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TulioDude wrote:Does anyone agree with me that in Revenge of The Fallen,was the best movie for Sam as a character?

ROTF is where he goes from a hapless kid to whom things happen (as he was in the first movie) to a more motivated character who knows how to take initiative, but he really comes into his own in DOTM. The third movie follows up on his development by giving Sam more moments to display agency and experience, and a villain/problem he can conquer himself (Dylan Gould, Decepticon sympathizer, representing Sam's remaining insecurities) instead of just being an enabling presence for the Autobots as he was in the first two.

blackeyedprime wrote: Pretty sure this was the one with the guy who was annoying in all the films takes a few mins to sip on a product placement.

Yeah, that asian milk box. But it wasn't that long. I remember in The Last Knight where we have a scene about the baby dinobots getting Cade yeager a bud light from the fridge

Just gonna say I disagree and write my own list:

9) BWII Movie - adding it here because I have not seen it so it has to be last by default. will watch it someday.

8 ) TF:TM - I own it, I've watched it, and it's just OK. it doesn't do anything really for me. It doesn't capture me the way it does a lot of others.

7) the Last Knight - I acknowledge that this film is weak, and had you posted this even maybe 6 months ago, I would have swapped it with TF:TM. But recently, i have watched it a lot, and really came to respect and enjoy it. It is a lot of hot mess, but I enjoy all the potential it has, should someone ever use a comic medium for instance to work with what it gave. I love a lot of the half baked concepts, and would love to see more of it incorporated into other things and see those concepts get finished proper. And I like the Crew, Infernocus, and Hot Rod.

6) Predacons Rising - this goes above TLK for having a good story with it, with some good designs and some great voice acting. Designs are on point, and the movie is pretty enjoyable. Short, but enjoyable, and part of a well loved series for me.

5) Transformers - putting this here because while it did have some good stuff, not a lot of robot fighty action in comparison to later movies. I still love the Bonecrusher scene, still one of my all time favorite movie scenes. It was a great start, but still only #5.

4) Revenge of the Fallen - The story of this one was pretty shallow, and all inappropriate and unclassy things aside, I loved the action in this movie. greatest OP/Megatron battle ever made in this film. I also enjoyed the story that actually was there, and liked where all it went. I enjoyed it, I loved it in theatres.

3) Age of Extinction - 2 things really drive this one for me: Dinobots AKA giant robot dinosaur knights, and the amount of bot screen time. This movie finally did the bots justice as characters. It had the best character development of the films and it had a good range for the main cast. I enjoyed it, it was great.

2) Bumblebee - great story to this one, and I do love movie Bumblebee, so I very much enjoyed it. I also love the fights and the bad guys in this one too, a lot of good stuff. Simple, but fun. Murder Husband and Wife forever.

1) Dark of the Moon - This one is and remains the best TF movie made. I really enjoyed the story this one set out, with some espionage, a betrayal you didn't see coming, and a great final act. The whole Chicago sequence was great, a lot to love. And, important to me, Sentinel Prime was a fantastic villain with a great story, honest downfall, and great ending considering how he treated everyone and how it ended for him. He is the one movie villain i HATE, actually HATE, for how good a villain he is. That was a great movie, and remains my all time favorite.

7. The Last Knight - This one is terrible. The plot makes no sense, random historical scenes are thrown in for no reason, none of the fights are particularly good...just a bad movie all around.

6. Age of Extinction - I actually agree with a lot of your points on this one, like the fact that they were clearly trying to make the characters more distinct. But the characters aren't actually any good, it was still clearly cobbled together from multiple scripts, and the humans in this are some of the worst in the series. It has a handful of decent fight scenes and not much else.

5. Revenge of the Fallen - This isn't a great movie, but I can't bring myself to hate it. It has some of the better action scenes in the series (that forest fight is still amazing), and it creates what are basically the iconic looks for Megatron and Starscream in these films.

4. Transformers The Movie - This one is kind of hard to rate. This is like a holy text, especially to GEEWUN fans. But it's also...kind of bad. Like, the animation isn't anything spectacular, the story isn't particularly deep, the action isn't all that interesting, and the harder you think about it, the dumber it gets (Optimus Prime "dies", even though he's a freaking robot and by this point he had already been blown to pieces and put back together in the show AND comic. They do the same thing to Ultra Magnus IN THE MOVIE and no one thinks to bring OP to the Junkions to fix him?). Former Hasbro execs have admitted this was just an excuse to kill off a bunch of the original characters so kids would buy NEW toys. I enjoy this film, but even I know this one rides on nostalgia HARD.

