Hello!!
Went to see it!
So much fun!!!
Packed with spectacle, and stuffed with little things that make a long-time fan grin!!
Thoughts and analysis written on the assumption the film has already been seen, so spoilers ahead.
Predictions for the sixth film, Transformers 6, at the end.
First, this piece written before release.
The Unicron prediction landed, and that feels good!!
Unicron is the planet-sized, strongest-of-them-all Transformer who appeared in The Transformers: The Movie, released back in 1986.
He has turned up as the final boss across all sorts of shows — Transformers: Armada, Beast Wars and plenty more.
His powers are monstrous. He devours planets. He becomes a Transformer the size of a planet and goes on the rampage.
In this film, Unicron turns out to be Earth itself.
Six of those horns, the Unicron trademark, grow out of the Earth, and mapped back onto Pangaea the arrangement forms a circle with Stonehenge at its centre.
So does Earth become Unicron in the sixth film?
Which would kill every human on it… lol
This one brings in Quintessa, the “creator” of the Transformers.
In the cartoon she looked like the image below, but the film version reads more like a “metal life form”.
She actually appears for a moment early in Transformers: Age of Extinction.
In Age of Extinction the design was far more organic, like this. Not so here.
This is a series that never worries much about contradicting itself from film to film, so maybe none of that matters lol
I thought Bumblebee had killed her, but she survives, and in the final scene she is disguised as a human like this.
“I know how to kill Unicron,” she says.
He left for space at the end of the last film to find his creator.
He does meet Quintessa, that creator, and gets brainwashed into “Nemesis Prime”.
Nemesis Prime is the byword for an evil Optimus Prime.
Snapping out of it the second he hears Bumblebee’s voice — what a moment. It got me going!
Although he must have heard Bumblebee’s voice back in the first film lol
At the end, with Cybertron drawing close to Earth, he heads home to the mother planet with the Autobots.
He really is in this one very little.
But the camerawork and the movement in his action scenes beat anything in the earlier films, so no complaints here.
Honestly, so cool.
The scene where he rallies the Autobots plays like the President’s speech in Independence Day. Loved it.
And here is the toy.
A full transformation with nothing removed at any point….
Want it so badly!!!!
He was supposed to be called “Galvatron” in the fourth film, and now he is back to Megatron lol
That fusion cannon on his right arm is fantastic!!
This time he takes humans prisoner and trades them for the comrades the humans were holding — a beautifully run negotiation lol
At the end he gets blown off the ship and disappears somewhere.
If Unicron’s forces show up in the next film, does he team up with the Autobots? Or does he become one of them, one of Unicron’s Spawn?
The scene where he stands over Starscream’s remains and talks about how much that comrade meant to him was really lovely.
As a personality he feels a cut above Optimus Prime lol
The quality on this toy is high as well.
Watching what he gets to do in the film makes me want one.
He has picked up the ability to come apart into pieces lol
Turned out to be a pretty useful power.
And it turns out he was on Earth long before the first film, serving with the Devil’s Brigade in WWII and helping the humans.
In the fight with Optimus Prime he gets the window torn off his back, but with a hammer and the rest of his arsenal he puts up a decent scrap.
His voice being the thing that breaks the brainwashing on Optimus Prime — a great moment, of course.
His back-and-forth with Cade and the other humans was good too.
So much to do in this one!!!
Little flashes of how much living he has done keep showing through, and they work.
Worrying over a small girl like Izabella from a father’s point of view, taking joy in the Mini-Dinobots growing up, that sort of thing.
Devoting his whole life to Autobots who are being hunted — genuinely admirable. And the Autobots living under his roof while Optimus Prime is away was lovely too.
Even Grimlock adores him. Fitting, for a man with exactly the qualities to be chosen as a knight.
His conversation with his daughter, Tessa Yeager, runs about 30 seconds, and it is one-sided at that — he just hears her voice….
Poor guy.
The back-and-forth with Jimmy was funny too lol
The scene where Optimus Prime is about to be killed and the Talisman awakens into a sword had me buzzing!!!
Where did that sword go halfway through, though? lol
Want him as the lead in the next one as well!
The legendary wizard is actually a con man lol
But his wish to be of use to somebody moves the ancient Transformers, and King Arthur carries the day. Great turn.
The actor playing him is the same man who played Joshua Joyce in the last film lol
Probably no blood relation.
Fan service, I assume.
Played by Anthony Hopkins, no less!!
Throwing up his middle finger during the car chase and so on — not a well-behaved man, and that is exactly what makes him great lol
Very English. Loved it lol
His death was a shock…
The heroine of this one.
An academic with a haughty streak — very close to the heroine of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
Living tough in the ruins of Chicago.
She and Canopy were bound together like family, and then he gets killed in that horrible way. Genuinely hard to watch.
With Sqweeks she is the mother and he is the son. With Cade it is father and daughter.
Never expected Sqweeks to come through like that near the end…
Hoping he has a new body next time.
Not a psychopath — a sociopath ninja butler.
