Film / Transformers: The Last Knight

As the final chronological entry to the original continuity of the Transformers Film Series, spoilers for all previous films, including Transformers: Age of Extinction will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

Rethink your heroes.

"One hundred billion trillion planets in the cosmos. You want to know, don't you, why they keep coming here?"

— Sir Edmund Burton

Transformers: The Last Knight is the fifth entry in the Transformers Film Series and the sequel to Transformers: Age of Extinction. Michael Bay serves as director once again for the fifth consecutive time, and the film was released on June 21, 2017.

It's been several years since Optimus Prime left Earth to search for the Creators of the Transformers race. In his absence, the situation on Earth has barely improved; Transformers have been declared illegal and are hunted down to be killed or incarcerated by the paramilitary unit the Transformers Reaction Force. Cade Yeager currently hides out in an old junkyard with Bumblebee, Hound, Crosshairs, Drift, and several other Autobots, rescuing any newly arrived Autobots they can find. However, during one such mission, Cade finds himself bestowed with a mysterious talisman - one that heralds the arrival of a titanic threat's approach from deep space. Cade learns from an English lord that he and Viviane Wembly are destined to save the Earth from the approaching Cybertronian threat, but even this enemy is working to stymie a threat to Earth greater than any before...

Mark Wahlberg and Peter Cullen return as Cade Yeager and Optimus Prime respectively. Newcomers to the cast include Laura Haddock, Isabela Moner, Santiago Cabrera, and Anthony Hopkins. Josh Duhamel and John Turturro reprise their roles as William Lennox and Seymour Simmons from the first three films, joined by fellow returning veteran Glenn Morshower as General Morshower ^note Morshower played Colonel Sharp in the first film before being brought back for the sequels as a new character named after him. Frank Welker, Jess Harnell, Ken Watanabe, John Goodman, John DiMaggio, and Tom Kenny reprise their roles as Megatron, Barricade, and Autobots, Drift, Hound, Crosshairs, and Wheelie, respectively. Steve Buscemi, Omar Sy, and Jim Carter join the cast as Autobots Daytrader, Hot Rod, and Cogman.

Paramount Studios scrapped the direct sequel to the film originally set for 2019 due to The Last Knight's disappointing box office numbers which left the future of the series uncertain. The next film in the series, Bumblebee, was originally meant to be a prequel to the previous films, but was instead retooled into being a Continuity Reboot. In 2020, Paramount announced the series will proceed starting with a sequel to Bumblebee titled Transformers: Rise of the Beasts that released in 2023, with an animated prequel film titled Transformers: One slated for 2024.

The first trailer can be viewed here.

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When all seems lost, a few brave souls can save every trope we've ever known.

