T-Macksimus wrote:I think all of you are giving Bay too much credit. You might want to throw that credit (or scorn) in Ehren Kruger's direction. It's Bay's job to get filled in on the back-story as he goes along since he's the public "face" of the project. He may have had an outline or vague idea but it was Kruger's job to flesh it out, fill in the details and make it work while staying somewhat in continuity with what has come before it in the first 25+ years of lore. Bay has been cranking out other projects in the last few years and hasn't had time to research the price of a pack of toilet paper much less the details of Transformers history like Unicron and the Quintesons.
Personally, I'm glad that Bay was receptive towards Kruger's scriptwriting. Bay was all "don't push the anti kid-fun button" with O&K--his own words from the DVD commentary.
To give credit where it's due, though, Kruger is an improvement over O&K since he's actually a TF fan, and is more knowledgeable with TF lore.
Overall, I'm very happy with what I see in AoE as the first of a new trilogy. Moving away from Sam's story is the wisest thing they did. The "boy and his car" thing was Spielberg's idea in the first place. It was more or less forced onto Bay, who doesn't do "Saturday matinee" movies.
With AoE, Bay is in his element--macho characters (Cade, the Nascar guy), bromance moments (Cade and Optimus). You see these things in his pre-TF movies, and he does pretty well with them. I think he can finally take the TF's more seriously because all his preferred elements are there. And coupled with Kruger's better scriptwriting, everything just falls into place.
He just doesn't do well with a quirky character like Sam, IMO. And if the lead character isn't someone you like, your creative instinct just tries to fight you all the way.
Just my 2 cents' worth.
Sabrblade wrote:All past evidence (trailer footage, CinemaCon footage descriptions, etc.) points to Lockdown coming after Optimus.
That scene of Optimus hanging upside down in Lockdown's ship does make it pretty apparent.