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Ranking the Transformers Movies

Transformers News: Ranking the Transformers Movies

Monday, April 19th, 2021 12:47AM CDT

Categories: Movie Related News, Site Articles, Editorials
Posted by: william-james88   Views: 108,419

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With there being buzz again for a new Transformers film, I thought of starting this ranking which will update through the years as more movies get added. This ranking consists of theatrically released Transformers films. Be sure to let us know your ranking too.


Ranking of the Transformers Films with Theatrical Releases


7. Transformers The last Knight

With the previous film steering things in the right direction by finally having the robots actually feel like characters and not just background noise, I was legitimately excited for this film. Megatron was coming back as well with the best design we had seen for him so far in the series and it looked like Optimus could finally be the prominent character in the film, especially based on the marketing. I mean, you look at this and Optimus is the last knight, right... RIGHT?!?!?!?!

Transformers News: Ranking the Transformers Movies

Transformers News: Ranking the Transformers Movies

Wrong!

The last knight is Mark Wahlberg. You wondering why? Well it's because he doesn't have sex a lot. They spend some minutes discussing that very thing. Oh and Optimus, the guy on the poster? Not in the film much. The last film ended with him setting off on an awesome revenge mission in space and this one opens with the film showing us that he wasn't really made for deep space flight. This film is a dud with the most uneven tone of the entire series. Like having some really raw and visceral medieval action intercut with Stanley Tucci being a clown as a drunk Merlin. Tone deaf, truly tone deaf. There's just so much wasted potential here. Evil Optimus? Lasts for just six minutes. Cool new Megatron? Not there much, plays second fiddle to Quintessa. Barricade returns? Taken out without Bee even needing to transform. Unicron is planet earth? Not gonna focus on that too much. Cog is called a headmaster? He never transforms into anything and is just a butler robot. The submarine is a Transformer? Never transforms. Bee can finally talk again? He does, after we were told that he still can't, and after his two second speech he goes back to the radio voice.

This doesn't feel like a Transformers movie in the least. It looks like one of the writers in the writer's room had an Arthurian legend descendants script in the works and the rest of the writers just added Transformers to it. This film is just a junk fest of scenes and random ideas put together, avoid it "no matter the cost".


6. Transformers Dark of the Moon

My issue with this film is that it is so damn boring. Like mind numbingly so. The Transformers hero characters are relegated to the background here, even in the fight scenes and they seem to have no agency. The Wreckers are there for 2 minutes of screen time and mostly in the background of those 2 minutes. This is not a joke. The montage scene of Sam looking for a random job lasts longer (it lasts for 4 minutes). And I absolutely hate how they have to write ridiculous reasons for Optimus not to join a battle (and thus save some money on CGI), like getting tied up with ropes. It just makes this huge blockbuster feel so cheap. Speaking of Optimus, any hint of that noble warrior is gone here and he's just a murderer. I get that he is beyond pissed off in Age of Extinction, which gives a reason for his overly rash behaviour, but we don't have that here. Just a murder machine who executes his mentor by shooting him in the head point blank. That particular scene does not make him look heroic in the least. And once again, Megatron plays second fiddle to another villain. Also, the studio insisting on Leonard Nimoy to say his famous Spock line in the context of villainy made me want to hurl. Although the "homage" to the Columbia shuttle tragedy is probably worse.






5. Transformers Revenge of the Fallen

One thing that pisses me off to no end with these films is the total disregard for the robot characters. The live action films treat the robots as just random characters we don't need to know much about and the constructicons are a great example of this. We see them in the beginning, they aren't introduced nor so they talk among themselves to establish anything. And then later in the film, we see Devastator, who you'd think would be made up of those constructicons. But he isn't. Instead, he is made up of construction vehicles lying around a pyramid which suddenly merge together into devastator. And during that time, you have the constructicons from the beginning fighting the Autobots. It's like the writers and filmmakers are going out of their way to show how little any of this means to them. The writing is beyond poor in this film with one of the key plot points being that only a Prime can defeat the Fallen, the villain of this film which Megatron plays second fiddle to. And while Optimus does beat him after getting some parts from Jetfire, I don't see why it had to be a prime and not just any other bot who was jacked up on extra parts.

And I hate how terribly cheap the film looks with its obvious cost cutting methods. There's an important scene where Optimus is resurrected and it's entirely obscured by a tarp.

