Third part of my review
Now, even with Act 3 completed, we’re still not done with the movie. Far from it, even. There’s still a whole other act left to go. One of the many complaints people had about the movie was its running time being too long, which is understandable with it being close to three hours long. But what’s more is that, because how long the film is and how much stuff was put into it, it is not a three-act movie, but a four-act one. Instead of having a beginning, middle, and end, it has an extra long beginning,
two middles, and a super long end.
Act 4 commences with Joshua and Yueming arriving at the Chinese KSI headquarters in Beijing where Joshua meets with Attinger and Savoy to receive the Seed. But, contrary to his previous phone call talk with Cade, Joshua shows that he really does have a conscience (lucky for Cade that he guessed right on that one) and is hesitant to accept the Seed at this time. It is here that Attinger shows his true colors, stating that he’s come too far for Joshua to delay this exchange any longer since Attinger has done everything asked of him and then some to get to this point, and demands to be given his paid dues of five million shares of the company. Though Joshua is not directly opposing their deal, he’d just rather wait until after the situation with Galvatron cools off and is brought under control. But as he doesn’t get a chance to explain, Attinger thinks Joshua’s double-crossing him. But all this is interrupted by a commotion downstairs.
Said commotion happens to be Galvatron waking up in all his sparkless glory, empty chest hole and all. And then he proceeds to do something just as confusing as his own state of being: He somehow hacks into all the lifeless KSI Prototypes and gives life to each one of them, without any explanation. When he does this, we see his body glowing with a blue aura of some sort, not unlike that of AllSpark energy. Thing is, though, we are never told what this aura is or how Galvatron is even able to bring all of the Prototypes to life, making the whole ordeal into being yet another unexplained moment of head-scratching nonsense.
Now, notice that I keep calling them “Prototypes” instead of something more Transformer-y like, say, “Vehicons” or something. Well, the reason for that is simple. That’s what they’re called in this movie: “Prototypes”. More specifically, the movie refers to KSI’s manmade Transformers by at least three different designations: "KSI's newest civilian prototype robots" (by a KSI staff member), just "Prototypes" (by several of the main cast members), and "Brothers" (by Galvatron). They are not called “Vehicons” because they are NOT Vehicons. To put in bluntly,
there are no, I repeat, NO Vehicons in this movie!Several of them even do have distinct identifiers beyond those of Galvatron and Stinger. Like, this is called a “Trax”:
This is a “Two Head”:
This is a “KSI Boss”:
And this is Junkheap (who, btw, is NOT the same garbage truck Decepticon from DOTM):
The only things in any AOE-specific media that are identified as being Vehicons are the following two toys:
Neither of which appeared in the film. While their altmodes
are based on the Rally Fighters and SUVs driven by Cemetery Wind in this movie, those were only shown to be ordinary vehicles in this movie rather than Vehicons in disguise, so it would be foolish to assume that the Cemetery Wind vehicles were anything more than what they appeared to be.
But, for those going by the newest Kre-O Vehicons that came in the sets themed around AOE, those Kre-O Vehicons are based on more Lockdown’s compatriots than anything else, and those guys certainly weren’t Vehicons in this movie.
In other words, none of the KSI Prototypes are Vehicons. Nor are any of them even fully Decepticons, what with their being akin to the AllSpark Mutations from the first movie or the Appliancebots from the second movie, being Earth-born TFs of limited drone-like/animalistic intellect who haven’t willingly joined any political-military faction and exist only to cause mindless wanton destruction, regardless. Not to mention their having been given their own unique faction insignia in the “
Ultimate Transformers Showdown that was on the official movie website at the time that this movie was prominent:
Even Galvatron has one instead of a Con symbol. The only reason his toys (and those of Lockdown and Stinger) have Con symbols is because Hasbro likes to put them on their bad guy toys for simplicity’s and formality’s sakes, as part of marketing consistency within the brand. After all, every Unicron toy since 2006 has labeled him as a Decepticon, when he really isn’t. Plus, the Movieverse Decepticons as a faction were all destroyed in DOTM, ending that faction’s existence for all intents and purposes. Sure, Galvatron could start the faction back up again later, but for now, his army is just a bunch of semi-mindless monsters that he programmed into being his servants rather than giving them the will to recognize and cement themselves under the Decepticon banner like the Cons of the previous films were implied to be. For all that we can tell from this movie, none of the Prototypes are ever identified as Decepticons here, so I’m not gonna either.
Joshua takes the Seed and is helped away by Yueming and Darcy (remember her?), who get away to Hong Kong, with Attinger, Savoy, and the Prototypes all in pursuit. Also en route are the Autobots aboard their commandeered ship, in which Optimus and Cade share another very good moment between the two of them:
Cade: “You said you were done fighting for humans, you didn’t mean that, did you?”
Optimus: “How many more of my kind must be sacrificed, to atone for your mistakes?”
Cade: “Well, What do you think being human means? That’s what we do. We make mistakes. Sometimes out of those mistakes come the most amazing things. When I fixed you, it was for a reward. That was it. That was why. For money. That was me making a mistake. Without it you wouldn’t be here. Even if you’ve got no faith in us, I’m asking to do what I’d do. I’m asking to look at all the junk and see the treasure. You gotta have faith, Prime. In who we can be.”
