He does have a point though. Also I’d think we would all be pretty invested in a film that made Pramount lose millions upon millions of dollars and almost made the future of the movies unknown.

 

I like the design and idea of Squweeks (a shame it was not explored or explained in the film)
I was also pleased to see Wheelie back.

I think that's it, apart from the end credits telling me it was all over.

 

It still did leave the future unknown, because while BB was a success, it was only just enough to keep Paramount above water.

But more often than not you'll see people who call out critics like me that cited the bayverse's overwhelmingly obvious flaws when at the same time the defenders of the bayverse straight up ignore any of the economical reasons why continuing the bayverse after TLK would be industry suicide. They can't take that step back from their own adoration or even idealization of the franchise and see the cracked pedestal they've put it on.

 

Meltdown? I’m not having a meltdown over how bad TLK is like a lot of people on this thread are lol.

 

It killed the Bayverse.  

 

My next point is something related to this point. I really like how in TLK, with Onslaught probably being the exception, the Decepticon cannon fodder aren't really established, well known Decepticons (This is even more true in AoE's case, as NONE of the cannon fodder Cons are brand-famous Cons). In the earlier films, you have guys that were major names in G1 or other media, like Devastator and Shockwave and Sideways, who say nothing or very little. And these established Cons either get killed quickly, or they get killed entirely by humans, or they die in other ways that fans complained about.

So if you're going to have Decepticons show up and die, and then have fans complain, then why put a bunch of established Decepticons in your movie? Would you rather see Mohawk and Dreadbot and Infernocus die quickly, or bring in, say, Cyclonus and Scourge and Bruticus and have them die quickly? I think I would rather have the former by a long shot.

Now it would have been even BETTER if Mohawk and Dreadbot and company were given more to say and do before they died. THAT would have been more enjoyable I think. BUT if the films are going to have cannon fodder characters, then I'd rather them be not particularly well known ones.

And this is related to the first half of this post, but I like that the The Last Knight has original characters in it. I don't think that's something that gets enough credit actually. Once again, fans complained non-stop about how famous characters were treated in the earlier films...Jazz, Shockwave, Starscream, Devastator, etc. …. so why use them at all? So in TLK we get Cogman, Dragonstorm, Infernocus, Daytrader, Sqweeks, Nitro Zeus, and Mohawk. Why slap the name "Wreck-Gar" on Daytrader when there's nothing about them similar in terms of personality? Why slap some existing name on Dragonstorm? Why slap an existing name on Cogman? I think the film makers made the right decision in this regard.

If anything, and while I agree with Onslaught24's VERY well said post about being glad Onslaught appeared in something, I think he too, as executed, would have been better named Shrekage, as he was a mean, green, cannon fodder machine whose head looks like a giant onion!

And that last part is another thing I do like about the film: Rather than get mad over creative decisions I may not have liked, instead I can have fun with it! It's so over-the-top that it makes creating ogre-the-top Shrek stuff easy!

"Onionus Prime has left us to meet Lord Farquaad. Some say he will never return. His sworn enemy, Drekatron, vanished. Without swamp-lords chaos reigns. Two species at war, one green, one multi-colored. Shrekformers are declared illegal in Far Far Away. The fairy tale world has set up a new paramilitary knight force, the SRF. Except in Duloc, Donkey lets them scoop up his feces. But these mud-bathing beings keep arriving, endless waves of them, too many to count. We look to the swamps with dread, and we wonder how much of our time remains. 100 billion, trillion planets in the Onionverse...and they choose Earth. Why?"

 

Well, seeing how wildly off topic another Movie thread has gone yet again, and trying to steer it back, since the purpose of this thread is what you liked in TLK, I'll share some little things.

I love the idea of the Watch that killed Hitler. Show more of that adorable little murderer, please!

"Go to Hell!" "This planet is Hell!"

Skullitron being a Knight who has decayed and is extremely grumpy.

I didn't care for the "Bulldog" WW I tank Autobot whatsoever, but I love Bee's response of, "What the Hell?!?" when Bulldog fires on them.

Cogman complaining about Burton as a master early on in Britain, but then proclaiming him the coolest as Burton dies from Megatron's blast.

How the Talisman actually crawls around and even protects Cade in certain situations.

 

I forgot a lot of these, I'll have to watch it again sometime...
As impractical as Hot Rods time slowing gun is, it provided cool effects. Like Hound shooting Megaton in slow motion.

 

Actually, I really like that Hot Rod's gun actually did things. It slowed down TRF, saved Hound from getting killed or seriously injured by Megatron, and allowed Cade and Vivian to be saved in free-fall by Optimus.

 

I mean, this is a bit different from just getting a slight update or recolor (like Bumblebee or Drift).

 

I unashamedly love the prologue set in Arthurian times and I love Stanley Tucci as Merlin.

Cogman is probably the most underrated thing about this franchise.