All that said, there are some good things in this film. For one, Megatron's looks are a step up here in robot mode. I like how the tank treads incorporate into his feet and the asymmetry of his arms adds a real creepy factor. This look is the one that has remained the most iconic for Megatron's Bayverse tenure even though he changed look in every film. Also, that forest battle scene is pretty incredible. Not just because it is well done, but it lasts long enough for it to become this small pocket in the history of Bay films where the robots are the main characters. Sure Sam runs around, but he serves his purpose as indicating to the audience just how different Autobot and Decepticon ideologies are. In that scene, Sam is there not as a main character but just as a means to share more info about the robots to the audience, no matter how basic that info is (Auobot good, Decepticon bad). It's an awesome 3 minute scene that you can watch again and again on youtube with no need for what comes before or after and none of the films previously mentioned have something this good.






4. Transformers Age of Extinction

This film gets kudos for actually trying to fix major issues from the previous films. For one, the bots actually feel like characters with their own personality traits. Optimus is a full fledged character here, well at least as much as any of the human characters. Sure, it's the murder machine version of the character, but at least you know where he's coming from. All the Autobots get several lines of dialogue. I remember Protoman (a reviewer on youtube and a friend) reviewing the Drift figure and saying that the character probably wouldn't have more than two lines of dialogue in the film and this film proved him (and many others) wrong. Were they good lines? I'm not even going there, I am just happy these characters have lines. And speaking of the Autobots, they are colour coded this time around to make the action scenes easier to follow. And there are some pretty kick ass action scenes, be it Hound and Bumblebee's last stand, Optimus Against Galvatron, Optimus against Lockdown, the dinobot charge, flying around Chicago, Bee vs Stinger atop the robotic Pterasaur, lots of fun stuff. Plus the villains are good here. The bounty hunter Lockdown is rather threatening and I really liked Kelsey Grammer as an 80s type villain that is just obviously evil. We even get scenes of just the Transformers heroes talking and figuring things out with no human in sight. Crazy, I know!




3. Transformers (2007)

In comparison to the rest, there isn't much to say here other than I think it was a good first outing for a franchise branching out into a new era. Sure, the humans take centre stage for most of the film but it serves as an introduction to the brand and the new mythos of this interpretation. It does an ok job at what it's trying to do even though Bay's live action style was never something I was overly fond of, especially the idea that really cool stuff will be relegated to the background and that the Transformers are secondary characters with action told from a ground witness point of view. It was fine for a first film and that point of view even works well in that military desert scene vs Scorponok but I feel what worked for one film did not work for the entire franchise. And the CGI still holds up, which is quite an achievement and it shows just how cutting edge the film was when it first came out.




2. Transformers The Movie

This film is really special and I haven't cracked the code as to why it works so well for so many of us. I just know for a fact that it is extremely captivating to kids (Or those who watched it when they were kids). The drawings are gorgeous and the animation is good. It holds up very well and you can definitely tell that this is a movie rather than another episode of the show to the point where going back to the show will feel like a downgrade after seeing it. It also feels truly epic. You feel the stakes. I feel it does waver off a bit after Galvatron's initial attack with the remaining autobots, where three parties are split off into new worlds, but everything comes back together for a grand finale. The part of the writing that I find rather impressive is everything to do with Galvatron. It's not easy to bring about the idea of a different character also being a new version of an old character, and to do that without that becoming the main plot you are telling. Here, I feel they do it effortlessly. I love how Galvatron retains the memory of his previous self and is proud of his achievements, yet you see that this is a new persona at the same time. Just wonderful stuff all around.






1. Bumblebee

This may not be a revolutionary movie for most, but to me it proves that the Transformers franchise can truly inhabit the world of classic live action films without any mockery. The film itself is excellent for what it is, an Amblin film for today's generation of kids. It goes for the 80s aesthetic all the way by not only making it the setting, and giving the robots the more classic look and feel of that era, but also in giving us a film that feels a product of that era of film making and storytelling, like ET.

I love the world building etched into the dialogue. Like how Bee's sentencing by Blitzwing shows Megatron's ideals of "Peace through Tyranny". That first segment with Bee coming to Earth is just so beautifully done. That was originally how the film began in the script, when there was no Cybertron scene and while I think that Cybertron scene is all kinds of fun, I am really impressed at what Bee's arrival on Earth accomplishes in terms of storytelling and aesthetics for this new breed of live action Transformers films. They show us how Bumblebee scans and transforms and how that changes his own aesthetic through an action scene. Right after that it shows us just how bad the odds are against the autobots with the battle against Blitzwing. We see the advantage a flier has over a bot that can only transform into a car and and there are some nice shots contrasting their size, mirroring the larger war at hand. I love how Bumblebee goes to destroy his flight mechanism to ground him first. Plus how that fight finishes shows how the Autobots had to get crafty to survive and continue fighting.