3. Dark of the Moon - I think you were a little harsh on this one. Yes, the way they kept Optimus out of the fight until the very end was silly, and yeah, the ending where he murders an unarmed opponent by shooting them in the back of the head is kind of horrifying for this character (and lead directly to his murderous psychopath form in the next two films). But man, the action in this is top notch (The Dreads chase, that flying charge into the Decepticon army), and this is one of the more coherent of the live action films storywise.

2. '07 Movie - This is easily the best of the Bay movies. Yes, it has it's issues (it's too long, it has too many humans, and it's way too pro-military, problems that would plague ALL the Bay films), but it has a decent central story set around a boy and his car, who end up fighting evil alien robots. And isn't that all we really want from these films? Helps that the special effects have held up REALLY well on this one, and a lot of the action scenes are very memorable.

1. Bumblebee - The first movie that actually made me care about the humans! This one was helped a lot by having a smaller cast to really let you explore those characters (both human AND robot) and make them memorable. But it also has some amazing action scenes! We've been dying to see that opening fight on Cybertron for decades! Just an excellent film.

Well, I think someone turned on a Roger Ebert-level perception-warping hate filter the moment he heard Merlin say "God, I'm sozzled."

"With the previous film steering things in the right direction by finally having the robots actually feel like characters and not just background noise"
1. If the robots felt like background noise rather than characters to you in 1 through 3, then your ability to perceive characterization is out of whack. Now, if you were saying specific characters were badly underdeveloped to the point of feeling like background noise? Then you'd have a point. The Transformers as a whole? You're talking out your exhaust port.
2. I would say AoE was a huge step in the wrong direction characterization-wise, for A. killing off most of the surviving established characters before they had a chance to be fleshed out and B. having the replacement characters be generic belligerent assholes in personality.
3. And that's just the Autobots. Let's not forget that only one Decepticon in the film had personality.

I would put AoE and Bumblebee at the bottom of the list jointly, Dark of the Moon above them because of Spielberg's dickery, The Last Knight above that for trying to course-correct from AoE (Showed more surviving prior Autobots, actually followed up on the question of "What happened to Cybertron?", fleshed out at least Hound more, didn't repeat the Transformium-cloud bullshit, had Decepticons who even if several died quickly they at least made their personalities known before croaking, etc.) and setting up what promised to be an epic finale, the 2007 film above that, ROTF above it, and the 86 movie at the top.

Yep, pretty much agree here. I'd probably switch ROTF and DOTM though- DOTM wasn't great but I feel it had more going for it beyond "Wow, cool robot!". Leonard Nimoy was great as Sentinel, a lot of the actual ideas for the story were good even if the execution sucked a bit, and of all the Bay movies it had IMO the best robot designs. Unfortunately it's let down by awful human segments, especially the whole relationship drama with Carly. People give Megan Fox a lot of grief but honestly I feel she was actually really good in the first two movies, honestly quite believable as a surprisingly badass love interest.

One thing I will give the movies is that Prime's character arc of getting progressively more pissed off and disillusioned with protecting humanity as they treat him like crap was an interesting take on the character, and it's a shame that it got bungled so hard in the end. I know a lot of people dislike Prime's characterization in the movies but I genuinely think there was (unintentional?) genius at work there. For example, for all AOE's flaws, the "They're not your property!...They were my friends!" line stood out as actually damn good. Not just in comparison to the rest of the film either- it was a heavy moment delivered with perfect gravitas, and honestly Peter Cullen did a superb job as "Angry Prime".

Anyway, with ROTF, DOTM, AOE and TLK ( ) ranging from mediocre to garbage, there's the matter of the top three, AKA the "by default winners". I definitely agree with Bumblebee being #1, it's not just a good TF film but a damn good sci-fi movie in its own right, and even if the upcoming rebooted movies end up being trash I'm glad we got it. As for the other two, I'd actually be tempted to swap them, but that could be nostalgia/bias speaking; TF2007 was one of the only movies I've seen in theatres twice and D it as a kid, whilst the 86 movie terrified me as a kid, and upon rewatching whilst it's a fun, enjoyable anime rock opera, it is a bit transparent in its efforts to get rid of the old cast to make way for the new. Also, a slight nitpick but I feel like the more simplified Sunbow models don't really work quite as well in the higher quality "Premium Toei" animation- notably things like the Constructicons being overly simplistic and the Coneheads not actually having necks really stick out, especially next to the movie-original characters who look consistently awesome. It's still a great, fun movie, and seeing Transformers in high-budget 80s anime style is delightful, but I do feel it's perhaps a little overrated.

