Trying to make sense of ROTF

Lord of the Chips

OK, there were a few plot holes in the latest Transformers movie that I will try to explain away. The ones I can't really explain I'll go into more detail about at the end.

1)
Question: Why did they need Optimus to defeat The Fallen if he was so easily killed by Megatron?
Answer: Jetfire was misinformed — plus he was old. A better question might be: Why did they believe him in the first place?

2)
Question: Why did The Fallen send Megatron after Optimus anyway, if "only a Prime could kill him?"
Answer: He wanted to test his disciple. May not be a good answer, but it's at least theoretically possible.

3)
Question: Why didn't they use the Allspark splinter to bring Optimus back to life?
Answer: Because they didn't need him right off, they needed information, and it was only Jetfire who said they needed a Prime in order to defeat The Fallen. And once they used it to revive Jetfire it wasn't good anymore.

4)
Question: How did the ancient Transformers who stayed behind end up being found and put into museums without suspicion?
Answer: The people who found them simply assumed they were from their own civilization, thus how Jetfire ended up at the Smithsonian Air Institute. That still doesn't explain how they would end up taking the forms of Human vehicles thousands of years before Humans had made them though.

5)
Question: Why did they call The Fallen the first Decepticon?
Answer: I read somewhere in an interview that they originally planned to have The Fallen trapped in a dimensional pocket or something and he telepathically talked to Megatron, and it's possible even on his ship he opened a dimensional portal or something to talk to him.

ONTO MORE COMPLICATED QUESTIONS, with no answers thus far.

6) It was said only a Prime could defeat The Fallen? I suppose this is proved when The Fallen owned the ancient Primes, but shouldn't they have all been at equal strength? Why were the Primes weaker than one renegade?

7) At some point they said only a Decepticon could decipher those symbols. So they turn to Wheelie. This is confusing for me, because why would only the Decepticons know? This is because of a racist statement from those contemptible twins, that they can't read, but surely OTHER Autobots could in fact read? Why couldn't BUMBLEBEE?

8) How did Wheelie know where the Seekers were?

9) The timeline is off. Megatron and Optimus fought for millions of years, and yet their earliest ancestors, BEFORE OPTIMUS AND MEGATRON, lived around 17,000 BC. I'll assume the "millions of years" was off or exaggerated and that 17,000 BC is the starting point, but that still doesn't explain how the Allspark got to a presumably distant galaxy in such a short amount of time, as they say it landed around 12,000 BC. And Megatron crash-landed in 10,000 BC. That still leaves a 5,000 year gap that seems too short for the war with the Autobots and the Decepticons to have happened.

10) Why did the Solar Harvester stayed uncovered for so long? The pyramids were built around 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, not 19,000 years ago, so that machine stayed in the desert for more than 14,000 years. What did the ancients think of it? The "beasts" (Transformers) were slaying them, so obviously they did not think of them as gods, and why did they cover it in the first place? For that matter, why didn't rainstorms, floods, and the natural elements destroy it? I'll accept that it might be built out a highly advanced material that can stand for a while and even be immune to primitive attempts to destroy it, but c'mon — 14,000 years of fires, winds, floods, rains, and sandstorms would at least somewhat wreck it I think.

An unofficial question — what the HELL was Bay THINKING, creating those racist twins? They're based all around black stereotypes, even SOUND stereotypically black-sounding, and act like GANGSTERS. Can't read, beat each other up, talk in slang... SERIOUSLY, WTF??? He just GUARANTEED a lot of black people WON'T be watching it. Goddamn it man, it just pisses me off. And no, I'm black btw, but I don't tolerate racism of any kind. And even using racist STEREOTYPES is just as bad as the actual thing.

Sorry to rant. I needed to get it all out.

BTW hi! I'm new here!



Please feel free to tear this review up in any way.

Galvasean

I suppose the quick answer to all of the questions is that the script was rushed out after a writers' strike and the film was edited in a hurry to meet release dates/deadlines.

Motley Crue

Lord of the Chips wrote: »

ONTO MORE COMPLICATED QUESTIONS, with no answers thus far.

First and foremost, welcome, I come and go around here but it's always nice to see new Transformer fans (or old TF fans joining a forum that is new to them) and I'm glad you chose Boards.ie

Lord of the Chips wrote: »

6) It was said only a Prime could defeat The Fallen? I suppose this is proved when The Fallen owned the ancient Primes, but shouldn't they have all been at equal strength? Why were the Primes weaker than one renegade?

The Fallen is a good villain with a great backstory, but was under used in this story, and didn't actually do anything until the final fight. People have argued about his use in the film since it was released. One thing to remember is that the Fallen wasn't at full strength.

The Fallen states in Defiance that once the Harvestor is located he can be freed from his prison, so once they knew were it was he was able to escape the Artefact but still wasnt that powerful.

He was going to be in the dimensional prison in the movie, and only come to Earth in the third act, when Megatron uncovers the Sun Harvester. The novalization and the comic book adaptation, both based on an early version of the Script, feature this.

Lord of the Chips wrote: »

7) At some point they said only a Decepticon could decipher those symbols. So they turn to Wheelie. This is confusing for me, because why would only the Decepticons know? This is because of a racist statement from those contemptible twins, that they can't read, but surely OTHER Autobots could in fact read? Why couldn't BUMBLEBEE?

Decepticon Wheelie tries to steal the shard, only to be captured by Mikaela. ... Mikaela then releases Wheelie, who can't read the language....Wheelie couldn't read the language because it was before his time. Some Autobots could, but obviously much older ones.....there was reference to Optimus Prime knowing it... but he of course was dead at the time. I would assume that all original 13 primes knew the language, most of whom are now dead. It would be like me trying to figure out Latin or even hieroglyphics...I would recognize them as Egyptian but couldn't tell you what they mean.

