Re: Optimus "brutality" in previous films - I didn't have a problem with it. Bayformers is a more "realistic" take on the franchise, thus no mass shifting, thus the radical redesigns, thus attacks actually doing the damage that they "should". I do not recall him doing anything out of the ordinary for actual wars. The Autobot/Decepticon civil war never ended all the way into Dot M, thus Demolishor counts as an enemy combatant in hiding. You don't have to wait until they're actually attacking you to try to kill them, just like if you're a sniper and you see enemy soldier walk into your crosshairs while on their lunch break you don't have to wait until they're shooting at you to take the shot. Also, Autobots have a secondary goal of preventing humans from gaining Cybertronian technology. Killing Demolishor contributes to this goal.
Re: premise - I think you are basically saying that it doesn't bother you because it's not really something you think about? If we're going with the SHIELD comparison, we know SHIELD is an intelligence agency that also has strike teams, and more importantly we know from the comics of which there are many that Helicarriers are a thing. The expanded role you get from them logically follows from alternate incarnations as well as previous material. NEST disbanding does not, per post-9/11 treatment of Muslim population analogy. We did not kick out all of them except for the ones who publicly say they denounce Al-Qaeda. We did not ban the military from working with them. The very basic premise of "Autobots have no more human allies" doesn't hold up to verisimilitude.
Also, the problem I (and presumably others) have with Cade being a foil to Optimus is that Optimus is, generally, not the character type to need a foil. This is, like, giant robot Jesus, here, who just happens to take a more active role in beating the shit out of moneychangers at his temple. He doesn't *need* someone to teach him how to trust again. Also, "well...we all make mistakes sometimes" is not the kind of thing you say to someone who's just had most of his friends and comrades die by betrayal.
I feel as though the divide is very much "well, this is what the film did" vs "the film didn't take a good direction to start with, no amount of acting or plotting or whatever can save it."
No, I'm saying your argument against the premise validity falls apart because you are misrepresenting the situation. The government cut off joint military ventures with the Autobots via NEST, that is all. They did not exile them, they did not condone Attinger's vendetta, they DID offer them sanctuary. The order of events went (NEST disbanding - > Autobots are doing something else - > Optimus is lured into trap, warns the other Autobots - > Ratchet is attacked - > Cade finds Optimus). As for whether or not disbanding NEST was a smart move, that's up to opinion, but the movies had already firmly established some tension about "alien mercenaries" (regardless if it was said by a political talk show host or not) and the lack of military cooperation is important for the plot to happen.
For SHIELD the jump from an intelligence organization that was just barely figuring out their name to one with origins in WWII and a massive and expensive looking headquarters in Washington D.C. is a MUCH bigger leap. I frankly don't care what the comics established, the movies drastically altered the depiction of SHIELD as something that was getting too big to control because otherwise the premise of The Avengers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier falls apart. My point is just because I find that change to be breaking reality doesn't mean the premise is flawed, same thing with your opinion and this movie.
How am I misrepresenting the situation? Attinger explains that the US did, in fact, kick all the Transformers out, and that the Autobots who fought with them in Chicago were granted exceptions. Furthermore, disbanding NEST and forbidding further joint military ops is the one event that enables the others, since that was what cut off the Autobots from any human support they might have had otherwise, which in turn enables everything else that happens. Objectively speaking, this is a stupid decision, because just because you can replicate the *military* applications - and not particularly well, it seems, given how Hound, Crosshairs, Drift, and Bumblebee were holding their own against like 50 of the Decepticlones - doesn't mean they don't have a wealth of other knowledge to cover, and also because we see that in-verse, the Chinese government didn't go full retard on this - keep in mind that Daughter and Friend Who Dies' first response to Cade finding Optimus was "OMG TRANSFORMER DANGEROUS", and the PLAAF's first response to finding strange Cybertronians (that is, the Dinobots) was to fly past and not shoot at them.
To say that the film established enough tension about "alien mercenaries" to base an entire film around the concept of Autobots having no more human allies because of a single throwaway line is like saying that Bill O'Reilly's little segment questioning Pepper Potts' qualifications to run Stark Industries provides enough justification to have her be bad at running the company even though she's been demonstrated to be pretty competent at it.
