Shock and awe. I was 11, man. I’d never seen ANYTHING like it before. I had no reference level.

 

The forest battle scene was very impressive.

It was bittersweet at that was as good as the movie got and just spiraled downhill after that.

 

Greatest robot fight scene ever.

 

I didn't know what was happening but I thought it was cool as hell. I was also 11, at that time.

 

Honestly, I thought it was poorly choreographed with very sub-par camera work (as is tradition with Michael Bay action sequences)

 

It’s so rewatchable. I watch it over and over again and it never gets old. There are so many little details too. Every time you watch it you’ll pick up on something new. Every time I watch it it brings me back to when I was 9, seeing MY Optimus prime die, and being genuinely heartbroken. I used to recreate this scene with my toys when I was a kid all the time. Truly the best fight scene in all of the live action movies. Goosebumps every time.

 

I was 13, that entire sequence blew my mind and is definitely the highlight of ROTF for me. I just love how Optimus took on three bad guys at once. It was the moment when I decided that Optimus Prime is awesome (Megatron totally kicked him around in 2007, but here he is taking on three attackers with no problem!)

It's very telling that the first SS Optimus was made to resemble his forest fight look, being smaller than the Decepticons and having a darker color scheme.

 

I can never hear that line, without thinking of Mike Nelson's Rifftrax follow-up to it: "I have the same problem when pounds of bacon are concerned."

 

It was a perfect scene in the movie and one of the reasons why I like ROTF. The determination of Prime was really showed as he did everything to stop the decepticons from killing Sam. The insane fighting styles and combos wowed me. Everytime I watch that scene when Optimus said:" You'll never stop at one. I'll take you all on!" still gives me goosebumps all the time. I still remember crying whenever I see Optimus die when I was young. Its is one of the best action sequences in the moviesverse and I hope to see more in future films. Just dont make Prime rip heads off again too many times lol.

 

If everybody want to see an intense styled action battle again like in ROTF forest battle plus a great and emotional story telling, you need to see Alita Battle Angel in February..this is the true live action anime we waiting for..I believe in James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez...your jaw would drop all the way watching this movie!

 

This. I never understood the insane praise this fight sequence got. Yeah the backdrop was cool, but everything else about it was still just typical Bay nonstop pans and swoops and obstructions and shaky cam... all with Shia still screaming like he always did. My biggest memory of it was wondering why Blackout suddenly showed up back from the dead... because it was before the Grindor toy was revealed to "explain" why there was another exact copy helicopter character that conveniently showed up between movies.

 

I thought this:

b a d a s s

 

For whatever reason, I've never really gotten the extreme hype for the ROTF forest fight. There are definitely some cool moments, but it's never been one of the better ones for me. I think part of it is that we've already seen fight scenes with these characters. We've seen Starscream in action, we've seen Megatron in action, we've seen Optimus in action, and we've seen Blackout in action (Grindor is basically just Blackout 2.0). I prefer something like Optimus vs Demolishor or Bumblebee vs Rampage, because we get to see fights against new characters (who have new weapons and abilities). There are also too many cuts to Sam yelling.

I probably would have had a stronger reaction to it if I had seen it on the big screen in 2009, with the context that giant robot fights were still a relatively new thing. I first saw it in a post-DOTM (and possibly post-AOE) world, where there were plenty of other fights to choose from.