Since we're talking the franchise as a whole and not simply the live action movies, the 1986 movie is the most Transformers centered film that has ever been made; it revolves entirely around the Transformers with little human involvement.

 

Actually, the topic's title talks explicitly of the Bayverse only.

 

Ah, I missed that part of the title. I went by the opening post which specified "franchise".

 

I'd also like to add that even most of the human stuff in AoE is related to the Transformers, like Cade and company on the run with the Autobots, Attinger working with Lockdown and wanting to rid the Earth of warring alien factions, and KSI building their own Transformers and being played by Galvatron.

Yeah, because it's not like the first hour has Cade finding Optimus, Lockdown hunting Ratchet, Lockdown meeting with Attinger and hunting Optimus, Optimus meeting Cade and getting repaired, Prime escaping the barn and Cade's property and fighting Lockdown, and Prime meeting the other Autobots in the American Southwest. Oh, wait...

 

I never said there was any wrong with the film taking an hour to introduce the main robot cast, I simply stated a fact. I also don’t count the Ratchet scene because he isn’t a main character in the film. And I also don’t really count the scenes with Optimus in Cade's barn because those scenes don’t necessarily introduce us to Optimus.

I know you’re probably thinking “lol this guy is an idiot! We get introduced to Optimus in the theatre!” But honestly we don’t. The goal of a sequel should be to continue the story of the characters from the previous work, however they should also reintroduce the audience to those characters incase the viewer either:
A.) Hasn’t seen the previous work and as such is unfamiliar with the characters
Or...
B.) The Viewer needs a refresher course on who the work is about.

If you went into the theatre as a young kid/ a person who wasn’t up to date on Transformers, you wouldn’t have known that the truck in the Theatre was Optimus. It isn’t until Optimus transforms and says “My name is Optimus Prime.” that the audience is introduced to the character.

Lockdown is the only main Transformer we get introduced to before Optimus wakes up. Which means that, as I said before, around an hour goes by until we are introduced to our main robot cast.

The movies are actually terrible at introducing the characters to the Audience. The Constructicons, Ravage, Elita-1, Chromia, and Skids never have their names spoken once in ROTF. I don’t believe that any of the Wreckers are named individually in DOTM, nor do I believe Starscream has his name spoken. AOE however, only says Hounds name twice (Drift and Cade) Crosshairs once (Drift) and Drift’s name is only said in TLK. Even as much as I love Bumblebee I am pretty disappointed that Blitzwing, Shatter, and Dropkick were never introduced to the Audience. I know that since Transformers is a toyline we get toys of those characters meaning we can get names from those, but that shouldn’t be the case.

 

Which is why I specifically mentioned him in relation to Lockdown, because Lockdown absolutely is one of the main characters.

But if we're going to mention Ratchet, let's give another example as to why some fans, myself included, consider AoE to be the most robot-focused of the series. Yes, Ratchet is not a main character, but his death is absolutely given prominence within the film. Furthermore, his death scene actually does reveal some things about his character beyond just being a medic. The first three films mainly give Ratchet expository dialogue that describes what is going on (or what could happen), i.e. in the first film, "Tingley" describes an electric jolt he experiences, "The boy's pheromone levels...," etc. Not that there's anything wrong with exposition of course, but AoE, ironically the film that kills him off, actually shows some traits we hadn't previously seen, or shows them more strongly. One, his death scene shows how dedicated to Optimus he truly he is, that he's willing to sacrifice his own life to protect his leader. He arguably showed some concern over Optimus in 2007 by mentioning how the Cube's energy could destroy him if shoved in his chest, but his death REALLY shows how much he cares for Optimus. Two, it shows how willing to reason with others he really is, even his enemies. He had his leg already blown off, and he was still willing to talk to Cemetery Wind. He doesn't even attempt to shoot back until after this, when Lockdown and Cemetery Wind open fire, during which he is already severely damaged. In my opinion, that shows a patient individual who only resorts to violence as a last resort.
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But Optimus literally does have scenes with Cade in the barn as a robot.​

Except that's exactly the point. The truck was meant to be a disguise. It's perhaps the best combination of a disguise and G1 alt mode tribute in the movies. Unless you're a hardcore fan who remembered the truck saying, "Calling all Autobots!" from the trailer, you wouldn't know it was Optimus.
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Except Optimus literally "wakes up" well before the hour mark, meaning that two main robots are introduced early in the movie. Yes, the other Autobots are introduced near the end of the first hour, and Galvatron is introduced a little later than them, but Lockdown and Optimus are both shown early in the film.​

Now, I also don't think how early they appear should be a metric for how focused the films are on the robots, because TLK and RotF both have most of the robots appear earlier for the most part. The reason I consider AoE to be the film most focused on the robots is because the way the film features them, both as characters and based on their roles in the story. I would even say the robots all fit the theme of the film, with even non-speaking robots like the KSI drones and Dinobots playing a role in demonstrating how attempts at absolute control fail absolutely.

 

They're around on screen more but a lot of the things they say and do are just incoherent. So pick your poison really

 

But like 40 of them will get killed in an hour anyways.

 

No.

 

What movie was more Transformers centered

 

And it's still the most Transformers-centric movie in the franchise for the reasons I've mentioned. How many of the characters die doesn't change that.

 

Actually, it does, but whatever, the title clearly explains what this is referring to.

 

How so?

I've acknowledged that in a previous post - #23 to be exact.

 

The user actually made a mistake and missed some things and thought the OP was talking about the entire franchise. Scoff stated this earlier. Scroll up a bit.

Please enlighten us on how robot deaths means the movie was not robot centric? The movie literally was about the Transformers from start to finish. I’m starting to question if you even watched the movie.