Nitpick! That was Prowl, and he got hit twice. Oddly enough, it was Brawn who went down after a shot to the shoulder. Ironhide and Ratchet both got shot like five times before going down, and then Ironhead got shot in the head for good measure when he tried to get up again.
I have watched that movie way too many times.
On-topic, I saw the movie and liked it. Too long, and tried to throw in too many stories, but overall I thought it was good. More focus on the Autobots was something that should have happened a long time ago, and I even appreciated the minor human characters.
![]()
The Chinese military "didn't go full retard" because Lockdown's ship was the only active threat recognized. Galvatron's Vehicons weren't blowing up everyone and were focused on getting the Seed from Joyce. As far as everyone outside of Cemetery Wind is concerned, the Autobots are still the good guys, the only bots being attacked-destroyed-shipped off to KSI are Decepticons that survived Chicago, and Lucas thought he'd just be getting a check and not have his life threatened.
edited 7th Jul '14 1:20:02 PM by GethKnight
![]()
![]()
The president wanted to have a photo op with Prime. That means he did not authorize the hits on the bots. The incompetent chief of staff even thought Prime was part of the black ops. I'm not sure why he did not tell the president about Cemetery Wind were attacking Autobots.
I wonder if any U.S. government agencies will try to point out to the Autobots that it was a rouge group attacking them in the sequal
edited 7th Jul '14 3:33:26 PM by wildhawk86
During the meeting near the beginning, Attinger told the Chief of Staff that he believed that it was for the best that no Transformers should be on Earth. Granted Attinger did not come out and say he was attacking the Autobots, the Chief of Staff should have told the president that there was no Bot support on the missions. From what I gather many in the upper echelon in government thought that open support was a no go, convert support was ok.
edited 7th Jul '14 3:31:29 PM by wildhawk86
@ PRC, honestly I have a hard time figuring out how to respond to you because you're going along three different thoughts at once. Your premise is that there is zero cause to end military cooperation with the Autobots, when DOTM's "alien mercenaries" (even if a throwaway line) is ONE cause that is, more or less, factually true. The Chicago invasion is another understandable cause, since it brought the war full scale and in the public eye, there was no pretending that the Autobots vs. Decepticons was a minor brushfire that is easily contained. The movie also made it clear they were still friendly with the Autobots, even if there was a lot of anti-Transformer sentiment. Warnings were given to the public to report any Transformers you see because there were still Decepticons in hiding. So for the average person who has never met a Transformer before and knows some of them are bad, well freaking out a little is understandable.
Attinger's plan worked solely on that unclear distinction, if a person stumbled across them gunning down an Autobot they could just claim it was a Decepticon. Cade became a threat because he made contact with Optimus and knew the truth of what was going on. And again Cade recognized the name Optimus Prime and the term Autobot as being good guys without Optimus having to explain himself further. That suggests the public is somewhat informed of who the good guys are.
edited 7th Jul '14 10:37:32 PM by KJMackley
Since when do we base policy on snappy one-liners from pundits? Last I checked, neither Bill O'Reilly nor Rachel Maddow run the country. Also, the movie made it clear they tolerate the Autobots' existence, and only those that fought in Chicago. If we take the Pres's assumption that the 'bots were still working on covert ops, this implies that the US government's bright idea went covert ops in Rot F proven inadequate -> open cooperation with Autobots in Dot M -> oh no, we had exactly one battle that wasn't a curbstomp in our favor, let's ban cooperation entirely and go back to the covert ops thing despite no evidence it was actually better. Well, maybe this last part is realistic; I can, in fact, imagine our government being this dumb.
Attinger's plan worked much more on the 'bots driven into hiding in the first place. It's somewhat difficult to blindside individual Autobots and shoot them while they're still trying to surrender and protesting that they're Autobots, not Decepticons, and then convince any citizens who might be watching that they're Decepticons, not Autobots, if said Autobots are still all hanging out at an Army base somewhere, surrounded by soldiers' whose bacon they'd save more than a couple of times. The "I'm going to count to five-" "I'm going to count to three." exchange from TF 1 comes to mind.