For all that this movie has done to Optimus to give him a character arc, for ill or for good, this scene is one of the few that cannot be denied as being a fine example of this movie trying to do right by Optimus’s arc. Optimus has lost faith in humanity, and here we see a member of the people who have betrayed him trying to show him that there is still goodness in the world. As the
Batman character Jim Gordon said to a young Bruce Wayne in the first episode of the new
Gotham TV series, “However dark and scary the world might be right now, there will be light.” This scene is one of the very few in this and all of the TF movies that serves to remind us of the small glimmer of hope that exists among all the misery in the world, and that if we hold onto and chase after that hope, it can and will lead to a brighter tomorrow.
Though, this scene had another line cut out from it in the final version of the movie. In the trailers that depicted this scene, Cade’s last line was spoken as “I’m asking you to have faith, Prime. Maybe not in who we are, but who we can be.”
But on a different note, this scene also seems to have a bit of a double-meaning on a more meta level, as though the filmmakers are trying to speak to the haters and doubters of these movies, asking them to still give these movies a chance and to not give up on them, for among all the things people give these movies flak for, there are still good parts hidden within, and all we have to do is look for them. And while this may just be wishful thinking on my part, it almost sounds like they’ve recognized that there have been some things in these movies that were less than satisfactory and are asking us to keep our faith in the movies possibly improving in the future. Almost like, we gotta have faith in not what these movies are, but in what they can be.
Or, maybe I’m just reading too much into it.
En route to Hong Kong, Joshua texts Wembley to figure out how powerful the Seed is, and we get a quick bone thrown to Hasbro’s
other currently popular major brand with a brief cameo by a Rainbow Dash plushie made of Transformium, which quick changes into a machine gun. Well, can’t blame the film for trying to be 20% cooler.
Also, Wembley’s text tone is the tune of the G1 theme song line “More than meets the eye.” Cute.
In Hong Kong, Darcy exits
the movie the scene for a while and Joshua and Yueming try to borrow a guy’s motorbike in a very awkward moment that seemed to just pad out the movie some more. What’s more is that the chase scene it leads to is likewise just additional fluff that felt like more stalling and included what had to be the
longest open elevator ever. And with the lack of any Transformers in this, it makes one wonder what exactly is taking the Prototypes so long to get here when we previously saw just how fast Galvatron was in the highway chase/fight he had with Prime earlier, and he’s a big ol’ truck while several other Prototypes are fast sportcars and such.
Plus, it is here that we see Joshua shift from being a serious character into being Shane’s replacement as the movie’s new comic relief character, as he keeps hitting on Yueming, starts losing his marbles over the Seed being like a tactical nuke, and has a random moment of drinking a milk pack he took from someone’s fridge on the roof, along with further antics to come.
Well, at least Yueming got her fight scene, along with some random bystander from the elevator. Though, like Darcy, she too disappears after this point.
The Prototypes and the Autobots both finally arrive in the city and, as is standard protocol for these films, things pretty much go nuts from here on out. The Prototypes shoot down the Autobots’ ship, and I mean “down” in only the loosest of ways since it has one of the most horizontal crash landings I’ve ever seen. Attinger and Savoy go after the good guy humans to kill them, while Galvatron and the Prototypes also go after them to get the Seed. Two different sets of villains from two different plotlines both going after the same group at the same time.
This is another reason why the movie feels too long. It feels like two different movies that were mashed together. We got one plotline involving the Autobots being hunted by Cemetery Wind and the space bounty hunter Lockdown, and another plotline involving the Autobots investigating the KSI company’s manufacturing manmade Transformers with Galvatron secretly manipulating them. Plus a third sub-plotline involving the Knights and the Creators, but which is only sparsely touched upon in here and feels more like a setup for the next movie. And looking at this movie by itself, those underdeveloped aspects do more harm than good to the congruence of this movie’s plot on its own.
In a way, it almost feels like how messy Transformers: Prime’s 5-part pilot “Darkness Rising” was, in which that also felt like two separate stories forcibly mashed together. One involved Starscream seeking out the Autobot base, and the other involved Megatron’s endgame with Dark Energon Terrorcons. In fact, this movie, being the jumbled mess that it is thanks to the two plots vying to overcome one another, sort of feels less like a movie and more like several episodes of a live action TV series edited together as a feature-length presentation. With as long as this movie is, one could split the first and fourth acts in half and reconstruct this movie into a format of six episodes. And, with a little editing, it might actually prove easier to follow in episode format than in movie format. Just something to think about.
Savoy catches up to our heroes and Cade has to separate from the others to lure him away. As the others make their way down through the building, we get yet another really unnecessary moment of gratuitous swearing, this time being the F-bomb dropped just for the sake of it. And the way it was pulled off by having those slow-moving elderly women all on their phones seemed like it was a framed specifically to get the word blurted out onscreen for a cheap reaction from the audience. All Joshua had to do was tap the ladies on the shoulder and let them know he and the others needed to get by.
Savoy chases Cade across rooftops and balconies in a scene that goes on for just a bit longer than necessary since it’s not only another human-centric scene with no TFs but both Hound and Bumblebee literally have to stop what they’re doing and wait for Cade’s scene to end so he can catch up to them, meaning that the plot surrounding the Transformers in a Transformers movie seriously depended on this human-focused scene getting finished up first in this part of the movie, even though Hound and Bumblebee now
have the Seed in their possession and are free to take it to safety.Cade and Savoy come to have a standoff in an apartment in which Cade fires a Chekov’s Gun to beat Savoy: He hits Savoy in the head with a football (an
American football, in Hong Kong. Because
'murica!), just as he did to Lucas earlier in the film. And speaking of Lucas, when I previously suggested that the movie could have had Savoy kill Lucas instead of what was done to him, it is this scene in which Cade would have avenged Lucas’s death, instead of just getting Savoy back for just coming after his family, when he pushed Savoy out the window here.
