MediaWiki - User contributions [en]

User talk:Abates

2015-07-29T15:33:53Z

LordStarscream100: /* WWOD image */

<div style="float: right; width: 33%">
{{chapters
|title=User talk archives
|content=[[/Archive 1|Archive 1]] 
[[/Archive 2|Archive 2]] 
[[/Archive 3|Archive 3]] 
[[/Archive 4|Archive 4]] 
[[/Archive 5|Archive 5]]
}}</div>
==To-Do List==
===Operation: Screen Captures===
Screen cap (re)tagging:
*<s>[[:Category:Generation 1 screen captures|G1]]</s>
*<s>[[:Category:The Headmasters screen captures|Headmasters]]</s>/[[:Category:Super-God Masterforce screen captures|Masterforce]]/<s>[[:Category:Victory screen captures|Victory]]</s>/<s>[[:Category:Zone screen captures|Zone]]</s>
*<s>[[:Category:Beast Wars screen captures|Beast Wars]]</s>/<s>[[:Category:Beast Machines screen captures|Beast Machines]]</s>
*<s>[[:Category:Robots in Disguise screen captures|Robots in Disguise]]</s>
*<s>[[:Category:Armada screen captures|Armada]]</s>/[[:Category:Energon screen captures|Energon]]/<s>[[:Category:Cybertron screen captures|Cybertron]]</s>
*<s>[[:Category:Animated screen captures|Animated]]</s>
====Pictures of unidentified origin====
I don't know which episodes these are from - feel free to tag them with {{tl|MFcap}} or {{tl|Energoncap}} if you know!
<gallery>
Image:Diver suiton.jpg|Diver from Masterforce
Image:EnergonGeneric.jpg|Some dude from Energon
</gallery>

==Moderators==
Hi! Just wanted to ask if all moderators were chosen during the early days of TFwiki. Thanks. [[User:Optimus Prime (Convoy)|Optimus Prime (Convoy)]] ([[User talk:Optimus Prime (Convoy)|talk]]) 03:41, 1 January 2015 (EST)
:By the way, apparently iOS doesn't like to allow users to view recent edits, histories or even edit at all.[[User:Optimus Prime (Convoy)|Optimus Prime (Convoy)]] ([[User talk:Optimus Prime (Convoy)|talk]]) 03:44, 1 January 2015 (EST)
::The admins were gradually picked over the years the wiki has been in operation (almost ten years now!) --[[User:Abates|abates]] ([[User talk:Abates|talk]]) 04:32, 1 January 2015 (EST)

==Small favor==
While extracting Macro's backstory from the game files, two letters didn't come out right. I don't know much about Transformers Lore and just wondering if you got any suggestions on what each of the letters might be? (Considering the rest of Macro's backstory does seem mention references to existing locations in TF lore.)
Here's the words that contain missing letters:
*"Speed*a"
*"Tower of *ion"
[[User:Plasmapause|Plasmapause]] ([[User talk:Plasmapause|talk]]) 16:17, 5 January 2015 (EST)
:For the first, there's the [[Speedia 500]] - Speedia is also the Japanese name for [[Velocitron]].
:For the second, probably the [[Tower of Pion]]. --[[User:Abates|abates]] ([[User talk:Abates|talk]]) 16:28, 5 January 2015 (EST)
::That certainly fits in perfectly, many thanks for your help! -- [[User:Plasmapause|Plasmapause]] ([[User talk:Plasmapause|talk]]) 16:48, 5 January 2015 (EST)

== Double-redirects ==

Sorry, forgot t'check the really obvious bits! - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] ([[User talk:SanityOrMadness|talk]]) 05:34, 21 January 2015 (EST)
:No worries! --[[User:Abates|abates]] ([[User talk:Abates|talk]]) 05:50, 21 January 2015 (EST)

== Image Import Error ==

I stuck a bunch of files with no description whatsoever in C:IIE a while back in the hope it might prompt someone to identify where they came from. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] ([[User talk:SanityOrMadness|talk]]) 06:19, 8 February 2015 (EST)
:That's really a situation where applying a template would be better, I think. They're more visible on the image description than a category is. :) --[[User:Abates|abates]] ([[User talk:Abates|talk]]) 14:32, 8 February 2015 (EST)
::Fair point. I think I didn't want to create the template at the time. - [[User:SanityOrMadness|SanityOrMadness]] ([[User talk:SanityOrMadness|talk]]) 19:24, 8 February 2015 (EST)

==Paper Magic Group==

Dunno what's going on with them, but we usually have 2 - 3 sets a year from them with the same name despite covering different continuities. I find that sticking a franchise tag on each page is likely the best way to keep them apart. [[User:Ironhold|Ironhold]] ([[User talk:Ironhold|talk]]) 16:46, 25 February 2015 (EST)

== WWOD image ==

Any chance you could replace [[:File:RID2015-BumblebeecontactsOptimus.jpg]] with a better-quality 16:9 image? Its mismatch with the other images on the page is really bugging me. [[User:Saix|Saix]] ([[User talk:Saix|talk]]) 04:42, 6 May 2015 (EDT)
:Sorted! --[[User:Abates|abates]] ([[User talk:Abates|talk]]) 04:53, 6 May 2015 (EDT)
::Thank you! [[User:Saix|Saix]] ([[User talk:Saix|talk]]) 04:57, 6 May 2015 (EDT)
Can you do the same for [[:File:RID-bumblebeeholdsdebris.jpg]]? [[User:Saix|Saix]] ([[User talk:Saix|talk]]) 02:05, 2 June 2015 (EDT)
:I've been meaning to start a discussion about replacing that as a main image, actually. Typically our main images are either something notable about the episode, or a particularly funny moment, and that image seems like neither to me. I need to find a better suggestion first though! Just haven't gotten around to looking. --[[User:Abates|abates]] ([[User talk:Abates|talk]]) 02:47, 2 June 2015 (EDT)

Hey Abates, what I mean by that is the fact that if people have been excavating dinosaur fossils for so many years, why is it that all of a sudden they find two cyberformed dinosaur fossils? Shouldn't all of the dinosaur fossils ever found be cyberformed if that's what caused their extinction? That's what I'm trying to say.
--[[User:LordStarscream100|LordStarscream100]] ([[User talk:LordStarscream100|talk]]) 11:33, 29 July 2015 (EDT)

Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)

2015-07-28T19:58:44Z

LordStarscream100:

{{Nav-aoe}}
[[File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionOptimusPrimePoster.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.67|An adventure 65 million years in the making.]]

'''''Transformers: Age of Extinction''''' is the fourth film in the [[live-action film series]]. It was released on [[June 27]], [[2014]].

Following the [[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Battle of Chicago]], humanity has come to fear both Autobots and Decepticons alike. With the aid of a Transformer mercenary named [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], a CIA [[Cemetery Wind|task-force]] operated by [[Harold Attinger]] begins hunting the remaining [[Transformer]]s on [[Earth]]. Hunted by enemies that were once his allies, [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] loses faith in humanity and sends his forces into hiding. Now, five years later, struggling inventor and single-father [[Cade Yeager]] discovers a damaged Transformer, placing both himself and his [[Tessa Yeager|daughter]] on a collision course with events that threaten the extinction of humankind itself.

{{bigquote|The trouble with loyalty to a cause is that the cause will ''always'' betray you.|[[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]]|''Transformers: Age of Extinction''}}

==Synopsis==

[[File:The Creators cyberforming Earth AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs."]]
65 million years ago, on Cretaceous [[Earth]], a ''Psittacosaurus'' is out hunting for food. The small dinosaur finds a fish and starts to feed, but stops as hundreds of alien ships enter Earth's atmosphere, piloted by the mysterious [[Creator (AOE)|"Creators"]]. The alien ships launch dozens of strange [[Seed]]s across the planet. As they detonate, they convert the landscape and the herds of panicking dinosaurs into a metallic substance, ending the Age of Dinosaurs. Millions of years later, while digging in the [[Arctic]], a team of geologists uncover a mysterious pair of metallized dinosaur skeletons - a discovery that attracts the attention of [[Darcy Tirrel]]...

Five years after the invasion of [[Chicago]], tensions between humans and Cybertronians have risen dramatically. Although the Autobots are officially granted asylum on Earth, public opinion has turned against all Transformers. The government of the United States has terminated all human-Autobot joint programs and instated [[Cemetery Wind]], an elite [[CIA]] unit intended to flush out the handful of [[Decepticon]]s left on Earth. What the President doesn't know is that [[Harold Attinger]], the leader of the operation, is slaughtering all Transformers, regardless of faction. On one such mission, the team pinpoints [[Ratchet (Movie)|Ratchet]] hiding within an abandoned boat. He immediately tries to flee, but is crippled and brought down by their weapons. The team leader, [[James Savoy]], mockingly asks why Ratchet ran if he's not their enemy, and Ratchet replays a transmission he received from [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]], ordering all Autobots to hide from humans. However, Savoy dismisses his pleas as his sister was killed in Chicago. A Transformer bounty hunter, [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], who has actually been helping Cemetery Wind hunt the Autobots, emerges from the nearby swamp and attacks Ratchet, further damaging him. Walking past his human allies, Lockdown demands to know [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]'s whereabouts. When Ratchet refuses, Lockdown brutally kills him by ripping out his spark.
[[File:AOE Ratchet dying.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction..."]]

In Texas, struggling inventor [[Cade Yeager]] and his friend/employee [[Lucas Flannery]] meet at an old theater, looking for salvage. He finds an old truck, and upon inspection it seems to be full of artillery shells. He buys the truck along with the other theater equipment and puts it in his garage.[[Tessa Yeager|Tessa]], Cade's daughter, observes this while video-chatting with her boyfriend and criticizes her dad for buying the heap of junk. While attempting to salvage the truck's engine to sell, Cade realizes it's actually a badly-damaged Transformer. After calling Lucas and Tessa, he connects jumper cables to its engine, only for it to begin replaying the distress call Ratchet had received earlier. Lucas and Tessa advocate calling the government, claiming that there is a huge reward for Transformers. Cade convinces them not to call the authorities until he can spend more time working on the truck, as he may be able to stumble on a technological breakthrough if he can figure out how the Transformers work. When Cade removes a live missile from the truck's "power core," it transforms into a heavily injured Optimus Prime, who roars at them to stay back while he swings his weapon around the barn. Cade, Lucas, and Tessa ask why Optimus is so badly damaged, to which he replies that the Autobots are being hunted and he must help them. Cade offers to repair him, and sends Lucas to buy the parts that will enable him to fix Optimus. Cade and Optimus begin to bond as the repairs begin.
[[File:AOE-injuredoptimus.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Should we chance moving him?"]]

In the Arctic, Attinger arrives via helicopter at [[Knight Ship|Lockdown's ship]] and demands to know why Optimus Prime escaped him in [[Mexico]]. Lockdown derisively tells Attinger that Optimus Prime would not have escaped were it not for Cemetery Wind's interference, stressing that he does not care about Attinger or his goals and wishes only to capture Optimus Prime.

Shortly after returning to [[Washington, D.C.]], Attinger receives a tip that Optimus Prime has been located in Texas and sends Savoy and Cemetery Wind to apprehend him. The agents swarm the barn, but there is no trace of Prime inside. When Savoy threatens Tessa to force Cade to tell him of Prime's whereabouts, the Autobot leader explodes out of the barn's basement in which he was hiding. He escapes after a brief skirmish that destroys the Yeager residence, with both Cemetery Wind and Lockdown in pursuit. As Cade catches one of Cemetery Wind's mini drones, a white rally car zooms over the adjacent fields and picks up the Yeagers and Lucas. The driver turns out to be [[Shane Dyson|Shane]], a rally car racer who is also Tessa's boyfriend. A group of Cemetery Wind vehicles begins chasing them.
[[File:Optimus shooting humans AOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"You think they'll have that on the tour?"]]

Both the rally car and Optimus Prime are chased into an abandoned factory, where Optimus Prime fights off Lockdown. Shane puts his driving skills to good use and pulls a series of tight maneuvers that result in the Cemetery Wind cars crashing, destroys his car in the process. Optimus Prime, who has caught Lockdown in a crane cable, transforms and tells the humans to pile into him and escape. Lockdown throws a grenade at the humans as they run towards Optimus Prime; though Shane and the Yeagers escape, Lucas is caught in the blast and killed.

Arriving at an abandoned gas station, Optimus orders the humans out and drives off to ensure that they have not been followed. Cade confronts Tessa and Shane about their relationship but Tessa gets angry at Cade for putting them all in danger. The next day, Optimus and the humans set off towards Monument Valley. Prime [[trans-scan|scans]] a passing truck, sheds his layer of rust and takes on a new form with his old paint scheme. They arrive in Monument Valley where they meet the other surviving Autobots in the form of [[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]], [[Hound (Movie)|Hound]], [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]], and their de facto leader [[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]]. Crosshairs and Hound start threatening the humans for having their species betray them but Optimus convinces them that they have risked their lives to save his. The Humans notice that there are clear tensions between the Autobots. Cade reveals footage of the attack on Ratchet and [[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot's]] demise using the stolen aerial drone and Prime declares that he will kill the one responsible for hunting down the Autobots.

[[File:Autobots unite monument valley AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Dr. Grant, my dear Dr. Sattler... Welcome to [[Jurassic Park]]." ]]

Inspection of the drone leads them to a company named [[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|KSI]], located in a rebuilt Chicago. It is run by [[Joshua Joyce]], who is working with [[Su Yueming]] and Attinger to create artificial Transformers to eventually be used in the military. Using the remains of [[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]], [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]], [[Starscream (Movie)|the]] [[Barricade (Movie)|countless]] [[Shockwave (Movie)|Decepticons]] from the Chicago battle and the hunted Autobots, they have synthesized the metal that the Transformers are made of, calling it [[Transformium]]. When given commands through a computer, Transformium can be changed into various shapes or objects. Although a drone called [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]] (designed after Bumblebee) is active, Joshua's major project is a bigger, stronger drone called [[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]]. However, his attempts have not been successful; the drone keeps resembling Megatron instead of the friendlier image of Optimus Prime. Bumblebee builds Cade and Shane faux-ID badges which the duo use to infiltrate KSI. Cade goes further in and projects imagery of Ratchet's severed head being melted down as well as the injured and enslaved [[Brains]], which sends Prime into a rage.

[[File:Joshua Joyce Transformium Experiment AOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"God help us, we're in the hands of engineers."]]

However, Cade is caught when his ID badge is found to have been scanned twice (by him and its original owner). He is taken to the upper floors and confronted by Attinger, who claims that what he has witnessed is in the name of world peace. He also asks him about the whereabouts of Optimus Prime but Cade maintains his silence.

Furious over how the humans have mutilated their comrades, Optimus orders an attack on KSI. Bumblebee, carried by Drift in copter mode, rescues Cade. The others trash the lab, free Brains, and confront Joshua, only for him to openly declare that what is being done is being done to prevent more Transformer-caused damage and that the humans "don't need" the Autobots. Disheartened, Prime orders a retreat.

As the Autobots exit the factory and leave, Attinger catches up with Joshua and claims that the Autobots are terrorists for attacking the facility. He coerces Joyce to use the two functional drones to take down the Autobots. Galvatron and Stinger activate and pursue their quarry across a highway, with Galvatron doing more damage than his KSI handlers intend. Bumblebee fires upon Galvatron but is surprised to see him simply disintegrate and reintegrate again. Galvatron attacks Prime. As they battle, Optimus declares that the artificial creation has no soul, to which it retorts "That is why I have no FEAR!"

[[File:AOEGalvatron.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Kids! You want to have one of those?"]]

As Tessa scrambles for cover in a nearby vehicle, Prime is suddenly shot from the back and falls-Lockdown has arrived, along with his ship! Lockdown gloats to his prisoner, claiming that Optimus was built, not born, and now the Creators want him returned in one piece. The bounty hunter orders a net dropped over Optimus and hoists both the Autobot leader and Tessa's hiding place into his ship. Cade desperately clings to the net, but his strength gives out and he falls to the fields below. As the spaceship departs, Cade and Shane vow to get Tessa back.

Lockdown throws Prime in a cage and orders his lackeys to dispose of Tessa. Prime takes note of several other aliens in similar cages, including [[Dinobot (AOE)|other Cybertronian warriors]]. He also discovers the original purpose of the mercenary ship: it was originally used by a group of legendary Knights (presumably including Prime himself) but now acts as Lockdown's flying prison. Lockdown's ship hovers over Chicago, triggering panic in the streets, but Attinger manages to talk down the authorities and send Savoy to rendezvous with Lockdown. As payment for Prime's capture, Lockdown gives him a Seed.

Cade, Shane, and the other Autobots get aboard the ship as it flies low over a bridge. While being pursued by Lockdown's henchmen, the two humans find a strange Knight armory, from which Cade takes a sword that opens up to form a gun. While Shane and Cade rescue Tessa, Crosshairs deploys the ship's mooring cables, which fire into the Willis Tower and preventing the ship from breaking atmosphere. The humans begin to clamber down the cables to safety, but they are pursued by a pack of [[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaw]]s. Bumblebee manages to save the trio. The other Autobots locate Optimus, who reveals that the section of the ship they are on can separate from the main body. Crosshairs uses a gunship to pick up Bumblebee and the humans, then leads them on a dogfight through Chicago's streets, destroying some of Lockdown's mercenaries.

[[File:Prime gets shotAOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"It could have been worse, John. A lot worse."]]

Back at KSI, it is decided that all equipment is to be moved to the Beijing facility to continue operations. Joshua is also none too pleased about the previous field test of Galvatron; not only was it a loss on several fronts, but the drone also ''spoke'', which was something it was ''not'' programmed to do!

The Autobots land their new ship at an abandoned train yard. Optimus claims that he sensed Megatron's presence during his fight with Galvatron. Brains explains Galvatron's true nature: while he decoded dead Transformer brains, he learned that Megatron's mind had survived and planned to transfer itself to Galvatron's body, explaining Galvatron's sinister appearance. The tiny bot further mentions how Galvatron used his knowledge to build Stinger and the other drones, with plans to make them into his personal army. As Tessa tells the group about the Seed she saw, Optimus and Hound explain that the Creators used Seeds to convert organic material into metal, then harvested the resulting Transformium for their own purposes. Cade makes a call to Joyce and relays the newfound data about Galvatron. Knowing that Joyce is also an inventor with a heart, he pleads with Joyce to shut down Galvatron before things escalate. Although Joyce puts up an unconvinced façade, he demands increased security around Galvatron after hanging up.

As police cars surround the train yard, the Autobots board their shuttle again and take to the air. Optimus says that though the Autobots will travel to Hong Kong and get the Seed back, they will leave Earth afterwards; they are done protecting humanity. Cade disagrees but Prime is non-responsive. They later debate the matter, with Cade attempting to reignite Prime's faith in humanity.

In deep space, Lockdown finally discovers the absence of the smaller ship. He grumbles about Optimus Prime taking his trophy case and how the Prime will feel his wrath while he reverses course. Joyce meets with Attinger and Savoy and receives the Seed. Joyce intends to detonate it in a region of the [[Gobi Desert]], which will generate enough Transformium to last a century. Attinger is eager to expedite production but grows incensed when Joshua disagrees and says that they should go slower, quite obviously moved by Cade's call. Meanwhile, Galvatron activates ''himself'' and starts to infect the legion of over fifty other KSI Transformers. When the alarm rings regarding Galvatron's escape, Joyce has Attinger and Savoy evacuated from the building and gets in a car with Yueming, an associate named Darcy, and the Seed. They decide to try and hide the Seed in [[Hong Kong]].

Being hunted by Attinger and Savoy, Joyce seeks refuge on a rooftop when the Autobot-piloted ship arrives and attempts to pick him and the Seed up. However, Galvatron and his drones ramy arrive and shoot down the airborne vessel, causing Bumblebee, Hound, and the Yeagers to spill out while the others (Prime, Crosshairs, Drift, and the captured Knights) to careen away into the Wulong Valley. Savoy finds the Yeagers and Joyce on the rooftop and open fires on them but Cade leads him away from the others. The two jump across rooftops, eventually crashing into a house and getting into a fist fight which ends with Savoy falling from a window to his death.

Hound and Bumblebee attempt to escort the humans and the Seed out of the city, but are cut short when Joshua points out that the KSI-built Transformers were specifically built to destroy any Autobots or Decepticons left on Earth. This prompts Prime to enter the crashed ship and activate the armory as well as release the other captives within the ship. As Hound and Bumblebee hold the line and protect the humans, Optimus tries to convince the Legendary Warriors to fight alongside them. Their [[Grimlock (AOE)|apparent leader]] violently declines at first, fighting the Prime in both his massive robot mode and his Tyrannosaurus mode. Optimus quickly defeats him, saying that he and the other warriors will protect his family or die, then mounts the metal dinosaur. The Autobots mount their Dinobots and charge over the mountains into Hong Kong.

[[File:Dinobots ready for battle AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"''T. rex'' doesn't want to be fed. He wants to ''hunt''."]]

Meanwhile, as Hound and Bumblebee are starting to be overwhelmed by Galvatron's drone forces, Optimus and his fellow Autobots storm into the city, slamming, crushing, stomping, and chomping all nearby enemies. Galvatron retreats as the Autobots and Dinobots decimate his forces. With this battle over, Optimus confronts Joshua for his actions and gives the order to defend the humans and escort them, and the Seed, away from the city. On the way, a homing beacon within the Seed activates, allowing Lockdown to track the Autobots down. He activates a massive magnet, wreaking havoc on Hong Kong. Everything metal from kitchenware to massive ships are picked up by the magnet, including the Autobots and Dinobots. After narrowly avoiding the magnet, the Yeagers are momentarily separated from the Autobots. Optimus shoots at the magnet, destroying it and releasing the Transformers from its influence. The ship retreats to a nearby factory, with Optimus hot on its trail. Cade tells his daughter to stay with Shane and the Autobots, as he wishes to fight alongside Optimus against Lockdown. As Optimus Prime and Lockdown battle one-on-one, Attinger corners Yeager with a pistol, accusing him of choosing aliens over his own race, but he is quickly shot and killed by Optimus.

Because of Optimus' choice to save Cade before defending himself, Lockdown gains the upper hand, impaling Optimus through the chest with his own sword and pinning him to a concrete pillar. Meanwhile, Tessa convinces Bumblebee to turn around and the three join in fighting Lockdown, allowing Shane to use a tow truck to unpin Prime. Just as Lockdown is about to kill Cade, Optimus jumps up and slices the bounty hunter in half. Activating one of Lockdown's grenades, Prime tells the humans to hold on and uses rocket boosters to escape while the grenade destroys the last of the KSI drones. Galvatron has survived and retreated to the outskirts of the city; watching Prime blast off, he tells Optimus to beware, for he is reborn...

[[File:AOE-DefendThisFamily.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"I don't know. I guess... I guess we'll just have to evolve too."]]

The Autobots, Dinobots and their Human allies all regroup on the waterfront. Cade and Tessa happily reconcile and Cade finally accepts Shane. Joshua nobly says he will help them with their destroyed home. Prime declares the Dinobots are now free as they depart for parts unknown. With the bounty on his head placing the entire Earth in danger, Prime blasts off into space with the Seed to confront the Creators and discover the mystery behind his own origins, but not before ordering the Autobots to protect the Yeager family. As he leaves Earth's atmosphere, Optimus Prime sends a message to his Creators to leave planet Earth alone, because he's coming for them.

{{--}}

==Quotes==
"Lockdown...?" 
"Autobots, Decepticons, like little children, always fighting; making a mess out of the universe, then ''I've'' got to clean it up! There is one way you survive. Tell me where he's hiding. Where is Optimus Prime?" 
"Never." 
''(Lockdown rips out Ratchet's spark)'' 
"Never is here." 
:—'''Ratchet''''s final moments before '''Lockdown''' kills him.

"In this planet we have a saying: ''The enemy of my enemy is my friend''." 
"I also have a saying: '''''I don't care'''''."
:—'''Harold Attinger''' discusses with '''Lockdown'''.

"Every galaxy I've traveled, all you species are the same. You all think you're the center of the universe. You have no idea..."
:—'''Lockdown''' never truly appreciated one of his clients.

"Human beings. Bunch of backstabbing weasels!" 
"Hound, find your inner compass. ''Loyalty is but a flower in the winds of fear and temptation.''" 
"What the hell are you saying?!?" 
"It's a haiku." 
"Cut the crap before I drop a grenade down your throat!" 
"Try it, you'll be dead!" 
"Oh, please pull it. Please do it."
:—'''Hound''' doesn't appreciate '''Drift's''' haikus.

"With your fate unknown, Bumblebee has held command, despite his complete and total lack of anything resembling warrior discipline. He's like a child." 
"This child is about to ''kick your ass!''"
:—'''Drift''' and '''Bumblebee'''

"Autobots, I have sworn never to kill humans..." 
"Big mistake." 
"...but when I find out who's behind this...he's going to ''die''." 
"Hoo-ah!"
:—'''Prime's''' rage is fueled by '''Hound'''.

"Destroy the lab! Destroy it all!" 
''(The Autobots lay waste to the KSI research facility)'' 
"Hey, you! Stop! That's company property!" 
"They're not ''your'' property! ''They were my friends.''" 
:—'''Optimus Prime''' duly informs '''Joshua Joyce''' that Transformers aren't just machines.

"You have no soul!" 
"That is why I have no ''fear''!"
:—'''Optimus Prime'''' is shocked to find '''Galvatron''' isn't as lifeless as he thought.

"We're behind enemy lines now. Lockdown's ship has booby traps! Eyes open." 
"Beware of his bone-grinders, brain-blinders, flesh-stealers, chromosomal-inverters, catatonic slugs, black hole trapdoors and of course, radiation."

:—'''Hound''' and '''Crosshairs''' warn the humans of the perils held within Lockdown's ship.

"I was expecting a [[Grimlock_(G1)/toys#Alternators.2FBinaltech|giant car!]]"
:—'''Drift''' witnessing Grimlock transform into a dinosaur.

"Autobots, we're going to prove who we are, and ''why we're here''!"
:—'''Optimus Prime''' rallies his troops with his characteristic passion and charisma.

"Ugh, you just wanna die for the guy. ''That's'' leadership. Or brainwashing, or something." 
"No, that's Optimus Prime."
:—'''Crosshairs''' and '''Drift''', remarking on their [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|leader]]/[[Dinobot (AOE)|Giant Robot Dinosaur]] tamer.

"I'm like a fat ballerina who takes scalps and slits throats!"
:—'''Hound''' takes another five levels in badass and ballerina class.

"How do you say 'Get the f&%# out of the way' in Chinese?"
:—'''Joshua''' has some issues with the language barrier.

"I hate cheap knockoffs."
:—'''Bumblebee''' dismissing all [[Cliffjumper (Movie)|clones]] of him as "cheap".

"We shall meet again, Prime, for I am reborn."
:—'''Galvatron''' retreats to fight another day.

"There are mysteries to the universe we were never meant to solve, but who we are and why we are here are not among them. Those answers we carry inside. I am Optimus Prime, and this message is to my Creators. Leave planet Earth alone. 'Cause I'm coming...for you."
:—'''Optimus Prime'''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s closing narration.

==Main cast==
{{featuredcharacters|
h1=[[Autobot]]s|c1=
*[[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] ([[Peter Cullen]])
*[[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]]
*[[Hound (Movie)|Hound]] ([[John Goodman]])
*[[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] ([[Ken Watanabe]])
*[[Ratchet (Movie)|Ratchet]] ([[Robert Foxworth]])
*[[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]] ([[John DiMaggio]])
*[[Brains]] ([[Reno Wilson]])
*[[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot]]
*[[Dinobot (AOE)|Dinobots]]
**[[Grimlock (AOE)|Grimlock]]
**[[Scorn (AOE)|Scorn]]
**[[Slug (AOE)|Slug]]
**[[Strafe (AOE)|Strafe]]
*[[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]]'s head
|h2=[[Decepticon]]s|c2=
*[[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]] ([[Frank Welker]])
*[[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]]'s head
*[[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]]
*[[Junkheap (AOE)|Junkheap]]
*[[Trax (AOE)|Traxes]]
*"[[Two Head]]s"
*"[[KSI Boss]]es"
*[[McLaren Decepticon]]
*[[Aston Martin Decepticon]]
*[[Insecticon (Movie)|Insecticons]]
*[[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] (video footage)
*[[Protoform]]s (video footage)

|h3=[[Human]]s|c3=
*[[Cade Yeager]] ([[Mark Wahlberg]])
*[[Tessa Yeager]] ([[Nicola Peltz]])
*[[Shane Dyson]] ([[Jack Reynor]])
*[[Joshua Joyce]] ([[Stanley Tucci]])
*[[Harold Attinger]] ([[Kelsey Grammer]])
*[[James Savoy]] ([[Titus Welliver]])
*[[Lucas Flannery]] ([[T. J. Miller]])
*[[Darcy Tirrel]] ([[Sophia Myles]])
*[[Su Yueming]] ([[Li Bingbing]])
*[[Gill Wembley]] ([[James Bachman]])
*[[Chief of Staff]] ([[Thomas Lennon]])

|h4=Others|c4=
'''Lockdown's crew'''
*[[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]] ([[Mark Ryan]])
*[[Mercenary|Mercenaries]]
*[[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaws]]
*[[Stupid Drone]]s
'''[[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|KSI]] prototypes'''
*[[Oreo Transformer]]
|nonumbering=true
}}

==Errors==
===Continuity errors===
[[File:DeceasedTransformersAOE.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.6|Your attention, please. Will the ''real'' Optimus Prime please stand up?]]
[[File:AOECrosshairsDriftWeirdEdit.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|What just happened? No, seriously. Is there some kind of timey-wimey thing going on?]]
[[File:AOE savoy eyegouge.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|"An eye for an eye makes the whole world-OH MY GOD!!!"]]
*[[Ironhide (Movie)|Ironhide]] is seen on the cards Attinger pulls out early in the film, listed as deceased and having been last seen in Chicago. However, Ironhide was killed by Sentinel Prime in Washington, D.C., midway through ''Dark of the Moon'', and long before the final battle in Chicago.
*Scenes from the Decepticons' invasion of Chicago in ''Dark of the Moon'' are shown as archival footage presented by Attinger. While it is conceivable some lucky people with cameras recorded the initial attack and managed to survive and publish their footage, it's highly unlikely people would've been able to get close-up video footage of the NEST team taking down [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] and the other Decepticons.
*A Cemetery Wind vehicle smashes into the side of Shane's car during the chase through the cornfield, but the car doesn't show any damage to that side in subsequent shots.
*Tessa and Shane's reliance on Romeo and Juliet laws is unnecessary, since the age of consent in Texas is 17.
*During the 'Autobots reunite' sequence, Drift starts out in car mode on a road with Bumblebee and Crosshairs, before suddenly appearing atop a rock formation in robot mode and transforming to helicopter mode to meet up with Optimus Prime.
*When Crosshairs and Drift are talking on board Lockdown's ship shortly after boarding it, a ''very'' bizarre edit occurs in the middle of Drift's line "Better hurry, because dark matter drives are preparing to take off". The camera angle is now slightly different than before, but it's not a switch between a long shot and a close-up or a complete change of perspective. Oddly, Drift is still seen from the almost the ''exact same angle'' as before the edit, but even though his and Crosshairs's bodies were at an almost 90 degree angle before the edit, they're now suddenly almost standing in parallel to each other, with Crosshairs' head turned towards Drift. In addition, a flame that appeared in front of Drift just before the edit is suddenly gone.
*When Shane shouts "I surrender!" and drops his "gun-sword", the hilt is facing to the right, but after a close-up showed it landing on the ground and firing a shot, the hilt is suddenly facing to the ''left'' in the subsequent long shot when it fires more shots.
*When Joshua reunites with the rest of the group in Hong Kong, Darcy tells him she'll do a diversion, and to get the Seed somewhere safe. Yet, no diversion of any kind happens.
*As Cade and Savoy grapple in the apartment, Cade jams his thumb deep into Savoy's eye socket (see right), with accompanying "squlech" sound effect, and appropriate reaction from Savoy in the form of a long howl of pain through gritted teeth and a string of drool flowing uncontrolled from his mouth. But as soon as the two separate, Savoy's eye is absolutely fine, with no indication anything is supposed to have happened to it.
*While Lockdown is pulling up parts of the city, Shane backs the car into a building which is two stories high at most, but appears much larger on the inside.

===Technical/animation errors===
*Absolutely NONE of the dinosaur fossils found in modern times are cyberformed, even though the Creators killed all of the dinosaurs using this method.
*The shot right before the close-up of the cyberformed dinosaurs has no cyberformed dinosaurs at all, despite having all the excavation vehicles in the same positions as the next scene.
* Arcee is seen on Attinger's cards misspelled as "Acree".
*When Attinger takes over the operation to scramble Cemetery Wind after Optimus, and dismisses everyone in the room, he does so by saying "Ladies and gentlemen, this room is going dark. The exit is on your left." All the people then get up and begin to exit to their ''right''.
*Scrambling Cemetery Wind seems to scramble the timeline. From the deployment of Cemetery Wind to Lucas's death, the time of day is in limbo. For example, Optimus escapes from the Yeager property at sunset, joining the pursuit that takes place in early afternoon, not to mention that Cemetery Wind arrives at the Yeagers' home town at what appears to be dawn. In some instances, repeated changes between shots correspond with changes between different times of day, as different positions of the sun result in very very obviously different lighting conditions.
*When Lockdown transforms to prepare for the attack on Optimus, one can clearly see a faux-part Lamborghini logo pop out from inside the car, while the actual logo disappears.
*In the shot of Shane's car pulling up outside of the Yeager farm after Cemetery Wind has stormed in, nobody is seen inside the vehicle.
*During the scene where Cade is pretending to be a truck driver with Optimus still in his flat-nose truck form, he has a cap and white plaid shirt on. After Optimus scans into his newer form, Cade's back to wearing his leather jacket.
*When Shane's car gets sideswiped in the cornfield, the back left window is shattered. A couple scenes later, the window is just rolled down.
*When Shane's car breaks into a building, the woman sitting right in the middle of the room is clearly waiting on the glass-breaking noise to start running.
*After Lucas' death, there is nothing really stopping Lockdown or Cemetery Wind from continuing to chase Optimus. Lockdown is much faster and could easily catch up to Optimus whilst Cemetery Wind could chase in their remaining vehicles.
*When Optimus transforms to and from his Marmon 97 alternate mode, the windows and grille that make up his chest visibly change size and shape.
*When Optimus transforms out of his flat-nosed truck mode and punches the ground, Tessa and Shane are standing next to each other, as viewed from behind Optimus. When the view immediately switches to be facing Optimus, Cade is suddenly standing between the two.
*Shane defends his relationship with Tessa by stating that the 'Romeo and Juliet laws' "statute 2705-3" protect their relationship, yet the card he shows Cade reads "Statute 22.011". This is also the number that appears in the English subtitles of the DVD, meaning that it was scripted as 22.011 and not 2705-3.
*The truck that Optimus scans, while still being from the Western Star manufacturer, is an older and different model than the one he transforms into.
*When Optimus is on his way to the reunion site, the human characters inside are sitting this way: Shane to the right, Tessa in the Middle and Cade to the left. However when Optimus gets to the reunion point Cade comes out of the truck using Shane's side door (right) instead of his (left). It is clear they (the director and his crew) were trying to get a "superhero" pose but it doesn't make sense.
*When Optimus arrived to the reunion site you can see the filming crew in the reflection of his front chrome parts.
*Hound's dialogue when he's bickering with Drift doesn't really match up to what we see. Drift pulls his swords on Hound, but the big guy goads him on to "pull it", suggesting Drift was originally supposed to aim a firearm at him.
[[File:Uncolored Ratchet head prop.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.67|Gray is the new green.]]
*When Joshua is in the lab showing Darcy Transformium, in two different shots, a gray, uncolored prop of Ratchet's head can be seen being worked on in the next room.
*As Cade's drone scans a KSI employee's name tag, it displays its location onscreen as around N 38°44'55", W115°28'27". These coordinates are for a [https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B044%2755.0%22N+115%C2%B028%2727.0%22W/@38.7486111,-115.4741667,3048m patch of desert in Nevada] rather than any place in Chicago.
*While first infiltrating KSI, in the showroom where Stinger is first viewed, Bumblebee is in car mode when Joshua walks in with Yueming. Bumblebee's engine audibly revs, yet Joshua doesn't notice that there's no one in the car to rev the engine.
[[File:Megatron Head at KSI.jpg|right|upright=1.4|thumb|Screw logic!]]
*Megatron's severed head is in somewhat good shape for someone who got an axe stabbed on the top of his head. Furthermore, his head is more in line with its appearance in the first movie not ''Dark of the Moon''.
*Not to mention, after Joshua's group leaves and Bumblebee knocks Stinger down, there's no transformation noise right before Bumblebee returns to his altmode and the KSI executive walks in. Additionally, Bumblebee starts playing M.C. Hammer's "U Can't Touch This", '''when no one is in the car''' to turn the stereo on. Ostensibly it was for a comic moment, but it didn't raise anyone's suspicions that a car that wasn't typical of the ones being scanned, operating the engine and the stereo with no human inside, might be a disguised Cybertronian?
*After Bumblebee scans his new alternate mode, the camera pans over the car and Tessa and Shane are not inside. However when he's getting his new upgraded form you can see that they used stunt doubles for Shane and Tessa. That scene wasn't dangerous enough to require stunt doubles, was it?
*Some security guards in KSI fail to react to Crosshairs's shooting and shouting until a few seconds before the scene changes.
*When Galvatron first transforms and crashes into a truck, the way he is composed in the scene makes it look like he is simply floating above the wreckage, instead of being in the middle causing it.
*When Optimus transforms, Cade and Shane leap out of Optimus, while Tessa is trapped and rolls away. However, previous shots establish that the seating order in Optimus is Shane, Tessa, Cade. This means that Cade crawled over his daughter to escape(!), which is not quite logical or possible.
*Lockdown fires two missiles at Optimus Prime that, despite piercing his chest, don't manifest any kind of visible damage on his person, despite the previous shot showing Optimus's chest getting blown apart.
*When Lockdown is approaching Optimus after gunning him down, the driver's door of the Cadillac SRX he's resting on is shown to be open in two exterior shots, even though Tessa previously closed it after getting inside, and it's also shown closed in other (mostly interior) shots.
*When he loses his grip on the net holding Optimus and the car containing Tessa, Cade is shown falling toward the street, but he lands on the grass by the road.
*When the Autobots are on a bridge, before boarding Lockdown's ship, Crosshairs is clearly shown to be speaking but no dialogue is heard.
*When Tessa gets taken to the trash in Lockdown's ship, a green screen can be seen at the end of the corridor.
*While locking up Optimus, Lockdown's scar is on the left side of his face. While talking to Savoy upon delivering the seed, it's on the right side of his face; however, it switches back to the left side right before he walks off after bidding Earth farewell.
*While the human characters are climbing across the anchor cables to the high-rise building some of the Steeljaws begin to climb out after them. Cade tells his daughter not to look back and see them, but when we cut back to her, with a clear view of the cables behind her, the Steeljaws are gone.
*When Bumblebee jumps off Lockdown's ship to save the humans, he is followed by a Steeljaw. In the following shot, the Steeljaw is gone.
*While explaining Megatron's plans to the Autobots, Brains rings a bell on a train. In the next shot, the bell is not moving.
*During the motorcycle chase, the CIA cars change. At first, Joshua and Su are trailed by a Cadillac and an Audi; in the middle of the chase, the Cadillac is replaced by another Audi. By the end of the chase, the Cadillac is back.
*In Hong Kong, when Cade, Joshua, Tessa, and Shane enter the elevator to run away from the rooftop, the elevator won't move and Cade says it's overloaded. But in the next scene, we see that the maximum number of people that the elevator can carry is nine, and it's very clear that the Seed doesn't weight as much as five people.
*When Grimlock transforms to his dino mode and charges at Optimus, there are no other Dinobots, nor the ship, to be seen in the background. However, after Optimus punches Grimlock and the shot changes, Dinobots are standing almost right next to him.
*Optimus somehow has enough strength to not only maintain his ground, but propel Grimlock through the air during his charge. Considering Grimlock's strength, velocity and weight, it is highly unlikely Optimus would win.
*Immediately after he transforms into his triceratops mode, Slug is shown to have a very visible Autobot logo on his dino-mode forehead, yet he just met Optimus and the other Autobots moments before.
*One of the air conditioning units kicked off the building exterior by Savoy falls away to reveal ... a solid wall, with no connection to an apartment's interior.
*During Hound's stand in Hong Kong, the pickup truck he uses as a shield sways left to right whilst his arm remains still.
*When Hound pulls out a large knife and stabs a KSI Prototype through the head with it, green "blood" spews out of its face, which usually happens to the Decepticons when they're injured. But since the KSI Prototype isn't a real Decepticon or Transformer, it is impossible for it to have had any blood in the first place.
*The damage Hound receives after being shot down, most noticeably the pipe on his left shoulder, is fixed in subsequent shots.
*Crosshairs is seen driving alongside Drift and Hound through the bridge to take the Seed away from the city ... right after we just saw him staying behind to hold the line with the Dinobots.
*During the final fight, Bumblebee decides to just leave midway. Considering the distance between the factory and the dock where they met, he must have left long before Optimus flew there.
*After Optimus takes off, the other Autobots are absent from the shot of the main cast watching Optimus fly off.

===Geographic discontinuities===
*When Cade tries to use his card at an ATM, not only is the card issued from a Chinese bank, which wouldn't have any branches in north Texas, where the Yeagers live, the text on the ATM screen (behind the ''Access Denied'' warning) is in Chinese.
*Despite being from north Texas, Cade and Tessa have no Texas accents- not all Texans have noticeable accents of course, but Cade can be heard speaking with a slight ''Boston'' accent in the trainyard ("I'm doing stuff out of my league here!"), which is likely due to his portrayer, Mark Wahlberg, being a Boston native.
*Despite the KSI pursuit scene taking place on a two lane highway, there are several scenes spliced in of the Transformers with supercar alt modes (like Stinger and Crosshairs) driving on what is obviously a racecourse (specifically the GM proving grounds in Milford, Michigan). This is apparent by the horizontal incline of the road in some of the shots that are also missing the markings that would normally be on a road, and a reaction shot for Stinger that shows a straight, one lane ninety degree turn.
*The entirety of the KSI pursuit scene switches between taking place between the left and right sides of the two-lane highway, despite being only supposed to take place on the right side. Furthermore, the shot showing stray missiles colliding with oncoming traffic takes place on a completely different highway, one with five lanes instead of three and a wooden fence on the side of the street as opposed to a guardrail. Moreover; the car crashing stunt for the bridge jump scene starts on the five lane highway, continues on the left side of the three lane highway, and then finishes on the ''right side'' of the three lane highway. Trouble finding shots, eh?
*All of the vehicles seen in Hong Kong are left-hand drive, rather than the right-hand drive you'd expect in a location that drives on the left.
*Some scenes supposed to take place in Hong Kong depict a very distinctively American city with traffic lights suspended by wires above the street.
*Chicago's Willis Tower can be seen in the background of Hong Kong.
*The bridge out of the city shown in the film (Tsing Ma Bridge) is at least a half-hour drive from the battlefield in Central.
*Furthermore, despite Optimus's comment, there are no bridges connecting Hong Kong Island (where all the action allegedly takes place) to the mainland. The only way to get off Hong Kong Island (other than by boat or swimming) is via one of three tunnels, none of which are used, referenced or mentioned in the film.
*Speaking of bridges, Tsing Ma Bridge (the gray version of the Golden Gate Bridge) shown in the movie is effectively a dead end unless one is going to the airport or Disneyland, because it only leads to/from Lantau Island.
*The bridge where Grimlock "digs in" is an expressway bypass. Geographically defending it is pointless as there are multiple other routes (including at least one that is faster) to bypass the bridge and tunnel yet end up at the same place on the other side.
*In one of the fight scenes there is an overhead railway (the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_People_Mover Detroit People Mover]). There are no overhead railways on Hong Kong Island (yet) and the MTR (the subway train network) trains look nothing like the train used in the scenes, as they are a completely different shape and color.
*There are no "glass houses" on Hong Kong Island.
*There are no Chinese temple ruins on Hong Kong Island. The temples there are all intact and frequently used or preserved and don't have giant metal umbrellas ''at all''.
*The area where Optimus battles and "tames" Grimlock is in the Wushan Valley in Northern China which is over 1100 km from Hong Kong, yet is depicted as being in Pok Fu Lam on the South Western side of Hong Kong Island (which is a high rise residential area). Even flying it would take well over 2 hours to get from Wushan Valley to Hong Kong.
*It's not possible to drive a car from Beijing into Hong Kong, as the number plates would be invalid, and it would take over a day to drive that distance. Chinese vehicles coming into Hong Kong have to be from the Canton area (number plates are black) and have to be registered with Hong Kong plates, which means they must display both plates at all times one above the other. (In addition, the process to obtain permission for a car to have that is also lengthy and costly.)
*The blue SUV used by Cade and his companions is not a type of vehicle that exists in Hong Kong. In addition, its steering wheel is located on the left side, even though cars in Hong Kong have their steering wheels on the right side.
*Optimus Prime's Western Star alternate mode would be illegal to drive on Hong Kong roads, since it's is oversized. The Freightliner truck used for Galvatron is the maximum size/gauge allowed on Hong Kong roads. All scenes with Optimus driving in truck mode were filmed elsewhere, the Western Star truck was never brought to Hong Kong. Even his previous Peterbilt alternate mode would be illegal in Hong Kong.
*The area depicted as the final battle scene where Optimus and Lockdown face off was digitally added on the map of Hong Kong shown in the movie. It doesn't exist at all in real life, where it's actually a breakwater/typhoon shelter full of boats on Victora Harbour. In addition, the factories in Hong Kong (which are all located on Kowloon, because Hong Kong Island is purely a residential/business/shopping district) look nothing like the buildings used in the scene.

===[[Dinobot Island, Part 1|Paleontology weeps]]===
*The cyberformed remains of a ''Tyrannosaurus'' and a ''Spinosaurus'' appear frozen together in the arctic at the beginning of the film, which is rather odd considering the two are found on different continents (North America and Africa respectively) and separated by around 35 million years of evolution.
[[File:ExtinctionOfTheDinosaurus.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|And another thing! How is that sauropod running!?!]]
*The opening scene of the movie shows a ''Psittaccosaurus'' (100-120 million years old), a generic hadrosaur that might be either an ''Edmontosaurus'' or a ''Shantungosaurus'' (65-70 million years old), and a brachiosaurid (100-157 million years old) all present during what is implied to be the K-Pg extinction event (64.5-65 million years old).
*The ''Psittaccosaurus'', a well known herbivorous animal, is seen actively hunting and killing live prey. In a nod to paleontological accuracy, however, it is depicted with a row of quill-like feathers along its back, as many ceratopsian dinosaurs are believed to have had.
*The Dinobots show various exaggerations and ornamentations which go beyond the usual suspension of disbelief involved in... [[Dinobot (disambiguation)|giant metal dinosaurs]]. Grimlock sports curved, backwards pointing horns and enormous fangs. Slug has huge tail spikes and a set of nasty chin horns, though his tail spikes could be a mechanised representation of the bristle-like fibres that triceratops currently is thought to have had. Strafe is the biggest offender, with a pair of elongated tails and twin heads with teeth and incorrectly-shaped crests and grasping talons. Scorn probably gets off the easiest, being ''mostly'' correct, bar his extra spines. It's not his fault that a few months after the release of the movie, the morphology of ''Spinosaurus'' was completely revised, with a different spine shape and shorter legs.
* The Dinobots' alternate modes are orders of magnitude larger than the real dinosaurs on which they're based. In an interesting twist, using Optimus as a proxy for the average human, all the Dinobots bar Strafe have been accurately scaled up. At 850 tonnes <ref name="Grimlock stats">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/entertainment-weekly-reveals-new-details-on-transformers-4-age-of-extinction-new-grimlock-image-179675] summarised on TFW2005.</ref> Grimlock is as large compared to Optimus as a real ''Tyrannosaurus'' would be next to a human.

==Transformers references==

* As usual, many of the new characters have roots in older portions of the mythos:
** [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] is based on [[Drift (G1)|a Generation 1 character]] introduced in IDW's 2008 ''[[The Transformers: All Hail Megatron|All Hail Megatron]]'' series.
** Lockdown is derived from [[Lockdown (Animated)|a character in the 2008 ''Animated'' cartoon]] who had already jumped over to the G1 comics and, in toy form, to the movie universe.
** [[Hound (disambiguation)|Hound]] and [[Crosshairs (disambiguation)|Crosshairs]] both share names with previous characters; their personalities are new and unique, though Hound seems based on [[Bulkhead (Prime)|''Prime'' Bulkhead]] in physique, coloration and personality.
** Galvatron being a new form for Megatron has been a thing for [[Galvatron (disambiguation)|basically forever]]. With Joyce's intentions of creating him as a counterpart to Optimus Prime, he also takes cues from [[Nemesis Prime (disambiguation)|Nemesis Prime]]; in particular the human-controlled ''[[Transformers: Prime (cartoon)|Prime]]'' [[Nemesis Prime (Prime)|character]].
** The Dinobots are the latest iteration of [[Dinobot (G1)|the powerhouse subfaction]] that first appeared in the early days of Generation 1. Their leader Grimlock is a direct analog of [[Grimlock (G1)|his Generation 1 counterpart]]; Strafe and Slug are based on Generation 1 [[Swoop (G1)|Swoop]] and [[Slag (G1)|Slag]], respectively.
* In the film's opening act, Optimus has adopted a cabover truck alternate mode akin to that of his [[Optimus Prime (G1)|G1 counterpart]]. His robot mode also draws some inspiration from his G1 design, such as the large grill on his chest.
* This is not the first time that Ratchet and Lockdown have faced off. ''Animated'' [[Ratchet (Animated)|Ratchet]] and [[Lockdown (Animated)|Lockdown]] had [[The Thrill of the Hunt|a long-running feud]]. Within the movie universe, the two characters have been described as rivals on ''[[Hunt for the Decepticons]]'' toy [[packaging]] [[bio]]s, and faced off in ''[[Cyber Missions 3]]''.
* The concept of the Transformers being built by another race first appeared in the third season of [[The Transformers (cartoon)|the original ''Transformers'' cartoon]].
* Meanwhile, the concept of humans hunting down all Transformers on Earth following a successful but devastating massive battle hearkens back to plotlines from IDW's [[The Transformers (IDW)|2009-2011 ongoing series]].
* The (rather obvious) theme of humans (particularly evil government agencies) using captured Transformers as a source of technology has appeared numerous times in the mythos, going all the way back to the [[Rapid Anti-robot Assault Team|RAAT]] agency in the original Marvel Comics. [[Transformers Animated (cartoon)|The ''Animated'' cartoon]] in particular featured the severed head of [[Megatron (Animated)|Megatron]] being studied and reverse-engineered, while in IDW's ongoing G1 stories, [[Sunstreaker (G1)|a Transformer's severed head]] was used to help design man-made Transformers (in [[The Transformers: Maximum Dinobots|a Dinobot-focused series at that]].) More broad uses of the concept include the Dreamwave ''[[Prime Directive]]'' mini-series, Devils Due's ''[[G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers: The Art of War|Art of War]]'' mini-series (''again'' featuring the severed head of [[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]]), the [[The Transformers (IDW)|IDW ongoing series]], [[All or Nothing!|Cobra's actions in the G2 comics]], [[MECH]] from the [[Transformers: Prime (cartoon)|''Prime'' cartoon]], and even in the movie universe itself, in IDW's ''[[Transformers: Alliance|Alliance]]'' mini-series that served as a prequel to the ''Revenge of the Fallen'' film. The idea of the (seemingly) human-controlled Transformers eventually proving to be uncontrollable was also pioneered by some of these stories, most notably Dreamwave's aforementioned ''Prime Directive'' mini.
* A device that can "[[eco-structuring|cyberform]]" other planets previously appeared in several places in the mythos, including in the original ''Transformers'' cartoon's [[Key to Vector Sigma (disambiguation)|Key to Vector Sigma]] two-parter and the aforementioned Dreamwave ''Prime Directive'' mini. In both cases, it was actually activated, unlike its movie counterpart.
* The idea of aliens and/or alien technology being found frozen in the arctic or Antarctic ice is a very common trope in fiction; in terms of Transformers, the first use of the trope was [[Jetfire (G1)|Skyfire]] in the original cartoon's [[Fire in the Sky]]. A discovery specifically at the hands of ''humans'' was a plot point in the aforementioned Dreamwave ''Prime Directive'' mini, not to mention [[Transformers (film)|the discovery of]] [[Megatron (Movie)|N.B.E. 01]]. Or the [[Scraplet]]s.
* The ringtone on Gill Wembley's cell phone is a remixed version of the original G1 Transformers [[theme song]].
* As he hunts for Ratchet, Lockdown's head-up display shows characters in [[Cybertronian language|Ancient Autobot]], an alphabet originating in the Generation 1 episode "[[Cosmic Rust (episode)|Cosmic Rust]]".
* In the scene where Optimus scans a passing truck, the classic [[Transformation#The noise|transformation noise]] plays when the Autobot symbol emerges from his grill.
*During the Texas chase scene, Shane, Cade, and Tessa drive past a navy-blue Pontiac Solstice with a white stripe down the middle. The Pontiac Solstice was Jazz's alternate mode in the first film. Also, the car is a reversal of Jazz's 1980's color scheme, which was white with a navy blue stripe down the middle. Since the Pontiac Solstice was not being produced at the time of the movie's production, the car's presence is definitely a reference, although the color scheme might just be a coincidence.
*The scene where Galvatron goes active and breaks free in KSI's Chinese facility mirrors the scene in the 2007 ''Transformers'' movie when Megatron breaks free inside [[Sector Seven]]'s facility, down to a reuse of the line "I am Megatron", only with the name changed to "Galvatron".

==Real-life references==
[[File:Rainbow Dash Age of Extinction.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|"I found the magic!"]]

*Among the objects KSI makes from Transformium in the film is a Rainbow Dash doll from [[My Little Pony|another popular Hasbro brand]].
*This marks the second time a Michael Bay film has begun with the extinction of the dinosaurs, the first being ''[[Armageddon]]''.

==Other editions==

==Prequel material==
*''[[Transformers (Titan Magazine)|Transformers: Age of Extinction]]'' magazine ([[Titan Books|Titan Comics]])

==Adaptations==
Unusually, no novel or comic adaptations of the film were released. The ''[[Transformers Annual 2015]]'' contained an extremely cut down prose summary of events.

==Music==
==Score==
{{main|Age of Extinction: The Score}}

==Home video releases==
{{main|Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)/home video}}

==Theatrical posters==
<center><gallery>
File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionTeaserPoster.jpg|First teaser poster
File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionOptimusPrimePoster.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction poster-IMAX.jpg|IMAX poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Cade poster.jpg|Cade Yeager poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Shane poster.jpg|Shane Dyson poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Tessa poster.jpg|Tessa Yeager poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Su poster.jpg|Su Yueming poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Lockdown poster.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Rules Have Changed.jpg|It's a scene not in the movie!
File:Transformers Age of Extinction This Is Not War.jpg|This is not human extinction, it's just war.
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Stand Together1.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Stand Together2.jpg|"Now look down. Now look at me. I'm on a dinosaur."
</gallery></center>

==Reception==

{{quote|"The few authentic inspirations to be found in the movie's hundred and sixty-five roiling minutes involve gigantic science-fiction contrivances."|[http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/film/transformers_age_of_extinction_bay The New Yorker's Richard Brody on Transformers 4: Age of Extinction], Richard Brody|[http://newyorker.com newyorker.com] [[2014]]}}

''Transformers: Age of Extinction'' was critically panned, and nearly universally condemned on the American front, receiving a rating of 18% positive critical reviews on RottenTomatoes.com, one percent lower than the final score for ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]]''. Common criticisms leveled against it included its relatively long run time of 2 hours and 45 minutes, the disproportionately small amount of screen time the Dinobots got in relation to their relatively large exposure in promotional materials for the film, an over-reliance on product placement, and the decision to set the final act in Hong Kong, which was perceived as a choice solely done to pander towards the Chinese audience for the film. However, the film received praise for its visual effects, action sequences, and the performances of some of the human actors, mainly Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, and Kelsey Grammer.<ref>http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_age_of_extinction/</ref> Despite any criticisms, the film was the worldwide top-grossing film for 2014, earning over a billion dollars.<ref>[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?view2=worldwide&yr=2014 Box Office Mojo's 2014 Worldwide Grosses]</ref>

It [[wikipedia:35th_Golden_Raspberry_Awards|won one Golden Raspberry Award]] for Worst Director ([[Michael Bay]]), was one of four movies contributing to [[Kelsey Grammer]]'s Worst Supporting Actor win (along with ''{{w|The Expendables 3}}'', ''{{w|Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return}}'' and ''{{w|Think Like a Man Too}}''), and was unsuccessfully nominated for Worst Picture; Worst Supporting Actress ([[Nicola Peltz]] as [[Tessa Yeager]]); Worst Screen Combo ("Any two robots, actors (or robotic actors)"); Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel; and Worst Screenplay ("screenplay by [[Ehren Kruger]], based on Hasbro's Transformers action figures").

==Production staff==
''Age of Extinction'' was written by [[Ehren Kruger]], who also wrote ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'' and helped write ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]]''.
===Visual effects===
===Locations department===

==Development details==
===Cast and crew signing on===
On June 26, 2011, thirteen days before the official theatrical release of ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'', actor [[Tyrese Gibson]] gave an interview to Movieweb, in which he claimed that [[Michael Bay]] would not return for a fourth ''Transformers'' installment; instead, executive producer [[Steven Spielberg]] himself was allegedly interested in directing a sequel.<ref name="tyresemovieweb">[http://movieweb.com/exclusive-steven-spielberg-may-direct-transformers-4/ Movieweb interview with Tyrese Gibson], with several names missing from the text; the full excerpt in question is quoted [http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/rumor-transformers-4-directed-by-steven-spielberg-172501/ here] on TFW2005.</ref> Ten days later, on June 26, 2011, still three days before the official theatrical release of ''Dark of the Moon'', Michael Bay posted praise for actor [[Shia LaBeouf]] on his official forums, while at the same time expressing regret for leaving the ''Transformers'' franchise.<ref name="bayshialeaving">[http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?9502-Love-Shia-as-an-Actor Michael Bay's praise for Shia LaBeouf]] at the official Michael Bay forums.</ref> Another two days later, on June 28, 2011, LaBeouf confirmed that ''Dark of the Moon'' would definitely be his last ''Transformers'' film, as he didn't think there was "anywhere to take" his character of [[Sam Witwicky (Movie)|Sam Witwicky]].<ref name="endshia">[http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/06/28/transformers-dark-of-the-moon-shia-labeouf/ "'Transformers: Dark Of The Moon' Is The End For Shia LaBeouf"], MTV Movies Blog.</ref>

Eight months later, on February 13, 2012, producer [[Lorenzo di Bonaventura]] gave an interview during [[Toy Fair 2012]], in which he confirmed that a fourth film was scheduled for a release in the Summer of 2014, Michael Bay would direct it after all, and that the movie would be a "reboot". He promptly clarified that it was actually a "hybrid", an "evolution" of the franchise that would be in continuity with the previous films, citing 2012's ''[[Wikipedia:The Amazing Spider-Man (2012 film)|The Amazing Spider-Man]]'' reboot of the ''[[Spider-Man]]'' film franchise as an example of what people should ''not'' expect from a fourth ''Transformers'' film. Di Bonaventura also confirmed that no casting discussions had taken place yet at that point, since there was no set story yet. However, there would be "a lot of new cast", and it was still uncertain at that point whether any of the previous cast members would return. The only characters that would "certainly" return wold be [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] and [[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]].<ref name="lorenzointerview">["http://www.mtv.com/videos/movies/733426/a-new-transformers-to-hit-theaters-in-summer-2014.jhtml "a new 'transformers' to hit theaters in summer 2014"], interview with Lorenzo Di Bonaventura at MTV.com.</ref> A day later, on February 14, 2012, Bay himself and [[Paramount Pictures]] officially announced that Bay had indeed signed a deal to make a fourth ''Transformers'' film. The film's release date was stated alternatively as either June 27 or June 29, 2014.<ref name="bayfourthfilm1">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/transformers-4-release-date-revealed-174395/ "Transformers 4 Release Date Revealed"] at TFW2005.</ref><ref name="bayfourthfilm">[http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-17028248 "Transformers director Michael Bay signs for fourth film"], BBC.co.uk.</ref> That same day, Bay also confirmed that he and Spielberg were working on a "whole new re imagining{{sic}} of ''Transformers''".<ref name="reimagining">[http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?10284-Transformers-4 Michael Bay confirming that ''Transformers 4'' would be a "reimaginging"] at the official Michael Bay forums.</ref> Two days later, on February 16, 2012, actor [[Josh Duhamel]] expressed his doubts that he, Shia LaBeouf, [[Rosie Huntington-Whiteley]] or Tyrese Gibson would return for the fourth installment.<ref name="noshiarosie">[http://eonline.com/news/294791/josh-duhamel-not-coming-back-for-transformers-4-is-anyone "Josh Duhamel Not Coming Back for Transformers 4: Is Anyone?!"] at E! Online.</ref>

Four months later, on June 6, 2012, Michael Bay confirmed in an interview centered around ''[[Transformers: The Ride – 3D|Transformers: The Ride]]'' that the fourth film would feature "some redesigns of the robots and an entirely new cast", and that it would be the last ''Transformers'' film he would direct.<ref name="ride">[http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/transformers-the-ride-3d-even-impresses-disney-rivals/ "‘Transformers’ taking new shape with Universal ride and fourth film"], LA Times Hero Complex.</ref> A few weeks later, on June 21, 2012, Bay confirmed that the fourth film would feature "different human actors", but the film would not be strictly a "reboot", but rather take the story "in a new direction". While hinting that the story might venture into space for "a little bit", he still wanted to keep it "grounded".<ref name="starsspace">[http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/transformers-4-michael-bay-purges-stars-may-go-into-space/ "‘Transformers 4’: Michael Bay purges stars, may go into space"], LA Times Hero Complex.</ref>

[[File:TF4 Chinese Reality Show contestants.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|If ''Age of Extinction'' teaches us anything, it's that more movies should be cast using reality shows.]]On September 21, 2012, Michael Bay confirmed the first "cast" member for the film in the broadest sense, namely the fact that voice actor [[Peter Cullen]] would be kept on as [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]. He also confirmed that the film would ''not'' be a reboot, but would pick up the story from where ''Dark of the Moon'' had left off in [[Chicago]].<ref name="cullen">[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/michael-bay-transformers-4-pain-and-gain_n_1903523.html "Michael Bay, 'Transformers 4' Director, On The Struggles Of 'Pain & Gain'"], Huffington Post interview.</ref> One and a half months later, on November 8, 2012, Bay confirmed [[Mark Wahlberg]] as the first human cast member<ref name="wahlberg">[http://michaelbay.com/2012/11/08/michael-bay-re-teams-with-his-pain-gain-star-mark-wahlberg-for-transformers-4/ "Michael Bay Re-Teams With His 'Pain & Gain' Star Mark Wahlberg for Transformers 4"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref>, after having referred to such claims as "just a rumor" a mere month earlier.<ref name="baynowahlberg">[http://michaelbay.com/2012/10/23/transformers-4-casting-rumor/ "Transformers 4 Casting Rumor"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref> On December 15, 2012, Wahlberg himself confirmed that filming would commence in May 2013.<ref name="wahlbergmay">[http://collider.com/ted-2-sequel-mark-wahlberg-transformers-4/218011/ "Mark Wahlberg Talks TED 2, TRANSFORMERS 4, and PAIN AND GAIN; Says TF Starts Shooting in May Followed By TED Sequel"], interview with Collider.com.</ref> Another month later, on January 8, 2013, Irish American actor [[Jack Reynor]] was confirmed as the second human cast member.<ref name="reynor">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jack-reynor-lands-starring-role-409850 "Jack Reynor Lands Starring Role in 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter.</ref> [[Nicola Peltz]] was confirmed on March 26, 2013<ref name="welcomepeltz">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/03/26/welcome-nicola-peltz-to-transformers-4/ "Welcome Nicola Peltz to Transformers 4"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref>, followed by [[Stanley Tucci]] (confirmed to be an antagonist) on April 16, 2013.<ref name="tucci">[http://www.comingsoon.net/news/cinemaconnews.php?id=103034 "CinemaCon: Stanley Tucci Joins Transformers 4"]</ref>, [[Kelsey Grammer]] as a lead (human) villain named "Harold Attinger" on May 1, 2013<ref name="grammerattinger">[http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/kelsey-grammer-lands-lead-human-villain-in-transformers-sequel/ "Kelsey Grammer Lands Lead (Human) Villain In ‘Transformers’ Sequel"] at Deadline.com.</ref>, [[Sophia Myles]] as a scientist on May 6, 2013<ref name="mylesscientist">[http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/sophia-myles-join-mark-wahlberg-michael-bays-transformers-4-exclusive-89661 "Sophia Myles to Join Mark Wahlberg in Michael Bay's 'Transformers 4' (Exclusive)"] at TheWrap.com.</ref>, Chinese actress [[Li Bingbing]] in an at that point still unspecified role on May 20, 2013<ref name="bingbing">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chinas-li-bingbing-boards-transformers-525370 "China's Li Bingbing Boards 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter</ref>, and actor-comedian [[T. J. Miller]] as a mechanic and best friend to Wahlberg's character on May 28, 2013.<ref name="miller">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/tj-miller-joins-transformers-4-559359 "T.J. Miller Joins 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter.</ref> [[Titus Welliver]] wasn't officially confirmed until July 25, 2013, after he had been spotted on set in Texas.<ref name="welliver">[http://www.deadline.com/2013/07/transformers-4-adds-titus-welliver/ "‘Transformers 4′ Adds Titus Welliver"], Deadline.com.</ref> In the lead-up to the release of the movie, Welliver would stir up a minor controversy with an interview in which he stated that the film would be darker and "not a kid's movie". Following a storm of online discussion regarding this statement, he issued a new statement to the effect that ''Age of Extinction'' is in fact a kid's movie, and he meant to say it would expand the audience.<ref name="nerdist">[https://www.nerdist.com/2014/02/titus-welliver-talks-about-transformers-4-and-clark-greggs-s-h-i-e-l-d-comments/ Titus Welliver Talks About TRANSFORMERS 4 and Clark Gregg’s S.H.I.E.L.D. Comments], Nerdist.com.</ref>

A rather unusual addition to the cast were [[Byron Li]], [[Candice Zhao]], [[Austin Lin]] and [[Teresa Daley]], which won their part through participating in the ''[[Transformers 4 Chinese Actors Talent Search Reality Show]]'' on August 25, 2013.<ref name="reality">[http://beijing.china.org.cn/2013-08/28/content_29845758.htm "'Transformers 4' recruits 4 Chinese actors"], China.org.cn.</ref>

The remaining robot voice cast (barring Optimus Prime) wasn't officially revealed until May 8, 2014.<ref name="voicecast">[http://michaelbay.com/2014/05/08/john-goodman-and-ken-watanabe-join-the-autobot-voice-cast-in-michael-bays-transformers-age-of-extinction/ "John Goodman And Ken Watanabe Join The Autobot Voice Cast in Michael Bay’s ‘Transformers: Age Of Extinction’"] at the official Michael Bay website.</ref>

===Writing and production===
On March 20, 2013, the Michigan Film Office announced that the fourth film would return to [[Detroit]].<ref name="michigan">[http://www.michiganfilmoffice.org/The-Film-Office/Press-Releases/Detail.aspx?id=11620 "Transformers Returning to Michigan, Approved for Film Incentive" at the Michigan Film Office website.]</ref> Principal photography began on May 28, 2013, at [[Wikipedia:Monument Valley|Monument Valley]].<ref name="monument">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/05/28/transformers-4-starts-filming-in-monument-valley-navajo-tribal-park/ "Transformers 4 Starts Filming in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref> Other shooting locations were the small towns of Lockhart, Taylor, Elgin and Pflugerville in Texas.<ref name="texas">[http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/movies/headlines/20130426-fourth-transformers-film-to-shoot-in-texas.ece "Fourth ‘Transformers’ film to shoot in Texas"] at Dallas Morning News.</ref> Shooting in Michigan involved two historic passenger steamboats, the ''[[Wikipedia:SS_Columbia|SS Columbia]]'' and her sister ship, the ''[[Wikipedia:Ste. Claire (passenger steamboat)|SS Ste. Claire]]'', which were docked in [[Wikipedia:River Rouge, Michigan|River Rouge]] awaiting restoration at the time being used as props.<ref name="boblo">[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/story/2013/07/26/wdr-boblo-boats-transformers-four.html "Historic Boblo boats land role in Transformers 4"], CBC News.</ref> While shooting in Detroit, Mark Wahlberg's children visited the set and were given small parts in the movie upon their father's request.<ref name="wahlkids">[http://comicbook.com/blog/2013/07/30/mark-wahlbergs-kids-cast-in-transformers-4/ "Mark Wahlberg's Kids Cast In Transformers 4"], Comicbook.com.</ref>

[[File:AOE Michael Bay Nicola Peltz on set.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Michael Bay uses his legendary charm to get the very best performance out of his actors.]]
Due to an increased focus of Hollywood studios trying to market its movies to the Chinese audience, parts of the movie were not only set in China, but actually filmed there. One of the shooting sites was Hong Kong. While there, the movie crew encountered the risks of shooting a movie in China firsthand when director Michael Bay was assaulted on the set by two locals demanding money; according to some sources, they were store owners that were not satisfied with the compensation they received for the inconvenience of having a movie filming nearby. Bay received minor injuries, but played the incident off on his blog. Both he and an official Paramount statement suggested that the assailants were under the influence of drugs.<ref name="attack1">[http://deadline.com/2013/10/hong-kong-police-called-to-transformers-4-set-amid-alleged-extortion-attempt-report-613912/ "Extortion Attempt On ‘Transformers 4′ Set; Michael Bay Suffers Minor Injury: Report"], Deadline.com.</ref><ref name="attack2">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-bay-attacked-transformers-4-649183 "Michael Bay Attacked on 'Transformers 4' Set in Hong Kong"], Hollywood Reporter.</ref><ref name="attack3">[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-24566287 "Transformers director Michael Bay attacked in Hong Kong"], BBC.</ref name="attack4">[http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/michael-bay-attacked-on-transformers-hong-kong-film-shoot-1.2100953 "Michael Bay attacked on Transformers Hong Kong film shoot"], CBC News.</ref><ref name="attack5">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/10/17/hong-kong-incident/ "Hong Kong Incident"] on Michael Bay's official Blog.</ref> A second extortion attempt occured several days later, this time allegedly by several triad gang members. Although one of them was later arrested, no-one was injured this time around.<ref name="extortion2">[http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-bay-transformers-4hong-kong-second-extortion-incident-2013-10?IR=T "More Trouble For 'Transformers 4' In Hong Kong As Second Extortion Attempt Reported"], Business Insider.</ref><ref name="extortion3">[http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/25/world/asia/hong-kong-transformers-triad-extortion/ "Transformers versus the triads of Hong Kong: the sequel"], CNN.</ref> Once again, Bay played down the extortion attempts in an interview, noting that most of the locals were apologetic over what took place, and that he wanted to film more projects in Hong Kong.<ref name="eager">[http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1342084/hollywood-director-michael-bay-eager-shoot-hong-kong-again "Hollywood director Michael Bay eager to shoot in Hong Kong again"], ''South China Morning Post'']</ref>

[[File:AOEOptimusRidingGrimlock.jpg|thumb|upright=1.9|left|"Get me closer! I want to hit them with my sword!"]]Late script changes resulted in Bay and his crew returning to the Chinese city of [[Wikipedia:Chongqing|Chongqing]] for a week reshooting a scene in January of 2014.<ref name="reshoot">[http://www.ecns.cn/2014/01-23/98337.shtml "'Transformers 4' back to China for additional shots"], China News Service (Ecns.cn).</ref>

Some of [[Industrial Light & Magic|ILM]]'s post-production effects were done at a newly opened Lucasfilm facility in Singapore.<ref name="ilmsg">[http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/lifestyle/story/lucasfilm-singapore-work-new-avengers-and-transformers-movies-20140116 "Lucasfilm Singapore to work on new Avengers and Transformers movies"], The Straits Times.</ref>

{{--}}

=== Sponsors and partners ===
==== General Motors and other car manufacturers ====
[[File:AOE Optimus Prime truck.jpg|thumb|upright=1.34|When having one's midlife crisis, it's not unusual to get a souped-up alternate mode.]]
''Age of Extinction'' continues the collaboration with General Motors. Earlier in the film, Bumblebee chooses a customized 1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS as his disguise when hiding from [[Cemetery Wind]], whereas later on, he upgrades to the newest model, a 2014 Camaro concept car. (The production crew was actually accused of ripping off a one-of-a-kind custom for the 1967 version.<ref name="1967custom">[http://jalopnik.com/did-transformers-4-rip-off-this-guys-design-for-the-ne-510655228 "Did Transformers 4 Rip Off This Guy's Design For The New Bumblebee?"] at Jalopnik.com.</ref>) Furthermore, new addition [[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]]'s alternate mode is a 2014 Chevrolet C7 Corvette Stingray, and recurring character Ratchet briefly appears at the beginning of the movie and transforms into his Hummer H2 ambulance mode (in the color scheme from ''Dark of the Moon'') before being killed at the hands of Cemetery Wind and [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]].

