Some people once spoke of ROTF that it had a lot of potential, but most of it was unrealized and that’s why it wasn’t as good as the first film. I’m in general agreement, but with DOTM I saw a lot of things that were theoretically great at the time but in retrospect look like a total clusterf... (well, not so bad but which disappointed me, even more than I was with ROTF).

In any case, here is a list of things that made me dislike DOTM, and the explanations for doing so (I try to give valid reasons for disliking something, instead of just blindly hating).


RETCONS
DOTM’s script made some retcons for the film’s sake, which does not improve the original trilogy as a whole:

- DOTM hangs on Sentinel Prime making a deal with Megatron to rendezvous on Earth, in Cybertron’s final days. Not only did this deal occur a million years before Earth was born, but the previous canon is that Megatron came to Earth for the AllSpark, not to keep a secret deal. Whether it’s coincidence or destiny that the Ark and AllSpark ended up in the same system, you can’t simply claim that Megatron was always coming to Earth when in fact it was meant to be a random world for him to squash.

- Secondly, ROTF’s new arrival Soundwave is provided with this background of running a spy ring from the 1970s. The movie comics gave some half-assed history about him having set things up then left and then came back, but the fact is this was a plot device set up just to give the Decepticons human agents. If Soundwave HAD been on Earth running his ring, it’s a good chance Project Iceman would have been discovered and thawed out decades before the Autobots made it to Earth (I have full confidence in Soundwave’s ability to do something like that, even with 70’s tech). Instead he spent his time running agents for covering up pillars, not being smart enough to extend his reach further into the government and Sector 7.

- Finally, replacing Mikaela with Carly. That was a production event beyond the script’s control, but to say Sam broke up with Mikaela because she didn’t appreciate him is a lousy thing that degrades both their characters. Sam was the one who wanted to be with the hot girl, who unexpectedly gives off some depth and emotion in ROTF when she said she loved him, and later they break up?

Stuff like this is the reason I blame the writers and producers, rather than the director, for these films not being as good as they could have been.


FLIGHT BY SHIPS
The majority of Autobots/Decepticons in this film are apparently unable to fly, thus they require the use of gunships and motherships to travel. This makes them so much more conventional and convenient (Sam and Bee, and Wheelie and Brains were able to commandeer one easily), and of course that much easier to gun down. Who wants to experience the wonder of riding in/on a flying Transformer or witnessing an aero-Transformer dogfight?

I DO, THAT’S WHO! That birdmen sequence was great, but it would have been over 9000 times better if some flying Autobots were involved! Just imagine Powerglide soaring with his birdmen homies as they take on Cons in the sky...

Beyond that, Megatron and Soundwave gave up their advantages of flight. Megatron’s tanker truck mode is oodles of awesome, but still to give up flight in favour of becoming a Nemesis Prime is a silly thing to do (though given his state of mind perhaps forgivable). As for Soundwave, well see below...


DOTM SOUNDWAVE
I thought Soundwave in ROTF was a wonderful revision of the character: a satellite/jet hovering above Earth, carrying out spy work from a position where no one can get at him. He was cold and enigmatic, and calculative, carrying out behind-the-scenes acts onscreen like hacking into a military satellite, deploying Ravage to retrieve the Allspark shard, and tracking down the Witwicky family.

In DOTM he became an evil version of Bumblebee. Of course it works on one level: as an espionage master, he uses his mode to get close to Sam and Carly. But still, it’s Nemesis Bee and not really Soundwave himself. From being an original alt mode that kicked butt, he became yet another automobile Transformer (with a bit of Jazz and Sideways thrown in) who lasted only as long as Sideways and Barricade, and Shockwave. His behind-the-scenes background of having set up a spy network, was never really seen but just explained by Megatron, Wang and Dylan: some onscreen scenes of the event would have assisted and given it some ground.

He didn’t even pop Laserbeak out of his chest, but instead put Carly through the other way...


DOTM WHEELJACK
I don’t mind his design, it was very interesting.

What I mind is his role in the film: he was just an inventor Transformer who couldn’t use his inventions to save his own life. In one way it provides some sense of tragic irony: he’s in a hopeless situation, his inventions are of no help to him now (in fact his boomstick given to Sam breaks down) and he’s begging and pleading for his life, in vain.

