View Poll Results: TF5 Last Knight Movie - worth watching?

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  • Yes, the best one so far

    6 8.96%
  • Yes, but not the best one

    29 43.28%
  • No, it was disappointing

    18 26.87%
  • I don't plan to see it

    14 20.90%
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Thread: Movie Review - TF5 The Last Knight

  1. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by '07Camaro View Post
    + Megatron: Ok, I know Megatron hardly did anything and got his butt handed to him with ease by Optimus, but I feel like his character and personality was closer to the G1 iteration than Hugo Weaving's Meatron. Aside from the fact that he's voiced by Frank Welker, he feels closer to G1 in certain scenes.
    Uh... there are so many different versions of G1 Megatron. If you mean the G1 cartoon, then that's really not the greatest version as G1 cartoon Megs was fairly ineffective. His most recurring piece of dialogue was, "Decepticons, retreat!"

    Quote Originally Posted by '07Camaro View Post
    For example, the scene where Megatron is holding Starscream's head, talking about how he should've been alive to witness Earth's destruction. One of my favourite scenes in th movie.
    That's actually more of a reference to G2 than G1, as there was a moment where G2 Megatron looked at Bludgeon's head Hamlet style and lamented killing him for a brief moment.

    Quote Originally Posted by '07Camaro View Post
    + More transformation sequences: There were a lot of transformation sequences in this movie, probably the most I've seen in all of the movies. This is more related to the CGI, in which the textures, lighting etc. make it more enjoyable to watch. As a bonus, the deceptions don't transform by dissolving into these tiny fragments like in AOE.
    Yeah, but the transformations are really more morphing than proper transforming. Watch this video showing AoE Optimus Prime transforming in slow motion, and you can see the entire back half of the truck mode being swallowed up into his back! That's stupid! Compare this with this video showing Optimus Prime's wonderfully detailed transformation from the first movie. Everything goes somewhere. Okay, quasi-morphing transforming is a LOT better than "Flying Tetris" transforming, sure... but still not as good as full proper parts-shifting transformations like we saw in the first three films.

    The shift towards morphing transformations was a real bone of contention for Beast Machines. Odd how there's a lot less controversy over it now.

    Quote Originally Posted by '07Camaro View Post
    + Transformers as refugees: I'm kinda intrigued with this plot point. To me, it kinda has a District 9 feel to it. Nevertheless, it appeals to me how the Transformers have become apart of human society, even if they are being discriminated.
    I disagree.

    Firstly, the whole refugee thing was already established from ROTF, so it's not a new thing to this movie. All the new arrivals are arriving asylum seekers, and Galloway's character mentions that the Autobots are living under granted asylum and asked Optimus Prime if the Autobots would leave peacefully if this asylum were to be withdrawn.

    District 9 is really more of a direct parallel with human racism, with many things mirroring how humans have treated (and continue to treat) each other IRL. In TLK all Cybertronians have been declared public enemies and are being indiscriminately hunted. Also, the Transformers are combatants. The D9 aliens were sick and starving when they arrived on Earth. Yes, both the Transformers and D9 aliens are refugees with no home to return to - but that's about where the similarity ends. Everything else about them, including the way that they are viewed and treated by humans, is completely different.

    Quote Originally Posted by '07Camaro View Post
    + Slightly developed Autobots: The junkyard scenes gave us some insight on the relationship between each of the Autobots as a means of getting to know them more. Even if they tell us a little.
    What insight? That the Autobots are a bunch of surly and immature children? More importantly, that scene did nothing to advance the plot. The story stalled during that scene, and any character or moment that stalls the story isn't a good thing. This is why so many Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks (and also why many G1 fans hate Wheelie and Daniel).