Furthermore, Chinese military not going full retard - they'd have to be working on the same intel everyone else is getting, which is to say, there's so many Decepticons still out there that the US military is still actively hunting them, and that there's been no peep out of any Autobots. So now you're a J-10 pilot, and you see these giant monstrous looking robots that lack the bright technicolor scheme you're used to the Autobots being decked in, based on the news reports, and in fact look all bestial, somewhat similar to all the Decepticons you've seen in the news. What do?
You focus on your job as a military pilot and attack the target you were ordered to destroy.
You can't pick and choose which Law of Conservation of Detail does or doesn't matter. I couldn't care less who said the "Alien Mercenaries" line, whether it be Bill O'Reilly or Mearing, the truth is the line was said and it feeds into the premise of AOE. Policy isn't made from pundits and sometimes they get emotionally charged but they still reflect (and influence) public opinion to some degree. Especially after Chicago anti-Transformer sentiment seems highly plausible. You may think it was stupid, but even then stupidity is Truth in Television.
And I have no idea what the Chinese military has to do with any of that. In the previous movies the US military were tracking events, showing named characters doing so, and was more or less ready to mobilize when a fight happens. This movie ignored military alliances altogether and it wasn't until the end of the battle we see some jets flying by. Considering how quickly things escalated it's plausible they couldn't mobilize much before the battle was over.
Odds are that the death of Lockdown is the only reason the jets are able to make any progress at all. We don't see much of them, but I'm guessing that with their captain dead the ship was probably in a bit of confusion as to what to do, and they'll probably be out of there before the jets can do any significant damage. And if Lockdown were still alive, they'd probably get blasted out of the sky in short order, too.
Law of Conservation of Detail applies to things that flow logically. Like Reality Unless Stated Otherwise. So, like Reality, we did not kick out all the Muslims or try to place them into internment camps and only grant special cases to the ones that helped us after 9/11, and also ban our military from working with them. There is no reason to believe Cybertronians should count as the "stated otherwise" half of that, given that the Autobot community have the unique accomplishment of "saved the world" x3, which means it's even less likely to happen to them. The Idiot Ball is a thing that real people grab sometimes. Doesn't make it less frustrating when fictional people catch it too.
"The line was said" is like being an alien archaeologist from the future, landing on a barren Earth, finding a videotape of Westboro Baptist Church protest, and then drawing the conclusion that the United States must have been a Christian fundamentalist theocracy to allow that. Sure, the line was *said*. That means nothing given the greater context of the films, which indicate people don't have a problem with it. Hell, realistically speaking, we'd probably welcome that kind of thing. No need to risk American lives to take out Iran's nuclear program if these nigh-indestructible alien robots are willing to do it for us.
Chinese military reacion is related to Law of Conservation of Detail, but it supports my claims more than yours. We don't have to see what they're doing, because we can reasonably deduce that they do the same thing they always do - keep tabs on their potential rivals and their capabilities. Which means they would have known exactly what the audience knows, at least as of Dot M because the Autobots were public at that point. Zhongnanhai probably erupted into applause when NEST got disbanded.
(Also: just because you were ordered to destroy a target doesn't mean you don't take potshots at other enemies also on the field. Especially when the main target is gone anyway, because you see the jets fly into Hong Kong once all the bots are done fighting)
Logic has nothing to do with it, relevance does. Years of watching Star Trek and seeing people argue with Vulcans has taught me that logic is subject to interpretation. Things don't have to be logical or realistic, it just has to be connected.
edited 9th Jul '14 8:59:13 AM by KJMackley
...logic is kinda not subject to interpretation by its very nature.
Also, if previous iterations of a franchise have generally been decently logical and realistic, then the newest iteration not being so kind of kills the connection.
The Aesop Amnesia trope exists, usually to point out inconsistencies and bad plotting in stories. There is some leeway for long-running comedic series. Less so for short ones where you expect characters to act in a remotely reasonable manner.
