I absolutely loved AOE and have seen it twice, but you can't deny it's one hell of an endurance test.

Are there any scenes, sequences, or other bits you would cut or trim down to bring down the runtime?

I'd try to get the runtime down about 20-25 minutes or so. I would:
-Just slightly trim down the opening Texas scenes. These weren't that long to begin with and set up the characters nicely, but you could have maybe done the movie theater scene in about half the time. Again, this really didn't stand out as being out of place or overly long, so it's not a huge deal.
-Gas station scene. This could have been a third of the length. The law joke wasn't terrible, but it was too long of a setup / punchline.
-Joshua and Li Bingbing running through China. This was obviously pandering to the Chinese market. This really added nothing to the movie. They should have just driven to Hong Kong and Joshua could have gone straight up to the roof, and cue the Decepticons and Autobots' ship arriving. This was really the only part of the movie that really felt out of place and dragged for me. It went on for far too long.
-Lockdown's super vacuum. I don't know, this just sort of dragged for me a bit. I mean, you just had an amazing sequence in which the Dinobots charge through Hong Kong, and now they're just helplessly floating in the air. It's not even that exciting of a scene. Maybe have the ship deploy large mechs instead? This kind of killed the momentum of the final battle for me. I did like the part when the ships were falling on them, but any time any of the Autobots actually lifted into the air, it was kinda eh for me.

Well, those are my two cents. I thought the movie had an incredibly strong core, and just making it a little more focused overall would have made it the best of the series IMO.

 

Nah. Loved every second of it.

 

Nothing I feel the movie was actually short. I am 100% serious.

 

I'd cut the scene of the Creators terraforming prehistoric Earth. I'd cut the scene of them finding a metal dinosaur in the arctic. I'd cut down on some of the Cade/Tessa/Shane scenes. As heartwrenching as it was, I'd cut back on the Ratchet death scene. I thought it was overkill. I'd cut out the scientists turning the Tranformium into different goofy things, like that toy.

I would then add more scenes:

More screentime for the other Bots
More screentime for the Dinobots
A better final battle scene
Showing those playing cards longer then they did and showing who had a red X and who didn't.

 

Actually i would cut the arctic scene in the beginning and thats it. Now that was pointless at least the first dinosaur scene was cool.

 

Cut out lockdown vacuum scene, replace it with dinobots versus menasor. Cut out li bingbing fight/Joshua fight scene.

 

this. on multiple viewings it really flies by

 

Nothing, For me its one of those movies i can see me chucking on a lazy sunday after noon and just getting lost in it. I cant wait for the bluray  

 

I agree. When it ended I thought really don't we have another 15 or 20 minutes left?

 

this

 

and yes cut out the whole motorcycle chase scene and the elevator scene. in fact cut out Li Bing Bings character completely. Useless character, only exists to please the Chinese.

 

TJ Miller's character. Nearly all of the exposition at the Yeager farm. About 10 minutes of explosions. Tessa's damsel in distress moments. Bingo, 45 minutes shorter and entirely manageable.

 

I honestly though the movie wasn't that long. I mean, I was actually quite surprised at how fast the Dinobots were introduced in Hong Kong. Because when I saw them come out of the ship, I was like, "It's already the final battle?"

 

I'm glad I wasn't the only one to hate those scenes. We could also cut back on the scenes of Cade and his surfer friend shopping at the run down theater. Cut back on the scenes of Tessa aimlessly running thru Lockdown's ship.

 

Also cut down that "future, present" thing. It literally had no relevance whatsoever to the plot, or the actual movie itself.

 

I would have prefered a hell of alot more screentime for the other Bots

More scenes with Lockdown

More scenes with the Dinobots, actually kicking ass in more then one freaking scene.

More TRANSFORMATION sequences.

Bee talking WITH HIS OWN FREAKING VOICE

More Stinger

Better final battle scene.

 

This.

 

I would cut out Li Bingbing. Why they felt the need to appeal to the Chinese market that much? IDK I thought it was overkill. Just a waste of character screentime.

Cut out the Chief of Staff scenes.

Make the first chase scene through texas shorter editing wise

Cut Tessa's introduction in half.

I would also remove the dropping ships sequence. Then I would use that time and money and give it too the autobots for more character development/backstory and add in some fight scenes with Crosshairs and Drift in the climax.

 

I would have cut down on the human action scenes, sometimes I forgot it was a transformers movies. Honestly, the Dinobots. Hound was handling it just fine and all he needed was his teammates help rather than running away to train them. I could go on but even at 2:40 hours, the movie was rushed and cutting down on multiple story lines could have helped.

 

Gotta comment on this one because right there in the theater I thought this. The movie could have done without the part where Walburg and crew were in one of the little ships on the run. They could have used one to get to the ground, had the cool scene with crosshairs and bumblebee, and made it to safety within 2 minutes, but the scene went on for a good while. It felt like the hover-bike chase in The Island, and ended with a crash that would have absolutely for sure killed every human inside.

Really though, I myself would have liked the movie better if it was about a lonely inventor guy who lost his wife years back and found Optimus Prime, without the daughter (hawt as she was and all) or her lame disrespectful boyfriend who would give them up to the bad guys in a second if threatened. That could have cut a good 20 minutes off the movie, and most of the cheese too.