    Quote Originally Posted by '07Camaro View Post
    - Forced humour: Does a Transformers need to be comedy only to be considered good? I swear, there is not one scene where the writers and Michael Bay didn't place in a cringe-worthy joke. 98% of those jokes made were a complete miss. The only funny part was when no one in the theatre laughed at those jokes at all.
    I found Merlin's comedic moment to be funny.
    "I'll give up booze and gambling and wom--- I'll give up booze and gambling!" (or something like that)

    Quote Originally Posted by '07Camaro View Post
    - Under-developed human characters (+Quintessa): To make way for all of the exposition, the movie didn't give enough time to explain who they are and how their personalities change within the events that transpired. So they all felt like lifeless action figures who I had little to no care about.
    The Transformers were never developed as characters either, and this movie is CALLED "Transformers."

    Quote Originally Posted by '07Camaro View Post
    - Decepticons: What did they ever do to be treated the way there were? They posed no imminent threat to the humans and the Autobots, but became simple pawns to Quintessa's plans. Even Megatron did nothing. What's worse is that these guys have a life span of a mayfly. Onslaught legit had 5 seconds of screen time only to be killed immediately after. RIP Bayformer Combaticons At least they didn't kill off Megatron again.
    Disagree. The Decepticons were already imprisoned, stating that they were already dangerous dudes who'd done other stuff before. You even see some flashback scenes of some of the bad things they've done. And "Megatron did nothing"??? Seriously? What about the body count from the previous films, or the fact that Megatron brought this war to Earth. He's a war criminal!

    Quote Originally Posted by '07Camaro View Post
    - If Vivian Wembley were said to be the last remaining decendant of Merlin and the Witwikkans, does that mean Sam and ron Witwiky died?
    Witwiccan is an order, the Order of Witwiccans. Not a family name. Sam appears to have been retroactive inducted into the Order because of his contribution to the relations between Autobots and humans. Witwicky is a Polish/Ukrainian surname whereas "Witwicca" is English, meaning, "knowledge of sorcery." So the names aren't even from the same language source despite coincidental similarity in spelling and pronunciation (we call these "false cognates" in languages).

    Quote Originally Posted by '07Camaro View Post
    - How does Merlin's staff have so much power? Where does it come from?
    The Knights gave it to him. It's an ancient Cybertronian artifact.
    Quote Originally Posted by '07Camaro View Post
    - How did Cybertron get to the size of the Moon? I though it was twice the size of Earth from DOTM. Did it cyberform or something?
    Bigger than Earth. But remember that Cybertron was very badly damaged when the Space Bridge closed and snapped a good chunk of the planet off. Perhaps this is all that remains - giving greater motivation to rebuild it.

    But yeah, I otherwise agree with your other comments.

  2. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime View Post
    And "Megatron did nothing"??? Seriously? What about the body count from the previous films, or the fact that Megatron brought this war to Earth. He's a war criminal!
    By Megatron not doing anything, I meant he did nothing in this film, not the previous ones. I'm aware he did many things in those movies, but this one I feel like he didn't really do anything.


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  3. #43
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    I saw it last night.

    It lands somewhere between being irredeemably terrible and completely bland.

    As a fan of Transformers the incredible amount of inconsistencies between this and the previous films annoyed me. Starscream's intact head, Prime not remembering Bumblebees's voice, the fact that Megatron being killed and then cloned as Galvatron basically hand waved completely in Hopkins' initial exposition dump and never properly addressed are a few.

    There were certainly numerous small touches I quite lked that added to the lore but with the above in mind it is a bit like saying that at least the man murdering you appears nicely dressed. More and more every film in this series cannot decide on and tries to rewrite the Transformers on Earth origin and the fate of the characters from the previous film - some are forgotten completely after being shown to survive, some are killed and brought back with no explanation, some are killed off screen and later brought back with no explanation, some turnup between films with no explanation.

    The thing that baffles me about the above is that for five films this has essentially been a one man show, so you'd think it wouldn't be hard to get right.

    So yeah, as a fan of Transformers this was essentially a mess.

    As a fan of movies in general it didn't fare well either.

    I'm happy to accept that this is a big dumb movie aimed at kids so the fact that a planet crashing into Earth didn't immediately result in an extinction level event, and the usual loose grasp on geography and the passage of time are things I will let slip.