''Age of Extinction'' is the first movie to feature an official partnership with a manufacturer for [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]'s alternate mode. Earlier in the movie, he transforms into an old, rusty Marmon 97 truck cab (presumably without support from the manufacturer), but later upgrades into a brand new Western Star "5700 OP" concept truck that was designed specifically for the movie by "Twins Custom Coaches" and the team at West Coast Customs, with Western Star being a subsidiary of Daimler Trucks, who also provided a 2012 Freightliner Argosy that serves as [[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]]'s alternate mode.

Other manufacturers that provided vehicles to be used for characters' alternate modes were the Oshkosh Corporation with an Oshkosh Defense FMTV truck for [[Hound (Movie)|Hound]], the Volkswagen group with a 2013 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse for [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] and a Lamborghini Aventador for Lockdown, and independent Italian manufacturer Pagani Automobili with a Pagani Huayra for [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]].

=== Changes before, during and after production ===
* [[Slash (AOE)|Slash]] was originally intended to appear in the film (he even made it into some concept artwork).<ref name="burt">[http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/transformers-age-of-extinction-concept-art-from-wesley-burt/30723/ Age of Extiction concept art by Wesley Burt], mirrored at Seibertron.com.</ref>
* [[Glenn Morshower]] was originally set to return in this film, reprising his role of [[Morshower|General Morshower]], but didn't return due to a scheduling conflict.<ref>http://transformerslive.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/general-morshower-not-returning-to.html</ref>
* Both [[Josh Duhamel]] and [[Tyrese Gibson]] were intended to cameo reprising their roles as [[William Lennox]] and [[Robert Epps]] but were cut before filming started.<ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/tyrese-gibson-in-talks-for-transformers-4-176078/</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/tyrese-gibson-to-make-cameo-appearance-only-in-transformers-4-177407/</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/josh-duhamel-to-make-cameo-appearance-in-transformers-4-177026/</ref><ref>http://transformerslive.blogspot.com/2013/06/josh-duhamel-not-in-transformers-4.html</ref>
* Ed Welburn, [[General Motors]]' vice president for global design, was originally set to cameo as the C.I.A. head before being recast as a KSI employee.<ref>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/automobiles/ed-welburn-gets-a-part-in-transformers.html?_r=0</ref>
* A scene depicting Hound and Bumblebee dancing with Tessa (while Drift bobs his head in the background) was not present in the final cut of the film.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnxZ7Gg2yV4</ref>
* Scorn's toys lack the additional two sails he has in the film, suggesting it was a late design change.
*The Pagani Huayra that eventually ended up as [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]] was at one point intended as the alternate mode of a female robot with the working name "Widow Maker".<ref name="vitaly">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-9/age-of-extinction-concept-art-by-vitaly-bulgarov-180636/ Age of Extinction concept art by Vitaly Bulgarov] at TFW2005, including "Widow Maker".</ref><ref name="jung">[http://comicbook.com/blog/2014/07/20/transformers-age-of-extinction-concept-art-shows-off-epic-scope-/ Age of Extinction concept art by Steve Jung] at Comicbook.com, including "Widow Maker".</ref>
* Wahlberg's character was named "Flynn 'Ray' Vincent" rather than "Cade Yeager" in a casting call. The same casting call also revealed that actor [[Glenn Morshower]] was supposed to reprise his role as [[Morshower|General Morshower]] from the previous two films.<ref name="txcasting">[http://www.featurefilmauditions.com/2013/05/casting-for-transformers-4-actors-and.html "Transformers 4' open casting calls for actors and extras in Austin, TX and Detroit, MI"] at Film Auditions.</ref>
* A scene where Cade says "Stick behind me" is not present in the final cut of the film.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXSkXQs890g</ref>
* Another piece of dialogue cut from the film is when Cade says "You tell me" to Attinger when he asks for Optimus Prime.
* In some concept artwork, Grimlock appears as a horn-less T-Rex.
* The original running time of the film was 2 hours and 7 minutes, which would have made it the shortest film in the franchise. The final running time was 2 hours and 30 minutes <ref>http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/BatFreak/news/?a=77992</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/transformers-4-age-of-extinction-running-time-revealed-180165/</ref>
* [[Dwayne Johnson]] was originally offered the role of Cade Yeager, but due to his commitment to ''Hercules: The Thracian Wars'', the role was later taken over by his ''Pain & Gain'' co-star Mark Wahlberg.<ref>[https://twitter.com/TheRock/statuses/327892048978006016 Dwayne Johnson on Twitter]</ref>
*In some concept artwork, Drift was colored orange instead of blue. but according to the Generation 2 featurette in the Blu-ray release, this was changed because the vehicle that was going to play Drift was sold off.
*Some concept artwork shows that Optimus was intended to have his original trilogy body in the scenes where he had his new look.
*According to Ehren Kruger in the Generation 2 featurette, in the early drafts of the film, it was not originally centered on the Cade Yeager character.
*Numerous silver [[redeco]] toys were produced for Optimus Prime with the moniker of "Silver Knight", suggesting that he was originally supposed to take on this alternate appearance in the film itself, almost certainly upon drawing a sword from the Knights' armory. In the finished film, he does undergo some slight physical alteration at this point, his arms reconfiguring to resemble armor plates, but that's as far as it goes. This was also ''prrrrobably'' where he was supposed to get the rocket-boots he suddenly deploys at the film's end.

{{-}}

===Disinformation campaign===

Like ''Revenge of the Fallen'' and ''Dark of The Moon'' before it, ''Age of Extinction'' had a campaign that would mask details of the final film. However, unlike the previous films, this one was all encompassing; no novelization or comics by [[IDW Publishing]] was released, allowing for a great deal of the movie's spoilers to actually remain unknown longer than for the previous three films.

In the original Michigan Film Office press release published on March 20, 2013, several vague plot details were revealed, including the fact that Autobots and Decepticons had "[[Cemetery Wind|all but vanished from the face of the planet]]", a "[[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|group of [...] businessman and scientists]]" were developing new technologies based on past encounters with the Transformers, and an "[[Lockdown (ROTF)|ancient, powerful Transformer menace]]" was targeting Earth.<ref name="plotunveiled">[http://www.thewrap.com/node/82001/ "‘Transformers 4’ Plot Unveiled by Michigan Film Office"] at TheWrap.com.</ref>. These plot details were later claimed to be inaccurate by Paramount Pictures<ref name="notaccurate">[http://screenrant.com/transformers-4-movie-plot-synopsis-cast/ Unofficial "'Transformers 4' Plot Synopsis Is Not Accurate"] at Screenrant.com</ref>, but in all their vagueness ultimately turned out to be not too far off from the film's plot.

A lot of the newly-added characters were given "code names" during production, most of them related to the ''Rocky'' saga: "Duke" for Hound, "Adrian" for Galvatron, "Ivan" for Grimlock, "Rocky" for Slash (who was originally intended to appear in the movie, as noted above), "Southpaw" for Scorn, "Paulie" for Strafe, and "Thunderlips" for Slug. In addition, Crosshairs was code-named "Slingshot", Drift was code-named "Bruce", Lockdown was code-named "Max", and Steeljaw was code-named "Wolf" (which ''might'' have simply been a working name).<ref name="customer">[http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-news-rumors/961952-monzos-mega-hasbro-customer-service-listing-breakdown.html Hasbro customer service list]</ref>
{{stub}}

==Notes==
*Not only do the [[Dinobot (AOE)|Dinobots]] go unnamed in the film (other than [[Scorn (AOE)|Scorn]] getting the nickname, "Spike"), the word Dinobot is never even said by anyone. The audio description soundtrack on the home video releases refers to them as warriors or barbarians, but notes during the final scene that they "turn into Dinobots" (of course it also refers to Galvatron transforming "into an Autobot" when he turns into a robot, so make of that what you will).
*In addition to the Mercenary robots, [[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaws]], the ball-shaped drones, and [[Stupid Drone]]s, inside Lockdown's ship there were also several hovering drones. These drones appear to be of the same type as those the United States used in ''Dark of the Moon'' (the one that got sucked into the engine of Bumblebee's commandeered Decepticon fighter). Maybe Attinger sold them to Lockdown?
*Michael Bay's website incorrectly refers to the film as "Transformers 4 The Age Of Extinction"
* The deceased Autobots and Decepticons shown in the cards Attinger pulled early in the film includes: [[Ironhide (Movie)|Ironhide]], [[Wheeljack (Movie)|Que]], [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]], [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]], [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]] and [[Arcee (Movie)|Arcee]].
* This film seems to put a final nail in the coffin regarding the films' abandonment of the concept of using [[protoform]]s to travel through space; when the Autobots steal a ship from [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], they immediately move to leave Earth, indicating they had been stranded on Earth for the past five years without a spaceship (following the destruction of the ''[[Xantium (DOTM)|Xantium]]''). The fact that no mention is made of searching for any possible survivors of Cemetery Wind's hunt also suggests that all Autobots who did not return for this film have been killed off as well.
*The robot designs in this film are markedly different than the previous three; the robots have less alien appearances and are more heavily influenced by human forms.
*Speaking of the appearance of the Autobots - they all are based on specific types of human combatants throughout history: Optimus is obviously a medieval knight, Hound heavily resembles a World War II-era commando, Crosshairs looks like a mercenary or assassin, Bumblebee's new form is highly Ninja-like, and Drift is unsurprisingly a samurai.
*Director Michael Bay makes a cameo appearance in the film as a guy sitting in the passenger seat of a truck whose trailer Optimus Prime and Bumblebee crash through after being attacked by Galvatron and Stinger.<ref name="magiceffects">[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btn2tPxjisA "Behind the Magic: The Visual Effects of 'Transformers Age of Extinction'"] on the official ILMVisualFX Youtube channel.</ref>

===Foreign names===
*''Japanese:'' '''''Transformers: Lost Age''''' (トランスフォーマーロストエイジ ''Toransufōmā Rosuto Eiji'')<ref>[http://www.cinematoday.jp/page/N0056111 『トランスフォーマー』第4弾の邦題は『トランスフォーマーロストエイジ』に決定！最新ビジュアルも公開]</ref>
*''Russian:'' '''''Transformery: Epokha istrebleniya''''' (Трансформеры: Эпоха истребления ''Transformers: Age of Extermination'')
*''Argentina:'' '''''Transformers 4'''''
*''Cantonese:'' '''''Binying Gamgong: Chimmit Saigei''''' (變形金剛：殲滅世紀 "Transformers: The Century of Annihilation")
*''Mandarin:'' '''''Biàn-hsín Jīn-gāng Sz: Jiúe-jī Chúng-shēng''''' (Taiwan: 變型金剛4：絕跡重生, China: 变形金刚4：绝迹重生 "Transformers 4: Rebirth from the Extinction")
*''German:'' '''''Transformers: Ära des Untergangs''''' ("Transformers: Era of Doom")
*''Turkish:'' '''''Transformers: Kayıp Çağ''''' ("Transformers: Lost Age")

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

{{stub}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Age of Extinction (film)}}

[[Category:Age of Extinction| Age of Extinction (film)]]
[[Category:Real world films]]

Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)

2015-07-28T18:01:28Z

LordStarscream100:

{{Nav-aoe}}
[[File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionOptimusPrimePoster.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.67|An adventure 65 million years in the making.]]

'''''Transformers: Age of Extinction''''' is the fourth film in the [[live-action film series]]. It was released on [[June 27]], [[2014]].

Following the [[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Battle of Chicago]], humanity has come to fear both Autobots and Decepticons alike. With the aid of a Transformer mercenary named [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], a CIA [[Cemetery Wind|task-force]] operated by [[Harold Attinger]] begins hunting the remaining [[Transformer]]s on [[Earth]]. Hunted by enemies that were once his allies, [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] loses faith in humanity and sends his forces into hiding. Now, five years later, struggling inventor and single-father [[Cade Yeager]] discovers a damaged Transformer, placing both himself and his [[Tessa Yeager|daughter]] on a collision course with events that threaten the extinction of humankind itself.

{{bigquote|The trouble with loyalty to a cause is that the cause will ''always'' betray you.|[[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]]|''Transformers: Age of Extinction''}}

==Synopsis==

[[File:The Creators cyberforming Earth AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs."]]
65 million years ago, on Cretaceous [[Earth]], a ''Psittacosaurus'' is out hunting for food. The small dinosaur finds a fish and starts to feed, but stops as hundreds of alien ships enter Earth's atmosphere, piloted by the mysterious [[Creator (AOE)|"Creators"]]. The alien ships launch dozens of strange [[Seed]]s across the planet. As they detonate, they convert the landscape and the herds of panicking dinosaurs into a metallic substance, ending the Age of Dinosaurs. Millions of years later, while digging in the [[Arctic]], a team of geologists uncover a mysterious pair of metallized dinosaur skeletons - a discovery that attracts the attention of [[Darcy Tirrel]]...

Five years after the invasion of [[Chicago]], tensions between humans and Cybertronians have risen dramatically. Although the Autobots are officially granted asylum on Earth, public opinion has turned against all Transformers. The government of the United States has terminated all human-Autobot joint programs and instated [[Cemetery Wind]], an elite [[CIA]] unit intended to flush out the handful of [[Decepticon]]s left on Earth. What the President doesn't know is that [[Harold Attinger]], the leader of the operation, is slaughtering all Transformers, regardless of faction. On one such mission, the team pinpoints [[Ratchet (Movie)|Ratchet]] hiding within an abandoned boat. He immediately tries to flee, but is crippled and brought down by their weapons. The team leader, [[James Savoy]], mockingly asks why Ratchet ran if he's not their enemy, and Ratchet replays a transmission he received from [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]], ordering all Autobots to hide from humans. However, Savoy dismisses his pleas as his sister was killed in Chicago. A Transformer bounty hunter, [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], who has actually been helping Cemetery Wind hunt the Autobots, emerges from the nearby swamp and attacks Ratchet, further damaging him. Walking past his human allies, Lockdown demands to know [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]'s whereabouts. When Ratchet refuses, Lockdown brutally kills him by ripping out his spark.
[[File:AOE Ratchet dying.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction..."]]

In Texas, struggling inventor [[Cade Yeager]] and his friend/employee [[Lucas Flannery]] meet at an old theater, looking for salvage. He finds an old truck, and upon inspection it seems to be full of artillery shells. He buys the truck along with the other theater equipment and puts it in his garage.[[Tessa Yeager|Tessa]], Cade's daughter, observes this while video-chatting with her boyfriend and criticizes her dad for buying the heap of junk. While attempting to salvage the truck's engine to sell, Cade realizes it's actually a badly-damaged Transformer. After calling Lucas and Tessa, he connects jumper cables to its engine, only for it to begin replaying the distress call Ratchet had received earlier. Lucas and Tessa advocate calling the government, claiming that there is a huge reward for Transformers. Cade convinces them not to call the authorities until he can spend more time working on the truck, as he may be able to stumble on a technological breakthrough if he can figure out how the Transformers work. When Cade removes a live missile from the truck's "power core," it transforms into a heavily injured Optimus Prime, who roars at them to stay back while he swings his weapon around the barn. Cade, Lucas, and Tessa ask why Optimus is so badly damaged, to which he replies that the Autobots are being hunted and he must help them. Cade offers to repair him, and sends Lucas to buy the parts that will enable him to fix Optimus. Cade and Optimus begin to bond as the repairs begin.
[[File:AOE-injuredoptimus.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Should we chance moving him?"]]

In the Arctic, Attinger arrives via helicopter at [[Knight Ship|Lockdown's ship]] and demands to know why Optimus Prime escaped him in [[Mexico]]. Lockdown derisively tells Attinger that Optimus Prime would not have escaped were it not for Cemetery Wind's interference, stressing that he does not care about Attinger or his goals and wishes only to capture Optimus Prime.

Shortly after returning to [[Washington, D.C.]], Attinger receives a tip that Optimus Prime has been located in Texas and sends Savoy and Cemetery Wind to apprehend him. The agents swarm the barn, but there is no trace of Prime inside. When Savoy threatens Tessa to force Cade to tell him of Prime's whereabouts, the Autobot leader explodes out of the barn's basement in which he was hiding. He escapes after a brief skirmish that destroys the Yeager residence, with both Cemetery Wind and Lockdown in pursuit. As Cade catches one of Cemetery Wind's mini drones, a white rally car zooms over the adjacent fields and picks up the Yeagers and Lucas. The driver turns out to be [[Shane Dyson|Shane]], a rally car racer who is also Tessa's boyfriend. A group of Cemetery Wind vehicles begins chasing them.
[[File:Optimus shooting humans AOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"You think they'll have that on the tour?"]]

Both the rally car and Optimus Prime are chased into an abandoned factory, where Optimus Prime fights off Lockdown. Shane puts his driving skills to good use and pulls a series of tight maneuvers that result in the Cemetery Wind cars crashing, destroys his car in the process. Optimus Prime, who has caught Lockdown in a crane cable, transforms and tells the humans to pile into him and escape. Lockdown throws a grenade at the humans as they run towards Optimus Prime; though Shane and the Yeagers escape, Lucas is caught in the blast and killed.

Arriving at an abandoned gas station, Optimus orders the humans out and drives off to ensure that they have not been followed. Cade confronts Tessa and Shane about their relationship but Tessa gets angry at Cade for putting them all in danger. The next day, Optimus and the humans set off towards Monument Valley. Prime [[trans-scan|scans]] a passing truck, sheds his layer of rust and takes on a new form with his old paint scheme. They arrive in Monument Valley where they meet the other surviving Autobots in the form of [[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]], [[Hound (Movie)|Hound]], [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]], and their de facto leader [[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]]. Crosshairs and Hound start threatening the humans for having their species betray them but Optimus convinces them that they have risked their lives to save his. The Humans notice that there are clear tensions between the Autobots. Cade reveals footage of the attack on Ratchet and [[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot's]] demise using the stolen aerial drone and Prime declares that he will kill the one responsible for hunting down the Autobots.

[[File:Autobots unite monument valley AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Dr. Grant, my dear Dr. Sattler... Welcome to [[Jurassic Park]]." ]]

Inspection of the drone leads them to a company named [[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|KSI]], located in a rebuilt Chicago. It is run by [[Joshua Joyce]], who is working with [[Su Yueming]] and Attinger to create artificial Transformers to eventually be used in the military. Using the remains of [[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]], [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]], [[Starscream (Movie)|the]] [[Barricade (Movie)|countless]] [[Shockwave (Movie)|Decepticons]] from the Chicago battle and the hunted Autobots, they have synthesized the metal that the Transformers are made of, calling it [[Transformium]]. When given commands through a computer, Transformium can be changed into various shapes or objects. Although a drone called [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]] (designed after Bumblebee) is active, Joshua's major project is a bigger, stronger drone called [[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]]. However, his attempts have not been successful; the drone keeps resembling Megatron instead of the friendlier image of Optimus Prime. Bumblebee builds Cade and Shane faux-ID badges which the duo use to infiltrate KSI. Cade goes further in and projects imagery of Ratchet's severed head being melted down as well as the injured and enslaved [[Brains]], which sends Prime into a rage.

[[File:Joshua Joyce Transformium Experiment AOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"God help us, we're in the hands of engineers."]]

However, Cade is caught when his ID badge is found to have been scanned twice (by him and its original owner). He is taken to the upper floors and confronted by Attinger, who claims that what he has witnessed is in the name of world peace. He also asks him about the whereabouts of Optimus Prime but Cade maintains his silence.

Furious over how the humans have mutilated their comrades, Optimus orders an attack on KSI. Bumblebee, carried by Drift in copter mode, rescues Cade. The others trash the lab, free Brains, and confront Joshua, only for him to openly declare that what is being done is being done to prevent more Transformer-caused damage and that the humans "don't need" the Autobots. Disheartened, Prime orders a retreat.

As the Autobots exit the factory and leave, Attinger catches up with Joshua and claims that the Autobots are terrorists for attacking the facility. He coerces Joyce to use the two functional drones to take down the Autobots. Galvatron and Stinger activate and pursue their quarry across a highway, with Galvatron doing more damage than his KSI handlers intend. Bumblebee fires upon Galvatron but is surprised to see him simply disintegrate and reintegrate again. Galvatron attacks Prime. As they battle, Optimus declares that the artificial creation has no soul, to which it retorts "That is why I have no FEAR!"

[[File:AOEGalvatron.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Kids! You want to have one of those?"]]

As Tessa scrambles for cover in a nearby vehicle, Prime is suddenly shot from the back and falls-Lockdown has arrived, along with his ship! Lockdown gloats to his prisoner, claiming that Optimus was built, not born, and now the Creators want him returned in one piece. The bounty hunter orders a net dropped over Optimus and hoists both the Autobot leader and Tessa's hiding place into his ship. Cade desperately clings to the net, but his strength gives out and he falls to the fields below. As the spaceship departs, Cade and Shane vow to get Tessa back.

Lockdown throws Prime in a cage and orders his lackeys to dispose of Tessa. Prime takes note of several other aliens in similar cages, including [[Dinobot (AOE)|other Cybertronian warriors]]. He also discovers the original purpose of the mercenary ship: it was originally used by a group of legendary Knights (presumably including Prime himself) but now acts as Lockdown's flying prison. Lockdown's ship hovers over Chicago, triggering panic in the streets, but Attinger manages to talk down the authorities and send Savoy to rendezvous with Lockdown. As payment for Prime's capture, Lockdown gives him a Seed.

Cade, Shane, and the other Autobots get aboard the ship as it flies low over a bridge. While being pursued by Lockdown's henchmen, the two humans find a strange Knight armory, from which Cade takes a sword that opens up to form a gun. While Shane and Cade rescue Tessa, Crosshairs deploys the ship's mooring cables, which fire into the Willis Tower and preventing the ship from breaking atmosphere. The humans begin to clamber down the cables to safety, but they are pursued by a pack of [[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaw]]s. Bumblebee manages to save the trio. The other Autobots locate Optimus, who reveals that the section of the ship they are on can separate from the main body. Crosshairs uses a gunship to pick up Bumblebee and the humans, then leads them on a dogfight through Chicago's streets, destroying some of Lockdown's mercenaries.

[[File:Prime gets shotAOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"It could have been worse, John. A lot worse."]]

Back at KSI, it is decided that all equipment is to be moved to the Beijing facility to continue operations. Joshua is also none too pleased about the previous field test of Galvatron; not only was it a loss on several fronts, but the drone also ''spoke'', which was something it was ''not'' programmed to do!

The Autobots land their new ship at an abandoned train yard. Optimus claims that he sensed Megatron's presence during his fight with Galvatron. Brains explains Galvatron's true nature: while he decoded dead Transformer brains, he learned that Megatron's mind had survived and planned to transfer itself to Galvatron's body, explaining Galvatron's sinister appearance. The tiny bot further mentions how Galvatron used his knowledge to build Stinger and the other drones, with plans to make them into his personal army. As Tessa tells the group about the Seed she saw, Optimus and Hound explain that the Creators used Seeds to convert organic material into metal, then harvested the resulting Transformium for their own purposes. Cade makes a call to Joyce and relays the newfound data about Galvatron. Knowing that Joyce is also an inventor with a heart, he pleads with Joyce to shut down Galvatron before things escalate. Although Joyce puts up an unconvinced façade, he demands increased security around Galvatron after hanging up.

As police cars surround the train yard, the Autobots board their shuttle again and take to the air. Optimus says that though the Autobots will travel to Hong Kong and get the Seed back, they will leave Earth afterwards; they are done protecting humanity. Cade disagrees but Prime is non-responsive. They later debate the matter, with Cade attempting to reignite Prime's faith in humanity.

In deep space, Lockdown finally discovers the absence of the smaller ship. He grumbles about Optimus Prime taking his trophy case and how the Prime will feel his wrath while he reverses course. Joyce meets with Attinger and Savoy and receives the Seed. Joyce intends to detonate it in a region of the [[Gobi Desert]], which will generate enough Transformium to last a century. Attinger is eager to expedite production but grows incensed when Joshua disagrees and says that they should go slower, quite obviously moved by Cade's call. Meanwhile, Galvatron activates ''himself'' and starts to infect the legion of over fifty other KSI Transformers. When the alarm rings regarding Galvatron's escape, Joyce has Attinger and Savoy evacuated from the building and gets in a car with Yueming, an associate named Darcy, and the Seed. They decide to try and hide the Seed in [[Hong Kong]].

Being hunted by Attinger and Savoy, Joyce seeks refuge on a rooftop when the Autobot-piloted ship arrives and attempts to pick him and the Seed up. However, Galvatron and his drones ramy arrive and shoot down the airborne vessel, causing Bumblebee, Hound, and the Yeagers to spill out while the others (Prime, Crosshairs, Drift, and the captured Knights) to careen away into the Wulong Valley. Savoy finds the Yeagers and Joyce on the rooftop and open fires on them but Cade leads him away from the others. The two jump across rooftops, eventually crashing into a house and getting into a fist fight which ends with Savoy falling from a window to his death.

Hound and Bumblebee attempt to escort the humans and the Seed out of the city, but are cut short when Joshua points out that the KSI-built Transformers were specifically built to destroy any Autobots or Decepticons left on Earth. This prompts Prime to enter the crashed ship and activate the armory as well as release the other captives within the ship. As Hound and Bumblebee hold the line and protect the humans, Optimus tries to convince the Legendary Warriors to fight alongside them. Their [[Grimlock (AOE)|apparent leader]] violently declines at first, fighting the Prime in both his massive robot mode and his Tyrannosaurus mode. Optimus quickly defeats him, saying that he and the other warriors will protect his family or die, then mounts the metal dinosaur. The Autobots mount their Dinobots and charge over the mountains into Hong Kong.

[[File:Dinobots ready for battle AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"''T. rex'' doesn't want to be fed. He wants to ''hunt''."]]

Meanwhile, as Hound and Bumblebee are starting to be overwhelmed by Galvatron's drone forces, Optimus and his fellow Autobots storm into the city, slamming, crushing, stomping, and chomping all nearby enemies. Galvatron retreats as the Autobots and Dinobots decimate his forces. With this battle over, Optimus confronts Joshua for his actions and gives the order to defend the humans and escort them, and the Seed, away from the city. On the way, a homing beacon within the Seed activates, allowing Lockdown to track the Autobots down. He activates a massive magnet, wreaking havoc on Hong Kong. Everything metal from kitchenware to massive ships are picked up by the magnet, including the Autobots and Dinobots. After narrowly avoiding the magnet, the Yeagers are momentarily separated from the Autobots. Optimus shoots at the magnet, destroying it and releasing the Transformers from its influence. The ship retreats to a nearby factory, with Optimus hot on its trail. Cade tells his daughter to stay with Shane and the Autobots, as he wishes to fight alongside Optimus against Lockdown. As Optimus Prime and Lockdown battle one-on-one, Attinger corners Yeager with a pistol, accusing him of choosing aliens over his own race, but he is quickly shot and killed by Optimus.

Because of Optimus' choice to save Cade before defending himself, Lockdown gains the upper hand, impaling Optimus through the chest with his own sword and pinning him to a concrete pillar. Meanwhile, Tessa convinces Bumblebee to turn around and the three join in fighting Lockdown, allowing Shane to use a tow truck to unpin Prime. Just as Lockdown is about to kill Cade, Optimus jumps up and slices the bounty hunter in half. Activating one of Lockdown's grenades, Prime tells the humans to hold on and uses rocket boosters to escape while the grenade destroys the last of the KSI drones. Galvatron has survived and retreated to the outskirts of the city; watching Prime blast off, he tells Optimus to beware, for he is reborn...

[[File:AOE-DefendThisFamily.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"I don't know. I guess... I guess we'll just have to evolve too."]]

The Autobots, Dinobots and their Human allies all regroup on the waterfront. Cade and Tessa happily reconcile and Cade finally accepts Shane. Joshua nobly says he will help them with their destroyed home. Prime declares the Dinobots are now free as they depart for parts unknown. With the bounty on his head placing the entire Earth in danger, Prime blasts off into space with the Seed to confront the Creators and discover the mystery behind his own origins, but not before ordering the Autobots to protect the Yeager family. As he leaves Earth's atmosphere, Optimus Prime sends a message to his Creators to leave planet Earth alone, because he's coming for them.

{{--}}

==Quotes==
"Lockdown...?" 
"Autobots, Decepticons, like little children, always fighting; making a mess out of the universe, then ''I've'' got to clean it up! There is one way you survive. Tell me where he's hiding. Where is Optimus Prime?" 
"Never." 
''(Lockdown rips out Ratchet's spark)'' 
"Never is here." 
:—'''Ratchet''''s final moments before '''Lockdown''' kills him.

"In this planet we have a saying: ''The enemy of my enemy is my friend''." 
"I also have a saying: '''''I don't care'''''."
:—'''Harold Attinger''' discusses with '''Lockdown'''.

"Every galaxy I've traveled, all you species are the same. You all think you're the center of the universe. You have no idea..."
:—'''Lockdown''' never truly appreciated one of his clients.

"Human beings. Bunch of backstabbing weasels!" 
"Hound, find your inner compass. ''Loyalty is but a flower in the winds of fear and temptation.''" 
"What the hell are you saying?!?" 
"It's a haiku." 
"Cut the crap before I drop a grenade down your throat!" 
"Try it, you'll be dead!" 
"Oh, please pull it. Please do it."
:—'''Hound''' doesn't appreciate '''Drift's''' haikus.

"With your fate unknown, Bumblebee has held command, despite his complete and total lack of anything resembling warrior discipline. He's like a child." 
"This child is about to ''kick your ass!''"
:—'''Drift''' and '''Bumblebee'''

"Autobots, I have sworn never to kill humans..." 
"Big mistake." 
"...but when I find out who's behind this...he's going to ''die''." 
"Hoo-ah!"
:—'''Prime's''' rage is fueled by '''Hound'''.

"Destroy the lab! Destroy it all!" 
''(The Autobots lay waste to the KSI research facility)'' 
"Hey, you! Stop! That's company property!" 
"They're not ''your'' property! ''They were my friends.''" 
:—'''Optimus Prime''' duly informs '''Joshua Joyce''' that Transformers aren't just machines.

"You have no soul!" 
"That is why I have no ''fear''!"
:—'''Optimus Prime'''' is shocked to find '''Galvatron''' isn't as lifeless as he thought.

"We're behind enemy lines now. Lockdown's ship has booby traps! Eyes open." 
"Beware of his bone-grinders, brain-blinders, flesh-stealers, chromosomal-inverters, catatonic slugs, black hole trapdoors and of course, radiation."

:—'''Hound''' and '''Crosshairs''' warn the humans of the perils held within Lockdown's ship.

"I was expecting a [[Grimlock_(G1)/toys#Alternators.2FBinaltech|giant car!]]"
:—'''Drift''' witnessing Grimlock transform into a dinosaur.

"Autobots, we're going to prove who we are, and ''why we're here''!"
:—'''Optimus Prime''' rallies his troops with his characteristic passion and charisma.

"Ugh, you just wanna die for the guy. ''That's'' leadership. Or brainwashing, or something." 
"No, that's Optimus Prime."
:—'''Crosshairs''' and '''Drift''', remarking on their [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|leader]]/[[Dinobot (AOE)|Giant Robot Dinosaur]] tamer.

"I'm like a fat ballerina who takes scalps and slits throats!"
:—'''Hound''' takes another five levels in badass and ballerina class.

"How do you say 'Get the f&%# out of the way' in Chinese?"
:—'''Joshua''' has some issues with the language barrier.

"I hate cheap knockoffs."
:—'''Bumblebee''' dismissing all [[Cliffjumper (Movie)|clones]] of him as "cheap".

"We shall meet again, Prime, for I am reborn."
:—'''Galvatron''' retreats to fight another day.

"There are mysteries to the universe we were never meant to solve, but who we are and why we are here are not among them. Those answers we carry inside. I am Optimus Prime, and this message is to my Creators. Leave planet Earth alone. 'Cause I'm coming...for you."
:—'''Optimus Prime'''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s closing narration.

==Main cast==
{{featuredcharacters|
h1=[[Autobot]]s|c1=
*[[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] ([[Peter Cullen]])
*[[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]]
*[[Hound (Movie)|Hound]] ([[John Goodman]])
*[[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] ([[Ken Watanabe]])
*[[Ratchet (Movie)|Ratchet]] ([[Robert Foxworth]])
*[[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]] ([[John DiMaggio]])
*[[Brains]] ([[Reno Wilson]])
*[[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot]]
*[[Dinobot (AOE)|Dinobots]]
**[[Grimlock (AOE)|Grimlock]]
**[[Scorn (AOE)|Scorn]]
**[[Slug (AOE)|Slug]]
**[[Strafe (AOE)|Strafe]]
*[[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]]'s head
|h2=[[Decepticon]]s|c2=
*[[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]] ([[Frank Welker]])
*[[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]]'s head
*[[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]]
*[[Junkheap (AOE)|Junkheap]]
*[[Trax (AOE)|Traxes]]
*"[[Two Head]]s"
*"[[KSI Boss]]es"
*[[McLaren Decepticon]]
*[[Aston Martin Decepticon]]
*[[Insecticon (Movie)|Insecticons]]
*[[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] (video footage)
*[[Protoform]]s (video footage)

|h3=[[Human]]s|c3=
*[[Cade Yeager]] ([[Mark Wahlberg]])
*[[Tessa Yeager]] ([[Nicola Peltz]])
*[[Shane Dyson]] ([[Jack Reynor]])
*[[Joshua Joyce]] ([[Stanley Tucci]])
*[[Harold Attinger]] ([[Kelsey Grammer]])
*[[James Savoy]] ([[Titus Welliver]])
*[[Lucas Flannery]] ([[T. J. Miller]])
*[[Darcy Tirrel]] ([[Sophia Myles]])
*[[Su Yueming]] ([[Li Bingbing]])
*[[Gill Wembley]] ([[James Bachman]])
*[[Chief of Staff]] ([[Thomas Lennon]])

|h4=Others|c4=
'''Lockdown's crew'''
*[[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]] ([[Mark Ryan]])
*[[Mercenary|Mercenaries]]
*[[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaws]]
*[[Stupid Drone]]s
'''[[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|KSI]] prototypes'''
*[[Oreo Transformer]]
|nonumbering=true
}}

==Errors==
===Continuity errors===
[[File:DeceasedTransformersAOE.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.6|Your attention, please. Will the ''real'' Optimus Prime please stand up?]]
[[File:AOECrosshairsDriftWeirdEdit.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|What just happened? No, seriously. Is there some kind of timey-wimey thing going on?]]
[[File:AOE savoy eyegouge.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|"An eye for an eye makes the whole world-OH MY GOD!!!"]]
*[[Ironhide (Movie)|Ironhide]] is seen on the cards Attinger pulls out early in the film, listed as deceased and having been last seen in Chicago. However, Ironhide was killed by Sentinel Prime in Washington, D.C., midway through ''Dark of the Moon'', and long before the final battle in Chicago.
*Scenes from the Decepticons' invasion of Chicago in ''Dark of the Moon'' are shown as archival footage presented by Attinger. While it is conceivable some lucky people with cameras recorded the initial attack and managed to survive and publish their footage, it's highly unlikely people would've been able to get close-up video footage of the NEST team taking down [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] and the other Decepticons.
*A Cemetery Wind vehicle smashes into the side of Shane's car during the chase through the cornfield, but the car doesn't show any damage to that side in subsequent shots.
*Tessa and Shane's reliance on Romeo and Juliet laws is unnecessary, since the age of consent in Texas is 17.
*During the 'Autobots reunite' sequence, Drift starts out in car mode on a road with Bumblebee and Crosshairs, before suddenly appearing atop a rock formation in robot mode and transforming to helicopter mode to meet up with Optimus Prime.
*When Crosshairs and Drift are talking on board Lockdown's ship shortly after boarding it, a ''very'' bizarre edit occurs in the middle of Drift's line "Better hurry, because dark matter drives are preparing to take off". The camera angle is now slightly different than before, but it's not a switch between a long shot and a close-up or a complete change of perspective. Oddly, Drift is still seen from the almost the ''exact same angle'' as before the edit, but even though his and Crosshairs's bodies were at an almost 90 degree angle before the edit, they're now suddenly almost standing in parallel to each other, with Crosshairs' head turned towards Drift. In addition, a flame that appeared in front of Drift just before the edit is suddenly gone.
*When Shane shouts "I surrender!" and drops his "gun-sword", the hilt is facing to the right, but after a close-up showed it landing on the ground and firing a shot, the hilt is suddenly facing to the ''left'' in the subsequent long shot when it fires more shots.
*When Joshua reunites with the rest of the group in Hong Kong, Darcy tells him she'll do a diversion, and to get the Seed somewhere safe. Yet, no diversion of any kind happens.
*As Cade and Savoy grapple in the apartment, Cade jams his thumb deep into Savoy's eye socket (see right), with accompanying "squlech" sound effect, and appropriate reaction from Savoy in the form of a long howl of pain through gritted teeth and a string of drool flowing uncontrolled from his mouth. But as soon as the two separate, Savoy's eye is absolutely fine, with no indication anything is supposed to have happened to it.
*While Lockdown is pulling up parts of the city, Shane backs the car into a building which is two stories high at most, but appears much larger on the inside.

===Technical/animation errors===
*Absolutely NONE of the dinosaur fossils found in modern times are cyberformed, even though the Creators killed all of the dinosaurs using this method.
*The shot right before the close-up of the cyberformed dinosaurs has no cyberformed dinosaurs at all, despite having all the excavation vehicles in the same positions as the next scene.
* Arcee is seen on Attinger's cards misspelled as "Acree".
*After Ratchet's leg has been severed and the Cemetery Wind troops surround him, Savoy asks him why he was running, even though he was clearly trying to escape from the clueless humans firing at him like psychopaths.
**Also, after Ratchet plays the troops the message sent out from Optimus, Savoy tells him that he won't have any mercy for the Autobot because he lost his sister in the war in Chicago - even though the Autobots were obviously the ones trying to protect the city and its citizens, including his sister, from the Decepticons, who started the war.
*When Attinger takes over the operation to scramble Cemetery Wind after Optimus, and dismisses everyone in the room, he does so by saying "Ladies and gentlemen, this room is going dark. The exit is on your left." All the people then get up and begin to exit to their ''right''.
*Scrambling Cemetery Wind seems to scramble the timeline. From the deployment of Cemetery Wind to Lucas's death, the time of day is in limbo. For example, Optimus escapes from the Yeager property at sunset, joining the pursuit that takes place in early afternoon, not to mention that Cemetery Wind arrives at the Yeagers' home town at what appears to be dawn. In some instances, repeated changes between shots correspond with changes between different times of day, as different positions of the sun result in very very obviously different lighting conditions.
*When Lockdown transforms to prepare for the attack on Optimus, one can clearly see a faux-part Lamborghini logo pop out from inside the car, while the actual logo disappears.
*In the shot of Shane's car pulling up outside of the Yeager farm after Cemetery Wind has stormed in, nobody is seen inside the vehicle.
*During the scene where Cade is pretending to be a truck driver with Optimus still in his flat-nose truck form, he has a cap and white plaid shirt on. After Optimus scans into his newer form, Cade's back to wearing his leather jacket.
*When Shane's car gets sideswiped in the cornfield, the back left window is shattered. A couple scenes later, the window is just rolled down.
*When Shane's car breaks into a building, the woman sitting right in the middle of the room is clearly waiting on the glass-breaking noise to start running.
*After Lucas' death, there is nothing really stopping Lockdown or Cemetery Wind from continuing to chase Optimus. Lockdown is much faster and could easily catch up to Optimus whilst Cemetery Wind could chase in their remaining vehicles.
*When Optimus transforms to and from his Marmon 97 alternate mode, the windows and grille that make up his chest visibly change size and shape.
*When Optimus transforms out of his flat-nosed truck mode and punches the ground, Tessa and Shane are standing next to each other, as viewed from behind Optimus. When the view immediately switches to be facing Optimus, Cade is suddenly standing between the two.
*Shane defends his relationship with Tessa by stating that the 'Romeo and Juliet laws' "statute 2705-3" protect their relationship, yet the card he shows Cade reads "Statute 22.011". This is also the number that appears in the English subtitles of the DVD, meaning that it was scripted as 22.011 and not 2705-3.
*The truck that Optimus scans, while still being from the Western Star manufacturer, is an older and different model than the one he transforms into.
*When Optimus is on his way to the reunion site, the human characters inside are sitting this way: Shane to the right, Tessa in the Middle and Cade to the left. However when Optimus gets to the reunion point Cade comes out of the truck using Shane's side door (right) instead of his (left). It is clear they (the director and his crew) were trying to get a "superhero" pose but it doesn't make sense.
*When Optimus arrived to the reunion site you can see the filming crew in the reflection of his front chrome parts.
*Hound's dialogue when he's bickering with Drift doesn't really match up to what we see. Drift pulls his swords on Hound, but the big guy goads him on to "pull it", suggesting Drift was originally supposed to aim a firearm at him.
[[File:Uncolored Ratchet head prop.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.67|Gray is the new green.]]
*When Joshua is in the lab showing Darcy Transformium, in two different shots, a gray, uncolored prop of Ratchet's head can be seen being worked on in the next room.
*As Cade's drone scans a KSI employee's name tag, it displays its location onscreen as around N 38°44'55", W115°28'27". These coordinates are for a [https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B044%2755.0%22N+115%C2%B028%2727.0%22W/@38.7486111,-115.4741667,3048m patch of desert in Nevada] rather than any place in Chicago.
*While first infiltrating KSI, in the showroom where Stinger is first viewed, Bumblebee is in car mode when Joshua walks in with Yueming. Bumblebee's engine audibly revs, yet Joshua doesn't notice that there's no one in the car to rev the engine.
[[File:Megatron Head at KSI.jpg|right|upright=1.4|thumb|Screw logic!]]
*Megatron's severed head is in somewhat good shape for someone who got an axe stabbed on the top of his head. Furthermore, his head is more in line with its appearance in the first movie not ''Dark of the Moon''.
*Not to mention, after Joshua's group leaves and Bumblebee knocks Stinger down, there's no transformation noise right before Bumblebee returns to his altmode and the KSI executive walks in. Additionally, Bumblebee starts playing M.C. Hammer's "U Can't Touch This", '''when no one is in the car''' to turn the stereo on. Ostensibly it was for a comic moment, but it didn't raise anyone's suspicions that a car that wasn't typical of the ones being scanned, operating the engine and the stereo with no human inside, might be a disguised Cybertronian?
*After Bumblebee scans his new alternate mode, the camera pans over the car and Tessa and Shane are not inside. However when he's getting his new upgraded form you can see that they used stunt doubles for Shane and Tessa. That scene wasn't dangerous enough to require stunt doubles, was it?
*Some security guards in KSI fail to react to Crosshairs's shooting and shouting until a few seconds before the scene changes.
*When Galvatron first transforms and crashes into a truck, the way he is composed in the scene makes it look like he is simply floating above the wreckage, instead of being in the middle causing it.
*When Optimus transforms, Cade and Shane leap out of Optimus, while Tessa is trapped and rolls away. However, previous shots establish that the seating order in Optimus is Shane, Tessa, Cade. This means that Cade crawled over his daughter to escape(!), which is not quite logical or possible.
*Lockdown fires two missiles at Optimus Prime that, despite piercing his chest, don't manifest any kind of visible damage on his person, despite the previous shot showing Optimus's chest getting blown apart.
*When Lockdown is approaching Optimus after gunning him down, the driver's door of the Cadillac SRX he's resting on is shown to be open in two exterior shots, even though Tessa previously closed it after getting inside, and it's also shown closed in other (mostly interior) shots.
*When he loses his grip on the net holding Optimus and the car containing Tessa, Cade is shown falling toward the street, but he lands on the grass by the road.
*When the Autobots are on a bridge, before boarding Lockdown's ship, Crosshairs is clearly shown to be speaking but no dialogue is heard.
*When Tessa gets taken to the trash in Lockdown's ship, a green screen can be seen at the end of the corridor.
*While locking up Optimus, Lockdown's scar is on the left side of his face. While talking to Savoy upon delivering the seed, it's on the right side of his face; however, it switches back to the left side right before he walks off after bidding Earth farewell.
*While the human characters are climbing across the anchor cables to the high-rise building some of the Steeljaws begin to climb out after them. Cade tells his daughter not to look back and see them, but when we cut back to her, with a clear view of the cables behind her, the Steeljaws are gone.
*When Bumblebee jumps off Lockdown's ship to save the humans, he is followed by a Steeljaw. In the following shot, the Steeljaw is gone.
*While explaining Megatron's plans to the Autobots, Brains rings a bell on a train. In the next shot, the bell is not moving.
*During the motorcycle chase, the CIA cars change. At first, Joshua and Su are trailed by a Cadillac and an Audi; in the middle of the chase, the Cadillac is replaced by another Audi. By the end of the chase, the Cadillac is back.
*In Hong Kong, when Cade, Joshua, Tessa, and Shane enter the elevator to run away from the rooftop, the elevator won't move and Cade says it's overloaded. But in the next scene, we see that the maximum number of people that the elevator can carry is nine, and it's very clear that the Seed doesn't weight as much as five people.
*When Grimlock transforms to his dino mode and charges at Optimus, there are no other Dinobots, nor the ship, to be seen in the background. However, after Optimus punches Grimlock and the shot changes, Dinobots are standing almost right next to him.
*Optimus somehow has enough strength to not only maintain his ground, but propel Grimlock through the air during his charge. Considering Grimlock's strength, velocity and weight, it is highly unlikely Optimus would win.
*Immediately after he transforms into his triceratops mode, Slug is shown to have a very visible Autobot logo on his dino-mode forehead, yet he just met Optimus and the other Autobots moments before.
*One of the air conditioning units kicked off the building exterior by Savoy falls away to reveal ... a solid wall, with no connection to an apartment's interior.
*During Hound's stand in Hong Kong, the pickup truck he uses as a shield sways left to right whilst his arm remains still.
*When Hound pulls out a large knife and stabs a KSI Prototype through the head with it, green "blood" spews out of its face, which usually happens to the Decepticons when they're injured. But since the KSI Prototype isn't a real Decepticon or Transformer, it is impossible for it to have had any blood in the first place.
*The damage Hound receives after being shot down, most noticeably the pipe on his left shoulder, is fixed in subsequent shots.
*Crosshairs is seen driving alongside Drift and Hound through the bridge to take the Seed away from the city ... right after we just saw him staying behind to hold the line with the Dinobots.
*During the final fight, Bumblebee decides to just leave midway. Considering the distance between the factory and the dock where they met, he must have left long before Optimus flew there.
*After Optimus takes off, the other Autobots are absent from the shot of the main cast watching Optimus fly off.

===Geographic discontinuities===
*When Cade tries to use his card at an ATM, not only is the card issued from a Chinese bank, which wouldn't have any branches in north Texas, where the Yeagers live, the text on the ATM screen (behind the ''Access Denied'' warning) is in Chinese.
*Despite being from north Texas, Cade and Tessa have no Texas accents- not all Texans have noticeable accents of course, but Cade can be heard speaking with a slight ''Boston'' accent in the trainyard ("I'm doing stuff out of my league here!"), which is likely due to his portrayer, Mark Wahlberg, being a Boston native.
*Despite the KSI pursuit scene taking place on a two lane highway, there are several scenes spliced in of the Transformers with supercar alt modes (like Stinger and Crosshairs) driving on what is obviously a racecourse (specifically the GM proving grounds in Milford, Michigan). This is apparent by the horizontal incline of the road in some of the shots that are also missing the markings that would normally be on a road, and a reaction shot for Stinger that shows a straight, one lane ninety degree turn.
*The entirety of the KSI pursuit scene switches between taking place between the left and right sides of the two-lane highway, despite being only supposed to take place on the right side. Furthermore, the shot showing stray missiles colliding with oncoming traffic takes place on a completely different highway, one with five lanes instead of three and a wooden fence on the side of the street as opposed to a guardrail. Moreover; the car crashing stunt for the bridge jump scene starts on the five lane highway, continues on the left side of the three lane highway, and then finishes on the ''right side'' of the three lane highway. Trouble finding shots, eh?
*All of the vehicles seen in Hong Kong are left-hand drive, rather than the right-hand drive you'd expect in a location that drives on the left.
*Some scenes supposed to take place in Hong Kong depict a very distinctively American city with traffic lights suspended by wires above the street.
*Chicago's Willis Tower can be seen in the background of Hong Kong.
*The bridge out of the city shown in the film (Tsing Ma Bridge) is at least a half-hour drive from the battlefield in Central.
*Furthermore, despite Optimus's comment, there are no bridges connecting Hong Kong Island (where all the action allegedly takes place) to the mainland. The only way to get off Hong Kong Island (other than by boat or swimming) is via one of three tunnels, none of which are used, referenced or mentioned in the film.
*Speaking of bridges, Tsing Ma Bridge (the gray version of the Golden Gate Bridge) shown in the movie is effectively a dead end unless one is going to the airport or Disneyland, because it only leads to/from Lantau Island.
*The bridge where Grimlock "digs in" is an expressway bypass. Geographically defending it is pointless as there are multiple other routes (including at least one that is faster) to bypass the bridge and tunnel yet end up at the same place on the other side.
*In one of the fight scenes there is an overhead railway (the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_People_Mover Detroit People Mover]). There are no overhead railways on Hong Kong Island (yet) and the MTR (the subway train network) trains look nothing like the train used in the scenes, as they are a completely different shape and color.
*There are no "glass houses" on Hong Kong Island.
*There are no Chinese temple ruins on Hong Kong Island. The temples there are all intact and frequently used or preserved and don't have giant metal umbrellas ''at all''.
*The area where Optimus battles and "tames" Grimlock is in the Wushan Valley in Northern China which is over 1100 km from Hong Kong, yet is depicted as being in Pok Fu Lam on the South Western side of Hong Kong Island (which is a high rise residential area). Even flying it would take well over 2 hours to get from Wushan Valley to Hong Kong.
*It's not possible to drive a car from Beijing into Hong Kong, as the number plates would be invalid, and it would take over a day to drive that distance. Chinese vehicles coming into Hong Kong have to be from the Canton area (number plates are black) and have to be registered with Hong Kong plates, which means they must display both plates at all times one above the other. (In addition, the process to obtain permission for a car to have that is also lengthy and costly.)
*The blue SUV used by Cade and his companions is not a type of vehicle that exists in Hong Kong. In addition, its steering wheel is located on the left side, even though cars in Hong Kong have their steering wheels on the right side.
*Optimus Prime's Western Star alternate mode would be illegal to drive on Hong Kong roads, since it's is oversized. The Freightliner truck used for Galvatron is the maximum size/gauge allowed on Hong Kong roads. All scenes with Optimus driving in truck mode were filmed elsewhere, the Western Star truck was never brought to Hong Kong. Even his previous Peterbilt alternate mode would be illegal in Hong Kong.
*The area depicted as the final battle scene where Optimus and Lockdown face off was digitally added on the map of Hong Kong shown in the movie. It doesn't exist at all in real life, where it's actually a breakwater/typhoon shelter full of boats on Victora Harbour. In addition, the factories in Hong Kong (which are all located on Kowloon, because Hong Kong Island is purely a residential/business/shopping district) look nothing like the buildings used in the scene.

===[[Dinobot Island, Part 1|Paleontology weeps]]===
*The cyberformed remains of a ''Tyrannosaurus'' and a ''Spinosaurus'' appear frozen together in the arctic at the beginning of the film, which is rather odd considering the two are found on different continents (North America and Africa respectively) and separated by around 35 million years of evolution.
[[File:ExtinctionOfTheDinosaurus.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|And another thing! How is that sauropod running!?!]]
*The opening scene of the movie shows a ''Psittaccosaurus'' (100-120 million years old), a generic hadrosaur that might be either an ''Edmontosaurus'' or a ''Shantungosaurus'' (65-70 million years old), and a brachiosaurid (100-157 million years old) all present during what is implied to be the K-Pg extinction event (64.5-65 million years old).
*The ''Psittaccosaurus'', a well known herbivorous animal, is seen actively hunting and killing live prey. In a nod to paleontological accuracy, however, it is depicted with a row of quill-like feathers along its back, as many ceratopsian dinosaurs are believed to have had.
*The Dinobots show various exaggerations and ornamentations which go beyond the usual suspension of disbelief involved in... [[Dinobot (disambiguation)|giant metal dinosaurs]]. Grimlock sports curved, backwards pointing horns and enormous fangs. Slug has huge tail spikes and a set of nasty chin horns, though his tail spikes could be a mechanised representation of the bristle-like fibres that triceratops currently is thought to have had. Strafe is the biggest offender, with a pair of elongated tails and twin heads with teeth and incorrectly-shaped crests and grasping talons. Scorn probably gets off the easiest, being ''mostly'' correct, bar his extra spines. It's not his fault that a few months after the release of the movie, the morphology of ''Spinosaurus'' was completely revised, with a different spine shape and shorter legs.
* The Dinobots' alternate modes are orders of magnitude larger than the real dinosaurs on which they're based. In an interesting twist, using Optimus as a proxy for the average human, all the Dinobots bar Strafe have been accurately scaled up. At 850 tonnes <ref name="Grimlock stats">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/entertainment-weekly-reveals-new-details-on-transformers-4-age-of-extinction-new-grimlock-image-179675] summarised on TFW2005.</ref> Grimlock is as large compared to Optimus as a real ''Tyrannosaurus'' would be next to a human.

==Transformers references==

* As usual, many of the new characters have roots in older portions of the mythos:
** [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] is based on [[Drift (G1)|a Generation 1 character]] introduced in IDW's 2008 ''[[The Transformers: All Hail Megatron|All Hail Megatron]]'' series.
** Lockdown is derived from [[Lockdown (Animated)|a character in the 2008 ''Animated'' cartoon]] who had already jumped over to the G1 comics and, in toy form, to the movie universe.
** [[Hound (disambiguation)|Hound]] and [[Crosshairs (disambiguation)|Crosshairs]] both share names with previous characters; their personalities are new and unique, though Hound seems based on [[Bulkhead (Prime)|''Prime'' Bulkhead]] in physique, coloration and personality.
** Galvatron being a new form for Megatron has been a thing for [[Galvatron (disambiguation)|basically forever]]. With Joyce's intentions of creating him as a counterpart to Optimus Prime, he also takes cues from [[Nemesis Prime (disambiguation)|Nemesis Prime]]; in particular the human-controlled ''[[Transformers: Prime (cartoon)|Prime]]'' [[Nemesis Prime (Prime)|character]].
** The Dinobots are the latest iteration of [[Dinobot (G1)|the powerhouse subfaction]] that first appeared in the early days of Generation 1. Their leader Grimlock is a direct analog of [[Grimlock (G1)|his Generation 1 counterpart]]; Strafe and Slug are based on Generation 1 [[Swoop (G1)|Swoop]] and [[Slag (G1)|Slag]], respectively.
* In the film's opening act, Optimus has adopted a cabover truck alternate mode akin to that of his [[Optimus Prime (G1)|G1 counterpart]]. His robot mode also draws some inspiration from his G1 design, such as the large grill on his chest.
* This is not the first time that Ratchet and Lockdown have faced off. ''Animated'' [[Ratchet (Animated)|Ratchet]] and [[Lockdown (Animated)|Lockdown]] had [[The Thrill of the Hunt|a long-running feud]]. Within the movie universe, the two characters have been described as rivals on ''[[Hunt for the Decepticons]]'' toy [[packaging]] [[bio]]s, and faced off in ''[[Cyber Missions 3]]''.
* The concept of the Transformers being built by another race first appeared in the third season of [[The Transformers (cartoon)|the original ''Transformers'' cartoon]].
* Meanwhile, the concept of humans hunting down all Transformers on Earth following a successful but devastating massive battle hearkens back to plotlines from IDW's [[The Transformers (IDW)|2009-2011 ongoing series]].
* The (rather obvious) theme of humans (particularly evil government agencies) using captured Transformers as a source of technology has appeared numerous times in the mythos, going all the way back to the [[Rapid Anti-robot Assault Team|RAAT]] agency in the original Marvel Comics. [[Transformers Animated (cartoon)|The ''Animated'' cartoon]] in particular featured the severed head of [[Megatron (Animated)|Megatron]] being studied and reverse-engineered, while in IDW's ongoing G1 stories, [[Sunstreaker (G1)|a Transformer's severed head]] was used to help design man-made Transformers (in [[The Transformers: Maximum Dinobots|a Dinobot-focused series at that]].) More broad uses of the concept include the Dreamwave ''[[Prime Directive]]'' mini-series, Devils Due's ''[[G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers: The Art of War|Art of War]]'' mini-series (''again'' featuring the severed head of [[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]]), the [[The Transformers (IDW)|IDW ongoing series]], [[All or Nothing!|Cobra's actions in the G2 comics]], [[MECH]] from the [[Transformers: Prime (cartoon)|''Prime'' cartoon]], and even in the movie universe itself, in IDW's ''[[Transformers: Alliance|Alliance]]'' mini-series that served as a prequel to the ''Revenge of the Fallen'' film. The idea of the (seemingly) human-controlled Transformers eventually proving to be uncontrollable was also pioneered by some of these stories, most notably Dreamwave's aforementioned ''Prime Directive'' mini.
* A device that can "[[eco-structuring|cyberform]]" other planets previously appeared in several places in the mythos, including in the original ''Transformers'' cartoon's [[Key to Vector Sigma (disambiguation)|Key to Vector Sigma]] two-parter and the aforementioned Dreamwave ''Prime Directive'' mini. In both cases, it was actually activated, unlike its movie counterpart.
* The idea of aliens and/or alien technology being found frozen in the arctic or Antarctic ice is a very common trope in fiction; in terms of Transformers, the first use of the trope was [[Jetfire (G1)|Skyfire]] in the original cartoon's [[Fire in the Sky]]. A discovery specifically at the hands of ''humans'' was a plot point in the aforementioned Dreamwave ''Prime Directive'' mini, not to mention [[Transformers (film)|the discovery of]] [[Megatron (Movie)|N.B.E. 01]]. Or the [[Scraplet]]s.
* The ringtone on Gill Wembley's cell phone is a remixed version of the original G1 Transformers [[theme song]].
* As he hunts for Ratchet, Lockdown's head-up display shows characters in [[Cybertronian language|Ancient Autobot]], an alphabet originating in the Generation 1 episode "[[Cosmic Rust (episode)|Cosmic Rust]]".
* In the scene where Optimus scans a passing truck, the classic [[Transformation#The noise|transformation noise]] plays when the Autobot symbol emerges from his grill.
*During the Texas chase scene, Shane, Cade, and Tessa drive past a navy-blue Pontiac Solstice with a white stripe down the middle. The Pontiac Solstice was Jazz's alternate mode in the first film. Also, the car is a reversal of Jazz's 1980's color scheme, which was white with a navy blue stripe down the middle. Since the Pontiac Solstice was not being produced at the time of the movie's production, the car's presence is definitely a reference, although the color scheme might just be a coincidence.
*The scene where Galvatron goes active and breaks free in KSI's Chinese facility mirrors the scene in the 2007 ''Transformers'' movie when Megatron breaks free inside [[Sector Seven]]'s facility, down to a reuse of the line "I am Megatron", only with the name changed to "Galvatron".

==Real-life references==
[[File:Rainbow Dash Age of Extinction.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|"I found the magic!"]]

*Among the objects KSI makes from Transformium in the film is a Rainbow Dash doll from [[My Little Pony|another popular Hasbro brand]].
*This marks the second time a Michael Bay film has begun with the extinction of the dinosaurs, the first being ''[[Armageddon]]''.

==Other editions==

==Prequel material==
*''[[Transformers (Titan Magazine)|Transformers: Age of Extinction]]'' magazine ([[Titan Books|Titan Comics]])

==Adaptations==
Unusually, no novel or comic adaptations of the film were released. The ''[[Transformers Annual 2015]]'' contained an extremely cut down prose summary of events.

==Music==
==Score==
{{main|Age of Extinction: The Score}}

==Home video releases==
{{main|Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)/home video}}

==Theatrical posters==
<center><gallery>
File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionTeaserPoster.jpg|First teaser poster
File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionOptimusPrimePoster.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction poster-IMAX.jpg|IMAX poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Cade poster.jpg|Cade Yeager poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Shane poster.jpg|Shane Dyson poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Tessa poster.jpg|Tessa Yeager poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Su poster.jpg|Su Yueming poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Lockdown poster.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Rules Have Changed.jpg|It's a scene not in the movie!
File:Transformers Age of Extinction This Is Not War.jpg|This is not human extinction, it's just war.
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Stand Together1.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Stand Together2.jpg|"Now look down. Now look at me. I'm on a dinosaur."
</gallery></center>

==Reception==

{{quote|"The few authentic inspirations to be found in the movie's hundred and sixty-five roiling minutes involve gigantic science-fiction contrivances."|[http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/film/transformers_age_of_extinction_bay The New Yorker's Richard Brody on Transformers 4: Age of Extinction], Richard Brody|[http://newyorker.com newyorker.com] [[2014]]}}

''Transformers: Age of Extinction'' was critically panned, and nearly universally condemned on the American front, receiving a rating of 18% positive critical reviews on RottenTomatoes.com, one percent lower than the final score for ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]]''. Common criticisms leveled against it included its relatively long run time of 2 hours and 45 minutes, the disproportionately small amount of screen time the Dinobots got in relation to their relatively large exposure in promotional materials for the film, an over-reliance on product placement, and the decision to set the final act in Hong Kong, which was perceived as a choice solely done to pander towards the Chinese audience for the film. However, the film received praise for its visual effects, action sequences, and the performances of some of the human actors, mainly Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, and Kelsey Grammer.<ref>http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_age_of_extinction/</ref> Despite any criticisms, the film was the worldwide top-grossing film for 2014, earning over a billion dollars.<ref>[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?view2=worldwide&yr=2014 Box Office Mojo's 2014 Worldwide Grosses]</ref>

It [[wikipedia:35th_Golden_Raspberry_Awards|won one Golden Raspberry Award]] for Worst Director ([[Michael Bay]]), was one of four movies contributing to [[Kelsey Grammer]]'s Worst Supporting Actor win (along with ''{{w|The Expendables 3}}'', ''{{w|Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return}}'' and ''{{w|Think Like a Man Too}}''), and was unsuccessfully nominated for Worst Picture; Worst Supporting Actress ([[Nicola Peltz]] as [[Tessa Yeager]]); Worst Screen Combo ("Any two robots, actors (or robotic actors)"); Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel; and Worst Screenplay ("screenplay by [[Ehren Kruger]], based on Hasbro's Transformers action figures").

