by Tuned Agent » Fri Apr 23, 2021 10:48 am
- Motto: "The real scale was the friends we made along the way."
- Weapon: Sniper Rifle
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).