    The plot is too busy and convoluted. Too many layers, many of which are completely abandoned without resolution by the end or which add essentially nothing to the plot but are nonetheless given time in what is already too long a film.

    Visually the film was too busy. There wasn't enough Transformer on Transformer combat and the final battle was the least interesting final battle in any of these films. It suffered a lot from a lack of scale - people fighting on a massive open field on a partially CGI platform with CGI robots suspended in mid air surrounded by other CGI platforms and pillars.

    I know that three of the previous four films had final battles set in cities, but there's a reason that this is what happens in monster and robot films, and its not just because the audience likes to watch cities getting trashed. It's because it provides an incredibly easy shorthand for the scale of what is happening. The end of TLK had none of that. It was the most bland and meaningless ending of any of these films.

    The characters were a developmental graveyard, robot and human. The romance was forced, Vivan had to be told outright of her special powers, and aside from that every character was essentially one dimensional.

    Scale was an issue too. Where do we go from here? An alien planet has rammed into Earth and wiped our moon out. All that can be done really is to escalate in TF6. One of the nice touches that I liked was the Transformers randomly crashing down and having to be arrested angle we got for about 15 seconds during the Hopkins exposition dump. Given that humans are imprisoning them now, instead of the Autobots and humans just killing them on sight like at the start of ROTF, I'd much rather see a whole film about that than some epoch defining planet shenanigans.

    It was a waste of a movie. I expected more because of this whole writers room and Transformers Cinematic Universe talk, and shouldn't have.

    Postscript pet peeve: a whole bloody movie and we don't see Optimus Prime transform once.
    I'm really just here for the free food and open bar.

  4. #44
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    Accidentally caught the last bit of AOE on free to air last night, and Lockdown makes comment about how he's rounded up the Knights and Optimus was the last one....... except now the Knights have been on earth in stasis since Merlin died. Different set of Knights?

  5. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by '07Camaro View Post
    By Megatron not doing anything, I meant he did nothing in this film, not the previous ones. I'm aware he did many things in those movies, but this one I feel like he didn't really do anything.
    By this logic then Darth Vader didn't do anything bad and didn't deserve to have anything bad happen to him in Return of the Jedi.
    Quote Originally Posted by SharkyMcShark View Post
    I'm happy to accept that this is a big dumb movie aimed at kids
    Only with so much swearing that you can't bring your kids to watch it.
    Quote Originally Posted by SharkyMcShark View Post
    The characters were a developmental graveyard, robot and human.
    "Developmental graveyard" ←love this expression. So damn true too.
    Quote Originally Posted by SharkyMcShark View Post
    Scale was an issue too. Where do we go from here? An alien planet has rammed into Earth and wiped our moon out.
    I thought that the moon was merely scraped, not obliterated. #tisbutascratch
    The Earth would be seriously messed up if the moon were to be destroyed. Of course, the Earth should've been messed up due to Cybertron being within such close proximity! But we already saw this happen before in Dark of the Moon without anything happening to the Earth. Even the G1 cartoon tried to address this issue in "The Ultimate Doom" - and that's a cartoon aimed purely at kids! It's almost as if Cybertron is devoid of mass.

  6. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime View Post
    By this logic then Darth Vader didn't do anything bad and didn't deserve to have anything bad happen to him in Return of the Jedi.
    I think what he was suggesting was that Megatron's role in this film was minor. The real villain in the film was Quintessa, and it felt like Megatron was only there because Michael Bay was obligated to have him show up - So Hasbro can sell Megatron toys!! They could have left Megatron out of the film entirely, and say he spent the whole event in a basement trolling on 4chan (and probably cyber-stalking Sam Witwicky), and it wouldn't have made much difference to the plot.

    Having read a lot of Marvel/DC comics in my life, I've noticed that at least 1 of 3 things eventually happen to the villains:
    1) They die.
    2) They get reformed and turn into an anti-hero.
    3) They get reduced down to being a comedy-relief character and training dummy for the main hero.

    I think movie Megatron is headed towards the 3rd direction.