We get some more awesome fight choreography at the end against Dropkick and Shatter, and the filmmaker even throws in a few moments of showing how a Transformers fight differs from other robots fighting, with using their transformation abilities as they fight. Plus you've got a great soundtrack and good human characters, and a solid performance from John Cena (who has BY FAR the best line in the film). I am just very happy this movie came out by the time I had kids (a boy and girl) since it's a great way to share this brand I love so much with them within the modern slew of entertainment. It's the Transformers film I can truly recommend to anyone and everyone.

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Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102272)
Posted by ausbot on April 19th, 2021 @ 1:18am CDT
Nope bumblebee is not better than the original animated movie
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102273)
Posted by Bumblevivisector on April 19th, 2021 @ 1:26am CDT
Besides making TF:TM #1, since it's my favorite movie forever, period...switch ROTF and DOTM, and that's my ranking. Agree with most of your points on the Bay films.

I especially agree that Age of Extinction was a HUGE upgrade in the character development department, for bots and humans. Only one over-the-top dumbass caricature who felt rather out of place, the surfer bum, gets flash-fried about a half hour in, LMAO all 5 times I saw it in the theater. I know we all have different opinions on these, usually polarized between Bay's bashers and defenders, but I'm still genuinely confused as to why so many fans derided AofE as Mikey's most despicable crime against civilization yet. For all its flaws, it addressed so many problems with the first 3 films that it was a better soft reboot than I thought possible.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102278)
Posted by jtanimator on April 19th, 2021 @ 2:15am CDT
yeah I've gotta be honest, I disagree with this entire list, start to finish.
Unpopular opinion: Transformers: The Movie is NOT a very good movie. It's just a lot of nostalgia crammed into a decently plotted cheesy 80's movie. The music is cringy, and the characters are so-so. Maybe it was revolutionary for its time, but it simply doesn't hold up to any of today's standards for me.
Bumblebee, no matter HOW desperately I wanted to love it, is a very lazy movie. It's got a lot more sweet moments and "character development", but at the cost of derivative and EXTREMELY cringy writing and characters. its desperately predictable, and it gets too much credit for being a forgettable and mediocre movie.
Dark of The Moon was a revolutionary action blockbuster. it may be too long, and a little head jolting, but it went full on bad A slap-your-daddy-action on all accounts, and I respect that. also, unlike a lot of the Bay movies, the story and plot were actually viable in this movie. The humor was tempered, and didn't go too hard. Most of the mistakes made in ROTF were fixed and made perfect for me in this film. I love this movie.
Any ranking list that doesn't put Age Of Extinction at the very bottom just doesn't fly with me lol. That isn't just the worst Transformers movie, its one of the worst movies of all time period, and easily THE MOST disappointing. It had so much potential, and even 14 year old me (being 100% ready to adore this movie after watching DOTM) couldn't help but absolutely hate everything about this film. I like to pretend it doesn't exist.
The last Knight was one of the lower Transformers movies, but it didn't reach AOE levels of long and bad. I credit that at least.
Revenge Of The Fallen is a weird freaking movie. The humping transformers, crude humor, sexual content, strong language, transforming hot chicks, and robot testicles was flat out strange. No matter how anyone may try and justify it. But MY GOSH did it have some of the BEST action scenes in the whole franchise. The forest fight will live on forever in my heart, what a legend.
Had to let that off my chest, since everyone else seems to think so differently. Hopefully someone can be on my same page, but if not I admit this may be a little to ambitious to admit for my own good lol.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102279)
Posted by Barricade.it on April 19th, 2021 @ 2:25am CDT
This is the typical war-generating topic :D

My ranking:

1 DOTM
2 Bumblebee
3 2007
4 Movie
5 TLK
6 ROTF
7 AoE

BB could've been 1st but there are a bit too many "kid kid kid" moments for my taste.

I hope the next movie will be more similar to BB : easier, less vulgar and violent, coherent with G1 philosophy.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102284)
Posted by Yodoswaginz on April 19th, 2021 @ 5:11am CDT
It's funny how a lot of people rank DOTM really highly, but other people think it's trash. I was 16 when it came out, and I'd watched every single film in the cinema. DOTM was a truly awesome cinematic experience. It really felt like the final battle of the bayverse (at the time). Of course I've re-watched it many times since, and some of it's flaws do stand out. But they're really nothing compared to the trash of ROTF and TLK. And DOTM has some of my favourite action scenes of the films. There's a solid 10 minutes of non-stop action from where the Autobots get captured until the end of the film that I love every second of. Then again maybe I'm the one with nostalgia goggles.

