Thoughts, speculation and predictions before TF5 is released

[griffin]

We have heaps of info now from the pre-production period, the toy characters being revealed, promotional material (images and marketing catch-phrases), and trailers... if you want to speculate or predict what will happen in TF5 - The Last Knight, this is the topic to do it.

Just beware of spoilers if you are reading this topic, as anything goes.

Then when the movie comes out, we can see how close the predictions of fans were.

[Paulbot]

I've seen bits and pieces here and there, the original teaser trailer, a couple of those exclusive clips, and to be honest it's hard to see what the story is going to be, but the topic is an interesting idea so here's a wild mass guessing approach.

This is actually hard to do trying to balance what I'd like to see (I want to call the human weapons part of RAAT!), trying to not have a go at the tropes Michael Bay's films and not paying that close attention to any of the trailers.

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Its a few years after the Hong Kong incident. Multiple Decepticon attacks have devastated parts of the world; the Autobots are outnumbered and overwhelmed. The world's military has responded, building anti-Transformer weapons based on the information gathered by NEST and the company in AOE.

Some of the weakened Autobots are in hiding in the devastated areas, also inhabited by children orphaned in attacks, and are being hunted down by the military weapons.

Unexpectedly Optimus Prime returns, bringing Autobots such as Bumblebee, Hound and Drift out of hiding to meet him. But he hasn't returned in peace. He's not the Optimus Prime they remember. His journey has changed him, and when the Autobots realise he doesn't have the Earth's best intentions in mind, he turns on them, severely damaging Bumblebee but unable to kill him. He leaves the defeated Autobots to await the arrival of something from space.

The injured Autobots regroup, meeting with their friend Cole who helps with repairs. They need some pieces that leads them to one of the devastated areas where they encounter a young girl and her Autobot friend Squeaks. Amongst Squeaks random possessions is a an ancient sword that catches Cole's attention for being so out of place. Grimlock reacts strongly to it which raises more questions.

Before they can solve this mystery, a group of Decepticons led by Megatron arrive. They've come looking for this sword which makes it even more important. The Autobots are outclassed and the Decepticons leave with this artifact.

To figure this out, Cole leads the Autobots to England where they meet Anthony Hopkins' character who proceeds to reveal the secret history of Transformers. They've been here a long time. The sword they found is part of a larger Transformer-sized sword that belonged to one of the original Primes, left behind to help defend the planet should the Makers ever arrive. A legacy of the Knights of Cybertron. Once known to humans as Excalibur.

Bad news! The Makers are on their way. Their giant moon-sized ship has entered the solar system. They are here to harvest the planet Earth and Optimus Prime is their mind controlled tool, his spark corrupted into a Shadow Spark.

The Autobots and their human friends realise to save the planet they need to team up with the Decepticons. The Decepticons don't care about saving the planet, they want to defeat the Makers and take over their ship and use it conquer the galaxy, but after an initial assault proves them outmatched they grudgingly accept an alliance. (says Megatron leaning down and basically spitting this in Cole's face).

The Makers assault on the planet sees cities and landmarks around the world being destroyed. The Transformers fight back, the humans, including former NEST allies join in to save their homeland.

The Makers vessel seems to be unstoppable but there's one way to stop them, but can they do it? Can they kill Optimus Prime? They get the upper-hand, they almost do it, but Prime's eyes turn back to blue, he asks them to kill him while they can - but confronted with their old leader it's too hard a task for them. There must be another way?

There is one! The young human girl takes back the sword fragment from Megatron while the other Autobots struggle to hold him back from killing Optimus Prime. This sword fragment is an ancient Transformer artifact called the Key To Vector Sigma. She stabs this into Prime and there's a blinding light.

When it fades, the heroic Optimus Prime stands, transformed into his final form, the Last Knight. "It can't be!" shouts Megatron. But it can. It is. Optimus Prime is back! His arm transforms into a sword, the Key To Vector Sigma in it, and he turns on those who had made him their slave. "Freedom is everyone's right!"

The Autobots and Megatron flee separately as the ship starts to fall apart as Prime's sword slices it to parts. The ship moves away from Earth as they try to flee but it's no good.

From Earth our heroes see the ship destroyed. Has Optimus survived? It's not clear. But the war is over for now...

Queue the closing music.

[griffin]

Just watching the 2007 movie tonight on channel 9, and I had a thought... each previous movie has the American President somewhere in the movie (either referred to or played by an actor), so I wonder if he will have Trump in this one, and how prominently since filming was done before the election last year.
Since there is a return of the theme of reporting aliens with this one in some promotional material, if there is another hunting of them, it would certainly play into the whole Trump "anti-alien" thing that he has been sprouting. I can see a comment or throwaway line to his immigration policy, which refers to human aliens (non-Americans in America), but played on for these terrestrial aliens.
I can also imagine seeing the back of an orange wigged head being seen somewhere as well... if it wasn't too late to add it into post-production.