But I didn’t like/agree with how it turned out. Firstly it makes no sense for someone like him to have lasted so long unless he himself has had to slay some Cons in his own time – he was in fact a civilian Autobot like Abraham Erskine or Doc Brown who was kept only for the (plot) devices he could provide and to be cut down for the sake of having an innocent victim.

It IS possible for civilians to be brave in the face of doom, to make one last stand before getting cut down. It would have been great to see Wheeljack, as he is grabbed by Barricade, activate a boomstick within his body and take Barricade with it, thus setting up a distraction and breakout.

I also wish he could have come up with some more fantastic inventions beyond conventional gear like grapples and explosives. Freeze rays, teleporters, glass gas, stuff that guarantees the Transformers’ alien and fantastic nature.


DOTM SHOCKWAVE
Shockwave is the Decepticon scientist put in charge of Cybertron. Given that DOTM was majorly inspired by THE ULTIMATE DOOM, this would have actually given Shockwave a great deal of potential: he could have been the one Sentinel Prime did the deal with, who was simply waiting for the bridge to appear so that he could send troops through it from Cybertron. And his skeletal Cyclops design was a great look for him too.

Instead, he drives a giant sandworm around the world to earn his name (Shockwave – animal that makes shockwaves), uses his gun once in Chicago to shoot down Optimus into a Shanghai building (not an impressive feat given the building was set in Chicago), and gets his eye pulled out. Of all the Decepticons he was the most wasted, the more so because he was a red herring for Sentinel Prime.


CHANGE IN DECEPTICON STANCE
It bothered me that in the first two films the Decepticons were into slaughtering humans with no qualms at all (the SOCCENT base, the aircraft carrier, Paris) but in the third film they’re just going to let them live as a slave labour force. Hello, we are able to hurt you!

The slavery concept is insane (humans cannot feasibly rebuild a giant alien robot world, at most only part of it), but suitably so and also frightening and very deliciously dark... it’s just a shame the film never really got round to this part, instead putting focus on the first, more spectacular phase of shipping the planet to Earth. You could remove Cybertron and stick with enslavement to make Earth into a new Cybertron, and it’d still go down fine.

Think how it great it would have been to have the Autobots return to find Earth (or given Bay, the USA at least) completely under Decepticon control: all the militaries being taken out, a Decepticon commandant in every citadel forming slave camps, Dylan a puppet leader in charge of a smoking wasteland... but they just didn’t go that far.

On a personal level, I always felt that the Decepticons were more threatening when they were out to kill the human race, rather than to rule over it (justified by the Chicago massacre). It looked to me that by letting the humans live they’d gone soft on them, especially when humanity has been portrayed/proven able to stand on their own against Decepticons (thanks to MBay humans can fight on their own without Autobots) that they could hold their own as a resistance force a la John Connor. The change in stance COULD have worked but they just couldn’t take it far enough to really give it ground.


DEFIANCE OF PHYSICS
Okay, MBay has never adhered to the laws of physics in his films. And to be fair, Sentinel Prime said his tech operated beyond our comprehension. But I think that’s a bad excuse for what was seen in the film.

The space bridge plan is based on the G1 episode THE ULTIMATE DOOM, where the space bridge would bring Cybertron into Earth’s vicinity... but would destroy Earth due to its larger size and gravitation field. In this film both Earth and Cybertron are sharing the same ozone, yet there is no sign of gravitational tampering or screw-up. It would have made for a greater threat if the appearance of Cybertron ends up wrecking much of Earth, with its remains serving as a planetary slave camp. Not to mention it would have heightened the drama, with the big choice of choosing one world over the other.

In the climax, the bridge is destroyed and creates a black hole that consumes Cybertron. How the heck Earth was able to keep away from that despite being in range of the hole is beyond me, let alone how those ships got sucked into the hole as well.

And perhaps the most obvious one that no one has noticed: from where is the sun shining, if there is a giant freaking planet covering Earth’s skyline?


THE MATRIX OF LEADERSHIP
According to Lennox, Sam and Megatron, the Matrix of Leadership is the only thing that can revive a Transformer. Ratchet’s medical expertise are now rendered obsolescent; thanks to this wonderful artifact that miraculously survived the solar harvester explosion, the Autobots can bring back anyone who gets killed – Jazz, Ironhide, and Que!

And later, Optimus offers the Matrix to Sentinel who rejects it. It appeared a pretense, but if I was being offered a powerful talisman that can reverse the effects of death, I would sure as hell take it. It simply got the same disregard as the AllSpark did in DOTM.