Anyway my ranking is as follows:

1: TFTM
2: Bumblebee
3: DOTM
4: Transformers (2007)
5: AOE
6: ROTF
7: TLK

AOE is underrated imo. For me, it's a solid middle of the road movie. Sure it doesn't do anything particularly groundbreaking, but it doesn't try to. The movie is just fun. Also I much prefer Mark Wahlberg to Shia LaBeouf, so I find the non-transformer bits actually watchable. No cringe humour, and hilarious at points. Like I really feel like they were deliberately breaking the 4th wall with the 'romeo & juliet laws' and 'sequels and remakes... bunch of crap' lines.

TLK is pure unadulterated trash. Like when people say that transformers movies are incoherent and don't make any sense, I finally understand what they mean now. Like the plot makes zero sense. They introduce Unicron with the line 'Earth is Unicron', without any build up whatsoever. Tbf though I hear it isn't really the writer's fault. Apparently the producers forced several scripts into one film. I've seen some of the concept art for the WW2 movie, and it looks like it would have been pretty good. It's a real shame.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102286)
Posted by -Kanrabat- on April 19th, 2021 @ 6:17am CDT
I pretty much agree with the article. But AoE disappointed me because the set-up at the beginning where they introduced a Dinobot in ice was completely wasted. Remove that scene and the movie would have been much better. Also, Lockdown is one hell of a fearsome villain!

For me, #4 through #7 can be in any order. They all have good and horrible points.

My #3 would be the 1986 movie. The first quarter of the movie up until Optimus's death is pure wet dream. But pass that and it's back to the usual Sunbow silliness. Still fun to watch though.

#2 is the 2007 Bay movie. This is the movie that brought me back into Transformers. Plus there's a kind of a inexplicable magic in this movie that make it awesome even today.

#1 is the Bee Movie. Was there any doubt? I get the perfect balance of The Love Bug, E.T, and Transformers. Plus the humans are GOOD, believable and not crass. This movie will be hard to top.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102287)
Posted by megatronus on April 19th, 2021 @ 8:01am CDT
There are two tiers in terms of movies.

First Tier: TFTM, 2007, Bumblebee.

Second Tier: everything else.

How you choose to order the first tier is obviously to taste, and I won't fight you on how you do it, so long as we relegate the second tier to the trash heap.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102288)
Posted by william-james88 on April 19th, 2021 @ 8:14am CDT
megatronus wrote:There are two tiers in terms of movies.

First Tier: TFTM, 2007, Bumblebee.

Second Tier: everything else.

How you choose to order the first tier is obviously to taste, and I won't fight you on how you do it, so long as we relegate the second tier to the trash heap.


-Kanrabat- wrote:For me, #4 through #7 can be in any order.


Looks like there may be an overall agreement afterall, since my list also abides by these tiers, as do most of responses here and on Facebook.

And yes, Kanrabat I agree about the Dinosaurs. The film has both a discovery of metal dinosaurs AND the Dinobots and yet the two are completely unrelated. It often feels like the script given is a rough draft and they just go with it.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102290)
Posted by TulioDude on April 19th, 2021 @ 8:22am CDT
Glad to see AOE getting some love!
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102292)
Posted by GeekyGamer Gal on April 19th, 2021 @ 8:56am CDT
Okay, so I'll admit first off I'm weird because I've seen a LOT of just utter trash movies (Redneck Zombies anyone? or Troma films?), and well, some of them aren't that bad. . . Also, ROTF was the movie that brought me back into Transformers, and I'll fully acknowledge it is a last minute POS movie, because of Corvette Sideswipe.

Either way, here's how I'd rank them:

#7: TLK, bad trash is still trash and you couldn't polish this turd without redoing the entire movie. It was fun to watch Sir Anthony Hopkins having a ball though, which is the only redeemable bit of this movie, and if we could have a movie of Anthony Hopkins and Cogman being an actual Headmaster... I'd watch it.

#6: ROTF, just because I don't really have a good place to put it. It falls into the "trash that gets funnier the more I watch it" category, but it still has some of the better singular fights than most of the movies on this list.

#5: AOE, mainly due to this movie being decent, but there's moments where Lockdown's scar flips when you cut to him, and moments when a better script poke through. Aside from the banger that is Dinobot Charge, my favorite scene that really shows that there might have been a better script is when OP is speaking/ranting at Stanley Tucci's Joshua Joyce. Joyce is commenting about how the Cybertronians are just technology to humans, and OP is arguing that they are living feeling beings, which is a great reference to some major ethical issues going on in the biology fields. Best example look up the story of Henrietta Lacks, and what her HeLa cells have done to make modern medicine.