[griffin]

So.... according to Optimus when they first find Sam in the 2007 movie, they learned the English language from the World Wide Web... and if any of those five Autobots speak English in TF5 during historical flashbacks (before the WWW existed), I guess it will just be chalked up to another contradiction that will never be explained.

I think these movies could benefit from a time-travel resetting like Star Trek did.

[Paulbot]

I think these movies could benefit from a time-travel resetting like Star Trek did.

With all those initial clips showing Arthurian times and World War 2 and a modern day earth with humans scavengers in a world ravaged by Transformer attacks, I was expecting (and still wouldn't be surprised) for The Last Knight to include time travel.

[griffin]

So much revealed so far from all the Trailers... and I kinda have to watch most of them to make sure I know if they are new before posting them on here.

So..... there is a lot going on (and that's just what we are being allowed to know so far), and I think the earlier comment of this movie being a combination of three story ideas (two from the writers room relating to the middle ages and WW2, one from the elements introduced in TF4 to carry over to the next movie relating to their makers)

And from all that, we seem to have several forces competing for attention...
- human friends of the Autobots,
- human hunters (TRF) of the Transformers (both Autobots and Decepticons), including former NEST soldiers like Lennox who may or may not change his loyalties to protect Autobots. And was the TRF created by the US administration as an official entity from Cemetery Wind, who went rogue by hunting Autobots, but proved successful in what they were doing.
- human protectors of the secret involvement of Transformers (Laura and Sir Edmond)
- Transformers working with Sir Edmund and Laura (Cogman and Hot Rod), who does their loyalty lie with if Humans are wanting to rid the planet of all Transformers
- Quintessa (their makers?) and her forces, what do they want of the Earth after millions of years since their last visit?
- the robot Knights from the middle ages, what is their big secret and where do their loyalties lie?
- Optimus Prime - is he willingly wanting to destroy Earth and kill Autobots defending the planet, or is he under some sort of control or manipulation like a number of Black Convoy/Prime characters (by Unicron)? But then... why is he seen destroying Quintessa's Infernocons in the trailers - is this after he turns back to the good side?
- The Autobots from TF4... being hunted by everyone it seems, including Optimus.
- The Dinobots - they left on their own at the end of TF4... what are they doing, or their purpose in this one, and what is with the baby Dinobots in some of the Trailers?
- and finally, the Decepticons - who almost seem like a background filler or cameo element who could be removed from the movie if it wasn't for the need to sell Decepticon toys. They have very little involvement in the Trailers so far, and are not even involved in the three main story elements (Middle Ages, WW2, Quintessa invasion with evil Optimus) or the story element of TRF hunting Transformers and fighting off Quintessa.

I think the secret history of the Transformers involves some sort of powerful item that only Cade can help with, that will protect the Earth from Quintessa. From that we have some flashbacks and a look at the fallout of TF3 and TF4 (ruined cities and the creation of the TRF), with the TRF having to join forces with the Autobots and the secret holders, to find the item and unleash it, while fending off Optimus Prime... and maybe some Decepticons along the way.

My question is... the planetary entity in the trailers that is crashing into Earth - is it supposed to be Cybertron, Unicron or Quintessa's planet?
If it is Cybertron, what caused its destruction? Was it the events in DOTM, which had a part of the planet shaved off when the Spacebridge was shut down... and the rest just broke up at its old location?

With so much going on, I think people are going to be a bit confused with this one... like in TF2, which had a lot to keep track of (and a lot of things left unexplained), so the explosions and special effects are going to be what will carry this movie - so they are going to have to be spectacular (it's a Michael Bay film, so they will, and won't need a story that makes complete sense... and too much action will distract your attention from the plot anyway, as you will be too busy focussing on the details in the visuals than the details in the plot).

[griffin]

If anyone wants to be spoiled, or isn't planning to see the movie, the first of the fan reviews can be seen here, from the London screening, as well as this high traffic discussion topic from about here (give or take 10 pages).

[philby]

how much time in the movie is devoted to the ancient/historical aspects do you think? i feel like this is still going to be very much a modern day movie. the king arthur and ww2 aspects may just be small and flashback style.

i would say it is something like optimus prime goes off and either finds or gets captured by 'his makers' and they try to use him in some kind of plot to give cybertron more energy? almost like those episodes in the G1 cartoon where earth begins to get eaten up.

Although wasn't that kinda already the plot of whichever movie had Patrick Dempsey in it? eh...

[Shirokaze]

how much time in the movie is devoted to the ancient/historical aspects do you think? i feel like this is still going to be very much a modern day movie. the king arthur and ww2 aspects may just be small and flashback style.

i would say it is something like optimus prime goes off and either finds or gets captured by 'his makers' and they try to use him in some kind of plot to give cybertron more energy? almost like those episodes in the G1 cartoon where earth begins to get eaten up.

Although wasn't that kinda already the plot of whichever movie had Patrick Dempsey in it? eh...

You're right on the mark.