I consider AOE my least favourite.

But I give it credit for being the most politically complex film in the series, as it makes Optimus Prime question whether his heroic efforts had any worth thanks to Cemetery Wind's actions. KSI slayed Transformers for a new army, but the Autobots brought their war to Earth. The issue had no clear resolution, and was instead sidestepped with Megatron reviving himself through KSI.

 

Hey, even if it's your least favorite, at least you can see some positive in it. Which is something many fans and critics fail at completely.

To me, while no Transformers film is 100% ideal, it's the closest of the films to being an ideal Transformers film in my opinion.

 

I just caught the second half of it on television lately. Man, one thing I absolutely love about this film is how science fiction fantasy it is. Transformers has always been cheesy, science fiction fantasy, and this film is the most science fiction-ish of all five live action films with the stuff on Lockdown's ship and aliens causing the K-T Extinction event and Transformium. It feels like the most alien of all five films, and that's even with the more human-like designs of some Cybertronians, which despite resembling humans in many ways still have some alien qualities to them. It's like a tribute to the third season of the cartoon and all of the weirder parts of the brand, and I love it.

 

Maybe you're right, although TF Movies always had sci-fi spirit before TF5 (of course, it is not Interstellar or even Alien style, but comparing to the most of cartoons Movies are obviously more fit to sci-fi, than fantasy), but AOE is the most scientific with Transformium, man-made bots, aliens from different corners of the Galaxy and Creators being not gods, but just another organic race. At the same time the Movie is not fully materialistic, it continue to explore the conception of spark, it is still mysterious, how Megatron transferred his mind to the new body, etc. But it's normal. Theyare from another world and we can't know anything about them. All these things aren't the magic.

 

Sorry for the late response, but the problem is that 1) your average Transformers fan would hold higher expectations or the live-action debut of popular characters like Grimlock or Galvatron, who people remember being awe-inspiring powerhouses in the original show and comics; and 2) within the context of the films, I guess you can give Galvatron a pass because Megatron had three previous entries in the franchise to his name, but when you show a robot dinosaur in your movie, people want to see the robot dinosaur. Having the robot dinosaurs consigned to the last ten or so minutes of your film and giving any time that could be used to explain their presence or develop them as characters to an overused overprotective dad subplot is bound to disappoint people. That said, I will agree that Galvatron's origin is handled well, and the Dinobot charge is enjoyable for what it is, even if it doesn't last nearly long enough and comes in way too late into the movie.

I'll also concede that Lockdown was handled well, but yeah, just because other robots are underused in other films doesn't give this one a pass. In fact, given Galvatron plays a larger role than, say, Megatron's Crew in TLK, or Starscream in TF1, I'd say it's even more disappointing here. Given how enjoyable the parts of the film that focus on the Transformers are, watching the movie becomes frustrating when you realized a scene that could have gone to Grimlock or Galvatron went to Cade yelling at Tessa about her shorts, or Joshua Joyce whining about a noise. Heck, I would have loved for the pre-credits scene to be the Autobots splitting up, and giving us at least a glimpse at the friendship between Optimus and Ratchet that was so important it caused Optimus to blow cover and break into action. It's not like Transformers: Prime where you see that friendship.

You have made good points, and I'm happy to concede some of them. I just feel like Age of Extinction was such a nearly there film. If some of the more uncomfortable or unnecessary human scenes had been cut, it could have been a genuinely good Transformers film. In fact, I daresay it's mostly a good movie, but a lot of the scenes involving the humans are so bad and so uncomfortable that it drags the rest of the movie down for me.

 

I'd say of all five films, the fourth film is certainly the film that balances the humans and Transformers aspects the best and also balances its robot characters among each other. Robots don't just disappear for most of the film without explanation. Every single robot's fate is accounted for. I think that it actually balanced the five main Autobots, Lockdown, and Galvatron, gave roles to Ratchet and Brains, and gave the Dinobots a lot of action focus in the climax is actually quite impressive for live action movies with life-like in appearance CGI.

But I'll address your numbered points. 1) Just because a character was a major character in a previous Transformers iteration doesn't mean they need to be the focus in the live action movies. Furthermore, the AoE Dinobots are awe-inspiring physical powerhouses. Finally, while Galvatron doesn't kill any Autobots or blow up a planet, he is a perfectly matched opponent for Prime when they fight on the highway...which is one thing this movie does very well. I really like how neither Galvatron nor Lockdown are grossly superior to Prime but actually extremely even matches for him. They are both extremely skilled, with the former lacking a Spark that can be destroyed and the latter having agility.

2) As I said previously, this film never once implied that the Dinobots were going to be the focus story and character-wise. Additionally, do you think the average person on the street wants to see two plus hours of "Me, Grimlock?" I don't. Heck, a lot of the fandom doesn't even want that. Many fans were simply hoping the Dinobots didn't die and that they weren't the focus of juvenile humor. And they weren't.

Also, humans are not CGI creations. It's less expansive having human scenes than robot scenes, yet AoE still upped the ante on the robot scenes and tried to balance the human and robot aspects.

And I thought Ratchet's words in his last scene and Prime's reaction to Ratchet's demise showed how much each one cared for the other.

Thanks for the compliments by the way. I just think fans have to realize that the preferences of Transformers fans vary so much you're never going to please a truly massive portion of the fandom with any one movie.

 

Sorry to zombie revive this thread. But I re watched this movie and thought about this thread. And some of these points are actually legitimate.

After three movies of Shia Labeouf, I remember reading that people started to not care about Sam Witwicky anymore and even though I thought DOTM was alright, I couldn't agree more. I also remembered yes it's true, we want more rounded personalities for the robots. We were all on TFW2005 clamoring for that change.