Hello, My name is Johnathan , I love Bumblebee I started CRYING when I saw bee frozen Nemesis is the worst bot in the series by far as he was against the beloved Bumblebee and i dont understand what youre saying in reply

Evil Eye wrote:One thing I will give the movies is that Prime's character arc of getting progressively more pissed off and disillusioned with protecting humanity as they treat him like crap was an interesting take on the character, and it's a shame that it got bungled so hard in the end. I know a lot of people dislike Prime's characterization in the movies but I genuinely think there was (unintentional?) genius at work there. For example, for all AOE's flaws, the "They're not your property!...They were my friends!" line stood out as actually damn good. Not just in comparison to the rest of the film either- it was a heavy moment delivered with perfect gravitas, and honestly Peter Cullen did a superb job as "Angry Prime".

Like I said in my blurb about AOE, and double checking the time line, I really think/believe/hope there was a whole higher end dramatic plot centered around some idea or realization about ethics in this type of science. Then Michael Bay read the script and was, "Eh, this stuff seems boring lets cut it out and do more "
When the writers were most likely working on the script there was a lot of talk about controversial uses in STEM cells (more focused what approved cell lines are okay to use), the use of cells from Henrietta Lacks (her lack of consent for taking samples and how those samples were used), it was released that your DNA samples for ancestry tracking was being sold to research labs, and the biggest one of all there was the start into using CRISPR for localized gene editing (designer baby media taglines). Between 2011 and 2014 was just a big storm of what could seem like mad scientist stealing cellular/DNA samples and using them to do whatever they wanted in the media, which with the whole transformium plot device seems pretty similar just very poorly Michael Bay'd.
Then again this is my field of study and work, and I maybe just having some serious wishful thinking. I would like to hope that there's some copy of an AOE script that is taking these rather adult and jargon heavy ideas and is breaking them down for the general education/interest level and kids.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:Just gonna say I disagree and write my own list:

Just wanted to chime in and say Thank You.. Although our opinions wildly disagree (There is a LOT of variety here actually). I just appreciate you are the only other person in this thread so far to acknowledge there are in fact Nine Transformers Films, not just Seven.

To be fair this is the Live Action Movie Forum.If we're to include cartoons it would raise some questions like,Transformers Animated when it first aired,it was full feature movie,that was later split up in parts.
Some Beast Wars episodes aired in Japan in theater.Doe we count those as well?
https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Beast_Wars_Spec ... ansformers
It's a slippery slope.

Spider5800 wrote:6. Age of Extinction - I actually agree with a lot of your points on this one, like the fact that they were clearly trying to make the characters more distinct. But the characters aren't actually any good,

I know, the characters kinda suck, which really doesn't help. All the new autobots are really hard to root for with them being so triggerhappy and I have a tough time with how Drift treats Bumblebee. They just don't feel heroic in the least. BUT I am complaining on them as characters and the character interactions, something I can't even do for most films because there's just not enough for me to critique. I agree with almost everyone here, we are all seeing the same films and event play out, we just like and appreciate different aspects.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:1. If the robots felt like background noise rather than characters to you in 1 through 3, then your ability to perceive characterization is out of whack. Now, if you were saying specific characters were badly underdeveloped to the point of feeling like background noise? Then you'd have a point. The Transformers as a whole? You're talking out your exhaust port.

I was being literal, like foreground and background, and looking at screentime. So for instance in the first film, the big fight between Bumblebee and Barricade happen in the background while the fight between Michela, Sam and Frenzy happen in the foreground. And in DOTM, when the wreckers are introduced, they are mostly in the background while we get closer shots of Francis McDormand. Same for the scene when they are going into the shuttle.
And in terms of screentime, we get a segment about the humans flying in on squirrel suits to join the battle, along with a long scene of the humans struggling in the building being destroyed by the digger tool. But the scene where we track Optimus as he kills decepticons lasts less than one minute.