There is a difference between logic and logical reasoning. I said it before, things like Aesop Amnesia and Idiot Ball are Truth in Television. People do not behave logically, they behave emotionally. And to the individual acting emotionally it has its own logical sense to it. It's like the difference between math and physics, one is a pure form of reasoning but cannot account for all aspects of reality.
90% of all plots start off because of someone making a stupid, illogical choice. Humanity was shown to be willing to exile the Autobots in DOTM. It was stupid of them to do so and they were coerced, but it shows that, logically, humanity was willing to consider turning their backs on the Autobots once and could do so again. That is logical flow according to your definition.
edited 10th Jul '14 10:10:56 AM by KJMackley
That's giving a bit too much credit to stupidity in stories. Yes, people act stupid in real life. No, that doesn't excuse people acting stupid in fiction, especially when said people are portrayed as not being stupid before. Also, taking an action under duress is vastly different from doing the same from free will, and experiencing punishment for said action (such as the Big Bad deciding to "alter the deal") generally prevents the same action from happening again.
We're dealing with logic so simple a puppy could figure it out, here.
I should point out that my personality is the type that would sell out a neighbor or family member if they were a mutant or dragon and there was a government hunt for those sorts of things. So, no, I don't think the government turning on our alien allies doesn't sound at all far-fetched to me.
Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the GreatKind of reminds me of complaints I've seen that a "Burn Notice" or that recruiting enemy scientists after a war ended were highly illogical scenarios and very stupid plot points/bad writing, when they are based on real life things.
Anyhoo, I have been thinking a lot about the new Myth Arc that was established for the series, and I have an idea of where they might be going. The Quintessons have generally been ignored as the actual creator of the Cybertronians, because it kind of diminishes the idea of Mechanical Life Forms if they had such a simple origin as being built on an assembly line. But I started to think that with the KSI Transformers it sets in motion that there is a difference between being built and having a soul. Maybe the Quintessons built them and the Allspark came out of nowhere to give them sentience and the Quintessons have no idea how that happened. That would also somewhat explain why they were interested in Optimus specifically, as the Prime's seem to have powers that go outside of technology. Might be a cool way to eventually introduce Primus and Unicron into the movies.
edited 10th Jul '14 9:43:47 PM by KJMackley
But...Burn Notices for spies gone rogue or recruitment of defeated enemy scientists after the war *aren't* dumb things to do. Especially the latter, since that works out more often than not. Those things failing are generally due to actual sabotage or mismanagement which good stories will call out, as opposed to just having it happen and people being fine with it.
The more extreme the departure, the more effort you need to put into explaining it. We didn't quite think Japanese people were people back in the 40s, yet the worst we did after Pearl Harbor was to round them up in internment camps and we still formed a military unit for them. Since then, we progressed to where we...didn't do anything to the Muslims after 9/11. That Cybertronians aren't human isn't really an issue either, because we have groups who want to afford human rights to non-human animals who don't even have the benefit of sentience like Cybertronians do. So if you're going to posit that in the background, one little battle (that America won, by the way) is enough for the government to decide disbanding NEST and exiling all the Cybertronians that didn't fight in Chicago is a good idea, you better have a good explanation for why that happened.
We didn't get that, and instead are just asked to accept it despite the presence of those who would raise hell even in the early stages.
Edit: Quintessons could be interesting, though. Aren't there some continuities where they didn't build the Cybertronians after all, just told them that they did and set them up as masters?
edited 11th Jul '14 7:41:22 AM by PRC4Eva
Again, you're arguing that it is impossible when it is really just implausible. What YOU would do is not what someone else would do. Politics are tricky things. Technically, NEST was disbanded in DOTM and they just happened to be on the same side in the climax, congress just decided to not renew military relations after Chicago. And there are hints in this movie that there was still some cooperation of some sort before Attinger started hunting the Autobots, we just didn't get the details.
Really, if you have to spend so much time disproving counter arguments it means it is not as simple and straightforward as you believe it to be.

edited 7th Jul '14 6:14:30 AM by Willbyr