This question is answered really easily when Wheelie is talking about the vintage cars, when they pinpoint the locations of ALL the old Cybertronians located on Earth, and their shock and horror when they noticed the Decepticon symbol under Jetfire's wing after they bring him to life as he's about to transform.

Lord of the Chips wrote: »

8) How did Wheelie know where the Seekers were?

Wheelie joined the Decepticons because he was afraid of them. He learns information about the seekers from them, how to find the seekers.

After seeing pictures of the ancient Transformers known as Seekers, Wheelie leads them to the nearest one in their part of the world: Jetfire. When Wheelie learns Jetfire has joined the Autobots, he immediately chooses to defect to the Autobots.

At this point, Decepticon Runsack (who was a German WW1 plane) appears and tries to stop Jetfire, but is squashed within seconds. This happens in the novel but not the film. Runsack is also a seeker but is just not referred too.

Wheelie travels to Egypt with Sam and the others where he last appears in the film in the first pyramid. He is not seen again after that.

Lord of the Chips wrote: »

9) The timeline is off. Megatron and Optimus fought for millions of years, and yet their earliest ancestors, BEFORE OPTIMUS AND MEGATRON, lived around 17,000 BC. I'll assume the "millions of years" was off or exaggerated and that 17,000 BC is the starting point, but that still doesn't explain how the Allspark got to a presumably distant galaxy in such a short amount of time, as they say it landed around 12,000 BC. And Megatron crash-landed in 10,000 BC. That still leaves a 5,000 year gap that seems too short for the war with the Autobots and the Decepticons to have happened.

OK, first and foremost, time works differently on Cybertron so millions of years for them might have been just 17,000BC for us, about 19,000 years ago

Lord of the Chips wrote: »

10) Why did the Solar Harvester stayed uncovered for so long? The pyramids were built around 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, not 19,000 years ago, so that machine stayed in the desert for more than 14,000 years. What did the ancients think of it? The "beasts" (Transformers) were slaying them, so obviously they did not think of them as gods, and why did they cover it in the first place? For that matter, why didn't rainstorms, floods, and the natural elements destroy it? I'll accept that it might be built out a highly advanced material that can stand for a while and even be immune to primitive attempts to destroy it, but c'mon — 14,000 years of fires, winds, floods, rains, and sandstorms would at least somewhat wreck it I think.

True. But then it's a film and there has to be a little magic involved

Lord of the Chips wrote: »

An unofficial question — what the HELL was Bay THINKING, creating those racist twins? They're based all around black stereotypes, even SOUND stereotypically black-sounding, and act like GANGSTERS. Can't read, beat each other up, talk in slang... SERIOUSLY, WTF??? He just GUARANTEED a lot of black people WON'T be watching it. Goddamn it man, it just pisses me off. And no, I'm black btw, but I don't tolerate racism of any kind. And even using racist STEREOTYPES is just as bad as the actual thing.

I think Bay should be more ashamed for a racist Wheelie and Jazz in the first film being the only Autobot to die...the BLACK GUY....

Doctor DooM

Actually, I think Bay should be MORE ashamed about the racism of the egyptian border guard, and I laughed out loud at the dismissive way the Jordanian airforce were discarded in seconds.

I get that the twins were kids trying to act tough. I still think it's stupid, poorly executed and becomes racist along the way, but I get it.

Question for ya seeing as we're looking at plot holes- Sam gets killed and is resurrected by the Primes who need him to wake up Optimus.

If they have the power of resurrection, why not simply restore Prime to life in the first place.

ROTF is just an bad, bad film. There's similar leaps of login in kurtzman/ Orci's Star Trek (Kirk gets dumped on a planet and happens to land on the exact spot Spock is living?) and there's similar juvenile humour (Kirk's bloating from the injection) but the direction is enough to make it enjoyable.

Galvasean

I think Star Trek gets away with it because there is much less of it. You can forgive the odd plot hole and juvenille humour when used sparingly is actually quite fun. In the case of ROTF it's just too much.

constitutionus

Doctor DooM wrote: »

Actually, I think Bay should be MORE ashamed about the racism of the egyptian border guard, and I laughed out loud at the dismissive way the Jordanian airforce were discarded in seconds.

I get that the twins were kids trying to act tough. I still think it's stupid, poorly executed and becomes racist along the way, but I get it.

Question for ya seeing as we're looking at plot holes- Sam gets killed and is resurrected by the Primes who need him to wake up Optimus.

If they have the power of resurrection, why not simply restore Prime to life in the first place.

ROTF is just an bad, bad film. There's similar leaps of login in kurtzman/ Orci's Star Trek (Kirk gets dumped on a planet and happens to land on the exact spot Spock is living?) and there's similar juvenile humour (Kirk's bloating from the injection) but the direction is enough to make it enjoyable.

i think the film is too much of a mess to fully sort out but the story i heard on this was the allspark/creation matrix was in sams noggin and THATS how he gets resurrected by them. IIRC its the allspark that resurects him , not them. theyre just using it to communicate with him to explain whats going on.

the bit where he reconstitutes the matrix and stabs it into optimus is meant to be where it finally leaves sams head and get its new form which goes into prime essentaily leaving us where its been in G1. i.e in a recepticle in his chest.

course then it immediatly gets nicked by the fallen and evenually blown up by prime , screwing that up entirely.