I wanted to share my feelings on the movie having seen it. Firstly if anyone knows my feeling on the movie-verse at all you'll know that I have no issue with the movie designs at all. I'm not obsessed with G1 etc. My major issues with movies 2 & 3 in particular have been wishy washy stories and characters and typically a very crap villain - The Fallen fell just as quick as he got up and in DOTM the Autobot's won far too easily. So I went into AOE with my expectations very much low. So much to my surprise I believe that AOE is possibly the best movie since TF'07. The new main human trio are far more likable that any of the original trilogy. The enemy humans are also suitably nasty pieces of work who you can invest your hatred. A big improvement was the characterizations of the Transformers in general. They seemed a lot more lively and had more dialog and interactions. Bumblebee whilst still a mute was employed far more effectively as a high profile supporting character than as the main star. In TF1-3 the main bond was Sam & Bee, in this movie it is Cade and Prime and this works better imo. The movie is still too long and The Dinobots were probably afterthoughts but perhaps the biggest success of the whole movie is the new villain Lockdown. He is nasty, he doesn't care (literally) and he can hold more than his own in a fight. I avoid all the spoilers coming so Galvatron emerged as a very impressive surprise to me. So for me this pushes TF07 very close, maybe surpasses it. It still has Bay flaws - too long, story could be better but this one nails a lot more right than wrong and that is a step in the right direction that I didn't see coming.