At this point, Lockdown contacts a now distraught Attinger, who has had enough of all this and wants Lockdown to take down the Autobots by any means necessary. Also returning to the movie is Darcy, whose appearances in this film have been so sporadic and hasty that she has honestly felt like a last minute addition in every scene she’s been in, and yet still somehow manages to feel like she does belong in this movie. Also, Joshua makes a crack at Hound’s weight that Hound returns by flicking his cigar at him. Heh. But the main point of Joshua’s remark is to also let them know how powerful the Prototypes are, and that they’re gonna need some serious help in taking down all fifty of them. Hound calls Optimus to ask for help: “Optimus, what of our orders with these humans? Can I squish them all dead?” Charming.
Crosshairs likewise gives up on humanity: “Ah, this isn’t our fight! I’m done bein’ an underdog! Underdogs suck! I say they get what they deserve! What’s the play, Prime?”
With about another 30 minutes till the end, the movie decides to squeeze in
one. More. Thing. To really show how absurdly big it wants to go. Because reasons. With the Autobots needing help, Optimus decides “It’s time for reinforcements!” And he proceeds to do something that just raises a whooooooooooooooole lotta questions. He walks back into the crashed ship and, with the words “Recognize one of your Knights,” he pulls a sword out of a pulpit that also holds many other swords, causing him to undergo a super quick blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cosmetic change to his arms (JUST his arms). He uses the sword to break open a cage housing a large creature that we got an incredibly brief glimpse at earlier in the movie, to whom he speaks in an alien (possibly Cybertronian) language: “The legend exists.”
Outside, Crosshairs and Drift are flabbergasted to see four oversized newcomers suddenly standing before them. Optimus addresses them with some rather in-character dialogue:
"Legendary warriors, the powers that created us now want us all extinguished. We must join forces, or else forever be their slaves. So today, you stand with us, or you stand against me."
That is to say, until the last part, in which his tone shifts into an uncomfortably threatening one. Cuz, you know, threatening the guy you just freed from prison because you want them to help you, and who are
twice your size, is always such a good idea.
Naturally, the biggest warrior lashes out at the smaller bot who just threatened him (can you blame him?), and both Crosshairs and Drift decide to sit this one out (smart bots). And apparently so do the other three warriors since they've disappeared from sight at this point. As Prime fights back, he tries to get back into character with: "Only
together can we survive! Let me lead you!" But then the warrior shows his true colors by transforming into a giant fire-breathing T-Rex.
...
Okay... a giant fire-breathing T-Rex is cool, but... well, I'll get to that in a moment.
Though, I did get a chuckle out of Drift saying "I was expecting a giant car."
Anyway, Optimus yells "Come here!" at the T-Rex like one would yell at a dog, and with a cry of "We're giving you FREEDOM!" he smacks the big creature aside like it was nothing (
Fo’ FREEDOM, yo!). So much for that big impression. Oh, and the other warriors have reappeared at this point.
And to top it off, Optimus subdues the creature by holding his sword to its neck and declaring "You defend my family... or die!" And almost immediately after mounting the thing, Optimus pulls a 180 in his attitude with "Autobots, we're going to prove who we are, and why we're here!" which leads to Crosshairs and Drift having this little exchange:
"You just wanna die for the guy. That's leadership, or brainwashin' or something."
"No. That's Optimus Prime."
The other warriors likewise turn into dinosaurs, are mounted by Drift and Crosshairs, and they all "roll out!"
So, what exactly is wrong with this scene? Well...
- Why did pulling out that sword change Optimus’s arms? Was there some specific need for his arms to look different in order for him to wield that sword? I know that it was likely originally meant to be an upgrade into his toy-only Silver Knight form, but what we got was just a change to his arms only, begging the question of why change just his arms, or anything of his, at all?
- What exactly did Prime mean by “The legend exists”? The way he said it didn’t sound like an exclamation of surprise, and he did seem to know well enough what he was setting free from the cage. So why did he say it? Is it supposed to be some secret society-esque code or greeting that the Knights used to address each other with?
- If Optimus knew those guys were in the ship all this time, why did he leave them imprisoned in there until now?
- If they and Optimus are supposed to be old comrades, why does he have to threaten them and subdue them to get their cooperation?
- Why are these guys such primal brutes while Optimus is an intelligent being if they're all supposed to be from the same group of Knights?
- Why do they turn into dinosaurs? It's cool, yeah, but WHY DO THEY TURN INTO DINOSAURS? They aren’t connected to or affiliated with the metalized dinosaur remains we saw at the beginning of the movie, and they're not ever even called "Dinobots" in this movie, so just what exactly is the deal with their altmodes being dinosaurs of all things?
- What’s more is that their altmodes aren’t even Earthen dinosaurs, but instead are heavily fantasized versions. The flying one’s even got two heads and two tails. EXPLAIN, movie! EXPLAIN!
- Why are these guys being ridden like animals if they're supposed to be of the same ilk as Optimus? Isn't that the least bit disrespectful? I mean, Optimus is basically treating his old teammates like animals rather than people.
- Why is Optimus so bipolar in this scene? Sure, he's been like this is previous films, but here the shifting of his demeanor from one end of the spectrum to the other and back again is so quick that it's almost played up for comedy! One minute he's speaking nobly, the next he's speaking viciously, then nobly, then viciously, noble, vicious, noble, vicious, on and off, on and off. MAKE UP YOUR MIND, PRIME!