==Production staff==
''Age of Extinction'' was written by [[Ehren Kruger]], who also wrote ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'' and helped write ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]]''.
===Visual effects===
===Locations department===

==Development details==
===Cast and crew signing on===
On June 26, 2011, thirteen days before the official theatrical release of ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'', actor [[Tyrese Gibson]] gave an interview to Movieweb, in which he claimed that [[Michael Bay]] would not return for a fourth ''Transformers'' installment; instead, executive producer [[Steven Spielberg]] himself was allegedly interested in directing a sequel.<ref name="tyresemovieweb">[http://movieweb.com/exclusive-steven-spielberg-may-direct-transformers-4/ Movieweb interview with Tyrese Gibson], with several names missing from the text; the full excerpt in question is quoted [http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/rumor-transformers-4-directed-by-steven-spielberg-172501/ here] on TFW2005.</ref> Ten days later, on June 26, 2011, still three days before the official theatrical release of ''Dark of the Moon'', Michael Bay posted praise for actor [[Shia LaBeouf]] on his official forums, while at the same time expressing regret for leaving the ''Transformers'' franchise.<ref name="bayshialeaving">[http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?9502-Love-Shia-as-an-Actor Michael Bay's praise for Shia LaBeouf]] at the official Michael Bay forums.</ref> Another two days later, on June 28, 2011, LaBeouf confirmed that ''Dark of the Moon'' would definitely be his last ''Transformers'' film, as he didn't think there was "anywhere to take" his character of [[Sam Witwicky (Movie)|Sam Witwicky]].<ref name="endshia">[http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/06/28/transformers-dark-of-the-moon-shia-labeouf/ "'Transformers: Dark Of The Moon' Is The End For Shia LaBeouf"], MTV Movies Blog.</ref>

Eight months later, on February 13, 2012, producer [[Lorenzo di Bonaventura]] gave an interview during [[Toy Fair 2012]], in which he confirmed that a fourth film was scheduled for a release in the Summer of 2014, Michael Bay would direct it after all, and that the movie would be a "reboot". He promptly clarified that it was actually a "hybrid", an "evolution" of the franchise that would be in continuity with the previous films, citing 2012's ''[[Wikipedia:The Amazing Spider-Man (2012 film)|The Amazing Spider-Man]]'' reboot of the ''[[Spider-Man]]'' film franchise as an example of what people should ''not'' expect from a fourth ''Transformers'' film. Di Bonaventura also confirmed that no casting discussions had taken place yet at that point, since there was no set story yet. However, there would be "a lot of new cast", and it was still uncertain at that point whether any of the previous cast members would return. The only characters that would "certainly" return wold be [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] and [[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]].<ref name="lorenzointerview">["http://www.mtv.com/videos/movies/733426/a-new-transformers-to-hit-theaters-in-summer-2014.jhtml "a new 'transformers' to hit theaters in summer 2014"], interview with Lorenzo Di Bonaventura at MTV.com.</ref> A day later, on February 14, 2012, Bay himself and [[Paramount Pictures]] officially announced that Bay had indeed signed a deal to make a fourth ''Transformers'' film. The film's release date was stated alternatively as either June 27 or June 29, 2014.<ref name="bayfourthfilm1">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/transformers-4-release-date-revealed-174395/ "Transformers 4 Release Date Revealed"] at TFW2005.</ref><ref name="bayfourthfilm">[http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-17028248 "Transformers director Michael Bay signs for fourth film"], BBC.co.uk.</ref> That same day, Bay also confirmed that he and Spielberg were working on a "whole new re imagining{{sic}} of ''Transformers''".<ref name="reimagining">[http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?10284-Transformers-4 Michael Bay confirming that ''Transformers 4'' would be a "reimaginging"] at the official Michael Bay forums.</ref> Two days later, on February 16, 2012, actor [[Josh Duhamel]] expressed his doubts that he, Shia LaBeouf, [[Rosie Huntington-Whiteley]] or Tyrese Gibson would return for the fourth installment.<ref name="noshiarosie">[http://eonline.com/news/294791/josh-duhamel-not-coming-back-for-transformers-4-is-anyone "Josh Duhamel Not Coming Back for Transformers 4: Is Anyone?!"] at E! Online.</ref>

Four months later, on June 6, 2012, Michael Bay confirmed in an interview centered around ''[[Transformers: The Ride – 3D|Transformers: The Ride]]'' that the fourth film would feature "some redesigns of the robots and an entirely new cast", and that it would be the last ''Transformers'' film he would direct.<ref name="ride">[http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/transformers-the-ride-3d-even-impresses-disney-rivals/ "‘Transformers’ taking new shape with Universal ride and fourth film"], LA Times Hero Complex.</ref> A few weeks later, on June 21, 2012, Bay confirmed that the fourth film would feature "different human actors", but the film would not be strictly a "reboot", but rather take the story "in a new direction". While hinting that the story might venture into space for "a little bit", he still wanted to keep it "grounded".<ref name="starsspace">[http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/transformers-4-michael-bay-purges-stars-may-go-into-space/ "‘Transformers 4’: Michael Bay purges stars, may go into space"], LA Times Hero Complex.</ref>

[[File:TF4 Chinese Reality Show contestants.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|If ''Age of Extinction'' teaches us anything, it's that more movies should be cast using reality shows.]]On September 21, 2012, Michael Bay confirmed the first "cast" member for the film in the broadest sense, namely the fact that voice actor [[Peter Cullen]] would be kept on as [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]. He also confirmed that the film would ''not'' be a reboot, but would pick up the story from where ''Dark of the Moon'' had left off in [[Chicago]].<ref name="cullen">[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/michael-bay-transformers-4-pain-and-gain_n_1903523.html "Michael Bay, 'Transformers 4' Director, On The Struggles Of 'Pain & Gain'"], Huffington Post interview.</ref> One and a half months later, on November 8, 2012, Bay confirmed [[Mark Wahlberg]] as the first human cast member<ref name="wahlberg">[http://michaelbay.com/2012/11/08/michael-bay-re-teams-with-his-pain-gain-star-mark-wahlberg-for-transformers-4/ "Michael Bay Re-Teams With His 'Pain & Gain' Star Mark Wahlberg for Transformers 4"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref>, after having referred to such claims as "just a rumor" a mere month earlier.<ref name="baynowahlberg">[http://michaelbay.com/2012/10/23/transformers-4-casting-rumor/ "Transformers 4 Casting Rumor"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref> On December 15, 2012, Wahlberg himself confirmed that filming would commence in May 2013.<ref name="wahlbergmay">[http://collider.com/ted-2-sequel-mark-wahlberg-transformers-4/218011/ "Mark Wahlberg Talks TED 2, TRANSFORMERS 4, and PAIN AND GAIN; Says TF Starts Shooting in May Followed By TED Sequel"], interview with Collider.com.</ref> Another month later, on January 8, 2013, Irish American actor [[Jack Reynor]] was confirmed as the second human cast member.<ref name="reynor">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jack-reynor-lands-starring-role-409850 "Jack Reynor Lands Starring Role in 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter.</ref> [[Nicola Peltz]] was confirmed on March 26, 2013<ref name="welcomepeltz">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/03/26/welcome-nicola-peltz-to-transformers-4/ "Welcome Nicola Peltz to Transformers 4"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref>, followed by [[Stanley Tucci]] (confirmed to be an antagonist) on April 16, 2013.<ref name="tucci">[http://www.comingsoon.net/news/cinemaconnews.php?id=103034 "CinemaCon: Stanley Tucci Joins Transformers 4"]</ref>, [[Kelsey Grammer]] as a lead (human) villain named "Harold Attinger" on May 1, 2013<ref name="grammerattinger">[http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/kelsey-grammer-lands-lead-human-villain-in-transformers-sequel/ "Kelsey Grammer Lands Lead (Human) Villain In ‘Transformers’ Sequel"] at Deadline.com.</ref>, [[Sophia Myles]] as a scientist on May 6, 2013<ref name="mylesscientist">[http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/sophia-myles-join-mark-wahlberg-michael-bays-transformers-4-exclusive-89661 "Sophia Myles to Join Mark Wahlberg in Michael Bay's 'Transformers 4' (Exclusive)"] at TheWrap.com.</ref>, Chinese actress [[Li Bingbing]] in an at that point still unspecified role on May 20, 2013<ref name="bingbing">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chinas-li-bingbing-boards-transformers-525370 "China's Li Bingbing Boards 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter</ref>, and actor-comedian [[T. J. Miller]] as a mechanic and best friend to Wahlberg's character on May 28, 2013.<ref name="miller">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/tj-miller-joins-transformers-4-559359 "T.J. Miller Joins 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter.</ref> [[Titus Welliver]] wasn't officially confirmed until July 25, 2013, after he had been spotted on set in Texas.<ref name="welliver">[http://www.deadline.com/2013/07/transformers-4-adds-titus-welliver/ "‘Transformers 4′ Adds Titus Welliver"], Deadline.com.</ref> In the lead-up to the release of the movie, Welliver would stir up a minor controversy with an interview in which he stated that the film would be darker and "not a kid's movie". Following a storm of online discussion regarding this statement, he issued a new statement to the effect that ''Age of Extinction'' is in fact a kid's movie, and he meant to say it would expand the audience.<ref name="nerdist">[https://www.nerdist.com/2014/02/titus-welliver-talks-about-transformers-4-and-clark-greggs-s-h-i-e-l-d-comments/ Titus Welliver Talks About TRANSFORMERS 4 and Clark Gregg’s S.H.I.E.L.D. Comments], Nerdist.com.</ref>

A rather unusual addition to the cast were [[Byron Li]], [[Candice Zhao]], [[Austin Lin]] and [[Teresa Daley]], which won their part through participating in the ''[[Transformers 4 Chinese Actors Talent Search Reality Show]]'' on August 25, 2013.<ref name="reality">[http://beijing.china.org.cn/2013-08/28/content_29845758.htm "'Transformers 4' recruits 4 Chinese actors"], China.org.cn.</ref>

The remaining robot voice cast (barring Optimus Prime) wasn't officially revealed until May 8, 2014.<ref name="voicecast">[http://michaelbay.com/2014/05/08/john-goodman-and-ken-watanabe-join-the-autobot-voice-cast-in-michael-bays-transformers-age-of-extinction/ "John Goodman And Ken Watanabe Join The Autobot Voice Cast in Michael Bay’s ‘Transformers: Age Of Extinction’"] at the official Michael Bay website.</ref>

===Writing and production===
On March 20, 2013, the Michigan Film Office announced that the fourth film would return to [[Detroit]].<ref name="michigan">[http://www.michiganfilmoffice.org/The-Film-Office/Press-Releases/Detail.aspx?id=11620 "Transformers Returning to Michigan, Approved for Film Incentive" at the Michigan Film Office website.]</ref> Principal photography began on May 28, 2013, at [[Wikipedia:Monument Valley|Monument Valley]].<ref name="monument">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/05/28/transformers-4-starts-filming-in-monument-valley-navajo-tribal-park/ "Transformers 4 Starts Filming in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref> Other shooting locations were the small towns of Lockhart, Taylor, Elgin and Pflugerville in Texas.<ref name="texas">[http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/movies/headlines/20130426-fourth-transformers-film-to-shoot-in-texas.ece "Fourth ‘Transformers’ film to shoot in Texas"] at Dallas Morning News.</ref> Shooting in Michigan involved two historic passenger steamboats, the ''[[Wikipedia:SS_Columbia|SS Columbia]]'' and her sister ship, the ''[[Wikipedia:Ste. Claire (passenger steamboat)|SS Ste. Claire]]'', which were docked in [[Wikipedia:River Rouge, Michigan|River Rouge]] awaiting restoration at the time being used as props.<ref name="boblo">[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/story/2013/07/26/wdr-boblo-boats-transformers-four.html "Historic Boblo boats land role in Transformers 4"], CBC News.</ref> While shooting in Detroit, Mark Wahlberg's children visited the set and were given small parts in the movie upon their father's request.<ref name="wahlkids">[http://comicbook.com/blog/2013/07/30/mark-wahlbergs-kids-cast-in-transformers-4/ "Mark Wahlberg's Kids Cast In Transformers 4"], Comicbook.com.</ref>

[[File:AOE Michael Bay Nicola Peltz on set.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Michael Bay uses his legendary charm to get the very best performance out of his actors.]]
Due to an increased focus of Hollywood studios trying to market its movies to the Chinese audience, parts of the movie were not only set in China, but actually filmed there. One of the shooting sites was Hong Kong. While there, the movie crew encountered the risks of shooting a movie in China firsthand when director Michael Bay was assaulted on the set by two locals demanding money; according to some sources, they were store owners that were not satisfied with the compensation they received for the inconvenience of having a movie filming nearby. Bay received minor injuries, but played the incident off on his blog. Both he and an official Paramount statement suggested that the assailants were under the influence of drugs.<ref name="attack1">[http://deadline.com/2013/10/hong-kong-police-called-to-transformers-4-set-amid-alleged-extortion-attempt-report-613912/ "Extortion Attempt On ‘Transformers 4′ Set; Michael Bay Suffers Minor Injury: Report"], Deadline.com.</ref><ref name="attack2">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-bay-attacked-transformers-4-649183 "Michael Bay Attacked on 'Transformers 4' Set in Hong Kong"], Hollywood Reporter.</ref><ref name="attack3">[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-24566287 "Transformers director Michael Bay attacked in Hong Kong"], BBC.</ref name="attack4">[http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/michael-bay-attacked-on-transformers-hong-kong-film-shoot-1.2100953 "Michael Bay attacked on Transformers Hong Kong film shoot"], CBC News.</ref><ref name="attack5">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/10/17/hong-kong-incident/ "Hong Kong Incident"] on Michael Bay's official Blog.</ref> A second extortion attempt occured several days later, this time allegedly by several triad gang members. Although one of them was later arrested, no-one was injured this time around.<ref name="extortion2">[http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-bay-transformers-4hong-kong-second-extortion-incident-2013-10?IR=T "More Trouble For 'Transformers 4' In Hong Kong As Second Extortion Attempt Reported"], Business Insider.</ref><ref name="extortion3">[http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/25/world/asia/hong-kong-transformers-triad-extortion/ "Transformers versus the triads of Hong Kong: the sequel"], CNN.</ref> Once again, Bay played down the extortion attempts in an interview, noting that most of the locals were apologetic over what took place, and that he wanted to film more projects in Hong Kong.<ref name="eager">[http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1342084/hollywood-director-michael-bay-eager-shoot-hong-kong-again "Hollywood director Michael Bay eager to shoot in Hong Kong again"], ''South China Morning Post'']</ref>

[[File:AOEOptimusRidingGrimlock.jpg|thumb|upright=1.9|left|"Get me closer! I want to hit them with my sword!"]]Late script changes resulted in Bay and his crew returning to the Chinese city of [[Wikipedia:Chongqing|Chongqing]] for a week reshooting a scene in January of 2014.<ref name="reshoot">[http://www.ecns.cn/2014/01-23/98337.shtml "'Transformers 4' back to China for additional shots"], China News Service (Ecns.cn).</ref>

Some of [[Industrial Light & Magic|ILM]]'s post-production effects were done at a newly opened Lucasfilm facility in Singapore.<ref name="ilmsg">[http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/lifestyle/story/lucasfilm-singapore-work-new-avengers-and-transformers-movies-20140116 "Lucasfilm Singapore to work on new Avengers and Transformers movies"], The Straits Times.</ref>

{{--}}

=== Sponsors and partners ===
==== General Motors and other car manufacturers ====
[[File:AOE Optimus Prime truck.jpg|thumb|upright=1.34|When having one's midlife crisis, it's not unusual to get a souped-up alternate mode.]]
''Age of Extinction'' continues the collaboration with General Motors. Earlier in the film, Bumblebee chooses a customized 1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS as his disguise when hiding from [[Cemetery Wind]], whereas later on, he upgrades to the newest model, a 2014 Camaro concept car. (The production crew was actually accused of ripping off a one-of-a-kind custom for the 1967 version.<ref name="1967custom">[http://jalopnik.com/did-transformers-4-rip-off-this-guys-design-for-the-ne-510655228 "Did Transformers 4 Rip Off This Guy's Design For The New Bumblebee?"] at Jalopnik.com.</ref>) Furthermore, new addition [[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]]'s alternate mode is a 2014 Chevrolet C7 Corvette Stingray, and recurring character Ratchet briefly appears at the beginning of the movie and transforms into his Hummer H2 ambulance mode (in the color scheme from ''Dark of the Moon'') before being killed at the hands of Cemetery Wind and [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]].

''Age of Extinction'' is the first movie to feature an official partnership with a manufacturer for [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]'s alternate mode. Earlier in the movie, he transforms into an old, rusty Marmon 97 truck cab (presumably without support from the manufacturer), but later upgrades into a brand new Western Star "5700 OP" concept truck that was designed specifically for the movie by "Twins Custom Coaches" and the team at West Coast Customs, with Western Star being a subsidiary of Daimler Trucks, who also provided a 2012 Freightliner Argosy that serves as [[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]]'s alternate mode.

Other manufacturers that provided vehicles to be used for characters' alternate modes were the Oshkosh Corporation with an Oshkosh Defense FMTV truck for [[Hound (Movie)|Hound]], the Volkswagen group with a 2013 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse for [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] and a Lamborghini Aventador for Lockdown, and independent Italian manufacturer Pagani Automobili with a Pagani Huayra for [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]].

=== Changes before, during and after production ===
* [[Slash (AOE)|Slash]] was originally intended to appear in the film (he even made it into some concept artwork).<ref name="burt">[http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/transformers-age-of-extinction-concept-art-from-wesley-burt/30723/ Age of Extiction concept art by Wesley Burt], mirrored at Seibertron.com.</ref>
* [[Glenn Morshower]] was originally set to return in this film, reprising his role of [[Morshower|General Morshower]], but didn't return due to a scheduling conflict.<ref>http://transformerslive.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/general-morshower-not-returning-to.html</ref>
* Both [[Josh Duhamel]] and [[Tyrese Gibson]] were intended to cameo reprising their roles as [[William Lennox]] and [[Robert Epps]] but were cut before filming started.<ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/tyrese-gibson-in-talks-for-transformers-4-176078/</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/tyrese-gibson-to-make-cameo-appearance-only-in-transformers-4-177407/</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/josh-duhamel-to-make-cameo-appearance-in-transformers-4-177026/</ref><ref>http://transformerslive.blogspot.com/2013/06/josh-duhamel-not-in-transformers-4.html</ref>
* Ed Welburn, [[General Motors]]' vice president for global design, was originally set to cameo as the C.I.A. head before being recast as a KSI employee.<ref>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/automobiles/ed-welburn-gets-a-part-in-transformers.html?_r=0</ref>
* A scene depicting Hound and Bumblebee dancing with Tessa (while Drift bobs his head in the background) was not present in the final cut of the film.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnxZ7Gg2yV4</ref>
* Scorn's toys lack the additional two sails he has in the film, suggesting it was a late design change.
*The Pagani Huayra that eventually ended up as [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]] was at one point intended as the alternate mode of a female robot with the working name "Widow Maker".<ref name="vitaly">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-9/age-of-extinction-concept-art-by-vitaly-bulgarov-180636/ Age of Extinction concept art by Vitaly Bulgarov] at TFW2005, including "Widow Maker".</ref><ref name="jung">[http://comicbook.com/blog/2014/07/20/transformers-age-of-extinction-concept-art-shows-off-epic-scope-/ Age of Extinction concept art by Steve Jung] at Comicbook.com, including "Widow Maker".</ref>
* Wahlberg's character was named "Flynn 'Ray' Vincent" rather than "Cade Yeager" in a casting call. The same casting call also revealed that actor [[Glenn Morshower]] was supposed to reprise his role as [[Morshower|General Morshower]] from the previous two films.<ref name="txcasting">[http://www.featurefilmauditions.com/2013/05/casting-for-transformers-4-actors-and.html "Transformers 4' open casting calls for actors and extras in Austin, TX and Detroit, MI"] at Film Auditions.</ref>
* A scene where Cade says "Stick behind me" is not present in the final cut of the film.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXSkXQs890g</ref>
* Another piece of dialogue cut from the film is when Cade says "You tell me" to Attinger when he asks for Optimus Prime.
* In some concept artwork, Grimlock appears as a horn-less T-Rex.
* The original running time of the film was 2 hours and 7 minutes, which would have made it the shortest film in the franchise. The final running time was 2 hours and 30 minutes <ref>http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/BatFreak/news/?a=77992</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/transformers-4-age-of-extinction-running-time-revealed-180165/</ref>
* [[Dwayne Johnson]] was originally offered the role of Cade Yeager, but due to his commitment to ''Hercules: The Thracian Wars'', the role was later taken over by his ''Pain & Gain'' co-star Mark Wahlberg.<ref>[https://twitter.com/TheRock/statuses/327892048978006016 Dwayne Johnson on Twitter]</ref>
*In some concept artwork, Drift was colored orange instead of blue. but according to the Generation 2 featurette in the Blu-ray release, this was changed because the vehicle that was going to play Drift was sold off.
*Some concept artwork shows that Optimus was intended to have his original trilogy body in the scenes where he had his new look.
*According to Ehren Kruger in the Generation 2 featurette, in the early drafts of the film, it was not originally centered on the Cade Yeager character.
*Numerous silver [[redeco]] toys were produced for Optimus Prime with the moniker of "Silver Knight", suggesting that he was originally supposed to take on this alternate appearance in the film itself, almost certainly upon drawing a sword from the Knights' armory. In the finished film, he does undergo some slight physical alteration at this point, his arms reconfiguring to resemble armor plates, but that's as far as it goes. This was also ''prrrrobably'' where he was supposed to get the rocket-boots he suddenly deploys at the film's end.

{{-}}

===Disinformation campaign===

Like ''Revenge of the Fallen'' and ''Dark of The Moon'' before it, ''Age of Extinction'' had a campaign that would mask details of the final film. However, unlike the previous films, this one was all encompassing; no novelization or comics by [[IDW Publishing]] was released, allowing for a great deal of the movie's spoilers to actually remain unknown longer than for the previous three films.

In the original Michigan Film Office press release published on March 20, 2013, several vague plot details were revealed, including the fact that Autobots and Decepticons had "[[Cemetery Wind|all but vanished from the face of the planet]]", a "[[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|group of [...] businessman and scientists]]" were developing new technologies based on past encounters with the Transformers, and an "[[Lockdown (ROTF)|ancient, powerful Transformer menace]]" was targeting Earth.<ref name="plotunveiled">[http://www.thewrap.com/node/82001/ "‘Transformers 4’ Plot Unveiled by Michigan Film Office"] at TheWrap.com.</ref>. These plot details were later claimed to be inaccurate by Paramount Pictures<ref name="notaccurate">[http://screenrant.com/transformers-4-movie-plot-synopsis-cast/ Unofficial "'Transformers 4' Plot Synopsis Is Not Accurate"] at Screenrant.com</ref>, but in all their vagueness ultimately turned out to be not too far off from the film's plot.

A lot of the newly-added characters were given "code names" during production, most of them related to the ''Rocky'' saga: "Duke" for Hound, "Adrian" for Galvatron, "Ivan" for Grimlock, "Rocky" for Slash (who was originally intended to appear in the movie, as noted above), "Southpaw" for Scorn, "Paulie" for Strafe, and "Thunderlips" for Slug. In addition, Crosshairs was code-named "Slingshot", Drift was code-named "Bruce", Lockdown was code-named "Max", and Steeljaw was code-named "Wolf" (which ''might'' have simply been a working name).<ref name="customer">[http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-news-rumors/961952-monzos-mega-hasbro-customer-service-listing-breakdown.html Hasbro customer service list]</ref>
{{stub}}

==Notes==
*Not only do the [[Dinobot (AOE)|Dinobots]] go unnamed in the film (other than [[Scorn (AOE)|Scorn]] getting the nickname, "Spike"), the word Dinobot is never even said by anyone. The audio description soundtrack on the home video releases refers to them as warriors or barbarians, but notes during the final scene that they "turn into Dinobots" (of course it also refers to Galvatron transforming "into an Autobot" when he turns into a robot, so make of that what you will).
*In addition to the Mercenary robots, [[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaws]], the ball-shaped drones, and [[Stupid Drone]]s, inside Lockdown's ship there were also several hovering drones. These drones appear to be of the same type as those the United States used in ''Dark of the Moon'' (the one that got sucked into the engine of Bumblebee's commandeered Decepticon fighter). Maybe Attinger sold them to Lockdown?
*Michael Bay's website incorrectly refers to the film as "Transformers 4 The Age Of Extinction"
* The deceased Autobots and Decepticons shown in the cards Attinger pulled early in the film includes: [[Ironhide (Movie)|Ironhide]], [[Wheeljack (Movie)|Que]], [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]], [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]], [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]] and [[Arcee (Movie)|Arcee]].
* This film seems to put a final nail in the coffin regarding the films' abandonment of the concept of using [[protoform]]s to travel through space; when the Autobots steal a ship from [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], they immediately move to leave Earth, indicating they had been stranded on Earth for the past five years without a spaceship (following the destruction of the ''[[Xantium (DOTM)|Xantium]]''). The fact that no mention is made of searching for any possible survivors of Cemetery Wind's hunt also suggests that all Autobots who did not return for this film have been killed off as well.
*The robot designs in this film are markedly different than the previous three; the robots have less alien appearances and are more heavily influenced by human forms.
*Speaking of the appearance of the Autobots - they all are based on specific types of human combatants throughout history: Optimus is obviously a medieval knight, Hound heavily resembles a World War II-era commando, Crosshairs looks like a mercenary or assassin, Bumblebee's new form is highly Ninja-like, and Drift is unsurprisingly a samurai.
*Director Michael Bay makes a cameo appearance in the film as a guy sitting in the passenger seat of a truck whose trailer Optimus Prime and Bumblebee crash through after being attacked by Galvatron and Stinger.<ref name="magiceffects">[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btn2tPxjisA "Behind the Magic: The Visual Effects of 'Transformers Age of Extinction'"] on the official ILMVisualFX Youtube channel.</ref>

===Foreign names===
*''Japanese:'' '''''Transformers: Lost Age''''' (トランスフォーマーロストエイジ ''Toransufōmā Rosuto Eiji'')<ref>[http://www.cinematoday.jp/page/N0056111 『トランスフォーマー』第4弾の邦題は『トランスフォーマーロストエイジ』に決定！最新ビジュアルも公開]</ref>
*''Russian:'' '''''Transformery: Epokha istrebleniya''''' (Трансформеры: Эпоха истребления ''Transformers: Age of Extermination'')
*''Argentina:'' '''''Transformers 4'''''
*''Cantonese:'' '''''Binying Gamgong: Chimmit Saigei''''' (變形金剛：殲滅世紀 "Transformers: The Century of Annihilation")
*''Mandarin:'' '''''Biàn-hsín Jīn-gāng Sz: Jiúe-jī Chúng-shēng''''' (Taiwan: 變型金剛4：絕跡重生, China: 变形金刚4：绝迹重生 "Transformers 4: Rebirth from the Extinction")
*''German:'' '''''Transformers: Ära des Untergangs''''' ("Transformers: Era of Doom")
*''Turkish:'' '''''Transformers: Kayıp Çağ''''' ("Transformers: Lost Age")

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

{{stub}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Age of Extinction (film)}}

[[Category:Age of Extinction| Age of Extinction (film)]]
[[Category:Real world films]]

User talk:Spin-Out

2015-07-28T18:00:15Z

LordStarscream100:

{{tagyourpics}}

If this edit war does not stop in five minutes and people don't stop getting aggressive at each other, all three of you are getting a time-out. The note is pretty pointless, at best it would be only on Prime Soundwave's page. --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] 21:27, 4 July 2010 (EDT)
* Yessir. Sorry sir.--[[User:Spin-Out|Spin-Out]] 21:41, 4 July 2010 (EDT)

Sorry, but were there really any need for patronizing remarks during that little edit war? And what exactly was the point of locking me out of the page? I'm fine with an edit being deleted as long as it can be justified, but really, was it that big of a deal? [[User:Clifftothemax|Clifftothemax]] 02:42, 5 July 2010 (GMT)
* See, we need notability. It doesn't really belong on the WFC page, but could go on the [[Soundwave (Prime)]] page.
:: Yeah, OK, fine. If that's more suitable, then go for it. No need for insults and blockings over something so trivial. [[User:Clifftothemax|Clifftothemax]] 02:49, 5 July 2010 (GMT)

Er, why'd you rename your user page? That's not something that's a good idea to do for a number of reasons. --[[User:Abates|abates]] ([[User talk:Abates|talk]]) 19:57, 18 June 2015 (EDT)
* I dunno, really. I'm glad you change it back, then. --[[User:Spin-Out|DEATHDISPENSER]] ([[User talk:Spin-Out|talk]]) 19:58, 18 June 2015 (EDT)

Hey, it's nice to meet you, and sorry about that. I did use the preview window each time, but I realized there were some formatting issues that came up, so I kept popping back on to edit it.
--[[User:LordStarscream100|LordStarscream100]] ([[User talk:LordStarscream100|talk]]) 14:00, 28 July 2015 (EDT)

Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)

2015-07-28T01:38:17Z

LordStarscream100: /* Errors */

{{Nav-aoe}}
[[File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionOptimusPrimePoster.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.67|An adventure 65 million years in the making.]]

'''''Transformers: Age of Extinction''''' is the fourth film in the [[live-action film series]]. It was released on [[June 27]], [[2014]].

Following the [[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Battle of Chicago]], humanity has come to fear both Autobots and Decepticons alike. With the aid of a Transformer mercenary named [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], a CIA [[Cemetery Wind|task-force]] operated by [[Harold Attinger]] begins hunting the remaining [[Transformer]]s on [[Earth]]. Hunted by enemies that were once his allies, [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] loses faith in humanity and sends his forces into hiding. Now, five years later, struggling inventor and single-father [[Cade Yeager]] discovers a damaged Transformer, placing both himself and his [[Tessa Yeager|daughter]] on a collision course with events that threaten the extinction of humankind itself.

{{bigquote|The trouble with loyalty to a cause is that the cause will ''always'' betray you.|[[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]]|''Transformers: Age of Extinction''}}

==Synopsis==

[[File:The Creators cyberforming Earth AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs."]]
65 million years ago, on Cretaceous [[Earth]], a ''Psittacosaurus'' is out hunting for food. The small dinosaur finds a fish and starts to feed, but stops as hundreds of alien ships enter Earth's atmosphere, piloted by the mysterious [[Creator (AOE)|"Creators"]]. The alien ships launch dozens of strange [[Seed]]s across the planet. As they detonate, they convert the landscape and the herds of panicking dinosaurs into a metallic substance, ending the Age of Dinosaurs. Millions of years later, while digging in the [[Arctic]], a team of geologists uncover a mysterious pair of metallized dinosaur skeletons - a discovery that attracts the attention of [[Darcy Tirrel]]...

Five years after the invasion of [[Chicago]], tensions between humans and Cybertronians have risen dramatically. Although the Autobots are officially granted asylum on Earth, public opinion has turned against all Transformers. The government of the United States has terminated all human-Autobot joint programs and instated [[Cemetery Wind]], an elite [[CIA]] unit intended to flush out the handful of [[Decepticon]]s left on Earth. What the President doesn't know is that [[Harold Attinger]], the leader of the operation, is slaughtering all Transformers, regardless of faction. On one such mission, the team pinpoints [[Ratchet (Movie)|Ratchet]] hiding within an abandoned boat. He immediately tries to flee, but is crippled and brought down by their weapons. The team leader, [[James Savoy]], mockingly asks why Ratchet ran if he's not their enemy, and Ratchet replays a transmission he received from [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]], ordering all Autobots to hide from humans. However, Savoy dismisses his pleas as his sister was killed in Chicago. A Transformer bounty hunter, [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], who has actually been helping Cemetery Wind hunt the Autobots, emerges from the nearby swamp and attacks Ratchet, further damaging him. Walking past his human allies, Lockdown demands to know [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]'s whereabouts. When Ratchet refuses, Lockdown brutally kills him by ripping out his spark.
[[File:AOE Ratchet dying.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction..."]]

In Texas, struggling inventor [[Cade Yeager]] and his friend/employee [[Lucas Flannery]] meet at an old theater, looking for salvage. He finds an old truck, and upon inspection it seems to be full of artillery shells. He buys the truck along with the other theater equipment and puts it in his garage.[[Tessa Yeager|Tessa]], Cade's daughter, observes this while video-chatting with her boyfriend and criticizes her dad for buying the heap of junk. While attempting to salvage the truck's engine to sell, Cade realizes it's actually a badly-damaged Transformer. After calling Lucas and Tessa, he connects jumper cables to its engine, only for it to begin replaying the distress call Ratchet had received earlier. Lucas and Tessa advocate calling the government, claiming that there is a huge reward for Transformers. Cade convinces them not to call the authorities until he can spend more time working on the truck, as he may be able to stumble on a technological breakthrough if he can figure out how the Transformers work. When Cade removes a live missile from the truck's "power core," it transforms into a heavily injured Optimus Prime, who roars at them to stay back while he swings his weapon around the barn. Cade, Lucas, and Tessa ask why Optimus is so badly damaged, to which he replies that the Autobots are being hunted and he must help them. Cade offers to repair him, and sends Lucas to buy the parts that will enable him to fix Optimus. Cade and Optimus begin to bond as the repairs begin.
[[File:AOE-injuredoptimus.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Should we chance moving him?"]]

In the Arctic, Attinger arrives via helicopter at [[Knight Ship|Lockdown's ship]] and demands to know why Optimus Prime escaped him in [[Mexico]]. Lockdown derisively tells Attinger that Optimus Prime would not have escaped were it not for Cemetery Wind's interference, stressing that he does not care about Attinger or his goals and wishes only to capture Optimus Prime.

Shortly after returning to [[Washington, D.C.]], Attinger receives a tip that Optimus Prime has been located in Texas and sends Savoy and Cemetery Wind to apprehend him. The agents swarm the barn, but there is no trace of Prime inside. When Savoy threatens Tessa to force Cade to tell him of Prime's whereabouts, the Autobot leader explodes out of the barn's basement in which he was hiding. He escapes after a brief skirmish that destroys the Yeager residence, with both Cemetery Wind and Lockdown in pursuit. As Cade catches one of Cemetery Wind's mini drones, a white rally car zooms over the adjacent fields and picks up the Yeagers and Lucas. The driver turns out to be [[Shane Dyson|Shane]], a rally car racer who is also Tessa's boyfriend. A group of Cemetery Wind vehicles begins chasing them.
[[File:Optimus shooting humans AOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"You think they'll have that on the tour?"]]

Both the rally car and Optimus Prime are chased into an abandoned factory, where Optimus Prime fights off Lockdown. Shane puts his driving skills to good use and pulls a series of tight maneuvers that result in the Cemetery Wind cars crashing, destroys his car in the process. Optimus Prime, who has caught Lockdown in a crane cable, transforms and tells the humans to pile into him and escape. Lockdown throws a grenade at the humans as they run towards Optimus Prime; though Shane and the Yeagers escape, Lucas is caught in the blast and killed.

Arriving at an abandoned gas station, Optimus orders the humans out and drives off to ensure that they have not been followed. Cade confronts Tessa and Shane about their relationship but Tessa gets angry at Cade for putting them all in danger. The next day, Optimus and the humans set off towards Monument Valley. Prime [[trans-scan|scans]] a passing truck, sheds his layer of rust and takes on a new form with his old paint scheme. They arrive in Monument Valley where they meet the other surviving Autobots in the form of [[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]], [[Hound (Movie)|Hound]], [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]], and their de facto leader [[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]]. Crosshairs and Hound start threatening the humans for having their species betray them but Optimus convinces them that they have risked their lives to save his. The Humans notice that there are clear tensions between the Autobots. Cade reveals footage of the attack on Ratchet and [[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot's]] demise using the stolen aerial drone and Prime declares that he will kill the one responsible for hunting down the Autobots.

[[File:Autobots unite monument valley AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Dr. Grant, my dear Dr. Sattler... Welcome to [[Jurassic Park]]." ]]

Inspection of the drone leads them to a company named [[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|KSI]], located in a rebuilt Chicago. It is run by [[Joshua Joyce]], who is working with [[Su Yueming]] and Attinger to create artificial Transformers to eventually be used in the military. Using the remains of [[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]], [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]], [[Starscream (Movie)|the]] [[Barricade (Movie)|countless]] [[Shockwave (Movie)|Decepticons]] from the Chicago battle and the hunted Autobots, they have synthesized the metal that the Transformers are made of, calling it [[Transformium]]. When given commands through a computer, Transformium can be changed into various shapes or objects. Although a drone called [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]] (designed after Bumblebee) is active, Joshua's major project is a bigger, stronger drone called [[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]]. However, his attempts have not been successful; the drone keeps resembling Megatron instead of the friendlier image of Optimus Prime. Bumblebee builds Cade and Shane faux-ID badges which the duo use to infiltrate KSI. Cade goes further in and projects imagery of Ratchet's severed head being melted down as well as the injured and enslaved [[Brains]], which sends Prime into a rage.

[[File:Joshua Joyce Transformium Experiment AOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"God help us, we're in the hands of engineers."]]

However, Cade is caught when his ID badge is found to have been scanned twice (by him and its original owner). He is taken to the upper floors and confronted by Attinger, who claims that what he has witnessed is in the name of world peace. He also asks him about the whereabouts of Optimus Prime but Cade maintains his silence.

Furious over how the humans have mutilated their comrades, Optimus orders an attack on KSI. Bumblebee, carried by Drift in copter mode, rescues Cade. The others trash the lab, free Brains, and confront Joshua, only for him to openly declare that what is being done is being done to prevent more Transformer-caused damage and that the humans "don't need" the Autobots. Disheartened, Prime orders a retreat.

As the Autobots exit the factory and leave, Attinger catches up with Joshua and claims that the Autobots are terrorists for attacking the facility. He coerces Joyce to use the two functional drones to take down the Autobots. Galvatron and Stinger activate and pursue their quarry across a highway, with Galvatron doing more damage than his KSI handlers intend. Bumblebee fires upon Galvatron but is surprised to see him simply disintegrate and reintegrate again. Galvatron attacks Prime. As they battle, Optimus declares that the artificial creation has no soul, to which it retorts "That is why I have no FEAR!"

[[File:AOEGalvatron.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Kids! You want to have one of those?"]]

As Tessa scrambles for cover in a nearby vehicle, Prime is suddenly shot from the back and falls-Lockdown has arrived, along with his ship! Lockdown gloats to his prisoner, claiming that Optimus was built, not born, and now the Creators want him returned in one piece. The bounty hunter orders a net dropped over Optimus and hoists both the Autobot leader and Tessa's hiding place into his ship. Cade desperately clings to the net, but his strength gives out and he falls to the fields below. As the spaceship departs, Cade and Shane vow to get Tessa back.

Lockdown throws Prime in a cage and orders his lackeys to dispose of Tessa. Prime takes note of several other aliens in similar cages, including [[Dinobot (AOE)|other Cybertronian warriors]]. He also discovers the original purpose of the mercenary ship: it was originally used by a group of legendary Knights (presumably including Prime himself) but now acts as Lockdown's flying prison. Lockdown's ship hovers over Chicago, triggering panic in the streets, but Attinger manages to talk down the authorities and send Savoy to rendezvous with Lockdown. As payment for Prime's capture, Lockdown gives him a Seed.

Cade, Shane, and the other Autobots get aboard the ship as it flies low over a bridge. While being pursued by Lockdown's henchmen, the two humans find a strange Knight armory, from which Cade takes a sword that opens up to form a gun. While Shane and Cade rescue Tessa, Crosshairs deploys the ship's mooring cables, which fire into the Willis Tower and preventing the ship from breaking atmosphere. The humans begin to clamber down the cables to safety, but they are pursued by a pack of [[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaw]]s. Bumblebee manages to save the trio. The other Autobots locate Optimus, who reveals that the section of the ship they are on can separate from the main body. Crosshairs uses a gunship to pick up Bumblebee and the humans, then leads them on a dogfight through Chicago's streets, destroying some of Lockdown's mercenaries.

[[File:Prime gets shotAOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"It could have been worse, John. A lot worse."]]

Back at KSI, it is decided that all equipment is to be moved to the Beijing facility to continue operations. Joshua is also none too pleased about the previous field test of Galvatron; not only was it a loss on several fronts, but the drone also ''spoke'', which was something it was ''not'' programmed to do!

The Autobots land their new ship at an abandoned train yard. Optimus claims that he sensed Megatron's presence during his fight with Galvatron. Brains explains Galvatron's true nature: while he decoded dead Transformer brains, he learned that Megatron's mind had survived and planned to transfer itself to Galvatron's body, explaining Galvatron's sinister appearance. The tiny bot further mentions how Galvatron used his knowledge to build Stinger and the other drones, with plans to make them into his personal army. As Tessa tells the group about the Seed she saw, Optimus and Hound explain that the Creators used Seeds to convert organic material into metal, then harvested the resulting Transformium for their own purposes. Cade makes a call to Joyce and relays the newfound data about Galvatron. Knowing that Joyce is also an inventor with a heart, he pleads with Joyce to shut down Galvatron before things escalate. Although Joyce puts up an unconvinced façade, he demands increased security around Galvatron after hanging up.

As police cars surround the train yard, the Autobots board their shuttle again and take to the air. Optimus says that though the Autobots will travel to Hong Kong and get the Seed back, they will leave Earth afterwards; they are done protecting humanity. Cade disagrees but Prime is non-responsive. They later debate the matter, with Cade attempting to reignite Prime's faith in humanity.

In deep space, Lockdown finally discovers the absence of the smaller ship. He grumbles about Optimus Prime taking his trophy case and how the Prime will feel his wrath while he reverses course. Joyce meets with Attinger and Savoy and receives the Seed. Joyce intends to detonate it in a region of the [[Gobi Desert]], which will generate enough Transformium to last a century. Attinger is eager to expedite production but grows incensed when Joshua disagrees and says that they should go slower, quite obviously moved by Cade's call. Meanwhile, Galvatron activates ''himself'' and starts to infect the legion of over fifty other KSI Transformers. When the alarm rings regarding Galvatron's escape, Joyce has Attinger and Savoy evacuated from the building and gets in a car with Yueming, an associate named Darcy, and the Seed. They decide to try and hide the Seed in [[Hong Kong]].

Being hunted by Attinger and Savoy, Joyce seeks refuge on a rooftop when the Autobot-piloted ship arrives and attempts to pick him and the Seed up. However, Galvatron and his drones ramy arrive and shoot down the airborne vessel, causing Bumblebee, Hound, and the Yeagers to spill out while the others (Prime, Crosshairs, Drift, and the captured Knights) to careen away into the Wulong Valley. Savoy finds the Yeagers and Joyce on the rooftop and open fires on them but Cade leads him away from the others. The two jump across rooftops, eventually crashing into a house and getting into a fist fight which ends with Savoy falling from a window to his death.

Hound and Bumblebee attempt to escort the humans and the Seed out of the city, but are cut short when Joshua points out that the KSI-built Transformers were specifically built to destroy any Autobots or Decepticons left on Earth. This prompts Prime to enter the crashed ship and activate the armory as well as release the other captives within the ship. As Hound and Bumblebee hold the line and protect the humans, Optimus tries to convince the Legendary Warriors to fight alongside them. Their [[Grimlock (AOE)|apparent leader]] violently declines at first, fighting the Prime in both his massive robot mode and his Tyrannosaurus mode. Optimus quickly defeats him, saying that he and the other warriors will protect his family or die, then mounts the metal dinosaur. The Autobots mount their Dinobots and charge over the mountains into Hong Kong.

[[File:Dinobots ready for battle AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"''T. rex'' doesn't want to be fed. He wants to ''hunt''."]]

Meanwhile, as Hound and Bumblebee are starting to be overwhelmed by Galvatron's drone forces, Optimus and his fellow Autobots storm into the city, slamming, crushing, stomping, and chomping all nearby enemies. Galvatron retreats as the Autobots and Dinobots decimate his forces. With this battle over, Optimus confronts Joshua for his actions and gives the order to defend the humans and escort them, and the Seed, away from the city. On the way, a homing beacon within the Seed activates, allowing Lockdown to track the Autobots down. He activates a massive magnet, wreaking havoc on Hong Kong. Everything metal from kitchenware to massive ships are picked up by the magnet, including the Autobots and Dinobots. After narrowly avoiding the magnet, the Yeagers are momentarily separated from the Autobots. Optimus shoots at the magnet, destroying it and releasing the Transformers from its influence. The ship retreats to a nearby factory, with Optimus hot on its trail. Cade tells his daughter to stay with Shane and the Autobots, as he wishes to fight alongside Optimus against Lockdown. As Optimus Prime and Lockdown battle one-on-one, Attinger corners Yeager with a pistol, accusing him of choosing aliens over his own race, but he is quickly shot and killed by Optimus.

Because of Optimus' choice to save Cade before defending himself, Lockdown gains the upper hand, impaling Optimus through the chest with his own sword and pinning him to a concrete pillar. Meanwhile, Tessa convinces Bumblebee to turn around and the three join in fighting Lockdown, allowing Shane to use a tow truck to unpin Prime. Just as Lockdown is about to kill Cade, Optimus jumps up and slices the bounty hunter in half. Activating one of Lockdown's grenades, Prime tells the humans to hold on and uses rocket boosters to escape while the grenade destroys the last of the KSI drones. Galvatron has survived and retreated to the outskirts of the city; watching Prime blast off, he tells Optimus to beware, for he is reborn...

[[File:AOE-DefendThisFamily.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"I don't know. I guess... I guess we'll just have to evolve too."]]

The Autobots, Dinobots and their Human allies all regroup on the waterfront. Cade and Tessa happily reconcile and Cade finally accepts Shane. Joshua nobly says he will help them with their destroyed home. Prime declares the Dinobots are now free as they depart for parts unknown. With the bounty on his head placing the entire Earth in danger, Prime blasts off into space with the Seed to confront the Creators and discover the mystery behind his own origins, but not before ordering the Autobots to protect the Yeager family. As he leaves Earth's atmosphere, Optimus Prime sends a message to his Creators to leave planet Earth alone, because he's coming for them.

{{--}}

==Quotes==
"Lockdown...?" 
"Autobots, Decepticons, like little children, always fighting; making a mess out of the universe, then ''I've'' got to clean it up! There is one way you survive. Tell me where he's hiding. Where is Optimus Prime?" 
"Never." 
''(Lockdown rips out Ratchet's spark)'' 
"Never is here." 
:—'''Ratchet''''s final moments before '''Lockdown''' kills him.

"In this planet we have a saying: ''The enemy of my enemy is my friend''." 
"I also have a saying: '''''I don't care'''''."
:—'''Harold Attinger''' discusses with '''Lockdown'''.

"Every galaxy I've traveled, all you species are the same. You all think you're the center of the universe. You have no idea..."
:—'''Lockdown''' never truly appreciated one of his clients.

"Human beings. Bunch of backstabbing weasels!" 
"Hound, find your inner compass. ''Loyalty is but a flower in the winds of fear and temptation.''" 
"What the hell are you saying?!?" 
"It's a haiku." 
"Cut the crap before I drop a grenade down your throat!" 
"Try it, you'll be dead!" 
"Oh, please pull it. Please do it."
:—'''Hound''' doesn't appreciate '''Drift's''' haikus.

"With your fate unknown, Bumblebee has held command, despite his complete and total lack of anything resembling warrior discipline. He's like a child." 
"This child is about to ''kick your ass!''"
:—'''Drift''' and '''Bumblebee'''

"Autobots, I have sworn never to kill humans..." 
"Big mistake." 
"...but when I find out who's behind this...he's going to ''die''." 
"Hoo-ah!"
:—'''Prime's''' rage is fueled by '''Hound'''.

"Destroy the lab! Destroy it all!" 
''(The Autobots lay waste to the KSI research facility)'' 
"Hey, you! Stop! That's company property!" 
"They're not ''your'' property! ''They were my friends.''" 
:—'''Optimus Prime''' duly informs '''Joshua Joyce''' that Transformers aren't just machines.

"You have no soul!" 
"That is why I have no ''fear''!"
:—'''Optimus Prime'''' is shocked to find '''Galvatron''' isn't as lifeless as he thought.

"We're behind enemy lines now. Lockdown's ship has booby traps! Eyes open." 
"Beware of his bone-grinders, brain-blinders, flesh-stealers, chromosomal-inverters, catatonic slugs, black hole trapdoors and of course, radiation."

:—'''Hound''' and '''Crosshairs''' warn the humans of the perils held within Lockdown's ship.

"I was expecting a [[Grimlock_(G1)/toys#Alternators.2FBinaltech|giant car!]]"
:—'''Drift''' witnessing Grimlock transform into a dinosaur.

"Autobots, we're going to prove who we are, and ''why we're here''!"
:—'''Optimus Prime''' rallies his troops with his characteristic passion and charisma.

"Ugh, you just wanna die for the guy. ''That's'' leadership. Or brainwashing, or something." 
"No, that's Optimus Prime."
:—'''Crosshairs''' and '''Drift''', remarking on their [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|leader]]/[[Dinobot (AOE)|Giant Robot Dinosaur]] tamer.

"I'm like a fat ballerina who takes scalps and slits throats!"
:—'''Hound''' takes another five levels in badass and ballerina class.

"How do you say 'Get the f&%# out of the way' in Chinese?"
:—'''Joshua''' has some issues with the language barrier.

"I hate cheap knockoffs."
:—'''Bumblebee''' dismissing all [[Cliffjumper (Movie)|clones]] of him as "cheap".

"We shall meet again, Prime, for I am reborn."
:—'''Galvatron''' retreats to fight another day.

"There are mysteries to the universe we were never meant to solve, but who we are and why we are here are not among them. Those answers we carry inside. I am Optimus Prime, and this message is to my Creators. Leave planet Earth alone. 'Cause I'm coming...for you."
:—'''Optimus Prime'''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s closing narration.

==Main cast==
{{featuredcharacters|
h1=[[Autobot]]s|c1=
*[[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] ([[Peter Cullen]])
*[[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]]
*[[Hound (Movie)|Hound]] ([[John Goodman]])
*[[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] ([[Ken Watanabe]])
*[[Ratchet (Movie)|Ratchet]] ([[Robert Foxworth]])
*[[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]] ([[John DiMaggio]])
*[[Brains]] ([[Reno Wilson]])
*[[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot]]
*[[Dinobot (AOE)|Dinobots]]
**[[Grimlock (AOE)|Grimlock]]
**[[Scorn (AOE)|Scorn]]
**[[Slug (AOE)|Slug]]
**[[Strafe (AOE)|Strafe]]
*[[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]]'s head
|h2=[[Decepticon]]s|c2=
*[[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]] ([[Frank Welker]])
*[[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]]'s head
*[[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]]
*[[Junkheap (AOE)|Junkheap]]
*[[Trax (AOE)|Traxes]]
*"[[Two Head]]s"
*"[[KSI Boss]]es"
*[[McLaren Decepticon]]
*[[Aston Martin Decepticon]]
*[[Insecticon (Movie)|Insecticons]]
*[[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] (video footage)
*[[Protoform]]s (video footage)

|h3=[[Human]]s|c3=
*[[Cade Yeager]] ([[Mark Wahlberg]])
*[[Tessa Yeager]] ([[Nicola Peltz]])
*[[Shane Dyson]] ([[Jack Reynor]])
*[[Joshua Joyce]] ([[Stanley Tucci]])
*[[Harold Attinger]] ([[Kelsey Grammer]])
*[[James Savoy]] ([[Titus Welliver]])
*[[Lucas Flannery]] ([[T. J. Miller]])
*[[Darcy Tirrel]] ([[Sophia Myles]])
*[[Su Yueming]] ([[Li Bingbing]])
*[[Gill Wembley]] ([[James Bachman]])
*[[Chief of Staff]] ([[Thomas Lennon]])

|h4=Others|c4=
'''Lockdown's crew'''
*[[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]] ([[Mark Ryan]])
*[[Mercenary|Mercenaries]]
*[[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaws]]
*[[Stupid Drone]]s
'''[[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|KSI]] prototypes'''
*[[Oreo Transformer]]
|nonumbering=true
}}

==Errors==
===Continuity errors===
[[File:DeceasedTransformersAOE.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.6|Your attention, please. Will the ''real'' Optimus Prime please stand up?]]
[[File:AOECrosshairsDriftWeirdEdit.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|What just happened? No, seriously. Is there some kind of timey-wimey thing going on?]]
[[File:AOE savoy eyegouge.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|"An eye for an eye makes the whole world-OH MY GOD!!!"]]
*[[Ironhide (Movie)|Ironhide]] is seen on the cards Attinger pulls out early in the film, listed as deceased and having been last seen in Chicago. However, Ironhide was killed by Sentinel Prime in Washington, D.C., midway through ''Dark of the Moon'', and long before the final battle in Chicago.
*Scenes from the Decepticons' invasion of Chicago in ''Dark of the Moon'' are shown as archival footage presented by Attinger. While it is conceivable some lucky people with cameras recorded the initial attack and managed to survive and publish their footage, it's highly unlikely people would've been able to get close-up video footage of the NEST team taking down [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] and the other Decepticons.
*A Cemetery Wind vehicle smashes into the side of Shane's car during the chase through the cornfield, but the car doesn't show any damage to that side in subsequent shots.
*Tessa and Shane's reliance on Romeo and Juliet laws is unnecessary, since the age of consent in Texas is 17.
*During the 'Autobots reunite' sequence, Drift starts out in car mode on a road with Bumblebee and Crosshairs, before suddenly appearing atop a rock formation in robot mode and transforming to helicopter mode to meet up with Optimus Prime.
*When Crosshairs and Drift are talking on board Lockdown's ship shortly after boarding it, a ''very'' bizarre edit occurs in the middle of Drift's line "Better hurry, because dark matter drives are preparing to take off". The camera angle is now slightly different than before, but it's not a switch between a long shot and a close-up or a complete change of perspective. Oddly, Drift is still seen from the almost the ''exact same angle'' as before the edit, but even though his and Crosshairs's bodies were at an almost 90 degree angle before the edit, they're now suddenly almost standing in parallel to each other, with Crosshairs' head turned towards Drift. In addition, a flame that appeared in front of Drift just before the edit is suddenly gone.
*When Shane shouts "I surrender!" and drops his "gun-sword", the hilt is facing to the right, but after a close-up showed it landing on the ground and firing a shot, the hilt is suddenly facing to the ''left'' in the subsequent long shot when it fires more shots.
*When Joshua reunites with the rest of the group in Hong Kong, Darcy tells him she'll do a diversion, and to get the Seed somewhere safe. Yet, no diversion of any kind happens.
*As Cade and Savoy grapple in the apartment, Cade jams his thumb deep into Savoy's eye socket (see right), with accompanying "squlech" sound effect, and appropriate reaction from Savoy in the form of a long howl of pain through gritted teeth and a string of drool flowing uncontrolled from his mouth. But as soon as the two separate, Savoy's eye is absolutely fine, with no indication anything is supposed to have happened to it.
*While Lockdown is pulling up parts of the city, Shane backs the car into a building which is two stories high at most, but appears much larger on the inside.

===Technical/animation errors===
*Absolutely NONE of the dinosaur fossils found in modern times are cyberformed, even though the Creators killed all of the dinosaurs using this method.
*The shot right before the close-up of the cyberformed dinosaurs has no cyberformed dinosaurs at all, despite having all the excavation vehicles in the same positions as the next scene.
* Arcee is seen on Attinger's cards misspelled as "Acree".
*After Ratchet's leg has been severed and the Cemetery Wind troops surround him, Savoy asks him why he was running, even though he was clearly trying to escape from the clueless humans firing at him like psychopaths.
**Also, after Ratchet plays the troops the message sent out from Optimus, Savoy tells him that he won't have any mercy for the Autobot because he lost his sister in the war in Chicago - even though the Autobots were obviously the ones trying to protect the city and its citizens, including his sister, from the Decepticons, who started the war.
*When Attinger takes over the operation to scramble Cemetery Wind after Optimus, and dismisses everyone in the room, he does so by saying "Ladies and gentlemen, this room is going dark. The exit is on your left." All the people then get up and begin to exit to their ''right''.
*Scrambling Cemetery Wind seems to scramble the timeline. From the deployment of Cemetery Wind to Lucas's death, the time of day is in limbo. For example, Optimus escapes from the Yeager property at sunset, joining the pursuit that takes place in early afternoon, not to mention that Cemetery Wind arrives at the Yeagers' home town at what appears to be dawn. In some instances, repeated changes between shots correspond with changes between different times of day, as different positions of the sun result in very very obviously different lighting conditions.
*When Lockdown transforms to prepare for the attack on Optimus, one can clearly see a faux-part Lamborghini logo pop out from inside the car, while the actual logo disappears.
*In the shot of Shane's car pulling up outside of the Yeager farm after Cemetery Wind has stormed in, nobody is seen inside the vehicle.
*During the scene where Cade is pretending to be a truck driver with Optimus still in his flat-nose truck form, he has a cap and white plaid shirt on. After Optimus scans into his newer form, Cade's back to wearing his leather jacket.
*When Shane's car gets sideswiped in the cornfield, the back left window is shattered. A couple scenes later, the window is just rolled down.
*When Shane's car breaks into a building, the woman sitting right in the middle of the room is clearly waiting on the glass-breaking noise to start running.
*After Lucas' death, there is nothing really stopping Lockdown or Cemetery Wind from continuing to chase Optimus. Lockdown is much faster and could easily catch up to Optimus whilst Cemetery Wind could chase in their remaining vehicles.
*When Optimus transforms to and from his Marmon 97 alternate mode, the windows and grille that make up his chest visibly change size and shape.
*When Optimus transforms out of his flat-nosed truck mode and punches the ground, Tessa and Shane are standing next to each other, as viewed from behind Optimus. When the view immediately switches to be facing Optimus, Cade is suddenly standing between the two.
*Shane defends his relationship with Tessa by stating that the 'Romeo and Juliet laws' "statute 2705-3" protect their relationship, yet the card he shows Cade reads "Statute 22.011". This is also the number that appears in the English subtitles of the DVD, meaning that it was scripted as 22.011 and not 2705-3.
*The truck that Optimus scans, while still being from the Western Star manufacturer, is an older and different model than the one he transforms into.
*When Optimus is on his way to the reunion site, the human characters inside are sitting this way: Shane to the right, Tessa in the Middle and Cade to the left. However when Optimus gets to the reunion point Cade comes out of the truck using Shane's side door (right) instead of his (left). It is clear they (the director and his crew) were trying to get a "superhero" pose but it doesn't make sense.
*When Optimus arrived to the reunion site you can see the filming crew in the reflection of his front chrome parts.
*Hound's dialogue when he's bickering with Drift doesn't really match up to what we see. Drift pulls his swords on Hound, but the big guy goads him on to "pull it", suggesting Drift was originally supposed to aim a firearm at him.
[[File:Uncolored Ratchet head prop.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.67|Gray is the new green.]]
*When Joshua is in the lab showing Darcy Transformium, in two different shots, a gray, uncolored prop of Ratchet's head can be seen being worked on in the next room.
*As Cade's drone scans a KSI employee's name tag, it displays its location onscreen as around N 38°44'55", W115°28'27". These coordinates are for a [https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B044%2755.0%22N+115%C2%B028%2727.0%22W/@38.7486111,-115.4741667,3048m patch of desert in Nevada] rather than any place in Chicago.
*While first infiltrating KSI, in the showroom where Stinger is first viewed, Bumblebee is in car mode when Joshua walks in with Yueming. Bumblebee's engine audibly revs, yet Joshua doesn't notice that there's no one in the car to rev the engine.
[[File:Megatron Head at KSI.jpg|right|upright=1.4|thumb|Screw logic!]]
*Megatron's severed head is in somewhat good shape for someone who got an axe stabbed on the top of his head. Furthermore, his head is more in line with its appearance in the first movie not ''Dark of the Moon''.
*Not to mention, after Joshua's group leaves and Bumblebee knocks Stinger down, there's no transformation noise right before Bumblebee returns to his altmode and the KSI executive walks in. Additionally, Bumblebee starts playing M.C. Hammer's "U Can't Touch This", '''when no one is in the car''' to turn the stereo on. Ostensibly it was for a comic moment, but it didn't raise anyone's suspicions that a car that wasn't typical of the ones being scanned, operating the engine and the stereo with no human inside, might be a disguised Cybertronian?
*After Bumblebee scans his new alternate mode, the camera pans over the car and Tessa and Shane are not inside. However when he's getting his new upgraded form you can see that they used stunt doubles for Shane and Tessa. That scene wasn't dangerous enough to require stunt doubles, was it?
*Some security guards in KSI fail to react to Crosshairs's shooting and shouting until a few seconds before the scene changes.
*When Galvatron first transforms and crashes into a truck, the way he is composed in the scene makes it look like he is simply floating above the wreckage, instead of being in the middle causing it.
*When Optimus transforms, Cade and Shane leap out of Optimus, while Tessa is trapped and rolls away. However, previous shots establish that the seating order in Optimus is Shane, Tessa, Cade. This means that Cade crawled over his daughter to escape(!), which is not quite logical or possible.
*Lockdown fires two missiles at Optimus Prime that, despite piercing his chest, don't manifest any kind of visible damage on his person, despite the previous shot showing Optimus's chest getting blown apart.
*When Lockdown is approaching Optimus after gunning him down, the driver's door of the Cadillac SRX he's resting on is shown to be open in two exterior shots, even though Tessa previously closed it after getting inside, and it's also shown closed in other (mostly interior) shots.
*When he loses his grip on the net holding Optimus and the car containing Tessa, Cade is shown falling toward the street, but he lands on the grass by the road.
*When the Autobots are on a bridge, before boarding Lockdown's ship, Crosshairs is clearly shown to be speaking but no dialogue is heard.
*When Tessa gets taken to the trash in Lockdown's ship, a green screen can be seen at the end of the corridor.
*While locking up Optimus, Lockdown's scar is on the left side of his face. While talking to Savoy upon delivering the seed, it's on the right side of his face; however, it switches back to the left side right before he walks off after bidding Earth farewell.
*While the human characters are climbing across the anchor cables to the high-rise building some of the Steeljaws begin to climb out after them. Cade tells his daughter not to look back and see them, but when we cut back to her, with a clear view of the cables behind her, the Steeljaws are gone.
*When Bumblebee jumps off Lockdown's ship to save the humans, he is followed by a Steeljaw. In the following shot, the Steeljaw is gone.
*While explaining Megatron's plans to the Autobots, Brains rings a bell on a train. In the next shot, the bell is not moving.
*During the motorcycle chase, the CIA cars change. At first, Joshua and Su are trailed by a Cadillac and an Audi; in the middle of the chase, the Cadillac is replaced by another Audi. By the end of the chase, the Cadillac is back.
*In Hong Kong, when Cade, Joshua, Tessa, and Shane enter the elevator to run away from the rooftop, the elevator won't move and Cade says it's overloaded. But in the next scene, we see that the maximum number of people that the elevator can carry is nine, and it's very clear that the Seed doesn't weight as much as five people.
*When Grimlock transforms to his dino mode and charges at Optimus, there are no other Dinobots, nor the ship, to be seen in the background. However, after Optimus punches Grimlock and the shot changes, Dinobots are standing almost right next to him.
*Optimus somehow has enough strength to not only maintain his ground, but propel Grimlock through the air during his charge. Considering Grimlock's strength, velocity and weight, it is highly unlikely Optimus would win.
*Immediately after he transforms into his triceratops mode, Slug is shown to have a very visible Autobot logo on his dino-mode forehead, yet he just met Optimus and the other Autobots moments before.
*One of the air conditioning units kicked off the building exterior by Savoy falls away to reveal ... a solid wall, with no connection to an apartment's interior.
*During Hound's stand in Hong Kong, the pickup truck he uses as a shield sways left to right whilst his arm remains still.
*When Hound pulls out a large knife and stabs a KSI Prototype through the head with it, green "blood" spews out of its face, which usually happens to the Decepticons when they're injured. But since the KSI Prototype isn't a real Decepticon or Transformer, it is impossible for it to have had any blood in the first place.
*The damage Hound receives after being shot down, most noticeably the pipe on his left shoulder, is fixed in subsequent shots.
*Crosshairs is seen driving alongside Drift and Hound through the bridge to take the Seed away from the city ... right after we just saw him staying behind to hold the line with the Dinobots.
*During the final fight, Bumblebee decides to just leave midway. Considering the distance between the factory and the dock where they met, he must have left long before Optimus flew there.
*After Optimus takes off, the other Autobots are absent from the shot of the main cast watching Optimus fly off.

===Geographic discontinuities===
*When Cade tries to use his card at an ATM, not only is the card issued from a Chinese bank, which wouldn't have any branches in north Texas, where the Yeagers live, the text on the ATM screen (behind the ''Access Denied'' warning) is in Chinese.
*Despite being from north Texas, Cade and Tessa have no Texas accents- not all Texans have noticeable accents of course, but Cade can be heard speaking with a slight ''Boston'' accent in the trainyard ("I'm doing stuff out of my league here!"), which is likely due to his portrayer, Mark Wahlberg, being a Boston native.
*Despite the KSI pursuit scene taking place on a two lane highway, there are several scenes spliced in of the Transformers with supercar alt modes (like Stinger and Crosshairs) driving on what is obviously a racecourse (specifically the GM proving grounds in Milford, Michigan). This is apparent by the horizontal incline of the road in some of the shots that are also missing the markings that would normally be on a road, and a reaction shot for Stinger that shows a straight, one lane ninety degree turn.
*The entirety of the KSI pursuit scene switches between taking place between the left and right sides of the two-lane highway, despite being only supposed to take place on the right side. Furthermore, the shot showing stray missiles colliding with oncoming traffic takes place on a completely different highway, one with five lanes instead of three and a wooden fence on the side of the street as opposed to a guardrail. Moreover; the car crashing stunt for the bridge jump scene starts on the five lane highway, continues on the left side of the three lane highway, and then finishes on the ''right side'' of the three lane highway. Trouble finding shots, eh?
*All of the vehicles seen in Hong Kong are left-hand drive, rather than the right-hand drive you'd expect in a location that drives on the left.
*Some scenes supposed to take place in Hong Kong depict a very distinctively American city with traffic lights suspended by wires above the street.
*Chicago's Willis Tower can be seen in the background of Hong Kong.
*The bridge out of the city shown in the film (Tsing Ma Bridge) is at least a half-hour drive from the battlefield in Central.
*Furthermore, despite Optimus's comment, there are no bridges connecting Hong Kong Island (where all the action allegedly takes place) to the mainland. The only way to get off Hong Kong Island (other than by boat or swimming) is via one of three tunnels, none of which are used, referenced or mentioned in the film.
*Speaking of bridges, Tsing Ma Bridge (the gray version of the Golden Gate Bridge) shown in the movie is effectively a dead end unless one is going to the airport or Disneyland, because it only leads to/from Lantau Island.
*The bridge where Grimlock "digs in" is an expressway bypass. Geographically defending it is pointless as there are multiple other routes (including at least one that is faster) to bypass the bridge and tunnel yet end up at the same place on the other side.
*In one of the fight scenes there is an overhead railway (the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_People_Mover Detroit People Mover]). There are no overhead railways on Hong Kong Island (yet) and the MTR (the subway train network) trains look nothing like the train used in the scenes, as they are a completely different shape and color.
*There are no "glass houses" on Hong Kong Island.
*There are no Chinese temple ruins on Hong Kong Island. The temples there are all intact and frequently used or preserved and don't have giant metal umbrellas ''at all''.
*The area where Optimus battles and "tames" Grimlock is in the Wushan Valley in Northern China which is over 1100 km from Hong Kong, yet is depicted as being in Pok Fu Lam on the South Western side of Hong Kong Island (which is a high rise residential area). Even flying it would take well over 2 hours to get from Wushan Valley to Hong Kong.
*It's not possible to drive a car from Beijing into Hong Kong, as the number plates would be invalid, and it would take over a day to drive that distance. Chinese vehicles coming into Hong Kong have to be from the Canton area (number plates are black) and have to be registered with Hong Kong plates, which means they must display both plates at all times one above the other. (In addition, the process to obtain permission for a car to have that is also lengthy and costly.)
*The blue SUV used by Cade and his companions is not a type of vehicle that exists in Hong Kong. In addition, its steering wheel is located on the left side, even though cars in Hong Kong have their steering wheels on the right side.
*Optimus Prime's Western Star alternate mode would be illegal to drive on Hong Kong roads, since it's is oversized. The Freightliner truck used for Galvatron is the maximum size/gauge allowed on Hong Kong roads. All scenes with Optimus driving in truck mode were filmed elsewhere, the Western Star truck was never brought to Hong Kong. Even his previous Peterbilt alternate mode would be illegal in Hong Kong.
*The area depicted as the final battle scene where Optimus and Lockdown face off was digitally added on the map of Hong Kong shown in the movie. It doesn't exist at all in real life, where it's actually a breakwater/typhoon shelter full of boats on Victora Harbour. In addition, the factories in Hong Kong (which are all located on Kowloon, because Hong Kong Island is purely a residential/business/shopping district) look nothing like the buildings used in the scene.

===[[Dinobot Island, Part 1|Paleontology weeps]]===
*The cyberformed remains of a ''Tyrannosaurus'' and a ''Spinosaurus'' appear frozen together in the arctic at the beginning of the film, which is rather odd considering the two are found on different continents (North America and Africa respectively) and separated by around 35 million years of evolution.
[[File:ExtinctionOfTheDinosaurus.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|And another thing! How is that sauropod running!?!]]
*The opening scene of the movie shows a ''Psittaccosaurus'' (100-120 million years old), a generic hadrosaur that might be either an ''Edmontosaurus'' or a ''Shantungosaurus'' (65-70 million years old), and a brachiosaurid (100-157 million years old) all present during what is implied to be the K-Pg extinction event (64.5-65 million years old).
*The ''Psittaccosaurus'', a well known herbivorous animal, is seen actively hunting and killing live prey. In a nod to paleontological accuracy, however, it is depicted with a row of quill-like feathers along its back, as many ceratopsian dinosaurs are believed to have had.
*The Dinobots show various exaggerations and ornamentations which go beyond the usual suspension of disbelief involved in... [[Dinobot (disambiguation)|giant metal dinosaurs]]. Grimlock sports curved, backwards pointing horns and enormous fangs. Slug has huge tail spikes and a set of nasty chin horns, though his tail spikes could be a mechanised representation of the bristle-like fibres that triceratops currently is thought to have had. Strafe is the biggest offender, with a pair of elongated tails and twin heads with teeth and incorrectly-shaped crests and grasping talons. Scorn probably gets off the easiest, being ''mostly'' correct, bar his extra spines. It's not his fault that a few months after the release of the movie, the morphology of ''Spinosaurus'' was completely revised, with a different spine shape and shorter legs.
* The Dinobots' alternate modes are orders of magnitude larger than the real dinosaurs on which they're based. In an interesting twist, using Optimus as a proxy for the average human, all the Dinobots bar Strafe have been accurately scaled up. At 850 tonnes <ref name="Grimlock stats">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/entertainment-weekly-reveals-new-details-on-transformers-4-age-of-extinction-new-grimlock-image-179675] summarised on TFW2005.</ref> Grimlock is as large compared to Optimus as a real ''Tyrannosaurus'' would be next to a human.