The primary focus on these films is with the human characters. Most shots are framed with them in mind and they are in the foreground. It's how Michael Bay chose to make these films and how they were written. So that's what I mean. This may not matter to you, compared to other things that matter more in these films, but it matters to me. And films like Age of Extinction and Bumblebee break that mold by having shots where the transformers are the central component for a larger fraction of the running time. Bumblebee is pretty interesting in that regard since instead of framing a shot where you will have a point of view of a human, it will instead have both humans and robots on the same plane. Like when Bumblebee is removing the sand from Carly's head or when Shatter and Dropkick are meeting sector 7.

Anyways, I have a question for you all:

Who is the main character of Transformers Dark of the Moon? It would help if you all answered, no need for a big explanation, just curious to see if it's the same answer for everyone.

TulioDude wrote:To be fair this is the Live Action Movie Forum.If we're to include cartoons it would raise some questions like,Transformers Animated when it first aired,it was full feature movie,that was later split up in parts.
Some Beast Wars episodes aired in Japan in theater.Doe we count those as well?
https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Beast_Wars_Spec ... ansformers
It's a slippery slope.

Yeah that's why this is a list of the Transformers Films with Theatrical Releases, as written in the article.

TulioDude wrote:To be fair this is the Live Action Movie Forum.

Then why does everyone else include TF:TM? Having separate episodes air as a single event is not the same as an actual "Film" by definition. Nor are individual episodes that are shown theatrically in Japan for promotional reasons. There are Truly Nine Transformers Films Three happen to be Animated, and Six thus far are Live Action.

For instance, the entire BW Theatrical experience in Japan started out with a recap of BW S1, then the actual FILM based on BW II, then a couple of BW S2 Episodes (which in Japan is called BW Metals) - 3 different segments to a theatrical experience, but only the middle section was actually a FILM.

Looks like I was not the only one thinking of writing an article revisiting the films.
https://www.cbr.com/tranformers-charact ... pcp8qY_6YU
Feels like their approach is a waste of time though, the films are not G1.

william-james88 wrote:Anyways, I have a question for you all:

Who is the main character of Transformers Dark of the Moon? It would help if you all answered, no need for a big explanation, just curious to see if it's the same answer for everyone.

There isn't one Sam (answer is isolated here so you don't have to read my rambling below if you don't want to)


Wow... A+ for asking a difficult question. I think the answer to this is going to have multiple answers. I honestly don't know. To ME The film is such a mess, and a chore to watch, that's why it ranks as my 2nd lowest (only TLK is ranked lower). It is by far Shia's most grating performance as Sam. I honestly don't think any single Transformer, not even Optimus or BB has enough presence to be called a Main Character. I guess by default I would say Sam, but he is so unlikable in DotM. If someone can even remotely make half a discussion about why any other character would be the main character, I'll happily change over.

william-james88 wrote:Looks like I was not the only one thinking of writing an article revisiting the films.
https://www.cbr.com/tranformers-charact ... pcp8qY_6YU
Feels like their approach is a waste of time though, the films are not G1.

I wouldn't pay attention to them,if you use the CBR forums,even their user base complain about the lack of effort in the articles.

william-james88 wrote:Anyways, I have a question for you all:

Who is the main character of Transformers Dark of the Moon? It would help if you all answered, no need for a big explanation, just curious to see if it's the same answer for everyone.

Sam. He is the 'main character' of the trilogy. The first movie was framed around his perspective as he (and through him the audience) was introduced to the concept of Transformers, and that dynamic continued into the rest of the trilogy, coinciding with the character's gradual development. I think this decision worked for the time, but with the greater cultural awareness of the Transformers now, and Bumblebee proving that the robots can be interesting characters, I think the Cybertronians have a better shot at being true dynamic characters in future films.

william-james88 wrote:Who is the main character of Transformers Dark of the Moon? It would help if you all answered, no need for a big explanation, just curious to see if it's the same answer for everyone.

Sentinel Prime

i say
1 the 86 movie because it was the only g1 movie we got and it was very well drawn and loved the voice acting
2 the bumble bee movie because it gave a fresh reboot to the crappy bayverse designs and bumblebee was actually a VW
3 the 2007 movie because it was the first time transformers went live action something us kids from the 80s were waiting 30yrs for
screw everything else

Woooh, smokeshow.