- What took them SO LONG to get these things into the movie?! Seriously, we have less than 30 minutes left of a nearly 3-hour movie, and they're only just NOW bringing these things in?! It is so painfully obvious that their inclusion was a last minute ordeal and, as I noted much earlier, Ehren Kruger confirmed that they originally weren’t going to be in this movie.
- Seriously, Drift? SERIOUSLY, DRIFT?! Optimus’s bipolar behavior is NOT something to be admired!
Meanwhile, things begin to heat up more in the city and Hound starts to say some really silly things that I cannot help but find so endearing: “Stay behind me, I’m coverin’ ya. If I stop coverin’ ya, it means I’m dead. But that ain’t gonna happen,” and “I’m a wicked warrior robot!” John Goodman really must have been having a ball with his role at this point. I only wish the other Autobots were as enthusiastic (in a not-so-psychotic sense) as he was.
The humans then take shelter in a glass tea shop, which even Joshua points out is a pretty dumb move. It's even more unbelievable how well that structure holds up throughout the remainder of its screentime in the rest of the battle.
Hound eventually needs help fending off the Prototypes and asks Cade to help shoot. Uhh, where's Bumblebee? And Joshua's fuss about his life being put in Cade's hands would have been annoying if not for Cade getting him to think twice about their situation by offering him the dagger gun and then telling him to shut up.
But then we see Hound using a yellow truck for a shield at one point, and it is so painfully obvious that he's not really holding it; in reality, it’s really just being suspended in the air by a cable or two, judging by the way it swings and sways in its movement. Hound's holding it only becomes believable when he later throws it at some Prototypes, by which time the truck is no longer a real truck but a CG one.
Oh, and here's another kill-tastic line from Hound: "Come and get some! You're all gonna die!"
Elsewhere, Prime and the others ride on-- okay, I know they're supposed to be the Dinobots (Grimlock, Slug, Scorn, and Strafe), but the movie doesn't really go into that at all. Anyway, the T-Rex (Grimlock) busts through a structure that was NOT in his way, as he could have just gone around it or jumped over it (jerk!), as they make their way towards the city.
"I'm like a fat ballerina, who takes scalps and slits throats!"
"Got yer fortune cookie!"
It's like every time Hound does something despicable, he keeps finding ways to redeem himself, or keeps doing something bad after each redemption, making him both equally likable and deplorable at the same time. Though, that fortune cookie line could be considered a bit racist, given the heavy Chinese influence of this movie.
Bumblebee finally reappears from his disappearance only for Hound to have exhausted his ammo. But who should come to their rescue but Optimus and his savage steed! Optimus jumps off of Grimlock twice, accompanied by a small split-second, barely noticeable rocket boost coming out of his feet each time (an ability he was never shown to have before now, but more on this later). Aside from another deplorable "I'll kill you!" line from Optimus, seeing the Dinobots tear through all the Prototypes is pretty cool. And I'm not nearly as bothered by the massive slaughtering of the Prototypes in this movie as I was of all the Decepticons getting slaughtered in the previous films since these Prototypes are more along the lines of the Beast Machines Vehicons into terms of being living persons, whereas the previous films relied on Con cannon fodder made up of beings who were supposed to be their own people but were treated as little more than monsters. Here, though, it's justified since the Prototypes are, for all intents and purposes, soulless creations of pure science given animation through artificial means. In other words, there is no potential for characterization that is wasted here by the slaughtering of the Prototypes in this movie, whereas the previous films made most of the Decepticons into monstrous mooks and squandered their potential for being interesting as characters by having them all killed off before allowing us any chances to get to know them. A similar thing happened with each Autobot that was killed off in the previous films, but that’s a different topic. Basically, if the movies wanted to have this level of enemy carnage all along, this is how the previous films should have done the Decepticons.
Though, I should note that the music used during this scene seems pretty solemn and sad for the most part, as though this were a sorrowful moment of fearfulness rather than a crowning moment of awesome. Come on, guys. This isn’t the time to be playing sad tunes of sympathy. When you got giant robot dinosaurs tearing up the streets and fighting 50 footsoldiers, it’s time to crank up the soundtrack and dish out the most metal, most rockin’ good tunes to emphasize the awesomeness. Are they trying to wow us or make us feel sad?
Oh, and Galvatron pops up to remind us that he exists, having done next to nothing since he and the Prototypes first arrived in Hong Kong earlier.
And Hound shoots a hidden bullet from the back of his cigar at a Two Head. Awesome.
Prime orders Bee to "Jump!" as Strafe swoops in to pick him up, which leads to the long-awaited fight between Bumblebee and Stinger and... we barely get to even see it. While it starts off with a decent view of their fight, the camera then becomes too busy pretending like we're watching part of a theme park ride instead of a movie scene to really let us get a good view of the rest of the fight. The most we get a look at at this point is Strafe flying around everywhere and then crashing, followed by Bee destroying Stinger at the end (while also reminding us that Victoria’s Secret exists). And here we were led to believe that we had gotten past the incomprehensible fighting of the first two movies.
Though, Bee's radio line of "I hate cheap knockoffs," did get a chuckle from me.