THE DRILLER
The Driller is a giant Cybertronian sandworm which Shockwave rides around. Apparently meant to surpass ROTF Devastator in terms of awesomeness and titanic scale, it appeared in two fights: one in Russia as a diversion and the other in Chicago where it crushed a skyscraper in its coils, on both occasions bested by Optimus Prime.

I was expecting a sequence where ALL the Autobots together would take on that monster, something like the final building sequence but with Autobots as well as humans (because humans cannot break through skyscraper windows). It ended up being an underwhelming disappointment.


THE DECEPTICON HUMAN
Dylan is pretty despicable, as would befit a Decepticon human and traitor to humanity. But what angers me most about this asshole is two things:

- he could call Megatron a dick and treat Soundwave as his own personal chauffeur, and get away with it. I don’t care how chummy, trustworthy or necessary the human is to the Decepticons, if he can talk smack about them and not have it boomerang upon him in some painful/grisly manner it’s not a proper TRANSFORMERS feature. I wanted to see that his claim of “they said I’m safe” would be proven WRONG, it would have been more just and satisfactory for this character to meet a gruesome end at the hands of his own clients, as well as proving that he chose the wrong side and not the winning side.

- he never really did anything to betray humanity. He was just a puppet, doing what he was told and refusing to do otherwise. What makes traitors work is that they’re prepared to have their own people die to stay alive, even killing them themselves. That’s why Sentinel makes a great traitor and Dylan doesn’t: I never saw, nor can I see Dylan actively killing people to serve his own interests.

In a sense it fits within the film, Dylan is set up as Sam’s parallel and the confrontation between the two was inevitable. But to be frank, I thought he was too prominent and overdrawn: he was too much evil Sam and not enough human traitor (i.e only following the Decepticons, he never did anything really evil like abandoning humans who beg him for help and bullying Carly when she talks back to him), and he was such an asshole that probably not even the Cons would have liked being his partner but would have offed him in a beat.


THE PRISONERS SCENE
First off, wouldn’t the Cons kill their enemies on the spot anyway rather than take them alive?

Next, how can the Autobots get captured... let me rephrase that, how and why did they SURRENDER? They’re meant to be fearless warriors, not to mention they’re practically walking arsenals! You’d think they’d fight it out to the end rather than be captured and

And why is Dylan telling Soundwave to kill the Autobots? At least the movie adaptation got it straight with Soundwave saying he was keeping them prisoner to execute them (“You’re keeping prisoners?” “I see no prisoners... only trophies!”), rather than for no reason at all in the film and being told to execute them. It makes a major difference: the film has Dylan being all Decepticon kiss-butt, while the comic makes Soundwave a badass and provides a fairly legitimate explanation as to their capture.


THE PILLAR FIGHT
A blast of Shockwave’s gun... only switches off the pillar. And sets up a fight between the two TF humans for the fate of Earth, once again leaving it up to Sam to save the day. The pillar fight also makes no point, considering that even when it was switched on it didn’t change a thing (unless it was going to destroy Earth, as mentioned above), and even when Dylan switched it back on the Decepticons still lost.

This was probably Sam and Dylan’s line of thought:
Sam: “I’m going to abandon my girlfriend in a war-torn city and make a charge with Autobots!”
Dylan: “I’m going to forsake my chances of freedom from my clients and try to reactivate this machine that will doom everyone of us, including me!”
Later...
Sam: “This guy dropped a gun, instead of finding it I’ll just pick up this debris and hurl it at his head!”
Dylan: “For my last scene since I didn’t really do too much, I’m going to look good, mock the hero who saved the Earth twice already by asking if he thinks he’s a hero, then fall backwards into an alien machine that’ll electrocute me badly but leave my good looks intact!”

Speaking of which, there is just no way to make electrocution look good, I think the closest we got was THE GREEN MILE and GOLDFINGER. But still, in this case the camera angles/stunt doubles are clearly obvious, as is the skimping. When a man is knocked into a machine generating a planetary wormhole, it’s bound to give him all sorts of burns and scars and leave him looking like a newborn Two-Face.

It was seen so much better in the comic, where Dylan gets the pillar activated and Sam is mad enough to knock him into the machine and disintegrate him – no extended fight, no delay, just cut to the chase and get it over with. It would probably have even been better to have Dylan just try to escape Chicago, and Sam chase after him to keep his word to kill him.