==Transformers references==

* As usual, many of the new characters have roots in older portions of the mythos:
** [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] is based on [[Drift (G1)|a Generation 1 character]] introduced in IDW's 2008 ''[[The Transformers: All Hail Megatron|All Hail Megatron]]'' series.
** Lockdown is derived from [[Lockdown (Animated)|a character in the 2008 ''Animated'' cartoon]] who had already jumped over to the G1 comics and, in toy form, to the movie universe.
** [[Hound (disambiguation)|Hound]] and [[Crosshairs (disambiguation)|Crosshairs]] both share names with previous characters; their personalities are new and unique, though Hound seems based on [[Bulkhead (Prime)|''Prime'' Bulkhead]] in physique, coloration and personality.
** Galvatron being a new form for Megatron has been a thing for [[Galvatron (disambiguation)|basically forever]]. With Joyce's intentions of creating him as a counterpart to Optimus Prime, he also takes cues from [[Nemesis Prime (disambiguation)|Nemesis Prime]]; in particular the human-controlled ''[[Transformers: Prime (cartoon)|Prime]]'' [[Nemesis Prime (Prime)|character]].
** The Dinobots are the latest iteration of [[Dinobot (G1)|the powerhouse subfaction]] that first appeared in the early days of Generation 1. Their leader Grimlock is a direct analog of [[Grimlock (G1)|his Generation 1 counterpart]]; Strafe and Slug are based on Generation 1 [[Swoop (G1)|Swoop]] and [[Slag (G1)|Slag]], respectively.
* In the film's opening act, Optimus has adopted a cabover truck alternate mode akin to that of his [[Optimus Prime (G1)|G1 counterpart]]. His robot mode also draws some inspiration from his G1 design, such as the large grill on his chest.
* This is not the first time that Ratchet and Lockdown have faced off. ''Animated'' [[Ratchet (Animated)|Ratchet]] and [[Lockdown (Animated)|Lockdown]] had [[The Thrill of the Hunt|a long-running feud]]. Within the movie universe, the two characters have been described as rivals on ''[[Hunt for the Decepticons]]'' toy [[packaging]] [[bio]]s, and faced off in ''[[Cyber Missions 3]]''.
* The concept of the Transformers being built by another race first appeared in the third season of [[The Transformers (cartoon)|the original ''Transformers'' cartoon]].
* Meanwhile, the concept of humans hunting down all Transformers on Earth following a successful but devastating massive battle hearkens back to plotlines from IDW's [[The Transformers (IDW)|2009-2011 ongoing series]].
* The (rather obvious) theme of humans (particularly evil government agencies) using captured Transformers as a source of technology has appeared numerous times in the mythos, going all the way back to the [[Rapid Anti-robot Assault Team|RAAT]] agency in the original Marvel Comics. [[Transformers Animated (cartoon)|The ''Animated'' cartoon]] in particular featured the severed head of [[Megatron (Animated)|Megatron]] being studied and reverse-engineered, while in IDW's ongoing G1 stories, [[Sunstreaker (G1)|a Transformer's severed head]] was used to help design man-made Transformers (in [[The Transformers: Maximum Dinobots|a Dinobot-focused series at that]].) More broad uses of the concept include the Dreamwave ''[[Prime Directive]]'' mini-series, Devils Due's ''[[G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers: The Art of War|Art of War]]'' mini-series (''again'' featuring the severed head of [[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]]), the [[The Transformers (IDW)|IDW ongoing series]], [[All or Nothing!|Cobra's actions in the G2 comics]], [[MECH]] from the [[Transformers: Prime (cartoon)|''Prime'' cartoon]], and even in the movie universe itself, in IDW's ''[[Transformers: Alliance|Alliance]]'' mini-series that served as a prequel to the ''Revenge of the Fallen'' film. The idea of the (seemingly) human-controlled Transformers eventually proving to be uncontrollable was also pioneered by some of these stories, most notably Dreamwave's aforementioned ''Prime Directive'' mini.
* A device that can "[[eco-structuring|cyberform]]" other planets previously appeared in several places in the mythos, including in the original ''Transformers'' cartoon's [[Key to Vector Sigma (disambiguation)|Key to Vector Sigma]] two-parter and the aforementioned Dreamwave ''Prime Directive'' mini. In both cases, it was actually activated, unlike its movie counterpart.
* The idea of aliens and/or alien technology being found frozen in the arctic or Antarctic ice is a very common trope in fiction; in terms of Transformers, the first use of the trope was [[Jetfire (G1)|Skyfire]] in the original cartoon's [[Fire in the Sky]]. A discovery specifically at the hands of ''humans'' was a plot point in the aforementioned Dreamwave ''Prime Directive'' mini, not to mention [[Transformers (film)|the discovery of]] [[Megatron (Movie)|N.B.E. 01]]. Or the [[Scraplet]]s.
* The ringtone on Gill Wembley's cell phone is a remixed version of the original G1 Transformers [[theme song]].
* As he hunts for Ratchet, Lockdown's head-up display shows characters in [[Cybertronian language|Ancient Autobot]], an alphabet originating in the Generation 1 episode "[[Cosmic Rust (episode)|Cosmic Rust]]".
* In the scene where Optimus scans a passing truck, the classic [[Transformation#The noise|transformation noise]] plays when the Autobot symbol emerges from his grill.
*During the Texas chase scene, Shane, Cade, and Tessa drive past a navy-blue Pontiac Solstice with a white stripe down the middle. The Pontiac Solstice was Jazz's alternate mode in the first film. Also, the car is a reversal of Jazz's 1980's color scheme, which was white with a navy blue stripe down the middle. Since the Pontiac Solstice was not being produced at the time of the movie's production, the car's presence is definitely a reference, although the color scheme might just be a coincidence.
*The scene where Galvatron goes active and breaks free in KSI's Chinese facility mirrors the scene in the 2007 ''Transformers'' movie when Megatron breaks free inside [[Sector Seven]]'s facility, down to a reuse of the line "I am Megatron", only with the name changed to "Galvatron".

==Real-life references==
[[File:Rainbow Dash Age of Extinction.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|"I found the magic!"]]

*Among the objects KSI makes from Transformium in the film is a Rainbow Dash doll from [[My Little Pony|another popular Hasbro brand]].
*This marks the second time a Michael Bay film has begun with the extinction of the dinosaurs, the first being ''[[Armageddon]]''.

==Other editions==

==Prequel material==
*''[[Transformers (Titan Magazine)|Transformers: Age of Extinction]]'' magazine ([[Titan Books|Titan Comics]])

==Adaptations==
Unusually, no novel or comic adaptations of the film were released. The ''[[Transformers Annual 2015]]'' contained an extremely cut down prose summary of events.

==Music==
==Score==
{{main|Age of Extinction: The Score}}

==Home video releases==
{{main|Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)/home video}}

==Theatrical posters==
<center><gallery>
File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionTeaserPoster.jpg|First teaser poster
File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionOptimusPrimePoster.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction poster-IMAX.jpg|IMAX poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Cade poster.jpg|Cade Yeager poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Shane poster.jpg|Shane Dyson poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Tessa poster.jpg|Tessa Yeager poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Su poster.jpg|Su Yueming poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Lockdown poster.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Rules Have Changed.jpg|It's a scene not in the movie!
File:Transformers Age of Extinction This Is Not War.jpg|This is not human extinction, it's just war.
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Stand Together1.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Stand Together2.jpg|"Now look down. Now look at me. I'm on a dinosaur."
</gallery></center>

==Reception==

{{quote|"The few authentic inspirations to be found in the movie's hundred and sixty-five roiling minutes involve gigantic science-fiction contrivances."|[http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/film/transformers_age_of_extinction_bay The New Yorker's Richard Brody on Transformers 4: Age of Extinction], Richard Brody|[http://newyorker.com newyorker.com] [[2014]]}}

''Transformers: Age of Extinction'' was critically panned, and nearly universally condemned on the American front, receiving a rating of 18% positive critical reviews on RottenTomatoes.com, one percent lower than the final score for ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]]''. Common criticisms leveled against it included its relatively long run time of 2 hours and 45 minutes, the disproportionately small amount of screen time the Dinobots got in relation to their relatively large exposure in promotional materials for the film, an over-reliance on product placement, and the decision to set the final act in Hong Kong, which was perceived as a choice solely done to pander towards the Chinese audience for the film. However, the film received praise for its visual effects, action sequences, and the performances of some of the human actors, mainly Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, and Kelsey Grammer.<ref>http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_age_of_extinction/</ref> Despite any criticisms, the film was the worldwide top-grossing film for 2014, earning over a billion dollars.<ref>[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?view2=worldwide&yr=2014 Box Office Mojo's 2014 Worldwide Grosses]</ref>

It [[wikipedia:35th_Golden_Raspberry_Awards|won one Golden Raspberry Award]] for Worst Director ([[Michael Bay]]), was one of four movies contributing to [[Kelsey Grammer]]'s Worst Supporting Actor win (along with ''{{w|The Expendables 3}}'', ''{{w|Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return}}'' and ''{{w|Think Like a Man Too}}''), and was unsuccessfully nominated for Worst Picture; Worst Supporting Actress ([[Nicola Peltz]] as [[Tessa Yeager]]); Worst Screen Combo ("Any two robots, actors (or robotic actors)"); Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel; and Worst Screenplay ("screenplay by [[Ehren Kruger]], based on Hasbro's Transformers action figures").

==Production staff==
''Age of Extinction'' was written by [[Ehren Kruger]], who also wrote ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'' and helped write ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]]''.
===Visual effects===
===Locations department===

==Development details==
===Cast and crew signing on===
On June 26, 2011, thirteen days before the official theatrical release of ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'', actor [[Tyrese Gibson]] gave an interview to Movieweb, in which he claimed that [[Michael Bay]] would not return for a fourth ''Transformers'' installment; instead, executive producer [[Steven Spielberg]] himself was allegedly interested in directing a sequel.<ref name="tyresemovieweb">[http://movieweb.com/exclusive-steven-spielberg-may-direct-transformers-4/ Movieweb interview with Tyrese Gibson], with several names missing from the text; the full excerpt in question is quoted [http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/rumor-transformers-4-directed-by-steven-spielberg-172501/ here] on TFW2005.</ref> Ten days later, on June 26, 2011, still three days before the official theatrical release of ''Dark of the Moon'', Michael Bay posted praise for actor [[Shia LaBeouf]] on his official forums, while at the same time expressing regret for leaving the ''Transformers'' franchise.<ref name="bayshialeaving">[http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?9502-Love-Shia-as-an-Actor Michael Bay's praise for Shia LaBeouf]] at the official Michael Bay forums.</ref> Another two days later, on June 28, 2011, LaBeouf confirmed that ''Dark of the Moon'' would definitely be his last ''Transformers'' film, as he didn't think there was "anywhere to take" his character of [[Sam Witwicky (Movie)|Sam Witwicky]].<ref name="endshia">[http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/06/28/transformers-dark-of-the-moon-shia-labeouf/ "'Transformers: Dark Of The Moon' Is The End For Shia LaBeouf"], MTV Movies Blog.</ref>

Eight months later, on February 13, 2012, producer [[Lorenzo di Bonaventura]] gave an interview during [[Toy Fair 2012]], in which he confirmed that a fourth film was scheduled for a release in the Summer of 2014, Michael Bay would direct it after all, and that the movie would be a "reboot". He promptly clarified that it was actually a "hybrid", an "evolution" of the franchise that would be in continuity with the previous films, citing 2012's ''[[Wikipedia:The Amazing Spider-Man (2012 film)|The Amazing Spider-Man]]'' reboot of the ''[[Spider-Man]]'' film franchise as an example of what people should ''not'' expect from a fourth ''Transformers'' film. Di Bonaventura also confirmed that no casting discussions had taken place yet at that point, since there was no set story yet. However, there would be "a lot of new cast", and it was still uncertain at that point whether any of the previous cast members would return. The only characters that would "certainly" return wold be [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] and [[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]].<ref name="lorenzointerview">["http://www.mtv.com/videos/movies/733426/a-new-transformers-to-hit-theaters-in-summer-2014.jhtml "a new 'transformers' to hit theaters in summer 2014"], interview with Lorenzo Di Bonaventura at MTV.com.</ref> A day later, on February 14, 2012, Bay himself and [[Paramount Pictures]] officially announced that Bay had indeed signed a deal to make a fourth ''Transformers'' film. The film's release date was stated alternatively as either June 27 or June 29, 2014.<ref name="bayfourthfilm1">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/transformers-4-release-date-revealed-174395/ "Transformers 4 Release Date Revealed"] at TFW2005.</ref><ref name="bayfourthfilm">[http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-17028248 "Transformers director Michael Bay signs for fourth film"], BBC.co.uk.</ref> That same day, Bay also confirmed that he and Spielberg were working on a "whole new re imagining{{sic}} of ''Transformers''".<ref name="reimagining">[http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?10284-Transformers-4 Michael Bay confirming that ''Transformers 4'' would be a "reimaginging"] at the official Michael Bay forums.</ref> Two days later, on February 16, 2012, actor [[Josh Duhamel]] expressed his doubts that he, Shia LaBeouf, [[Rosie Huntington-Whiteley]] or Tyrese Gibson would return for the fourth installment.<ref name="noshiarosie">[http://eonline.com/news/294791/josh-duhamel-not-coming-back-for-transformers-4-is-anyone "Josh Duhamel Not Coming Back for Transformers 4: Is Anyone?!"] at E! Online.</ref>

Four months later, on June 6, 2012, Michael Bay confirmed in an interview centered around ''[[Transformers: The Ride – 3D|Transformers: The Ride]]'' that the fourth film would feature "some redesigns of the robots and an entirely new cast", and that it would be the last ''Transformers'' film he would direct.<ref name="ride">[http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/transformers-the-ride-3d-even-impresses-disney-rivals/ "‘Transformers’ taking new shape with Universal ride and fourth film"], LA Times Hero Complex.</ref> A few weeks later, on June 21, 2012, Bay confirmed that the fourth film would feature "different human actors", but the film would not be strictly a "reboot", but rather take the story "in a new direction". While hinting that the story might venture into space for "a little bit", he still wanted to keep it "grounded".<ref name="starsspace">[http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/transformers-4-michael-bay-purges-stars-may-go-into-space/ "‘Transformers 4’: Michael Bay purges stars, may go into space"], LA Times Hero Complex.</ref>

[[File:TF4 Chinese Reality Show contestants.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|If ''Age of Extinction'' teaches us anything, it's that more movies should be cast using reality shows.]]On September 21, 2012, Michael Bay confirmed the first "cast" member for the film in the broadest sense, namely the fact that voice actor [[Peter Cullen]] would be kept on as [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]. He also confirmed that the film would ''not'' be a reboot, but would pick up the story from where ''Dark of the Moon'' had left off in [[Chicago]].<ref name="cullen">[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/michael-bay-transformers-4-pain-and-gain_n_1903523.html "Michael Bay, 'Transformers 4' Director, On The Struggles Of 'Pain & Gain'"], Huffington Post interview.</ref> One and a half months later, on November 8, 2012, Bay confirmed [[Mark Wahlberg]] as the first human cast member<ref name="wahlberg">[http://michaelbay.com/2012/11/08/michael-bay-re-teams-with-his-pain-gain-star-mark-wahlberg-for-transformers-4/ "Michael Bay Re-Teams With His 'Pain & Gain' Star Mark Wahlberg for Transformers 4"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref>, after having referred to such claims as "just a rumor" a mere month earlier.<ref name="baynowahlberg">[http://michaelbay.com/2012/10/23/transformers-4-casting-rumor/ "Transformers 4 Casting Rumor"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref> On December 15, 2012, Wahlberg himself confirmed that filming would commence in May 2013.<ref name="wahlbergmay">[http://collider.com/ted-2-sequel-mark-wahlberg-transformers-4/218011/ "Mark Wahlberg Talks TED 2, TRANSFORMERS 4, and PAIN AND GAIN; Says TF Starts Shooting in May Followed By TED Sequel"], interview with Collider.com.</ref> Another month later, on January 8, 2013, Irish American actor [[Jack Reynor]] was confirmed as the second human cast member.<ref name="reynor">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jack-reynor-lands-starring-role-409850 "Jack Reynor Lands Starring Role in 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter.</ref> [[Nicola Peltz]] was confirmed on March 26, 2013<ref name="welcomepeltz">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/03/26/welcome-nicola-peltz-to-transformers-4/ "Welcome Nicola Peltz to Transformers 4"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref>, followed by [[Stanley Tucci]] (confirmed to be an antagonist) on April 16, 2013.<ref name="tucci">[http://www.comingsoon.net/news/cinemaconnews.php?id=103034 "CinemaCon: Stanley Tucci Joins Transformers 4"]</ref>, [[Kelsey Grammer]] as a lead (human) villain named "Harold Attinger" on May 1, 2013<ref name="grammerattinger">[http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/kelsey-grammer-lands-lead-human-villain-in-transformers-sequel/ "Kelsey Grammer Lands Lead (Human) Villain In ‘Transformers’ Sequel"] at Deadline.com.</ref>, [[Sophia Myles]] as a scientist on May 6, 2013<ref name="mylesscientist">[http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/sophia-myles-join-mark-wahlberg-michael-bays-transformers-4-exclusive-89661 "Sophia Myles to Join Mark Wahlberg in Michael Bay's 'Transformers 4' (Exclusive)"] at TheWrap.com.</ref>, Chinese actress [[Li Bingbing]] in an at that point still unspecified role on May 20, 2013<ref name="bingbing">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chinas-li-bingbing-boards-transformers-525370 "China's Li Bingbing Boards 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter</ref>, and actor-comedian [[T. J. Miller]] as a mechanic and best friend to Wahlberg's character on May 28, 2013.<ref name="miller">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/tj-miller-joins-transformers-4-559359 "T.J. Miller Joins 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter.</ref> [[Titus Welliver]] wasn't officially confirmed until July 25, 2013, after he had been spotted on set in Texas.<ref name="welliver">[http://www.deadline.com/2013/07/transformers-4-adds-titus-welliver/ "‘Transformers 4′ Adds Titus Welliver"], Deadline.com.</ref> In the lead-up to the release of the movie, Welliver would stir up a minor controversy with an interview in which he stated that the film would be darker and "not a kid's movie". Following a storm of online discussion regarding this statement, he issued a new statement to the effect that ''Age of Extinction'' is in fact a kid's movie, and he meant to say it would expand the audience.<ref name="nerdist">[https://www.nerdist.com/2014/02/titus-welliver-talks-about-transformers-4-and-clark-greggs-s-h-i-e-l-d-comments/ Titus Welliver Talks About TRANSFORMERS 4 and Clark Gregg’s S.H.I.E.L.D. Comments], Nerdist.com.</ref>

A rather unusual addition to the cast were [[Byron Li]], [[Candice Zhao]], [[Austin Lin]] and [[Teresa Daley]], which won their part through participating in the ''[[Transformers 4 Chinese Actors Talent Search Reality Show]]'' on August 25, 2013.<ref name="reality">[http://beijing.china.org.cn/2013-08/28/content_29845758.htm "'Transformers 4' recruits 4 Chinese actors"], China.org.cn.</ref>

The remaining robot voice cast (barring Optimus Prime) wasn't officially revealed until May 8, 2014.<ref name="voicecast">[http://michaelbay.com/2014/05/08/john-goodman-and-ken-watanabe-join-the-autobot-voice-cast-in-michael-bays-transformers-age-of-extinction/ "John Goodman And Ken Watanabe Join The Autobot Voice Cast in Michael Bay’s ‘Transformers: Age Of Extinction’"] at the official Michael Bay website.</ref>

===Writing and production===
On March 20, 2013, the Michigan Film Office announced that the fourth film would return to [[Detroit]].<ref name="michigan">[http://www.michiganfilmoffice.org/The-Film-Office/Press-Releases/Detail.aspx?id=11620 "Transformers Returning to Michigan, Approved for Film Incentive" at the Michigan Film Office website.]</ref> Principal photography began on May 28, 2013, at [[Wikipedia:Monument Valley|Monument Valley]].<ref name="monument">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/05/28/transformers-4-starts-filming-in-monument-valley-navajo-tribal-park/ "Transformers 4 Starts Filming in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref> Other shooting locations were the small towns of Lockhart, Taylor, Elgin and Pflugerville in Texas.<ref name="texas">[http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/movies/headlines/20130426-fourth-transformers-film-to-shoot-in-texas.ece "Fourth ‘Transformers’ film to shoot in Texas"] at Dallas Morning News.</ref> Shooting in Michigan involved two historic passenger steamboats, the ''[[Wikipedia:SS_Columbia|SS Columbia]]'' and her sister ship, the ''[[Wikipedia:Ste. Claire (passenger steamboat)|SS Ste. Claire]]'', which were docked in [[Wikipedia:River Rouge, Michigan|River Rouge]] awaiting restoration at the time being used as props.<ref name="boblo">[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/story/2013/07/26/wdr-boblo-boats-transformers-four.html "Historic Boblo boats land role in Transformers 4"], CBC News.</ref> While shooting in Detroit, Mark Wahlberg's children visited the set and were given small parts in the movie upon their father's request.<ref name="wahlkids">[http://comicbook.com/blog/2013/07/30/mark-wahlbergs-kids-cast-in-transformers-4/ "Mark Wahlberg's Kids Cast In Transformers 4"], Comicbook.com.</ref>

[[File:AOE Michael Bay Nicola Peltz on set.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Michael Bay uses his legendary charm to get the very best performance out of his actors.]]
Due to an increased focus of Hollywood studios trying to market its movies to the Chinese audience, parts of the movie were not only set in China, but actually filmed there. One of the shooting sites was Hong Kong. While there, the movie crew encountered the risks of shooting a movie in China firsthand when director Michael Bay was assaulted on the set by two locals demanding money; according to some sources, they were store owners that were not satisfied with the compensation they received for the inconvenience of having a movie filming nearby. Bay received minor injuries, but played the incident off on his blog. Both he and an official Paramount statement suggested that the assailants were under the influence of drugs.<ref name="attack1">[http://deadline.com/2013/10/hong-kong-police-called-to-transformers-4-set-amid-alleged-extortion-attempt-report-613912/ "Extortion Attempt On ‘Transformers 4′ Set; Michael Bay Suffers Minor Injury: Report"], Deadline.com.</ref><ref name="attack2">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-bay-attacked-transformers-4-649183 "Michael Bay Attacked on 'Transformers 4' Set in Hong Kong"], Hollywood Reporter.</ref><ref name="attack3">[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-24566287 "Transformers director Michael Bay attacked in Hong Kong"], BBC.</ref name="attack4">[http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/michael-bay-attacked-on-transformers-hong-kong-film-shoot-1.2100953 "Michael Bay attacked on Transformers Hong Kong film shoot"], CBC News.</ref><ref name="attack5">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/10/17/hong-kong-incident/ "Hong Kong Incident"] on Michael Bay's official Blog.</ref> A second extortion attempt occured several days later, this time allegedly by several triad gang members. Although one of them was later arrested, no-one was injured this time around.<ref name="extortion2">[http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-bay-transformers-4hong-kong-second-extortion-incident-2013-10?IR=T "More Trouble For 'Transformers 4' In Hong Kong As Second Extortion Attempt Reported"], Business Insider.</ref><ref name="extortion3">[http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/25/world/asia/hong-kong-transformers-triad-extortion/ "Transformers versus the triads of Hong Kong: the sequel"], CNN.</ref> Once again, Bay played down the extortion attempts in an interview, noting that most of the locals were apologetic over what took place, and that he wanted to film more projects in Hong Kong.<ref name="eager">[http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1342084/hollywood-director-michael-bay-eager-shoot-hong-kong-again "Hollywood director Michael Bay eager to shoot in Hong Kong again"], ''South China Morning Post'']</ref>

[[File:AOEOptimusRidingGrimlock.jpg|thumb|upright=1.9|left|"Get me closer! I want to hit them with my sword!"]]Late script changes resulted in Bay and his crew returning to the Chinese city of [[Wikipedia:Chongqing|Chongqing]] for a week reshooting a scene in January of 2014.<ref name="reshoot">[http://www.ecns.cn/2014/01-23/98337.shtml "'Transformers 4' back to China for additional shots"], China News Service (Ecns.cn).</ref>

Some of [[Industrial Light & Magic|ILM]]'s post-production effects were done at a newly opened Lucasfilm facility in Singapore.<ref name="ilmsg">[http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/lifestyle/story/lucasfilm-singapore-work-new-avengers-and-transformers-movies-20140116 "Lucasfilm Singapore to work on new Avengers and Transformers movies"], The Straits Times.</ref>

{{--}}

=== Sponsors and partners ===
==== General Motors and other car manufacturers ====
[[File:AOE Optimus Prime truck.jpg|thumb|upright=1.34|When having one's midlife crisis, it's not unusual to get a souped-up alternate mode.]]
''Age of Extinction'' continues the collaboration with General Motors. Earlier in the film, Bumblebee chooses a customized 1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS as his disguise when hiding from [[Cemetery Wind]], whereas later on, he upgrades to the newest model, a 2014 Camaro concept car. (The production crew was actually accused of ripping off a one-of-a-kind custom for the 1967 version.<ref name="1967custom">[http://jalopnik.com/did-transformers-4-rip-off-this-guys-design-for-the-ne-510655228 "Did Transformers 4 Rip Off This Guy's Design For The New Bumblebee?"] at Jalopnik.com.</ref>) Furthermore, new addition [[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]]'s alternate mode is a 2014 Chevrolet C7 Corvette Stingray, and recurring character Ratchet briefly appears at the beginning of the movie and transforms into his Hummer H2 ambulance mode (in the color scheme from ''Dark of the Moon'') before being killed at the hands of Cemetery Wind and [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]].

''Age of Extinction'' is the first movie to feature an official partnership with a manufacturer for [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]'s alternate mode. Earlier in the movie, he transforms into an old, rusty Marmon 97 truck cab (presumably without support from the manufacturer), but later upgrades into a brand new Western Star "5700 OP" concept truck that was designed specifically for the movie by "Twins Custom Coaches" and the team at West Coast Customs, with Western Star being a subsidiary of Daimler Trucks, who also provided a 2012 Freightliner Argosy that serves as [[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]]'s alternate mode.

Other manufacturers that provided vehicles to be used for characters' alternate modes were the Oshkosh Corporation with an Oshkosh Defense FMTV truck for [[Hound (Movie)|Hound]], the Volkswagen group with a 2013 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse for [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] and a Lamborghini Aventador for Lockdown, and independent Italian manufacturer Pagani Automobili with a Pagani Huayra for [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]].

=== Changes before, during and after production ===
* [[Slash (AOE)|Slash]] was originally intended to appear in the film (he even made it into some concept artwork).<ref name="burt">[http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/transformers-age-of-extinction-concept-art-from-wesley-burt/30723/ Age of Extiction concept art by Wesley Burt], mirrored at Seibertron.com.</ref>
* [[Glenn Morshower]] was originally set to return in this film, reprising his role of [[Morshower|General Morshower]], but didn't return due to a scheduling conflict.<ref>http://transformerslive.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/general-morshower-not-returning-to.html</ref>
* Both [[Josh Duhamel]] and [[Tyrese Gibson]] were intended to cameo reprising their roles as [[William Lennox]] and [[Robert Epps]] but were cut before filming started.<ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/tyrese-gibson-in-talks-for-transformers-4-176078/</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/tyrese-gibson-to-make-cameo-appearance-only-in-transformers-4-177407/</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/josh-duhamel-to-make-cameo-appearance-in-transformers-4-177026/</ref><ref>http://transformerslive.blogspot.com/2013/06/josh-duhamel-not-in-transformers-4.html</ref>
* Ed Welburn, [[General Motors]]' vice president for global design, was originally set to cameo as the C.I.A. head before being recast as a KSI employee.<ref>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/automobiles/ed-welburn-gets-a-part-in-transformers.html?_r=0</ref>
* A scene depicting Hound and Bumblebee dancing with Tessa (while Drift bobs his head in the background) was not present in the final cut of the film.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnxZ7Gg2yV4</ref>
* Scorn's toys lack the additional two sails he has in the film, suggesting it was a late design change.
*The Pagani Huayra that eventually ended up as [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]] was at one point intended as the alternate mode of a female robot with the working name "Widow Maker".<ref name="vitaly">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-9/age-of-extinction-concept-art-by-vitaly-bulgarov-180636/ Age of Extinction concept art by Vitaly Bulgarov] at TFW2005, including "Widow Maker".</ref><ref name="jung">[http://comicbook.com/blog/2014/07/20/transformers-age-of-extinction-concept-art-shows-off-epic-scope-/ Age of Extinction concept art by Steve Jung] at Comicbook.com, including "Widow Maker".</ref>
* Wahlberg's character was named "Flynn 'Ray' Vincent" rather than "Cade Yeager" in a casting call. The same casting call also revealed that actor [[Glenn Morshower]] was supposed to reprise his role as [[Morshower|General Morshower]] from the previous two films.<ref name="txcasting">[http://www.featurefilmauditions.com/2013/05/casting-for-transformers-4-actors-and.html "Transformers 4' open casting calls for actors and extras in Austin, TX and Detroit, MI"] at Film Auditions.</ref>
* A scene where Cade says "Stick behind me" is not present in the final cut of the film.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXSkXQs890g</ref>
* Another piece of dialogue cut from the film is when Cade says "You tell me" to Attinger when he asks for Optimus Prime.
* In some concept artwork, Grimlock appears as a horn-less T-Rex.
* The original running time of the film was 2 hours and 7 minutes, which would have made it the shortest film in the franchise. The final running time was 2 hours and 30 minutes <ref>http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/BatFreak/news/?a=77992</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/transformers-4-age-of-extinction-running-time-revealed-180165/</ref>
* [[Dwayne Johnson]] was originally offered the role of Cade Yeager, but due to his commitment to ''Hercules: The Thracian Wars'', the role was later taken over by his ''Pain & Gain'' co-star Mark Wahlberg.<ref>[https://twitter.com/TheRock/statuses/327892048978006016 Dwayne Johnson on Twitter]</ref>
*In some concept artwork, Drift was colored orange instead of blue. but according to the Generation 2 featurette in the Blu-ray release, this was changed because the vehicle that was going to play Drift was sold off.
*Some concept artwork shows that Optimus was intended to have his original trilogy body in the scenes where he had his new look.
*According to Ehren Kruger in the Generation 2 featurette, in the early drafts of the film, it was not originally centered on the Cade Yeager character.
*Numerous silver [[redeco]] toys were produced for Optimus Prime with the moniker of "Silver Knight", suggesting that he was originally supposed to take on this alternate appearance in the film itself, almost certainly upon drawing a sword from the Knights' armory. In the finished film, he does undergo some slight physical alteration at this point, his arms reconfiguring to resemble armor plates, but that's as far as it goes. This was also ''prrrrobably'' where he was supposed to get the rocket-boots he suddenly deploys at the film's end.

{{-}}

===Disinformation campaign===

Like ''Revenge of the Fallen'' and ''Dark of The Moon'' before it, ''Age of Extinction'' had a campaign that would mask details of the final film. However, unlike the previous films, this one was all encompassing; no novelization or comics by [[IDW Publishing]] was released, allowing for a great deal of the movie's spoilers to actually remain unknown longer than for the previous three films.

In the original Michigan Film Office press release published on March 20, 2013, several vague plot details were revealed, including the fact that Autobots and Decepticons had "[[Cemetery Wind|all but vanished from the face of the planet]]", a "[[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|group of [...] businessman and scientists]]" were developing new technologies based on past encounters with the Transformers, and an "[[Lockdown (ROTF)|ancient, powerful Transformer menace]]" was targeting Earth.<ref name="plotunveiled">[http://www.thewrap.com/node/82001/ "‘Transformers 4’ Plot Unveiled by Michigan Film Office"] at TheWrap.com.</ref>. These plot details were later claimed to be inaccurate by Paramount Pictures<ref name="notaccurate">[http://screenrant.com/transformers-4-movie-plot-synopsis-cast/ Unofficial "'Transformers 4' Plot Synopsis Is Not Accurate"] at Screenrant.com</ref>, but in all their vagueness ultimately turned out to be not too far off from the film's plot.

A lot of the newly-added characters were given "code names" during production, most of them related to the ''Rocky'' saga: "Duke" for Hound, "Adrian" for Galvatron, "Ivan" for Grimlock, "Rocky" for Slash (who was originally intended to appear in the movie, as noted above), "Southpaw" for Scorn, "Paulie" for Strafe, and "Thunderlips" for Slug. In addition, Crosshairs was code-named "Slingshot", Drift was code-named "Bruce", Lockdown was code-named "Max", and Steeljaw was code-named "Wolf" (which ''might'' have simply been a working name).<ref name="customer">[http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-news-rumors/961952-monzos-mega-hasbro-customer-service-listing-breakdown.html Hasbro customer service list]</ref>
{{stub}}

==Notes==
*Not only do the [[Dinobot (AOE)|Dinobots]] go unnamed in the film (other than [[Scorn (AOE)|Scorn]] getting the nickname, "Spike"), the word Dinobot is never even said by anyone. The audio description soundtrack on the home video releases refers to them as warriors or barbarians, but notes during the final scene that they "turn into Dinobots" (of course it also refers to Galvatron transforming "into an Autobot" when he turns into a robot, so make of that what you will).
*In addition to the Mercenary robots, [[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaws]], the ball-shaped drones, and [[Stupid Drone]]s, inside Lockdown's ship there were also several hovering drones. These drones appear to be of the same type as those the United States used in ''Dark of the Moon'' (the one that got sucked into the engine of Bumblebee's commandeered Decepticon fighter). Maybe Attinger sold them to Lockdown?
*Michael Bay's website incorrectly refers to the film as "Transformers 4 The Age Of Extinction"
* The deceased Autobots and Decepticons shown in the cards Attinger pulled early in the film includes: [[Ironhide (Movie)|Ironhide]], [[Wheeljack (Movie)|Que]], [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]], [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]], [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]] and [[Arcee (Movie)|Arcee]].
* This film seems to put a final nail in the coffin regarding the films' abandonment of the concept of using [[protoform]]s to travel through space; when the Autobots steal a ship from [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], they immediately move to leave Earth, indicating they had been stranded on Earth for the past five years without a spaceship (following the destruction of the ''[[Xantium (DOTM)|Xantium]]''). The fact that no mention is made of searching for any possible survivors of Cemetery Wind's hunt also suggests that all Autobots who did not return for this film have been killed off as well.
*The robot designs in this film are markedly different than the previous three; the robots have less alien appearances and are more heavily influenced by human forms.
*Speaking of the appearance of the Autobots - they all are based on specific types of human combatants throughout history: Optimus is obviously a medieval knight, Hound heavily resembles a World War II-era commando, Crosshairs looks like a mercenary or assassin, Bumblebee's new form is highly Ninja-like, and Drift is unsurprisingly a samurai.
*Director Michael Bay makes a cameo appearance in the film as a guy sitting in the passenger seat of a truck whose trailer Optimus Prime and Bumblebee crash through after being attacked by Galvatron and Stinger.<ref name="magiceffects">[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btn2tPxjisA "Behind the Magic: The Visual Effects of 'Transformers Age of Extinction'"] on the official ILMVisualFX Youtube channel.</ref>

===Foreign names===
*''Japanese:'' '''''Transformers: Lost Age''''' (トランスフォーマーロストエイジ ''Toransufōmā Rosuto Eiji'')<ref>[http://www.cinematoday.jp/page/N0056111 『トランスフォーマー』第4弾の邦題は『トランスフォーマーロストエイジ』に決定！最新ビジュアルも公開]</ref>
*''Russian:'' '''''Transformery: Epokha istrebleniya''''' (Трансформеры: Эпоха истребления ''Transformers: Age of Extermination'')
*''Argentina:'' '''''Transformers 4'''''
*''Cantonese:'' '''''Binying Gamgong: Chimmit Saigei''''' (變形金剛：殲滅世紀 "Transformers: The Century of Annihilation")
*''Mandarin:'' '''''Biàn-hsín Jīn-gāng Sz: Jiúe-jī Chúng-shēng''''' (Taiwan: 變型金剛4：絕跡重生, China: 变形金刚4：绝迹重生 "Transformers 4: Rebirth from the Extinction")
*''German:'' '''''Transformers: Ära des Untergangs''''' ("Transformers: Era of Doom")
*''Turkish:'' '''''Transformers: Kayıp Çağ''''' ("Transformers: Lost Age")

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

{{stub}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Age of Extinction (film)}}

[[Category:Age of Extinction| Age of Extinction (film)]]
[[Category:Real world films]]

Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)

2015-07-28T01:38:04Z

LordStarscream100: /* Errors */

{{Nav-aoe}}
[[File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionOptimusPrimePoster.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.67|An adventure 65 million years in the making.]]

'''''Transformers: Age of Extinction''''' is the fourth film in the [[live-action film series]]. It was released on [[June 27]], [[2014]].

Following the [[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Battle of Chicago]], humanity has come to fear both Autobots and Decepticons alike. With the aid of a Transformer mercenary named [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], a CIA [[Cemetery Wind|task-force]] operated by [[Harold Attinger]] begins hunting the remaining [[Transformer]]s on [[Earth]]. Hunted by enemies that were once his allies, [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] loses faith in humanity and sends his forces into hiding. Now, five years later, struggling inventor and single-father [[Cade Yeager]] discovers a damaged Transformer, placing both himself and his [[Tessa Yeager|daughter]] on a collision course with events that threaten the extinction of humankind itself.

{{bigquote|The trouble with loyalty to a cause is that the cause will ''always'' betray you.|[[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]]|''Transformers: Age of Extinction''}}

==Synopsis==

[[File:The Creators cyberforming Earth AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs."]]
65 million years ago, on Cretaceous [[Earth]], a ''Psittacosaurus'' is out hunting for food. The small dinosaur finds a fish and starts to feed, but stops as hundreds of alien ships enter Earth's atmosphere, piloted by the mysterious [[Creator (AOE)|"Creators"]]. The alien ships launch dozens of strange [[Seed]]s across the planet. As they detonate, they convert the landscape and the herds of panicking dinosaurs into a metallic substance, ending the Age of Dinosaurs. Millions of years later, while digging in the [[Arctic]], a team of geologists uncover a mysterious pair of metallized dinosaur skeletons - a discovery that attracts the attention of [[Darcy Tirrel]]...

Five years after the invasion of [[Chicago]], tensions between humans and Cybertronians have risen dramatically. Although the Autobots are officially granted asylum on Earth, public opinion has turned against all Transformers. The government of the United States has terminated all human-Autobot joint programs and instated [[Cemetery Wind]], an elite [[CIA]] unit intended to flush out the handful of [[Decepticon]]s left on Earth. What the President doesn't know is that [[Harold Attinger]], the leader of the operation, is slaughtering all Transformers, regardless of faction. On one such mission, the team pinpoints [[Ratchet (Movie)|Ratchet]] hiding within an abandoned boat. He immediately tries to flee, but is crippled and brought down by their weapons. The team leader, [[James Savoy]], mockingly asks why Ratchet ran if he's not their enemy, and Ratchet replays a transmission he received from [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]], ordering all Autobots to hide from humans. However, Savoy dismisses his pleas as his sister was killed in Chicago. A Transformer bounty hunter, [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], who has actually been helping Cemetery Wind hunt the Autobots, emerges from the nearby swamp and attacks Ratchet, further damaging him. Walking past his human allies, Lockdown demands to know [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]'s whereabouts. When Ratchet refuses, Lockdown brutally kills him by ripping out his spark.
[[File:AOE Ratchet dying.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction..."]]

In Texas, struggling inventor [[Cade Yeager]] and his friend/employee [[Lucas Flannery]] meet at an old theater, looking for salvage. He finds an old truck, and upon inspection it seems to be full of artillery shells. He buys the truck along with the other theater equipment and puts it in his garage.[[Tessa Yeager|Tessa]], Cade's daughter, observes this while video-chatting with her boyfriend and criticizes her dad for buying the heap of junk. While attempting to salvage the truck's engine to sell, Cade realizes it's actually a badly-damaged Transformer. After calling Lucas and Tessa, he connects jumper cables to its engine, only for it to begin replaying the distress call Ratchet had received earlier. Lucas and Tessa advocate calling the government, claiming that there is a huge reward for Transformers. Cade convinces them not to call the authorities until he can spend more time working on the truck, as he may be able to stumble on a technological breakthrough if he can figure out how the Transformers work. When Cade removes a live missile from the truck's "power core," it transforms into a heavily injured Optimus Prime, who roars at them to stay back while he swings his weapon around the barn. Cade, Lucas, and Tessa ask why Optimus is so badly damaged, to which he replies that the Autobots are being hunted and he must help them. Cade offers to repair him, and sends Lucas to buy the parts that will enable him to fix Optimus. Cade and Optimus begin to bond as the repairs begin.
[[File:AOE-injuredoptimus.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Should we chance moving him?"]]

In the Arctic, Attinger arrives via helicopter at [[Knight Ship|Lockdown's ship]] and demands to know why Optimus Prime escaped him in [[Mexico]]. Lockdown derisively tells Attinger that Optimus Prime would not have escaped were it not for Cemetery Wind's interference, stressing that he does not care about Attinger or his goals and wishes only to capture Optimus Prime.

Shortly after returning to [[Washington, D.C.]], Attinger receives a tip that Optimus Prime has been located in Texas and sends Savoy and Cemetery Wind to apprehend him. The agents swarm the barn, but there is no trace of Prime inside. When Savoy threatens Tessa to force Cade to tell him of Prime's whereabouts, the Autobot leader explodes out of the barn's basement in which he was hiding. He escapes after a brief skirmish that destroys the Yeager residence, with both Cemetery Wind and Lockdown in pursuit. As Cade catches one of Cemetery Wind's mini drones, a white rally car zooms over the adjacent fields and picks up the Yeagers and Lucas. The driver turns out to be [[Shane Dyson|Shane]], a rally car racer who is also Tessa's boyfriend. A group of Cemetery Wind vehicles begins chasing them.
[[File:Optimus shooting humans AOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"You think they'll have that on the tour?"]]

Both the rally car and Optimus Prime are chased into an abandoned factory, where Optimus Prime fights off Lockdown. Shane puts his driving skills to good use and pulls a series of tight maneuvers that result in the Cemetery Wind cars crashing, destroys his car in the process. Optimus Prime, who has caught Lockdown in a crane cable, transforms and tells the humans to pile into him and escape. Lockdown throws a grenade at the humans as they run towards Optimus Prime; though Shane and the Yeagers escape, Lucas is caught in the blast and killed.

Arriving at an abandoned gas station, Optimus orders the humans out and drives off to ensure that they have not been followed. Cade confronts Tessa and Shane about their relationship but Tessa gets angry at Cade for putting them all in danger. The next day, Optimus and the humans set off towards Monument Valley. Prime [[trans-scan|scans]] a passing truck, sheds his layer of rust and takes on a new form with his old paint scheme. They arrive in Monument Valley where they meet the other surviving Autobots in the form of [[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]], [[Hound (Movie)|Hound]], [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]], and their de facto leader [[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]]. Crosshairs and Hound start threatening the humans for having their species betray them but Optimus convinces them that they have risked their lives to save his. The Humans notice that there are clear tensions between the Autobots. Cade reveals footage of the attack on Ratchet and [[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot's]] demise using the stolen aerial drone and Prime declares that he will kill the one responsible for hunting down the Autobots.

[[File:Autobots unite monument valley AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Dr. Grant, my dear Dr. Sattler... Welcome to [[Jurassic Park]]." ]]

Inspection of the drone leads them to a company named [[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|KSI]], located in a rebuilt Chicago. It is run by [[Joshua Joyce]], who is working with [[Su Yueming]] and Attinger to create artificial Transformers to eventually be used in the military. Using the remains of [[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]], [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]], [[Starscream (Movie)|the]] [[Barricade (Movie)|countless]] [[Shockwave (Movie)|Decepticons]] from the Chicago battle and the hunted Autobots, they have synthesized the metal that the Transformers are made of, calling it [[Transformium]]. When given commands through a computer, Transformium can be changed into various shapes or objects. Although a drone called [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]] (designed after Bumblebee) is active, Joshua's major project is a bigger, stronger drone called [[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]]. However, his attempts have not been successful; the drone keeps resembling Megatron instead of the friendlier image of Optimus Prime. Bumblebee builds Cade and Shane faux-ID badges which the duo use to infiltrate KSI. Cade goes further in and projects imagery of Ratchet's severed head being melted down as well as the injured and enslaved [[Brains]], which sends Prime into a rage.

[[File:Joshua Joyce Transformium Experiment AOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"God help us, we're in the hands of engineers."]]

However, Cade is caught when his ID badge is found to have been scanned twice (by him and its original owner). He is taken to the upper floors and confronted by Attinger, who claims that what he has witnessed is in the name of world peace. He also asks him about the whereabouts of Optimus Prime but Cade maintains his silence.

Furious over how the humans have mutilated their comrades, Optimus orders an attack on KSI. Bumblebee, carried by Drift in copter mode, rescues Cade. The others trash the lab, free Brains, and confront Joshua, only for him to openly declare that what is being done is being done to prevent more Transformer-caused damage and that the humans "don't need" the Autobots. Disheartened, Prime orders a retreat.

As the Autobots exit the factory and leave, Attinger catches up with Joshua and claims that the Autobots are terrorists for attacking the facility. He coerces Joyce to use the two functional drones to take down the Autobots. Galvatron and Stinger activate and pursue their quarry across a highway, with Galvatron doing more damage than his KSI handlers intend. Bumblebee fires upon Galvatron but is surprised to see him simply disintegrate and reintegrate again. Galvatron attacks Prime. As they battle, Optimus declares that the artificial creation has no soul, to which it retorts "That is why I have no FEAR!"

[[File:AOEGalvatron.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Kids! You want to have one of those?"]]

As Tessa scrambles for cover in a nearby vehicle, Prime is suddenly shot from the back and falls-Lockdown has arrived, along with his ship! Lockdown gloats to his prisoner, claiming that Optimus was built, not born, and now the Creators want him returned in one piece. The bounty hunter orders a net dropped over Optimus and hoists both the Autobot leader and Tessa's hiding place into his ship. Cade desperately clings to the net, but his strength gives out and he falls to the fields below. As the spaceship departs, Cade and Shane vow to get Tessa back.

Lockdown throws Prime in a cage and orders his lackeys to dispose of Tessa. Prime takes note of several other aliens in similar cages, including [[Dinobot (AOE)|other Cybertronian warriors]]. He also discovers the original purpose of the mercenary ship: it was originally used by a group of legendary Knights (presumably including Prime himself) but now acts as Lockdown's flying prison. Lockdown's ship hovers over Chicago, triggering panic in the streets, but Attinger manages to talk down the authorities and send Savoy to rendezvous with Lockdown. As payment for Prime's capture, Lockdown gives him a Seed.

Cade, Shane, and the other Autobots get aboard the ship as it flies low over a bridge. While being pursued by Lockdown's henchmen, the two humans find a strange Knight armory, from which Cade takes a sword that opens up to form a gun. While Shane and Cade rescue Tessa, Crosshairs deploys the ship's mooring cables, which fire into the Willis Tower and preventing the ship from breaking atmosphere. The humans begin to clamber down the cables to safety, but they are pursued by a pack of [[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaw]]s. Bumblebee manages to save the trio. The other Autobots locate Optimus, who reveals that the section of the ship they are on can separate from the main body. Crosshairs uses a gunship to pick up Bumblebee and the humans, then leads them on a dogfight through Chicago's streets, destroying some of Lockdown's mercenaries.

[[File:Prime gets shotAOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"It could have been worse, John. A lot worse."]]

Back at KSI, it is decided that all equipment is to be moved to the Beijing facility to continue operations. Joshua is also none too pleased about the previous field test of Galvatron; not only was it a loss on several fronts, but the drone also ''spoke'', which was something it was ''not'' programmed to do!

The Autobots land their new ship at an abandoned train yard. Optimus claims that he sensed Megatron's presence during his fight with Galvatron. Brains explains Galvatron's true nature: while he decoded dead Transformer brains, he learned that Megatron's mind had survived and planned to transfer itself to Galvatron's body, explaining Galvatron's sinister appearance. The tiny bot further mentions how Galvatron used his knowledge to build Stinger and the other drones, with plans to make them into his personal army. As Tessa tells the group about the Seed she saw, Optimus and Hound explain that the Creators used Seeds to convert organic material into metal, then harvested the resulting Transformium for their own purposes. Cade makes a call to Joyce and relays the newfound data about Galvatron. Knowing that Joyce is also an inventor with a heart, he pleads with Joyce to shut down Galvatron before things escalate. Although Joyce puts up an unconvinced façade, he demands increased security around Galvatron after hanging up.

As police cars surround the train yard, the Autobots board their shuttle again and take to the air. Optimus says that though the Autobots will travel to Hong Kong and get the Seed back, they will leave Earth afterwards; they are done protecting humanity. Cade disagrees but Prime is non-responsive. They later debate the matter, with Cade attempting to reignite Prime's faith in humanity.

In deep space, Lockdown finally discovers the absence of the smaller ship. He grumbles about Optimus Prime taking his trophy case and how the Prime will feel his wrath while he reverses course. Joyce meets with Attinger and Savoy and receives the Seed. Joyce intends to detonate it in a region of the [[Gobi Desert]], which will generate enough Transformium to last a century. Attinger is eager to expedite production but grows incensed when Joshua disagrees and says that they should go slower, quite obviously moved by Cade's call. Meanwhile, Galvatron activates ''himself'' and starts to infect the legion of over fifty other KSI Transformers. When the alarm rings regarding Galvatron's escape, Joyce has Attinger and Savoy evacuated from the building and gets in a car with Yueming, an associate named Darcy, and the Seed. They decide to try and hide the Seed in [[Hong Kong]].

Being hunted by Attinger and Savoy, Joyce seeks refuge on a rooftop when the Autobot-piloted ship arrives and attempts to pick him and the Seed up. However, Galvatron and his drones ramy arrive and shoot down the airborne vessel, causing Bumblebee, Hound, and the Yeagers to spill out while the others (Prime, Crosshairs, Drift, and the captured Knights) to careen away into the Wulong Valley. Savoy finds the Yeagers and Joyce on the rooftop and open fires on them but Cade leads him away from the others. The two jump across rooftops, eventually crashing into a house and getting into a fist fight which ends with Savoy falling from a window to his death.

Hound and Bumblebee attempt to escort the humans and the Seed out of the city, but are cut short when Joshua points out that the KSI-built Transformers were specifically built to destroy any Autobots or Decepticons left on Earth. This prompts Prime to enter the crashed ship and activate the armory as well as release the other captives within the ship. As Hound and Bumblebee hold the line and protect the humans, Optimus tries to convince the Legendary Warriors to fight alongside them. Their [[Grimlock (AOE)|apparent leader]] violently declines at first, fighting the Prime in both his massive robot mode and his Tyrannosaurus mode. Optimus quickly defeats him, saying that he and the other warriors will protect his family or die, then mounts the metal dinosaur. The Autobots mount their Dinobots and charge over the mountains into Hong Kong.

[[File:Dinobots ready for battle AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"''T. rex'' doesn't want to be fed. He wants to ''hunt''."]]

Meanwhile, as Hound and Bumblebee are starting to be overwhelmed by Galvatron's drone forces, Optimus and his fellow Autobots storm into the city, slamming, crushing, stomping, and chomping all nearby enemies. Galvatron retreats as the Autobots and Dinobots decimate his forces. With this battle over, Optimus confronts Joshua for his actions and gives the order to defend the humans and escort them, and the Seed, away from the city. On the way, a homing beacon within the Seed activates, allowing Lockdown to track the Autobots down. He activates a massive magnet, wreaking havoc on Hong Kong. Everything metal from kitchenware to massive ships are picked up by the magnet, including the Autobots and Dinobots. After narrowly avoiding the magnet, the Yeagers are momentarily separated from the Autobots. Optimus shoots at the magnet, destroying it and releasing the Transformers from its influence. The ship retreats to a nearby factory, with Optimus hot on its trail. Cade tells his daughter to stay with Shane and the Autobots, as he wishes to fight alongside Optimus against Lockdown. As Optimus Prime and Lockdown battle one-on-one, Attinger corners Yeager with a pistol, accusing him of choosing aliens over his own race, but he is quickly shot and killed by Optimus.

Because of Optimus' choice to save Cade before defending himself, Lockdown gains the upper hand, impaling Optimus through the chest with his own sword and pinning him to a concrete pillar. Meanwhile, Tessa convinces Bumblebee to turn around and the three join in fighting Lockdown, allowing Shane to use a tow truck to unpin Prime. Just as Lockdown is about to kill Cade, Optimus jumps up and slices the bounty hunter in half. Activating one of Lockdown's grenades, Prime tells the humans to hold on and uses rocket boosters to escape while the grenade destroys the last of the KSI drones. Galvatron has survived and retreated to the outskirts of the city; watching Prime blast off, he tells Optimus to beware, for he is reborn...

[[File:AOE-DefendThisFamily.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"I don't know. I guess... I guess we'll just have to evolve too."]]

The Autobots, Dinobots and their Human allies all regroup on the waterfront. Cade and Tessa happily reconcile and Cade finally accepts Shane. Joshua nobly says he will help them with their destroyed home. Prime declares the Dinobots are now free as they depart for parts unknown. With the bounty on his head placing the entire Earth in danger, Prime blasts off into space with the Seed to confront the Creators and discover the mystery behind his own origins, but not before ordering the Autobots to protect the Yeager family. As he leaves Earth's atmosphere, Optimus Prime sends a message to his Creators to leave planet Earth alone, because he's coming for them.

{{--}}

==Quotes==
"Lockdown...?" 
"Autobots, Decepticons, like little children, always fighting; making a mess out of the universe, then ''I've'' got to clean it up! There is one way you survive. Tell me where he's hiding. Where is Optimus Prime?" 
"Never." 
''(Lockdown rips out Ratchet's spark)'' 
"Never is here." 
:—'''Ratchet''''s final moments before '''Lockdown''' kills him.

"In this planet we have a saying: ''The enemy of my enemy is my friend''." 
"I also have a saying: '''''I don't care'''''."
:—'''Harold Attinger''' discusses with '''Lockdown'''.

"Every galaxy I've traveled, all you species are the same. You all think you're the center of the universe. You have no idea..."
:—'''Lockdown''' never truly appreciated one of his clients.

"Human beings. Bunch of backstabbing weasels!" 
"Hound, find your inner compass. ''Loyalty is but a flower in the winds of fear and temptation.''" 
"What the hell are you saying?!?" 
"It's a haiku." 
"Cut the crap before I drop a grenade down your throat!" 
"Try it, you'll be dead!" 
"Oh, please pull it. Please do it."
:—'''Hound''' doesn't appreciate '''Drift's''' haikus.

"With your fate unknown, Bumblebee has held command, despite his complete and total lack of anything resembling warrior discipline. He's like a child." 
"This child is about to ''kick your ass!''"
:—'''Drift''' and '''Bumblebee'''

"Autobots, I have sworn never to kill humans..." 
"Big mistake." 
"...but when I find out who's behind this...he's going to ''die''." 
"Hoo-ah!"
:—'''Prime's''' rage is fueled by '''Hound'''.

"Destroy the lab! Destroy it all!" 
''(The Autobots lay waste to the KSI research facility)'' 
"Hey, you! Stop! That's company property!" 
"They're not ''your'' property! ''They were my friends.''" 
:—'''Optimus Prime''' duly informs '''Joshua Joyce''' that Transformers aren't just machines.

"You have no soul!" 
"That is why I have no ''fear''!"
:—'''Optimus Prime'''' is shocked to find '''Galvatron''' isn't as lifeless as he thought.

"We're behind enemy lines now. Lockdown's ship has booby traps! Eyes open." 
"Beware of his bone-grinders, brain-blinders, flesh-stealers, chromosomal-inverters, catatonic slugs, black hole trapdoors and of course, radiation."

:—'''Hound''' and '''Crosshairs''' warn the humans of the perils held within Lockdown's ship.

"I was expecting a [[Grimlock_(G1)/toys#Alternators.2FBinaltech|giant car!]]"
:—'''Drift''' witnessing Grimlock transform into a dinosaur.

"Autobots, we're going to prove who we are, and ''why we're here''!"
:—'''Optimus Prime''' rallies his troops with his characteristic passion and charisma.

"Ugh, you just wanna die for the guy. ''That's'' leadership. Or brainwashing, or something." 
"No, that's Optimus Prime."
:—'''Crosshairs''' and '''Drift''', remarking on their [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|leader]]/[[Dinobot (AOE)|Giant Robot Dinosaur]] tamer.

"I'm like a fat ballerina who takes scalps and slits throats!"
:—'''Hound''' takes another five levels in badass and ballerina class.

"How do you say 'Get the f&%# out of the way' in Chinese?"
:—'''Joshua''' has some issues with the language barrier.

"I hate cheap knockoffs."
:—'''Bumblebee''' dismissing all [[Cliffjumper (Movie)|clones]] of him as "cheap".

"We shall meet again, Prime, for I am reborn."
:—'''Galvatron''' retreats to fight another day.

"There are mysteries to the universe we were never meant to solve, but who we are and why we are here are not among them. Those answers we carry inside. I am Optimus Prime, and this message is to my Creators. Leave planet Earth alone. 'Cause I'm coming...for you."
:—'''Optimus Prime'''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s closing narration.

==Main cast==
{{featuredcharacters|
h1=[[Autobot]]s|c1=
*[[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] ([[Peter Cullen]])
*[[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]]
*[[Hound (Movie)|Hound]] ([[John Goodman]])
*[[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] ([[Ken Watanabe]])
*[[Ratchet (Movie)|Ratchet]] ([[Robert Foxworth]])
*[[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]] ([[John DiMaggio]])
*[[Brains]] ([[Reno Wilson]])
*[[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot]]
*[[Dinobot (AOE)|Dinobots]]
**[[Grimlock (AOE)|Grimlock]]
**[[Scorn (AOE)|Scorn]]
**[[Slug (AOE)|Slug]]
**[[Strafe (AOE)|Strafe]]
*[[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]]'s head
|h2=[[Decepticon]]s|c2=
*[[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]] ([[Frank Welker]])
*[[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]]'s head
*[[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]]
*[[Junkheap (AOE)|Junkheap]]
*[[Trax (AOE)|Traxes]]
*"[[Two Head]]s"
*"[[KSI Boss]]es"
*[[McLaren Decepticon]]
*[[Aston Martin Decepticon]]
*[[Insecticon (Movie)|Insecticons]]
*[[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] (video footage)
*[[Protoform]]s (video footage)

|h3=[[Human]]s|c3=
*[[Cade Yeager]] ([[Mark Wahlberg]])
*[[Tessa Yeager]] ([[Nicola Peltz]])
*[[Shane Dyson]] ([[Jack Reynor]])
*[[Joshua Joyce]] ([[Stanley Tucci]])
*[[Harold Attinger]] ([[Kelsey Grammer]])
*[[James Savoy]] ([[Titus Welliver]])
*[[Lucas Flannery]] ([[T. J. Miller]])
*[[Darcy Tirrel]] ([[Sophia Myles]])
*[[Su Yueming]] ([[Li Bingbing]])
*[[Gill Wembley]] ([[James Bachman]])
*[[Chief of Staff]] ([[Thomas Lennon]])

|h4=Others|c4=
'''Lockdown's crew'''
*[[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]] ([[Mark Ryan]])
*[[Mercenary|Mercenaries]]
*[[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaws]]
*[[Stupid Drone]]s
'''[[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|KSI]] prototypes'''
*[[Oreo Transformer]]
|nonumbering=true
}}

==Errors==
===Continuity errors===
[[File:DeceasedTransformersAOE.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.6|Your attention, please. Will the ''real'' Optimus Prime please stand up?]]
[[File:AOECrosshairsDriftWeirdEdit.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|What just happened? No, seriously. Is there some kind of timey-wimey thing going on?]]
[[File:AOE savoy eyegouge.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|"An eye for an eye makes the whole world-OH MY GOD!!!"]]
*[[Ironhide (Movie)|Ironhide]] is seen on the cards Attinger pulls out early in the film, listed as deceased and having been last seen in Chicago. However, Ironhide was killed by Sentinel Prime in Washington, D.C., midway through ''Dark of the Moon'', and long before the final battle in Chicago.
*Scenes from the Decepticons' invasion of Chicago in ''Dark of the Moon'' are shown as archival footage presented by Attinger. While it is conceivable some lucky people with cameras recorded the initial attack and managed to survive and publish their footage, it's highly unlikely people would've been able to get close-up video footage of the NEST team taking down [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] and the other Decepticons.
*A Cemetery Wind vehicle smashes into the side of Shane's car during the chase through the cornfield, but the car doesn't show any damage to that side in subsequent shots.
*Tessa and Shane's reliance on Romeo and Juliet laws is unnecessary, since the age of consent in Texas is 17.
*During the 'Autobots reunite' sequence, Drift starts out in car mode on a road with Bumblebee and Crosshairs, before suddenly appearing atop a rock formation in robot mode and transforming to helicopter mode to meet up with Optimus Prime.
*When Crosshairs and Drift are talking on board Lockdown's ship shortly after boarding it, a ''very'' bizarre edit occurs in the middle of Drift's line "Better hurry, because dark matter drives are preparing to take off". The camera angle is now slightly different than before, but it's not a switch between a long shot and a close-up or a complete change of perspective. Oddly, Drift is still seen from the almost the ''exact same angle'' as before the edit, but even though his and Crosshairs's bodies were at an almost 90 degree angle before the edit, they're now suddenly almost standing in parallel to each other, with Crosshairs' head turned towards Drift. In addition, a flame that appeared in front of Drift just before the edit is suddenly gone.
*When Shane shouts "I surrender!" and drops his "gun-sword", the hilt is facing to the right, but after a close-up showed it landing on the ground and firing a shot, the hilt is suddenly facing to the ''left'' in the subsequent long shot when it fires more shots.
*When Joshua reunites with the rest of the group in Hong Kong, Darcy tells him she'll do a diversion, and to get the Seed somewhere safe. Yet, no diversion of any kind happens.
*As Cade and Savoy grapple in the apartment, Cade jams his thumb deep into Savoy's eye socket (see right), with accompanying "squlech" sound effect, and appropriate reaction from Savoy in the form of a long howl of pain through gritted teeth and a string of drool flowing uncontrolled from his mouth. But as soon as the two separate, Savoy's eye is absolutely fine, with no indication anything is supposed to have happened to it.
*While Lockdown is pulling up parts of the city, Shane backs the car into a building which is two stories high at most, but appears much larger on the inside.
{{-}}

===Technical/animation errors===
*Absolutely NONE of the dinosaur fossils found in modern times are cyberformed, even though the Creators killed all of the dinosaurs using this method.
*The shot right before the close-up of the cyberformed dinosaurs has no cyberformed dinosaurs at all, despite having all the excavation vehicles in the same positions as the next scene.
* Arcee is seen on Attinger's cards misspelled as "Acree".
*After Ratchet's leg has been severed and the Cemetery Wind troops surround him, Savoy asks him why he was running, even though he was clearly trying to escape from the clueless humans firing at him like psychopaths.
**Also, after Ratchet plays the troops the message sent out from Optimus, Savoy tells him that he won't have any mercy for the Autobot because he lost his sister in the war in Chicago - even though the Autobots were obviously the ones trying to protect the city and its citizens, including his sister, from the Decepticons, who started the war.
*When Attinger takes over the operation to scramble Cemetery Wind after Optimus, and dismisses everyone in the room, he does so by saying "Ladies and gentlemen, this room is going dark. The exit is on your left." All the people then get up and begin to exit to their ''right''.
*Scrambling Cemetery Wind seems to scramble the timeline. From the deployment of Cemetery Wind to Lucas's death, the time of day is in limbo. For example, Optimus escapes from the Yeager property at sunset, joining the pursuit that takes place in early afternoon, not to mention that Cemetery Wind arrives at the Yeagers' home town at what appears to be dawn. In some instances, repeated changes between shots correspond with changes between different times of day, as different positions of the sun result in very very obviously different lighting conditions.
*When Lockdown transforms to prepare for the attack on Optimus, one can clearly see a faux-part Lamborghini logo pop out from inside the car, while the actual logo disappears.
*In the shot of Shane's car pulling up outside of the Yeager farm after Cemetery Wind has stormed in, nobody is seen inside the vehicle.
*During the scene where Cade is pretending to be a truck driver with Optimus still in his flat-nose truck form, he has a cap and white plaid shirt on. After Optimus scans into his newer form, Cade's back to wearing his leather jacket.
*When Shane's car gets sideswiped in the cornfield, the back left window is shattered. A couple scenes later, the window is just rolled down.
*When Shane's car breaks into a building, the woman sitting right in the middle of the room is clearly waiting on the glass-breaking noise to start running.
*After Lucas' death, there is nothing really stopping Lockdown or Cemetery Wind from continuing to chase Optimus. Lockdown is much faster and could easily catch up to Optimus whilst Cemetery Wind could chase in their remaining vehicles.
*When Optimus transforms to and from his Marmon 97 alternate mode, the windows and grille that make up his chest visibly change size and shape.
*When Optimus transforms out of his flat-nosed truck mode and punches the ground, Tessa and Shane are standing next to each other, as viewed from behind Optimus. When the view immediately switches to be facing Optimus, Cade is suddenly standing between the two.
*Shane defends his relationship with Tessa by stating that the 'Romeo and Juliet laws' "statute 2705-3" protect their relationship, yet the card he shows Cade reads "Statute 22.011". This is also the number that appears in the English subtitles of the DVD, meaning that it was scripted as 22.011 and not 2705-3.
*The truck that Optimus scans, while still being from the Western Star manufacturer, is an older and different model than the one he transforms into.
*When Optimus is on his way to the reunion site, the human characters inside are sitting this way: Shane to the right, Tessa in the Middle and Cade to the left. However when Optimus gets to the reunion point Cade comes out of the truck using Shane's side door (right) instead of his (left). It is clear they (the director and his crew) were trying to get a "superhero" pose but it doesn't make sense.
*When Optimus arrived to the reunion site you can see the filming crew in the reflection of his front chrome parts.
*Hound's dialogue when he's bickering with Drift doesn't really match up to what we see. Drift pulls his swords on Hound, but the big guy goads him on to "pull it", suggesting Drift was originally supposed to aim a firearm at him.
[[File:Uncolored Ratchet head prop.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.67|Gray is the new green.]]
*When Joshua is in the lab showing Darcy Transformium, in two different shots, a gray, uncolored prop of Ratchet's head can be seen being worked on in the next room.
*As Cade's drone scans a KSI employee's name tag, it displays its location onscreen as around N 38°44'55", W115°28'27". These coordinates are for a [https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B044%2755.0%22N+115%C2%B028%2727.0%22W/@38.7486111,-115.4741667,3048m patch of desert in Nevada] rather than any place in Chicago.
*While first infiltrating KSI, in the showroom where Stinger is first viewed, Bumblebee is in car mode when Joshua walks in with Yueming. Bumblebee's engine audibly revs, yet Joshua doesn't notice that there's no one in the car to rev the engine.
[[File:Megatron Head at KSI.jpg|right|upright=1.4|thumb|Screw logic!]]
*Megatron's severed head is in somewhat good shape for someone who got an axe stabbed on the top of his head. Furthermore, his head is more in line with its appearance in the first movie not ''Dark of the Moon''.
*Not to mention, after Joshua's group leaves and Bumblebee knocks Stinger down, there's no transformation noise right before Bumblebee returns to his altmode and the KSI executive walks in. Additionally, Bumblebee starts playing M.C. Hammer's "U Can't Touch This", '''when no one is in the car''' to turn the stereo on. Ostensibly it was for a comic moment, but it didn't raise anyone's suspicions that a car that wasn't typical of the ones being scanned, operating the engine and the stereo with no human inside, might be a disguised Cybertronian?
*After Bumblebee scans his new alternate mode, the camera pans over the car and Tessa and Shane are not inside. However when he's getting his new upgraded form you can see that they used stunt doubles for Shane and Tessa. That scene wasn't dangerous enough to require stunt doubles, was it?
*Some security guards in KSI fail to react to Crosshairs's shooting and shouting until a few seconds before the scene changes.
*When Galvatron first transforms and crashes into a truck, the way he is composed in the scene makes it look like he is simply floating above the wreckage, instead of being in the middle causing it.
*When Optimus transforms, Cade and Shane leap out of Optimus, while Tessa is trapped and rolls away. However, previous shots establish that the seating order in Optimus is Shane, Tessa, Cade. This means that Cade crawled over his daughter to escape(!), which is not quite logical or possible.
*Lockdown fires two missiles at Optimus Prime that, despite piercing his chest, don't manifest any kind of visible damage on his person, despite the previous shot showing Optimus's chest getting blown apart.
*When Lockdown is approaching Optimus after gunning him down, the driver's door of the Cadillac SRX he's resting on is shown to be open in two exterior shots, even though Tessa previously closed it after getting inside, and it's also shown closed in other (mostly interior) shots.
*When he loses his grip on the net holding Optimus and the car containing Tessa, Cade is shown falling toward the street, but he lands on the grass by the road.
*When the Autobots are on a bridge, before boarding Lockdown's ship, Crosshairs is clearly shown to be speaking but no dialogue is heard.
*When Tessa gets taken to the trash in Lockdown's ship, a green screen can be seen at the end of the corridor.
*While locking up Optimus, Lockdown's scar is on the left side of his face. While talking to Savoy upon delivering the seed, it's on the right side of his face; however, it switches back to the left side right before he walks off after bidding Earth farewell.
*While the human characters are climbing across the anchor cables to the high-rise building some of the Steeljaws begin to climb out after them. Cade tells his daughter not to look back and see them, but when we cut back to her, with a clear view of the cables behind her, the Steeljaws are gone.
*When Bumblebee jumps off Lockdown's ship to save the humans, he is followed by a Steeljaw. In the following shot, the Steeljaw is gone.
*While explaining Megatron's plans to the Autobots, Brains rings a bell on a train. In the next shot, the bell is not moving.
*During the motorcycle chase, the CIA cars change. At first, Joshua and Su are trailed by a Cadillac and an Audi; in the middle of the chase, the Cadillac is replaced by another Audi. By the end of the chase, the Cadillac is back.
*In Hong Kong, when Cade, Joshua, Tessa, and Shane enter the elevator to run away from the rooftop, the elevator won't move and Cade says it's overloaded. But in the next scene, we see that the maximum number of people that the elevator can carry is nine, and it's very clear that the Seed doesn't weight as much as five people.
*When Grimlock transforms to his dino mode and charges at Optimus, there are no other Dinobots, nor the ship, to be seen in the background. However, after Optimus punches Grimlock and the shot changes, Dinobots are standing almost right next to him.
*Optimus somehow has enough strength to not only maintain his ground, but propel Grimlock through the air during his charge. Considering Grimlock's strength, velocity and weight, it is highly unlikely Optimus would win.
*Immediately after he transforms into his triceratops mode, Slug is shown to have a very visible Autobot logo on his dino-mode forehead, yet he just met Optimus and the other Autobots moments before.
*One of the air conditioning units kicked off the building exterior by Savoy falls away to reveal ... a solid wall, with no connection to an apartment's interior.
*During Hound's stand in Hong Kong, the pickup truck he uses as a shield sways left to right whilst his arm remains still.
*When Hound pulls out a large knife and stabs a KSI Prototype through the head with it, green "blood" spews out of its face, which usually happens to the Decepticons when they're injured. But since the KSI Prototype isn't a real Decepticon or Transformer, it is impossible for it to have had any blood in the first place.
*The damage Hound receives after being shot down, most noticeably the pipe on his left shoulder, is fixed in subsequent shots.
*Crosshairs is seen driving alongside Drift and Hound through the bridge to take the Seed away from the city ... right after we just saw him staying behind to hold the line with the Dinobots.
*During the final fight, Bumblebee decides to just leave midway. Considering the distance between the factory and the dock where they met, he must have left long before Optimus flew there.
*After Optimus takes off, the other Autobots are absent from the shot of the main cast watching Optimus fly off.