#4: DOTM, if there was a good way to cut ROTF out of the picture and just jump straight from 2007 to this movie I would in a heart beat. It's long, it has some tedious moments, but the desperation when Chicago is raised just echoes off the screen. Yes, there's some blue Autobot that never speaks going on, but that panning shot as OP swoops in (along Randall St. I think) and lays waste to the Decepticons is still awesome.

#3: The Movie, only here due to acknowledging the nostalgia and shaping of the brand. It's a decent cartoon adapted to a movie movie, but aside from OP's death not really groundbreaking.

#2: 2007, groundbreaking CGI, that mostly still holds up, and I still can't understand how a shapeshifting weasel beat Ironhide's cannons for best movie effects.

#1: BB, love this movie, love everything Travis Knight has put his hands on, and Shatter is my favorite Decepticon.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102293)
Posted by Whifflefire on April 19th, 2021 @ 8:59am CDT
My list:

7) TLK - :BOOM:

6) AOE - I liked it when it came out, and I agree that the film really tried to prop up the 'Bots more than the previous films, Cade Yeager was a likable human companion, and Attinger was an excellent human villain. It was a flawed but promising start to a new trilogy...And then TLK ignored it all and in its atrocities retroactively left AOE derelict.

5) ROTF - My own nostalgic memories of this film aside, I recognize its flaws, but it at least had a clear structure that contributed to the arc of the original trilogy's story. And we all know that the forest battle is as iconic as the final Optimus V. Megatron battle of TFTM.

4) 2007 - Solid film. Making the story human-centric may reduce the amount of time we actually get to see the bots we came for, but as a vehicle for reviving mainstream awareness of Transformers, it excellently played the "robots in disguise" concept to reintroduce the Transformers to old and new audiences alike.

3) Bumblebee - Another solid way to introduce a new audience to the franchise, without repeating too many of the same story beats from 2007. Starting the film with the cybertronians was a very nice treat for long-term fans without making familiarity with TF's necessary for understanding Bee's story. Charlie's arc was made clearer than Sam's without being awkward or forced, and she proved a very good partner for Bee. Dropkick and Shatter are the best new Decepticon characters in the franchise since maybe Animated. It isn't without its cringey moments, but if the new films are at least as strong as this one, we're looking at a solid franchise.

2) DOTM - The best of the Live action movies. I've talked about it before, but it goes beyond the typical "X object needs to be secured by good guys to stop X doomsday device by bad guys" plot and gives us a conspiracy thriller that really solidifies the Decepticons as intelligent and dangerous, and requires the protagonists to use their heads more. Many great character moments from the 'Bots and 'Cons alike, and the human characters contribute strongly to the plot this time around. Source of the most iconic scenes of the franchise besides the forest scene. A true high point for the film series to end on.

1) TFTM - I put this here because it is so distinct from the live action films. It is probably the quintessential example of Transformers storytelling. On its own, it is a typical hero plot story portrayed by robots, with representations of all the classic tropes with entertaining and captivating characters and concepts. As part of a larger story, it is a radical game-changing swerve that carries immense shock and surprise with its bold originality. It may be a tired hat to us now, but the Movie is an historic event if TF lore both in and out of universe. I don't know if it is quantifiably better than the live action films, but I put it above them for the reason that I would use this to introduce my children to the franchise before those.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102294)
Posted by o.supreme on April 19th, 2021 @ 9:02am CDT
Best to Worst:

1. TF:TM
2. Predacons Rising
3. BWII:Lio Convoy in Imminent Danger
4. Bumblebee
5. Transformers (2007)
6. Revenge of the Fallen
7. Age of Extinction
8. Dark of the Moon
9. The Last Knight

*It's a shame so many fans are unaware of the other 2 Animated films on this list. Similar to the original TF:TM, they may be difficult to understand without the context of the TV series they are connected to. But both are extremely entertaining in their own way. BWII is free with fansubs on YouTube and is under an hour in run time. The best part is, no annoying humans! Predacons Rising was not necessary The ending to Transformers Prime was just about perfect. But it was a nice little addendum. Again this film clocks in at just a little over an hour, and no humans at all. Definitely worth a watch. It is available on various streaming services for rent and/ or purchase.

As for the live action films, as you can see they all rank lower than any animated TF film. I've seen some awful looking animated films, but all 3 TF Animated films all look amazing in their own style. BB had the most heart for sure, and the best overall story for the live action films. RotF was interesting. I see I rank it higher than most people here. I was actually going to rank it highest for the live action series, but I remembered that while it's Highs are HIGHER (Forest battle, Jetfire, Jet Optimus etc...), the lows are definitely lower (The Twins, Wheelie, Sam's terrible college roommate, Robo scrotum etc...), so it slipped below both BB and the 2007 films.