We then come to the moment of Joshua’s completed character arc, in which he stumbles to find the words to explain himself and apologize to Optimus, and Cade steps in with “Maybe all he wants to hear you say is that some things should never be invented.” It is in this moment that not only does Joshua try to admit that he was wrong to have done what he did, but Cade also shows that he too has realized his own mistakes in all this. As Tessa had asked him if “some things should never be invented” much earlier in the movie, his original answer back then was that that was “backwards thinking”, but now he sees that he, like Joshua, was wrong to let his dreams cloud his better thinking. He’s seen through Joshua how allowing oneself to get caught up in one’s own ambitions for the future prevents them from seeing the bigger picture of things that really matter the most in the present. In many respects, Joshua is an example of what Cade could have become had he continued to allow his technological visions to overtake and consume his humanity. And by helping Joshua to see the light, so too has Cade been redeemed. By saving Joshua, Cade also saved himself.
Under the cover of the Autobots, the humans try to get the Seed out of the city via an abandoned car, and Shane reminds us that he partly only exists in this movie for driving scenes. And just when it looks like they’re in the clear, the movie reminds us of another plot thread still waiting to be resolved. The Seed starts beeping and Lockdown's ship returns. The Hong Kong military takes notice and (with one of them, strangely, speaking English to his Chinese-speaking compatriots) says they gotta call the central government for help. Remember this.
The ship activates a large magnetic vortex that starts sucking up various kinds of metal, including a car containing a for-the-Asian-audiences-only cameo appearance of Chinese actor/singer Han Geng. The Chinese government gets word of the crisis and the Defense Minister sends fighter jets to assist. Again, keep this in mind.
As our heroes almost make it to a bridge, metal debris from the ship’s magnet begins to rain down upon them, forcing them all back in a human-centric action sequence that runs too long without the titular characters of the movie (much like, but not as long as, the falling skyscraper scene from DOTM), and is especially rough to watch since the whole thing involves Shane having to drive backwards without hitting anyone or anything, instead of turning around real quick to make the drive easier for him.
Although, we do get an absolutely ADORABLE scene of Slug trying to dig his way into the ground to keep from being pulled into the vortex, but to no avail. I mean it. For a big ferocious beast, he suddenly became the cutest thing ever in his scraping the ground trying to hold on. So much so that I legitimately want Hasbro or somebody to make a plush toy of him. I WILL buy one!
Strafe saved him, though, but why was Strafe not pulled in by the vortex during this part when he was directly under its pull when saving Slug?
After that ends, Bumblebee’s suddenly on Strafe for some reason (bet it would have been cool to see what he and the other TFs were doing in the driving scene, huh?) and there’s a random line of “I’m proud of you,” from Darcy to Joshua. Proud of what, exactly? Proud of pioneering in a robot uprising and dealing with guys associated with a space bounty hunter that’s brought disaster to Hong Kong? Cuz that’s currently what’s going on right now. If she’s proud of him for seeing the error of his ways and trying to make amends, now’s neither the time nor place to express it. At least wait until after he’s accomplished what he’s doing so that he can have actually done something to be proud of.
After Strafe crashes
again, Optimus orders that the Seed be taken over the bridge out of the city, but the ship catches up to them and starts to pull up both him and the Dinobots. And with them all finally nearly within the ship’s grasp, how do they get out of it? Optimus just
shoots the darn thing. I repeat, Optimus simply SHOOTS the vortex! An action so simple that NO ONE seriously thought to try and do before now? All this time, they could have stopped the vortex with a couple of well placed blaster shots, and it’s only NOW that they think to try and do this? Good grief, that is dumb! There is no defending this. That is plainly and simply STUPID on their part to not have even tried the simplest of solutions until the last stinkin’ minute. Really would have made their lives a whole lot easier, and could have avoided that pointless driving scene altogether, had they tried to take out the vortex when it first showed up. But nope! Our heroes had to succumb to a dose of Plot Induced Stupidity for the sake of a longer running time. Just peachy!
Oh, and by the way. Do you know what Bumblebee and Crosshairs were doing all while their leader and the Dino Knights were in danger? Driving along at first, and then just sitting there. Off to the side. Just waiting it all out in vehicle mode. No help offered from them, just sitting quietly off on their own without a care in the world. Jerks.
Also, Hound’s been gone ever since the scene where Joshua got roared at by Grimlock. He’s still nowhere in sight, so the movie’s forgotten about him, too. Wonderful.
After Prime and Dinos recover, he yells “It’s you and me now,” to no one, and runs off towards no one. Lockdown’s still aboard his ship at this point, which is now miles away from where Prime is when he speaks this line. As Optimus was only speaking in a normal tone, neither hollering at the top of his robo-lungs nor speaking via radio comm, his line wouldn’t be heard by anyone not in the immediate area. So really, he was talking to nobody.
And Cade suddenly thinks that he has to help Optimus, as though he honestly believes he’s capable of providing some kind of actual assistance to the giant alien warrior that he feels he absolutely must provide. And all this time we were led to believe that he’d finally started thinking rationally, cuz he’s gone Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs if he thinks that not only CAN but HAS TO provide backup for Optimus. I mean, why doesn’t he just have one of the other Autobots or any of the Dinobots help Prime out? After all, the Dinobots were previously held prisoner by Lockdown for who know how long, so they ought to have first dibs at getting back at him. Wouldn’t it have been cool to see a fight with all five Knights teaming up together to oppose their former captor? That would have been awesome to see. But instead, we get Cade suddenly thinking he’s LEROOOOY JEEEENKINS!
As Optimus runs, the movie remembers that Attinger exists, since we haven’t seen him since right after Savoy fell to his death. Lockdown emerges from his ship and we begin the final boss battle of this movie, cuz apparently Galvatron couldn’t be bothered to confront
anyone in this battle that he’s up and vanished from since his “They’re ruining everything!” line from earlier.