 

Plus, the opening of TFTM is probably the most realistic depiction of an actual war scenario in any Transformers film. Casualties on both sides up to and including their nominal leaders. The Autobots suffered heavy losses but in the end, they still won as the Decepticons fared worse. There's only two humans that appear in the entire film and one of them is assumed dead for most of it - the other is kind of just around but he doesn't really do much anyway.

The only comparable thing is AoE's opening time skip where it's utter bullshit because suddenly Prime is an incompetent leader who straight up abandons his people scattered across the globe, simply to give Lockdown/CW a pathetically easy time to pick them off one by one. It should be noted that the only Transformers that get killed by Lockdown/Cemetery Wind on screen are exclusively Autobots - as far as the film cares, any actual Decepticons remaining following the end of DOTM somehow are able to basically remain undetected despite the fact Energon detectors were a thing in DOTM and the only remains we see of Decepticons are those already confirmed dead from DOTM. All this bullshit amounted to being was the films artificially handicaping the Autobots again through the humans somehow steamrolling the giant robots...who really shouldn't be all that different from the giant robots the humans inexplicably suddenly need to be fucking saved from by the Autobots in the end. On top of that, even the robots themselves are designed to look more human than alien - Prime's a shitty looking knight, Crosshairs is generic spec ops, BulkHound is WWII GI, and Drift is a Samurai. And then TLK is even more about humans because the whole film is nothing more than how much human ass transformers have kissed since the dawn of time pratically - there was NO REASON the knights had to give a single fuck about the drunk-ass wizard asking them to save the humans, let alone give him some dumb techno-magic stick. Or, y'know, that fucker Cade suddenly being the titular character for no goddamn reason.

 

AoE yes, TLK hell no.

Lord, please hold me back.
Please.

 

In my opinion, AoE was a such progress to the franchise but TLK ruin that.

 

...look, you're telling me that the leader of the Autobots, veteran of innumerable conflicts in the civil war that destroyed his home planet and killed the majority of his own species, and has been betrayed by the humans twice...suddenly falls apart when a few humans point some guns at him (guns which should not even work on him without extreme temerature rounds like SABOT high heat incendiaries or the S7 ice guns), runs off, doesn't do a single fucking thing to reunite his forces on what he now should consider a hostile planet, and...kinda just does nothing productive whatsoever and was only saved by sheer luck of that idiot Cade popping up to find him first before CW?

That doesn't sound like something an experienced combat veteran leader would do. Look up the story of The Lost Battalion from WWI for reference. Literally surrounded by Germans with flamethrowers and those guys didn't give up, namely because they had no choice. And they were FAR worse off than Prime and the Autobots were before Prime literally just abandoned his men to die.

 

I mean, being driven to near-extinction, losing his home planet, mentor, best friend, and then being hunted down by the species his kind sacrificed a lot for. Yes, thats very damn believable. He's not a saint. How he hasn't come to that point in other series by the death of his world alone is perplexing. Doubt that batallion you mentioned went through those little details, not that it matters because it's not even the same situation. Not a good argument. In fact, you're kinda going against your own argument in a way.
Also, how do you know he just "runs off"? The only thing we know is that he and who knows how many others were ambushed by Cemetary Wind and Lockdown in Mexico and something went down to the point where he was mortally wounded (per Lockdown), and eventually ended up in stasis. Heck, when Cade reactivates him, Prime is both mentally and physically falling apart. Everyone scattered and went into hiding. It was probably the best plan of action since the people they were supposed to trust turned on them. You make it sound like he actually abandoned his Autobots out of spite or something.
Once again, if you actually saw the film your argument would be more convincing and I would take it more seriously. I mean really, if you can sit through TLK, you may as well watch AOE while you're at it.

 

My main issue is that Prime ends up alone for whatever reason afterward, and the film completely fails to adequitely explain why. That isn't something an experienced leader does. In the event of an emergency, like radio contact being shut off, why did the Autobots evidently not just band together at an agreed upon location instead of splitting up one by one and basically make Lockdown's job that much easier? We're talking about a group of combat veterans who would know that survival is better grouped up as opposed to split up. Especially given their mere existence was enough to make the Decepticons/Sentinel want to make sure they were all dead before launching the Chicago attack - and then while the Autobots didn't exactly take on the entire Decepticon army successfully, they still did a number on them. What the hell is a bunch of human asshats and that pissant Lockdown going to do if the Autobots remain in a group?

My problem with this whole set up is that it only exists to artificially put the Autobots in a bad place - quite literally just the 'human betrayal' portion of ROTF and DOTM stuck at the beginning of the film. It makes no sense why Prime having another midlife crisis after DOTM would cause the Autobots to fracture and split up to the point of being easily picked off - if Prime's leadership role was compromised, then somebody else would realistically take over. It's just so badly written that it kills my suspension of disbelief right out of the gate, which further is compounded by how Prime easily summons the new Autobots later on no problem - if he could do that, then why was he basically alone waiting to die? Why was he not regularly checking in with the other Autobots to the point Ratchet's death was a surprise to him? The fact this was entirely an artificial set up instead of something Paramount was willing to hold fast to is just further underscored by how the two wreckers who didn't die were in fact smart enough to run to Cuba. Why didn't everybody run to Cuba if they were being hunted down?

Your perogative is to simply believe that all that shit can happen, that the Autobots completely lose all sense of being an organized force because Prime apparently is the only thing holding them together (as opposed to, y'know, potentially being the last of their species) and him becoming stupid somehow makes them all stupid enough to decide splitting up on a now hostile alien planet was ever a good idea. And that's your right.

But the blatant failure of narrative regarding that portion, making the Autobots artificially handicaped and then largely wasted purely because Kruger is a hack who couldn't figure out how to power balance the Autobots properly...it simply fails to meet my standards of competent writing. Which is criminally low given I rank ROTF above AoE any day of the week.