===Geographic discontinuities===
*When Cade tries to use his card at an ATM, not only is the card issued from a Chinese bank, which wouldn't have any branches in north Texas, where the Yeagers live, the text on the ATM screen (behind the ''Access Denied'' warning) is in Chinese.
*Despite being from north Texas, Cade and Tessa have no Texas accents- not all Texans have noticeable accents of course, but Cade can be heard speaking with a slight ''Boston'' accent in the trainyard ("I'm doing stuff out of my league here!"), which is likely due to his portrayer, Mark Wahlberg, being a Boston native.
*Despite the KSI pursuit scene taking place on a two lane highway, there are several scenes spliced in of the Transformers with supercar alt modes (like Stinger and Crosshairs) driving on what is obviously a racecourse (specifically the GM proving grounds in Milford, Michigan). This is apparent by the horizontal incline of the road in some of the shots that are also missing the markings that would normally be on a road, and a reaction shot for Stinger that shows a straight, one lane ninety degree turn.
*The entirety of the KSI pursuit scene switches between taking place between the left and right sides of the two-lane highway, despite being only supposed to take place on the right side. Furthermore, the shot showing stray missiles colliding with oncoming traffic takes place on a completely different highway, one with five lanes instead of three and a wooden fence on the side of the street as opposed to a guardrail. Moreover; the car crashing stunt for the bridge jump scene starts on the five lane highway, continues on the left side of the three lane highway, and then finishes on the ''right side'' of the three lane highway. Trouble finding shots, eh?
*All of the vehicles seen in Hong Kong are left-hand drive, rather than the right-hand drive you'd expect in a location that drives on the left.
*Some scenes supposed to take place in Hong Kong depict a very distinctively American city with traffic lights suspended by wires above the street.
*Chicago's Willis Tower can be seen in the background of Hong Kong.
*The bridge out of the city shown in the film (Tsing Ma Bridge) is at least a half-hour drive from the battlefield in Central.
*Furthermore, despite Optimus's comment, there are no bridges connecting Hong Kong Island (where all the action allegedly takes place) to the mainland. The only way to get off Hong Kong Island (other than by boat or swimming) is via one of three tunnels, none of which are used, referenced or mentioned in the film.
*Speaking of bridges, Tsing Ma Bridge (the gray version of the Golden Gate Bridge) shown in the movie is effectively a dead end unless one is going to the airport or Disneyland, because it only leads to/from Lantau Island.
*The bridge where Grimlock "digs in" is an expressway bypass. Geographically defending it is pointless as there are multiple other routes (including at least one that is faster) to bypass the bridge and tunnel yet end up at the same place on the other side.
*In one of the fight scenes there is an overhead railway (the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_People_Mover Detroit People Mover]). There are no overhead railways on Hong Kong Island (yet) and the MTR (the subway train network) trains look nothing like the train used in the scenes, as they are a completely different shape and color.
*There are no "glass houses" on Hong Kong Island.
*There are no Chinese temple ruins on Hong Kong Island. The temples there are all intact and frequently used or preserved and don't have giant metal umbrellas ''at all''.
*The area where Optimus battles and "tames" Grimlock is in the Wushan Valley in Northern China which is over 1100 km from Hong Kong, yet is depicted as being in Pok Fu Lam on the South Western side of Hong Kong Island (which is a high rise residential area). Even flying it would take well over 2 hours to get from Wushan Valley to Hong Kong.
*It's not possible to drive a car from Beijing into Hong Kong, as the number plates would be invalid, and it would take over a day to drive that distance. Chinese vehicles coming into Hong Kong have to be from the Canton area (number plates are black) and have to be registered with Hong Kong plates, which means they must display both plates at all times one above the other. (In addition, the process to obtain permission for a car to have that is also lengthy and costly.)
*The blue SUV used by Cade and his companions is not a type of vehicle that exists in Hong Kong. In addition, its steering wheel is located on the left side, even though cars in Hong Kong have their steering wheels on the right side.
*Optimus Prime's Western Star alternate mode would be illegal to drive on Hong Kong roads, since it's is oversized. The Freightliner truck used for Galvatron is the maximum size/gauge allowed on Hong Kong roads. All scenes with Optimus driving in truck mode were filmed elsewhere, the Western Star truck was never brought to Hong Kong. Even his previous Peterbilt alternate mode would be illegal in Hong Kong.
*The area depicted as the final battle scene where Optimus and Lockdown face off was digitally added on the map of Hong Kong shown in the movie. It doesn't exist at all in real life, where it's actually a breakwater/typhoon shelter full of boats on Victora Harbour. In addition, the factories in Hong Kong (which are all located on Kowloon, because Hong Kong Island is purely a residential/business/shopping district) look nothing like the buildings used in the scene.

===[[Dinobot Island, Part 1|Paleontology weeps]]===
*The cyberformed remains of a ''Tyrannosaurus'' and a ''Spinosaurus'' appear frozen together in the arctic at the beginning of the film, which is rather odd considering the two are found on different continents (North America and Africa respectively) and separated by around 35 million years of evolution.
[[File:ExtinctionOfTheDinosaurus.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|And another thing! How is that sauropod running!?!]]
*The opening scene of the movie shows a ''Psittaccosaurus'' (100-120 million years old), a generic hadrosaur that might be either an ''Edmontosaurus'' or a ''Shantungosaurus'' (65-70 million years old), and a brachiosaurid (100-157 million years old) all present during what is implied to be the K-Pg extinction event (64.5-65 million years old).
*The ''Psittaccosaurus'', a well known herbivorous animal, is seen actively hunting and killing live prey. In a nod to paleontological accuracy, however, it is depicted with a row of quill-like feathers along its back, as many ceratopsian dinosaurs are believed to have had.
*The Dinobots show various exaggerations and ornamentations which go beyond the usual suspension of disbelief involved in... [[Dinobot (disambiguation)|giant metal dinosaurs]]. Grimlock sports curved, backwards pointing horns and enormous fangs. Slug has huge tail spikes and a set of nasty chin horns, though his tail spikes could be a mechanised representation of the bristle-like fibres that triceratops currently is thought to have had. Strafe is the biggest offender, with a pair of elongated tails and twin heads with teeth and incorrectly-shaped crests and grasping talons. Scorn probably gets off the easiest, being ''mostly'' correct, bar his extra spines. It's not his fault that a few months after the release of the movie, the morphology of ''Spinosaurus'' was completely revised, with a different spine shape and shorter legs.
* The Dinobots' alternate modes are orders of magnitude larger than the real dinosaurs on which they're based. In an interesting twist, using Optimus as a proxy for the average human, all the Dinobots bar Strafe have been accurately scaled up. At 850 tonnes <ref name="Grimlock stats">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/entertainment-weekly-reveals-new-details-on-transformers-4-age-of-extinction-new-grimlock-image-179675] summarised on TFW2005.</ref> Grimlock is as large compared to Optimus as a real ''Tyrannosaurus'' would be next to a human.

==Transformers references==

* As usual, many of the new characters have roots in older portions of the mythos:
** [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] is based on [[Drift (G1)|a Generation 1 character]] introduced in IDW's 2008 ''[[The Transformers: All Hail Megatron|All Hail Megatron]]'' series.
** Lockdown is derived from [[Lockdown (Animated)|a character in the 2008 ''Animated'' cartoon]] who had already jumped over to the G1 comics and, in toy form, to the movie universe.
** [[Hound (disambiguation)|Hound]] and [[Crosshairs (disambiguation)|Crosshairs]] both share names with previous characters; their personalities are new and unique, though Hound seems based on [[Bulkhead (Prime)|''Prime'' Bulkhead]] in physique, coloration and personality.
** Galvatron being a new form for Megatron has been a thing for [[Galvatron (disambiguation)|basically forever]]. With Joyce's intentions of creating him as a counterpart to Optimus Prime, he also takes cues from [[Nemesis Prime (disambiguation)|Nemesis Prime]]; in particular the human-controlled ''[[Transformers: Prime (cartoon)|Prime]]'' [[Nemesis Prime (Prime)|character]].
** The Dinobots are the latest iteration of [[Dinobot (G1)|the powerhouse subfaction]] that first appeared in the early days of Generation 1. Their leader Grimlock is a direct analog of [[Grimlock (G1)|his Generation 1 counterpart]]; Strafe and Slug are based on Generation 1 [[Swoop (G1)|Swoop]] and [[Slag (G1)|Slag]], respectively.
* In the film's opening act, Optimus has adopted a cabover truck alternate mode akin to that of his [[Optimus Prime (G1)|G1 counterpart]]. His robot mode also draws some inspiration from his G1 design, such as the large grill on his chest.
* This is not the first time that Ratchet and Lockdown have faced off. ''Animated'' [[Ratchet (Animated)|Ratchet]] and [[Lockdown (Animated)|Lockdown]] had [[The Thrill of the Hunt|a long-running feud]]. Within the movie universe, the two characters have been described as rivals on ''[[Hunt for the Decepticons]]'' toy [[packaging]] [[bio]]s, and faced off in ''[[Cyber Missions 3]]''.
* The concept of the Transformers being built by another race first appeared in the third season of [[The Transformers (cartoon)|the original ''Transformers'' cartoon]].
* Meanwhile, the concept of humans hunting down all Transformers on Earth following a successful but devastating massive battle hearkens back to plotlines from IDW's [[The Transformers (IDW)|2009-2011 ongoing series]].
* The (rather obvious) theme of humans (particularly evil government agencies) using captured Transformers as a source of technology has appeared numerous times in the mythos, going all the way back to the [[Rapid Anti-robot Assault Team|RAAT]] agency in the original Marvel Comics. [[Transformers Animated (cartoon)|The ''Animated'' cartoon]] in particular featured the severed head of [[Megatron (Animated)|Megatron]] being studied and reverse-engineered, while in IDW's ongoing G1 stories, [[Sunstreaker (G1)|a Transformer's severed head]] was used to help design man-made Transformers (in [[The Transformers: Maximum Dinobots|a Dinobot-focused series at that]].) More broad uses of the concept include the Dreamwave ''[[Prime Directive]]'' mini-series, Devils Due's ''[[G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers: The Art of War|Art of War]]'' mini-series (''again'' featuring the severed head of [[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]]), the [[The Transformers (IDW)|IDW ongoing series]], [[All or Nothing!|Cobra's actions in the G2 comics]], [[MECH]] from the [[Transformers: Prime (cartoon)|''Prime'' cartoon]], and even in the movie universe itself, in IDW's ''[[Transformers: Alliance|Alliance]]'' mini-series that served as a prequel to the ''Revenge of the Fallen'' film. The idea of the (seemingly) human-controlled Transformers eventually proving to be uncontrollable was also pioneered by some of these stories, most notably Dreamwave's aforementioned ''Prime Directive'' mini.
* A device that can "[[eco-structuring|cyberform]]" other planets previously appeared in several places in the mythos, including in the original ''Transformers'' cartoon's [[Key to Vector Sigma (disambiguation)|Key to Vector Sigma]] two-parter and the aforementioned Dreamwave ''Prime Directive'' mini. In both cases, it was actually activated, unlike its movie counterpart.
* The idea of aliens and/or alien technology being found frozen in the arctic or Antarctic ice is a very common trope in fiction; in terms of Transformers, the first use of the trope was [[Jetfire (G1)|Skyfire]] in the original cartoon's [[Fire in the Sky]]. A discovery specifically at the hands of ''humans'' was a plot point in the aforementioned Dreamwave ''Prime Directive'' mini, not to mention [[Transformers (film)|the discovery of]] [[Megatron (Movie)|N.B.E. 01]]. Or the [[Scraplet]]s.
* The ringtone on Gill Wembley's cell phone is a remixed version of the original G1 Transformers [[theme song]].
* As he hunts for Ratchet, Lockdown's head-up display shows characters in [[Cybertronian language|Ancient Autobot]], an alphabet originating in the Generation 1 episode "[[Cosmic Rust (episode)|Cosmic Rust]]".
* In the scene where Optimus scans a passing truck, the classic [[Transformation#The noise|transformation noise]] plays when the Autobot symbol emerges from his grill.
*During the Texas chase scene, Shane, Cade, and Tessa drive past a navy-blue Pontiac Solstice with a white stripe down the middle. The Pontiac Solstice was Jazz's alternate mode in the first film. Also, the car is a reversal of Jazz's 1980's color scheme, which was white with a navy blue stripe down the middle. Since the Pontiac Solstice was not being produced at the time of the movie's production, the car's presence is definitely a reference, although the color scheme might just be a coincidence.
*The scene where Galvatron goes active and breaks free in KSI's Chinese facility mirrors the scene in the 2007 ''Transformers'' movie when Megatron breaks free inside [[Sector Seven]]'s facility, down to a reuse of the line "I am Megatron", only with the name changed to "Galvatron".

==Real-life references==
[[File:Rainbow Dash Age of Extinction.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|"I found the magic!"]]

*Among the objects KSI makes from Transformium in the film is a Rainbow Dash doll from [[My Little Pony|another popular Hasbro brand]].
*This marks the second time a Michael Bay film has begun with the extinction of the dinosaurs, the first being ''[[Armageddon]]''.

==Other editions==

==Prequel material==
*''[[Transformers (Titan Magazine)|Transformers: Age of Extinction]]'' magazine ([[Titan Books|Titan Comics]])

==Adaptations==
Unusually, no novel or comic adaptations of the film were released. The ''[[Transformers Annual 2015]]'' contained an extremely cut down prose summary of events.

==Music==
==Score==
{{main|Age of Extinction: The Score}}

==Home video releases==
{{main|Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)/home video}}

==Theatrical posters==
<center><gallery>
File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionTeaserPoster.jpg|First teaser poster
File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionOptimusPrimePoster.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction poster-IMAX.jpg|IMAX poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Cade poster.jpg|Cade Yeager poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Shane poster.jpg|Shane Dyson poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Tessa poster.jpg|Tessa Yeager poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Su poster.jpg|Su Yueming poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Lockdown poster.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Rules Have Changed.jpg|It's a scene not in the movie!
File:Transformers Age of Extinction This Is Not War.jpg|This is not human extinction, it's just war.
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Stand Together1.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Stand Together2.jpg|"Now look down. Now look at me. I'm on a dinosaur."
</gallery></center>

==Reception==

{{quote|"The few authentic inspirations to be found in the movie's hundred and sixty-five roiling minutes involve gigantic science-fiction contrivances."|[http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/film/transformers_age_of_extinction_bay The New Yorker's Richard Brody on Transformers 4: Age of Extinction], Richard Brody|[http://newyorker.com newyorker.com] [[2014]]}}

''Transformers: Age of Extinction'' was critically panned, and nearly universally condemned on the American front, receiving a rating of 18% positive critical reviews on RottenTomatoes.com, one percent lower than the final score for ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]]''. Common criticisms leveled against it included its relatively long run time of 2 hours and 45 minutes, the disproportionately small amount of screen time the Dinobots got in relation to their relatively large exposure in promotional materials for the film, an over-reliance on product placement, and the decision to set the final act in Hong Kong, which was perceived as a choice solely done to pander towards the Chinese audience for the film. However, the film received praise for its visual effects, action sequences, and the performances of some of the human actors, mainly Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, and Kelsey Grammer.<ref>http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_age_of_extinction/</ref> Despite any criticisms, the film was the worldwide top-grossing film for 2014, earning over a billion dollars.<ref>[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?view2=worldwide&yr=2014 Box Office Mojo's 2014 Worldwide Grosses]</ref>

It [[wikipedia:35th_Golden_Raspberry_Awards|won one Golden Raspberry Award]] for Worst Director ([[Michael Bay]]), was one of four movies contributing to [[Kelsey Grammer]]'s Worst Supporting Actor win (along with ''{{w|The Expendables 3}}'', ''{{w|Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return}}'' and ''{{w|Think Like a Man Too}}''), and was unsuccessfully nominated for Worst Picture; Worst Supporting Actress ([[Nicola Peltz]] as [[Tessa Yeager]]); Worst Screen Combo ("Any two robots, actors (or robotic actors)"); Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel; and Worst Screenplay ("screenplay by [[Ehren Kruger]], based on Hasbro's Transformers action figures").

==Production staff==
''Age of Extinction'' was written by [[Ehren Kruger]], who also wrote ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'' and helped write ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]]''.
===Visual effects===
===Locations department===

==Development details==
===Cast and crew signing on===
On June 26, 2011, thirteen days before the official theatrical release of ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'', actor [[Tyrese Gibson]] gave an interview to Movieweb, in which he claimed that [[Michael Bay]] would not return for a fourth ''Transformers'' installment; instead, executive producer [[Steven Spielberg]] himself was allegedly interested in directing a sequel.<ref name="tyresemovieweb">[http://movieweb.com/exclusive-steven-spielberg-may-direct-transformers-4/ Movieweb interview with Tyrese Gibson], with several names missing from the text; the full excerpt in question is quoted [http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/rumor-transformers-4-directed-by-steven-spielberg-172501/ here] on TFW2005.</ref> Ten days later, on June 26, 2011, still three days before the official theatrical release of ''Dark of the Moon'', Michael Bay posted praise for actor [[Shia LaBeouf]] on his official forums, while at the same time expressing regret for leaving the ''Transformers'' franchise.<ref name="bayshialeaving">[http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?9502-Love-Shia-as-an-Actor Michael Bay's praise for Shia LaBeouf]] at the official Michael Bay forums.</ref> Another two days later, on June 28, 2011, LaBeouf confirmed that ''Dark of the Moon'' would definitely be his last ''Transformers'' film, as he didn't think there was "anywhere to take" his character of [[Sam Witwicky (Movie)|Sam Witwicky]].<ref name="endshia">[http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/06/28/transformers-dark-of-the-moon-shia-labeouf/ "'Transformers: Dark Of The Moon' Is The End For Shia LaBeouf"], MTV Movies Blog.</ref>

Eight months later, on February 13, 2012, producer [[Lorenzo di Bonaventura]] gave an interview during [[Toy Fair 2012]], in which he confirmed that a fourth film was scheduled for a release in the Summer of 2014, Michael Bay would direct it after all, and that the movie would be a "reboot". He promptly clarified that it was actually a "hybrid", an "evolution" of the franchise that would be in continuity with the previous films, citing 2012's ''[[Wikipedia:The Amazing Spider-Man (2012 film)|The Amazing Spider-Man]]'' reboot of the ''[[Spider-Man]]'' film franchise as an example of what people should ''not'' expect from a fourth ''Transformers'' film. Di Bonaventura also confirmed that no casting discussions had taken place yet at that point, since there was no set story yet. However, there would be "a lot of new cast", and it was still uncertain at that point whether any of the previous cast members would return. The only characters that would "certainly" return wold be [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] and [[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]].<ref name="lorenzointerview">["http://www.mtv.com/videos/movies/733426/a-new-transformers-to-hit-theaters-in-summer-2014.jhtml "a new 'transformers' to hit theaters in summer 2014"], interview with Lorenzo Di Bonaventura at MTV.com.</ref> A day later, on February 14, 2012, Bay himself and [[Paramount Pictures]] officially announced that Bay had indeed signed a deal to make a fourth ''Transformers'' film. The film's release date was stated alternatively as either June 27 or June 29, 2014.<ref name="bayfourthfilm1">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/transformers-4-release-date-revealed-174395/ "Transformers 4 Release Date Revealed"] at TFW2005.</ref><ref name="bayfourthfilm">[http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-17028248 "Transformers director Michael Bay signs for fourth film"], BBC.co.uk.</ref> That same day, Bay also confirmed that he and Spielberg were working on a "whole new re imagining{{sic}} of ''Transformers''".<ref name="reimagining">[http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?10284-Transformers-4 Michael Bay confirming that ''Transformers 4'' would be a "reimaginging"] at the official Michael Bay forums.</ref> Two days later, on February 16, 2012, actor [[Josh Duhamel]] expressed his doubts that he, Shia LaBeouf, [[Rosie Huntington-Whiteley]] or Tyrese Gibson would return for the fourth installment.<ref name="noshiarosie">[http://eonline.com/news/294791/josh-duhamel-not-coming-back-for-transformers-4-is-anyone "Josh Duhamel Not Coming Back for Transformers 4: Is Anyone?!"] at E! Online.</ref>

Four months later, on June 6, 2012, Michael Bay confirmed in an interview centered around ''[[Transformers: The Ride – 3D|Transformers: The Ride]]'' that the fourth film would feature "some redesigns of the robots and an entirely new cast", and that it would be the last ''Transformers'' film he would direct.<ref name="ride">[http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/transformers-the-ride-3d-even-impresses-disney-rivals/ "‘Transformers’ taking new shape with Universal ride and fourth film"], LA Times Hero Complex.</ref> A few weeks later, on June 21, 2012, Bay confirmed that the fourth film would feature "different human actors", but the film would not be strictly a "reboot", but rather take the story "in a new direction". While hinting that the story might venture into space for "a little bit", he still wanted to keep it "grounded".<ref name="starsspace">[http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/transformers-4-michael-bay-purges-stars-may-go-into-space/ "‘Transformers 4’: Michael Bay purges stars, may go into space"], LA Times Hero Complex.</ref>

[[File:TF4 Chinese Reality Show contestants.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|If ''Age of Extinction'' teaches us anything, it's that more movies should be cast using reality shows.]]On September 21, 2012, Michael Bay confirmed the first "cast" member for the film in the broadest sense, namely the fact that voice actor [[Peter Cullen]] would be kept on as [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]. He also confirmed that the film would ''not'' be a reboot, but would pick up the story from where ''Dark of the Moon'' had left off in [[Chicago]].<ref name="cullen">[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/michael-bay-transformers-4-pain-and-gain_n_1903523.html "Michael Bay, 'Transformers 4' Director, On The Struggles Of 'Pain & Gain'"], Huffington Post interview.</ref> One and a half months later, on November 8, 2012, Bay confirmed [[Mark Wahlberg]] as the first human cast member<ref name="wahlberg">[http://michaelbay.com/2012/11/08/michael-bay-re-teams-with-his-pain-gain-star-mark-wahlberg-for-transformers-4/ "Michael Bay Re-Teams With His 'Pain & Gain' Star Mark Wahlberg for Transformers 4"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref>, after having referred to such claims as "just a rumor" a mere month earlier.<ref name="baynowahlberg">[http://michaelbay.com/2012/10/23/transformers-4-casting-rumor/ "Transformers 4 Casting Rumor"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref> On December 15, 2012, Wahlberg himself confirmed that filming would commence in May 2013.<ref name="wahlbergmay">[http://collider.com/ted-2-sequel-mark-wahlberg-transformers-4/218011/ "Mark Wahlberg Talks TED 2, TRANSFORMERS 4, and PAIN AND GAIN; Says TF Starts Shooting in May Followed By TED Sequel"], interview with Collider.com.</ref> Another month later, on January 8, 2013, Irish American actor [[Jack Reynor]] was confirmed as the second human cast member.<ref name="reynor">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jack-reynor-lands-starring-role-409850 "Jack Reynor Lands Starring Role in 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter.</ref> [[Nicola Peltz]] was confirmed on March 26, 2013<ref name="welcomepeltz">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/03/26/welcome-nicola-peltz-to-transformers-4/ "Welcome Nicola Peltz to Transformers 4"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref>, followed by [[Stanley Tucci]] (confirmed to be an antagonist) on April 16, 2013.<ref name="tucci">[http://www.comingsoon.net/news/cinemaconnews.php?id=103034 "CinemaCon: Stanley Tucci Joins Transformers 4"]</ref>, [[Kelsey Grammer]] as a lead (human) villain named "Harold Attinger" on May 1, 2013<ref name="grammerattinger">[http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/kelsey-grammer-lands-lead-human-villain-in-transformers-sequel/ "Kelsey Grammer Lands Lead (Human) Villain In ‘Transformers’ Sequel"] at Deadline.com.</ref>, [[Sophia Myles]] as a scientist on May 6, 2013<ref name="mylesscientist">[http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/sophia-myles-join-mark-wahlberg-michael-bays-transformers-4-exclusive-89661 "Sophia Myles to Join Mark Wahlberg in Michael Bay's 'Transformers 4' (Exclusive)"] at TheWrap.com.</ref>, Chinese actress [[Li Bingbing]] in an at that point still unspecified role on May 20, 2013<ref name="bingbing">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chinas-li-bingbing-boards-transformers-525370 "China's Li Bingbing Boards 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter</ref>, and actor-comedian [[T. J. Miller]] as a mechanic and best friend to Wahlberg's character on May 28, 2013.<ref name="miller">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/tj-miller-joins-transformers-4-559359 "T.J. Miller Joins 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter.</ref> [[Titus Welliver]] wasn't officially confirmed until July 25, 2013, after he had been spotted on set in Texas.<ref name="welliver">[http://www.deadline.com/2013/07/transformers-4-adds-titus-welliver/ "‘Transformers 4′ Adds Titus Welliver"], Deadline.com.</ref> In the lead-up to the release of the movie, Welliver would stir up a minor controversy with an interview in which he stated that the film would be darker and "not a kid's movie". Following a storm of online discussion regarding this statement, he issued a new statement to the effect that ''Age of Extinction'' is in fact a kid's movie, and he meant to say it would expand the audience.<ref name="nerdist">[https://www.nerdist.com/2014/02/titus-welliver-talks-about-transformers-4-and-clark-greggs-s-h-i-e-l-d-comments/ Titus Welliver Talks About TRANSFORMERS 4 and Clark Gregg’s S.H.I.E.L.D. Comments], Nerdist.com.</ref>

A rather unusual addition to the cast were [[Byron Li]], [[Candice Zhao]], [[Austin Lin]] and [[Teresa Daley]], which won their part through participating in the ''[[Transformers 4 Chinese Actors Talent Search Reality Show]]'' on August 25, 2013.<ref name="reality">[http://beijing.china.org.cn/2013-08/28/content_29845758.htm "'Transformers 4' recruits 4 Chinese actors"], China.org.cn.</ref>

The remaining robot voice cast (barring Optimus Prime) wasn't officially revealed until May 8, 2014.<ref name="voicecast">[http://michaelbay.com/2014/05/08/john-goodman-and-ken-watanabe-join-the-autobot-voice-cast-in-michael-bays-transformers-age-of-extinction/ "John Goodman And Ken Watanabe Join The Autobot Voice Cast in Michael Bay’s ‘Transformers: Age Of Extinction’"] at the official Michael Bay website.</ref>

===Writing and production===
On March 20, 2013, the Michigan Film Office announced that the fourth film would return to [[Detroit]].<ref name="michigan">[http://www.michiganfilmoffice.org/The-Film-Office/Press-Releases/Detail.aspx?id=11620 "Transformers Returning to Michigan, Approved for Film Incentive" at the Michigan Film Office website.]</ref> Principal photography began on May 28, 2013, at [[Wikipedia:Monument Valley|Monument Valley]].<ref name="monument">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/05/28/transformers-4-starts-filming-in-monument-valley-navajo-tribal-park/ "Transformers 4 Starts Filming in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref> Other shooting locations were the small towns of Lockhart, Taylor, Elgin and Pflugerville in Texas.<ref name="texas">[http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/movies/headlines/20130426-fourth-transformers-film-to-shoot-in-texas.ece "Fourth ‘Transformers’ film to shoot in Texas"] at Dallas Morning News.</ref> Shooting in Michigan involved two historic passenger steamboats, the ''[[Wikipedia:SS_Columbia|SS Columbia]]'' and her sister ship, the ''[[Wikipedia:Ste. Claire (passenger steamboat)|SS Ste. Claire]]'', which were docked in [[Wikipedia:River Rouge, Michigan|River Rouge]] awaiting restoration at the time being used as props.<ref name="boblo">[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/story/2013/07/26/wdr-boblo-boats-transformers-four.html "Historic Boblo boats land role in Transformers 4"], CBC News.</ref> While shooting in Detroit, Mark Wahlberg's children visited the set and were given small parts in the movie upon their father's request.<ref name="wahlkids">[http://comicbook.com/blog/2013/07/30/mark-wahlbergs-kids-cast-in-transformers-4/ "Mark Wahlberg's Kids Cast In Transformers 4"], Comicbook.com.</ref>

[[File:AOE Michael Bay Nicola Peltz on set.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Michael Bay uses his legendary charm to get the very best performance out of his actors.]]
Due to an increased focus of Hollywood studios trying to market its movies to the Chinese audience, parts of the movie were not only set in China, but actually filmed there. One of the shooting sites was Hong Kong. While there, the movie crew encountered the risks of shooting a movie in China firsthand when director Michael Bay was assaulted on the set by two locals demanding money; according to some sources, they were store owners that were not satisfied with the compensation they received for the inconvenience of having a movie filming nearby. Bay received minor injuries, but played the incident off on his blog. Both he and an official Paramount statement suggested that the assailants were under the influence of drugs.<ref name="attack1">[http://deadline.com/2013/10/hong-kong-police-called-to-transformers-4-set-amid-alleged-extortion-attempt-report-613912/ "Extortion Attempt On ‘Transformers 4′ Set; Michael Bay Suffers Minor Injury: Report"], Deadline.com.</ref><ref name="attack2">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-bay-attacked-transformers-4-649183 "Michael Bay Attacked on 'Transformers 4' Set in Hong Kong"], Hollywood Reporter.</ref><ref name="attack3">[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-24566287 "Transformers director Michael Bay attacked in Hong Kong"], BBC.</ref name="attack4">[http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/michael-bay-attacked-on-transformers-hong-kong-film-shoot-1.2100953 "Michael Bay attacked on Transformers Hong Kong film shoot"], CBC News.</ref><ref name="attack5">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/10/17/hong-kong-incident/ "Hong Kong Incident"] on Michael Bay's official Blog.</ref> A second extortion attempt occured several days later, this time allegedly by several triad gang members. Although one of them was later arrested, no-one was injured this time around.<ref name="extortion2">[http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-bay-transformers-4hong-kong-second-extortion-incident-2013-10?IR=T "More Trouble For 'Transformers 4' In Hong Kong As Second Extortion Attempt Reported"], Business Insider.</ref><ref name="extortion3">[http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/25/world/asia/hong-kong-transformers-triad-extortion/ "Transformers versus the triads of Hong Kong: the sequel"], CNN.</ref> Once again, Bay played down the extortion attempts in an interview, noting that most of the locals were apologetic over what took place, and that he wanted to film more projects in Hong Kong.<ref name="eager">[http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1342084/hollywood-director-michael-bay-eager-shoot-hong-kong-again "Hollywood director Michael Bay eager to shoot in Hong Kong again"], ''South China Morning Post'']</ref>

[[File:AOEOptimusRidingGrimlock.jpg|thumb|upright=1.9|left|"Get me closer! I want to hit them with my sword!"]]Late script changes resulted in Bay and his crew returning to the Chinese city of [[Wikipedia:Chongqing|Chongqing]] for a week reshooting a scene in January of 2014.<ref name="reshoot">[http://www.ecns.cn/2014/01-23/98337.shtml "'Transformers 4' back to China for additional shots"], China News Service (Ecns.cn).</ref>

Some of [[Industrial Light & Magic|ILM]]'s post-production effects were done at a newly opened Lucasfilm facility in Singapore.<ref name="ilmsg">[http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/lifestyle/story/lucasfilm-singapore-work-new-avengers-and-transformers-movies-20140116 "Lucasfilm Singapore to work on new Avengers and Transformers movies"], The Straits Times.</ref>

{{--}}

=== Sponsors and partners ===
==== General Motors and other car manufacturers ====
[[File:AOE Optimus Prime truck.jpg|thumb|upright=1.34|When having one's midlife crisis, it's not unusual to get a souped-up alternate mode.]]
''Age of Extinction'' continues the collaboration with General Motors. Earlier in the film, Bumblebee chooses a customized 1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS as his disguise when hiding from [[Cemetery Wind]], whereas later on, he upgrades to the newest model, a 2014 Camaro concept car. (The production crew was actually accused of ripping off a one-of-a-kind custom for the 1967 version.<ref name="1967custom">[http://jalopnik.com/did-transformers-4-rip-off-this-guys-design-for-the-ne-510655228 "Did Transformers 4 Rip Off This Guy's Design For The New Bumblebee?"] at Jalopnik.com.</ref>) Furthermore, new addition [[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]]'s alternate mode is a 2014 Chevrolet C7 Corvette Stingray, and recurring character Ratchet briefly appears at the beginning of the movie and transforms into his Hummer H2 ambulance mode (in the color scheme from ''Dark of the Moon'') before being killed at the hands of Cemetery Wind and [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]].

''Age of Extinction'' is the first movie to feature an official partnership with a manufacturer for [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]'s alternate mode. Earlier in the movie, he transforms into an old, rusty Marmon 97 truck cab (presumably without support from the manufacturer), but later upgrades into a brand new Western Star "5700 OP" concept truck that was designed specifically for the movie by "Twins Custom Coaches" and the team at West Coast Customs, with Western Star being a subsidiary of Daimler Trucks, who also provided a 2012 Freightliner Argosy that serves as [[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]]'s alternate mode.

Other manufacturers that provided vehicles to be used for characters' alternate modes were the Oshkosh Corporation with an Oshkosh Defense FMTV truck for [[Hound (Movie)|Hound]], the Volkswagen group with a 2013 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse for [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] and a Lamborghini Aventador for Lockdown, and independent Italian manufacturer Pagani Automobili with a Pagani Huayra for [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]].

=== Changes before, during and after production ===
* [[Slash (AOE)|Slash]] was originally intended to appear in the film (he even made it into some concept artwork).<ref name="burt">[http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/transformers-age-of-extinction-concept-art-from-wesley-burt/30723/ Age of Extiction concept art by Wesley Burt], mirrored at Seibertron.com.</ref>
* [[Glenn Morshower]] was originally set to return in this film, reprising his role of [[Morshower|General Morshower]], but didn't return due to a scheduling conflict.<ref>http://transformerslive.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/general-morshower-not-returning-to.html</ref>
* Both [[Josh Duhamel]] and [[Tyrese Gibson]] were intended to cameo reprising their roles as [[William Lennox]] and [[Robert Epps]] but were cut before filming started.<ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/tyrese-gibson-in-talks-for-transformers-4-176078/</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/tyrese-gibson-to-make-cameo-appearance-only-in-transformers-4-177407/</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/josh-duhamel-to-make-cameo-appearance-in-transformers-4-177026/</ref><ref>http://transformerslive.blogspot.com/2013/06/josh-duhamel-not-in-transformers-4.html</ref>
* Ed Welburn, [[General Motors]]' vice president for global design, was originally set to cameo as the C.I.A. head before being recast as a KSI employee.<ref>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/automobiles/ed-welburn-gets-a-part-in-transformers.html?_r=0</ref>
* A scene depicting Hound and Bumblebee dancing with Tessa (while Drift bobs his head in the background) was not present in the final cut of the film.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnxZ7Gg2yV4</ref>
* Scorn's toys lack the additional two sails he has in the film, suggesting it was a late design change.
*The Pagani Huayra that eventually ended up as [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]] was at one point intended as the alternate mode of a female robot with the working name "Widow Maker".<ref name="vitaly">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-9/age-of-extinction-concept-art-by-vitaly-bulgarov-180636/ Age of Extinction concept art by Vitaly Bulgarov] at TFW2005, including "Widow Maker".</ref><ref name="jung">[http://comicbook.com/blog/2014/07/20/transformers-age-of-extinction-concept-art-shows-off-epic-scope-/ Age of Extinction concept art by Steve Jung] at Comicbook.com, including "Widow Maker".</ref>
* Wahlberg's character was named "Flynn 'Ray' Vincent" rather than "Cade Yeager" in a casting call. The same casting call also revealed that actor [[Glenn Morshower]] was supposed to reprise his role as [[Morshower|General Morshower]] from the previous two films.<ref name="txcasting">[http://www.featurefilmauditions.com/2013/05/casting-for-transformers-4-actors-and.html "Transformers 4' open casting calls for actors and extras in Austin, TX and Detroit, MI"] at Film Auditions.</ref>
* A scene where Cade says "Stick behind me" is not present in the final cut of the film.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXSkXQs890g</ref>
* Another piece of dialogue cut from the film is when Cade says "You tell me" to Attinger when he asks for Optimus Prime.
* In some concept artwork, Grimlock appears as a horn-less T-Rex.
* The original running time of the film was 2 hours and 7 minutes, which would have made it the shortest film in the franchise. The final running time was 2 hours and 30 minutes <ref>http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/BatFreak/news/?a=77992</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/transformers-4-age-of-extinction-running-time-revealed-180165/</ref>
* [[Dwayne Johnson]] was originally offered the role of Cade Yeager, but due to his commitment to ''Hercules: The Thracian Wars'', the role was later taken over by his ''Pain & Gain'' co-star Mark Wahlberg.<ref>[https://twitter.com/TheRock/statuses/327892048978006016 Dwayne Johnson on Twitter]</ref>
*In some concept artwork, Drift was colored orange instead of blue. but according to the Generation 2 featurette in the Blu-ray release, this was changed because the vehicle that was going to play Drift was sold off.
*Some concept artwork shows that Optimus was intended to have his original trilogy body in the scenes where he had his new look.
*According to Ehren Kruger in the Generation 2 featurette, in the early drafts of the film, it was not originally centered on the Cade Yeager character.
*Numerous silver [[redeco]] toys were produced for Optimus Prime with the moniker of "Silver Knight", suggesting that he was originally supposed to take on this alternate appearance in the film itself, almost certainly upon drawing a sword from the Knights' armory. In the finished film, he does undergo some slight physical alteration at this point, his arms reconfiguring to resemble armor plates, but that's as far as it goes. This was also ''prrrrobably'' where he was supposed to get the rocket-boots he suddenly deploys at the film's end.

{{-}}

===Disinformation campaign===

Like ''Revenge of the Fallen'' and ''Dark of The Moon'' before it, ''Age of Extinction'' had a campaign that would mask details of the final film. However, unlike the previous films, this one was all encompassing; no novelization or comics by [[IDW Publishing]] was released, allowing for a great deal of the movie's spoilers to actually remain unknown longer than for the previous three films.

In the original Michigan Film Office press release published on March 20, 2013, several vague plot details were revealed, including the fact that Autobots and Decepticons had "[[Cemetery Wind|all but vanished from the face of the planet]]", a "[[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|group of [...] businessman and scientists]]" were developing new technologies based on past encounters with the Transformers, and an "[[Lockdown (ROTF)|ancient, powerful Transformer menace]]" was targeting Earth.<ref name="plotunveiled">[http://www.thewrap.com/node/82001/ "‘Transformers 4’ Plot Unveiled by Michigan Film Office"] at TheWrap.com.</ref>. These plot details were later claimed to be inaccurate by Paramount Pictures<ref name="notaccurate">[http://screenrant.com/transformers-4-movie-plot-synopsis-cast/ Unofficial "'Transformers 4' Plot Synopsis Is Not Accurate"] at Screenrant.com</ref>, but in all their vagueness ultimately turned out to be not too far off from the film's plot.

A lot of the newly-added characters were given "code names" during production, most of them related to the ''Rocky'' saga: "Duke" for Hound, "Adrian" for Galvatron, "Ivan" for Grimlock, "Rocky" for Slash (who was originally intended to appear in the movie, as noted above), "Southpaw" for Scorn, "Paulie" for Strafe, and "Thunderlips" for Slug. In addition, Crosshairs was code-named "Slingshot", Drift was code-named "Bruce", Lockdown was code-named "Max", and Steeljaw was code-named "Wolf" (which ''might'' have simply been a working name).<ref name="customer">[http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-news-rumors/961952-monzos-mega-hasbro-customer-service-listing-breakdown.html Hasbro customer service list]</ref>
{{stub}}

==Notes==
*Not only do the [[Dinobot (AOE)|Dinobots]] go unnamed in the film (other than [[Scorn (AOE)|Scorn]] getting the nickname, "Spike"), the word Dinobot is never even said by anyone. The audio description soundtrack on the home video releases refers to them as warriors or barbarians, but notes during the final scene that they "turn into Dinobots" (of course it also refers to Galvatron transforming "into an Autobot" when he turns into a robot, so make of that what you will).
*In addition to the Mercenary robots, [[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaws]], the ball-shaped drones, and [[Stupid Drone]]s, inside Lockdown's ship there were also several hovering drones. These drones appear to be of the same type as those the United States used in ''Dark of the Moon'' (the one that got sucked into the engine of Bumblebee's commandeered Decepticon fighter). Maybe Attinger sold them to Lockdown?
*Michael Bay's website incorrectly refers to the film as "Transformers 4 The Age Of Extinction"
* The deceased Autobots and Decepticons shown in the cards Attinger pulled early in the film includes: [[Ironhide (Movie)|Ironhide]], [[Wheeljack (Movie)|Que]], [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]], [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]], [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]] and [[Arcee (Movie)|Arcee]].
* This film seems to put a final nail in the coffin regarding the films' abandonment of the concept of using [[protoform]]s to travel through space; when the Autobots steal a ship from [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], they immediately move to leave Earth, indicating they had been stranded on Earth for the past five years without a spaceship (following the destruction of the ''[[Xantium (DOTM)|Xantium]]''). The fact that no mention is made of searching for any possible survivors of Cemetery Wind's hunt also suggests that all Autobots who did not return for this film have been killed off as well.
*The robot designs in this film are markedly different than the previous three; the robots have less alien appearances and are more heavily influenced by human forms.
*Speaking of the appearance of the Autobots - they all are based on specific types of human combatants throughout history: Optimus is obviously a medieval knight, Hound heavily resembles a World War II-era commando, Crosshairs looks like a mercenary or assassin, Bumblebee's new form is highly Ninja-like, and Drift is unsurprisingly a samurai.
*Director Michael Bay makes a cameo appearance in the film as a guy sitting in the passenger seat of a truck whose trailer Optimus Prime and Bumblebee crash through after being attacked by Galvatron and Stinger.<ref name="magiceffects">[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btn2tPxjisA "Behind the Magic: The Visual Effects of 'Transformers Age of Extinction'"] on the official ILMVisualFX Youtube channel.</ref>

===Foreign names===
*''Japanese:'' '''''Transformers: Lost Age''''' (トランスフォーマーロストエイジ ''Toransufōmā Rosuto Eiji'')<ref>[http://www.cinematoday.jp/page/N0056111 『トランスフォーマー』第4弾の邦題は『トランスフォーマーロストエイジ』に決定！最新ビジュアルも公開]</ref>
*''Russian:'' '''''Transformery: Epokha istrebleniya''''' (Трансформеры: Эпоха истребления ''Transformers: Age of Extermination'')
*''Argentina:'' '''''Transformers 4'''''
*''Cantonese:'' '''''Binying Gamgong: Chimmit Saigei''''' (變形金剛：殲滅世紀 "Transformers: The Century of Annihilation")
*''Mandarin:'' '''''Biàn-hsín Jīn-gāng Sz: Jiúe-jī Chúng-shēng''''' (Taiwan: 變型金剛4：絕跡重生, China: 变形金刚4：绝迹重生 "Transformers 4: Rebirth from the Extinction")
*''German:'' '''''Transformers: Ära des Untergangs''''' ("Transformers: Era of Doom")
*''Turkish:'' '''''Transformers: Kayıp Çağ''''' ("Transformers: Lost Age")

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

{{stub}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Age of Extinction (film)}}

[[Category:Age of Extinction| Age of Extinction (film)]]
[[Category:Real world films]]

Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)

2015-07-28T00:02:33Z

LordStarscream100: /* Errors */

{{Nav-aoe}}
[[File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionOptimusPrimePoster.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.67|An adventure 65 million years in the making.]]

'''''Transformers: Age of Extinction''''' is the fourth film in the [[live-action film series]]. It was released on [[June 27]], [[2014]].

Following the [[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Battle of Chicago]], humanity has come to fear both Autobots and Decepticons alike. With the aid of a Transformer mercenary named [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], a CIA [[Cemetery Wind|task-force]] operated by [[Harold Attinger]] begins hunting the remaining [[Transformer]]s on [[Earth]]. Hunted by enemies that were once his allies, [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] loses faith in humanity and sends his forces into hiding. Now, five years later, struggling inventor and single-father [[Cade Yeager]] discovers a damaged Transformer, placing both himself and his [[Tessa Yeager|daughter]] on a collision course with events that threaten the extinction of humankind itself.

{{bigquote|The trouble with loyalty to a cause is that the cause will ''always'' betray you.|[[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]]|''Transformers: Age of Extinction''}}

==Synopsis==

[[File:The Creators cyberforming Earth AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs."]]
65 million years ago, on Cretaceous [[Earth]], a ''Psittacosaurus'' is out hunting for food. The small dinosaur finds a fish and starts to feed, but stops as hundreds of alien ships enter Earth's atmosphere, piloted by the mysterious [[Creator (AOE)|"Creators"]]. The alien ships launch dozens of strange [[Seed]]s across the planet. As they detonate, they convert the landscape and the herds of panicking dinosaurs into a metallic substance, ending the Age of Dinosaurs. Millions of years later, while digging in the [[Arctic]], a team of geologists uncover a mysterious pair of metallized dinosaur skeletons - a discovery that attracts the attention of [[Darcy Tirrel]]...

Five years after the invasion of [[Chicago]], tensions between humans and Cybertronians have risen dramatically. Although the Autobots are officially granted asylum on Earth, public opinion has turned against all Transformers. The government of the United States has terminated all human-Autobot joint programs and instated [[Cemetery Wind]], an elite [[CIA]] unit intended to flush out the handful of [[Decepticon]]s left on Earth. What the President doesn't know is that [[Harold Attinger]], the leader of the operation, is slaughtering all Transformers, regardless of faction. On one such mission, the team pinpoints [[Ratchet (Movie)|Ratchet]] hiding within an abandoned boat. He immediately tries to flee, but is crippled and brought down by their weapons. The team leader, [[James Savoy]], mockingly asks why Ratchet ran if he's not their enemy, and Ratchet replays a transmission he received from [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]], ordering all Autobots to hide from humans. However, Savoy dismisses his pleas as his sister was killed in Chicago. A Transformer bounty hunter, [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], who has actually been helping Cemetery Wind hunt the Autobots, emerges from the nearby swamp and attacks Ratchet, further damaging him. Walking past his human allies, Lockdown demands to know [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]'s whereabouts. When Ratchet refuses, Lockdown brutally kills him by ripping out his spark.
[[File:AOE Ratchet dying.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction..."]]

In Texas, struggling inventor [[Cade Yeager]] and his friend/employee [[Lucas Flannery]] meet at an old theater, looking for salvage. He finds an old truck, and upon inspection it seems to be full of artillery shells. He buys the truck along with the other theater equipment and puts it in his garage.[[Tessa Yeager|Tessa]], Cade's daughter, observes this while video-chatting with her boyfriend and criticizes her dad for buying the heap of junk. While attempting to salvage the truck's engine to sell, Cade realizes it's actually a badly-damaged Transformer. After calling Lucas and Tessa, he connects jumper cables to its engine, only for it to begin replaying the distress call Ratchet had received earlier. Lucas and Tessa advocate calling the government, claiming that there is a huge reward for Transformers. Cade convinces them not to call the authorities until he can spend more time working on the truck, as he may be able to stumble on a technological breakthrough if he can figure out how the Transformers work. When Cade removes a live missile from the truck's "power core," it transforms into a heavily injured Optimus Prime, who roars at them to stay back while he swings his weapon around the barn. Cade, Lucas, and Tessa ask why Optimus is so badly damaged, to which he replies that the Autobots are being hunted and he must help them. Cade offers to repair him, and sends Lucas to buy the parts that will enable him to fix Optimus. Cade and Optimus begin to bond as the repairs begin.
[[File:AOE-injuredoptimus.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Should we chance moving him?"]]

In the Arctic, Attinger arrives via helicopter at [[Knight Ship|Lockdown's ship]] and demands to know why Optimus Prime escaped him in [[Mexico]]. Lockdown derisively tells Attinger that Optimus Prime would not have escaped were it not for Cemetery Wind's interference, stressing that he does not care about Attinger or his goals and wishes only to capture Optimus Prime.

Shortly after returning to [[Washington, D.C.]], Attinger receives a tip that Optimus Prime has been located in Texas and sends Savoy and Cemetery Wind to apprehend him. The agents swarm the barn, but there is no trace of Prime inside. When Savoy threatens Tessa to force Cade to tell him of Prime's whereabouts, the Autobot leader explodes out of the barn's basement in which he was hiding. He escapes after a brief skirmish that destroys the Yeager residence, with both Cemetery Wind and Lockdown in pursuit. As Cade catches one of Cemetery Wind's mini drones, a white rally car zooms over the adjacent fields and picks up the Yeagers and Lucas. The driver turns out to be [[Shane Dyson|Shane]], a rally car racer who is also Tessa's boyfriend. A group of Cemetery Wind vehicles begins chasing them.
[[File:Optimus shooting humans AOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"You think they'll have that on the tour?"]]

Both the rally car and Optimus Prime are chased into an abandoned factory, where Optimus Prime fights off Lockdown. Shane puts his driving skills to good use and pulls a series of tight maneuvers that result in the Cemetery Wind cars crashing, destroys his car in the process. Optimus Prime, who has caught Lockdown in a crane cable, transforms and tells the humans to pile into him and escape. Lockdown throws a grenade at the humans as they run towards Optimus Prime; though Shane and the Yeagers escape, Lucas is caught in the blast and killed.

Arriving at an abandoned gas station, Optimus orders the humans out and drives off to ensure that they have not been followed. Cade confronts Tessa and Shane about their relationship but Tessa gets angry at Cade for putting them all in danger. The next day, Optimus and the humans set off towards Monument Valley. Prime [[trans-scan|scans]] a passing truck, sheds his layer of rust and takes on a new form with his old paint scheme. They arrive in Monument Valley where they meet the other surviving Autobots in the form of [[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]], [[Hound (Movie)|Hound]], [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]], and their de facto leader [[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]]. Crosshairs and Hound start threatening the humans for having their species betray them but Optimus convinces them that they have risked their lives to save his. The Humans notice that there are clear tensions between the Autobots. Cade reveals footage of the attack on Ratchet and [[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot's]] demise using the stolen aerial drone and Prime declares that he will kill the one responsible for hunting down the Autobots.

[[File:Autobots unite monument valley AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Dr. Grant, my dear Dr. Sattler... Welcome to [[Jurassic Park]]." ]]

Inspection of the drone leads them to a company named [[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|KSI]], located in a rebuilt Chicago. It is run by [[Joshua Joyce]], who is working with [[Su Yueming]] and Attinger to create artificial Transformers to eventually be used in the military. Using the remains of [[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]], [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]], [[Starscream (Movie)|the]] [[Barricade (Movie)|countless]] [[Shockwave (Movie)|Decepticons]] from the Chicago battle and the hunted Autobots, they have synthesized the metal that the Transformers are made of, calling it [[Transformium]]. When given commands through a computer, Transformium can be changed into various shapes or objects. Although a drone called [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]] (designed after Bumblebee) is active, Joshua's major project is a bigger, stronger drone called [[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]]. However, his attempts have not been successful; the drone keeps resembling Megatron instead of the friendlier image of Optimus Prime. Bumblebee builds Cade and Shane faux-ID badges which the duo use to infiltrate KSI. Cade goes further in and projects imagery of Ratchet's severed head being melted down as well as the injured and enslaved [[Brains]], which sends Prime into a rage.

[[File:Joshua Joyce Transformium Experiment AOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"God help us, we're in the hands of engineers."]]

However, Cade is caught when his ID badge is found to have been scanned twice (by him and its original owner). He is taken to the upper floors and confronted by Attinger, who claims that what he has witnessed is in the name of world peace. He also asks him about the whereabouts of Optimus Prime but Cade maintains his silence.

Furious over how the humans have mutilated their comrades, Optimus orders an attack on KSI. Bumblebee, carried by Drift in copter mode, rescues Cade. The others trash the lab, free Brains, and confront Joshua, only for him to openly declare that what is being done is being done to prevent more Transformer-caused damage and that the humans "don't need" the Autobots. Disheartened, Prime orders a retreat.

As the Autobots exit the factory and leave, Attinger catches up with Joshua and claims that the Autobots are terrorists for attacking the facility. He coerces Joyce to use the two functional drones to take down the Autobots. Galvatron and Stinger activate and pursue their quarry across a highway, with Galvatron doing more damage than his KSI handlers intend. Bumblebee fires upon Galvatron but is surprised to see him simply disintegrate and reintegrate again. Galvatron attacks Prime. As they battle, Optimus declares that the artificial creation has no soul, to which it retorts "That is why I have no FEAR!"

[[File:AOEGalvatron.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Kids! You want to have one of those?"]]

As Tessa scrambles for cover in a nearby vehicle, Prime is suddenly shot from the back and falls-Lockdown has arrived, along with his ship! Lockdown gloats to his prisoner, claiming that Optimus was built, not born, and now the Creators want him returned in one piece. The bounty hunter orders a net dropped over Optimus and hoists both the Autobot leader and Tessa's hiding place into his ship. Cade desperately clings to the net, but his strength gives out and he falls to the fields below. As the spaceship departs, Cade and Shane vow to get Tessa back.

Lockdown throws Prime in a cage and orders his lackeys to dispose of Tessa. Prime takes note of several other aliens in similar cages, including [[Dinobot (AOE)|other Cybertronian warriors]]. He also discovers the original purpose of the mercenary ship: it was originally used by a group of legendary Knights (presumably including Prime himself) but now acts as Lockdown's flying prison. Lockdown's ship hovers over Chicago, triggering panic in the streets, but Attinger manages to talk down the authorities and send Savoy to rendezvous with Lockdown. As payment for Prime's capture, Lockdown gives him a Seed.

Cade, Shane, and the other Autobots get aboard the ship as it flies low over a bridge. While being pursued by Lockdown's henchmen, the two humans find a strange Knight armory, from which Cade takes a sword that opens up to form a gun. While Shane and Cade rescue Tessa, Crosshairs deploys the ship's mooring cables, which fire into the Willis Tower and preventing the ship from breaking atmosphere. The humans begin to clamber down the cables to safety, but they are pursued by a pack of [[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaw]]s. Bumblebee manages to save the trio. The other Autobots locate Optimus, who reveals that the section of the ship they are on can separate from the main body. Crosshairs uses a gunship to pick up Bumblebee and the humans, then leads them on a dogfight through Chicago's streets, destroying some of Lockdown's mercenaries.

[[File:Prime gets shotAOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"It could have been worse, John. A lot worse."]]

Back at KSI, it is decided that all equipment is to be moved to the Beijing facility to continue operations. Joshua is also none too pleased about the previous field test of Galvatron; not only was it a loss on several fronts, but the drone also ''spoke'', which was something it was ''not'' programmed to do!

The Autobots land their new ship at an abandoned train yard. Optimus claims that he sensed Megatron's presence during his fight with Galvatron. Brains explains Galvatron's true nature: while he decoded dead Transformer brains, he learned that Megatron's mind had survived and planned to transfer itself to Galvatron's body, explaining Galvatron's sinister appearance. The tiny bot further mentions how Galvatron used his knowledge to build Stinger and the other drones, with plans to make them into his personal army. As Tessa tells the group about the Seed she saw, Optimus and Hound explain that the Creators used Seeds to convert organic material into metal, then harvested the resulting Transformium for their own purposes. Cade makes a call to Joyce and relays the newfound data about Galvatron. Knowing that Joyce is also an inventor with a heart, he pleads with Joyce to shut down Galvatron before things escalate. Although Joyce puts up an unconvinced façade, he demands increased security around Galvatron after hanging up.

As police cars surround the train yard, the Autobots board their shuttle again and take to the air. Optimus says that though the Autobots will travel to Hong Kong and get the Seed back, they will leave Earth afterwards; they are done protecting humanity. Cade disagrees but Prime is non-responsive. They later debate the matter, with Cade attempting to reignite Prime's faith in humanity.

In deep space, Lockdown finally discovers the absence of the smaller ship. He grumbles about Optimus Prime taking his trophy case and how the Prime will feel his wrath while he reverses course. Joyce meets with Attinger and Savoy and receives the Seed. Joyce intends to detonate it in a region of the [[Gobi Desert]], which will generate enough Transformium to last a century. Attinger is eager to expedite production but grows incensed when Joshua disagrees and says that they should go slower, quite obviously moved by Cade's call. Meanwhile, Galvatron activates ''himself'' and starts to infect the legion of over fifty other KSI Transformers. When the alarm rings regarding Galvatron's escape, Joyce has Attinger and Savoy evacuated from the building and gets in a car with Yueming, an associate named Darcy, and the Seed. They decide to try and hide the Seed in [[Hong Kong]].

Being hunted by Attinger and Savoy, Joyce seeks refuge on a rooftop when the Autobot-piloted ship arrives and attempts to pick him and the Seed up. However, Galvatron and his drones ramy arrive and shoot down the airborne vessel, causing Bumblebee, Hound, and the Yeagers to spill out while the others (Prime, Crosshairs, Drift, and the captured Knights) to careen away into the Wulong Valley. Savoy finds the Yeagers and Joyce on the rooftop and open fires on them but Cade leads him away from the others. The two jump across rooftops, eventually crashing into a house and getting into a fist fight which ends with Savoy falling from a window to his death.

Hound and Bumblebee attempt to escort the humans and the Seed out of the city, but are cut short when Joshua points out that the KSI-built Transformers were specifically built to destroy any Autobots or Decepticons left on Earth. This prompts Prime to enter the crashed ship and activate the armory as well as release the other captives within the ship. As Hound and Bumblebee hold the line and protect the humans, Optimus tries to convince the Legendary Warriors to fight alongside them. Their [[Grimlock (AOE)|apparent leader]] violently declines at first, fighting the Prime in both his massive robot mode and his Tyrannosaurus mode. Optimus quickly defeats him, saying that he and the other warriors will protect his family or die, then mounts the metal dinosaur. The Autobots mount their Dinobots and charge over the mountains into Hong Kong.

[[File:Dinobots ready for battle AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"''T. rex'' doesn't want to be fed. He wants to ''hunt''."]]

Meanwhile, as Hound and Bumblebee are starting to be overwhelmed by Galvatron's drone forces, Optimus and his fellow Autobots storm into the city, slamming, crushing, stomping, and chomping all nearby enemies. Galvatron retreats as the Autobots and Dinobots decimate his forces. With this battle over, Optimus confronts Joshua for his actions and gives the order to defend the humans and escort them, and the Seed, away from the city. On the way, a homing beacon within the Seed activates, allowing Lockdown to track the Autobots down. He activates a massive magnet, wreaking havoc on Hong Kong. Everything metal from kitchenware to massive ships are picked up by the magnet, including the Autobots and Dinobots. After narrowly avoiding the magnet, the Yeagers are momentarily separated from the Autobots. Optimus shoots at the magnet, destroying it and releasing the Transformers from its influence. The ship retreats to a nearby factory, with Optimus hot on its trail. Cade tells his daughter to stay with Shane and the Autobots, as he wishes to fight alongside Optimus against Lockdown. As Optimus Prime and Lockdown battle one-on-one, Attinger corners Yeager with a pistol, accusing him of choosing aliens over his own race, but he is quickly shot and killed by Optimus.

Because of Optimus' choice to save Cade before defending himself, Lockdown gains the upper hand, impaling Optimus through the chest with his own sword and pinning him to a concrete pillar. Meanwhile, Tessa convinces Bumblebee to turn around and the three join in fighting Lockdown, allowing Shane to use a tow truck to unpin Prime. Just as Lockdown is about to kill Cade, Optimus jumps up and slices the bounty hunter in half. Activating one of Lockdown's grenades, Prime tells the humans to hold on and uses rocket boosters to escape while the grenade destroys the last of the KSI drones. Galvatron has survived and retreated to the outskirts of the city; watching Prime blast off, he tells Optimus to beware, for he is reborn...

[[File:AOE-DefendThisFamily.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"I don't know. I guess... I guess we'll just have to evolve too."]]

The Autobots, Dinobots and their Human allies all regroup on the waterfront. Cade and Tessa happily reconcile and Cade finally accepts Shane. Joshua nobly says he will help them with their destroyed home. Prime declares the Dinobots are now free as they depart for parts unknown. With the bounty on his head placing the entire Earth in danger, Prime blasts off into space with the Seed to confront the Creators and discover the mystery behind his own origins, but not before ordering the Autobots to protect the Yeager family. As he leaves Earth's atmosphere, Optimus Prime sends a message to his Creators to leave planet Earth alone, because he's coming for them.

{{--}}

==Quotes==
"Lockdown...?" 
"Autobots, Decepticons, like little children, always fighting; making a mess out of the universe, then ''I've'' got to clean it up! There is one way you survive. Tell me where he's hiding. Where is Optimus Prime?" 
"Never." 
''(Lockdown rips out Ratchet's spark)'' 
"Never is here." 
:—'''Ratchet''''s final moments before '''Lockdown''' kills him.

"In this planet we have a saying: ''The enemy of my enemy is my friend''." 
"I also have a saying: '''''I don't care'''''."
:—'''Harold Attinger''' discusses with '''Lockdown'''.

"Every galaxy I've traveled, all you species are the same. You all think you're the center of the universe. You have no idea..."
:—'''Lockdown''' never truly appreciated one of his clients.

"Human beings. Bunch of backstabbing weasels!" 
"Hound, find your inner compass. ''Loyalty is but a flower in the winds of fear and temptation.''" 
"What the hell are you saying?!?" 
"It's a haiku." 
"Cut the crap before I drop a grenade down your throat!" 
"Try it, you'll be dead!" 
"Oh, please pull it. Please do it."
:—'''Hound''' doesn't appreciate '''Drift's''' haikus.

"With your fate unknown, Bumblebee has held command, despite his complete and total lack of anything resembling warrior discipline. He's like a child." 
"This child is about to ''kick your ass!''"
:—'''Drift''' and '''Bumblebee'''

"Autobots, I have sworn never to kill humans..." 
"Big mistake." 
"...but when I find out who's behind this...he's going to ''die''." 
"Hoo-ah!"
:—'''Prime's''' rage is fueled by '''Hound'''.

"Destroy the lab! Destroy it all!" 
''(The Autobots lay waste to the KSI research facility)'' 
"Hey, you! Stop! That's company property!" 
"They're not ''your'' property! ''They were my friends.''" 
:—'''Optimus Prime''' duly informs '''Joshua Joyce''' that Transformers aren't just machines.

"You have no soul!" 
"That is why I have no ''fear''!"
:—'''Optimus Prime'''' is shocked to find '''Galvatron''' isn't as lifeless as he thought.

"We're behind enemy lines now. Lockdown's ship has booby traps! Eyes open." 
"Beware of his bone-grinders, brain-blinders, flesh-stealers, chromosomal-inverters, catatonic slugs, black hole trapdoors and of course, radiation."

:—'''Hound''' and '''Crosshairs''' warn the humans of the perils held within Lockdown's ship.

"I was expecting a [[Grimlock_(G1)/toys#Alternators.2FBinaltech|giant car!]]"
:—'''Drift''' witnessing Grimlock transform into a dinosaur.

"Autobots, we're going to prove who we are, and ''why we're here''!"
:—'''Optimus Prime''' rallies his troops with his characteristic passion and charisma.

"Ugh, you just wanna die for the guy. ''That's'' leadership. Or brainwashing, or something." 
"No, that's Optimus Prime."
:—'''Crosshairs''' and '''Drift''', remarking on their [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|leader]]/[[Dinobot (AOE)|Giant Robot Dinosaur]] tamer.

"I'm like a fat ballerina who takes scalps and slits throats!"
:—'''Hound''' takes another five levels in badass and ballerina class.

"How do you say 'Get the f&%# out of the way' in Chinese?"
:—'''Joshua''' has some issues with the language barrier.

"I hate cheap knockoffs."
:—'''Bumblebee''' dismissing all [[Cliffjumper (Movie)|clones]] of him as "cheap".

"We shall meet again, Prime, for I am reborn."
:—'''Galvatron''' retreats to fight another day.

"There are mysteries to the universe we were never meant to solve, but who we are and why we are here are not among them. Those answers we carry inside. I am Optimus Prime, and this message is to my Creators. Leave planet Earth alone. 'Cause I'm coming...for you."
:—'''Optimus Prime'''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s closing narration.

==Main cast==
{{featuredcharacters|
h1=[[Autobot]]s|c1=
*[[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] ([[Peter Cullen]])
*[[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]]
*[[Hound (Movie)|Hound]] ([[John Goodman]])
*[[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] ([[Ken Watanabe]])
*[[Ratchet (Movie)|Ratchet]] ([[Robert Foxworth]])
*[[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]] ([[John DiMaggio]])
*[[Brains]] ([[Reno Wilson]])
*[[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot]]
*[[Dinobot (AOE)|Dinobots]]
**[[Grimlock (AOE)|Grimlock]]
**[[Scorn (AOE)|Scorn]]
**[[Slug (AOE)|Slug]]
**[[Strafe (AOE)|Strafe]]
*[[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]]'s head
|h2=[[Decepticon]]s|c2=
*[[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]] ([[Frank Welker]])
*[[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]]'s head
*[[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]]
*[[Junkheap (AOE)|Junkheap]]
*[[Trax (AOE)|Traxes]]
*"[[Two Head]]s"
*"[[KSI Boss]]es"
*[[McLaren Decepticon]]
*[[Aston Martin Decepticon]]
*[[Insecticon (Movie)|Insecticons]]
*[[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] (video footage)
*[[Protoform]]s (video footage)

|h3=[[Human]]s|c3=
*[[Cade Yeager]] ([[Mark Wahlberg]])
*[[Tessa Yeager]] ([[Nicola Peltz]])
*[[Shane Dyson]] ([[Jack Reynor]])
*[[Joshua Joyce]] ([[Stanley Tucci]])
*[[Harold Attinger]] ([[Kelsey Grammer]])
*[[James Savoy]] ([[Titus Welliver]])
*[[Lucas Flannery]] ([[T. J. Miller]])
*[[Darcy Tirrel]] ([[Sophia Myles]])
*[[Su Yueming]] ([[Li Bingbing]])
*[[Gill Wembley]] ([[James Bachman]])
*[[Chief of Staff]] ([[Thomas Lennon]])

|h4=Others|c4=
'''Lockdown's crew'''
*[[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]] ([[Mark Ryan]])
*[[Mercenary|Mercenaries]]
*[[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaws]]
*[[Stupid Drone]]s
'''[[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|KSI]] prototypes'''
*[[Oreo Transformer]]
|nonumbering=true
}}

==Errors==
===Continuity errors===
[[File:DeceasedTransformersAOE.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.6|Your attention, please. Will the ''real'' Optimus Prime please stand up?]]
[[File:AOECrosshairsDriftWeirdEdit.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|What just happened? No, seriously. Is there some kind of timey-wimey thing going on?]]
[[File:AOE savoy eyegouge.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|"An eye for an eye makes the whole world-OH MY GOD!!!"]]
*[[Ironhide (Movie)|Ironhide]] is seen on the cards Attinger pulls out early in the film, listed as deceased and having been last seen in Chicago. However, Ironhide was killed by Sentinel Prime in Washington, D.C., midway through ''Dark of the Moon'', and long before the final battle in Chicago.
*Scenes from the Decepticons' invasion of Chicago in ''Dark of the Moon'' are shown as archival footage presented by Attinger. While it is conceivable some lucky people with cameras recorded the initial attack and managed to survive and publish their footage, it's highly unlikely people would've been able to get close-up video footage of the NEST team taking down [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] and the other Decepticons.
*A Cemetery Wind vehicle smashes into the side of Shane's car during the chase through the cornfield, but the car doesn't show any damage to that side in subsequent shots.
*Tessa and Shane's reliance on Romeo and Juliet laws is unnecessary, since the age of consent in Texas is 17.
*During the 'Autobots reunite' sequence, Drift starts out in car mode on a road with Bumblebee and Crosshairs, before suddenly appearing atop a rock formation in robot mode and transforming to helicopter mode to meet up with Optimus Prime.
*When Crosshairs and Drift are talking on board Lockdown's ship shortly after boarding it, a ''very'' bizarre edit occurs in the middle of Drift's line "Better hurry, because dark matter drives are preparing to take off". The camera angle is now slightly different than before, but it's not a switch between a long shot and a close-up or a complete change of perspective. Oddly, Drift is still seen from the almost the ''exact same angle'' as before the edit, but even though his and Crosshairs's bodies were at an almost 90 degree angle before the edit, they're now suddenly almost standing in parallel to each other, with Crosshairs' head turned towards Drift. In addition, a flame that appeared in front of Drift just before the edit is suddenly gone. The reason for this was likely because when the first piece of footage was created, the editors realized that Drift's dialogue was too long and they should've made the scene longer, so they created the second shot so he could continue his dialogue, although it created a discontinuity between the two shots.
*When Shane shouts "I surrender!" and drops his "gun-sword", the hilt is facing to the right, but after a close-up showed it landing on the ground and firing a shot, the hilt is suddenly facing to the ''left'' in the subsequent long shot when it fires more shots.
*When Joshua reunites with the rest of the group in Hong Kong, Darcy tells him she'll do a diversion, and to get the Seed somewhere safe. Yet, no diversion of any kind happens.
*As Cade and Savoy grapple in the apartment, Cade jams his thumb deep into Savoy's eye socket (see right), with accompanying "squlech" sound effect, and appropriate reaction from Savoy in the form of a long howl of pain through gritted teeth and a string of drool flowing uncontrolled from his mouth. But as soon as the two separate, Savoy's eye is absolutely fine, with no indication anything is supposed to have happened to it.
*While Lockdown is pulling up parts of the city, Shane backs the car into a building which is two stories high at most, but appears much larger on the inside.