Meanwhile, Tessa, Shane, and Bee go back to help Prime and Cade, while Crosshairs and the Dinobots fortify the bridge to let Drift, Hound (who’s suddenly reappeared), Joshua, and Darcy get the Seed across to safety. And the fighter planes from the Defense Ministry finally arrive at this point.
While Prime and Lockdown fight, Cade moves in to try and help, but is confronted by Attinger who holds Cade at gunpoint. And here is where we get the last controversial moment of Optimus’s actions. As Attinger threatens Cade, he says “There are no
good aliens or
bad aliens, Yeager! It’s just us and them. And you chose them.” And then, even though his intentions were good, even though he did it to save his friend who was being held at gunpoint and going to be shot, the movie chose to have Optimus directly shoot Attinger. Optimus guns down and kills the human Harold Attinger.
I know he was a bad guy. I know Optimus did it to save Cade. I know Optimus had to think and react quickly in the heat of the moment. But that still doesn’t make it right. No more than the
Man of Steel filmmakers forcing Superman into a situation that made him kill Zod. It is not cool to take characters with decades of known history that established them as people who hold the sanctity of life to high regard and then change them into going against their values to take the easy way out in overcoming their problems. These are the types of characters who look for another way, who strive to keep themselves from going down the paths of their enemies. It’s a quality of their character that is admired by so many.
Even as far back as Marvel G1 issue #76, the Nebulan Hi-Q once stopped Grimlock from killing a
demon of all things:
"Grimlock! I see your pain, but this is not the answer! Whatever the creature is--perhaps part of a race created even before us--it is still life! I understand you, Grimlock--I always have. Like Scorponok, you walk the fine line between good and evil, Autobot and Decepticon! Your mind is a perpetual battleground, your war a lonely struggle against your own nature! Give in to hate and anger and you lose! Part of you dies! But every time you find peace, stay the hand that slays, you win! That is why you must remember that whatever shape it wears, it is still life. And life is the most precious thing of all!"
This is a line that all of the movies could stand to learn from, rather than forcibly shoving Optimus into a situation where he had to direct murder a human just for shock value.
Though, sadly, this isn’t the first time that an Autobot has acted rashly by killing a human to solve a problem. In issue #17 of the Mike Costa-penned 2009-2011 IDW ongoing, a number of Autobots were being held at gunpoint by a small number of humans armed with special guns modeled after Megatron himself, which packed enough lethal firepower to do some serious damage to Cybertronians. After the situation had been calmed down enough for the armed humans to be arrested, one officer picked up one of the Megatron guns and considered blasting the Autobot hostages right then and there, as he blamed them for all the suffering humanity had endured in those comics up to that point, and felt it was his duty as a police officer to serve and protect the innocent by eliminating the ones he felt were responsible for the deaths of so many people. After all, to him, the Autobots were not people. Bumblebee attempted to convince the officer to reconsider, stating that each of his fellow Autobots could have easily killed everyone nearby, but didn’t because they aren’t murderers. The officer seemed to be rethinking his actions, but at that moment, Jazz (who had been nearby on standby in vehicle mode for all of this time) had grown far too antsy to take any more of this tense situation, transformed, and, seeing the officer that Bumblebee was just getting through to as a threat to his fellow Autobots, gunned down that police officer right then and there, completely incinerating him. Even when Jazz was constantly ordered to not engage the situation.
And what’s more is that Jazz’s act of murder did not come without consequences. He was
penalized for his actions. His was removed from active duty and denied any release into the field. His killing that human made the Autobots’ situation with humanity far worse than it had ever been, painting the Autobots as being greater enemies to the humans in the public’s eye than they were previously perceived to be. And even though he did what he did with good intentions, he later admitted that he regretted what he did. That his killing that human hurt him more than it did anyone else, because of how much he loves this planet, its people, and its culture. Yet here, in this movie, Optimus’s gunning down Attinger is treated by the characters as though it was nothing. There’s little to no reaction and is quickly shaken off to get back to the fight with Lockdown. And even in the aftermath later on, it’s never brought up again. Meaning that it was only done as a means to surprise the audience, just like Superman killing Zod was. A cheap shock effect that betrays what little integrity the character had left, in an awful attempt to be “cool”.
And I still can’t believe that I’m pointing to something from the
Mike Costa-penned 2009-2011 IDW ongoing of all things for an example of something done
right (or at least, for something done better than here).
Plus, Optimus shooting Attinger to kill him just helps to prove Attinger’s belief
right that all Transformers are evil and murderous. Back when the Autobots confronted Joshua at KSI, Joshua told them to show him their true colors, and Optimus responded by holding back the Autobots and having them stand down. But here, his killing Attinger only reinforces Attinger’s belief that the Autobots are monsters who are only good at killing. It is highly likely that Attinger felt confident enough that Autobots wouldn’t be able to stop him short of killing him, and here we see that fully brought to light. Optimus failed to stop Attinger without killing him. He resorted to murdering Attinger, showing all that, even in death, Attinger was the real winner in this ideological conflict, further making Optimus look bad in the long run.
