I believe that's why it was so much better. If you notice in the last films we had a movie about Sam and then a movie about the Transformers. We get Sam then cut to robots and then back to Sam then back to robots.

In this film the Transformers and humans experience everything together. The interaction was more than just looking up at a cardboard head on a pole, you though the Transformers were there as characters.

Just look at he final battle in DotM vs AoE. In DotM we had Optimus vs Sentinel and then Sam vs (guy whose name I can't remember). It's like because of a bad script they were unable to properly integrate the Transformers into the film so that in the end you keep thinking that the Transformers are CGI additions.

In AoE however, the humans and the Transformers worked together seamlessly and the human cast experienced everything the Autobots did thus giving the feel like they went on a journey and developed a bond that was more than just "you nearly sacrificed yourself to escape with the Allspark/ deliver the Matrix/ destroy the pillar. Plus throughout the final battle I just couldn't help but think "wow". At how well everything was directed and choreographed. I couldn't help but feel like the Transformers were real. I particularly enjoyed how Cade vs Lockdown. That was intense.

 

I disagree. I think the movie could've easily ended at the scene where the Autobots stowed away on Lockdown's ship but they added more story and another climax to it

 

Yeah it still was two movies. The China thing just messed it up. It should have ended at Lockdown's ship, with the final battle there, but they had to squeeze the China pandering in so they delayed it and proceeded to run around China for a half hour, and then have the big fight.

Movie was WAY too long.

 

On the contrary, previous movies' different storylines worked really well together. It's AOE that got meaningless with things that don't go well together. Robots with humans worked really well yes, but not the actual plot which matters the most.