Although the live action films are not my favorite, I'd say Jetfire is my single favorite character among them all. Too bad he didn't make it into more than one film. Also, I am probably going to regret asking this... but was there ever an in universe explanation of how Galvatron turned back into Megaoorn prior to TLK? That film is such a mess and is obviously Bay just getting a paycheck, and NOBODY cared about continuity anymore.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102302)
Posted by Rodimus Prime on April 19th, 2021 @ 10:30am CDT
It's a good thing these lists are all matters of opinion, so there's no right or wrong. Just a lot of disagreements.

My ranking:

7. Bumblebee
6. TLK
5. RoTF
4. AoE
3. Transformers
2. DoTM
1. TF:TM
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102305)
Posted by EvasionModeBumblebee on April 19th, 2021 @ 11:12am CDT
Here’s my list!

6. TFTM - I’ve really never been a fan of this one. It did exactly what AOE did, just for the G1 cast: kill off most of the original cast that you were attached to and replace them with substitutes that aren’t as cool.

5. TLK - I had an absolute blast watching this one in theaters and I still really enjoy the last 20-30 minutes or so, but this one has definitely dropped down on the list since then.

4. AOE/BB: AOE really bugs me in how it just retcons so much of the first three movies. Most of the Autobot cast is killed off, and the whole allspark origin is messily retconned so now these creators made them- and Optimus and Hound just know about it! The human side of things in this one is also worse than in prior films. There are some scenes I really enjoy - Optimus blasting his way out of the barn, Bumblebee briefly fighting Lockdown, and Autobots Reunite. Oh, and I was traumatized by Ratchet’s death scene. Never watching that again.

BB is the real wild card here, the only one I wasn’t sure where to put when I started this list. The opening scene and Blitzwing fight are great, but then it turns into a generic, pretty boring 80s movie until the final battle.

3. ROTF: Let me start by saying that my parents got me an edited version of ROTF back when it came out on DVD that cut out a lot of the crude humor in the movie. It makes the movie SO much better, and the action scenes in this movie are among the best in the series.

2. 07: I’ve talked about this in a prior ranking of the movies, but I think 07 completely nails the Decepticons. They’re established as super threatening from the beginning of the movie with Blackout wiping out the airbase, and later on in the movie it takes pretty much the whole Autobot team to take Brawl down, Starscream blasts Bee’s legs off and proceeds to wreck Ironhide and Ratchet at the same time, and Optimus isn’t able to beat Megatron by himself. I’ve always been a fan of the military scenes in these movies, and I think they’re at their best in this movie - their coordinated strike on Blackout feels like a perfect resolution to Blackout taking out their base earlier in the movie.

While I’m a big fan of almost all the designs from the first 3 movies, I really have to give them props to the designs on this movie, being the first one. They take some minor inspirations from the G1 designs but really do their own thing and reinvented what a Transformer could look like for the better. They’re complex, immensely well-designed, and yes, iconic.

1. DOTM: Dark of the Moon is probably still my favorite movie in general. I love the tie-in with the space race, the action is well-dispersed throughout the movie, and while there is some of the usual Michael Bay crude humor, it’s not as bad as it is in ROTF or the later films. The whole Chicago sequence is excellent, and Sentinel Prime is the best villain out of these movies IMO.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102309)
Posted by cruizerdave on April 19th, 2021 @ 12:14pm CDT
Do you know why the original movie is so much better than all the Bayformers films?

It's somewhat coherent. It treats the robots like characters. It doesn't have juvenile humor.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102312)
Posted by blackeyedprime on April 19th, 2021 @ 12:20pm CDT
At least the list sums most of them up and why never to watch them again :P

1.TF TM hands down no brainer. Plot, characters and transformers actually being the characters they are meant to be. Also more talent in the voice casting than any of the live action actors.

2.Bumblebee but only by the tiniest of smidgens. the films pretty good (apart from the Crystal skull moment of a trash bin protecting against a missile). Giving after thoughts to the film (did they really add the CGI cybertron bits last minute, meaning the script was poop or that they were really going to Baynus the kitchen appliances again, minus having cocks? -is a headscratcher) and watching cinemasins really shows it to be pretty lowbar.

3.TF 2007 What did it do right...erm....erm...
The way the transformers trasnformed was amazing, all the motion and fluidly around what ever was happening. Blackout was pretty darn cool, if they cant make original characters have their characteristics it makes the original movie characters shine a bit more.Extended version made the story connect a bit more and the novelisation helped fill the gaps with Barricades offscreen death.