===Technical/animation errors===
*The shot right before the close-up of the cyberformed dinosaurs has no cyberformed dinosaurs at all, despite having all the excavation vehicles in the same positions as the next scene.
* Arcee is seen on Attinger's cards misspelled as "Acree".
*When Attinger takes over the operation to scramble Cemetery Wind after Optimus, and dismisses everyone in the room, he does so by saying "Ladies and gentlemen, this room is going dark. The exit is on your left." All the people then get up and begin to exit to their ''right''.
*Scrambling Cemetery Wind seems to scramble the timeline. From the deployment of Cemetery Wind to Lucas's death, the time of day is in limbo. For example, Optimus escapes from the Yeager property at sunset, joining the pursuit that takes place in early afternoon, not to mention that Cemetery Wind arrives at the Yeagers' home town at what appears to be dawn. In some instances, repeated changes between shots correspond with changes between different times of day, as different positions of the sun result in very very obviously different lighting conditions.
*When Lockdown transforms to prepare for the attack on Optimus, one can clearly see a faux-part Lamborghini logo pop out from inside the car, while the actual logo disappears.
*In the shot of Shane's car pulling up outside of the Yeager farm after Cemetery Wind has stormed in, nobody is seen inside the vehicle.
*During the scene where Cade is pretending to be a truck driver with Optimus still in his flat-nose truck form, he has a cap and white plaid shirt on. After Optimus scans into his newer form, Cade's back to wearing his leather jacket.
*When Shane's car gets sideswiped in the cornfield, the back left window is shattered. A couple scenes later, the window is just rolled down.
*When Shane's car breaks into a building, the woman sitting right in the middle of the room is clearly waiting on the glass-breaking noise to start running.
*After Lucas' death, there is nothing really stopping Lockdown or Cemetery Wind from continuing to chase Optimus. Lockdown is much faster and could easily catch up to Optimus whilst Cemetery Wind could chase in their remaining vehicles.
*When Optimus transforms to and from his Marmon 97 alternate mode, the windows and grille that make up his chest visibly change size and shape.
*When Optimus transforms out of his flat-nosed truck mode and punches the ground, Tessa and Shane are standing next to each other, as viewed from behind Optimus. When the view immediately switches to be facing Optimus, Cade is suddenly standing between the two.
*Shane defends his relationship with Tessa by stating that the 'Romeo and Juliet laws' "statute 2705-3" protect their relationship, yet the card he shows Cade reads "Statute 22.011". This is also the number that appears in the English subtitles of the DVD, meaning that it was scripted as 22.011 and not 2705-3.
*The truck that Optimus scans, while still being from the Western Star manufacturer, is an older and different model than the one he transforms into.
*When Optimus is on his way to the reunion site, the human characters inside are sitting this way: Shane to the right, Tessa in the Middle and Cade to the left. However when Optimus gets to the reunion point Cade comes out of the truck using Shane's side door (right) instead of his (left). It is clear they (the director and his crew) were trying to get a "superhero" pose but it doesn't make sense.
*When Optimus arrived to the reunion site you can see the filming crew in the reflection of his front chrome parts.
*Hound's dialogue when he's bickering with Drift doesn't really match up to what we see. Drift pulls his swords on Hound, but the big guy goads him on to "pull it", suggesting Drift was originally supposed to aim a firearm at him.
[[File:Uncolored Ratchet head prop.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.67|Gray is the new green.]]
*When Joshua is in the lab showing Darcy Transformium, in two different shots, a gray, uncolored prop of Ratchet's head can be seen being worked on in the next room.
*As Cade's drone scans a KSI employee's name tag, it displays its location onscreen as around N 38°44'55", W115°28'27". These coordinates are for a [https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B044%2755.0%22N+115%C2%B028%2727.0%22W/@38.7486111,-115.4741667,3048m patch of desert in Nevada] rather than any place in Chicago.
*While first infiltrating KSI, in the showroom where Stinger is first viewed, Bumblebee is in car mode when Joshua walks in with Yueming. Bumblebee's engine audibly revs, yet Joshua doesn't notice that there's no one in the car to rev the engine.
[[File:Megatron Head at KSI.jpg|right|upright=1.4|thumb|Screw logic!]]
*Megatron's severed head is in somewhat good shape for someone who got an axe stabbed on the top of his head. Furthermore, his head is more in line with its appearance in the first movie not ''Dark of the Moon''.
*Not to mention, after Joshua's group leaves and Bumblebee knocks Stinger down, there's no transformation noise right before Bumblebee returns to his altmode and the KSI executive walks in. Additionally, Bumblebee starts playing M.C. Hammer's "U Can't Touch This", '''when no one is in the car''' to turn the stereo on. Ostensibly it was for a comic moment, but it didn't raise anyone's suspicions that a car that wasn't typical of the ones being scanned, operating the engine and the stereo with no human inside, might be a disguised Cybertronian?
*After Bumblebee scans his new alternate mode, the camera pans over the car and Tessa and Shane are not inside. However when he's getting his new upgraded form you can see that they used stunt doubles for Shane and Tessa. That scene wasn't dangerous enough to require stunt doubles, was it?
*Some security guards in KSI fail to react to Crosshairs's shooting and shouting until a few seconds before the scene changes.
*When Galvatron first transforms and crashes into a truck, the way he is composed in the scene makes it look like he is simply floating above the wreckage, instead of being in the middle causing it.
*When Optimus transforms, Cade and Shane leap out of Optimus, while Tessa is trapped and rolls away. However, previous shots establish that the seating order in Optimus is Shane, Tessa, Cade. This means that Cade crawled over his daughter to escape(!), which is not quite logical or possible.
*Lockdown fires two missiles at Optimus Prime that, despite piercing his chest, don't manifest any kind of visible damage on his person, despite the previous shot showing Optimus's chest getting blown apart.
*When Lockdown is approaching Optimus after gunning him down, the driver's door of the Cadillac SRX he's resting on is shown to be open in two exterior shots, even though Tessa previously closed it after getting inside, and it's also shown closed in other (mostly interior) shots.
*When he loses his grip on the net holding Optimus and the car containing Tessa, Cade is shown falling toward the street, but he lands on the grass by the road.
*When the Autobots are on a bridge, before boarding Lockdown's ship, Crosshairs is clearly shown to be speaking but no dialogue is heard.
*When Tessa gets taken to the trash in Lockdown's ship, a green screen can be seen at the end of the corridor.
*While locking up Optimus, Lockdown's scar is on the left side of his face. While talking to Savoy upon delivering the seed, it's on the right side of his face; however, it switches back to the left side right before he walks off after bidding Earth farewell.
*While the human characters are climbing across the anchor cables to the high-rise building some of the Steeljaws begin to climb out after them. Cade tells his daughter not to look back and see them, but when we cut back to her, with a clear view of the cables behind her, the Steeljaws are gone.
*When Bumblebee jumps off Lockdown's ship to save the humans, he is followed by a Steeljaw. In the following shot, the Steeljaw is gone.
*While explaining Megatron's plans to the Autobots, Brains rings a bell on a train. In the next shot, the bell is not moving.
*During the motorcycle chase, the CIA cars change. At first, Joshua and Su are trailed by a Cadillac and an Audi; in the middle of the chase, the Cadillac is replaced by another Audi. By the end of the chase, the Cadillac is back.
*In Hong Kong, when Cade, Joshua, Tessa, and Shane enter the elevator to run away from the rooftop, the elevator won't move and Cade says it's overloaded. But in the next scene, we see that the maximum number of people that the elevator can carry is nine, and it's very clear that the Seed doesn't weight as much as five people.
*Shortly after Grimlock begins fighting Optimus, he swings his weapons at him but continuously misses, hitting the ground instead which causes several explosions. How these explosions occurred as a result of the weapons hitting the ground is unknown, as it is physically impossible - but if you're wondering ''why'' it occurred, [[Michael Bay|here's why]].
*When Grimlock transforms to his dino mode and charges at Optimus, there are no other Dinobots, nor the ship, to be seen in the background. However, after Optimus punches Grimlock and the shot changes, Dinobots are standing almost right next to him.
*Optimus somehow has enough strength to not only maintain his ground, but propel Grimlock through the air during his charge. Considering Grimlock's strength, velocity and weight, it is highly unlikely Optimus would win.
*Immediately after he transforms into his triceratops mode, Slug is shown to have a very visible Autobot logo on his dino-mode forehead, yet he just met Optimus and the other Autobots moments before. In that case, if he really is an Autobot, then it is unknown why he allowed Grimlock to try and kill the leader of the Autobots himself.
*One of the air conditioning units kicked off the building exterior by Savoy falls away to reveal ... a solid wall, with no connection to an apartment's interior.
*During Hound's stand in Hong Kong, the pickup truck he uses as a shield sways left to right whilst his arm remains still.
*The damage Hound receives after being shot down, most noticeably the pipe on his left shoulder, is fixed in subsequent shots.
*Crosshairs is seen driving alongside Drift and Hound through the bridge to take the Seed away from the city ... right after we just saw him staying behind to hold the line with the Dinobots.
*During the final fight, Bumblebee decides to just leave midway. Considering the distance between the factory and the dock where they met, he must have left long before Optimus flew there.
*After Optimus takes off, the other Autobots are absent from the shot of the main cast watching Optimus fly off.

===Geographic discontinuities===
*When Cade tries to use his card at an ATM, not only is the card issued from a Chinese bank, which wouldn't have any branches in north Texas, where the Yeagers live, the text on the ATM screen (behind the ''Access Denied'' warning) is in Chinese.
*Despite being from north Texas, Cade and Tessa have no Texas accents- not all Texans have noticeable accents of course, but Cade can be heard speaking with a slight ''Boston'' accent in the trainyard ("I'm doing stuff out of my league here!"), which is likely due to his portrayer, Mark Wahlberg, being a Boston native.
*Despite the KSI pursuit scene taking place on a two lane highway, there are several scenes spliced in of the Transformers with supercar alt modes (like Stinger and Crosshairs) driving on what is obviously a racecourse (specifically the GM proving grounds in Milford, Michigan). This is apparent by the horizontal incline of the road in some of the shots that are also missing the markings that would normally be on a road, and a reaction shot for Stinger that shows a straight, one lane ninety degree turn.
*The entirety of the KSI pursuit scene switches between taking place between the left and right sides of the two-lane highway, despite being only supposed to take place on the right side. Furthermore, the shot showing stray missiles colliding with oncoming traffic takes place on a completely different highway, one with five lanes instead of three and a wooden fence on the side of the street as opposed to a guardrail. Moreover; the car crashing stunt for the bridge jump scene starts on the five lane highway, continues on the left side of the three lane highway, and then finishes on the ''right side'' of the three lane highway. Trouble finding shots, eh?
*All of the vehicles seen in Hong Kong are left-hand drive, rather than the right-hand drive you'd expect in a location that drives on the left.
*Some scenes supposed to take place in Hong Kong depict a very distinctively American city with traffic lights suspended by wires above the street.
*Chicago's Willis Tower can be seen in the background of Hong Kong.
*The bridge out of the city shown in the film (Tsing Ma Bridge) is at least a half-hour drive from the battlefield in Central.
*Furthermore, despite Optimus's comment, there are no bridges connecting Hong Kong Island (where all the action allegedly takes place) to the mainland. The only way to get off Hong Kong Island (other than by boat or swimming) is via one of three tunnels, none of which are used, referenced or mentioned in the film.
*Speaking of bridges, Tsing Ma Bridge (the gray version of the Golden Gate Bridge) shown in the movie is effectively a dead end unless one is going to the airport or Disneyland, because it only leads to/from Lantau Island.
*The bridge where Grimlock "digs in" is an expressway bypass. Geographically defending it is pointless as there are multiple other routes (including at least one that is faster) to bypass the bridge and tunnel yet end up at the same place on the other side.
*In one of the fight scenes there is an overhead railway (the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_People_Mover Detroit People Mover]). There are no overhead railways on Hong Kong Island (yet) and the MTR (the subway train network) trains look nothing like the train used in the scenes, as they are a completely different shape and color.
*There are no "glass houses" on Hong Kong Island.
*There are no Chinese temple ruins on Hong Kong Island. The temples there are all intact and frequently used or preserved and don't have giant metal umbrellas ''at all''.
*The area where Optimus battles and "tames" Grimlock is in the Wushan Valley in Northern China which is over 1100 km from Hong Kong, yet is depicted as being in Pok Fu Lam on the South Western side of Hong Kong Island (which is a high rise residential area). Even flying it would take well over 2 hours to get from Wushan Valley to Hong Kong.
*It's not possible to drive a car from Beijing into Hong Kong, as the number plates would be invalid, and it would take over a day to drive that distance. Chinese vehicles coming into Hong Kong have to be from the Canton area (number plates are black) and have to be registered with Hong Kong plates, which means they must display both plates at all times one above the other. (In addition, the process to obtain permission for a car to have that is also lengthy and costly.)
*The blue SUV used by Cade and his companions is not a type of vehicle that exists in Hong Kong. In addition, its steering wheel is located on the left side, even though cars in Hong Kong have their steering wheels on the right side.
*Optimus Prime's Western Star alternate mode would be illegal to drive on Hong Kong roads, since it's is oversized. The Freightliner truck used for Galvatron is the maximum size/gauge allowed on Hong Kong roads. All scenes with Optimus driving in truck mode were filmed elsewhere, the Western Star truck was never brought to Hong Kong. Even his previous Peterbilt alternate mode would be illegal in Hong Kong.
*The area depicted as the final battle scene where Optimus and Lockdown face off was digitally added on the map of Hong Kong shown in the movie. It doesn't exist at all in real life, where it's actually a breakwater/typhoon shelter full of boats on Victora Harbour. In addition, the factories in Hong Kong (which are all located on Kowloon, because Hong Kong Island is purely a residential/business/shopping district) look nothing like the buildings used in the scene.

===[[Dinobot Island, Part 1|Paleontology weeps]]===
*The cyberformed remains of a ''Tyrannosaurus'' and a ''Spinosaurus'' appear frozen together in the arctic at the beginning of the film, which is rather odd considering the two are found on different continents (North America and Africa respectively) and separated by around 35 million years of evolution.
[[File:ExtinctionOfTheDinosaurus.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|And another thing! How is that sauropod running!?!]]
*The opening scene of the movie shows a ''Psittaccosaurus'' (100-120 million years old), a generic hadrosaur that might be either an ''Edmontosaurus'' or a ''Shantungosaurus'' (65-70 million years old), and a brachiosaurid (100-157 million years old) all present during what is implied to be the K-Pg extinction event (64.5-65 million years old).
*The ''Psittaccosaurus'', a well known herbivorous animal, is seen actively hunting and killing live prey. In a nod to paleontological accuracy, however, it is depicted with a row of quill-like feathers along its back, as many ceratopsian dinosaurs are believed to have had.
*The Dinobots show various exaggerations and ornamentations which go beyond the usual suspension of disbelief involved in... [[Dinobot (disambiguation)|giant metal dinosaurs]]. Grimlock sports curved, backwards pointing horns and enormous fangs. Slug has huge tail spikes and a set of nasty chin horns, though his tail spikes could be a mechanised representation of the bristle-like fibres that triceratops currently is thought to have had. Strafe is the biggest offender, with a pair of elongated tails and twin heads with teeth and incorrectly-shaped crests and grasping talons. Scorn probably gets off the easiest, being ''mostly'' correct, bar his extra spines. It's not his fault that a few months after the release of the movie, the morphology of ''Spinosaurus'' was completely revised, with a different spine shape and shorter legs.
* The Dinobots' alternate modes are orders of magnitude larger than the real dinosaurs on which they're based. In an interesting twist, using Optimus as a proxy for the average human, all the Dinobots bar Strafe have been accurately scaled up. At 850 tonnes <ref name="Grimlock stats">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/entertainment-weekly-reveals-new-details-on-transformers-4-age-of-extinction-new-grimlock-image-179675] summarised on TFW2005.</ref> Grimlock is as large compared to Optimus as a real ''Tyrannosaurus'' would be next to a human.

==Transformers references==

* As usual, many of the new characters have roots in older portions of the mythos:
** [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] is based on [[Drift (G1)|a Generation 1 character]] introduced in IDW's 2008 ''[[The Transformers: All Hail Megatron|All Hail Megatron]]'' series.
** Lockdown is derived from [[Lockdown (Animated)|a character in the 2008 ''Animated'' cartoon]] who had already jumped over to the G1 comics and, in toy form, to the movie universe.
** [[Hound (disambiguation)|Hound]] and [[Crosshairs (disambiguation)|Crosshairs]] both share names with previous characters; their personalities are new and unique, though Hound seems based on [[Bulkhead (Prime)|''Prime'' Bulkhead]] in physique, coloration and personality.
** Galvatron being a new form for Megatron has been a thing for [[Galvatron (disambiguation)|basically forever]]. With Joyce's intentions of creating him as a counterpart to Optimus Prime, he also takes cues from [[Nemesis Prime (disambiguation)|Nemesis Prime]]; in particular the human-controlled ''[[Transformers: Prime (cartoon)|Prime]]'' [[Nemesis Prime (Prime)|character]].
** The Dinobots are the latest iteration of [[Dinobot (G1)|the powerhouse subfaction]] that first appeared in the early days of Generation 1. Their leader Grimlock is a direct analog of [[Grimlock (G1)|his Generation 1 counterpart]]; Strafe and Slug are based on Generation 1 [[Swoop (G1)|Swoop]] and [[Slag (G1)|Slag]], respectively.
* In the film's opening act, Optimus has adopted a cabover truck alternate mode akin to that of his [[Optimus Prime (G1)|G1 counterpart]]. His robot mode also draws some inspiration from his G1 design, such as the large grill on his chest.
* This is not the first time that Ratchet and Lockdown have faced off. ''Animated'' [[Ratchet (Animated)|Ratchet]] and [[Lockdown (Animated)|Lockdown]] had [[The Thrill of the Hunt|a long-running feud]]. Within the movie universe, the two characters have been described as rivals on ''[[Hunt for the Decepticons]]'' toy [[packaging]] [[bio]]s, and faced off in ''[[Cyber Missions 3]]''.
* The concept of the Transformers being built by another race first appeared in the third season of [[The Transformers (cartoon)|the original ''Transformers'' cartoon]].
* Meanwhile, the concept of humans hunting down all Transformers on Earth following a successful but devastating massive battle hearkens back to plotlines from IDW's [[The Transformers (IDW)|2009-2011 ongoing series]].
* The (rather obvious) theme of humans (particularly evil government agencies) using captured Transformers as a source of technology has appeared numerous times in the mythos, going all the way back to the [[Rapid Anti-robot Assault Team|RAAT]] agency in the original Marvel Comics. [[Transformers Animated (cartoon)|The ''Animated'' cartoon]] in particular featured the severed head of [[Megatron (Animated)|Megatron]] being studied and reverse-engineered, while in IDW's ongoing G1 stories, [[Sunstreaker (G1)|a Transformer's severed head]] was used to help design man-made Transformers (in [[The Transformers: Maximum Dinobots|a Dinobot-focused series at that]].) More broad uses of the concept include the Dreamwave ''[[Prime Directive]]'' mini-series, Devils Due's ''[[G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers: The Art of War|Art of War]]'' mini-series (''again'' featuring the severed head of [[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]]), the [[The Transformers (IDW)|IDW ongoing series]], [[All or Nothing!|Cobra's actions in the G2 comics]], [[MECH]] from the [[Transformers: Prime (cartoon)|''Prime'' cartoon]], and even in the movie universe itself, in IDW's ''[[Transformers: Alliance|Alliance]]'' mini-series that served as a prequel to the ''Revenge of the Fallen'' film. The idea of the (seemingly) human-controlled Transformers eventually proving to be uncontrollable was also pioneered by some of these stories, most notably Dreamwave's aforementioned ''Prime Directive'' mini.
* A device that can "[[eco-structuring|cyberform]]" other planets previously appeared in several places in the mythos, including in the original ''Transformers'' cartoon's [[Key to Vector Sigma (disambiguation)|Key to Vector Sigma]] two-parter and the aforementioned Dreamwave ''Prime Directive'' mini. In both cases, it was actually activated, unlike its movie counterpart.
* The idea of aliens and/or alien technology being found frozen in the arctic or Antarctic ice is a very common trope in fiction; in terms of Transformers, the first use of the trope was [[Jetfire (G1)|Skyfire]] in the original cartoon's [[Fire in the Sky]]. A discovery specifically at the hands of ''humans'' was a plot point in the aforementioned Dreamwave ''Prime Directive'' mini, not to mention [[Transformers (film)|the discovery of]] [[Megatron (Movie)|N.B.E. 01]]. Or the [[Scraplet]]s.
* The ringtone on Gill Wembley's cell phone is a remixed version of the original G1 Transformers [[theme song]].
* As he hunts for Ratchet, Lockdown's head-up display shows characters in [[Cybertronian language|Ancient Autobot]], an alphabet originating in the Generation 1 episode "[[Cosmic Rust (episode)|Cosmic Rust]]".
* In the scene where Optimus scans a passing truck, the classic [[Transformation#The noise|transformation noise]] plays when the Autobot symbol emerges from his grill.
*During the Texas chase scene, Shane, Cade, and Tessa drive past a navy-blue Pontiac Solstice with a white stripe down the middle. The Pontiac Solstice was Jazz's alternate mode in the first film. Also, the car is a reversal of Jazz's 1980's color scheme, which was white with a navy blue stripe down the middle. Since the Pontiac Solstice was not being produced at the time of the movie's production, the car's presence is definitely a reference, although the color scheme might just be a coincidence.
*The scene where Galvatron goes active and breaks free in KSI's Chinese facility mirrors the scene in the 2007 ''Transformers'' movie when Megatron breaks free inside [[Sector Seven]]'s facility, down to a reuse of the line "I am Megatron", only with the name changed to "Galvatron".

==Real-life references==
[[File:Rainbow Dash Age of Extinction.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|"I found the magic!"]]

*Among the objects KSI makes from Transformium in the film is a Rainbow Dash doll from [[My Little Pony|another popular Hasbro brand]].
*This marks the second time a Michael Bay film has begun with the extinction of the dinosaurs, the first being ''[[Armageddon]]''.

==Other editions==

==Prequel material==
*''[[Transformers (Titan Magazine)|Transformers: Age of Extinction]]'' magazine ([[Titan Books|Titan Comics]])

==Adaptations==
Unusually, no novel or comic adaptations of the film were released. The ''[[Transformers Annual 2015]]'' contained an extremely cut down prose summary of events.

==Music==
==Score==
{{main|Age of Extinction: The Score}}

==Home video releases==
{{main|Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)/home video}}

==Theatrical posters==
<center><gallery>
File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionTeaserPoster.jpg|First teaser poster
File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionOptimusPrimePoster.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction poster-IMAX.jpg|IMAX poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Cade poster.jpg|Cade Yeager poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Shane poster.jpg|Shane Dyson poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Tessa poster.jpg|Tessa Yeager poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Su poster.jpg|Su Yueming poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Lockdown poster.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Rules Have Changed.jpg|It's a scene not in the movie!
File:Transformers Age of Extinction This Is Not War.jpg|This is not human extinction, it's just war.
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Stand Together1.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Stand Together2.jpg|"Now look down. Now look at me. I'm on a dinosaur."
</gallery></center>

==Reception==

{{quote|"The few authentic inspirations to be found in the movie's hundred and sixty-five roiling minutes involve gigantic science-fiction contrivances."|[http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/film/transformers_age_of_extinction_bay The New Yorker's Richard Brody on Transformers 4: Age of Extinction], Richard Brody|[http://newyorker.com newyorker.com] [[2014]]}}

''Transformers: Age of Extinction'' was critically panned, and nearly universally condemned on the American front, receiving a rating of 18% positive critical reviews on RottenTomatoes.com, one percent lower than the final score for ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]]''. Common criticisms leveled against it included its relatively long run time of 2 hours and 45 minutes, the disproportionately small amount of screen time the Dinobots got in relation to their relatively large exposure in promotional materials for the film, an over-reliance on product placement, and the decision to set the final act in Hong Kong, which was perceived as a choice solely done to pander towards the Chinese audience for the film. However, the film received praise for its visual effects, action sequences, and the performances of some of the human actors, mainly Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, and Kelsey Grammer.<ref>http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_age_of_extinction/</ref> Despite any criticisms, the film was the worldwide top-grossing film for 2014, earning over a billion dollars.<ref>[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?view2=worldwide&yr=2014 Box Office Mojo's 2014 Worldwide Grosses]</ref>

It [[wikipedia:35th_Golden_Raspberry_Awards|won one Golden Raspberry Award]] for Worst Director ([[Michael Bay]]), was one of four movies contributing to [[Kelsey Grammer]]'s Worst Supporting Actor win (along with ''{{w|The Expendables 3}}'', ''{{w|Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return}}'' and ''{{w|Think Like a Man Too}}''), and was unsuccessfully nominated for Worst Picture; Worst Supporting Actress ([[Nicola Peltz]] as [[Tessa Yeager]]); Worst Screen Combo ("Any two robots, actors (or robotic actors)"); Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel; and Worst Screenplay ("screenplay by [[Ehren Kruger]], based on Hasbro's Transformers action figures").

==Production staff==
''Age of Extinction'' was written by [[Ehren Kruger]], who also wrote ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'' and helped write ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]]''.
===Visual effects===
===Locations department===

==Development details==
===Cast and crew signing on===
On June 26, 2011, thirteen days before the official theatrical release of ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'', actor [[Tyrese Gibson]] gave an interview to Movieweb, in which he claimed that [[Michael Bay]] would not return for a fourth ''Transformers'' installment; instead, executive producer [[Steven Spielberg]] himself was allegedly interested in directing a sequel.<ref name="tyresemovieweb">[http://movieweb.com/exclusive-steven-spielberg-may-direct-transformers-4/ Movieweb interview with Tyrese Gibson], with several names missing from the text; the full excerpt in question is quoted [http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/rumor-transformers-4-directed-by-steven-spielberg-172501/ here] on TFW2005.</ref> Ten days later, on June 26, 2011, still three days before the official theatrical release of ''Dark of the Moon'', Michael Bay posted praise for actor [[Shia LaBeouf]] on his official forums, while at the same time expressing regret for leaving the ''Transformers'' franchise.<ref name="bayshialeaving">[http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?9502-Love-Shia-as-an-Actor Michael Bay's praise for Shia LaBeouf]] at the official Michael Bay forums.</ref> Another two days later, on June 28, 2011, LaBeouf confirmed that ''Dark of the Moon'' would definitely be his last ''Transformers'' film, as he didn't think there was "anywhere to take" his character of [[Sam Witwicky (Movie)|Sam Witwicky]].<ref name="endshia">[http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/06/28/transformers-dark-of-the-moon-shia-labeouf/ "'Transformers: Dark Of The Moon' Is The End For Shia LaBeouf"], MTV Movies Blog.</ref>

Eight months later, on February 13, 2012, producer [[Lorenzo di Bonaventura]] gave an interview during [[Toy Fair 2012]], in which he confirmed that a fourth film was scheduled for a release in the Summer of 2014, Michael Bay would direct it after all, and that the movie would be a "reboot". He promptly clarified that it was actually a "hybrid", an "evolution" of the franchise that would be in continuity with the previous films, citing 2012's ''[[Wikipedia:The Amazing Spider-Man (2012 film)|The Amazing Spider-Man]]'' reboot of the ''[[Spider-Man]]'' film franchise as an example of what people should ''not'' expect from a fourth ''Transformers'' film. Di Bonaventura also confirmed that no casting discussions had taken place yet at that point, since there was no set story yet. However, there would be "a lot of new cast", and it was still uncertain at that point whether any of the previous cast members would return. The only characters that would "certainly" return wold be [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] and [[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]].<ref name="lorenzointerview">["http://www.mtv.com/videos/movies/733426/a-new-transformers-to-hit-theaters-in-summer-2014.jhtml "a new 'transformers' to hit theaters in summer 2014"], interview with Lorenzo Di Bonaventura at MTV.com.</ref> A day later, on February 14, 2012, Bay himself and [[Paramount Pictures]] officially announced that Bay had indeed signed a deal to make a fourth ''Transformers'' film. The film's release date was stated alternatively as either June 27 or June 29, 2014.<ref name="bayfourthfilm1">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/transformers-4-release-date-revealed-174395/ "Transformers 4 Release Date Revealed"] at TFW2005.</ref><ref name="bayfourthfilm">[http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-17028248 "Transformers director Michael Bay signs for fourth film"], BBC.co.uk.</ref> That same day, Bay also confirmed that he and Spielberg were working on a "whole new re imagining{{sic}} of ''Transformers''".<ref name="reimagining">[http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?10284-Transformers-4 Michael Bay confirming that ''Transformers 4'' would be a "reimaginging"] at the official Michael Bay forums.</ref> Two days later, on February 16, 2012, actor [[Josh Duhamel]] expressed his doubts that he, Shia LaBeouf, [[Rosie Huntington-Whiteley]] or Tyrese Gibson would return for the fourth installment.<ref name="noshiarosie">[http://eonline.com/news/294791/josh-duhamel-not-coming-back-for-transformers-4-is-anyone "Josh Duhamel Not Coming Back for Transformers 4: Is Anyone?!"] at E! Online.</ref>

Four months later, on June 6, 2012, Michael Bay confirmed in an interview centered around ''[[Transformers: The Ride – 3D|Transformers: The Ride]]'' that the fourth film would feature "some redesigns of the robots and an entirely new cast", and that it would be the last ''Transformers'' film he would direct.<ref name="ride">[http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/transformers-the-ride-3d-even-impresses-disney-rivals/ "‘Transformers’ taking new shape with Universal ride and fourth film"], LA Times Hero Complex.</ref> A few weeks later, on June 21, 2012, Bay confirmed that the fourth film would feature "different human actors", but the film would not be strictly a "reboot", but rather take the story "in a new direction". While hinting that the story might venture into space for "a little bit", he still wanted to keep it "grounded".<ref name="starsspace">[http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/transformers-4-michael-bay-purges-stars-may-go-into-space/ "‘Transformers 4’: Michael Bay purges stars, may go into space"], LA Times Hero Complex.</ref>

[[File:TF4 Chinese Reality Show contestants.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|If ''Age of Extinction'' teaches us anything, it's that more movies should be cast using reality shows.]]On September 21, 2012, Michael Bay confirmed the first "cast" member for the film in the broadest sense, namely the fact that voice actor [[Peter Cullen]] would be kept on as [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]. He also confirmed that the film would ''not'' be a reboot, but would pick up the story from where ''Dark of the Moon'' had left off in [[Chicago]].<ref name="cullen">[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/michael-bay-transformers-4-pain-and-gain_n_1903523.html "Michael Bay, 'Transformers 4' Director, On The Struggles Of 'Pain & Gain'"], Huffington Post interview.</ref> One and a half months later, on November 8, 2012, Bay confirmed [[Mark Wahlberg]] as the first human cast member<ref name="wahlberg">[http://michaelbay.com/2012/11/08/michael-bay-re-teams-with-his-pain-gain-star-mark-wahlberg-for-transformers-4/ "Michael Bay Re-Teams With His 'Pain & Gain' Star Mark Wahlberg for Transformers 4"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref>, after having referred to such claims as "just a rumor" a mere month earlier.<ref name="baynowahlberg">[http://michaelbay.com/2012/10/23/transformers-4-casting-rumor/ "Transformers 4 Casting Rumor"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref> On December 15, 2012, Wahlberg himself confirmed that filming would commence in May 2013.<ref name="wahlbergmay">[http://collider.com/ted-2-sequel-mark-wahlberg-transformers-4/218011/ "Mark Wahlberg Talks TED 2, TRANSFORMERS 4, and PAIN AND GAIN; Says TF Starts Shooting in May Followed By TED Sequel"], interview with Collider.com.</ref> Another month later, on January 8, 2013, Irish American actor [[Jack Reynor]] was confirmed as the second human cast member.<ref name="reynor">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jack-reynor-lands-starring-role-409850 "Jack Reynor Lands Starring Role in 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter.</ref> [[Nicola Peltz]] was confirmed on March 26, 2013<ref name="welcomepeltz">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/03/26/welcome-nicola-peltz-to-transformers-4/ "Welcome Nicola Peltz to Transformers 4"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref>, followed by [[Stanley Tucci]] (confirmed to be an antagonist) on April 16, 2013.<ref name="tucci">[http://www.comingsoon.net/news/cinemaconnews.php?id=103034 "CinemaCon: Stanley Tucci Joins Transformers 4"]</ref>, [[Kelsey Grammer]] as a lead (human) villain named "Harold Attinger" on May 1, 2013<ref name="grammerattinger">[http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/kelsey-grammer-lands-lead-human-villain-in-transformers-sequel/ "Kelsey Grammer Lands Lead (Human) Villain In ‘Transformers’ Sequel"] at Deadline.com.</ref>, [[Sophia Myles]] as a scientist on May 6, 2013<ref name="mylesscientist">[http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/sophia-myles-join-mark-wahlberg-michael-bays-transformers-4-exclusive-89661 "Sophia Myles to Join Mark Wahlberg in Michael Bay's 'Transformers 4' (Exclusive)"] at TheWrap.com.</ref>, Chinese actress [[Li Bingbing]] in an at that point still unspecified role on May 20, 2013<ref name="bingbing">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chinas-li-bingbing-boards-transformers-525370 "China's Li Bingbing Boards 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter</ref>, and actor-comedian [[T. J. Miller]] as a mechanic and best friend to Wahlberg's character on May 28, 2013.<ref name="miller">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/tj-miller-joins-transformers-4-559359 "T.J. Miller Joins 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter.</ref> [[Titus Welliver]] wasn't officially confirmed until July 25, 2013, after he had been spotted on set in Texas.<ref name="welliver">[http://www.deadline.com/2013/07/transformers-4-adds-titus-welliver/ "‘Transformers 4′ Adds Titus Welliver"], Deadline.com.</ref> In the lead-up to the release of the movie, Welliver would stir up a minor controversy with an interview in which he stated that the film would be darker and "not a kid's movie". Following a storm of online discussion regarding this statement, he issued a new statement to the effect that ''Age of Extinction'' is in fact a kid's movie, and he meant to say it would expand the audience.<ref name="nerdist">[https://www.nerdist.com/2014/02/titus-welliver-talks-about-transformers-4-and-clark-greggs-s-h-i-e-l-d-comments/ Titus Welliver Talks About TRANSFORMERS 4 and Clark Gregg’s S.H.I.E.L.D. Comments], Nerdist.com.</ref>

A rather unusual addition to the cast were [[Byron Li]], [[Candice Zhao]], [[Austin Lin]] and [[Teresa Daley]], which won their part through participating in the ''[[Transformers 4 Chinese Actors Talent Search Reality Show]]'' on August 25, 2013.<ref name="reality">[http://beijing.china.org.cn/2013-08/28/content_29845758.htm "'Transformers 4' recruits 4 Chinese actors"], China.org.cn.</ref>

The remaining robot voice cast (barring Optimus Prime) wasn't officially revealed until May 8, 2014.<ref name="voicecast">[http://michaelbay.com/2014/05/08/john-goodman-and-ken-watanabe-join-the-autobot-voice-cast-in-michael-bays-transformers-age-of-extinction/ "John Goodman And Ken Watanabe Join The Autobot Voice Cast in Michael Bay’s ‘Transformers: Age Of Extinction’"] at the official Michael Bay website.</ref>

===Writing and production===
On March 20, 2013, the Michigan Film Office announced that the fourth film would return to [[Detroit]].<ref name="michigan">[http://www.michiganfilmoffice.org/The-Film-Office/Press-Releases/Detail.aspx?id=11620 "Transformers Returning to Michigan, Approved for Film Incentive" at the Michigan Film Office website.]</ref> Principal photography began on May 28, 2013, at [[Wikipedia:Monument Valley|Monument Valley]].<ref name="monument">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/05/28/transformers-4-starts-filming-in-monument-valley-navajo-tribal-park/ "Transformers 4 Starts Filming in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref> Other shooting locations were the small towns of Lockhart, Taylor, Elgin and Pflugerville in Texas.<ref name="texas">[http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/movies/headlines/20130426-fourth-transformers-film-to-shoot-in-texas.ece "Fourth ‘Transformers’ film to shoot in Texas"] at Dallas Morning News.</ref> Shooting in Michigan involved two historic passenger steamboats, the ''[[Wikipedia:SS_Columbia|SS Columbia]]'' and her sister ship, the ''[[Wikipedia:Ste. Claire (passenger steamboat)|SS Ste. Claire]]'', which were docked in [[Wikipedia:River Rouge, Michigan|River Rouge]] awaiting restoration at the time being used as props.<ref name="boblo">[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/story/2013/07/26/wdr-boblo-boats-transformers-four.html "Historic Boblo boats land role in Transformers 4"], CBC News.</ref> While shooting in Detroit, Mark Wahlberg's children visited the set and were given small parts in the movie upon their father's request.<ref name="wahlkids">[http://comicbook.com/blog/2013/07/30/mark-wahlbergs-kids-cast-in-transformers-4/ "Mark Wahlberg's Kids Cast In Transformers 4"], Comicbook.com.</ref>

[[File:AOE Michael Bay Nicola Peltz on set.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Michael Bay uses his legendary charm to get the very best performance out of his actors.]]
Due to an increased focus of Hollywood studios trying to market its movies to the Chinese audience, parts of the movie were not only set in China, but actually filmed there. One of the shooting sites was Hong Kong. While there, the movie crew encountered the risks of shooting a movie in China firsthand when director Michael Bay was assaulted on the set by two locals demanding money; according to some sources, they were store owners that were not satisfied with the compensation they received for the inconvenience of having a movie filming nearby. Bay received minor injuries, but played the incident off on his blog. Both he and an official Paramount statement suggested that the assailants were under the influence of drugs.<ref name="attack1">[http://deadline.com/2013/10/hong-kong-police-called-to-transformers-4-set-amid-alleged-extortion-attempt-report-613912/ "Extortion Attempt On ‘Transformers 4′ Set; Michael Bay Suffers Minor Injury: Report"], Deadline.com.</ref><ref name="attack2">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-bay-attacked-transformers-4-649183 "Michael Bay Attacked on 'Transformers 4' Set in Hong Kong"], Hollywood Reporter.</ref><ref name="attack3">[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-24566287 "Transformers director Michael Bay attacked in Hong Kong"], BBC.</ref name="attack4">[http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/michael-bay-attacked-on-transformers-hong-kong-film-shoot-1.2100953 "Michael Bay attacked on Transformers Hong Kong film shoot"], CBC News.</ref><ref name="attack5">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/10/17/hong-kong-incident/ "Hong Kong Incident"] on Michael Bay's official Blog.</ref> A second extortion attempt occured several days later, this time allegedly by several triad gang members. Although one of them was later arrested, no-one was injured this time around.<ref name="extortion2">[http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-bay-transformers-4hong-kong-second-extortion-incident-2013-10?IR=T "More Trouble For 'Transformers 4' In Hong Kong As Second Extortion Attempt Reported"], Business Insider.</ref><ref name="extortion3">[http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/25/world/asia/hong-kong-transformers-triad-extortion/ "Transformers versus the triads of Hong Kong: the sequel"], CNN.</ref> Once again, Bay played down the extortion attempts in an interview, noting that most of the locals were apologetic over what took place, and that he wanted to film more projects in Hong Kong.<ref name="eager">[http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1342084/hollywood-director-michael-bay-eager-shoot-hong-kong-again "Hollywood director Michael Bay eager to shoot in Hong Kong again"], ''South China Morning Post'']</ref>

[[File:AOEOptimusRidingGrimlock.jpg|thumb|upright=1.9|left|"Get me closer! I want to hit them with my sword!"]]Late script changes resulted in Bay and his crew returning to the Chinese city of [[Wikipedia:Chongqing|Chongqing]] for a week reshooting a scene in January of 2014.<ref name="reshoot">[http://www.ecns.cn/2014/01-23/98337.shtml "'Transformers 4' back to China for additional shots"], China News Service (Ecns.cn).</ref>

Some of [[Industrial Light & Magic|ILM]]'s post-production effects were done at a newly opened Lucasfilm facility in Singapore.<ref name="ilmsg">[http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/lifestyle/story/lucasfilm-singapore-work-new-avengers-and-transformers-movies-20140116 "Lucasfilm Singapore to work on new Avengers and Transformers movies"], The Straits Times.</ref>

{{--}}

=== Sponsors and partners ===
==== General Motors and other car manufacturers ====
[[File:AOE Optimus Prime truck.jpg|thumb|upright=1.34|When having one's midlife crisis, it's not unusual to get a souped-up alternate mode.]]
''Age of Extinction'' continues the collaboration with General Motors. Earlier in the film, Bumblebee chooses a customized 1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS as his disguise when hiding from [[Cemetery Wind]], whereas later on, he upgrades to the newest model, a 2014 Camaro concept car. (The production crew was actually accused of ripping off a one-of-a-kind custom for the 1967 version.<ref name="1967custom">[http://jalopnik.com/did-transformers-4-rip-off-this-guys-design-for-the-ne-510655228 "Did Transformers 4 Rip Off This Guy's Design For The New Bumblebee?"] at Jalopnik.com.</ref>) Furthermore, new addition [[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]]'s alternate mode is a 2014 Chevrolet C7 Corvette Stingray, and recurring character Ratchet briefly appears at the beginning of the movie and transforms into his Hummer H2 ambulance mode (in the color scheme from ''Dark of the Moon'') before being killed at the hands of Cemetery Wind and [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]].

''Age of Extinction'' is the first movie to feature an official partnership with a manufacturer for [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]'s alternate mode. Earlier in the movie, he transforms into an old, rusty Marmon 97 truck cab (presumably without support from the manufacturer), but later upgrades into a brand new Western Star "5700 OP" concept truck that was designed specifically for the movie by "Twins Custom Coaches" and the team at West Coast Customs, with Western Star being a subsidiary of Daimler Trucks, who also provided a 2012 Freightliner Argosy that serves as [[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]]'s alternate mode.

Other manufacturers that provided vehicles to be used for characters' alternate modes were the Oshkosh Corporation with an Oshkosh Defense FMTV truck for [[Hound (Movie)|Hound]], the Volkswagen group with a 2013 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse for [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] and a Lamborghini Aventador for Lockdown, and independent Italian manufacturer Pagani Automobili with a Pagani Huayra for [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]].

=== Changes before, during and after production ===
* [[Slash (AOE)|Slash]] was originally intended to appear in the film (he even made it into some concept artwork).<ref name="burt">[http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/transformers-age-of-extinction-concept-art-from-wesley-burt/30723/ Age of Extiction concept art by Wesley Burt], mirrored at Seibertron.com.</ref>
* [[Glenn Morshower]] was originally set to return in this film, reprising his role of [[Morshower|General Morshower]], but didn't return due to a scheduling conflict.<ref>http://transformerslive.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/general-morshower-not-returning-to.html</ref>
* Both [[Josh Duhamel]] and [[Tyrese Gibson]] were intended to cameo reprising their roles as [[William Lennox]] and [[Robert Epps]] but were cut before filming started.<ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/tyrese-gibson-in-talks-for-transformers-4-176078/</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/tyrese-gibson-to-make-cameo-appearance-only-in-transformers-4-177407/</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/josh-duhamel-to-make-cameo-appearance-in-transformers-4-177026/</ref><ref>http://transformerslive.blogspot.com/2013/06/josh-duhamel-not-in-transformers-4.html</ref>
* Ed Welburn, [[General Motors]]' vice president for global design, was originally set to cameo as the C.I.A. head before being recast as a KSI employee.<ref>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/automobiles/ed-welburn-gets-a-part-in-transformers.html?_r=0</ref>
* A scene depicting Hound and Bumblebee dancing with Tessa (while Drift bobs his head in the background) was not present in the final cut of the film.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnxZ7Gg2yV4</ref>
* Scorn's toys lack the additional two sails he has in the film, suggesting it was a late design change.
*The Pagani Huayra that eventually ended up as [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]] was at one point intended as the alternate mode of a female robot with the working name "Widow Maker".<ref name="vitaly">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-9/age-of-extinction-concept-art-by-vitaly-bulgarov-180636/ Age of Extinction concept art by Vitaly Bulgarov] at TFW2005, including "Widow Maker".</ref><ref name="jung">[http://comicbook.com/blog/2014/07/20/transformers-age-of-extinction-concept-art-shows-off-epic-scope-/ Age of Extinction concept art by Steve Jung] at Comicbook.com, including "Widow Maker".</ref>
* Wahlberg's character was named "Flynn 'Ray' Vincent" rather than "Cade Yeager" in a casting call. The same casting call also revealed that actor [[Glenn Morshower]] was supposed to reprise his role as [[Morshower|General Morshower]] from the previous two films.<ref name="txcasting">[http://www.featurefilmauditions.com/2013/05/casting-for-transformers-4-actors-and.html "Transformers 4' open casting calls for actors and extras in Austin, TX and Detroit, MI"] at Film Auditions.</ref>
* A scene where Cade says "Stick behind me" is not present in the final cut of the film.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXSkXQs890g</ref>
* Another piece of dialogue cut from the film is when Cade says "You tell me" to Attinger when he asks for Optimus Prime.
* In some concept artwork, Grimlock appears as a horn-less T-Rex.
* The original running time of the film was 2 hours and 7 minutes, which would have made it the shortest film in the franchise. The final running time was 2 hours and 30 minutes <ref>http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/BatFreak/news/?a=77992</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/transformers-4-age-of-extinction-running-time-revealed-180165/</ref>
* [[Dwayne Johnson]] was originally offered the role of Cade Yeager, but due to his commitment to ''Hercules: The Thracian Wars'', the role was later taken over by his ''Pain & Gain'' co-star Mark Wahlberg.<ref>[https://twitter.com/TheRock/statuses/327892048978006016 Dwayne Johnson on Twitter]</ref>
*In some concept artwork, Drift was colored orange instead of blue. but according to the Generation 2 featurette in the Blu-ray release, this was changed because the vehicle that was going to play Drift was sold off.
*Some concept artwork shows that Optimus was intended to have his original trilogy body in the scenes where he had his new look.
*According to Ehren Kruger in the Generation 2 featurette, in the early drafts of the film, it was not originally centered on the Cade Yeager character.
*Numerous silver [[redeco]] toys were produced for Optimus Prime with the moniker of "Silver Knight", suggesting that he was originally supposed to take on this alternate appearance in the film itself, almost certainly upon drawing a sword from the Knights' armory. In the finished film, he does undergo some slight physical alteration at this point, his arms reconfiguring to resemble armor plates, but that's as far as it goes. This was also ''prrrrobably'' where he was supposed to get the rocket-boots he suddenly deploys at the film's end.

{{-}}

===Disinformation campaign===

Like ''Revenge of the Fallen'' and ''Dark of The Moon'' before it, ''Age of Extinction'' had a campaign that would mask details of the final film. However, unlike the previous films, this one was all encompassing; no novelization or comics by [[IDW Publishing]] was released, allowing for a great deal of the movie's spoilers to actually remain unknown longer than for the previous three films.

In the original Michigan Film Office press release published on March 20, 2013, several vague plot details were revealed, including the fact that Autobots and Decepticons had "[[Cemetery Wind|all but vanished from the face of the planet]]", a "[[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|group of [...] businessman and scientists]]" were developing new technologies based on past encounters with the Transformers, and an "[[Lockdown (ROTF)|ancient, powerful Transformer menace]]" was targeting Earth.<ref name="plotunveiled">[http://www.thewrap.com/node/82001/ "‘Transformers 4’ Plot Unveiled by Michigan Film Office"] at TheWrap.com.</ref>. These plot details were later claimed to be inaccurate by Paramount Pictures<ref name="notaccurate">[http://screenrant.com/transformers-4-movie-plot-synopsis-cast/ Unofficial "'Transformers 4' Plot Synopsis Is Not Accurate"] at Screenrant.com</ref>, but in all their vagueness ultimately turned out to be not too far off from the film's plot.

A lot of the newly-added characters were given "code names" during production, most of them related to the ''Rocky'' saga: "Duke" for Hound, "Adrian" for Galvatron, "Ivan" for Grimlock, "Rocky" for Slash (who was originally intended to appear in the movie, as noted above), "Southpaw" for Scorn, "Paulie" for Strafe, and "Thunderlips" for Slug. In addition, Crosshairs was code-named "Slingshot", Drift was code-named "Bruce", Lockdown was code-named "Max", and Steeljaw was code-named "Wolf" (which ''might'' have simply been a working name).<ref name="customer">[http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-news-rumors/961952-monzos-mega-hasbro-customer-service-listing-breakdown.html Hasbro customer service list]</ref>
{{stub}}

==Notes==
*Not only do the [[Dinobot (AOE)|Dinobots]] go unnamed in the film (other than [[Scorn (AOE)|Scorn]] getting the nickname, "Spike"), the word Dinobot is never even said by anyone. The audio description soundtrack on the home video releases refers to them as warriors or barbarians, but notes during the final scene that they "turn into Dinobots" (of course it also refers to Galvatron transforming "into an Autobot" when he turns into a robot, so make of that what you will).
*In addition to the Mercenary robots, [[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaws]], the ball-shaped drones, and [[Stupid Drone]]s, inside Lockdown's ship there were also several hovering drones. These drones appear to be of the same type as those the United States used in ''Dark of the Moon'' (the one that got sucked into the engine of Bumblebee's commandeered Decepticon fighter). Maybe Attinger sold them to Lockdown?
*Michael Bay's website incorrectly refers to the film as "Transformers 4 The Age Of Extinction"
* The deceased Autobots and Decepticons shown in the cards Attinger pulled early in the film includes: [[Ironhide (Movie)|Ironhide]], [[Wheeljack (Movie)|Que]], [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]], [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]], [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]] and [[Arcee (Movie)|Arcee]].
* This film seems to put a final nail in the coffin regarding the films' abandonment of the concept of using [[protoform]]s to travel through space; when the Autobots steal a ship from [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], they immediately move to leave Earth, indicating they had been stranded on Earth for the past five years without a spaceship (following the destruction of the ''[[Xantium (DOTM)|Xantium]]''). The fact that no mention is made of searching for any possible survivors of Cemetery Wind's hunt also suggests that all Autobots who did not return for this film have been killed off as well.
*The robot designs in this film are markedly different than the previous three; the robots have less alien appearances and are more heavily influenced by human forms.
*Speaking of the appearance of the Autobots - they all are based on specific types of human combatants throughout history: Optimus is obviously a medieval knight, Hound heavily resembles a World War II-era commando, Crosshairs looks like a mercenary or assassin, Bumblebee's new form is highly Ninja-like, and Drift is unsurprisingly a samurai.
*Director Michael Bay makes a cameo appearance in the film as a guy sitting in the passenger seat of a truck whose trailer Optimus Prime and Bumblebee crash through after being attacked by Galvatron and Stinger.<ref name="magiceffects">[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btn2tPxjisA "Behind the Magic: The Visual Effects of 'Transformers Age of Extinction'"] on the official ILMVisualFX Youtube channel.</ref>

===Foreign names===
*''Japanese:'' '''''Transformers: Lost Age''''' (トランスフォーマーロストエイジ ''Toransufōmā Rosuto Eiji'')<ref>[http://www.cinematoday.jp/page/N0056111 『トランスフォーマー』第4弾の邦題は『トランスフォーマーロストエイジ』に決定！最新ビジュアルも公開]</ref>
*''Russian:'' '''''Transformery: Epokha istrebleniya''''' (Трансформеры: Эпоха истребления ''Transformers: Age of Extermination'')
*''Argentina:'' '''''Transformers 4'''''
*''Cantonese:'' '''''Binying Gamgong: Chimmit Saigei''''' (變形金剛：殲滅世紀 "Transformers: The Century of Annihilation")
*''Mandarin:'' '''''Biàn-hsín Jīn-gāng Sz: Jiúe-jī Chúng-shēng''''' (Taiwan: 變型金剛4：絕跡重生, China: 变形金刚4：绝迹重生 "Transformers 4: Rebirth from the Extinction")
*''German:'' '''''Transformers: Ära des Untergangs''''' ("Transformers: Era of Doom")
*''Turkish:'' '''''Transformers: Kayıp Çağ''''' ("Transformers: Lost Age")

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

{{stub}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Age of Extinction (film)}}

[[Category:Age of Extinction| Age of Extinction (film)]]
[[Category:Real world films]]

Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)

2015-07-28T00:01:19Z

LordStarscream100: /* Errors */

{{Nav-aoe}}
[[File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionOptimusPrimePoster.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.67|An adventure 65 million years in the making.]]

'''''Transformers: Age of Extinction''''' is the fourth film in the [[live-action film series]]. It was released on [[June 27]], [[2014]].

Following the [[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Battle of Chicago]], humanity has come to fear both Autobots and Decepticons alike. With the aid of a Transformer mercenary named [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], a CIA [[Cemetery Wind|task-force]] operated by [[Harold Attinger]] begins hunting the remaining [[Transformer]]s on [[Earth]]. Hunted by enemies that were once his allies, [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] loses faith in humanity and sends his forces into hiding. Now, five years later, struggling inventor and single-father [[Cade Yeager]] discovers a damaged Transformer, placing both himself and his [[Tessa Yeager|daughter]] on a collision course with events that threaten the extinction of humankind itself.

{{bigquote|The trouble with loyalty to a cause is that the cause will ''always'' betray you.|[[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]]|''Transformers: Age of Extinction''}}

==Synopsis==

[[File:The Creators cyberforming Earth AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs."]]
65 million years ago, on Cretaceous [[Earth]], a ''Psittacosaurus'' is out hunting for food. The small dinosaur finds a fish and starts to feed, but stops as hundreds of alien ships enter Earth's atmosphere, piloted by the mysterious [[Creator (AOE)|"Creators"]]. The alien ships launch dozens of strange [[Seed]]s across the planet. As they detonate, they convert the landscape and the herds of panicking dinosaurs into a metallic substance, ending the Age of Dinosaurs. Millions of years later, while digging in the [[Arctic]], a team of geologists uncover a mysterious pair of metallized dinosaur skeletons - a discovery that attracts the attention of [[Darcy Tirrel]]...

Five years after the invasion of [[Chicago]], tensions between humans and Cybertronians have risen dramatically. Although the Autobots are officially granted asylum on Earth, public opinion has turned against all Transformers. The government of the United States has terminated all human-Autobot joint programs and instated [[Cemetery Wind]], an elite [[CIA]] unit intended to flush out the handful of [[Decepticon]]s left on Earth. What the President doesn't know is that [[Harold Attinger]], the leader of the operation, is slaughtering all Transformers, regardless of faction. On one such mission, the team pinpoints [[Ratchet (Movie)|Ratchet]] hiding within an abandoned boat. He immediately tries to flee, but is crippled and brought down by their weapons. The team leader, [[James Savoy]], mockingly asks why Ratchet ran if he's not their enemy, and Ratchet replays a transmission he received from [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]], ordering all Autobots to hide from humans. However, Savoy dismisses his pleas as his sister was killed in Chicago. A Transformer bounty hunter, [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], who has actually been helping Cemetery Wind hunt the Autobots, emerges from the nearby swamp and attacks Ratchet, further damaging him. Walking past his human allies, Lockdown demands to know [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]'s whereabouts. When Ratchet refuses, Lockdown brutally kills him by ripping out his spark.
[[File:AOE Ratchet dying.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction..."]]

In Texas, struggling inventor [[Cade Yeager]] and his friend/employee [[Lucas Flannery]] meet at an old theater, looking for salvage. He finds an old truck, and upon inspection it seems to be full of artillery shells. He buys the truck along with the other theater equipment and puts it in his garage.[[Tessa Yeager|Tessa]], Cade's daughter, observes this while video-chatting with her boyfriend and criticizes her dad for buying the heap of junk. While attempting to salvage the truck's engine to sell, Cade realizes it's actually a badly-damaged Transformer. After calling Lucas and Tessa, he connects jumper cables to its engine, only for it to begin replaying the distress call Ratchet had received earlier. Lucas and Tessa advocate calling the government, claiming that there is a huge reward for Transformers. Cade convinces them not to call the authorities until he can spend more time working on the truck, as he may be able to stumble on a technological breakthrough if he can figure out how the Transformers work. When Cade removes a live missile from the truck's "power core," it transforms into a heavily injured Optimus Prime, who roars at them to stay back while he swings his weapon around the barn. Cade, Lucas, and Tessa ask why Optimus is so badly damaged, to which he replies that the Autobots are being hunted and he must help them. Cade offers to repair him, and sends Lucas to buy the parts that will enable him to fix Optimus. Cade and Optimus begin to bond as the repairs begin.
[[File:AOE-injuredoptimus.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Should we chance moving him?"]]

In the Arctic, Attinger arrives via helicopter at [[Knight Ship|Lockdown's ship]] and demands to know why Optimus Prime escaped him in [[Mexico]]. Lockdown derisively tells Attinger that Optimus Prime would not have escaped were it not for Cemetery Wind's interference, stressing that he does not care about Attinger or his goals and wishes only to capture Optimus Prime.

Shortly after returning to [[Washington, D.C.]], Attinger receives a tip that Optimus Prime has been located in Texas and sends Savoy and Cemetery Wind to apprehend him. The agents swarm the barn, but there is no trace of Prime inside. When Savoy threatens Tessa to force Cade to tell him of Prime's whereabouts, the Autobot leader explodes out of the barn's basement in which he was hiding. He escapes after a brief skirmish that destroys the Yeager residence, with both Cemetery Wind and Lockdown in pursuit. As Cade catches one of Cemetery Wind's mini drones, a white rally car zooms over the adjacent fields and picks up the Yeagers and Lucas. The driver turns out to be [[Shane Dyson|Shane]], a rally car racer who is also Tessa's boyfriend. A group of Cemetery Wind vehicles begins chasing them.
[[File:Optimus shooting humans AOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"You think they'll have that on the tour?"]]

Both the rally car and Optimus Prime are chased into an abandoned factory, where Optimus Prime fights off Lockdown. Shane puts his driving skills to good use and pulls a series of tight maneuvers that result in the Cemetery Wind cars crashing, destroys his car in the process. Optimus Prime, who has caught Lockdown in a crane cable, transforms and tells the humans to pile into him and escape. Lockdown throws a grenade at the humans as they run towards Optimus Prime; though Shane and the Yeagers escape, Lucas is caught in the blast and killed.

Arriving at an abandoned gas station, Optimus orders the humans out and drives off to ensure that they have not been followed. Cade confronts Tessa and Shane about their relationship but Tessa gets angry at Cade for putting them all in danger. The next day, Optimus and the humans set off towards Monument Valley. Prime [[trans-scan|scans]] a passing truck, sheds his layer of rust and takes on a new form with his old paint scheme. They arrive in Monument Valley where they meet the other surviving Autobots in the form of [[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]], [[Hound (Movie)|Hound]], [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]], and their de facto leader [[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]]. Crosshairs and Hound start threatening the humans for having their species betray them but Optimus convinces them that they have risked their lives to save his. The Humans notice that there are clear tensions between the Autobots. Cade reveals footage of the attack on Ratchet and [[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot's]] demise using the stolen aerial drone and Prime declares that he will kill the one responsible for hunting down the Autobots.

[[File:Autobots unite monument valley AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Dr. Grant, my dear Dr. Sattler... Welcome to [[Jurassic Park]]." ]]

Inspection of the drone leads them to a company named [[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|KSI]], located in a rebuilt Chicago. It is run by [[Joshua Joyce]], who is working with [[Su Yueming]] and Attinger to create artificial Transformers to eventually be used in the military. Using the remains of [[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]], [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]], [[Starscream (Movie)|the]] [[Barricade (Movie)|countless]] [[Shockwave (Movie)|Decepticons]] from the Chicago battle and the hunted Autobots, they have synthesized the metal that the Transformers are made of, calling it [[Transformium]]. When given commands through a computer, Transformium can be changed into various shapes or objects. Although a drone called [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]] (designed after Bumblebee) is active, Joshua's major project is a bigger, stronger drone called [[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]]. However, his attempts have not been successful; the drone keeps resembling Megatron instead of the friendlier image of Optimus Prime. Bumblebee builds Cade and Shane faux-ID badges which the duo use to infiltrate KSI. Cade goes further in and projects imagery of Ratchet's severed head being melted down as well as the injured and enslaved [[Brains]], which sends Prime into a rage.

[[File:Joshua Joyce Transformium Experiment AOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"God help us, we're in the hands of engineers."]]

However, Cade is caught when his ID badge is found to have been scanned twice (by him and its original owner). He is taken to the upper floors and confronted by Attinger, who claims that what he has witnessed is in the name of world peace. He also asks him about the whereabouts of Optimus Prime but Cade maintains his silence.

Furious over how the humans have mutilated their comrades, Optimus orders an attack on KSI. Bumblebee, carried by Drift in copter mode, rescues Cade. The others trash the lab, free Brains, and confront Joshua, only for him to openly declare that what is being done is being done to prevent more Transformer-caused damage and that the humans "don't need" the Autobots. Disheartened, Prime orders a retreat.

As the Autobots exit the factory and leave, Attinger catches up with Joshua and claims that the Autobots are terrorists for attacking the facility. He coerces Joyce to use the two functional drones to take down the Autobots. Galvatron and Stinger activate and pursue their quarry across a highway, with Galvatron doing more damage than his KSI handlers intend. Bumblebee fires upon Galvatron but is surprised to see him simply disintegrate and reintegrate again. Galvatron attacks Prime. As they battle, Optimus declares that the artificial creation has no soul, to which it retorts "That is why I have no FEAR!"

[[File:AOEGalvatron.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Kids! You want to have one of those?"]]

As Tessa scrambles for cover in a nearby vehicle, Prime is suddenly shot from the back and falls-Lockdown has arrived, along with his ship! Lockdown gloats to his prisoner, claiming that Optimus was built, not born, and now the Creators want him returned in one piece. The bounty hunter orders a net dropped over Optimus and hoists both the Autobot leader and Tessa's hiding place into his ship. Cade desperately clings to the net, but his strength gives out and he falls to the fields below. As the spaceship departs, Cade and Shane vow to get Tessa back.

Lockdown throws Prime in a cage and orders his lackeys to dispose of Tessa. Prime takes note of several other aliens in similar cages, including [[Dinobot (AOE)|other Cybertronian warriors]]. He also discovers the original purpose of the mercenary ship: it was originally used by a group of legendary Knights (presumably including Prime himself) but now acts as Lockdown's flying prison. Lockdown's ship hovers over Chicago, triggering panic in the streets, but Attinger manages to talk down the authorities and send Savoy to rendezvous with Lockdown. As payment for Prime's capture, Lockdown gives him a Seed.

Cade, Shane, and the other Autobots get aboard the ship as it flies low over a bridge. While being pursued by Lockdown's henchmen, the two humans find a strange Knight armory, from which Cade takes a sword that opens up to form a gun. While Shane and Cade rescue Tessa, Crosshairs deploys the ship's mooring cables, which fire into the Willis Tower and preventing the ship from breaking atmosphere. The humans begin to clamber down the cables to safety, but they are pursued by a pack of [[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaw]]s. Bumblebee manages to save the trio. The other Autobots locate Optimus, who reveals that the section of the ship they are on can separate from the main body. Crosshairs uses a gunship to pick up Bumblebee and the humans, then leads them on a dogfight through Chicago's streets, destroying some of Lockdown's mercenaries.

[[File:Prime gets shotAOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"It could have been worse, John. A lot worse."]]

Back at KSI, it is decided that all equipment is to be moved to the Beijing facility to continue operations. Joshua is also none too pleased about the previous field test of Galvatron; not only was it a loss on several fronts, but the drone also ''spoke'', which was something it was ''not'' programmed to do!

The Autobots land their new ship at an abandoned train yard. Optimus claims that he sensed Megatron's presence during his fight with Galvatron. Brains explains Galvatron's true nature: while he decoded dead Transformer brains, he learned that Megatron's mind had survived and planned to transfer itself to Galvatron's body, explaining Galvatron's sinister appearance. The tiny bot further mentions how Galvatron used his knowledge to build Stinger and the other drones, with plans to make them into his personal army. As Tessa tells the group about the Seed she saw, Optimus and Hound explain that the Creators used Seeds to convert organic material into metal, then harvested the resulting Transformium for their own purposes. Cade makes a call to Joyce and relays the newfound data about Galvatron. Knowing that Joyce is also an inventor with a heart, he pleads with Joyce to shut down Galvatron before things escalate. Although Joyce puts up an unconvinced façade, he demands increased security around Galvatron after hanging up.

As police cars surround the train yard, the Autobots board their shuttle again and take to the air. Optimus says that though the Autobots will travel to Hong Kong and get the Seed back, they will leave Earth afterwards; they are done protecting humanity. Cade disagrees but Prime is non-responsive. They later debate the matter, with Cade attempting to reignite Prime's faith in humanity.

In deep space, Lockdown finally discovers the absence of the smaller ship. He grumbles about Optimus Prime taking his trophy case and how the Prime will feel his wrath while he reverses course. Joyce meets with Attinger and Savoy and receives the Seed. Joyce intends to detonate it in a region of the [[Gobi Desert]], which will generate enough Transformium to last a century. Attinger is eager to expedite production but grows incensed when Joshua disagrees and says that they should go slower, quite obviously moved by Cade's call. Meanwhile, Galvatron activates ''himself'' and starts to infect the legion of over fifty other KSI Transformers. When the alarm rings regarding Galvatron's escape, Joyce has Attinger and Savoy evacuated from the building and gets in a car with Yueming, an associate named Darcy, and the Seed. They decide to try and hide the Seed in [[Hong Kong]].

Being hunted by Attinger and Savoy, Joyce seeks refuge on a rooftop when the Autobot-piloted ship arrives and attempts to pick him and the Seed up. However, Galvatron and his drones ramy arrive and shoot down the airborne vessel, causing Bumblebee, Hound, and the Yeagers to spill out while the others (Prime, Crosshairs, Drift, and the captured Knights) to careen away into the Wulong Valley. Savoy finds the Yeagers and Joyce on the rooftop and open fires on them but Cade leads him away from the others. The two jump across rooftops, eventually crashing into a house and getting into a fist fight which ends with Savoy falling from a window to his death.

Hound and Bumblebee attempt to escort the humans and the Seed out of the city, but are cut short when Joshua points out that the KSI-built Transformers were specifically built to destroy any Autobots or Decepticons left on Earth. This prompts Prime to enter the crashed ship and activate the armory as well as release the other captives within the ship. As Hound and Bumblebee hold the line and protect the humans, Optimus tries to convince the Legendary Warriors to fight alongside them. Their [[Grimlock (AOE)|apparent leader]] violently declines at first, fighting the Prime in both his massive robot mode and his Tyrannosaurus mode. Optimus quickly defeats him, saying that he and the other warriors will protect his family or die, then mounts the metal dinosaur. The Autobots mount their Dinobots and charge over the mountains into Hong Kong.

[[File:Dinobots ready for battle AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"''T. rex'' doesn't want to be fed. He wants to ''hunt''."]]

Meanwhile, as Hound and Bumblebee are starting to be overwhelmed by Galvatron's drone forces, Optimus and his fellow Autobots storm into the city, slamming, crushing, stomping, and chomping all nearby enemies. Galvatron retreats as the Autobots and Dinobots decimate his forces. With this battle over, Optimus confronts Joshua for his actions and gives the order to defend the humans and escort them, and the Seed, away from the city. On the way, a homing beacon within the Seed activates, allowing Lockdown to track the Autobots down. He activates a massive magnet, wreaking havoc on Hong Kong. Everything metal from kitchenware to massive ships are picked up by the magnet, including the Autobots and Dinobots. After narrowly avoiding the magnet, the Yeagers are momentarily separated from the Autobots. Optimus shoots at the magnet, destroying it and releasing the Transformers from its influence. The ship retreats to a nearby factory, with Optimus hot on its trail. Cade tells his daughter to stay with Shane and the Autobots, as he wishes to fight alongside Optimus against Lockdown. As Optimus Prime and Lockdown battle one-on-one, Attinger corners Yeager with a pistol, accusing him of choosing aliens over his own race, but he is quickly shot and killed by Optimus.

Because of Optimus' choice to save Cade before defending himself, Lockdown gains the upper hand, impaling Optimus through the chest with his own sword and pinning him to a concrete pillar. Meanwhile, Tessa convinces Bumblebee to turn around and the three join in fighting Lockdown, allowing Shane to use a tow truck to unpin Prime. Just as Lockdown is about to kill Cade, Optimus jumps up and slices the bounty hunter in half. Activating one of Lockdown's grenades, Prime tells the humans to hold on and uses rocket boosters to escape while the grenade destroys the last of the KSI drones. Galvatron has survived and retreated to the outskirts of the city; watching Prime blast off, he tells Optimus to beware, for he is reborn...

[[File:AOE-DefendThisFamily.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"I don't know. I guess... I guess we'll just have to evolve too."]]

The Autobots, Dinobots and their Human allies all regroup on the waterfront. Cade and Tessa happily reconcile and Cade finally accepts Shane. Joshua nobly says he will help them with their destroyed home. Prime declares the Dinobots are now free as they depart for parts unknown. With the bounty on his head placing the entire Earth in danger, Prime blasts off into space with the Seed to confront the Creators and discover the mystery behind his own origins, but not before ordering the Autobots to protect the Yeager family. As he leaves Earth's atmosphere, Optimus Prime sends a message to his Creators to leave planet Earth alone, because he's coming for them.

{{--}}

==Quotes==
"Lockdown...?" 
"Autobots, Decepticons, like little children, always fighting; making a mess out of the universe, then ''I've'' got to clean it up! There is one way you survive. Tell me where he's hiding. Where is Optimus Prime?" 
"Never." 
''(Lockdown rips out Ratchet's spark)'' 
"Never is here." 
:—'''Ratchet''''s final moments before '''Lockdown''' kills him.

"In this planet we have a saying: ''The enemy of my enemy is my friend''." 
"I also have a saying: '''''I don't care'''''."
:—'''Harold Attinger''' discusses with '''Lockdown'''.