And it’s not like Optimus had no choice in the matter, cuz it really wasn’t his only option. What he could have done was shoot
towards Attinger but not directly
at Attinger, just enough to knock him aside without killing him, like how did to the Cemetery Wind soldiers back at the Yeager farm. He didn’t shoot any of those guys, he just knocked them away by firing
close to them. Optimus could have at least fired at the ground Attinger stood upon, which would have sent Attinger flying and possibly knocking him unconscious, rendering him able to face justice for his crimes in the aftermath of the battle. After all, as Mr. Miyagi once said at the beginning of
The Karate Kid: Part II, “For person with no forgiveness in heart, living even worse punishment than death.”
And before anyone says that Attinger deserved what he got after all that he had done to the Autobots, that is beside the point. Had Optimus merely knocked him out, Attinger still would have lost in the end, having been stripped of his resources and assets. And he previously stated that, if the Yeagers got the word out that Cemetery Wind was secretly targeting Autobots, that would bring disaster to Attinger. But if Cade’s and Tessa’s words wouldn’t be enough, Joshua could still testify against Attinger and likely bring up more evidence against him. Either way, Attinger would, as I said before, have to suffer the consequences of his own villainous actions, meaning that he’d still get what he’d deserve had Prime stopped him without killing him.
After all, this also isn’t the first time that the Autobots have gone into hiding while being hunted by a government organization. I refer once again to the IDW 2009-2011 ongoing in which the Autobots (and Decepticons) were at first hunted by the organization known as Skywatch, headed by none other than Sparkplug and Spike Witwicky (in portrayals that greatly differed from their G1 cartoon versions). Basically, for Skywatch, Sparkplug was like Attinger and Spike was like Savoy in terms of rank and authority. And in this continuity, Prime’s breaking point came when Skywatch had killed Ironhide. But in this case, rather than Optimus breaking his moral conduct of not killing humans (like Movie Optimus had done), IDW Optimus had come to realize how ineffective and self-destructive his leadership had proven to be up to that point, and took full responsibility for all of the losses he and his team had endured. As such, he formally stepped down and resigned from his position of Autobot Leader, and willingly surrendered himself to Skywatch, to atone for his shortcomings as a leader.
Though, fortunately for IDW Optimus, Spike didn’t order him to be executed--only imprisoned--and eventually grew interested enough to want to speak with Optimus, necessitating that he be kept alive. And, over time, Skywatch later decided to join forces with just the Autobots, despite public outrage. Unlike Movie Optimus, IDW Optimus was not overcome by evil, but overcame evil with good. But while there’s no way Movie Optimus would have been able to willingly give himself over to Cemetery Wind without them killing him the first chance they got (since the likes of Attinger and Savoy are written to be way more callous than IDW Spike was), the fact that both Optimuses were put in the same situation and yet one of them still managed to remain true to his core values in spite of all the suffering he had endured (and, again, in the
Mike Costa ongoing, of all things) speaks volumes of how much more twistedly Movie Optimus was broken than IDW Optimus, and just how much the filmmakers don’t well enough understand either the Optimus Prime character or what many people have liked about him for all these years, preferring to write him as though he were John McClane or the Punisher, which Optimus Prime isn't supposed to resemble at all. It’s embarrassing to see Optimus depicted in such a demeaning and disgraceful manner, when there are decades of other media showing how much better he is capable of being portrayed.
And finally, did NO ONE on the production staff remember this little exchange between Ironhide and Optimus from the first movie:
Ironhide: "The parents are very irritating. Can I take them out?
Optimus: "Ironhide, you know we don't harm humans! What is with you?!"
Which now comes off as a very hypocritical line in hindsight.
Anyway, Optimus and Lockdown resume their fight and Lockdown manages to pin Optimus down by impaling Prime with his own sword. Bumblebee arrives with Tessa and Shane, and Bee jumps in to fight Lockdown. But, while Bee does his best, Lockdown basically tosses Bee around like a ragdoll until Bee eventually disappears from the scene. It’s a shame that Lockdown couldn’t display this level of competence when fighting Cade, though, as he seems to get hit by the Idiot Ball throughout the rest of the fight. Time and again, he practically
lets Cade make virtually every shot he takes at Lockdown, and he stumbles around like a drunken moron with every swing he takes at Cade. Seriously, this is exactly like earlier in the movie when Cade was blasting through all of Lockdown’s ship’s defenses and security personnel with relative ease. It’s embarrassing to see Lockdown reduced to such levels of incompetence as he and Cade go at each other. It’s like his armor is suddenly super weak whenever Cade lands a shot on him with the dagger gun, so much so that Lockdown shakes and shivers like a video game boss with each hit. And it almost looks like he’s deliberately trying to swing and slash
just wide enough to allow Cade to dodge his physical blows; again, like a video game boss. Lockdown was such a cool character and a skillful fighter up until this point. But since he’s fighting a human that has to win and survive this battle, he’s reduced into being little more than a joke in this scene.
Tessa and Shane manage to free Optimus by, what else, utilizing Shane’s sole talent of driving, and Prime kills Lockdown by impaling and slicing him in half. At least it puts Lockdown out of his misery from the humiliating depiction from a few seconds ago. But then again, it also kinda feels like they wasted his character, since he had very little screentime in this movie and now can’t be used anymore.
Optimus: “Honor, to the end.” - - Whatever you say, Prime. Whatever you say.
And suddenly,
more Prototypes just show up randomly out of nowhere, with a Two Head pointing towards Optimus’s location. WHERE did these things come from? Shouldn’t they have all been destroyed by now? I mean, there was only fifty of them, plus Galvatron. Though, to be honest, I actually can’t complain about these ones still being around since, going back and rewatching the whole battle against the Prototypes, I counted a total of just 45 Prototypes having been destroyed, Stinger included. And in this scene, it looks like there’s only about five of them that show up here, so the movie was actually
mathematically accurate on Joshua's claiming there to be 50 Prototypes? Wow. That’s some sharp attention to detail! BUT, it still raises the question of where exactly these last few Prototypes have been all this time. And how the Dinobots and Autobots all missed them earlier. And like many other questions raised by this film, there are no answers given.