TRANSFORMER BATTLES THAT WERE NEVER SEEN
Seeing Megatron attack Sentinel Prime and save Optimus Prime was a major twist of about... thirty seconds. This link has it down:

The comic had it set up that Optimus and Megatron actively team up, with Megatron distracting Sentinel while Optimus grabs the rust gun and oxidizes Sentinel fatally with it. The film has no such promised and much-anticipated team-up: just a surprise attack that cuts away to the “more engaging” humans at the pillar.

And the Wreckers ganging up on Devcon got a great ending (boom! headshots) but nothing more; it was actually taking place in the background behind Sam.


THE DESTRUCTION OF CYBERTRON
Cybertron was destroyed at the end of the film. WHY was it destroyed, I have no idea. It’s entirely feasible to let that world stand alongside Earth

Not only does its destruction seem wantonly unnecessary, it’s ended up degrading Ratchet and Bumblebee. To be fair, Cybertron was described in the film as a barren wasteland, and Ratchet had been underrated till then so he needed a much-deserved moment of glory, but still to have the Autobot medic effectively destroy a planet seems more like MBay wanting something BIG to close the films on rather than anything else.


THE CLIMAX
There has been a lot of controversy over DOTM’s climax: some say Optimus acted a dick and cut off Megatron’s head after he’d saved his life; others say Optimus had been pushed too far and Megatron deserved his end after all he’d done. Both are right, and this is just one of those things that split the fans.

But I for one would have preferred Megatron’s life spared by Optimus Prime, as in the novelization. The novelization gets this twist down much better, and makes it truer to their iconic characterizations. I can see Optimus as being noble enough to spare Megatron’s life, especially considering the state he’s in (a scrapheap and alone) and that Megatron effectively saved his life (in the film it was more revenge on Sentinel, but the novelization had Megatron undergo a Grinch-esque change of heart), as well as that being how Optmus is is (Megatron and Sentinel are the ones who changed for the worse, Optimus stood firm and resolute); having him just casually kill the two just seemed wrong to me.


FINALITY
This being MBay’s proposed last film, he had to kill off ALL the bad guys:
- Starscream, who made a great escape in the first film, is killed fighting with Sam. Obviously this worked for the non-fans who wanted a human to kill a Decepticon, but for the rest of us it’s COMPLETE BALL BEARINGS!
- Bumblebee erupts Soundwave’s head like a volcano. In these films Bee is part Rodimus Prime, and Soundwave is an idiot for not getting away when he had the chance.
- and in the last five minutes, Megatron became nothing but Optimus’s bitch while Sentinel’s pleas for compassion and understanding and gets severely rebuffed.

The first two films had Starscream surviving in the first two films as well as Megatron in the second film, to let at least ONE notable Decepticon survive in this one wouldn’t have been so hard and would have made a great sequel hook.


I don’t want people to think I’m trolling on this film. I’m just pointing out factors which in my opinion were a result of erroneous judgment, and which were handled much better in the comic novelization than the film itself.

 

It's existence...

 

Megatron dying so fast was one of if not the #1 problem I had. It was so dumb.

 

No twins!

Megatron did came to earth for the cube, not for Sentinel, cause when he crashed on earth he thought Sentinel was dead. what happened is

1. Allspark came to earth cause it tracked the harvester on earth, so the cube ended up in earth cause it was the most closest planet with a Harvester.

2. is that before Megs crashed on earth, the ark was left floating on space, but the ship tracked the cube on earth and the ark was heading to earth, but it was also doing some space bridge jumps, in its last space bridge jump, they teleported to earth but it also travelled thru time, the space bridge jump made them travel to a different era and that was the 60s. and the ark ended up on the moon

he was aware of sector 7, but he was more worried of the ark, he did heard rumors of a cybertronians on earth, but didnt knew it was megs, so he didnt cared. but it was after he meet with the fallen in the 90s that Megatron was probably one of the cybertronians on Earth, so he left the nemesis for save his leader, but arrived late, cause the ship he used as so damn slow. he returned to earth when Megs was dead.

simple, back then the Humans were not needed at all, but with Megatron and Sentinel old plan back in motion, humanity was needed now.

a theory most fans have is that Matrix may only have the abiltiy to bring back primes, so far we only saw it bring Optimus and Sentinel who are both primes.

again if it could bring back anyone, Ironhide is done for, he rusted away he had no body, no spark. so Ironhide cant be brought back in any way possible

According to Nelson, The reason the novel and film had a diff ending is cause paramount did not wanted the DOTM tie in media share the same ending as the film, thus that means Bay had to change the ending they originally had.

keep in mind back then this was bay final tf film, so they didnt needed anyone to live cause this was meant to be the end, until Money got into the way!