I hope most of you people know the difference between objectively bad and opinions.

7. The Last Knight (happy a lot of you guys smashed that at the bottom) My god what an utter letdown. Stranger Things, The Force Awakens, Earth to Echo, Suicide Squad, King Arthur, Ironman 3, Batman v Superman... I know there are more. Optimus Prime doesn't Transform, very little... no, calm down. It's trash on so many levels. Some can enjoy it of course, I like Mcdonalds.

6. ROTF, utter trash as well, crap humor, horrible plot, horrible characters. However it does have in my opinion thé best Transformers live action battle scene (forrest battle). I'm glad they scrapped the racist bro's in the followup. And Devastator balls, defeated by 2 minibots. If you've seen G1 like I, you'd probably roll your eyes so hard you needed surgery.

5. Age of Extinction. The new transformation was cheap trash, the new robots were visually distinguishable (that's spelled incorrect probably) however they were 1 dimensional and unlikeable for me anyway. They had some funny lines. But this is the biggest waste, The barn scene I absolutely loved, and Ratchet being hunted. I thought, man! They are going to do a serious Transformers movie finally! And then the rest. Dinobots are cool and all, but it's just generic metal monstrosities fighting pixelated Stinger clones so it did 0 for me that fight. Even looked like it was a tabletop with the grass. I was looking for Spacemarines. Great scenes, but overal big letdown.

4. Transformers 2007 movie. I'm okay with it, I almost died of shame for the pissing and masturbation scene but the rest was pretty okay and great special effects. And Optimus wasn't a murdering psychopath yet.

3. Transformers the animated movie. Cool, but I liked the first part the best, after they go to planets it gets very boring for me personally. Can't remember if the animation got worse in the second part.

2. Dark of the Moon. My favorite Bayverse movie, the movie I felt was toneally consistent. It was pretty serious (except the big d*ck to keep a woman joke...). And I didn't know what was going to happen which was a surprise. I liked Sentinel Prime, Megatron's new design. Final battle was awesome!

1. Bumblebee. Absolutely love it, easily my favorite. I agree with the people noting the low energy in the movie. Our main character not only lost his memories but also his drive/maturity so he was like a puppy. The movie is also more kiddy, agree on that. I'm okay with it, don't think it's great. But this would've been a great starting movie of the Live action franchise.
Bumblebee 2: He's Bumblebee again and can talk, we get some more Autobots and Decepticons. Slightly bigger plot and battles. And then do The Transformers: An entire team against each other.

Agree somewhat but I have always hated the animated movie and I always will. And Age of Extinction is simply one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life. It and The Last Knight are pretty much examples of movie-making at it's worst.

william-james88 wrote:Anyways, I have a question for you all:

Who is the main character of Transformers Dark of the Moon? It would help if you all answered, no need for a big explanation, just curious to see if it's the same answer for everyone.

Oh, it's definitely Sam. His relationship with Carly is the focus of the movie from the beginning, he's the one unraveling the "mystery" of the moon landing and the pillars, and he's the primary focus even after the Autobots reveal they aren't dead. We aren't following Optimus or Bumblebee in Chicago, we're following Sam and his random group of soldier friends.

I get why they did it, and I don't necessarily think it's the worst choice. But Sam really was the focus of the first three films. The Transformers themselves were often treated more like the threat in a disaster movie, just something the humans had to deal with rather than characters in and of themselves (OP and Bumblebee being the big exceptions).

I recently rewatched DOTM. I thought it was actually a really good movie. The opening battle scene looked pretty cool, and could have worked right in the Bumblebee movie battle scene. It was a fun movie... Up until Sentinel Prime turns coat.

First, the focus on Sam: They tell a compelling story of the "Hero returned to a peaceful life," and how that would play out. The worst part for him about returning to normal life is that it's a secret that he is a Hero. Almost no one knows. Imagine saving the world twice, and no one even knows your name, let alone your accomplishments. The way they portray his life was really well done, well written, and well acted. I felt bad for the guy. And Carly, Sam's girlfriend, was done pretty well too. She had a charm that made me want to route for them and felt like they cared about each other. It was the first time I actually didn't mind the human focus, since the story actually had me caring about it.

