Transformers Age of Extinction
Beware: Spoilers and Swearing Ahead
This is my summary of Transformers Age of Extinction: “It’s picking up metal and dropping it.” Seriously, Mark Wahlberg’s character perfectly summed up the entire movie with that very line. The bad dialogue coupled with the fact that they abandoned the core values which make up the Transformers is enough for me to safely say that I am done with this series of movie renditions. If you haven’t seen this movie and are still planning to, my advice would be to save your money and spend it on the film from 1986. I wasn’t sure that the films could get any worse than the last few and I’m not sure if I am more surprised or just downright disappointed, so here are the main things that bothered me about Age of Extinction.
Number one, the human characters were not an improvement over the last few films. Come on, I know that the movie is set on Earth and humans have to be represented in some major way, but can’t they at least be likeable for once? Not all humans are obnoxious idiots that scream whatever they are thinking. It’s as if the characters were close-captioning everything they had going through their minds. FYI Michael Bay, that doesn’t make the characters seem humourous or the least bit likeable, and it isn’t a good way of explaining what is going on to the audience. If you have to resort to that sort of ‘technique’ then you clearly need to do some major rewrites, because your plot is shit. This further crystalises the fact that these films are aimed at teenage boys and half-wits who don’t know how to watch a film properly.
Additionally, the actual Transformers themselves have been butchered, literally and figuratively. They look like shit and I’m not a fan of the new designs. It’s hard to put my finger on the main issue here but I think it had something to do with the way they generally appeared to have a more obtuse look in the shape and outline of their bodies as opposed to the edgier, more menacing look they had in the previous films. However, not all of them look like complete arse. The ‘Dinobots’ do actually look awesome, especially Slug, but that’s about it. Oh, and don’t even get me started on how fucking shit Galvatron looks. I even recall one of the characters commenting on how crap he looks. That’s probably the best thing a character says in the entire damn film.
I was anticipating this film to introduce Galvatron and it was a cool idea indeed, but surprise, surprise… they completely messed it up. Remember how fucking awesome it was when Megatron gets re-purposed and ‘reformatted’ into Galvatron in the 1986 film? It was epic! Here, the humans acquire the abililty to construct their very own Transformers using, get ready for this – ‘Transformium’. Yes, that’s how they explain that. Well done, writers. This film actually seems more like an 80s cartoon than the actual fucking Transformers 80s cartoon! Anyway, they are using the remains of Megatron and *cough* ‘Transformium’ to create Galvatron. He’s supposed to be a new and improved prototype Transformer that they will use against the remaining Transformers on Earth which are considered to be political refugees thanks to the attacks on Chicago in the previous film. That’s the problem, Galvatron is a human creation. Human’s shouldn’t even be allowed to create Transformers. It’s ridiculous. Further on in the film, it is actually revealed that it was Megatron’s will to be recreated but even that is a farce. He’s dead. He has no fucking will of his own. Oh, no, apparently he does. His chromosomes were influencing shit to happen… What? No, fuck off, writers. You’re just fucking with us now.
The disappointments don’t end there. So, you know how Galvatron used to Transform into a wicked gun cannon in the actual Transformers series? There were many shots in the film where you see Lockdown transform into a giant gun cannon… yeah, just like Galvatron is supposed to. So what the hell is Galvatron’s alternate mode? There is a scene in the film where the human antagonists are about to launch Galvatron for the first time to chase down the Autobots and human protagonists and in this scene, there is a particular shot which focuses on a computer monitor, revealing what Galvatron’s alternate mode will be. It is a convoy truck and I swear that for a split second, the truck rendering on the computer screen was in black. This fooled me into believing that it could in fact be introducing Nemesis Prime as one of the main antagonists, but no such thing happened. The entire movie would have been awesome if it actually was Nemesis Prime hunting down the remaining Autobots instead of the whole convoluted plot revolving around Lockdown, aliens, ancient Transformer knights and Galvatron. Oh and the Galvatron truck is actually white and is a spitting image of Ultra Magnus. So this fucks with your mind even more. Why would the filmmakers do that? Why would they make Galvatron look like Ultra fucking Magnus? That’s all this film is – a holy mess of riddles.
Here is the biggest issue I have with Age of Extinction. They completely abandoned the core values and beliefs that make up Optimus Prime – the epitome of justice who tirelessly fights for peace. Well, it appears that he no longer holds onto those core beliefs. He will kill humans if he has to and he does. The Optimus I know would die before harming a human. Now, they do try and justify this because humans have killed his Autobot friends but I believe that Optimus would not use that as an excuse. To me, this made the character weak. Throughout the entire film, Optimus is faltering and spouting dialogue that discredits everything I know about the character’s foundations and actual nature. He clearly says that he intends to kill the human that is responsible for what caused that chain of events.
I just don’t know. I must admit, I do feel like a whiny geek right now. Am I overreacting? Maybe I am but I just feel that I had to say those things, and they are my personal opinions. If you have read this and disagree, then I would love to hear your point-of-view. I’m just going to leave it there.
Oh, and by the way, there is a post-credits sequence that shows Starscream’s ghost. Lol jks haha.
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