This guy is completely unhinged lol
Foul-mouthed and worse-mannered, and yet at his master’s final moment he was a fine butler.
Does he serve Viviane from here on?
And he is a Headmaster!!!
That is a concept out of the cartoon.
A Headmaster transforms into a head, combines with a separate body, and the two become a single Transformer.
Nothing like that happens here. Wonder where it goes from now.
Hot Rod!!!!!
And Hot Rod means Rodimus Prime, obviously!!!
In the cartoon he became the leader after Optimus Prime died.
He is also the one who brought Unicron down.
Does he take over from Optimus Prime in the next film?
That time-stopping beam is far too strong lol
Freezing Megatron with it and then unloading every bullet at once was very JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure!!!!
“I have no anger.” (lie)
Cogman snapped his finger lol
A battle junkie, just like Ironhide lol
But he comforts Cade when Cade cannot speak to his daughter. A guy with real heart.
Thought Megatron had killed him lol
He was not in Age of Extinction, and here he is again out of nowhere lol
A former Decepticon.
These days he lives happily alongside Cade and the rest. Doing very nicely for himself.
The Transformer living in Cuba with Simmons.
The way he talks and moves is thoroughly Hispanic, and it made me laugh.
Can he actually play basketball with humans? lol
Living under the same roof, of all things lol
He seems to have a bad habit of eating police cars, and Cade tells him off for it lol
Far too cute lol
Did Grimlock give birth to the Mini-Dinobots? lol
The Triceratops-type Transformer.
Would have loved to see him and Cade together lol
Far too cute.
Cade absolutely dotes on them!!!
Do they grow up as strong as Grimlock and the others? lol
The police-car one.
Here he is out gathering intelligence for Megatron.
He is never shown dying, so maybe he turns up in the next one?
“To punish and enslave” is the same slogan as the different Barricade from the first film.
That single-eye design calls back to the Shockwave from the third film.
Extremely aggressive.
Top-tier looks. The toy is great as well.
A combiner warrior.
Dead in an instant lol
Quintessa’s guardians.
They said Quintessa had been deceiving them.
That ship was originally theirs, by the way.
Lockdown was flying it in the last film.
Here Daytrader sells it on to the Autobots.
Those, and more.
So coooool!!!
Twelve Transformers turning into one enormous dragon.
Something that could have walked straight out of Metal Gear is prowling around ruined Chicago.
The humans have got stronger on alien technology too.
The TRF commander.
Openly hostile to Cade and the Autobots and out to kill them, and then he makes his peace with them at the end.
Tearing the TRF badge off was a good moment.
Around since the first film.
This time he is loyal to the military, and there are scenes where he stands against the hero.
Of all people, he is the one who cracks the Pangaea mystery.
He is out in Cuba — is he a wanted man?
Always written off as a crackpot and treated badly for it, and he still never gives up. That stance is a little bit cool.
Time for him to get some happiness.
John Turturro, who plays him, also played Ambrose, brother of the title character in Monk, so he is a very familiar face.
Commanding the US military again.
Always the man who makes the wise call.
The fighter jet that has been there since the first film was the F-22.
From this film on it is the F-35, the same aircraft flying as the US military’s current mainstay.
The difference between the F-35 and the F-22 comes down mainly to price and stealth.
The F-22 is still the strongest fighter there is.
But the price is enormous, so it never reached mass production.
The F-35 loses to the F-22 on combat power and beats it on stealth.
It also costs less, so it is being built in numbers and is guarding American skies right now.
Japan recently built F-35s of its own too, jointly with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
His ancestors were the Order of the Witwiccans!!!
Which is why “no sacrifice, no victory”, the Witwicky family motto going all the way back to the first film, is also spoken by the Knights of the Round Table!!!
And that photo frame was an eBay one lol
Viviane gets called the last descendant, so… has Sam died?
The lunar scene has the ship from Dark of the Moon sitting in it.
The story was good!!
Never a dull stretch!!
Plenty of explosions, plenty of action. But unlike the earlier films there is real care in the camerawork and the movement, and every frame holds up on its own.
The trip out to the submarine to find the staff is full of puzzle-solving, and the moment they realise Stonehenge sits at the centre of Pangaea is great.
Submarines, F-35s, Ospreys, drones — so much hardware that is actually in service right now. That got me going.
The characters are well built too.
Cade as a father. Edmund’s personality. Viviane’s haughtiness, Izabella being adorable — all wonderful.
And the Transformers have so much personality that I fell for them straight away.
It has to be the return of Unicron.
Quintessa appears to be acting in order to destroy Unicron, but is that really it?
The idea that Unicron is Earth is suspect as well.
Then again, horns really are growing out of the planet.
Maybe, as in the recent cartoons, Unicron is the core of the Earth.
Time to bring up Primacron.
He is the great genius of the universe, and in the cartoon he is the one who created Unicron, Cybertron, the Transformers and Quintessa.
The live-action films might yet pull a misdirect where the creator is not Quintessa but Primacron.
Want to see a live-action Unicron already!!
On July 24, 202…
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