To finish off these last few Prototypes, Optimus sets off Lockdown's grenade and, at first, it looks like he’s going to try and shield the humans from the blast, but he instead grabs them up and… blasts off via rocket boosters in his boots?!
WHAAAAAAAAT?!!!!!!!
That came out of nowhere! Prior to Optimus's entering the final battle, there was not ONE scene in this entire movie that even suggested that he could do that! While he had little boosts accompanying two of his jumps earlier when he first entered the Hong Kong fight, nowhere in this movie was he even remotely hinted at having this ability beforehand, and his only just now doing it, not just as part of a jump but full-on airborne
flying, came completely out of left field!
And YES, I KNOW that it originally stemmed from an aborted plan for Optimus to attain his “Silver Knight” upgrade that the toys had, as there exists concept art for it:
BUT, this upgrade was never realized in the final cut of the movie. The only upgrades Optimus undergoes are first his Trans-scanning from one truck to another in the desert, and then later his minor cosmetic change when he pulled his sword out of its pedestal, which affected ONLY his arms. Not his legs, not his whole body, JUST his arms. We can speculate and guess that the arm upgrade might have also upgraded the inner working of his legs all we want, but at the end of the day, it’s only speculation, not confirmed. Therefore, this flight capability that was leftover from a discarded concept has NO explanation and comes completely out of nowhere in the final version of the movie.
Elsewhere, Galvatron walks off, swearing revenge and reminding us how he was more wasted a character than Lockdown was, now reduced to “next movie setup” status.
The Chinese fighter jets deal with the Knight ship (by shooting at it), and Prime lands safely with the humans back at the coast of Hong Kong. The other Autobots are all there as well, when last we saw them was either on the bridge or, in Bumblebee’s case, fighting Lockdown. Tessa and her dad embrace, recognizing him as her hero in a tender contrast to the more humorous embrace she gave Shane instead of Cade when they were aboard Lockdown’s ship. Cade also wraps his arm around Shane as a sign of acceptance towards him, bring their arc to a close. And Joshua offers to help them with their lack of a home (but, uh, shouldn't Joshua be going to jail or something for his causing a robot uprising?), granting Joshua an embrace from Cade as well (Cade sure is a hugger, isn’t he?).
And Prime sets the Dinobots free. Free to roam around the Hong Kong countryside unrestrained and without authority. Because that sure is a good idea that won’t come back to bite them in the butt.
And Crosshairs gives Scorn the nickname of “Spike”.
Oh, and Yueming shows up again (having been MIA since the “longest open elevator ever” scene) for one last bit of comedy with Joshua: “Did you miss me?” Her answer: “No.”
Before Optimus gives his closing speech, he gives another one that I think is pretty decent on its own:
Optimus: “This Seed belongs to our Creators. Whoever they are. There remains a price on my head. I endanger you all if I stay. I shall take it where it can never be found.”
Cade: “Will we ever see you again?”
Optimus: “Cade Yeager, I do not know. But whenever you look to the stars, think of one of them… as my soul. Defend this family, Autobots, as they have you. Defend… all they can be.”
In this bit, we learn that, even though the Autobots are aware of their Creators’ existence, they do not know who they are. Meaning that there is some leeway for the first movie’s claim that the AllSpark was the Transformers’ only known source of life to still fit in here, in that they acknowledged the AllSpark as being what made their race, while the Creators were something less known to them. Still, though, that doesn’t excuse their knowing of their Creators’ existence even if they don’t know who exactly the Creators are. If they know about the Creators at all, that still conflicts with their previous recognition as the AllSpark being
the progenitor of their race. Sure, we could speculate that the AllSpark was simply a tool used by the Creators to make the TFs, but that’s all that is, speculation. And we were specifically told that it was the AllSpark, not someone or something else
using the AllSpark, but the AllSpark itself, that made their race. We can only hope for some better explanation/reconciliation to come in the next movie, but it’s all still wait and see at this point.
Another thing we get out of this is Optimus’s character arc having reached its closure, with the beginning of the movie having him start out as distrusting of all of humanity, but now he has come to see the good in them that he saw before. Though, in a way, that kinda means that Optimus’s development was all in vain, since he basically ends up being exactly the same as he was in the previous films. Before this movie, he trusted humans, then this movie’s backstory undoes that, and then the rest of this movie
redoes what was
undone. Meaning that Prime essentially moved less forward and more backwards-first-and-then-forwards-again in his development, ending up right back at where he started as a character. Bleh.
Still, the speech isn’t bad. At least we got one more “spark/soul” metaphor, right? Right?
Optimus blasts off to give his closing speech, in which he states that such mysteries as “who we are” and “why we are here” are not among those we aren’t meant to solve, and that he’s going after the Creators. Good luck reaching them on just your jet boots, Prime.
The movie closes with Imagine Dragons’ “Battle Cry” playing over the credits. It’s an okay song with a catchy enough tune, but it’s kinda discouraging with its repeated cry of “Nobody can save you now!”
And no mid-credits or after-credits scene.
To be continued...
.
) and feel more satisfying. 
[ Click to attempt signal recovery... ]