 

Sam.

The Ending with Optimus killing Megatron, cue crappy monologue and end. It was the worst ending i've seen in a movie.

 

Plenty.

 

the bad story telling, a horrible protagonist, the annoying human characters, the victoria secret shots of women, the core 4 decepticons getting little screen time, a final battle that featues the US military more than the autobots and ATROCIOUS humor.

 

Worst movie ending is Jurassic Park 3.

 

I actually enjoyed the film, but Megatron's insanely quick death bothered me. The thing that bothered me most, however, was Sam killing Starscream. Just...NO. I would have liked if Starscream had been working to achieve his own goals behind Megatron's back and been killed for it. It would have fit their history much better.

 

Birdemic.

The only real problems I had was that it teased to be so much and only turned out to be what it actually was. But what it actually is is an amusing sci fi action movie.

 

Simmons' presence

Lack of continuity with the previous films

Sam's parents being there. Truly, there was no need for them

Length of film. Far too long and tiring

 

Oh I remember now - every scene with Sam in it.

 

Sam. He was so damn annoying.
Megatron dying in less than 20 seconds
Optimus killing Megatron instead of a truce between the two
Starscream being killed by Sam.
Dylan.
The fact Wheeljack and Mirage had their names changed to Que and Dino
The Bots and Cons still having minimal screen time and dialouge.
Ironhide's death
Shockwave having no role at all and barely any screen time
Shockwave had a weird voice

 

I'm just going to ignore the obvious, like Decepticons not getting enough screentime, and robots overall.

What bugged the shit out of me was Rosie-Huntington Whiteley and Sam's role. I mean, that bugged the f*** out of me. It was like a love story with robots trying to fit in. Don't even let me get started on her acting. Bay sure knows how to pick em.

 

First off the earth is 3 billion years old, and the movieverse war only started about 11 to 13 thousand years ago. Earth was there.
If you remember ROTFs intro was 17000 years ago and that was before the war.

Back on topic what I didn't like anout DOTM.

Megatron:
I didn't like that once again Megatron is robbed from his position as Decepticon leader.
It was nice see him as the leader for the first half of the movie, but it was really stupid for Sentinal to just assume command of the Decepticons in the second half.
Plus to depict megatron as a dying old man who couldn't fight anymore was terrible.

Shockwave:
Shockwave was wasted potential in the film. He should've been the new bad guy out to replace megatron. He could have done so much cool things.

The ending:
The ending should have been Sentinal (come to his senses and rejoining the Autobots) battling Shockwave while Optimus has his final battle against Megatron.

Megatron just standing there while Optimus a axes him in the head; STUPID!!!

Killing off all of the Decepticons:
Kind of hard to do a Transformers 4 if the entire command structure of the Decepticons are dead. Lol!

 

They kill off Soundwave by Bumblebee's Gun.

 

You're filling your quota of threads for the day, eh, QRLformer?  

Anywho, not necessarily "tick me off", but...

-The fact that the movie was the perfect opportunity to be Optimus' story (more than it already was) and deal more with Sentinel's betrayal, rather than Sam looking for job/wanting to be part of the action or whatever.

-The "We will kill them all" and "You die!"-lines. "They've made a grave mistake" and "It's over" would've sufficed, with the same effect.

-Although I enjoyed Dino's design, I'm annoyed with the fact that virtually everything* he did or said in the movie could've been given to Sideswipe to do or say, and had no bearing on the film whatsoever.

*Note, I realize there is one thing that inhibits this, and will gladly explain in more detail. But at the moment, I don't want to.

 

What's funny is I didn't even know Cybertron was destroyed in the end. I thought what you could see in the movie was a "ghost image" of Cybertron, and that when it got destroyed, the original Cybertron would still be where it always is...

 

The fact that Megatron saved Optimus' ass and went ahead to claim authority over him, subsequently having his spine ripped out.

 

This and the way Starscream died.