Minor Plot hole: The Government and CIA have very effective transformer detection technology to find alien robots (like Ratchet near a harbor) but not Optimus Prime when he is hiding under Marky Mark’s barn with a few henchmen waving the device just above him. Speaking of which, what kind of barn has a secret basement big enough for a giant 30 feet-tall robot to hide in without making any sounds?
Minor Plot hole: The new human-built KSI robots can transform in the air on a molecular level without having to deal with gravity but still decide to climb a Chinese building to get to the main characters instead of just dematerializing and fly on top of them in 5 seconds. Remember screenwriters, if you create enemies that are too strong for your main characters – you’ll have to take the stupid route to make it work, except it won’t.
Major Plot hole: In the final action sequence of Act 1, when Marky Mark and pals are fleeing the CIA in a rally car, they all somehow decide to leave their super-fast vehicle and make a run for Optimus Prime’s awesomer car: a big fat slow truck.
Think about it. All main characters were in a custom-built rally car that so far proved to be deadly fast and manoeuvrable in every possible terrain type and yet they retardedly decided to (1) ditch that car for a big clumsy truck that can’t go as fast and (2) ditch that car 200 feet away from Optimus Prime instead of, you know, right beside him by driving 3 more seconds in a straight line. They could have simply followed Optimus Prime without changing cars. But of course, Lucas (the coolest character of the film) had to be killed in order to establish Lockdown as a threatening villain so all this had to happen and it’s pretty hard to not see the screenwriting strings moving the puppet characters around in that scene.
Major Plot hole: Optimus Prime can fly now. Actually Optimus Prime is a space rocket now. All along, Optimus had the ability to do interstellar travel but decided to use it for the firm time when he heard the latest Linkin Park theme song for the credits of his movie. Because at no time during this entire film would the ability to fly being somewhat useful to take the alien nuclear bomb and throw it in space instead of following silly human action sequences around old Chinese ladies.
Plot contrivance: Twice in the movie we have 2 main characters ‘’getting stuck’’ in their cars because their seat-belts can’t somehow unlock when they press the unlocking button right until the script requires them to be free. First offense: Lucas who gets out of the rally car after the others in order to get blown-up by Lockdown. Second offense: Shane getting stuck in another car in order to artificially add tension to a scene. Hey, guess what screenwriter? If all your main characters can be thrown like ragdolls in your movie by giant robots – the tension is permanently slayed.
Plot contrivance: In the 1970s, any section of a human spacecraft that would leave the main ship would be noticed by detectors or other technologies. In this film, Lockdown’s super-advanced alien spaceship has no way to tell that its giant rear section is detached from the main ship. Lockdown and his crew simply never noticed the giant ass of their spaceship getting the fuck away from them. Sure whatever – I guess we have to go back to the explosions before a young boy in the audience starts rage-punching his mother.
Plot contrivance: Lockdown impales Optimus Prime with his own sword and decides to focus all his robot attention on Marky Mark and his tiny gun instead of according our sad little Optimus 2 seconds of his valuable time to shoot a giant bullet in his head in case he pulls the sword out of his chest to decapitate him. Optimus Prime did in fact have time to shoot Sideshow Bob in the middle of fighting Lockdown. What stopped Lockdown from doing the same thing to Optimus considering he was stuck on the ground and unable to move?
Plot contrivance: As usual with this movie franchise, Decepticons attack the autobots and the moment they arrive, only Optimus Prime is there to fight them and the autobots who were with him a moment ago are nowhere to be seen. In this movie, that scene is when Galvatron attacks Optimus Prime. They left the KSI building as a group of 5 autobots and yet Galvatron intercepts only Optimus Prime on the highway. All this obviously happens so that Optimus can get captured alone.
Unaddressed Issue: Optimus Prime says only autobots can repair him fully. Yet he only has to scan a new vehicle to get a new design and being completely repaired. Are transformers able to restore their body parts like Wolverine? Because for all that metal flying everywhere in every movie of the franchise – we never see the transformers actually repair any wounds on their comrades. Hell, even Ratchet was supposed to be the ‘’medic’’ of the old team but we never saw any medical talent from him or any robots. So their metal regenerates right? If so, why Is Optimus Prime playing the human equivalent of a crack-head disgruntled hobo hiding in a farm if he can simply scan any moving vehicle and get back to 100% capacities? Could it be because I’m a grown-up alcoholic trying to decipher the logic behind a corporate children-focused money scheme that pretends to be a movie franchise? I don’t know – but give me that beer.