I do think that the Transformers got some good screen time, but I always want more 'Bot time. But they had a cool story too. Butting heads with the government, some cool looking fights. I do wish they were fleshed out more and we actually got more time with them though. Especially the new 'Bots that just kind of show up out of nowhere.

I think the moment I stop liking the movie is the moment that Sentinel betrays the Autobots. Not because he did, I don't have any problem with that. Well I mean I do, because not cool man, but I don't mind it story wise. It's when he does it that I don't like. If Sentinel was in league with Megatron, why would the Decepticons shoot him down? Why did Sentinel sound so adamant that the Decepticons not get the Pillars? Why didn't he take the Matrix from Optimus? How would I have done it? Glad you asked. I would have done his betrayal like this:

The Ark takes off, but is allowed to escape by the Decepticons, who hit it a few times to make it look believable, but nothing too bad so it is still functional. Unfortunately the Ark hits an asteroid field while Sentinel and his crew are powered down conserving energy, destroying everyone onboard besides Sentinel, and is knocked off course, landing on the moon... Eventually the Autobots recover Sentinel and take him to the base. Sentinel wakes up, finds out he's on Earth, asks where the Pillars are, is told the government has them and also informed about the Decepticons on Earth. He asks Optimus to show him around the new world they are in. They roll around the place until stopping at a quaint mountain view, with Sentinel commenting at how wonderful the world is, rich with resources, like Cybertron before the war. When Optimus offers Sentinel the Matrix of Leadership, Sentinel takes it (it would make sense that Sentinel would want the Matrix since it's a powerful relic), then Sentinel says "yeah this planet is ballin with resources. We could rebuild Cybertron bro." Optimus objects like "nah, I'm good." Then "dumdumdum" Sentinel betrays him and incapacitates Optimus by shooting him off the cliff. Optimus survived, but is knocked out and his communication abilities are damaged. Then Sentinel, thinking Optimus is dead returns to the base and tells the rest of Optimus' demise, showing the Matrix as proof. When he asks to see the Pillars with an offer to help the government harness the power, since that's what Optimus would have wanted, they take him up on his offer. They bring them to him, then Sentinel starts blasting and takes off with them. Optimus then wakes up and gets back to base after Sentinel had left. He is repaired, then the rest of the movie would play out pretty close, except for the whole Optimus going full murder rage on everyone. I don't mind that he ends up killing the bad guys, just do it in a less evil way (and definitely not the cringey "I'm going to kill you. Now forgive me!!! Say you forgive me!!!" of the WFC cartoon, yeesh what even was that?).

Epsilon Delta wrote: When Optimus offers Sentinel the Matrix of Leadership, Sentinel takes it (it would make sense that Sentinel would want the Matrix since it's a powerful relic).

I saw Sentinel refusing the Matrix as a manifestation of his confliction over betraying the Autobot cause. He was always planning to conquer Earth to save Cybertron, but seeing how beautiful it was and how the other Autobots truly considered it a home made him doubt the righteousness of his plan. Sentinel realizes that sacrificing the planet is not morally justifiable, but his desire to save Cybertron outweighed his conscience . He refuses the Matrix because he knows he would not be worthy of it.

Interesting list! Probably the most fun I've had reading a list in a while. It would be cool to see a list like this for all the different cartoons too, maybe right before the Nickelodeon show comes out to build hype. And also to give me time to catch up on all the shows I haven't watched yet.

Anyway, my rankings:

I'll start out by noting that it's been so long since I've seen TF:TM that I really have no idea where I would rank it, other than it probably wouldn't be any lower than #4-5. A few people have mentioned Predacons Rising and a BWII movie, but a haven't seen either of those so I really can't rank them.

#Dead Last: The Last Knight. This movie has so many fundamental problems that the blurb written for this list barely scratches the surface. It literally gives an entire several minute long introduction scene for a character (Izabella) who is never important again and just completely disappears for almost the entire second half of the movie. Like, what? Remember how Bee explodes, and then somehow just reassembles himself like nothing happened? Not only is that never explained, it's never important again or even mentioned again. Like, why?? Or how about Stanley Tucci reappearing, but as a totally different character than he was in the last movie? Like, how??? I've never seen a movie plot struggle as much as this one to even just be coherent, let alone anything resembling good. I'm not exaggerating when I say that TLK is possibly the worst movie I've ever seen, and I don't say that as a disappointed fan, I say that as someone who loves film as a storytelling medium and enjoys screenwriting as a hobby. It's maybe the only movie I would seriously give a 0/10 rating. This movie is such a mess that nothing can really save it.