The Suicide Squad-esque character intros were dumb, but I kind of enjoyed the characterization of the deceptions.

Daytrader is a fun guy.

 

Crosshairs was still hot.

 

I hated Cogman. Just more of the forced humour which has plagued the four sequels.

Izzy was another annoying, knowall kid sidekick.

Mohawk looked terrible like Brains and Frenzy.

Anyway, the good things...

The Merlin scene was great.
Barricade looked and sounded great.
Canopy and the dying Knight were cool designs.

It was nice to see Nemesis Prime in a prominent role. I'd have preferred his traditional, mostly black colour scheme but I enjoyed every scene he was in.
Frank Welker as usual, was great as Megatron.
Quintessa was also an interesting villain. Cool design and nicely voice acted. Again I enjoyed all of her scenes.
Hot Rod was a pleasant surprise. I liked him more than I thought I would since I wasn't enthusiastic when I first saw pics of him and less so when I heard he'd have a French accent. I think accents on Transformers are usually corny.
However, the accent wasn't over the top like Scalpel and didn't annoy me. Plus it had an instory explanation.

I find the villains are usually likable in these movies. I love Sentinel Prime and Shatter. Lockdown was let down by the terrible voice he and Crosshairs shared.

And controversial as this will sound, as much as I love the Marvel cinematic universe, l like the Transformers movies a lot more than the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies. I saw the new one last week and it had the same flaw as the Baymovies, too much forced and unfunny humour.

 

The baby Dinobots were cute, as utterly pointless as they were.
Hot Rod's gun was "kewl".
John Goodman, even though like AoE, most of his dialogue sounded like he was handed cue cards with one liners as if he was recording sound bites for a toy.

I've been wracking my brain and that's all I could think of. It really was a disaster. Maybe I'd let go of some of my hatred for the it if Hound would have told the Junk Trader he was out of his element.

 

Pardon if these are repeats since I skipped 5 pages to post:
-I like the design of Quintessa. I would have given bonus points if she had multiple faces
-Deceptions with personalities
- The World War II flashbacks. Even if it contradicts continuity, it was a great concept.
- The cliffhanger with Quintessa and Unicron. I refuse to believe Unicron is "too big to work".
-Hot Rod making the live-action universe and being pals with Bumblebee. I wasn't thrilled with how cartoonishly thick they made his accent, a more discrete French accent would have done wonders.
-Baby Dinobots don't make much sense, but they sure are cute.
- with Daytrader, we were *this* close to having a live-action Wreck-Gar.

I'm sure there's others, but those are what come to mind.

 

Squeaks

 

It was definitely useful, but I wonder how the technology would work. I know they did a lot of stuff that's impossible by today's standards, but in my eyes time manipulation is on another level. Not that it doesn't have a place in movies, but I feel like when it does there needs to be more attention to it and explanation.

Yeah, kind of like Prime's change in AoE. While maintaining the same size, his shape change in both modes was greater than a simple update or recolor.
We could even use Megatron himself as an example. He had a pretty drastic change from RotF to DotM.
Given the capabilities demonstrated by the Transformers in the movies it seems apartment to me that Megatron scanned a new Cybertronian alt mode and his transformation structure solidified as part of the process. And he wanted to be called Megatron again. I suppose they could have added half a minute of dialog to make that abundantly clear for those who wouldn't think of it on their own...

 

*sigh*

Going from a man-made robot created in a lab who transformed by splitting up into millions of little cubes and reforming from those little cubes to going back to having a solid transformation is a lot different than simply upgrading or changing their form (like Optimus did between DotM and AoE).

 

I feel like, as the movies became worse, they actually became better Transformers experiences. I'll explain:

The 1st movie was a great action movie, but it didn't really do justice to the Transformers themselves (Excluding Optimus Prime who is just always badass!) The Decepticons were all mindless killbots with no personality and the Autobots weren't much better!

ROTF tried to rectify this and add some interesting charaters. But what did we get? Skids & Mudflap, farting Jetfire, and Devestator with a ballsack. -_- Good effort, but no.

DOTM was, in my opinion, the best of the 5 movies, finding that perfect butter zone of fantastical Transformers stuff with a decent plot and movie structure.

Then with movies 4 & 5 they decided to try integrating some of the even weirder aspects now that the audience was familiar enough with the core elements. Unfortunately, they did so at the expense of actually writing a decent movie in hopes that their not-unsubstantial brand power would cover up the flaws in their product. A practice which has become a staple of many franchises (Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc.)

But despite the fact that TLK sucked as a movie, I still enjoyed it immensely because of its convoluted and fantastical plot and characters. Because, honestly, that's a big part of the Transformers universe, at least for me.

 

Megatron reacts pretty well to getting his arm cut off, managing to grab the sword and single-handedly manhandle his opponent to the ground. That was nice.