4.Dark of the moon.
I actually cried in the cinema at how bad some of this film was. Sentinel was pretty cool and the deaths felt more earned than Jazz in 2007. Sentinel was the stand out character and it kind of linked to the 07 trailer of the moonrover getting crushed. I can even kinda ignore Revenge of the fallen existed, why not? theres not eactly continuity checks for any of the films.

5. Revenge of the fallen. An entire film around Megatron beings some ones bitch, WOW. Cybertronians could have disguised as humans the whole time...It still has Megan Fox in it so that's probably why it's ranked here. Plus the video game was pretty good.

6. The Last knight
Lets take some ideas from other transformers media and not do them even 1/10th as well. Okay they get half a star for effort which actually might be more than some of their other films higher up on my list. Maybe it goes up a slot. The cheese intro of Megatrons squad was the highlight. Once again the new character Cogman was pretty good (but maybe thats because of how bad the main cast are?)

7.Age of Extinction.
this was such a mess that a bigger mess is easier to accept. 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. Inserting new and fresh ideas should be a good thing but it wasn't.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102313)
Posted by LinaNui on April 19th, 2021 @ 12:31pm CDT
This was a very interesting read and it is nice to see all the other opinions in the article and comments!

Here is my list:

7. 1986 Movie: I have never liked the G1 style and cartoon so this does not do anything for me. But the soundtrack is great.

6. BB Movie: The story was terrible, most of the robot designs just felt off (but dropkick is awesome), and I did not like how tuned down and kiddie the movie felt.

5. TLK: I do really like a lot of parts of this movie, but it was such a tease with so many things. Like I would love to see a movie just about TFs throughout history and more about Unicron and how he is earth. The whole cade story is strange to say the least and the little girl character is almost as bad as the one from the BBM

4. AOE: this is not a bad movie, its just I like the other 3 better. The robot designs got a little to human like but I absolutely love Crosshairs and Hound (the part where Hound is fighting off all the bad guys is an incredible scene). The Dinobots and lockdown looked great as well but both could have used more time to truly shine. I was not a fan of how the killed all the other Autobots though, that still hurts.

3. 2007 Movie: It starts off really slow but the final battle is worth it. I also love the Bonecrusher vs OP scene. Sector 7 is a fun pat also.

2. ROTF: I absolutely love this movie. It has some of my favorite character designs of all time (Megatron, Devastator, Sideswipe, the constructicons, Jetfire). The action is fantastic and being 10 watching it back in 2009 at the drive-in is something that I will never forget. There is one scene that I do skip when watching it is the part when Sam's mom is at the college. It also has the forest battle, which is one of my all time favorite movie moments.

1. DOTM: This movie is easily in my top 5 movies of all time. It is also one of the few movies that I have ever seen in IMax 3D and seeing the screen really come alive was amazing. The movie is also a roller-coaster of emotions for me. Seeing the Autobot shuttle getting blown up still gets me. The Decepticons actually seemed like real bad guys in this movie with how they took over Chicago. I also love the characters of Shockwave and driller, Sentinel Prime, The Wreckers, and Soundwave.

I would like to state that the Bayverse is basically my G1 of transformers. I did have some interaction with the Unicron Trilogy, but the 2007 movie was really the big starting point for me (I was 8 when it came out). I have so many great memories of going to watch the movies as part of my birthday present (my bday was typically a few days before the movie was released) and just really enjoying them.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102317)
Posted by TulioDude on April 19th, 2021 @ 1:28pm CDT
Does anyone agree with me that in Revenge of The Fallen,was the best movie for Sam as a character?
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102320)
Posted by ScottyP on April 19th, 2021 @ 1:45pm CDT
Dark of the Moon is way too low on here :/
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102323)
Posted by Rodimus Prime on April 19th, 2021 @ 2:12pm CDT
TulioDude wrote:Does anyone agree with me that in Revenge of The Fallen,was the best movie for Sam as a character?
Sam was flat as a character IMO. Whether that was the writers' fault or Shia LaBeouf's fault, who knows. But Sam started low and only went lower. So I guess the "best" movie for Sam was the 2007 film. But that doesn't mean any of them were good.