"Every galaxy I've traveled, all you species are the same. You all think you're the center of the universe. You have no idea..."
:—'''Lockdown''' never truly appreciated one of his clients.

"Human beings. Bunch of backstabbing weasels!" 
"Hound, find your inner compass. ''Loyalty is but a flower in the winds of fear and temptation.''" 
"What the hell are you saying?!?" 
"It's a haiku." 
"Cut the crap before I drop a grenade down your throat!" 
"Try it, you'll be dead!" 
"Oh, please pull it. Please do it."
:—'''Hound''' doesn't appreciate '''Drift's''' haikus.

"With your fate unknown, Bumblebee has held command, despite his complete and total lack of anything resembling warrior discipline. He's like a child." 
"This child is about to ''kick your ass!''"
:—'''Drift''' and '''Bumblebee'''

"Autobots, I have sworn never to kill humans..." 
"Big mistake." 
"...but when I find out who's behind this...he's going to ''die''." 
"Hoo-ah!"
:—'''Prime's''' rage is fueled by '''Hound'''.

"Destroy the lab! Destroy it all!" 
''(The Autobots lay waste to the KSI research facility)'' 
"Hey, you! Stop! That's company property!" 
"They're not ''your'' property! ''They were my friends.''" 
:—'''Optimus Prime''' duly informs '''Joshua Joyce''' that Transformers aren't just machines.

"You have no soul!" 
"That is why I have no ''fear''!"
:—'''Optimus Prime'''' is shocked to find '''Galvatron''' isn't as lifeless as he thought.

"We're behind enemy lines now. Lockdown's ship has booby traps! Eyes open." 
"Beware of his bone-grinders, brain-blinders, flesh-stealers, chromosomal-inverters, catatonic slugs, black hole trapdoors and of course, radiation."

:—'''Hound''' and '''Crosshairs''' warn the humans of the perils held within Lockdown's ship.

"I was expecting a [[Grimlock_(G1)/toys#Alternators.2FBinaltech|giant car!]]"
:—'''Drift''' witnessing Grimlock transform into a dinosaur.

"Autobots, we're going to prove who we are, and ''why we're here''!"
:—'''Optimus Prime''' rallies his troops with his characteristic passion and charisma.

"Ugh, you just wanna die for the guy. ''That's'' leadership. Or brainwashing, or something." 
"No, that's Optimus Prime."
:—'''Crosshairs''' and '''Drift''', remarking on their [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|leader]]/[[Dinobot (AOE)|Giant Robot Dinosaur]] tamer.

"I'm like a fat ballerina who takes scalps and slits throats!"
:—'''Hound''' takes another five levels in badass and ballerina class.

"How do you say 'Get the f&%# out of the way' in Chinese?"
:—'''Joshua''' has some issues with the language barrier.

"I hate cheap knockoffs."
:—'''Bumblebee''' dismissing all [[Cliffjumper (Movie)|clones]] of him as "cheap".

"We shall meet again, Prime, for I am reborn."
:—'''Galvatron''' retreats to fight another day.

"There are mysteries to the universe we were never meant to solve, but who we are and why we are here are not among them. Those answers we carry inside. I am Optimus Prime, and this message is to my Creators. Leave planet Earth alone. 'Cause I'm coming...for you."
:—'''Optimus Prime'''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s closing narration.

==Main cast==
{{featuredcharacters|
h1=[[Autobot]]s|c1=
*[[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] ([[Peter Cullen]])
*[[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]]
*[[Hound (Movie)|Hound]] ([[John Goodman]])
*[[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] ([[Ken Watanabe]])
*[[Ratchet (Movie)|Ratchet]] ([[Robert Foxworth]])
*[[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]] ([[John DiMaggio]])
*[[Brains]] ([[Reno Wilson]])
*[[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot]]
*[[Dinobot (AOE)|Dinobots]]
**[[Grimlock (AOE)|Grimlock]]
**[[Scorn (AOE)|Scorn]]
**[[Slug (AOE)|Slug]]
**[[Strafe (AOE)|Strafe]]
*[[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]]'s head
|h2=[[Decepticon]]s|c2=
*[[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]] ([[Frank Welker]])
*[[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]]'s head
*[[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]]
*[[Junkheap (AOE)|Junkheap]]
*[[Trax (AOE)|Traxes]]
*"[[Two Head]]s"
*"[[KSI Boss]]es"
*[[McLaren Decepticon]]
*[[Aston Martin Decepticon]]
*[[Insecticon (Movie)|Insecticons]]
*[[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] (video footage)
*[[Protoform]]s (video footage)

|h3=[[Human]]s|c3=
*[[Cade Yeager]] ([[Mark Wahlberg]])
*[[Tessa Yeager]] ([[Nicola Peltz]])
*[[Shane Dyson]] ([[Jack Reynor]])
*[[Joshua Joyce]] ([[Stanley Tucci]])
*[[Harold Attinger]] ([[Kelsey Grammer]])
*[[James Savoy]] ([[Titus Welliver]])
*[[Lucas Flannery]] ([[T. J. Miller]])
*[[Darcy Tirrel]] ([[Sophia Myles]])
*[[Su Yueming]] ([[Li Bingbing]])
*[[Gill Wembley]] ([[James Bachman]])
*[[Chief of Staff]] ([[Thomas Lennon]])

|h4=Others|c4=
'''Lockdown's crew'''
*[[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]] ([[Mark Ryan]])
*[[Mercenary|Mercenaries]]
*[[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaws]]
*[[Stupid Drone]]s
'''[[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|KSI]] prototypes'''
*[[Oreo Transformer]]
|nonumbering=true
}}

==Errors==
===Continuity errors===
[[File:DeceasedTransformersAOE.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.6|Your attention, please. Will the ''real'' Optimus Prime please stand up?]]
[[File:AOECrosshairsDriftWeirdEdit.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|What just happened? No, seriously. Is there some kind of timey-wimey thing going on?]]
[[File:AOE savoy eyegouge.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|"An eye for an eye makes the whole world-OH MY GOD!!!"]]
*[[Ironhide (Movie)|Ironhide]] is seen on the cards Attinger pulls out early in the film, listed as deceased and having been last seen in Chicago. However, Ironhide was killed by Sentinel Prime in Washington, D.C., midway through ''Dark of the Moon'', and long before the final battle in Chicago.
*Scenes from the Decepticons' invasion of Chicago in ''Dark of the Moon'' are shown as archival footage presented by Attinger. While it is conceivable some lucky people with cameras recorded the initial attack and managed to survive and publish their footage, it's highly unlikely people would've been able to get close-up video footage of the NEST team taking down [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] and the other Decepticons.
*A Cemetery Wind vehicle smashes into the side of Shane's car during the chase through the cornfield, but the car doesn't show any damage to that side in subsequent shots.
*Tessa and Shane's reliance on Romeo and Juliet laws is unnecessary, since the age of consent in Texas is 17.
*During the 'Autobots reunite' sequence, Drift starts out in car mode on a road with Bumblebee and Crosshairs, before suddenly appearing atop a rock formation in robot mode and transforming to helicopter mode to meet up with Optimus Prime.
*When Crosshairs and Drift are talking on board Lockdown's ship shortly after boarding it, a ''very'' bizarre edit occurs in the middle of Drift's line "Better hurry, because dark matter drives are preparing to take off". The camera angle is now slightly different than before, but it's not a switch between a long shot and a close-up or a complete change of perspective. Oddly, Drift is still seen from the almost the ''exact same angle'' as before the edit, but even though his and Crosshairs's bodies were at an almost 90 degree angle before the edit, they're now suddenly almost standing in parallel to each other, with Crosshairs' head turned towards Drift. In addition, a flame that appeared in front of Drift just before the edit is suddenly gone. The reason for this was likely because when the first piece of footage was created, the editors realized that Drift's dialogue was too long and they should've made the scene longer, so they created the second shot so he could continue his dialogue, although it created a discontinuity between the two shots.
*When Shane shouts "I surrender!" and drops his "gun-sword", the hilt is facing to the right, but after a close-up showed it landing on the ground and firing a shot, the hilt is suddenly facing to the ''left'' in the subsequent long shot when it fires more shots.
*When Joshua reunites with the rest of the group in Hong Kong, Darcy tells him she'll do a diversion, and to get the Seed somewhere safe. Yet, no diversion of any kind happens.
*As Cade and Savoy grapple in the apartment, Cade jams his thumb deep into Savoy's eye socket (see right), with accompanying "squlech" sound effect, and appropriate reaction from Savoy in the form of a long howl of pain through gritted teeth and a string of drool flowing uncontrolled from his mouth. But as soon as the two separate, Savoy's eye is absolutely fine, with no indication anything is supposed to have happened to it.
*While Lockdown is pulling up parts of the city, Shane backs the car into a building which is two stories high at most, but appears much larger on the inside.

===Technical/animation errors===
*The shot right before the close-up of the cyberformed dinosaurs has no cyberformed dinosaurs at all, despite having all the excavation vehicles in the same positions as the next scene.
* Arcee is seen on Attinger's cards misspelled as "Acree".
*When Attinger takes over the operation to scramble Cemetery Wind after Optimus, and dismisses everyone in the room, he does so by saying "Ladies and gentlemen, this room is going dark. The exit is on your left." All the people then get up and begin to exit to their ''right''.
*Scrambling Cemetery Wind seems to scramble the timeline. From the deployment of Cemetery Wind to Lucas's death, the time of day is in limbo. For example, Optimus escapes from the Yeager property at sunset, joining the pursuit that takes place in early afternoon, not to mention that Cemetery Wind arrives at the Yeagers' home town at what appears to be dawn. In some instances, repeated changes between shots correspond with changes between different times of day, as different positions of the sun result in very very obviously different lighting conditions.
*When Lockdown transforms to prepare for the attack on Optimus, one can clearly see a faux-part Lamborghini logo pop out from inside the car, while the actual logo disappears.
*In the shot of Shane's car pulling up outside of the Yeager farm after Cemetery Wind has stormed in, nobody is seen inside the vehicle.
*During the scene where Cade is pretending to be a truck driver with Optimus still in his flat-nose truck form, he has a cap and white plaid shirt on. After Optimus scans into his newer form, Cade's back to wearing his leather jacket.
*When Shane's car gets sideswiped in the cornfield, the back left window is shattered. A couple scenes later, the window is just rolled down.
*When Shane's car breaks into a building, the woman sitting right in the middle of the room is clearly waiting on the glass-breaking noise to start running.
*After Lucas' death, there is nothing really stopping Lockdown or Cemetery Wind from continuing to chase Optimus. Lockdown is much faster and could easily catch up to Optimus whilst Cemetery Wind could chase in their remaining vehicles.
*When Optimus transforms to and from his Marmon 97 alternate mode, the windows and grille that make up his chest visibly change size and shape.
*When Optimus transforms out of his flat-nosed truck mode and punches the ground, Tessa and Shane are standing next to each other, as viewed from behind Optimus. When the view immediately switches to be facing Optimus, Cade is suddenly standing between the two.
*Shane defends his relationship with Tessa by stating that the 'Romeo and Juliet laws' "statute 2705-3" protect their relationship, yet the card he shows Cade reads "Statute 22.011". This is also the number that appears in the English subtitles of the DVD, meaning that it was scripted as 22.011 and not 2705-3.
*The truck that Optimus scans, while still being from the Western Star manufacturer, is an older and different model than the one he transforms into.
*When Optimus is on his way to the reunion site, the human characters inside are sitting this way: Shane to the right, Tessa in the Middle and Cade to the left. However when Optimus gets to the reunion point Cade comes out of the truck using Shane's side door (right) instead of his (left). It is clear they (the director and his crew) were trying to get a "superhero" pose but it doesn't make sense.
*When Optimus arrived to the reunion site you can see the filming crew in the reflection of his front chrome parts.
*Hound's dialogue when he's bickering with Drift doesn't really match up to what we see. Drift pulls his swords on Hound, but the big guy goads him on to "pull it", suggesting Drift was originally supposed to aim a firearm at him.
[[File:Uncolored Ratchet head prop.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.67|Gray is the new green.]]
*When Joshua is in the lab showing Darcy Transformium, in two different shots, a gray, uncolored prop of Ratchet's head can be seen being worked on in the next room.
*As Cade's drone scans a KSI employee's name tag, it displays its location onscreen as around N 38°44'55", W115°28'27". These coordinates are for a [https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B044%2755.0%22N+115%C2%B028%2727.0%22W/@38.7486111,-115.4741667,3048m patch of desert in Nevada] rather than any place in Chicago.
*While first infiltrating KSI, in the showroom where Stinger is first viewed, Bumblebee is in car mode when Joshua walks in with Yueming. Bumblebee's engine audibly revs, yet Joshua doesn't notice that there's no one in the car to rev the engine.
[[File:Megatron Head at KSI.jpg|right|upright=1.4|thumb|Screw logic!]]
*Megatron's severed head is in somewhat good shape for someone who got an axe stabbed on the top of his head. Furthermore, his head is more in line with its appearance in the first movie not ''Dark of the Moon''.
*Not to mention, after Joshua's group leaves and Bumblebee knocks Stinger down, there's no transformation noise right before Bumblebee returns to his altmode and the KSI executive walks in. Additionally, Bumblebee starts playing M.C. Hammer's "U Can't Touch This", '''when no one is in the car''' to turn the stereo on. Ostensibly it was for a comic moment, but it didn't raise anyone's suspicions that a car that wasn't typical of the ones being scanned, operating the engine and the stereo with no human inside, might be a disguised Cybertronian?
*After Bumblebee scans his new alternate mode, the camera pans over the car and Tessa and Shane are not inside. However when he's getting his new upgraded form you can see that they used stunt doubles for Shane and Tessa. That scene wasn't dangerous enough to require stunt doubles, was it?
*Some security guards in KSI fail to react to Crosshairs's shooting and shouting until a few seconds before the scene changes.
*When Galvatron first transforms and crashes into a truck, the way he is composed in the scene makes it look like he is simply floating above the wreckage, instead of being in the middle causing it.
*When Optimus transforms, Cade and Shane leap out of Optimus, while Tessa is trapped and rolls away. However, previous shots establish that the seating order in Optimus is Shane, Tessa, Cade. This means that Cade crawled over his daughter to escape(!), which is not quite logical or possible.
*Lockdown fires two missiles at Optimus Prime that, despite piercing his chest, don't manifest any kind of visible damage on his person, despite the previous shot showing Optimus's chest getting blown apart.
*When Lockdown is approaching Optimus after gunning him down, the driver's door of the Cadillac SRX he's resting on is shown to be open in two exterior shots, even though Tessa previously closed it after getting inside, and it's also shown closed in other (mostly interior) shots.
*When he loses his grip on the net holding Optimus and the car containing Tessa, Cade is shown falling toward the street, but he lands on the grass by the road.
*When the Autobots are on a bridge, before boarding Lockdown's ship, Crosshairs is clearly shown to be speaking but no dialogue is heard.
*When Tessa gets taken to the trash in Lockdown's ship, a green screen can be seen at the end of the corridor.
*While locking up Optimus, Lockdown's scar is on the left side of his face. While talking to Savoy upon delivering the seed, it's on the right side of his face; however, it switches back to the left side right before he walks off after bidding Earth farewell.
*While the human characters are climbing across the anchor cables to the high-rise building some of the Steeljaws begin to climb out after them. Cade tells his daughter not to look back and see them, but when we cut back to her, with a clear view of the cables behind her, the Steeljaws are gone.
*When Bumblebee jumps off Lockdown's ship to save the humans, he is followed by a Steeljaw. In the following shot, the Steeljaw is gone.
*While explaining Megatron's plans to the Autobots, Brains rings a bell on a train. In the next shot, the bell is not moving.
*During the motorcycle chase, the CIA cars change. At first, Joshua and Su are trailed by a Cadillac and an Audi; in the middle of the chase, the Cadillac is replaced by another Audi. By the end of the chase, the Cadillac is back.
*In Hong Kong, when Cade, Joshua, Tessa, and Shane enter the elevator to run away from the rooftop, the elevator won't move and Cade says it's overloaded. But in the next scene, we see that the maximum number of people that the elevator can carry is nine, and it's very clear that the Seed doesn't weight as much as five people.
*Shortly after Grimlock begins fighting Optimus, he swings his weapons at him but continuously misses, hitting the ground instead which causes several explosions. How these explosions occurred as a result of the weapons hitting the ground is unknown, as it is physically impossible - but if you're wondering ''why'' it occurred, [[Michael Bay|here's why]].
*When Grimlock transforms to his dino mode and charges at Optimus, there are no other Dinobots, nor the ship, to be seen in the background. However, after Optimus punches Grimlock and the shot changes, Dinobots are standing almost right next to him.
*Optimus somehow has enough strength to not only maintain his ground, but propel Grimlock through the air during his charge. Considering Grimlock's strength, velocity and weight, it is highly unlikely Optimus would win.
*Immediately after he transforms into his triceratops mode, Slug is shown to have a very visible Autobot logo on his dino-mode forehead, yet he just met Optimus and the other Autobots moments before.
*One of the air conditioning units kicked off the building exterior by Savoy falls away to reveal ... a solid wall, with no connection to an apartment's interior.
*During Hound's stand in Hong Kong, the pickup truck he uses as a shield sways left to right whilst his arm remains still.
*The damage Hound receives after being shot down, most noticeably the pipe on his left shoulder, is fixed in subsequent shots.
*Crosshairs is seen driving alongside Drift and Hound through the bridge to take the Seed away from the city ... right after we just saw him staying behind to hold the line with the Dinobots.
*During the final fight, Bumblebee decides to just leave midway. Considering the distance between the factory and the dock where they met, he must have left long before Optimus flew there.
*After Optimus takes off, the other Autobots are absent from the shot of the main cast watching Optimus fly off.

===Geographic discontinuities===
*When Cade tries to use his card at an ATM, not only is the card issued from a Chinese bank, which wouldn't have any branches in north Texas, where the Yeagers live, the text on the ATM screen (behind the ''Access Denied'' warning) is in Chinese.
*Despite being from north Texas, Cade and Tessa have no Texas accents- not all Texans have noticeable accents of course, but Cade can be heard speaking with a slight ''Boston'' accent in the trainyard ("I'm doing stuff out of my league here!"), which is likely due to his portrayer, Mark Wahlberg, being a Boston native.
*Despite the KSI pursuit scene taking place on a two lane highway, there are several scenes spliced in of the Transformers with supercar alt modes (like Stinger and Crosshairs) driving on what is obviously a racecourse (specifically the GM proving grounds in Milford, Michigan). This is apparent by the horizontal incline of the road in some of the shots that are also missing the markings that would normally be on a road, and a reaction shot for Stinger that shows a straight, one lane ninety degree turn.
*The entirety of the KSI pursuit scene switches between taking place between the left and right sides of the two-lane highway, despite being only supposed to take place on the right side. Furthermore, the shot showing stray missiles colliding with oncoming traffic takes place on a completely different highway, one with five lanes instead of three and a wooden fence on the side of the street as opposed to a guardrail. Moreover; the car crashing stunt for the bridge jump scene starts on the five lane highway, continues on the left side of the three lane highway, and then finishes on the ''right side'' of the three lane highway. Trouble finding shots, eh?
*All of the vehicles seen in Hong Kong are left-hand drive, rather than the right-hand drive you'd expect in a location that drives on the left.
*Some scenes supposed to take place in Hong Kong depict a very distinctively American city with traffic lights suspended by wires above the street.
*Chicago's Willis Tower can be seen in the background of Hong Kong.
*The bridge out of the city shown in the film (Tsing Ma Bridge) is at least a half-hour drive from the battlefield in Central.
*Furthermore, despite Optimus's comment, there are no bridges connecting Hong Kong Island (where all the action allegedly takes place) to the mainland. The only way to get off Hong Kong Island (other than by boat or swimming) is via one of three tunnels, none of which are used, referenced or mentioned in the film.
*Speaking of bridges, Tsing Ma Bridge (the gray version of the Golden Gate Bridge) shown in the movie is effectively a dead end unless one is going to the airport or Disneyland, because it only leads to/from Lantau Island.
*The bridge where Grimlock "digs in" is an expressway bypass. Geographically defending it is pointless as there are multiple other routes (including at least one that is faster) to bypass the bridge and tunnel yet end up at the same place on the other side.
*In one of the fight scenes there is an overhead railway (the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_People_Mover Detroit People Mover]). There are no overhead railways on Hong Kong Island (yet) and the MTR (the subway train network) trains look nothing like the train used in the scenes, as they are a completely different shape and color.
*There are no "glass houses" on Hong Kong Island.
*There are no Chinese temple ruins on Hong Kong Island. The temples there are all intact and frequently used or preserved and don't have giant metal umbrellas ''at all''.
*The area where Optimus battles and "tames" Grimlock is in the Wushan Valley in Northern China which is over 1100 km from Hong Kong, yet is depicted as being in Pok Fu Lam on the South Western side of Hong Kong Island (which is a high rise residential area). Even flying it would take well over 2 hours to get from Wushan Valley to Hong Kong.
*It's not possible to drive a car from Beijing into Hong Kong, as the number plates would be invalid, and it would take over a day to drive that distance. Chinese vehicles coming into Hong Kong have to be from the Canton area (number plates are black) and have to be registered with Hong Kong plates, which means they must display both plates at all times one above the other. (In addition, the process to obtain permission for a car to have that is also lengthy and costly.)
*The blue SUV used by Cade and his companions is not a type of vehicle that exists in Hong Kong. In addition, its steering wheel is located on the left side, even though cars in Hong Kong have their steering wheels on the right side.
*Optimus Prime's Western Star alternate mode would be illegal to drive on Hong Kong roads, since it's is oversized. The Freightliner truck used for Galvatron is the maximum size/gauge allowed on Hong Kong roads. All scenes with Optimus driving in truck mode were filmed elsewhere, the Western Star truck was never brought to Hong Kong. Even his previous Peterbilt alternate mode would be illegal in Hong Kong.
*The area depicted as the final battle scene where Optimus and Lockdown face off was digitally added on the map of Hong Kong shown in the movie. It doesn't exist at all in real life, where it's actually a breakwater/typhoon shelter full of boats on Victora Harbour. In addition, the factories in Hong Kong (which are all located on Kowloon, because Hong Kong Island is purely a residential/business/shopping district) look nothing like the buildings used in the scene.

===[[Dinobot Island, Part 1|Paleontology weeps]]===
*The cyberformed remains of a ''Tyrannosaurus'' and a ''Spinosaurus'' appear frozen together in the arctic at the beginning of the film, which is rather odd considering the two are found on different continents (North America and Africa respectively) and separated by around 35 million years of evolution.
[[File:ExtinctionOfTheDinosaurus.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|And another thing! How is that sauropod running!?!]]
*The opening scene of the movie shows a ''Psittaccosaurus'' (100-120 million years old), a generic hadrosaur that might be either an ''Edmontosaurus'' or a ''Shantungosaurus'' (65-70 million years old), and a brachiosaurid (100-157 million years old) all present during what is implied to be the K-Pg extinction event (64.5-65 million years old).
*The ''Psittaccosaurus'', a well known herbivorous animal, is seen actively hunting and killing live prey. In a nod to paleontological accuracy, however, it is depicted with a row of quill-like feathers along its back, as many ceratopsian dinosaurs are believed to have had.
*The Dinobots show various exaggerations and ornamentations which go beyond the usual suspension of disbelief involved in... [[Dinobot (disambiguation)|giant metal dinosaurs]]. Grimlock sports curved, backwards pointing horns and enormous fangs. Slug has huge tail spikes and a set of nasty chin horns, though his tail spikes could be a mechanised representation of the bristle-like fibres that triceratops currently is thought to have had. Strafe is the biggest offender, with a pair of elongated tails and twin heads with teeth and incorrectly-shaped crests and grasping talons. Scorn probably gets off the easiest, being ''mostly'' correct, bar his extra spines. It's not his fault that a few months after the release of the movie, the morphology of ''Spinosaurus'' was completely revised, with a different spine shape and shorter legs.
* The Dinobots' alternate modes are orders of magnitude larger than the real dinosaurs on which they're based. In an interesting twist, using Optimus as a proxy for the average human, all the Dinobots bar Strafe have been accurately scaled up. At 850 tonnes <ref name="Grimlock stats">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/entertainment-weekly-reveals-new-details-on-transformers-4-age-of-extinction-new-grimlock-image-179675] summarised on TFW2005.</ref> Grimlock is as large compared to Optimus as a real ''Tyrannosaurus'' would be next to a human.

==Transformers references==

* As usual, many of the new characters have roots in older portions of the mythos:
** [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] is based on [[Drift (G1)|a Generation 1 character]] introduced in IDW's 2008 ''[[The Transformers: All Hail Megatron|All Hail Megatron]]'' series.
** Lockdown is derived from [[Lockdown (Animated)|a character in the 2008 ''Animated'' cartoon]] who had already jumped over to the G1 comics and, in toy form, to the movie universe.
** [[Hound (disambiguation)|Hound]] and [[Crosshairs (disambiguation)|Crosshairs]] both share names with previous characters; their personalities are new and unique, though Hound seems based on [[Bulkhead (Prime)|''Prime'' Bulkhead]] in physique, coloration and personality.
** Galvatron being a new form for Megatron has been a thing for [[Galvatron (disambiguation)|basically forever]]. With Joyce's intentions of creating him as a counterpart to Optimus Prime, he also takes cues from [[Nemesis Prime (disambiguation)|Nemesis Prime]]; in particular the human-controlled ''[[Transformers: Prime (cartoon)|Prime]]'' [[Nemesis Prime (Prime)|character]].
** The Dinobots are the latest iteration of [[Dinobot (G1)|the powerhouse subfaction]] that first appeared in the early days of Generation 1. Their leader Grimlock is a direct analog of [[Grimlock (G1)|his Generation 1 counterpart]]; Strafe and Slug are based on Generation 1 [[Swoop (G1)|Swoop]] and [[Slag (G1)|Slag]], respectively.
* In the film's opening act, Optimus has adopted a cabover truck alternate mode akin to that of his [[Optimus Prime (G1)|G1 counterpart]]. His robot mode also draws some inspiration from his G1 design, such as the large grill on his chest.
* This is not the first time that Ratchet and Lockdown have faced off. ''Animated'' [[Ratchet (Animated)|Ratchet]] and [[Lockdown (Animated)|Lockdown]] had [[The Thrill of the Hunt|a long-running feud]]. Within the movie universe, the two characters have been described as rivals on ''[[Hunt for the Decepticons]]'' toy [[packaging]] [[bio]]s, and faced off in ''[[Cyber Missions 3]]''.
* The concept of the Transformers being built by another race first appeared in the third season of [[The Transformers (cartoon)|the original ''Transformers'' cartoon]].
* Meanwhile, the concept of humans hunting down all Transformers on Earth following a successful but devastating massive battle hearkens back to plotlines from IDW's [[The Transformers (IDW)|2009-2011 ongoing series]].
* The (rather obvious) theme of humans (particularly evil government agencies) using captured Transformers as a source of technology has appeared numerous times in the mythos, going all the way back to the [[Rapid Anti-robot Assault Team|RAAT]] agency in the original Marvel Comics. [[Transformers Animated (cartoon)|The ''Animated'' cartoon]] in particular featured the severed head of [[Megatron (Animated)|Megatron]] being studied and reverse-engineered, while in IDW's ongoing G1 stories, [[Sunstreaker (G1)|a Transformer's severed head]] was used to help design man-made Transformers (in [[The Transformers: Maximum Dinobots|a Dinobot-focused series at that]].) More broad uses of the concept include the Dreamwave ''[[Prime Directive]]'' mini-series, Devils Due's ''[[G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers: The Art of War|Art of War]]'' mini-series (''again'' featuring the severed head of [[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]]), the [[The Transformers (IDW)|IDW ongoing series]], [[All or Nothing!|Cobra's actions in the G2 comics]], [[MECH]] from the [[Transformers: Prime (cartoon)|''Prime'' cartoon]], and even in the movie universe itself, in IDW's ''[[Transformers: Alliance|Alliance]]'' mini-series that served as a prequel to the ''Revenge of the Fallen'' film. The idea of the (seemingly) human-controlled Transformers eventually proving to be uncontrollable was also pioneered by some of these stories, most notably Dreamwave's aforementioned ''Prime Directive'' mini.
* A device that can "[[eco-structuring|cyberform]]" other planets previously appeared in several places in the mythos, including in the original ''Transformers'' cartoon's [[Key to Vector Sigma (disambiguation)|Key to Vector Sigma]] two-parter and the aforementioned Dreamwave ''Prime Directive'' mini. In both cases, it was actually activated, unlike its movie counterpart.
* The idea of aliens and/or alien technology being found frozen in the arctic or Antarctic ice is a very common trope in fiction; in terms of Transformers, the first use of the trope was [[Jetfire (G1)|Skyfire]] in the original cartoon's [[Fire in the Sky]]. A discovery specifically at the hands of ''humans'' was a plot point in the aforementioned Dreamwave ''Prime Directive'' mini, not to mention [[Transformers (film)|the discovery of]] [[Megatron (Movie)|N.B.E. 01]]. Or the [[Scraplet]]s.
* The ringtone on Gill Wembley's cell phone is a remixed version of the original G1 Transformers [[theme song]].
* As he hunts for Ratchet, Lockdown's head-up display shows characters in [[Cybertronian language|Ancient Autobot]], an alphabet originating in the Generation 1 episode "[[Cosmic Rust (episode)|Cosmic Rust]]".
* In the scene where Optimus scans a passing truck, the classic [[Transformation#The noise|transformation noise]] plays when the Autobot symbol emerges from his grill.
*During the Texas chase scene, Shane, Cade, and Tessa drive past a navy-blue Pontiac Solstice with a white stripe down the middle. The Pontiac Solstice was Jazz's alternate mode in the first film. Also, the car is a reversal of Jazz's 1980's color scheme, which was white with a navy blue stripe down the middle. Since the Pontiac Solstice was not being produced at the time of the movie's production, the car's presence is definitely a reference, although the color scheme might just be a coincidence.
*The scene where Galvatron goes active and breaks free in KSI's Chinese facility mirrors the scene in the 2007 ''Transformers'' movie when Megatron breaks free inside [[Sector Seven]]'s facility, down to a reuse of the line "I am Megatron", only with the name changed to "Galvatron".

==Real-life references==
[[File:Rainbow Dash Age of Extinction.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|"I found the magic!"]]

*Among the objects KSI makes from Transformium in the film is a Rainbow Dash doll from [[My Little Pony|another popular Hasbro brand]].
*This marks the second time a Michael Bay film has begun with the extinction of the dinosaurs, the first being ''[[Armageddon]]''.

==Other editions==

==Prequel material==
*''[[Transformers (Titan Magazine)|Transformers: Age of Extinction]]'' magazine ([[Titan Books|Titan Comics]])

==Adaptations==
Unusually, no novel or comic adaptations of the film were released. The ''[[Transformers Annual 2015]]'' contained an extremely cut down prose summary of events.

==Music==
==Score==
{{main|Age of Extinction: The Score}}

==Home video releases==
{{main|Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)/home video}}

==Theatrical posters==
<center><gallery>
File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionTeaserPoster.jpg|First teaser poster
File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionOptimusPrimePoster.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction poster-IMAX.jpg|IMAX poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Cade poster.jpg|Cade Yeager poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Shane poster.jpg|Shane Dyson poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Tessa poster.jpg|Tessa Yeager poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Su poster.jpg|Su Yueming poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Lockdown poster.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Rules Have Changed.jpg|It's a scene not in the movie!
File:Transformers Age of Extinction This Is Not War.jpg|This is not human extinction, it's just war.
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Stand Together1.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Stand Together2.jpg|"Now look down. Now look at me. I'm on a dinosaur."
</gallery></center>

==Reception==

{{quote|"The few authentic inspirations to be found in the movie's hundred and sixty-five roiling minutes involve gigantic science-fiction contrivances."|[http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/film/transformers_age_of_extinction_bay The New Yorker's Richard Brody on Transformers 4: Age of Extinction], Richard Brody|[http://newyorker.com newyorker.com] [[2014]]}}

''Transformers: Age of Extinction'' was critically panned, and nearly universally condemned on the American front, receiving a rating of 18% positive critical reviews on RottenTomatoes.com, one percent lower than the final score for ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]]''. Common criticisms leveled against it included its relatively long run time of 2 hours and 45 minutes, the disproportionately small amount of screen time the Dinobots got in relation to their relatively large exposure in promotional materials for the film, an over-reliance on product placement, and the decision to set the final act in Hong Kong, which was perceived as a choice solely done to pander towards the Chinese audience for the film. However, the film received praise for its visual effects, action sequences, and the performances of some of the human actors, mainly Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, and Kelsey Grammer.<ref>http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_age_of_extinction/</ref> Despite any criticisms, the film was the worldwide top-grossing film for 2014, earning over a billion dollars.<ref>[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?view2=worldwide&yr=2014 Box Office Mojo's 2014 Worldwide Grosses]</ref>

It [[wikipedia:35th_Golden_Raspberry_Awards|won one Golden Raspberry Award]] for Worst Director ([[Michael Bay]]), was one of four movies contributing to [[Kelsey Grammer]]'s Worst Supporting Actor win (along with ''{{w|The Expendables 3}}'', ''{{w|Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return}}'' and ''{{w|Think Like a Man Too}}''), and was unsuccessfully nominated for Worst Picture; Worst Supporting Actress ([[Nicola Peltz]] as [[Tessa Yeager]]); Worst Screen Combo ("Any two robots, actors (or robotic actors)"); Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel; and Worst Screenplay ("screenplay by [[Ehren Kruger]], based on Hasbro's Transformers action figures").

==Production staff==
''Age of Extinction'' was written by [[Ehren Kruger]], who also wrote ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'' and helped write ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]]''.
===Visual effects===
===Locations department===

==Development details==
===Cast and crew signing on===
On June 26, 2011, thirteen days before the official theatrical release of ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'', actor [[Tyrese Gibson]] gave an interview to Movieweb, in which he claimed that [[Michael Bay]] would not return for a fourth ''Transformers'' installment; instead, executive producer [[Steven Spielberg]] himself was allegedly interested in directing a sequel.<ref name="tyresemovieweb">[http://movieweb.com/exclusive-steven-spielberg-may-direct-transformers-4/ Movieweb interview with Tyrese Gibson], with several names missing from the text; the full excerpt in question is quoted [http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/rumor-transformers-4-directed-by-steven-spielberg-172501/ here] on TFW2005.</ref> Ten days later, on June 26, 2011, still three days before the official theatrical release of ''Dark of the Moon'', Michael Bay posted praise for actor [[Shia LaBeouf]] on his official forums, while at the same time expressing regret for leaving the ''Transformers'' franchise.<ref name="bayshialeaving">[http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?9502-Love-Shia-as-an-Actor Michael Bay's praise for Shia LaBeouf]] at the official Michael Bay forums.</ref> Another two days later, on June 28, 2011, LaBeouf confirmed that ''Dark of the Moon'' would definitely be his last ''Transformers'' film, as he didn't think there was "anywhere to take" his character of [[Sam Witwicky (Movie)|Sam Witwicky]].<ref name="endshia">[http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/06/28/transformers-dark-of-the-moon-shia-labeouf/ "'Transformers: Dark Of The Moon' Is The End For Shia LaBeouf"], MTV Movies Blog.</ref>

Eight months later, on February 13, 2012, producer [[Lorenzo di Bonaventura]] gave an interview during [[Toy Fair 2012]], in which he confirmed that a fourth film was scheduled for a release in the Summer of 2014, Michael Bay would direct it after all, and that the movie would be a "reboot". He promptly clarified that it was actually a "hybrid", an "evolution" of the franchise that would be in continuity with the previous films, citing 2012's ''[[Wikipedia:The Amazing Spider-Man (2012 film)|The Amazing Spider-Man]]'' reboot of the ''[[Spider-Man]]'' film franchise as an example of what people should ''not'' expect from a fourth ''Transformers'' film. Di Bonaventura also confirmed that no casting discussions had taken place yet at that point, since there was no set story yet. However, there would be "a lot of new cast", and it was still uncertain at that point whether any of the previous cast members would return. The only characters that would "certainly" return wold be [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] and [[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]].<ref name="lorenzointerview">["http://www.mtv.com/videos/movies/733426/a-new-transformers-to-hit-theaters-in-summer-2014.jhtml "a new 'transformers' to hit theaters in summer 2014"], interview with Lorenzo Di Bonaventura at MTV.com.</ref> A day later, on February 14, 2012, Bay himself and [[Paramount Pictures]] officially announced that Bay had indeed signed a deal to make a fourth ''Transformers'' film. The film's release date was stated alternatively as either June 27 or June 29, 2014.<ref name="bayfourthfilm1">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/transformers-4-release-date-revealed-174395/ "Transformers 4 Release Date Revealed"] at TFW2005.</ref><ref name="bayfourthfilm">[http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-17028248 "Transformers director Michael Bay signs for fourth film"], BBC.co.uk.</ref> That same day, Bay also confirmed that he and Spielberg were working on a "whole new re imagining{{sic}} of ''Transformers''".<ref name="reimagining">[http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?10284-Transformers-4 Michael Bay confirming that ''Transformers 4'' would be a "reimaginging"] at the official Michael Bay forums.</ref> Two days later, on February 16, 2012, actor [[Josh Duhamel]] expressed his doubts that he, Shia LaBeouf, [[Rosie Huntington-Whiteley]] or Tyrese Gibson would return for the fourth installment.<ref name="noshiarosie">[http://eonline.com/news/294791/josh-duhamel-not-coming-back-for-transformers-4-is-anyone "Josh Duhamel Not Coming Back for Transformers 4: Is Anyone?!"] at E! Online.</ref>

Four months later, on June 6, 2012, Michael Bay confirmed in an interview centered around ''[[Transformers: The Ride – 3D|Transformers: The Ride]]'' that the fourth film would feature "some redesigns of the robots and an entirely new cast", and that it would be the last ''Transformers'' film he would direct.<ref name="ride">[http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/transformers-the-ride-3d-even-impresses-disney-rivals/ "‘Transformers’ taking new shape with Universal ride and fourth film"], LA Times Hero Complex.</ref> A few weeks later, on June 21, 2012, Bay confirmed that the fourth film would feature "different human actors", but the film would not be strictly a "reboot", but rather take the story "in a new direction". While hinting that the story might venture into space for "a little bit", he still wanted to keep it "grounded".<ref name="starsspace">[http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/transformers-4-michael-bay-purges-stars-may-go-into-space/ "‘Transformers 4’: Michael Bay purges stars, may go into space"], LA Times Hero Complex.</ref>

[[File:TF4 Chinese Reality Show contestants.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|If ''Age of Extinction'' teaches us anything, it's that more movies should be cast using reality shows.]]On September 21, 2012, Michael Bay confirmed the first "cast" member for the film in the broadest sense, namely the fact that voice actor [[Peter Cullen]] would be kept on as [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]. He also confirmed that the film would ''not'' be a reboot, but would pick up the story from where ''Dark of the Moon'' had left off in [[Chicago]].<ref name="cullen">[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/michael-bay-transformers-4-pain-and-gain_n_1903523.html "Michael Bay, 'Transformers 4' Director, On The Struggles Of 'Pain & Gain'"], Huffington Post interview.</ref> One and a half months later, on November 8, 2012, Bay confirmed [[Mark Wahlberg]] as the first human cast member<ref name="wahlberg">[http://michaelbay.com/2012/11/08/michael-bay-re-teams-with-his-pain-gain-star-mark-wahlberg-for-transformers-4/ "Michael Bay Re-Teams With His 'Pain & Gain' Star Mark Wahlberg for Transformers 4"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref>, after having referred to such claims as "just a rumor" a mere month earlier.<ref name="baynowahlberg">[http://michaelbay.com/2012/10/23/transformers-4-casting-rumor/ "Transformers 4 Casting Rumor"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref> On December 15, 2012, Wahlberg himself confirmed that filming would commence in May 2013.<ref name="wahlbergmay">[http://collider.com/ted-2-sequel-mark-wahlberg-transformers-4/218011/ "Mark Wahlberg Talks TED 2, TRANSFORMERS 4, and PAIN AND GAIN; Says TF Starts Shooting in May Followed By TED Sequel"], interview with Collider.com.</ref> Another month later, on January 8, 2013, Irish American actor [[Jack Reynor]] was confirmed as the second human cast member.<ref name="reynor">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jack-reynor-lands-starring-role-409850 "Jack Reynor Lands Starring Role in 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter.</ref> [[Nicola Peltz]] was confirmed on March 26, 2013<ref name="welcomepeltz">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/03/26/welcome-nicola-peltz-to-transformers-4/ "Welcome Nicola Peltz to Transformers 4"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref>, followed by [[Stanley Tucci]] (confirmed to be an antagonist) on April 16, 2013.<ref name="tucci">[http://www.comingsoon.net/news/cinemaconnews.php?id=103034 "CinemaCon: Stanley Tucci Joins Transformers 4"]</ref>, [[Kelsey Grammer]] as a lead (human) villain named "Harold Attinger" on May 1, 2013<ref name="grammerattinger">[http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/kelsey-grammer-lands-lead-human-villain-in-transformers-sequel/ "Kelsey Grammer Lands Lead (Human) Villain In ‘Transformers’ Sequel"] at Deadline.com.</ref>, [[Sophia Myles]] as a scientist on May 6, 2013<ref name="mylesscientist">[http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/sophia-myles-join-mark-wahlberg-michael-bays-transformers-4-exclusive-89661 "Sophia Myles to Join Mark Wahlberg in Michael Bay's 'Transformers 4' (Exclusive)"] at TheWrap.com.</ref>, Chinese actress [[Li Bingbing]] in an at that point still unspecified role on May 20, 2013<ref name="bingbing">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chinas-li-bingbing-boards-transformers-525370 "China's Li Bingbing Boards 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter</ref>, and actor-comedian [[T. J. Miller]] as a mechanic and best friend to Wahlberg's character on May 28, 2013.<ref name="miller">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/tj-miller-joins-transformers-4-559359 "T.J. Miller Joins 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter.</ref> [[Titus Welliver]] wasn't officially confirmed until July 25, 2013, after he had been spotted on set in Texas.<ref name="welliver">[http://www.deadline.com/2013/07/transformers-4-adds-titus-welliver/ "‘Transformers 4′ Adds Titus Welliver"], Deadline.com.</ref> In the lead-up to the release of the movie, Welliver would stir up a minor controversy with an interview in which he stated that the film would be darker and "not a kid's movie". Following a storm of online discussion regarding this statement, he issued a new statement to the effect that ''Age of Extinction'' is in fact a kid's movie, and he meant to say it would expand the audience.<ref name="nerdist">[https://www.nerdist.com/2014/02/titus-welliver-talks-about-transformers-4-and-clark-greggs-s-h-i-e-l-d-comments/ Titus Welliver Talks About TRANSFORMERS 4 and Clark Gregg’s S.H.I.E.L.D. Comments], Nerdist.com.</ref>

A rather unusual addition to the cast were [[Byron Li]], [[Candice Zhao]], [[Austin Lin]] and [[Teresa Daley]], which won their part through participating in the ''[[Transformers 4 Chinese Actors Talent Search Reality Show]]'' on August 25, 2013.<ref name="reality">[http://beijing.china.org.cn/2013-08/28/content_29845758.htm "'Transformers 4' recruits 4 Chinese actors"], China.org.cn.</ref>

The remaining robot voice cast (barring Optimus Prime) wasn't officially revealed until May 8, 2014.<ref name="voicecast">[http://michaelbay.com/2014/05/08/john-goodman-and-ken-watanabe-join-the-autobot-voice-cast-in-michael-bays-transformers-age-of-extinction/ "John Goodman And Ken Watanabe Join The Autobot Voice Cast in Michael Bay’s ‘Transformers: Age Of Extinction’"] at the official Michael Bay website.</ref>

===Writing and production===
On March 20, 2013, the Michigan Film Office announced that the fourth film would return to [[Detroit]].<ref name="michigan">[http://www.michiganfilmoffice.org/The-Film-Office/Press-Releases/Detail.aspx?id=11620 "Transformers Returning to Michigan, Approved for Film Incentive" at the Michigan Film Office website.]</ref> Principal photography began on May 28, 2013, at [[Wikipedia:Monument Valley|Monument Valley]].<ref name="monument">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/05/28/transformers-4-starts-filming-in-monument-valley-navajo-tribal-park/ "Transformers 4 Starts Filming in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref> Other shooting locations were the small towns of Lockhart, Taylor, Elgin and Pflugerville in Texas.<ref name="texas">[http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/movies/headlines/20130426-fourth-transformers-film-to-shoot-in-texas.ece "Fourth ‘Transformers’ film to shoot in Texas"] at Dallas Morning News.</ref> Shooting in Michigan involved two historic passenger steamboats, the ''[[Wikipedia:SS_Columbia|SS Columbia]]'' and her sister ship, the ''[[Wikipedia:Ste. Claire (passenger steamboat)|SS Ste. Claire]]'', which were docked in [[Wikipedia:River Rouge, Michigan|River Rouge]] awaiting restoration at the time being used as props.<ref name="boblo">[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/story/2013/07/26/wdr-boblo-boats-transformers-four.html "Historic Boblo boats land role in Transformers 4"], CBC News.</ref> While shooting in Detroit, Mark Wahlberg's children visited the set and were given small parts in the movie upon their father's request.<ref name="wahlkids">[http://comicbook.com/blog/2013/07/30/mark-wahlbergs-kids-cast-in-transformers-4/ "Mark Wahlberg's Kids Cast In Transformers 4"], Comicbook.com.</ref>

[[File:AOE Michael Bay Nicola Peltz on set.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Michael Bay uses his legendary charm to get the very best performance out of his actors.]]
Due to an increased focus of Hollywood studios trying to market its movies to the Chinese audience, parts of the movie were not only set in China, but actually filmed there. One of the shooting sites was Hong Kong. While there, the movie crew encountered the risks of shooting a movie in China firsthand when director Michael Bay was assaulted on the set by two locals demanding money; according to some sources, they were store owners that were not satisfied with the compensation they received for the inconvenience of having a movie filming nearby. Bay received minor injuries, but played the incident off on his blog. Both he and an official Paramount statement suggested that the assailants were under the influence of drugs.<ref name="attack1">[http://deadline.com/2013/10/hong-kong-police-called-to-transformers-4-set-amid-alleged-extortion-attempt-report-613912/ "Extortion Attempt On ‘Transformers 4′ Set; Michael Bay Suffers Minor Injury: Report"], Deadline.com.</ref><ref name="attack2">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-bay-attacked-transformers-4-649183 "Michael Bay Attacked on 'Transformers 4' Set in Hong Kong"], Hollywood Reporter.</ref><ref name="attack3">[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-24566287 "Transformers director Michael Bay attacked in Hong Kong"], BBC.</ref name="attack4">[http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/michael-bay-attacked-on-transformers-hong-kong-film-shoot-1.2100953 "Michael Bay attacked on Transformers Hong Kong film shoot"], CBC News.</ref><ref name="attack5">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/10/17/hong-kong-incident/ "Hong Kong Incident"] on Michael Bay's official Blog.</ref> A second extortion attempt occured several days later, this time allegedly by several triad gang members. Although one of them was later arrested, no-one was injured this time around.<ref name="extortion2">[http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-bay-transformers-4hong-kong-second-extortion-incident-2013-10?IR=T "More Trouble For 'Transformers 4' In Hong Kong As Second Extortion Attempt Reported"], Business Insider.</ref><ref name="extortion3">[http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/25/world/asia/hong-kong-transformers-triad-extortion/ "Transformers versus the triads of Hong Kong: the sequel"], CNN.</ref> Once again, Bay played down the extortion attempts in an interview, noting that most of the locals were apologetic over what took place, and that he wanted to film more projects in Hong Kong.<ref name="eager">[http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1342084/hollywood-director-michael-bay-eager-shoot-hong-kong-again "Hollywood director Michael Bay eager to shoot in Hong Kong again"], ''South China Morning Post'']</ref>

[[File:AOEOptimusRidingGrimlock.jpg|thumb|upright=1.9|left|"Get me closer! I want to hit them with my sword!"]]Late script changes resulted in Bay and his crew returning to the Chinese city of [[Wikipedia:Chongqing|Chongqing]] for a week reshooting a scene in January of 2014.<ref name="reshoot">[http://www.ecns.cn/2014/01-23/98337.shtml "'Transformers 4' back to China for additional shots"], China News Service (Ecns.cn).</ref>

Some of [[Industrial Light & Magic|ILM]]'s post-production effects were done at a newly opened Lucasfilm facility in Singapore.<ref name="ilmsg">[http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/lifestyle/story/lucasfilm-singapore-work-new-avengers-and-transformers-movies-20140116 "Lucasfilm Singapore to work on new Avengers and Transformers movies"], The Straits Times.</ref>

{{--}}

=== Sponsors and partners ===
==== General Motors and other car manufacturers ====
[[File:AOE Optimus Prime truck.jpg|thumb|upright=1.34|When having one's midlife crisis, it's not unusual to get a souped-up alternate mode.]]
''Age of Extinction'' continues the collaboration with General Motors. Earlier in the film, Bumblebee chooses a customized 1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS as his disguise when hiding from [[Cemetery Wind]], whereas later on, he upgrades to the newest model, a 2014 Camaro concept car. (The production crew was actually accused of ripping off a one-of-a-kind custom for the 1967 version.<ref name="1967custom">[http://jalopnik.com/did-transformers-4-rip-off-this-guys-design-for-the-ne-510655228 "Did Transformers 4 Rip Off This Guy's Design For The New Bumblebee?"] at Jalopnik.com.</ref>) Furthermore, new addition [[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]]'s alternate mode is a 2014 Chevrolet C7 Corvette Stingray, and recurring character Ratchet briefly appears at the beginning of the movie and transforms into his Hummer H2 ambulance mode (in the color scheme from ''Dark of the Moon'') before being killed at the hands of Cemetery Wind and [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]].

''Age of Extinction'' is the first movie to feature an official partnership with a manufacturer for [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]'s alternate mode. Earlier in the movie, he transforms into an old, rusty Marmon 97 truck cab (presumably without support from the manufacturer), but later upgrades into a brand new Western Star "5700 OP" concept truck that was designed specifically for the movie by "Twins Custom Coaches" and the team at West Coast Customs, with Western Star being a subsidiary of Daimler Trucks, who also provided a 2012 Freightliner Argosy that serves as [[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]]'s alternate mode.

Other manufacturers that provided vehicles to be used for characters' alternate modes were the Oshkosh Corporation with an Oshkosh Defense FMTV truck for [[Hound (Movie)|Hound]], the Volkswagen group with a 2013 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse for [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] and a Lamborghini Aventador for Lockdown, and independent Italian manufacturer Pagani Automobili with a Pagani Huayra for [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]].

=== Changes before, during and after production ===
* [[Slash (AOE)|Slash]] was originally intended to appear in the film (he even made it into some concept artwork).<ref name="burt">[http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/transformers-age-of-extinction-concept-art-from-wesley-burt/30723/ Age of Extiction concept art by Wesley Burt], mirrored at Seibertron.com.</ref>
* [[Glenn Morshower]] was originally set to return in this film, reprising his role of [[Morshower|General Morshower]], but didn't return due to a scheduling conflict.<ref>http://transformerslive.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/general-morshower-not-returning-to.html</ref>
* Both [[Josh Duhamel]] and [[Tyrese Gibson]] were intended to cameo reprising their roles as [[William Lennox]] and [[Robert Epps]] but were cut before filming started.<ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/tyrese-gibson-in-talks-for-transformers-4-176078/</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/tyrese-gibson-to-make-cameo-appearance-only-in-transformers-4-177407/</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/josh-duhamel-to-make-cameo-appearance-in-transformers-4-177026/</ref><ref>http://transformerslive.blogspot.com/2013/06/josh-duhamel-not-in-transformers-4.html</ref>
* Ed Welburn, [[General Motors]]' vice president for global design, was originally set to cameo as the C.I.A. head before being recast as a KSI employee.<ref>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/automobiles/ed-welburn-gets-a-part-in-transformers.html?_r=0</ref>
* A scene depicting Hound and Bumblebee dancing with Tessa (while Drift bobs his head in the background) was not present in the final cut of the film.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnxZ7Gg2yV4</ref>
* Scorn's toys lack the additional two sails he has in the film, suggesting it was a late design change.
*The Pagani Huayra that eventually ended up as [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]] was at one point intended as the alternate mode of a female robot with the working name "Widow Maker".<ref name="vitaly">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-9/age-of-extinction-concept-art-by-vitaly-bulgarov-180636/ Age of Extinction concept art by Vitaly Bulgarov] at TFW2005, including "Widow Maker".</ref><ref name="jung">[http://comicbook.com/blog/2014/07/20/transformers-age-of-extinction-concept-art-shows-off-epic-scope-/ Age of Extinction concept art by Steve Jung] at Comicbook.com, including "Widow Maker".</ref>
* Wahlberg's character was named "Flynn 'Ray' Vincent" rather than "Cade Yeager" in a casting call. The same casting call also revealed that actor [[Glenn Morshower]] was supposed to reprise his role as [[Morshower|General Morshower]] from the previous two films.<ref name="txcasting">[http://www.featurefilmauditions.com/2013/05/casting-for-transformers-4-actors-and.html "Transformers 4' open casting calls for actors and extras in Austin, TX and Detroit, MI"] at Film Auditions.</ref>
* A scene where Cade says "Stick behind me" is not present in the final cut of the film.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXSkXQs890g</ref>
* Another piece of dialogue cut from the film is when Cade says "You tell me" to Attinger when he asks for Optimus Prime.
* In some concept artwork, Grimlock appears as a horn-less T-Rex.
* The original running time of the film was 2 hours and 7 minutes, which would have made it the shortest film in the franchise. The final running time was 2 hours and 30 minutes <ref>http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/BatFreak/news/?a=77992</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/transformers-4-age-of-extinction-running-time-revealed-180165/</ref>
* [[Dwayne Johnson]] was originally offered the role of Cade Yeager, but due to his commitment to ''Hercules: The Thracian Wars'', the role was later taken over by his ''Pain & Gain'' co-star Mark Wahlberg.<ref>[https://twitter.com/TheRock/statuses/327892048978006016 Dwayne Johnson on Twitter]</ref>
*In some concept artwork, Drift was colored orange instead of blue. but according to the Generation 2 featurette in the Blu-ray release, this was changed because the vehicle that was going to play Drift was sold off.
*Some concept artwork shows that Optimus was intended to have his original trilogy body in the scenes where he had his new look.
*According to Ehren Kruger in the Generation 2 featurette, in the early drafts of the film, it was not originally centered on the Cade Yeager character.
*Numerous silver [[redeco]] toys were produced for Optimus Prime with the moniker of "Silver Knight", suggesting that he was originally supposed to take on this alternate appearance in the film itself, almost certainly upon drawing a sword from the Knights' armory. In the finished film, he does undergo some slight physical alteration at this point, his arms reconfiguring to resemble armor plates, but that's as far as it goes. This was also ''prrrrobably'' where he was supposed to get the rocket-boots he suddenly deploys at the film's end.

{{-}}

===Disinformation campaign===

Like ''Revenge of the Fallen'' and ''Dark of The Moon'' before it, ''Age of Extinction'' had a campaign that would mask details of the final film. However, unlike the previous films, this one was all encompassing; no novelization or comics by [[IDW Publishing]] was released, allowing for a great deal of the movie's spoilers to actually remain unknown longer than for the previous three films.

In the original Michigan Film Office press release published on March 20, 2013, several vague plot details were revealed, including the fact that Autobots and Decepticons had "[[Cemetery Wind|all but vanished from the face of the planet]]", a "[[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|group of [...] businessman and scientists]]" were developing new technologies based on past encounters with the Transformers, and an "[[Lockdown (ROTF)|ancient, powerful Transformer menace]]" was targeting Earth.<ref name="plotunveiled">[http://www.thewrap.com/node/82001/ "‘Transformers 4’ Plot Unveiled by Michigan Film Office"] at TheWrap.com.</ref>. These plot details were later claimed to be inaccurate by Paramount Pictures<ref name="notaccurate">[http://screenrant.com/transformers-4-movie-plot-synopsis-cast/ Unofficial "'Transformers 4' Plot Synopsis Is Not Accurate"] at Screenrant.com</ref>, but in all their vagueness ultimately turned out to be not too far off from the film's plot.

A lot of the newly-added characters were given "code names" during production, most of them related to the ''Rocky'' saga: "Duke" for Hound, "Adrian" for Galvatron, "Ivan" for Grimlock, "Rocky" for Slash (who was originally intended to appear in the movie, as noted above), "Southpaw" for Scorn, "Paulie" for Strafe, and "Thunderlips" for Slug. In addition, Crosshairs was code-named "Slingshot", Drift was code-named "Bruce", Lockdown was code-named "Max", and Steeljaw was code-named "Wolf" (which ''might'' have simply been a working name).<ref name="customer">[http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-news-rumors/961952-monzos-mega-hasbro-customer-service-listing-breakdown.html Hasbro customer service list]</ref>
{{stub}}

==Notes==
*Not only do the [[Dinobot (AOE)|Dinobots]] go unnamed in the film (other than [[Scorn (AOE)|Scorn]] getting the nickname, "Spike"), the word Dinobot is never even said by anyone. The audio description soundtrack on the home video releases refers to them as warriors or barbarians, but notes during the final scene that they "turn into Dinobots" (of course it also refers to Galvatron transforming "into an Autobot" when he turns into a robot, so make of that what you will).
*In addition to the Mercenary robots, [[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaws]], the ball-shaped drones, and [[Stupid Drone]]s, inside Lockdown's ship there were also several hovering drones. These drones appear to be of the same type as those the United States used in ''Dark of the Moon'' (the one that got sucked into the engine of Bumblebee's commandeered Decepticon fighter). Maybe Attinger sold them to Lockdown?
*Michael Bay's website incorrectly refers to the film as "Transformers 4 The Age Of Extinction"
* The deceased Autobots and Decepticons shown in the cards Attinger pulled early in the film includes: [[Ironhide (Movie)|Ironhide]], [[Wheeljack (Movie)|Que]], [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]], [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]], [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]] and [[Arcee (Movie)|Arcee]].
* This film seems to put a final nail in the coffin regarding the films' abandonment of the concept of using [[protoform]]s to travel through space; when the Autobots steal a ship from [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], they immediately move to leave Earth, indicating they had been stranded on Earth for the past five years without a spaceship (following the destruction of the ''[[Xantium (DOTM)|Xantium]]''). The fact that no mention is made of searching for any possible survivors of Cemetery Wind's hunt also suggests that all Autobots who did not return for this film have been killed off as well.
*The robot designs in this film are markedly different than the previous three; the robots have less alien appearances and are more heavily influenced by human forms.
*Speaking of the appearance of the Autobots - they all are based on specific types of human combatants throughout history: Optimus is obviously a medieval knight, Hound heavily resembles a World War II-era commando, Crosshairs looks like a mercenary or assassin, Bumblebee's new form is highly Ninja-like, and Drift is unsurprisingly a samurai.
*Director Michael Bay makes a cameo appearance in the film as a guy sitting in the passenger seat of a truck whose trailer Optimus Prime and Bumblebee crash through after being attacked by Galvatron and Stinger.<ref name="magiceffects">[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btn2tPxjisA "Behind the Magic: The Visual Effects of 'Transformers Age of Extinction'"] on the official ILMVisualFX Youtube channel.</ref>

===Foreign names===
*''Japanese:'' '''''Transformers: Lost Age''''' (トランスフォーマーロストエイジ ''Toransufōmā Rosuto Eiji'')<ref>[http://www.cinematoday.jp/page/N0056111 『トランスフォーマー』第4弾の邦題は『トランスフォーマーロストエイジ』に決定！最新ビジュアルも公開]</ref>
*''Russian:'' '''''Transformery: Epokha istrebleniya''''' (Трансформеры: Эпоха истребления ''Transformers: Age of Extermination'')
*''Argentina:'' '''''Transformers 4'''''
*''Cantonese:'' '''''Binying Gamgong: Chimmit Saigei''''' (變形金剛：殲滅世紀 "Transformers: The Century of Annihilation")
*''Mandarin:'' '''''Biàn-hsín Jīn-gāng Sz: Jiúe-jī Chúng-shēng''''' (Taiwan: 變型金剛4：絕跡重生, China: 变形金刚4：绝迹重生 "Transformers 4: Rebirth from the Extinction")
*''German:'' '''''Transformers: Ära des Untergangs''''' ("Transformers: Era of Doom")
*''Turkish:'' '''''Transformers: Kayıp Çağ''''' ("Transformers: Lost Age")

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

{{stub}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Age of Extinction (film)}}

[[Category:Age of Extinction| Age of Extinction (film)]]
[[Category:Real world films]]

Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)

2015-07-28T00:00:45Z

LordStarscream100: /* Errors */

{{Nav-aoe}}
[[File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionOptimusPrimePoster.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.67|An adventure 65 million years in the making.]]

'''''Transformers: Age of Extinction''''' is the fourth film in the [[live-action film series]]. It was released on [[June 27]], [[2014]].

Following the [[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Battle of Chicago]], humanity has come to fear both Autobots and Decepticons alike. With the aid of a Transformer mercenary named [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], a CIA [[Cemetery Wind|task-force]] operated by [[Harold Attinger]] begins hunting the remaining [[Transformer]]s on [[Earth]]. Hunted by enemies that were once his allies, [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] loses faith in humanity and sends his forces into hiding. Now, five years later, struggling inventor and single-father [[Cade Yeager]] discovers a damaged Transformer, placing both himself and his [[Tessa Yeager|daughter]] on a collision course with events that threaten the extinction of humankind itself.

{{bigquote|The trouble with loyalty to a cause is that the cause will ''always'' betray you.|[[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]]|''Transformers: Age of Extinction''}}

==Synopsis==

[[File:The Creators cyberforming Earth AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs."]]
65 million years ago, on Cretaceous [[Earth]], a ''Psittacosaurus'' is out hunting for food. The small dinosaur finds a fish and starts to feed, but stops as hundreds of alien ships enter Earth's atmosphere, piloted by the mysterious [[Creator (AOE)|"Creators"]]. The alien ships launch dozens of strange [[Seed]]s across the planet. As they detonate, they convert the landscape and the herds of panicking dinosaurs into a metallic substance, ending the Age of Dinosaurs. Millions of years later, while digging in the [[Arctic]], a team of geologists uncover a mysterious pair of metallized dinosaur skeletons - a discovery that attracts the attention of [[Darcy Tirrel]]...

Five years after the invasion of [[Chicago]], tensions between humans and Cybertronians have risen dramatically. Although the Autobots are officially granted asylum on Earth, public opinion has turned against all Transformers. The government of the United States has terminated all human-Autobot joint programs and instated [[Cemetery Wind]], an elite [[CIA]] unit intended to flush out the handful of [[Decepticon]]s left on Earth. What the President doesn't know is that [[Harold Attinger]], the leader of the operation, is slaughtering all Transformers, regardless of faction. On one such mission, the team pinpoints [[Ratchet (Movie)|Ratchet]] hiding within an abandoned boat. He immediately tries to flee, but is crippled and brought down by their weapons. The team leader, [[James Savoy]], mockingly asks why Ratchet ran if he's not their enemy, and Ratchet replays a transmission he received from [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]], ordering all Autobots to hide from humans. However, Savoy dismisses his pleas as his sister was killed in Chicago. A Transformer bounty hunter, [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], who has actually been helping Cemetery Wind hunt the Autobots, emerges from the nearby swamp and attacks Ratchet, further damaging him. Walking past his human allies, Lockdown demands to know [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]'s whereabouts. When Ratchet refuses, Lockdown brutally kills him by ripping out his spark.
[[File:AOE Ratchet dying.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction..."]]

In Texas, struggling inventor [[Cade Yeager]] and his friend/employee [[Lucas Flannery]] meet at an old theater, looking for salvage. He finds an old truck, and upon inspection it seems to be full of artillery shells. He buys the truck along with the other theater equipment and puts it in his garage.[[Tessa Yeager|Tessa]], Cade's daughter, observes this while video-chatting with her boyfriend and criticizes her dad for buying the heap of junk. While attempting to salvage the truck's engine to sell, Cade realizes it's actually a badly-damaged Transformer. After calling Lucas and Tessa, he connects jumper cables to its engine, only for it to begin replaying the distress call Ratchet had received earlier. Lucas and Tessa advocate calling the government, claiming that there is a huge reward for Transformers. Cade convinces them not to call the authorities until he can spend more time working on the truck, as he may be able to stumble on a technological breakthrough if he can figure out how the Transformers work. When Cade removes a live missile from the truck's "power core," it transforms into a heavily injured Optimus Prime, who roars at them to stay back while he swings his weapon around the barn. Cade, Lucas, and Tessa ask why Optimus is so badly damaged, to which he replies that the Autobots are being hunted and he must help them. Cade offers to repair him, and sends Lucas to buy the parts that will enable him to fix Optimus. Cade and Optimus begin to bond as the repairs begin.
[[File:AOE-injuredoptimus.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Should we chance moving him?"]]

In the Arctic, Attinger arrives via helicopter at [[Knight Ship|Lockdown's ship]] and demands to know why Optimus Prime escaped him in [[Mexico]]. Lockdown derisively tells Attinger that Optimus Prime would not have escaped were it not for Cemetery Wind's interference, stressing that he does not care about Attinger or his goals and wishes only to capture Optimus Prime.

Shortly after returning to [[Washington, D.C.]], Attinger receives a tip that Optimus Prime has been located in Texas and sends Savoy and Cemetery Wind to apprehend him. The agents swarm the barn, but there is no trace of Prime inside. When Savoy threatens Tessa to force Cade to tell him of Prime's whereabouts, the Autobot leader explodes out of the barn's basement in which he was hiding. He escapes after a brief skirmish that destroys the Yeager residence, with both Cemetery Wind and Lockdown in pursuit. As Cade catches one of Cemetery Wind's mini drones, a white rally car zooms over the adjacent fields and picks up the Yeagers and Lucas. The driver turns out to be [[Shane Dyson|Shane]], a rally car racer who is also Tessa's boyfriend. A group of Cemetery Wind vehicles begins chasing them.
[[File:Optimus shooting humans AOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"You think they'll have that on the tour?"]]

Both the rally car and Optimus Prime are chased into an abandoned factory, where Optimus Prime fights off Lockdown. Shane puts his driving skills to good use and pulls a series of tight maneuvers that result in the Cemetery Wind cars crashing, destroys his car in the process. Optimus Prime, who has caught Lockdown in a crane cable, transforms and tells the humans to pile into him and escape. Lockdown throws a grenade at the humans as they run towards Optimus Prime; though Shane and the Yeagers escape, Lucas is caught in the blast and killed.

Arriving at an abandoned gas station, Optimus orders the humans out and drives off to ensure that they have not been followed. Cade confronts Tessa and Shane about their relationship but Tessa gets angry at Cade for putting them all in danger. The next day, Optimus and the humans set off towards Monument Valley. Prime [[trans-scan|scans]] a passing truck, sheds his layer of rust and takes on a new form with his old paint scheme. They arrive in Monument Valley where they meet the other surviving Autobots in the form of [[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]], [[Hound (Movie)|Hound]], [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]], and their de facto leader [[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]]. Crosshairs and Hound start threatening the humans for having their species betray them but Optimus convinces them that they have risked their lives to save his. The Humans notice that there are clear tensions between the Autobots. Cade reveals footage of the attack on Ratchet and [[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot's]] demise using the stolen aerial drone and Prime declares that he will kill the one responsible for hunting down the Autobots.

[[File:Autobots unite monument valley AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Dr. Grant, my dear Dr. Sattler... Welcome to [[Jurassic Park]]." ]]

Inspection of the drone leads them to a company named [[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|KSI]], located in a rebuilt Chicago. It is run by [[Joshua Joyce]], who is working with [[Su Yueming]] and Attinger to create artificial Transformers to eventually be used in the military. Using the remains of [[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]], [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]], [[Starscream (Movie)|the]] [[Barricade (Movie)|countless]] [[Shockwave (Movie)|Decepticons]] from the Chicago battle and the hunted Autobots, they have synthesized the metal that the Transformers are made of, calling it [[Transformium]]. When given commands through a computer, Transformium can be changed into various shapes or objects. Although a drone called [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]] (designed after Bumblebee) is active, Joshua's major project is a bigger, stronger drone called [[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]]. However, his attempts have not been successful; the drone keeps resembling Megatron instead of the friendlier image of Optimus Prime. Bumblebee builds Cade and Shane faux-ID badges which the duo use to infiltrate KSI. Cade goes further in and projects imagery of Ratchet's severed head being melted down as well as the injured and enslaved [[Brains]], which sends Prime into a rage.

[[File:Joshua Joyce Transformium Experiment AOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"God help us, we're in the hands of engineers."]]

However, Cade is caught when his ID badge is found to have been scanned twice (by him and its original owner). He is taken to the upper floors and confronted by Attinger, who claims that what he has witnessed is in the name of world peace. He also asks him about the whereabouts of Optimus Prime but Cade maintains his silence.

Furious over how the humans have mutilated their comrades, Optimus orders an attack on KSI. Bumblebee, carried by Drift in copter mode, rescues Cade. The others trash the lab, free Brains, and confront Joshua, only for him to openly declare that what is being done is being done to prevent more Transformer-caused damage and that the humans "don't need" the Autobots. Disheartened, Prime orders a retreat.

As the Autobots exit the factory and leave, Attinger catches up with Joshua and claims that the Autobots are terrorists for attacking the facility. He coerces Joyce to use the two functional drones to take down the Autobots. Galvatron and Stinger activate and pursue their quarry across a highway, with Galvatron doing more damage than his KSI handlers intend. Bumblebee fires upon Galvatron but is surprised to see him simply disintegrate and reintegrate again. Galvatron attacks Prime. As they battle, Optimus declares that the artificial creation has no soul, to which it retorts "That is why I have no FEAR!"