So this movie came out and there is some of the same stuff but there was definitely new stuff at the same time. New stuff that some people perhaps still did not catch up on. When I finished watching the movie for the first time, I will admit there was denial in me seeing some of the negative responses people had to this movie. Because it did respond hard against some of the complaints from the previous movie. Compare that with my response to TLK, which was utter disappointment.

So this movie pretty much did the same thing Pirates 4 did in which they only brought back a few key players from the original trilogy namely Optimus and Bumblebee. I get the feeling that any time we try to move on to a new scenario with a couple of familiar elements, it always puts quite a bit of discomfort for people and that the knee-jerk response is "It's so different". It's like with The Force Awakens, I know it's probably not a favorable comparison, but in that movie we are introduced to new characters, new planets and new alien species that seeing it kind of puts you on edge until you see a familiar element from the franchise like say R2-D2.

This movie I will say has one of the tighter first acts out of all Transformer movies. We spend time on the family life of Cade. And they say there's no character development. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I mean Galvatross has already covered the points on that. The new Autobots I will admittedly say left more of an impression on me than even someone like Ironhide or Ratchet. It's not because they had people like John Goodman or Ken Wantanabe behind them. It's more because we actually get to know them. And I will be confident to say this thread also points out why we shouldn't view Hound or Drift as mere imitations of human caricatures.

Also hinting about the Creators is a positive because this movie finally admits there is more than just Autobots and Decepticons out there.
Lockdown also proves you don't have to be aligned with a side as a Cybertronian. In fact, I will say Lockdown is also quite good as a villain. The only thing I wish I could change was he actually captures Optimus instead of biting it in the end. Galvatron is also kind of a come back for Megatron and while Megatron is overshadowed by other villains, he isn't puppet ed by anyone.

However I'm gonna say this movie did bring a couple of new problems. Namely I would say the CGI was kind of rough for me in places and the lack of proper transformations. These things were fixed a little in TLK but I will say AOE remains superior regardless of that. The biggest con I think (even if you thought this movie was great) has to go to the editing and pacing. You could trim the movie down parts especially if they are a little cringey or just extend the run time for little reason. Although yes it's true, the toilet humor here is toned down compared to the previous films.

Is this a movie that will be re-evaluated as quality cinema like Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner or Fight Club? Probably not. Although I don't think AOE was trying to emulate the latter two movies I mentioned. This movie I think this is just one of those movies like the Star Wars prequels or Batman v.Superman in which a certain number of people look at a movie from a different eye. They don't put heavy emphasis on things like Jar Jar or "Martha". Just like how we don't have to define this movie through something like the Texas age consent law. Reviews that put more emphasis on stuff like that are still pretty public compared to a thread like this which is disappointing to me. Because the world is just so full of scorn.

Oh yes, something I want to mention is TLK and how that stacks up. If you were one of the people who loved AOE, I can only imagine that the disappointment you might have gotten when TLK failed to follow up on what was set up. Oh and wasn't one of the complaints with TLK was the lack of Optimus Prime screen time and development? You might want to return to this movie then also.  

In the end, all movies are trying to do good by entertaining us or delivering a message. I don't think anyone making a movie is trying to purposefully screw us over with bad story telling or such. In fact, the best thing about this thread is how "non-conformist" it is to things like "this movie is the worst" or whatever. The fact that this is the ultimate opposite to popular things like Cinemasins or Honest Trailers is a big compliment. Again, I sound as if I say I really love this movie when really I don't. I simply admire the fact we're able to come up with stuff like this.

 

AOE legit got me hyped for where the movie series was gonna go. Then TLK happened and it just felt so half-assed.

 

I consider both DOTM and AOE to be the best all-around Bayformer installments. TF1 might be the better movie quality wise but from a TF perspective DOTM and AOE are clearly better.

If you want the best story- go with DOTM. If you want the best characterization- go with AOE. It always dissappointed me the reception AOE got. The movie has a lot of nice qualities to it. My only problems with it are a couple of cringey scenes and the length(only from the perspective that most blockbusters have no business being that long).

 

I don't even think that is true.

 

I think a majority of people elsewhere disagree here.

Isn't this the movie that intrested people in the 1st time though?

 

I don't understand what you are asking.

 

There were people who became fans of the franchise due to the 2007 movie. Is that not clear?

 

It wasn't clear from your strange wording, that's why I asked. And so what? Were there people that became fans of the franchise due to Age of Extinction? What does that have to do with it being better quality than the others?

 

Maybe a large amount in China. But other than that how does that compare with the rest of the world? Especially if the American box office declined.

How did you become a fan in the first place?

Also the last question.... Come on, do you really have to ask? I think you know the answer to that.

 

So popularity equates quality?

No I don't. How do you equate introducing a franchise to being better quality? The first season of Star Trek the Next Generation introduced Star Trek to a whole new group of people, but it's no where near the quality of seasons three or four.

 

It sure can. Aren't the MCU movies still going strong?

But that isn't the case with the Transformer sequels. How about looking for an opinion outside the Transformer fandom? Like a movie fan community such as Collider or Screen Junkies.

 

So is McDonalds. I don't consider it quality food though.

I disagree.

Why?

 

It depends on who is cooking the burgers or fries if you ask me.
Quality food is dependent on how well you make the thing IMO.
The reason why you don't consider Mcdonalds quality is because people take in too much of it. It's the same thing with eating too much vegetables.

Surely you want to know the dark side of things.

 

No, the reason why I don't consider it quality food is because of the ingredients.

I have zero interest in their opinions.