What I would have liked tp see with AoE instead of a human reboot was that it should have been set in the future and have Mark Wahlberg play Sam as a grown up.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102324)
Posted by william-james88 on April 19th, 2021 @ 2:15pm CDT
ScottyP wrote:Dark of the Moon is way too low on here :/


How high would you rank it on your list, top 3?
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102325)
Posted by cor2879 on April 19th, 2021 @ 2:20pm CDT
My ranking:

1. Transformers: The Movie
2. Bumblebee
3. ... what?
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102336)
Posted by Nemesis Reformatted on April 19th, 2021 @ 3:34pm CDT
My #1 favorite is Age Of Extinction. Whenever I feel like watching a Transformers movie, that's the one I always go for.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102339)
Posted by AllNewSuperRobot on April 19th, 2021 @ 4:19pm CDT
I agree the list in general and with the latter half specifically. Because, I think the one with Lockdown was the last Live Action Movie I bothered with, until Bumblebee. In saying that, the '07 film is the only (Live Action) one I've seen more than once through choice. Including Bumblebee.

As a fan of Decepticons, plus Beast Wars making humans in Transformers anathema to my tastes, I soon realised the Live Action films were never going to cater to me.

Which is something the '86 Movie still has over the others. As I've said many times, The Movie shows the reality of the Decepticon threat. When you take away the moral plot armour of the tv show and then put a Car Bot up against Tank or Fighter Jet. The Movie isn't perfect either though. The 80's-isms, the songs and basically everything Wheelie and Junkion related, really bring it down a lot in retrospect. I know The Movie word for word. I still skip bits to this day.

I once did a supercut version, in fact. The opening til the death of OP. Scenes with Galvatron. Unicron Transforms and final battle. The end. I wasn't disappointed.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102350)
Posted by Whifflefire on April 19th, 2021 @ 5:25pm CDT
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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102354)
Posted by william-james88 on April 19th, 2021 @ 5:54pm CDT
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 :lol:
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102383)
Posted by D-Maximal_Primal on April 19th, 2021 @ 8:04pm CDT
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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102416)
Posted by Spider5800 on April 19th, 2021 @ 9:57pm CDT
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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102423)
Posted by ZeldaTheSwordsman on April 20th, 2021 @ 1:58am CDT
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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102425)
Posted by Evil Eye on April 20th, 2021 @ 4:32am CDT
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 ( :SICK: ) 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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102427)
Posted by Johnathan Smith on April 20th, 2021 @ 5:54am CDT
Hello, My name is Johnathan , I love Bumblebee :BOT: I started CRYING when I saw bee frozen :-( :CON: 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 :roll:
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102429)
Posted by GeekyGamer Gal on April 20th, 2021 @ 6:13am CDT
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 :michaelbay: :michaelbay: :michaelbay: :michaelbay: "
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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102435)
Posted by o.supreme on April 20th, 2021 @ 10:07am CDT
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. ;)^

Image
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102449)
Posted by TulioDude on April 20th, 2021 @ 11:09am CDT
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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102455)
Posted by william-james88 on April 20th, 2021 @ 11:33am CDT
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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102457)
Posted by william-james88 on April 20th, 2021 @ 11:42am CDT
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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102459)
Posted by o.supreme on April 20th, 2021 @ 11:46am CDT
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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102482)
Posted by william-james88 on April 20th, 2021 @ 2:11pm CDT
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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102501)
Posted by o.supreme on April 20th, 2021 @ 4:28pm CDT
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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102516)
Posted by TulioDude on April 20th, 2021 @ 5:14pm CDT
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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102535)
Posted by Whifflefire on April 20th, 2021 @ 7:48pm CDT
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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102536)
Posted by D-Maximal_Primal on April 20th, 2021 @ 7:49pm CDT
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
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102567)
Posted by Ultra Markus on April 21st, 2021 @ 12:40am CDT
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
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102571)
Posted by noctorro on April 21st, 2021 @ 3:42am CDT
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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102622)
Posted by Bleak5170 on April 21st, 2021 @ 12:53pm CDT
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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102661)
Posted by Spider5800 on April 21st, 2021 @ 8:34pm CDT
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).
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102677)
Posted by Epsilon Delta on April 21st, 2021 @ 11:35pm CDT
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?).
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102694)
Posted by Whifflefire on April 22nd, 2021 @ 8:22am CDT
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.
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102790)
Posted by Tuned Agent on April 23rd, 2021 @ 11:48am CDT
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).
Re: Ranking the Transformers Movies (2102817)
Posted by Rodimus Prime on April 23rd, 2021 @ 8:53pm CDT
D-Maximal_Primal wrote:
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
Ditto. His actions drive the story, everything that happens is in response to him.

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Transformers Podcast: Twincast / Podcast #345 - The Roast
Twincast / Podcast #345:
"The Roast"
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Posted: Saturday, March 9th, 2024

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