If there is anything genuinely good I can say about this film, it is that it inspires me to believe that I could write a screenplay that gets produced someday, not because I have a lot of screenplay writing experience or even much confidence in my work, but because I rationally know for a fact that I could write a script better than this movie.

#5: Revenge of the Fallen. Fun fact: speaking of scripts, this movie more-or-less didn't have one. IIRC, there was a writer's strike during the production of RotF, and the film's writers only had time to make some outlines for the script before the strike began, leaving Bay and the production crew to fill in a lot of the gaps themselves. So... yeah.

RotF is probably the crudest of the movies and relies very heavily on massive exposition dumps. It has some good action though, and the forest battle is one of the highlights of the entire movie series. But that's about it for me.

#4: Age of Extinction. This movie is a mixed bag for me. It's grown on me since it came out because it has the best Transformer characters in the entire franchise (including Bumblebee). Not that it's a high bar, but at least the bots in this movie have personalities, even if they're pretty one-dimensional. Optimus even kinda has a character arc. AoE also has some interesting story ideas, like humans turning on the Autobots because they see the Transformers war as so big of a threat after Chicago that the alliance with the Autobots isn't justifiable anymore and all Transformers just need to go, to humans making their own bots but Megatron hijacks them for a new army, to the deeper history of Transformers on Earth and Lockdown hunting Prime for the "creators". But ultimately I think these ideas would have been better served if they were spread out over multiple movies, because there is way too much going on in this film. Not to mention the plot holes big enough to ride a dinobot through. Overall, it mostly feels like a movie with great but mostly wasted ideas.

#3: Dark of the Moon. I was surprised to see this movie as low as it was on the list. Sure, it has flaws, but I think it's still pretty good. I thought the dynamic between Sentinel and Megatron was actually pretty well done. They allied with each other to achieve a common goal, but Megatron eventually turned on Sentinel once it became clear that Sentinel was the one that was going to come out of this with a pretty cemented spot at the top of the power chain, which obviously didn't sit well with him. Certainly better than Megs playing second fiddle to The Fallen in RotF and just being cool with it. There's also genuine emotion in the scene where Sam says goodbye to Bee and the Autobots. It's one of the only scenes in any of the movies that I occasionally search for on YouTube. The first half of the movie is pretty forgettable, which holds it back on this list, but the second half of DotM is probably my favorite part of any Transformers movie.

#2: Bumblebee. It's a pretty good movie, though I do think it tends to get overrated a bit by the community, because it's certainly not flawless. The reliance on 80's-era tropes is actually one of my biggest problems with the film. By the end of the movie, the plot basically boils down to the bad aliens are trying to send a signal to their bad alien army so they can come and invade Earth. It's literally the most cliché sci-fi plot ever, and I'm surprised it doesn't get more criticism because of it. There's also quite a bit of runtime where the plot isn't really moving/their is no plot, and while this did give more time for character dynamics, it is possible to do both. Speaking of characters, Charlie absolutely carries this movie. She is a great character, which is good, because Bumblebee still struggles to treat the Transformers as main characters. Shatter and Dropkick were cool but nothing beyond any of the other live action villains. Bee, in his own movie, somehow had less personality than he usually had in the Bay films. But it's still a good film despite these criticisms. The removal of the crude humor was a huge plus and is almost enough to move it to #1.

#1: Transformers (2007). The first of the Bay films was probably the best one overall. It has the best overall plotline of an of the live-action films. The action is great, and that opening scene with Blackout attacking the military base is iconic. Megatron is surprisingly quotable ("No, I want two!"). Is this movie perfect? No. I'm not a fan of the crude humor, and I think the movie would have been better off with a few less human characters. But it's overall a cool movie with a relatively unique take on the Transformers and an interesting human perspective. It's a solid movie in it's own right, and that alone is enough to get it toward the top of the list.

My ranking of #1 and #2 tends to change from time to time, but right now that's where I'd rank them. I don't think any of them are a "perfect" Transformers movie though, and that's something I'm still waiting for (and again, there are a few I haven't seen/don't remember well).