[[File:AOEGalvatron.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"Kids! You want to have one of those?"]]

As Tessa scrambles for cover in a nearby vehicle, Prime is suddenly shot from the back and falls-Lockdown has arrived, along with his ship! Lockdown gloats to his prisoner, claiming that Optimus was built, not born, and now the Creators want him returned in one piece. The bounty hunter orders a net dropped over Optimus and hoists both the Autobot leader and Tessa's hiding place into his ship. Cade desperately clings to the net, but his strength gives out and he falls to the fields below. As the spaceship departs, Cade and Shane vow to get Tessa back.

Lockdown throws Prime in a cage and orders his lackeys to dispose of Tessa. Prime takes note of several other aliens in similar cages, including [[Dinobot (AOE)|other Cybertronian warriors]]. He also discovers the original purpose of the mercenary ship: it was originally used by a group of legendary Knights (presumably including Prime himself) but now acts as Lockdown's flying prison. Lockdown's ship hovers over Chicago, triggering panic in the streets, but Attinger manages to talk down the authorities and send Savoy to rendezvous with Lockdown. As payment for Prime's capture, Lockdown gives him a Seed.

Cade, Shane, and the other Autobots get aboard the ship as it flies low over a bridge. While being pursued by Lockdown's henchmen, the two humans find a strange Knight armory, from which Cade takes a sword that opens up to form a gun. While Shane and Cade rescue Tessa, Crosshairs deploys the ship's mooring cables, which fire into the Willis Tower and preventing the ship from breaking atmosphere. The humans begin to clamber down the cables to safety, but they are pursued by a pack of [[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaw]]s. Bumblebee manages to save the trio. The other Autobots locate Optimus, who reveals that the section of the ship they are on can separate from the main body. Crosshairs uses a gunship to pick up Bumblebee and the humans, then leads them on a dogfight through Chicago's streets, destroying some of Lockdown's mercenaries.

[[File:Prime gets shotAOE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"It could have been worse, John. A lot worse."]]

Back at KSI, it is decided that all equipment is to be moved to the Beijing facility to continue operations. Joshua is also none too pleased about the previous field test of Galvatron; not only was it a loss on several fronts, but the drone also ''spoke'', which was something it was ''not'' programmed to do!

The Autobots land their new ship at an abandoned train yard. Optimus claims that he sensed Megatron's presence during his fight with Galvatron. Brains explains Galvatron's true nature: while he decoded dead Transformer brains, he learned that Megatron's mind had survived and planned to transfer itself to Galvatron's body, explaining Galvatron's sinister appearance. The tiny bot further mentions how Galvatron used his knowledge to build Stinger and the other drones, with plans to make them into his personal army. As Tessa tells the group about the Seed she saw, Optimus and Hound explain that the Creators used Seeds to convert organic material into metal, then harvested the resulting Transformium for their own purposes. Cade makes a call to Joyce and relays the newfound data about Galvatron. Knowing that Joyce is also an inventor with a heart, he pleads with Joyce to shut down Galvatron before things escalate. Although Joyce puts up an unconvinced façade, he demands increased security around Galvatron after hanging up.

As police cars surround the train yard, the Autobots board their shuttle again and take to the air. Optimus says that though the Autobots will travel to Hong Kong and get the Seed back, they will leave Earth afterwards; they are done protecting humanity. Cade disagrees but Prime is non-responsive. They later debate the matter, with Cade attempting to reignite Prime's faith in humanity.

In deep space, Lockdown finally discovers the absence of the smaller ship. He grumbles about Optimus Prime taking his trophy case and how the Prime will feel his wrath while he reverses course. Joyce meets with Attinger and Savoy and receives the Seed. Joyce intends to detonate it in a region of the [[Gobi Desert]], which will generate enough Transformium to last a century. Attinger is eager to expedite production but grows incensed when Joshua disagrees and says that they should go slower, quite obviously moved by Cade's call. Meanwhile, Galvatron activates ''himself'' and starts to infect the legion of over fifty other KSI Transformers. When the alarm rings regarding Galvatron's escape, Joyce has Attinger and Savoy evacuated from the building and gets in a car with Yueming, an associate named Darcy, and the Seed. They decide to try and hide the Seed in [[Hong Kong]].

Being hunted by Attinger and Savoy, Joyce seeks refuge on a rooftop when the Autobot-piloted ship arrives and attempts to pick him and the Seed up. However, Galvatron and his drones ramy arrive and shoot down the airborne vessel, causing Bumblebee, Hound, and the Yeagers to spill out while the others (Prime, Crosshairs, Drift, and the captured Knights) to careen away into the Wulong Valley. Savoy finds the Yeagers and Joyce on the rooftop and open fires on them but Cade leads him away from the others. The two jump across rooftops, eventually crashing into a house and getting into a fist fight which ends with Savoy falling from a window to his death.

Hound and Bumblebee attempt to escort the humans and the Seed out of the city, but are cut short when Joshua points out that the KSI-built Transformers were specifically built to destroy any Autobots or Decepticons left on Earth. This prompts Prime to enter the crashed ship and activate the armory as well as release the other captives within the ship. As Hound and Bumblebee hold the line and protect the humans, Optimus tries to convince the Legendary Warriors to fight alongside them. Their [[Grimlock (AOE)|apparent leader]] violently declines at first, fighting the Prime in both his massive robot mode and his Tyrannosaurus mode. Optimus quickly defeats him, saying that he and the other warriors will protect his family or die, then mounts the metal dinosaur. The Autobots mount their Dinobots and charge over the mountains into Hong Kong.

[[File:Dinobots ready for battle AOE.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|"''T. rex'' doesn't want to be fed. He wants to ''hunt''."]]

Meanwhile, as Hound and Bumblebee are starting to be overwhelmed by Galvatron's drone forces, Optimus and his fellow Autobots storm into the city, slamming, crushing, stomping, and chomping all nearby enemies. Galvatron retreats as the Autobots and Dinobots decimate his forces. With this battle over, Optimus confronts Joshua for his actions and gives the order to defend the humans and escort them, and the Seed, away from the city. On the way, a homing beacon within the Seed activates, allowing Lockdown to track the Autobots down. He activates a massive magnet, wreaking havoc on Hong Kong. Everything metal from kitchenware to massive ships are picked up by the magnet, including the Autobots and Dinobots. After narrowly avoiding the magnet, the Yeagers are momentarily separated from the Autobots. Optimus shoots at the magnet, destroying it and releasing the Transformers from its influence. The ship retreats to a nearby factory, with Optimus hot on its trail. Cade tells his daughter to stay with Shane and the Autobots, as he wishes to fight alongside Optimus against Lockdown. As Optimus Prime and Lockdown battle one-on-one, Attinger corners Yeager with a pistol, accusing him of choosing aliens over his own race, but he is quickly shot and killed by Optimus.

Because of Optimus' choice to save Cade before defending himself, Lockdown gains the upper hand, impaling Optimus through the chest with his own sword and pinning him to a concrete pillar. Meanwhile, Tessa convinces Bumblebee to turn around and the three join in fighting Lockdown, allowing Shane to use a tow truck to unpin Prime. Just as Lockdown is about to kill Cade, Optimus jumps up and slices the bounty hunter in half. Activating one of Lockdown's grenades, Prime tells the humans to hold on and uses rocket boosters to escape while the grenade destroys the last of the KSI drones. Galvatron has survived and retreated to the outskirts of the city; watching Prime blast off, he tells Optimus to beware, for he is reborn...

[[File:AOE-DefendThisFamily.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"I don't know. I guess... I guess we'll just have to evolve too."]]

The Autobots, Dinobots and their Human allies all regroup on the waterfront. Cade and Tessa happily reconcile and Cade finally accepts Shane. Joshua nobly says he will help them with their destroyed home. Prime declares the Dinobots are now free as they depart for parts unknown. With the bounty on his head placing the entire Earth in danger, Prime blasts off into space with the Seed to confront the Creators and discover the mystery behind his own origins, but not before ordering the Autobots to protect the Yeager family. As he leaves Earth's atmosphere, Optimus Prime sends a message to his Creators to leave planet Earth alone, because he's coming for them.

{{--}}

==Quotes==
"Lockdown...?" 
"Autobots, Decepticons, like little children, always fighting; making a mess out of the universe, then ''I've'' got to clean it up! There is one way you survive. Tell me where he's hiding. Where is Optimus Prime?" 
"Never." 
''(Lockdown rips out Ratchet's spark)'' 
"Never is here." 
:—'''Ratchet''''s final moments before '''Lockdown''' kills him.

"In this planet we have a saying: ''The enemy of my enemy is my friend''." 
"I also have a saying: '''''I don't care'''''."
:—'''Harold Attinger''' discusses with '''Lockdown'''.

"Every galaxy I've traveled, all you species are the same. You all think you're the center of the universe. You have no idea..."
:—'''Lockdown''' never truly appreciated one of his clients.

"Human beings. Bunch of backstabbing weasels!" 
"Hound, find your inner compass. ''Loyalty is but a flower in the winds of fear and temptation.''" 
"What the hell are you saying?!?" 
"It's a haiku." 
"Cut the crap before I drop a grenade down your throat!" 
"Try it, you'll be dead!" 
"Oh, please pull it. Please do it."
:—'''Hound''' doesn't appreciate '''Drift's''' haikus.

"With your fate unknown, Bumblebee has held command, despite his complete and total lack of anything resembling warrior discipline. He's like a child." 
"This child is about to ''kick your ass!''"
:—'''Drift''' and '''Bumblebee'''

"Autobots, I have sworn never to kill humans..." 
"Big mistake." 
"...but when I find out who's behind this...he's going to ''die''." 
"Hoo-ah!"
:—'''Prime's''' rage is fueled by '''Hound'''.

"Destroy the lab! Destroy it all!" 
''(The Autobots lay waste to the KSI research facility)'' 
"Hey, you! Stop! That's company property!" 
"They're not ''your'' property! ''They were my friends.''" 
:—'''Optimus Prime''' duly informs '''Joshua Joyce''' that Transformers aren't just machines.

"You have no soul!" 
"That is why I have no ''fear''!"
:—'''Optimus Prime'''' is shocked to find '''Galvatron''' isn't as lifeless as he thought.

"We're behind enemy lines now. Lockdown's ship has booby traps! Eyes open." 
"Beware of his bone-grinders, brain-blinders, flesh-stealers, chromosomal-inverters, catatonic slugs, black hole trapdoors and of course, radiation."

:—'''Hound''' and '''Crosshairs''' warn the humans of the perils held within Lockdown's ship.

"I was expecting a [[Grimlock_(G1)/toys#Alternators.2FBinaltech|giant car!]]"
:—'''Drift''' witnessing Grimlock transform into a dinosaur.

"Autobots, we're going to prove who we are, and ''why we're here''!"
:—'''Optimus Prime''' rallies his troops with his characteristic passion and charisma.

"Ugh, you just wanna die for the guy. ''That's'' leadership. Or brainwashing, or something." 
"No, that's Optimus Prime."
:—'''Crosshairs''' and '''Drift''', remarking on their [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|leader]]/[[Dinobot (AOE)|Giant Robot Dinosaur]] tamer.

"I'm like a fat ballerina who takes scalps and slits throats!"
:—'''Hound''' takes another five levels in badass and ballerina class.

"How do you say 'Get the f&%# out of the way' in Chinese?"
:—'''Joshua''' has some issues with the language barrier.

"I hate cheap knockoffs."
:—'''Bumblebee''' dismissing all [[Cliffjumper (Movie)|clones]] of him as "cheap".

"We shall meet again, Prime, for I am reborn."
:—'''Galvatron''' retreats to fight another day.

"There are mysteries to the universe we were never meant to solve, but who we are and why we are here are not among them. Those answers we carry inside. I am Optimus Prime, and this message is to my Creators. Leave planet Earth alone. 'Cause I'm coming...for you."
:—'''Optimus Prime'''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s closing narration.

==Main cast==
{{featuredcharacters|
h1=[[Autobot]]s|c1=
*[[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] ([[Peter Cullen]])
*[[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]]
*[[Hound (Movie)|Hound]] ([[John Goodman]])
*[[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] ([[Ken Watanabe]])
*[[Ratchet (Movie)|Ratchet]] ([[Robert Foxworth]])
*[[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]] ([[John DiMaggio]])
*[[Brains]] ([[Reno Wilson]])
*[[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot]]
*[[Dinobot (AOE)|Dinobots]]
**[[Grimlock (AOE)|Grimlock]]
**[[Scorn (AOE)|Scorn]]
**[[Slug (AOE)|Slug]]
**[[Strafe (AOE)|Strafe]]
*[[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]]'s head
|h2=[[Decepticon]]s|c2=
*[[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]] ([[Frank Welker]])
*[[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]]'s head
*[[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]]
*[[Junkheap (AOE)|Junkheap]]
*[[Trax (AOE)|Traxes]]
*"[[Two Head]]s"
*"[[KSI Boss]]es"
*[[McLaren Decepticon]]
*[[Aston Martin Decepticon]]
*[[Insecticon (Movie)|Insecticons]]
*[[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] (video footage)
*[[Protoform]]s (video footage)

|h3=[[Human]]s|c3=
*[[Cade Yeager]] ([[Mark Wahlberg]])
*[[Tessa Yeager]] ([[Nicola Peltz]])
*[[Shane Dyson]] ([[Jack Reynor]])
*[[Joshua Joyce]] ([[Stanley Tucci]])
*[[Harold Attinger]] ([[Kelsey Grammer]])
*[[James Savoy]] ([[Titus Welliver]])
*[[Lucas Flannery]] ([[T. J. Miller]])
*[[Darcy Tirrel]] ([[Sophia Myles]])
*[[Su Yueming]] ([[Li Bingbing]])
*[[Gill Wembley]] ([[James Bachman]])
*[[Chief of Staff]] ([[Thomas Lennon]])

|h4=Others|c4=
'''Lockdown's crew'''
*[[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]] ([[Mark Ryan]])
*[[Mercenary|Mercenaries]]
*[[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaws]]
*[[Stupid Drone]]s
'''[[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|KSI]] prototypes'''
*[[Oreo Transformer]]
|nonumbering=true
}}

==Errors==
===Continuity errors===
[[File:DeceasedTransformersAOE.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.6|Your attention, please. Will the ''real'' Optimus Prime please stand up?]]
[[File:AOECrosshairsDriftWeirdEdit.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|What just happened? No, seriously. Is there some kind of timey-wimey thing going on?]]
[[File:AOE savoy eyegouge.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|"An eye for an eye makes the whole world-OH MY GOD!!!"]]
*[[Ironhide (Movie)|Ironhide]] is seen on the cards Attinger pulls out early in the film, listed as deceased and having been last seen in Chicago. However, Ironhide was killed by Sentinel Prime in Washington, D.C., midway through ''Dark of the Moon'', and long before the final battle in Chicago.
*Scenes from the Decepticons' invasion of Chicago in ''Dark of the Moon'' are shown as archival footage presented by Attinger. While it is conceivable some lucky people with cameras recorded the initial attack and managed to survive and publish their footage, it's highly unlikely people would've been able to get close-up video footage of the NEST team taking down [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] and the other Decepticons.
*A Cemetery Wind vehicle smashes into the side of Shane's car during the chase through the cornfield, but the car doesn't show any damage to that side in subsequent shots.
*Tessa and Shane's reliance on Romeo and Juliet laws is unnecessary, since the age of consent in Texas is 17.
*During the 'Autobots reunite' sequence, Drift starts out in car mode on a road with Bumblebee and Crosshairs, before suddenly appearing atop a rock formation in robot mode and transforming to helicopter mode to meet up with Optimus Prime.
*When Crosshairs and Drift are talking on board Lockdown's ship shortly after boarding it, a ''very'' bizarre edit occurs in the middle of Drift's line "Better hurry, because dark matter drives are preparing to take off". The camera angle is now slightly different than before, but it's not a switch between a long shot and a close-up or a complete change of perspective. Oddly, Drift is still seen from the almost the ''exact same angle'' as before the edit, but even though his and Crosshairs's bodies were at an almost 90 degree angle before the edit, they're now suddenly almost standing in parallel to each other, with Crosshairs' head turned towards Drift. In addition, a flame that appeared in front of Drift just before the edit is suddenly gone. The reason for this was likely because when the first piece of footage was created, the editors realized that Drift's dialogue was too long and they should've made the scene longer, so they created the second shot so he could continue his dialogue, although it created a discontinuity between the two shots.
*When Shane shouts "I surrender!" and drops his "gun-sword", the hilt is facing to the right, but after a close-up showed it landing on the ground and firing a shot, the hilt is suddenly facing to the ''left'' in the subsequent long shot when it fires more shots.
*When Joshua reunites with the rest of the group in Hong Kong, Darcy tells him she'll do a diversion, and to get the Seed somewhere safe. Yet, no diversion of any kind happens.
*As Cade and Savoy grapple in the apartment, Cade jams his thumb deep into Savoy's eye socket (see right), with accompanying "squlech" sound effect, and appropriate reaction from Savoy in the form of a long howl of pain through gritted teeth and a string of drool flowing uncontrolled from his mouth. But as soon as the two separate, Savoy's eye is absolutely fine, with no indication anything is supposed to have happened to it.
*While Lockdown is pulling up parts of the city, Shane backs the car into a building which is two stories high at most, but appears much larger on the inside.

{{-}}

===Technical/animation errors===
*The shot right before the close-up of the cyberformed dinosaurs has no cyberformed dinosaurs at all, despite having all the excavation vehicles in the same positions as the next scene.
* Arcee is seen on Attinger's cards misspelled as "Acree".
*When Attinger takes over the operation to scramble Cemetery Wind after Optimus, and dismisses everyone in the room, he does so by saying "Ladies and gentlemen, this room is going dark. The exit is on your left." All the people then get up and begin to exit to their ''right''.
*Scrambling Cemetery Wind seems to scramble the timeline. From the deployment of Cemetery Wind to Lucas's death, the time of day is in limbo. For example, Optimus escapes from the Yeager property at sunset, joining the pursuit that takes place in early afternoon, not to mention that Cemetery Wind arrives at the Yeagers' home town at what appears to be dawn. In some instances, repeated changes between shots correspond with changes between different times of day, as different positions of the sun result in very very obviously different lighting conditions.
*When Lockdown transforms to prepare for the attack on Optimus, one can clearly see a faux-part Lamborghini logo pop out from inside the car, while the actual logo disappears.
*In the shot of Shane's car pulling up outside of the Yeager farm after Cemetery Wind has stormed in, nobody is seen inside the vehicle.
*During the scene where Cade is pretending to be a truck driver with Optimus still in his flat-nose truck form, he has a cap and white plaid shirt on. After Optimus scans into his newer form, Cade's back to wearing his leather jacket.
*When Shane's car gets sideswiped in the cornfield, the back left window is shattered. A couple scenes later, the window is just rolled down.
*When Shane's car breaks into a building, the woman sitting right in the middle of the room is clearly waiting on the glass-breaking noise to start running.
*After Lucas' death, there is nothing really stopping Lockdown or Cemetery Wind from continuing to chase Optimus. Lockdown is much faster and could easily catch up to Optimus whilst Cemetery Wind could chase in their remaining vehicles.
*When Optimus transforms to and from his Marmon 97 alternate mode, the windows and grille that make up his chest visibly change size and shape.
*When Optimus transforms out of his flat-nosed truck mode and punches the ground, Tessa and Shane are standing next to each other, as viewed from behind Optimus. When the view immediately switches to be facing Optimus, Cade is suddenly standing between the two.
*Shane defends his relationship with Tessa by stating that the 'Romeo and Juliet laws' "statute 2705-3" protect their relationship, yet the card he shows Cade reads "Statute 22.011". This is also the number that appears in the English subtitles of the DVD, meaning that it was scripted as 22.011 and not 2705-3.
*The truck that Optimus scans, while still being from the Western Star manufacturer, is an older and different model than the one he transforms into.
*When Optimus is on his way to the reunion site, the human characters inside are sitting this way: Shane to the right, Tessa in the Middle and Cade to the left. However when Optimus gets to the reunion point Cade comes out of the truck using Shane's side door (right) instead of his (left). It is clear they (the director and his crew) were trying to get a "superhero" pose but it doesn't make sense.
*When Optimus arrived to the reunion site you can see the filming crew in the reflection of his front chrome parts.
*Hound's dialogue when he's bickering with Drift doesn't really match up to what we see. Drift pulls his swords on Hound, but the big guy goads him on to "pull it", suggesting Drift was originally supposed to aim a firearm at him.
[[File:Uncolored Ratchet head prop.jpg‎|thumb|upright=1.67|Gray is the new green.]]
*When Joshua is in the lab showing Darcy Transformium, in two different shots, a gray, uncolored prop of Ratchet's head can be seen being worked on in the next room.
*As Cade's drone scans a KSI employee's name tag, it displays its location onscreen as around N 38°44'55", W115°28'27". These coordinates are for a [https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B044%2755.0%22N+115%C2%B028%2727.0%22W/@38.7486111,-115.4741667,3048m patch of desert in Nevada] rather than any place in Chicago.
*While first infiltrating KSI, in the showroom where Stinger is first viewed, Bumblebee is in car mode when Joshua walks in with Yueming. Bumblebee's engine audibly revs, yet Joshua doesn't notice that there's no one in the car to rev the engine.
[[File:Megatron Head at KSI.jpg|right|upright=1.4|thumb|Screw logic!]]
*Megatron's severed head is in somewhat good shape for someone who got an axe stabbed on the top of his head. Furthermore, his head is more in line with its appearance in the first movie not ''Dark of the Moon''.
*Not to mention, after Joshua's group leaves and Bumblebee knocks Stinger down, there's no transformation noise right before Bumblebee returns to his altmode and the KSI executive walks in. Additionally, Bumblebee starts playing M.C. Hammer's "U Can't Touch This", '''when no one is in the car''' to turn the stereo on. Ostensibly it was for a comic moment, but it didn't raise anyone's suspicions that a car that wasn't typical of the ones being scanned, operating the engine and the stereo with no human inside, might be a disguised Cybertronian?
*After Bumblebee scans his new alternate mode, the camera pans over the car and Tessa and Shane are not inside. However when he's getting his new upgraded form you can see that they used stunt doubles for Shane and Tessa. That scene wasn't dangerous enough to require stunt doubles, was it?
*Some security guards in KSI fail to react to Crosshairs's shooting and shouting until a few seconds before the scene changes.
*When Galvatron first transforms and crashes into a truck, the way he is composed in the scene makes it look like he is simply floating above the wreckage, instead of being in the middle causing it.
*When Optimus transforms, Cade and Shane leap out of Optimus, while Tessa is trapped and rolls away. However, previous shots establish that the seating order in Optimus is Shane, Tessa, Cade. This means that Cade crawled over his daughter to escape(!), which is not quite logical or possible.
*Lockdown fires two missiles at Optimus Prime that, despite piercing his chest, don't manifest any kind of visible damage on his person, despite the previous shot showing Optimus's chest getting blown apart.
*When Lockdown is approaching Optimus after gunning him down, the driver's door of the Cadillac SRX he's resting on is shown to be open in two exterior shots, even though Tessa previously closed it after getting inside, and it's also shown closed in other (mostly interior) shots.
*When he loses his grip on the net holding Optimus and the car containing Tessa, Cade is shown falling toward the street, but he lands on the grass by the road.
*When the Autobots are on a bridge, before boarding Lockdown's ship, Crosshairs is clearly shown to be speaking but no dialogue is heard.
*When Tessa gets taken to the trash in Lockdown's ship, a green screen can be seen at the end of the corridor.
*While locking up Optimus, Lockdown's scar is on the left side of his face. While talking to Savoy upon delivering the seed, it's on the right side of his face; however, it switches back to the left side right before he walks off after bidding Earth farewell.
*While the human characters are climbing across the anchor cables to the high-rise building some of the Steeljaws begin to climb out after them. Cade tells his daughter not to look back and see them, but when we cut back to her, with a clear view of the cables behind her, the Steeljaws are gone.
*When Bumblebee jumps off Lockdown's ship to save the humans, he is followed by a Steeljaw. In the following shot, the Steeljaw is gone.
*While explaining Megatron's plans to the Autobots, Brains rings a bell on a train. In the next shot, the bell is not moving.
*During the motorcycle chase, the CIA cars change. At first, Joshua and Su are trailed by a Cadillac and an Audi; in the middle of the chase, the Cadillac is replaced by another Audi. By the end of the chase, the Cadillac is back.
*In Hong Kong, when Cade, Joshua, Tessa, and Shane enter the elevator to run away from the rooftop, the elevator won't move and Cade says it's overloaded. But in the next scene, we see that the maximum number of people that the elevator can carry is nine, and it's very clear that the Seed doesn't weight as much as five people.
*Shortly after Grimlock begins fighting Optimus, he swings his weapons at him but continuously misses, hitting the ground instead which causes several explosions. How these explosions occurred as a result of the weapons hitting the ground is unknown, as it is physically impossible - but if you're wondering ''why'' it occurred, [[Michael Bay|here's why]].
*When Grimlock transforms to his dino mode and charges at Optimus, there are no other Dinobots, nor the ship, to be seen in the background. However, after Optimus punches Grimlock and the shot changes, Dinobots are standing almost right next to him.
*Optimus somehow has enough strength to not only maintain his ground, but propel Grimlock through the air during his charge. Considering Grimlock's strength, velocity and weight, it is highly unlikely Optimus would win.
*Immediately after he transforms into his triceratops mode, Slug is shown to have a very visible Autobot logo on his dino-mode forehead, yet he just met Optimus and the other Autobots moments before.
*One of the air conditioning units kicked off the building exterior by Savoy falls away to reveal ... a solid wall, with no connection to an apartment's interior.
*During Hound's stand in Hong Kong, the pickup truck he uses as a shield sways left to right whilst his arm remains still.
*The damage Hound receives after being shot down, most noticeably the pipe on his left shoulder, is fixed in subsequent shots.
*Crosshairs is seen driving alongside Drift and Hound through the bridge to take the Seed away from the city ... right after we just saw him staying behind to hold the line with the Dinobots.
*During the final fight, Bumblebee decides to just leave midway. Considering the distance between the factory and the dock where they met, he must have left long before Optimus flew there.
*After Optimus takes off, the other Autobots are absent from the shot of the main cast watching Optimus fly off.

===Geographic discontinuities===
*When Cade tries to use his card at an ATM, not only is the card issued from a Chinese bank, which wouldn't have any branches in north Texas, where the Yeagers live, the text on the ATM screen (behind the ''Access Denied'' warning) is in Chinese.
*Despite being from north Texas, Cade and Tessa have no Texas accents- not all Texans have noticeable accents of course, but Cade can be heard speaking with a slight ''Boston'' accent in the trainyard ("I'm doing stuff out of my league here!"), which is likely due to his portrayer, Mark Wahlberg, being a Boston native.
*Despite the KSI pursuit scene taking place on a two lane highway, there are several scenes spliced in of the Transformers with supercar alt modes (like Stinger and Crosshairs) driving on what is obviously a racecourse (specifically the GM proving grounds in Milford, Michigan). This is apparent by the horizontal incline of the road in some of the shots that are also missing the markings that would normally be on a road, and a reaction shot for Stinger that shows a straight, one lane ninety degree turn.
*The entirety of the KSI pursuit scene switches between taking place between the left and right sides of the two-lane highway, despite being only supposed to take place on the right side. Furthermore, the shot showing stray missiles colliding with oncoming traffic takes place on a completely different highway, one with five lanes instead of three and a wooden fence on the side of the street as opposed to a guardrail. Moreover; the car crashing stunt for the bridge jump scene starts on the five lane highway, continues on the left side of the three lane highway, and then finishes on the ''right side'' of the three lane highway. Trouble finding shots, eh?
*All of the vehicles seen in Hong Kong are left-hand drive, rather than the right-hand drive you'd expect in a location that drives on the left.
*Some scenes supposed to take place in Hong Kong depict a very distinctively American city with traffic lights suspended by wires above the street.
*Chicago's Willis Tower can be seen in the background of Hong Kong.
*The bridge out of the city shown in the film (Tsing Ma Bridge) is at least a half-hour drive from the battlefield in Central.
*Furthermore, despite Optimus's comment, there are no bridges connecting Hong Kong Island (where all the action allegedly takes place) to the mainland. The only way to get off Hong Kong Island (other than by boat or swimming) is via one of three tunnels, none of which are used, referenced or mentioned in the film.
*Speaking of bridges, Tsing Ma Bridge (the gray version of the Golden Gate Bridge) shown in the movie is effectively a dead end unless one is going to the airport or Disneyland, because it only leads to/from Lantau Island.
*The bridge where Grimlock "digs in" is an expressway bypass. Geographically defending it is pointless as there are multiple other routes (including at least one that is faster) to bypass the bridge and tunnel yet end up at the same place on the other side.
*In one of the fight scenes there is an overhead railway (the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_People_Mover Detroit People Mover]). There are no overhead railways on Hong Kong Island (yet) and the MTR (the subway train network) trains look nothing like the train used in the scenes, as they are a completely different shape and color.
*There are no "glass houses" on Hong Kong Island.
*There are no Chinese temple ruins on Hong Kong Island. The temples there are all intact and frequently used or preserved and don't have giant metal umbrellas ''at all''.
*The area where Optimus battles and "tames" Grimlock is in the Wushan Valley in Northern China which is over 1100 km from Hong Kong, yet is depicted as being in Pok Fu Lam on the South Western side of Hong Kong Island (which is a high rise residential area). Even flying it would take well over 2 hours to get from Wushan Valley to Hong Kong.
*It's not possible to drive a car from Beijing into Hong Kong, as the number plates would be invalid, and it would take over a day to drive that distance. Chinese vehicles coming into Hong Kong have to be from the Canton area (number plates are black) and have to be registered with Hong Kong plates, which means they must display both plates at all times one above the other. (In addition, the process to obtain permission for a car to have that is also lengthy and costly.)
*The blue SUV used by Cade and his companions is not a type of vehicle that exists in Hong Kong. In addition, its steering wheel is located on the left side, even though cars in Hong Kong have their steering wheels on the right side.
*Optimus Prime's Western Star alternate mode would be illegal to drive on Hong Kong roads, since it's is oversized. The Freightliner truck used for Galvatron is the maximum size/gauge allowed on Hong Kong roads. All scenes with Optimus driving in truck mode were filmed elsewhere, the Western Star truck was never brought to Hong Kong. Even his previous Peterbilt alternate mode would be illegal in Hong Kong.
*The area depicted as the final battle scene where Optimus and Lockdown face off was digitally added on the map of Hong Kong shown in the movie. It doesn't exist at all in real life, where it's actually a breakwater/typhoon shelter full of boats on Victora Harbour. In addition, the factories in Hong Kong (which are all located on Kowloon, because Hong Kong Island is purely a residential/business/shopping district) look nothing like the buildings used in the scene.

===[[Dinobot Island, Part 1|Paleontology weeps]]===
*The cyberformed remains of a ''Tyrannosaurus'' and a ''Spinosaurus'' appear frozen together in the arctic at the beginning of the film, which is rather odd considering the two are found on different continents (North America and Africa respectively) and separated by around 35 million years of evolution.
[[File:ExtinctionOfTheDinosaurus.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|And another thing! How is that sauropod running!?!]]
*The opening scene of the movie shows a ''Psittaccosaurus'' (100-120 million years old), a generic hadrosaur that might be either an ''Edmontosaurus'' or a ''Shantungosaurus'' (65-70 million years old), and a brachiosaurid (100-157 million years old) all present during what is implied to be the K-Pg extinction event (64.5-65 million years old).
*The ''Psittaccosaurus'', a well known herbivorous animal, is seen actively hunting and killing live prey. In a nod to paleontological accuracy, however, it is depicted with a row of quill-like feathers along its back, as many ceratopsian dinosaurs are believed to have had.
*The Dinobots show various exaggerations and ornamentations which go beyond the usual suspension of disbelief involved in... [[Dinobot (disambiguation)|giant metal dinosaurs]]. Grimlock sports curved, backwards pointing horns and enormous fangs. Slug has huge tail spikes and a set of nasty chin horns, though his tail spikes could be a mechanised representation of the bristle-like fibres that triceratops currently is thought to have had. Strafe is the biggest offender, with a pair of elongated tails and twin heads with teeth and incorrectly-shaped crests and grasping talons. Scorn probably gets off the easiest, being ''mostly'' correct, bar his extra spines. It's not his fault that a few months after the release of the movie, the morphology of ''Spinosaurus'' was completely revised, with a different spine shape and shorter legs.
* The Dinobots' alternate modes are orders of magnitude larger than the real dinosaurs on which they're based. In an interesting twist, using Optimus as a proxy for the average human, all the Dinobots bar Strafe have been accurately scaled up. At 850 tonnes <ref name="Grimlock stats">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/entertainment-weekly-reveals-new-details-on-transformers-4-age-of-extinction-new-grimlock-image-179675] summarised on TFW2005.</ref> Grimlock is as large compared to Optimus as a real ''Tyrannosaurus'' would be next to a human.

==Transformers references==

* As usual, many of the new characters have roots in older portions of the mythos:
** [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] is based on [[Drift (G1)|a Generation 1 character]] introduced in IDW's 2008 ''[[The Transformers: All Hail Megatron|All Hail Megatron]]'' series.
** Lockdown is derived from [[Lockdown (Animated)|a character in the 2008 ''Animated'' cartoon]] who had already jumped over to the G1 comics and, in toy form, to the movie universe.
** [[Hound (disambiguation)|Hound]] and [[Crosshairs (disambiguation)|Crosshairs]] both share names with previous characters; their personalities are new and unique, though Hound seems based on [[Bulkhead (Prime)|''Prime'' Bulkhead]] in physique, coloration and personality.
** Galvatron being a new form for Megatron has been a thing for [[Galvatron (disambiguation)|basically forever]]. With Joyce's intentions of creating him as a counterpart to Optimus Prime, he also takes cues from [[Nemesis Prime (disambiguation)|Nemesis Prime]]; in particular the human-controlled ''[[Transformers: Prime (cartoon)|Prime]]'' [[Nemesis Prime (Prime)|character]].
** The Dinobots are the latest iteration of [[Dinobot (G1)|the powerhouse subfaction]] that first appeared in the early days of Generation 1. Their leader Grimlock is a direct analog of [[Grimlock (G1)|his Generation 1 counterpart]]; Strafe and Slug are based on Generation 1 [[Swoop (G1)|Swoop]] and [[Slag (G1)|Slag]], respectively.
* In the film's opening act, Optimus has adopted a cabover truck alternate mode akin to that of his [[Optimus Prime (G1)|G1 counterpart]]. His robot mode also draws some inspiration from his G1 design, such as the large grill on his chest.
* This is not the first time that Ratchet and Lockdown have faced off. ''Animated'' [[Ratchet (Animated)|Ratchet]] and [[Lockdown (Animated)|Lockdown]] had [[The Thrill of the Hunt|a long-running feud]]. Within the movie universe, the two characters have been described as rivals on ''[[Hunt for the Decepticons]]'' toy [[packaging]] [[bio]]s, and faced off in ''[[Cyber Missions 3]]''.
* The concept of the Transformers being built by another race first appeared in the third season of [[The Transformers (cartoon)|the original ''Transformers'' cartoon]].
* Meanwhile, the concept of humans hunting down all Transformers on Earth following a successful but devastating massive battle hearkens back to plotlines from IDW's [[The Transformers (IDW)|2009-2011 ongoing series]].
* The (rather obvious) theme of humans (particularly evil government agencies) using captured Transformers as a source of technology has appeared numerous times in the mythos, going all the way back to the [[Rapid Anti-robot Assault Team|RAAT]] agency in the original Marvel Comics. [[Transformers Animated (cartoon)|The ''Animated'' cartoon]] in particular featured the severed head of [[Megatron (Animated)|Megatron]] being studied and reverse-engineered, while in IDW's ongoing G1 stories, [[Sunstreaker (G1)|a Transformer's severed head]] was used to help design man-made Transformers (in [[The Transformers: Maximum Dinobots|a Dinobot-focused series at that]].) More broad uses of the concept include the Dreamwave ''[[Prime Directive]]'' mini-series, Devils Due's ''[[G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers: The Art of War|Art of War]]'' mini-series (''again'' featuring the severed head of [[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]]), the [[The Transformers (IDW)|IDW ongoing series]], [[All or Nothing!|Cobra's actions in the G2 comics]], [[MECH]] from the [[Transformers: Prime (cartoon)|''Prime'' cartoon]], and even in the movie universe itself, in IDW's ''[[Transformers: Alliance|Alliance]]'' mini-series that served as a prequel to the ''Revenge of the Fallen'' film. The idea of the (seemingly) human-controlled Transformers eventually proving to be uncontrollable was also pioneered by some of these stories, most notably Dreamwave's aforementioned ''Prime Directive'' mini.
* A device that can "[[eco-structuring|cyberform]]" other planets previously appeared in several places in the mythos, including in the original ''Transformers'' cartoon's [[Key to Vector Sigma (disambiguation)|Key to Vector Sigma]] two-parter and the aforementioned Dreamwave ''Prime Directive'' mini. In both cases, it was actually activated, unlike its movie counterpart.
* The idea of aliens and/or alien technology being found frozen in the arctic or Antarctic ice is a very common trope in fiction; in terms of Transformers, the first use of the trope was [[Jetfire (G1)|Skyfire]] in the original cartoon's [[Fire in the Sky]]. A discovery specifically at the hands of ''humans'' was a plot point in the aforementioned Dreamwave ''Prime Directive'' mini, not to mention [[Transformers (film)|the discovery of]] [[Megatron (Movie)|N.B.E. 01]]. Or the [[Scraplet]]s.
* The ringtone on Gill Wembley's cell phone is a remixed version of the original G1 Transformers [[theme song]].
* As he hunts for Ratchet, Lockdown's head-up display shows characters in [[Cybertronian language|Ancient Autobot]], an alphabet originating in the Generation 1 episode "[[Cosmic Rust (episode)|Cosmic Rust]]".
* In the scene where Optimus scans a passing truck, the classic [[Transformation#The noise|transformation noise]] plays when the Autobot symbol emerges from his grill.
*During the Texas chase scene, Shane, Cade, and Tessa drive past a navy-blue Pontiac Solstice with a white stripe down the middle. The Pontiac Solstice was Jazz's alternate mode in the first film. Also, the car is a reversal of Jazz's 1980's color scheme, which was white with a navy blue stripe down the middle. Since the Pontiac Solstice was not being produced at the time of the movie's production, the car's presence is definitely a reference, although the color scheme might just be a coincidence.
*The scene where Galvatron goes active and breaks free in KSI's Chinese facility mirrors the scene in the 2007 ''Transformers'' movie when Megatron breaks free inside [[Sector Seven]]'s facility, down to a reuse of the line "I am Megatron", only with the name changed to "Galvatron".

==Real-life references==
[[File:Rainbow Dash Age of Extinction.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|"I found the magic!"]]

*Among the objects KSI makes from Transformium in the film is a Rainbow Dash doll from [[My Little Pony|another popular Hasbro brand]].
*This marks the second time a Michael Bay film has begun with the extinction of the dinosaurs, the first being ''[[Armageddon]]''.

==Other editions==

==Prequel material==
*''[[Transformers (Titan Magazine)|Transformers: Age of Extinction]]'' magazine ([[Titan Books|Titan Comics]])

==Adaptations==
Unusually, no novel or comic adaptations of the film were released. The ''[[Transformers Annual 2015]]'' contained an extremely cut down prose summary of events.

==Music==
==Score==
{{main|Age of Extinction: The Score}}

==Home video releases==
{{main|Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)/home video}}

==Theatrical posters==
<center><gallery>
File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionTeaserPoster.jpg|First teaser poster
File:Transformers- Age of ExtinctionOptimusPrimePoster.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction poster-IMAX.jpg|IMAX poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Cade poster.jpg|Cade Yeager poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Shane poster.jpg|Shane Dyson poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Tessa poster.jpg|Tessa Yeager poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Su poster.jpg|Su Yueming poster
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Lockdown poster.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Rules Have Changed.jpg|It's a scene not in the movie!
File:Transformers Age of Extinction This Is Not War.jpg|This is not human extinction, it's just war.
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Stand Together1.jpg
File:Transformers Age of Extinction Stand Together2.jpg|"Now look down. Now look at me. I'm on a dinosaur."
</gallery></center>

==Reception==

{{quote|"The few authentic inspirations to be found in the movie's hundred and sixty-five roiling minutes involve gigantic science-fiction contrivances."|[http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/film/transformers_age_of_extinction_bay The New Yorker's Richard Brody on Transformers 4: Age of Extinction], Richard Brody|[http://newyorker.com newyorker.com] [[2014]]}}

''Transformers: Age of Extinction'' was critically panned, and nearly universally condemned on the American front, receiving a rating of 18% positive critical reviews on RottenTomatoes.com, one percent lower than the final score for ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]]''. Common criticisms leveled against it included its relatively long run time of 2 hours and 45 minutes, the disproportionately small amount of screen time the Dinobots got in relation to their relatively large exposure in promotional materials for the film, an over-reliance on product placement, and the decision to set the final act in Hong Kong, which was perceived as a choice solely done to pander towards the Chinese audience for the film. However, the film received praise for its visual effects, action sequences, and the performances of some of the human actors, mainly Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, and Kelsey Grammer.<ref>http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_age_of_extinction/</ref> Despite any criticisms, the film was the worldwide top-grossing film for 2014, earning over a billion dollars.<ref>[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?view2=worldwide&yr=2014 Box Office Mojo's 2014 Worldwide Grosses]</ref>

It [[wikipedia:35th_Golden_Raspberry_Awards|won one Golden Raspberry Award]] for Worst Director ([[Michael Bay]]), was one of four movies contributing to [[Kelsey Grammer]]'s Worst Supporting Actor win (along with ''{{w|The Expendables 3}}'', ''{{w|Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return}}'' and ''{{w|Think Like a Man Too}}''), and was unsuccessfully nominated for Worst Picture; Worst Supporting Actress ([[Nicola Peltz]] as [[Tessa Yeager]]); Worst Screen Combo ("Any two robots, actors (or robotic actors)"); Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel; and Worst Screenplay ("screenplay by [[Ehren Kruger]], based on Hasbro's Transformers action figures").

==Production staff==
''Age of Extinction'' was written by [[Ehren Kruger]], who also wrote ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'' and helped write ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]]''.
===Visual effects===
===Locations department===

==Development details==
===Cast and crew signing on===
On June 26, 2011, thirteen days before the official theatrical release of ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'', actor [[Tyrese Gibson]] gave an interview to Movieweb, in which he claimed that [[Michael Bay]] would not return for a fourth ''Transformers'' installment; instead, executive producer [[Steven Spielberg]] himself was allegedly interested in directing a sequel.<ref name="tyresemovieweb">[http://movieweb.com/exclusive-steven-spielberg-may-direct-transformers-4/ Movieweb interview with Tyrese Gibson], with several names missing from the text; the full excerpt in question is quoted [http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/rumor-transformers-4-directed-by-steven-spielberg-172501/ here] on TFW2005.</ref> Ten days later, on June 26, 2011, still three days before the official theatrical release of ''Dark of the Moon'', Michael Bay posted praise for actor [[Shia LaBeouf]] on his official forums, while at the same time expressing regret for leaving the ''Transformers'' franchise.<ref name="bayshialeaving">[http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?9502-Love-Shia-as-an-Actor Michael Bay's praise for Shia LaBeouf]] at the official Michael Bay forums.</ref> Another two days later, on June 28, 2011, LaBeouf confirmed that ''Dark of the Moon'' would definitely be his last ''Transformers'' film, as he didn't think there was "anywhere to take" his character of [[Sam Witwicky (Movie)|Sam Witwicky]].<ref name="endshia">[http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/06/28/transformers-dark-of-the-moon-shia-labeouf/ "'Transformers: Dark Of The Moon' Is The End For Shia LaBeouf"], MTV Movies Blog.</ref>

Eight months later, on February 13, 2012, producer [[Lorenzo di Bonaventura]] gave an interview during [[Toy Fair 2012]], in which he confirmed that a fourth film was scheduled for a release in the Summer of 2014, Michael Bay would direct it after all, and that the movie would be a "reboot". He promptly clarified that it was actually a "hybrid", an "evolution" of the franchise that would be in continuity with the previous films, citing 2012's ''[[Wikipedia:The Amazing Spider-Man (2012 film)|The Amazing Spider-Man]]'' reboot of the ''[[Spider-Man]]'' film franchise as an example of what people should ''not'' expect from a fourth ''Transformers'' film. Di Bonaventura also confirmed that no casting discussions had taken place yet at that point, since there was no set story yet. However, there would be "a lot of new cast", and it was still uncertain at that point whether any of the previous cast members would return. The only characters that would "certainly" return wold be [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]] and [[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]].<ref name="lorenzointerview">["http://www.mtv.com/videos/movies/733426/a-new-transformers-to-hit-theaters-in-summer-2014.jhtml "a new 'transformers' to hit theaters in summer 2014"], interview with Lorenzo Di Bonaventura at MTV.com.</ref> A day later, on February 14, 2012, Bay himself and [[Paramount Pictures]] officially announced that Bay had indeed signed a deal to make a fourth ''Transformers'' film. The film's release date was stated alternatively as either June 27 or June 29, 2014.<ref name="bayfourthfilm1">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/transformers-4-release-date-revealed-174395/ "Transformers 4 Release Date Revealed"] at TFW2005.</ref><ref name="bayfourthfilm">[http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-17028248 "Transformers director Michael Bay signs for fourth film"], BBC.co.uk.</ref> That same day, Bay also confirmed that he and Spielberg were working on a "whole new re imagining{{sic}} of ''Transformers''".<ref name="reimagining">[http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?10284-Transformers-4 Michael Bay confirming that ''Transformers 4'' would be a "reimaginging"] at the official Michael Bay forums.</ref> Two days later, on February 16, 2012, actor [[Josh Duhamel]] expressed his doubts that he, Shia LaBeouf, [[Rosie Huntington-Whiteley]] or Tyrese Gibson would return for the fourth installment.<ref name="noshiarosie">[http://eonline.com/news/294791/josh-duhamel-not-coming-back-for-transformers-4-is-anyone "Josh Duhamel Not Coming Back for Transformers 4: Is Anyone?!"] at E! Online.</ref>

Four months later, on June 6, 2012, Michael Bay confirmed in an interview centered around ''[[Transformers: The Ride – 3D|Transformers: The Ride]]'' that the fourth film would feature "some redesigns of the robots and an entirely new cast", and that it would be the last ''Transformers'' film he would direct.<ref name="ride">[http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/transformers-the-ride-3d-even-impresses-disney-rivals/ "‘Transformers’ taking new shape with Universal ride and fourth film"], LA Times Hero Complex.</ref> A few weeks later, on June 21, 2012, Bay confirmed that the fourth film would feature "different human actors", but the film would not be strictly a "reboot", but rather take the story "in a new direction". While hinting that the story might venture into space for "a little bit", he still wanted to keep it "grounded".<ref name="starsspace">[http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/transformers-4-michael-bay-purges-stars-may-go-into-space/ "‘Transformers 4’: Michael Bay purges stars, may go into space"], LA Times Hero Complex.</ref>

[[File:TF4 Chinese Reality Show contestants.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|If ''Age of Extinction'' teaches us anything, it's that more movies should be cast using reality shows.]]On September 21, 2012, Michael Bay confirmed the first "cast" member for the film in the broadest sense, namely the fact that voice actor [[Peter Cullen]] would be kept on as [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]. He also confirmed that the film would ''not'' be a reboot, but would pick up the story from where ''Dark of the Moon'' had left off in [[Chicago]].<ref name="cullen">[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/michael-bay-transformers-4-pain-and-gain_n_1903523.html "Michael Bay, 'Transformers 4' Director, On The Struggles Of 'Pain & Gain'"], Huffington Post interview.</ref> One and a half months later, on November 8, 2012, Bay confirmed [[Mark Wahlberg]] as the first human cast member<ref name="wahlberg">[http://michaelbay.com/2012/11/08/michael-bay-re-teams-with-his-pain-gain-star-mark-wahlberg-for-transformers-4/ "Michael Bay Re-Teams With His 'Pain & Gain' Star Mark Wahlberg for Transformers 4"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref>, after having referred to such claims as "just a rumor" a mere month earlier.<ref name="baynowahlberg">[http://michaelbay.com/2012/10/23/transformers-4-casting-rumor/ "Transformers 4 Casting Rumor"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref> On December 15, 2012, Wahlberg himself confirmed that filming would commence in May 2013.<ref name="wahlbergmay">[http://collider.com/ted-2-sequel-mark-wahlberg-transformers-4/218011/ "Mark Wahlberg Talks TED 2, TRANSFORMERS 4, and PAIN AND GAIN; Says TF Starts Shooting in May Followed By TED Sequel"], interview with Collider.com.</ref> Another month later, on January 8, 2013, Irish American actor [[Jack Reynor]] was confirmed as the second human cast member.<ref name="reynor">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jack-reynor-lands-starring-role-409850 "Jack Reynor Lands Starring Role in 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter.</ref> [[Nicola Peltz]] was confirmed on March 26, 2013<ref name="welcomepeltz">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/03/26/welcome-nicola-peltz-to-transformers-4/ "Welcome Nicola Peltz to Transformers 4"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref>, followed by [[Stanley Tucci]] (confirmed to be an antagonist) on April 16, 2013.<ref name="tucci">[http://www.comingsoon.net/news/cinemaconnews.php?id=103034 "CinemaCon: Stanley Tucci Joins Transformers 4"]</ref>, [[Kelsey Grammer]] as a lead (human) villain named "Harold Attinger" on May 1, 2013<ref name="grammerattinger">[http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/kelsey-grammer-lands-lead-human-villain-in-transformers-sequel/ "Kelsey Grammer Lands Lead (Human) Villain In ‘Transformers’ Sequel"] at Deadline.com.</ref>, [[Sophia Myles]] as a scientist on May 6, 2013<ref name="mylesscientist">[http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/sophia-myles-join-mark-wahlberg-michael-bays-transformers-4-exclusive-89661 "Sophia Myles to Join Mark Wahlberg in Michael Bay's 'Transformers 4' (Exclusive)"] at TheWrap.com.</ref>, Chinese actress [[Li Bingbing]] in an at that point still unspecified role on May 20, 2013<ref name="bingbing">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chinas-li-bingbing-boards-transformers-525370 "China's Li Bingbing Boards 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter</ref>, and actor-comedian [[T. J. Miller]] as a mechanic and best friend to Wahlberg's character on May 28, 2013.<ref name="miller">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/tj-miller-joins-transformers-4-559359 "T.J. Miller Joins 'Transformers 4'"] at Hollywood Reporter.</ref> [[Titus Welliver]] wasn't officially confirmed until July 25, 2013, after he had been spotted on set in Texas.<ref name="welliver">[http://www.deadline.com/2013/07/transformers-4-adds-titus-welliver/ "‘Transformers 4′ Adds Titus Welliver"], Deadline.com.</ref> In the lead-up to the release of the movie, Welliver would stir up a minor controversy with an interview in which he stated that the film would be darker and "not a kid's movie". Following a storm of online discussion regarding this statement, he issued a new statement to the effect that ''Age of Extinction'' is in fact a kid's movie, and he meant to say it would expand the audience.<ref name="nerdist">[https://www.nerdist.com/2014/02/titus-welliver-talks-about-transformers-4-and-clark-greggs-s-h-i-e-l-d-comments/ Titus Welliver Talks About TRANSFORMERS 4 and Clark Gregg’s S.H.I.E.L.D. Comments], Nerdist.com.</ref>

A rather unusual addition to the cast were [[Byron Li]], [[Candice Zhao]], [[Austin Lin]] and [[Teresa Daley]], which won their part through participating in the ''[[Transformers 4 Chinese Actors Talent Search Reality Show]]'' on August 25, 2013.<ref name="reality">[http://beijing.china.org.cn/2013-08/28/content_29845758.htm "'Transformers 4' recruits 4 Chinese actors"], China.org.cn.</ref>

The remaining robot voice cast (barring Optimus Prime) wasn't officially revealed until May 8, 2014.<ref name="voicecast">[http://michaelbay.com/2014/05/08/john-goodman-and-ken-watanabe-join-the-autobot-voice-cast-in-michael-bays-transformers-age-of-extinction/ "John Goodman And Ken Watanabe Join The Autobot Voice Cast in Michael Bay’s ‘Transformers: Age Of Extinction’"] at the official Michael Bay website.</ref>

===Writing and production===
On March 20, 2013, the Michigan Film Office announced that the fourth film would return to [[Detroit]].<ref name="michigan">[http://www.michiganfilmoffice.org/The-Film-Office/Press-Releases/Detail.aspx?id=11620 "Transformers Returning to Michigan, Approved for Film Incentive" at the Michigan Film Office website.]</ref> Principal photography began on May 28, 2013, at [[Wikipedia:Monument Valley|Monument Valley]].<ref name="monument">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/05/28/transformers-4-starts-filming-in-monument-valley-navajo-tribal-park/ "Transformers 4 Starts Filming in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park"], on Michael Bay's official site.</ref> Other shooting locations were the small towns of Lockhart, Taylor, Elgin and Pflugerville in Texas.<ref name="texas">[http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/movies/headlines/20130426-fourth-transformers-film-to-shoot-in-texas.ece "Fourth ‘Transformers’ film to shoot in Texas"] at Dallas Morning News.</ref> Shooting in Michigan involved two historic passenger steamboats, the ''[[Wikipedia:SS_Columbia|SS Columbia]]'' and her sister ship, the ''[[Wikipedia:Ste. Claire (passenger steamboat)|SS Ste. Claire]]'', which were docked in [[Wikipedia:River Rouge, Michigan|River Rouge]] awaiting restoration at the time being used as props.<ref name="boblo">[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/story/2013/07/26/wdr-boblo-boats-transformers-four.html "Historic Boblo boats land role in Transformers 4"], CBC News.</ref> While shooting in Detroit, Mark Wahlberg's children visited the set and were given small parts in the movie upon their father's request.<ref name="wahlkids">[http://comicbook.com/blog/2013/07/30/mark-wahlbergs-kids-cast-in-transformers-4/ "Mark Wahlberg's Kids Cast In Transformers 4"], Comicbook.com.</ref>

[[File:AOE Michael Bay Nicola Peltz on set.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Michael Bay uses his legendary charm to get the very best performance out of his actors.]]
Due to an increased focus of Hollywood studios trying to market its movies to the Chinese audience, parts of the movie were not only set in China, but actually filmed there. One of the shooting sites was Hong Kong. While there, the movie crew encountered the risks of shooting a movie in China firsthand when director Michael Bay was assaulted on the set by two locals demanding money; according to some sources, they were store owners that were not satisfied with the compensation they received for the inconvenience of having a movie filming nearby. Bay received minor injuries, but played the incident off on his blog. Both he and an official Paramount statement suggested that the assailants were under the influence of drugs.<ref name="attack1">[http://deadline.com/2013/10/hong-kong-police-called-to-transformers-4-set-amid-alleged-extortion-attempt-report-613912/ "Extortion Attempt On ‘Transformers 4′ Set; Michael Bay Suffers Minor Injury: Report"], Deadline.com.</ref><ref name="attack2">[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-bay-attacked-transformers-4-649183 "Michael Bay Attacked on 'Transformers 4' Set in Hong Kong"], Hollywood Reporter.</ref><ref name="attack3">[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-24566287 "Transformers director Michael Bay attacked in Hong Kong"], BBC.</ref name="attack4">[http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/michael-bay-attacked-on-transformers-hong-kong-film-shoot-1.2100953 "Michael Bay attacked on Transformers Hong Kong film shoot"], CBC News.</ref><ref name="attack5">[http://michaelbay.com/2013/10/17/hong-kong-incident/ "Hong Kong Incident"] on Michael Bay's official Blog.</ref> A second extortion attempt occured several days later, this time allegedly by several triad gang members. Although one of them was later arrested, no-one was injured this time around.<ref name="extortion2">[http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-bay-transformers-4hong-kong-second-extortion-incident-2013-10?IR=T "More Trouble For 'Transformers 4' In Hong Kong As Second Extortion Attempt Reported"], Business Insider.</ref><ref name="extortion3">[http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/25/world/asia/hong-kong-transformers-triad-extortion/ "Transformers versus the triads of Hong Kong: the sequel"], CNN.</ref> Once again, Bay played down the extortion attempts in an interview, noting that most of the locals were apologetic over what took place, and that he wanted to film more projects in Hong Kong.<ref name="eager">[http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1342084/hollywood-director-michael-bay-eager-shoot-hong-kong-again "Hollywood director Michael Bay eager to shoot in Hong Kong again"], ''South China Morning Post'']</ref>

[[File:AOEOptimusRidingGrimlock.jpg|thumb|upright=1.9|left|"Get me closer! I want to hit them with my sword!"]]Late script changes resulted in Bay and his crew returning to the Chinese city of [[Wikipedia:Chongqing|Chongqing]] for a week reshooting a scene in January of 2014.<ref name="reshoot">[http://www.ecns.cn/2014/01-23/98337.shtml "'Transformers 4' back to China for additional shots"], China News Service (Ecns.cn).</ref>

Some of [[Industrial Light & Magic|ILM]]'s post-production effects were done at a newly opened Lucasfilm facility in Singapore.<ref name="ilmsg">[http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/lifestyle/story/lucasfilm-singapore-work-new-avengers-and-transformers-movies-20140116 "Lucasfilm Singapore to work on new Avengers and Transformers movies"], The Straits Times.</ref>

{{--}}

=== Sponsors and partners ===
==== General Motors and other car manufacturers ====
[[File:AOE Optimus Prime truck.jpg|thumb|upright=1.34|When having one's midlife crisis, it's not unusual to get a souped-up alternate mode.]]
''Age of Extinction'' continues the collaboration with General Motors. Earlier in the film, Bumblebee chooses a customized 1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS as his disguise when hiding from [[Cemetery Wind]], whereas later on, he upgrades to the newest model, a 2014 Camaro concept car. (The production crew was actually accused of ripping off a one-of-a-kind custom for the 1967 version.<ref name="1967custom">[http://jalopnik.com/did-transformers-4-rip-off-this-guys-design-for-the-ne-510655228 "Did Transformers 4 Rip Off This Guy's Design For The New Bumblebee?"] at Jalopnik.com.</ref>) Furthermore, new addition [[Crosshairs (AOE)|Crosshairs]]'s alternate mode is a 2014 Chevrolet C7 Corvette Stingray, and recurring character Ratchet briefly appears at the beginning of the movie and transforms into his Hummer H2 ambulance mode (in the color scheme from ''Dark of the Moon'') before being killed at the hands of Cemetery Wind and [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]].

''Age of Extinction'' is the first movie to feature an official partnership with a manufacturer for [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]]'s alternate mode. Earlier in the movie, he transforms into an old, rusty Marmon 97 truck cab (presumably without support from the manufacturer), but later upgrades into a brand new Western Star "5700 OP" concept truck that was designed specifically for the movie by "Twins Custom Coaches" and the team at West Coast Customs, with Western Star being a subsidiary of Daimler Trucks, who also provided a 2012 Freightliner Argosy that serves as [[Galvatron (AOE)|Galvatron]]'s alternate mode.

Other manufacturers that provided vehicles to be used for characters' alternate modes were the Oshkosh Corporation with an Oshkosh Defense FMTV truck for [[Hound (Movie)|Hound]], the Volkswagen group with a 2013 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse for [[Drift (ROTF)|Drift]] and a Lamborghini Aventador for Lockdown, and independent Italian manufacturer Pagani Automobili with a Pagani Huayra for [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]].

=== Changes before, during and after production ===
* [[Slash (AOE)|Slash]] was originally intended to appear in the film (he even made it into some concept artwork).<ref name="burt">[http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/transformers-age-of-extinction-concept-art-from-wesley-burt/30723/ Age of Extiction concept art by Wesley Burt], mirrored at Seibertron.com.</ref>
* [[Glenn Morshower]] was originally set to return in this film, reprising his role of [[Morshower|General Morshower]], but didn't return due to a scheduling conflict.<ref>http://transformerslive.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/general-morshower-not-returning-to.html</ref>
* Both [[Josh Duhamel]] and [[Tyrese Gibson]] were intended to cameo reprising their roles as [[William Lennox]] and [[Robert Epps]] but were cut before filming started.<ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/tyrese-gibson-in-talks-for-transformers-4-176078/</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/tyrese-gibson-to-make-cameo-appearance-only-in-transformers-4-177407/</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/josh-duhamel-to-make-cameo-appearance-in-transformers-4-177026/</ref><ref>http://transformerslive.blogspot.com/2013/06/josh-duhamel-not-in-transformers-4.html</ref>
* Ed Welburn, [[General Motors]]' vice president for global design, was originally set to cameo as the C.I.A. head before being recast as a KSI employee.<ref>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/automobiles/ed-welburn-gets-a-part-in-transformers.html?_r=0</ref>
* A scene depicting Hound and Bumblebee dancing with Tessa (while Drift bobs his head in the background) was not present in the final cut of the film.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnxZ7Gg2yV4</ref>
* Scorn's toys lack the additional two sails he has in the film, suggesting it was a late design change.
*The Pagani Huayra that eventually ended up as [[Stinger (AOE)|Stinger]] was at one point intended as the alternate mode of a female robot with the working name "Widow Maker".<ref name="vitaly">[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-9/age-of-extinction-concept-art-by-vitaly-bulgarov-180636/ Age of Extinction concept art by Vitaly Bulgarov] at TFW2005, including "Widow Maker".</ref><ref name="jung">[http://comicbook.com/blog/2014/07/20/transformers-age-of-extinction-concept-art-shows-off-epic-scope-/ Age of Extinction concept art by Steve Jung] at Comicbook.com, including "Widow Maker".</ref>
* Wahlberg's character was named "Flynn 'Ray' Vincent" rather than "Cade Yeager" in a casting call. The same casting call also revealed that actor [[Glenn Morshower]] was supposed to reprise his role as [[Morshower|General Morshower]] from the previous two films.<ref name="txcasting">[http://www.featurefilmauditions.com/2013/05/casting-for-transformers-4-actors-and.html "Transformers 4' open casting calls for actors and extras in Austin, TX and Detroit, MI"] at Film Auditions.</ref>
* A scene where Cade says "Stick behind me" is not present in the final cut of the film.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXSkXQs890g</ref>
* Another piece of dialogue cut from the film is when Cade says "You tell me" to Attinger when he asks for Optimus Prime.
* In some concept artwork, Grimlock appears as a horn-less T-Rex.
* The original running time of the film was 2 hours and 7 minutes, which would have made it the shortest film in the franchise. The final running time was 2 hours and 30 minutes <ref>http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/BatFreak/news/?a=77992</ref><ref>http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/transformers-4-age-of-extinction-running-time-revealed-180165/</ref>
* [[Dwayne Johnson]] was originally offered the role of Cade Yeager, but due to his commitment to ''Hercules: The Thracian Wars'', the role was later taken over by his ''Pain & Gain'' co-star Mark Wahlberg.<ref>[https://twitter.com/TheRock/statuses/327892048978006016 Dwayne Johnson on Twitter]</ref>
*In some concept artwork, Drift was colored orange instead of blue. but according to the Generation 2 featurette in the Blu-ray release, this was changed because the vehicle that was going to play Drift was sold off.
*Some concept artwork shows that Optimus was intended to have his original trilogy body in the scenes where he had his new look.
*According to Ehren Kruger in the Generation 2 featurette, in the early drafts of the film, it was not originally centered on the Cade Yeager character.
*Numerous silver [[redeco]] toys were produced for Optimus Prime with the moniker of "Silver Knight", suggesting that he was originally supposed to take on this alternate appearance in the film itself, almost certainly upon drawing a sword from the Knights' armory. In the finished film, he does undergo some slight physical alteration at this point, his arms reconfiguring to resemble armor plates, but that's as far as it goes. This was also ''prrrrobably'' where he was supposed to get the rocket-boots he suddenly deploys at the film's end.

{{-}}

===Disinformation campaign===

Like ''Revenge of the Fallen'' and ''Dark of The Moon'' before it, ''Age of Extinction'' had a campaign that would mask details of the final film. However, unlike the previous films, this one was all encompassing; no novelization or comics by [[IDW Publishing]] was released, allowing for a great deal of the movie's spoilers to actually remain unknown longer than for the previous three films.

In the original Michigan Film Office press release published on March 20, 2013, several vague plot details were revealed, including the fact that Autobots and Decepticons had "[[Cemetery Wind|all but vanished from the face of the planet]]", a "[[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated|group of [...] businessman and scientists]]" were developing new technologies based on past encounters with the Transformers, and an "[[Lockdown (ROTF)|ancient, powerful Transformer menace]]" was targeting Earth.<ref name="plotunveiled">[http://www.thewrap.com/node/82001/ "‘Transformers 4’ Plot Unveiled by Michigan Film Office"] at TheWrap.com.</ref>. These plot details were later claimed to be inaccurate by Paramount Pictures<ref name="notaccurate">[http://screenrant.com/transformers-4-movie-plot-synopsis-cast/ Unofficial "'Transformers 4' Plot Synopsis Is Not Accurate"] at Screenrant.com</ref>, but in all their vagueness ultimately turned out to be not too far off from the film's plot.

A lot of the newly-added characters were given "code names" during production, most of them related to the ''Rocky'' saga: "Duke" for Hound, "Adrian" for Galvatron, "Ivan" for Grimlock, "Rocky" for Slash (who was originally intended to appear in the movie, as noted above), "Southpaw" for Scorn, "Paulie" for Strafe, and "Thunderlips" for Slug. In addition, Crosshairs was code-named "Slingshot", Drift was code-named "Bruce", Lockdown was code-named "Max", and Steeljaw was code-named "Wolf" (which ''might'' have simply been a working name).<ref name="customer">[http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-news-rumors/961952-monzos-mega-hasbro-customer-service-listing-breakdown.html Hasbro customer service list]</ref>
{{stub}}

==Notes==
*Not only do the [[Dinobot (AOE)|Dinobots]] go unnamed in the film (other than [[Scorn (AOE)|Scorn]] getting the nickname, "Spike"), the word Dinobot is never even said by anyone. The audio description soundtrack on the home video releases refers to them as warriors or barbarians, but notes during the final scene that they "turn into Dinobots" (of course it also refers to Galvatron transforming "into an Autobot" when he turns into a robot, so make of that what you will).
*In addition to the Mercenary robots, [[Steeljaw (AOE)|Steeljaws]], the ball-shaped drones, and [[Stupid Drone]]s, inside Lockdown's ship there were also several hovering drones. These drones appear to be of the same type as those the United States used in ''Dark of the Moon'' (the one that got sucked into the engine of Bumblebee's commandeered Decepticon fighter). Maybe Attinger sold them to Lockdown?
*Michael Bay's website incorrectly refers to the film as "Transformers 4 The Age Of Extinction"
* The deceased Autobots and Decepticons shown in the cards Attinger pulled early in the film includes: [[Ironhide (Movie)|Ironhide]], [[Wheeljack (Movie)|Que]], [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]], [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]], [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]] and [[Arcee (Movie)|Arcee]].
* This film seems to put a final nail in the coffin regarding the films' abandonment of the concept of using [[protoform]]s to travel through space; when the Autobots steal a ship from [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]], they immediately move to leave Earth, indicating they had been stranded on Earth for the past five years without a spaceship (following the destruction of the ''[[Xantium (DOTM)|Xantium]]''). The fact that no mention is made of searching for any possible survivors of Cemetery Wind's hunt also suggests that all Autobots who did not return for this film have been killed off as well.
*The robot designs in this film are markedly different than the previous three; the robots have less alien appearances and are more heavily influenced by human forms.
*Speaking of the appearance of the Autobots - they all are based on specific types of human combatants throughout history: Optimus is obviously a medieval knight, Hound heavily resembles a World War II-era commando, Crosshairs looks like a mercenary or assassin, Bumblebee's new form is highly Ninja-like, and Drift is unsurprisingly a samurai.
*Director Michael Bay makes a cameo appearance in the film as a guy sitting in the passenger seat of a truck whose trailer Optimus Prime and Bumblebee crash through after being attacked by Galvatron and Stinger.<ref name="magiceffects">[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btn2tPxjisA "Behind the Magic: The Visual Effects of 'Transformers Age of Extinction'"] on the official ILMVisualFX Youtube channel.</ref>

===Foreign names===
*''Japanese:'' '''''Transformers: Lost Age''''' (トランスフォーマーロストエイジ ''Toransufōmā Rosuto Eiji'')<ref>[http://www.cinematoday.jp/page/N0056111 『トランスフォーマー』第4弾の邦題は『トランスフォーマーロストエイジ』に決定！最新ビジュアルも公開]</ref>
*''Russian:'' '''''Transformery: Epokha istrebleniya''''' (Трансформеры: Эпоха истребления ''Transformers: Age of Extermination'')
*''Argentina:'' '''''Transformers 4'''''
*''Cantonese:'' '''''Binying Gamgong: Chimmit Saigei''''' (變形金剛：殲滅世紀 "Transformers: The Century of Annihilation")
*''Mandarin:'' '''''Biàn-hsín Jīn-gāng Sz: Jiúe-jī Chúng-shēng''''' (Taiwan: 變型金剛4：絕跡重生, China: 变形金刚4：绝迹重生 "Transformers 4: Rebirth from the Extinction")
*''German:'' '''''Transformers: Ära des Untergangs''''' ("Transformers: Era of Doom")
*''Turkish:'' '''''Transformers: Kayıp Çağ''''' ("Transformers: Lost Age")

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

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[[Category:Age of Extinction| Age of Extinction (film)]]
[[Category:Real world films]]