I was impressed by them when I was younger, but with time, you just see how dumb they are. They're still among my favourite films, but objectivity is out of dispute. They're just not very good...

 

I think it's even worse if you're a TF fan. The bots didn't have much personality in the first 3 movies and when they did give them personalities in AoE they were terrible. Autbots are always at each other's throats, constantly fighting and bickering. The only one that isn't acting like like a toddler is Optimus and he becomes jaded and kill happy. I think he specifically states he's going to kill someone 4 times in AoE.

They're all horrible and nothing like I want my Autbots to act like. I'm okay with tension or some conflict among the protagonists but this just turned them into assholes.

 

I thought turning the Autobots into a bunch of antisocial outlaws was one of the best things the movies ever did. They were way more interesting and entertaining than the Boy Scout troop Autobots found in many Transformers shows.

And there was nothing "kill happy" about Optimus. Hound was kill happy, but there was nothing in Optimus' demeanor suggesting he enjoyed killing Lockdown or Attinger. He simply did what he had to do, whether fans like it or not.

If anything, I think TLK would have been more fun had the AoE Autobots been interacting more with the newer cast, like Cogman and Hot Rod, rather than abandoning most of the cast in the Dakotas for half of the film.

 

Well that's what happened in ROTF too with all the Autobots except Bee and the Twins.Again not TLK exclusive stuff although the car chase and the submarine scenes went for a bit longer as opposed to anything in ROTF and in ROTF we had longer fights.That's why ROTF is better in my book but I love TLK for what it is because it went on it's own I guess and we had callbacks to the previous movies without making it similar..in DOTM we saw Cybertron briefly and it came through the space bridge but this time it literally traveled here and as I said the Witwiccans as a secret society is fascinating..it stands to reason humans never found out about much about their activity on Earth except some groups like Sector 7

 

I still watch the movie

 

I actually think RotF and TLK are very similar. Revenge of the Fallen is the second film, while TLK is the second of the (theoretical) second trilogy. Both have main villains with vague motivations who don't get too much screen time, who are both (allegedly) ancient Primes with similar design motifs who want to destroy Earth and have almost supernatural powers, with the power to manipulate objects and teleport between dimensions, and both have Megatron as an underling. And Megatron acts as the battlefield commander in both instances. Both ignore half of their casts for half of the movie to focus on just a few characters.

That said, while I personally prefer Revenge of the Fallen to The Last Knight, I also think it's silly for fans to act like there's big difference in quality between RotF and TLK, or between the original Bayverse trilogy on one hand and AoE/TLK on the other. The former are not better in terms of narrative and character and so on, nor are the 2007 film, RotF, and DotM more authentic Transformers movies than AoE and TLK. The latter two movies are just as inspired by the source material as the earlier movies. The Transformers having creators who built them to be mechanical slaves, alien bounty hunters hunting Autobots for the creators of the Transformers, the more human-like faces, the science fiction feeling of AoE, the fanciful aspects of The Last Knight, Transformers in the Dark Ages, the Decepticons not being at their high point, and the Dinobots being feral brutes who fight on the side of the Autobots are all straight out of G1. That doesn't even include aspects of the later films pulled from other parts of the brand, like Megatron manipulating the humans as a decapitated head to gain a new body or Drift. Nor do the earlier movies have more "depth;" if anything, I think after RotF is when the movies start to get more interesting conceptually and thematically.

Now one aspect of the post-DotM universe that is an interesting inversion of the original cartoon is the role of Megatron. Just like in the cartoon with the aftermath of Unicron, the Decepticons are at a low point following the Battle of Chicago. In the cartoon, Galvatron, while a powerful fighter indeed, was so insane he beat up and shot at his own troops on the slightest whim. Galvatron/TLK Megatron is probably the reverse of that, in that he, and perhaps Barricade as well by TLK, are the only Decepticons keeping their faction going on Earth at least. In AoE, Galvatron is the only Decepticon who has a mind of their own, and he's willing to lead, even if he is the only sentient Decepticon and his soldiers are all mindless drones. He's also a competent fighter who can take on the Autobots, except when the Dinobots attack, in which case he must retreat.

It's the same thing in The Last Knight. All of the Decepticons he frees from prison get their butts whooped. None of his heavy hitters are still around. Even Nitro Zeus, while he holds his own for a while, eventually succumbs to Bumblebee. Galvatron/Megatron is the only one keeping the faction together (again, with probable help from Barricade), who can act more cerebral it seems, who can take on all of the normal Autobots, including Prime, at once or almost at once, and even he must flee before foes as mighty as the Dinobots. Far from being a bad thing, I think it's an interesting twist on the Decepticons where Megatron can only do so much with most of his major allies gone and his remaining soldiers often being subpar. First Trilogy Megatron is a victim of fate, which is fascinating in its own right. AoE Megatron/Galvatron is coming from a place of weakness and being more cerebral to regain power and become a master of his own destiny.

I don't think the post-DotM movies, while not perfect, get enough credit for many of the things they do; they're just less comfortable and familiar than the first trilogy and Bumblebee to both Bayverse fans and most other Transformers fans. And THAT, rather than any real difference in quality, is why they are so disliked by so many fans.

 

I like to insert some head cannon into to explain away the plot holes. Once you do that it becomes one of the best films!