decepticons build a nuclear superweapon from the core of Chernobyl Reactor No. 4 to destroy a country. The Autobots expose KSI's lies and rescue the Dinobots, who then team up and assault Chernobyl, defeating Lugnut (who escapes) and launching the super-nuke into deep space to detonate harmlessly. Then at the end, Lugnut meets with bounty hunter Lockdown to put a target on the back of Optimus Prime, who Lugnut blames for everything going wrong.

The film would also have a far better way to demonstrate power levels, I.E. Lugnut's signature P.O.K.E. attack having different effects on different targets (punch Sideswipe and send him clean across a major city, punch Grimlock and he'll maybe end up flying a mere city block or two if he doesn't dig his heels in first).

Either way, humans don't look like they actually deserve to die for being backtabbing assholes, the Autobots don't die for stupid reasons, the Dinobots actually get to be major characters tied to the plot, and a major bad guy survives a film without having died in the previous one.

I just assumed that the laws of planetary physics just don't exist in the Bayfomers universe.

 

TLK literally establishes just this. And to its credit, it was a smart move considering that's pretty much every TF series ever.

 

Yeah, yet again a character is depicted as utterly evil just for wanting to save Cybertron. Obviously Earth being in jeopardy isn't a good thing, but wanting to destroy Unicron isn't evil in itself. As it is, if they had shown what a threat Unicron could be in flashback, Quintessa would seem quite reasonable. Even in the post credit scene she's offering to show humans how to kill Unicron, and this is somehow made to be sinister.

The movie in general misses out on details that could explain things. We get a far too lengthy explanation from Burton about the secret history of transformers on Earth, when all that's necessary for the story is to know that the Knights buried the staff and that the Witwiccans guard that secret. But we're expected to infer from a red slap mark on Megatron's face, that Galvatron somehow managed to get to Cybertron, meet Quintessa, get a new body and return to Earth, all before Optimus even reaches Cybertron.

I didn't think I'd say it, but I miss Krueger.

 

I have a feeling that, since Earth is Unicron, we will never see him in full robot mode unless Earth is effectively destroyed. Which, knowing these movies, it'll never happen.

 

I wasn't a fan at all of unicrons horns moving with the land masses.. I would've expected the land to move around the horns.. not to mention the science of the earth seems kind of odd now.

I still think making unicron the earth is EXTREMELY lame.

 

That much should have happened at the end of DotM, when Cybertron was coming through the space bridge. You'd think a scientific genius capable of developing a means of moving a planet half way across the galaxy would have figured out that gravitational forces would have torn both planets apart, or at the very least caused them to collide. Even the relatively small part of Cybertron that made it through would have messed things up considerably.

 

TLK botched literally everything, actually.

 

I thought that was stupid when Prime did it, and I thought it was stupid when the movies did it. And yes, the land masses would have moved around/over the horns, the horns should have remained in place.