  7. #47
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    I went into this movie expecting a lack of depth and whiz-bang special FX and that's exactly what I got. I have to admit the FX are the most epic out of all the movies excluding the morphing which is not cool but a damn sight better than little cubes and marbles transforming into all sorts of objects.

    To finish off, I'd like to say I read a review of TLK in the Herald Sun (which was scathing of course) that said this is Michael Bay's last Transformers movie. Let's hope that's truth and not rumour because if a character like Thunderwing* is to be introduced then a director with the intelligence of Chris Nolan will be needed.

    *Thunderwing is possibly the most psychologically complex character among transformers due to being a contradictory and paradoxical decepticon with an obsessive compulsive disorder.

  8. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by FatalityPitt View Post
    I think what he was suggesting was that Megatron's role in this film was minor.

    Quote Originally Posted by '07Camaro View Post
    - Decepticons: What did they ever do to be treated the way there were? They posed no imminent threat to the humans and the Autobots, but became simple pawns to Quintessa's plans. Even Megatron did nothing.
    Quote Originally Posted by FatalityPitt View Post
    The real villain in the film was Quintessa, and it felt like Megatron was only there because Michael Bay was obligated to have him show up - So Hasbro can sell Megatron toys!!
    Megatron hasn't been the main villain since the first movie, and even then just in the last act when he finally thawed out.
    ROTF main villain: The Fallen. Megatron was his lackey.
    DOTM main villain: Sentinel Prime. Megatron was his lackey (then he betrayed Sentinel when he realised this)
    AoE main villain: Lockdown, emissary of Quintessa.
    TLK main villain: Quintessa

  9. #49
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    Watched it this avo with my wife. Had to endure her whinging all the way home about how it was the worst of the five. So for non-TF fans I think they are over it, as evidenced by the relatively poor box office figures so far in the US.

    As for me, I'd rank it well behind TF1 and DOTM (which I consider tied for best in the series) but ahead of AOE and ROTF (which I still consider to be the worst).

    Loved Cogman. Loved the Steve Buscemi, Stanley Tucci and John Turturro cameos. Was surprised about how big a role Anthony Hopkins had and thought he was enjoyable. Laura Haddock was a much stronger actor than the two previous female leads (and hotter).

    I'm not familiar with the TFPrime ending so I was excited to see Unicron introduced.

    However, while I don't go in expecting a great story, this one was very convoluted and there were one too many plot devices.

    The ending was quite weak. Quintessa is a god and yet was taken out so easily by Bumblebee. Though I did like the credits scene.

    There were too many Transformers in this film. Crosshairs was great in AOE but had basically no action scenes. Drift was an afterthought. And that Suicide Squad set up was stupid. Infernicus was easily dispatched, Combiners should be super hard to defeat.

    I agree with Gok about the bad language (which keeps getting worse). For a franchise that is all about selling toys to kids, you would think they would make these movies more kid friendly. I would love to be able to see this with my 8 year old (though I see this doesn't stop some other parents).

    In the end, this film lacked the moments that TF1 and DOTM had. I've read a number of people's reviews where the movie holds up much better on a second viewing. Will most likely wait for the Blu-ray.

  10. #50
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    I mainly have more questions than comments.

    But the gravity/Cybertron thing. Given that we have frequently seen mass-density shifting and size shifting it didn't bother me so much, plus it looked to be largely hollow anyway. I thought it was just a broken shard of Cybertron (because, DoTM space bridge) and not the planet proper.


    Questions which I am hoping someone smarter can answer

    Q1: Does the spark reside in the head, and so can Starscream be revived.
    Q2: How on earth did Starscream die in the first place (Lockdown?)
    Q3: What happened to all the sparks Lockdown harvested. I had hoped to see them get revived, if Megatron can come back for the umpteenth time.
    Q4: Did anyone else think Quintessa looks adorable (in her shimmering metal mode) and have unnatural thoughts? #justaskingforafriend
    On the lookout for MISB Headmaster Highbrow, Takara or Hasbro. I'm sure I could make you a sweet deal!

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