• Aborted Arc: Thanks to Bumblebee becoming a reboot, Quintessa's plans and the whole bit about Earth actually being Cybertron's worst enemy aren't going to go anywhere.
• Action Girl: Vivian isn't one when we first meet her, but she certainly is by the end of the film. Izabella counts too, taking care of herself and her robot buddies in a war zone.
• Actor Allusion:
  • This isn't the first time Santiago Cabrera was in a story involving King Arthur and high fantasy.
  • Anthony Hopkins knows a thing or two about robots.
  • Liam Garrigan is playing King Arthur. Again! Can't get more allusive than this.
  • This isn't the first time Jim Carter's played a butler to a weathly English lord. See Throw It In! below.
  • Gemma Chan plays a robot again. She even pretends to be a human in The Stinger.
  • Hound yelling at Daytrader half the time. You half expect him to say "you're out of your depth".
  • Also, Hound griping about the baby Dinobots being an "infestation of puppy Transformers" brings to mind Fred Flintstone.
• Advertised Extra: Izabella is not in nearly as much of the movie as the trailers would have you believe. In fact, some critics have accused the movie of only including her as a cynical ploy to court female audiences.
• Affably Evil: Megatron's crew, with the exception of Berserker, are surprisingly happy in their Alcatraz-esque prison, and get along well with the people guarding them there.
• Alas, Poor Yorick: Megatron holds the deceased Starscream's head in one hand and speaks to him.
• The Alcatraz: The Transformer Response Force captures and throws any Transformer who lands on Earth in the "NBE Supermax" in Fort Collins, Colorado. Bumblebee and the Autobots are in hiding, while Megatron has to pay bail for the release of his Decepticons imprisoned in the supermax.
• All Drummers Are Animals: Discussed by Cade, Izabella and Wheelie.
  Izabella: What would you say to her [Tessa]?
  Cade: Brush your teeth, work hard, stay away from any boy in a band, especially a drummer.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The Decepticons and the TRF are able to find the Autobots' junkyard thanks to the TRF tracking Bumblebee back to it.
• Anachronism Stew: In the flashback to a battle during King Arthur's reign, we see Bay's signature explosions. This is despite gunpowder not being brought to England at that time.
• Anti-Villain: Lennox, who really doesn't want to fight the Autobots, but the TRF is barely hiding their desire to kill all Cybertronians.
• An Arm and a Leg:
  • Drift cuts off Onslaught's right leg.
  • Optimus manages to axe Megatron's right arm off in the final battle, prompting Megatron to gush out a huge amount of green blood. Megatron still proceeds to fight, not that it lasts long as Optimus easily kicks him out of the sphere they're fighting in, sending Megatron flying somewhere unknown.
• Ascended Extra: Barricade has marginally more dialogue than he did in previous films and more screen time than in Dark of the Moon.
• Art Evolution: Bumblebee, Hound, Drift, and Barricade all take on new alternate modes, while Crosshairs has a tweaked alt mode. Hound and Drift have a few cosmetic differences in their robot modes, with Hound having taken on a more olive color scheme and Drift becoming predominantly red and black. Crosshairs has no discernible differences in his robot mode, while Barricade has a completely new robot mode. Megatron's new body has an evolution of his ram horns he had on his head as Galvatron.
• Artistic License – Geography: HMS Alliance is located in Portsmouth. Going from there to the cliffs of Dover does not take you through London. (But seeing the Alliance sail under Tower Bridge looks really cool)
• Artistic License – Geology: Simmons points out that the 6 "horns" of Unicron were moved around with the tectonic activity of the planet, having once been formed in a perfect circle when Pangaea existed. If Earth really did form around Unicron, then tectonic activity wouldn't change anything.
• Artistic License – History:
  • While the historicity of King Arthur, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table is still up for debate, they are shown wearing Plate Armor which is inaccurate to the time period King Arthur supposedly lived in (5th-6th Century). It's 484 A.D. in the film when they would not be wearing that kind of armor as Plate Armor was not invented until the 13th/14th Century. Then again, they probably didn't fight alongside Transformers either, so Plate Armor is the least thing inaccurate here. The armor inaccuracy may be explained in that it might be Cybertronian in nature and design, given the symbol on it is the same as on the Iacon Knights and bears aesthetic similarities to the Cybertronian ship. Backing this up is that bits of Arthur's armor notably glow blue, as does his sword, which also bears the Iacon emblem, when Dragonstorm is near.
  • Not to mention that Michael Bay managed to get explosions in a medieval battle BEFORE the Transformers were even involved or before gunpowder arrived in Europe.
• Aspect Ratio Switch: This film is notorious for doing this to the point where the aspect ratio will often radically change during mundane conversations, with little rhyme or reason.
• The Atoner: After Optimus returns to normal after hearing Bumblebee speak, he goes into a mode of self-despair regarding what he's done and lies down in wait for the Knights of Cybertron to kill him for what he's done. After Cade activates the medallion which shows he is the titular Last Knight, he tells Optimus he can't save the planet from Quintessa without him, to which Optimus agrees.
• Avenging the Villain: Nitro Zeus was enraged to hear of Shockwave's death on Earth, and thus got a reformatting to more closely emulate the fallen warrior's appearance while he seeks revenge for him.
• Back from the Dead: Cybertron itself; Dark of the Moon shows it lighting on fire and disintegrating when they managed to cut off the space bridge pillars. It's implied in this film that it was heavily damaged and Quintessa went to work rebuilding, resulting in large land masses being tethered together, and the end goal is to drain the core energy of the Earth (which is Unicron) to bring it back completely.
• Bank Robbery: Dreadbot pulls this on a bank, not that he wants or even needs money, he just did it for fun and killed nine humans doing so, which got him a life sentence in the NBE Supermax. Megatron "negotiates" for Dreadbot to get parole under GPS tracking.
• Bash Brothers: Hot Rod and Bumblebee are frequent combat partners. Bee also teams up with Cade several times in the film, and Drift and Crosshairs are usually fighting alongside each other.
• Been There, Shaped History: The Transformers are yet again shown to have appeared throughout history, including during the time of Arthurian Legend, The Napoleonic Wars, The American Revolution, World War I, and World War II. In particular, Bumblebee and Hot Rod served as part of the Devil's Brigade, disguising themselves as army trucks and spearheading a surprise attack at a Nazi stronghold. It is mentioned that Hitler was assassinated by a particularly mean Cybertronian disguised as a gold pocket watch. The movie also leads us to believe that Starscream, Ironhide, Hound, and Optimus have been on Earth before due to their presence in Burton's collection of ancient memorabilia.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Vivian and Cade bicker quite a bit early on, occasionally due to cultural differences. Cade in particular begins egging Vivian on from the moment he sees her in a fitting, gorgeous dress.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Megatron and Quintessa are working together towards a common goal: the restoration of Cybertron by draining Unicron's spark (which has the unfortunate side-effect of destroying Earth). Megatron is shown to have red vein-like shades on his face indicating that he's under Quintessa's mind-control.
• Bittersweet Ending: The good news? Optimus is free from his brainwashing, the heroes stop Quintessa's plot and the Autobots and humans finally have a real chance to save their homes together. Cybertron is finally restored, and the Autobots can go home but promise to return to save the humans if they are needed again. The bad news? Megatron and Barricade are still at large while Unicron is waking and it turns out Quintessa also survived.
• Black Dude Dies First: Played for Laughs. The usually Genre Savvy Jimmy thinks he can turn it into a Heroic Sacrifice by getting Cade and Izzy to safety, and he does get shot... by a nonlethal beanbag.
• Black Vikings: One of the Knights of the Round Table (Palomides?) is black.
• Book Ends: At the beginning, Megatron and Barricade were the only active Decepticons left who have not been killed or imprisoned. Megatron bails out a few soldiers from captivity to add to his army and Quintessa supplements Infernocus for them, but in the end it's only him and Barricade again.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Quintessa brainwashes Optimus after convincing him that Earth must die for Cybertron to be saved. Bumblebee is able to talk him out of it.
• The Bully: Over the years since the events of Age of Extinction, Crosshairs has become verbally and psychologically abusive towards his new leader Bumblebee.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • The TRF aggravate Megatron for refusing to release Dreadbot so that Megatron can put him on the battlefield. They settle for releasing Dreadbot (and also Nitro Zeus) as long as they wear GPS monitors.
  • Berserker under human captivity is so angry over the restraints that the humans have to keep putting him through stronger, tougher ones, making him even angrier and this bad cycle goes on.
  • Crosshairs when he tries to pick a fight with Cogman, calling him a cheap C3PO knockoff. He gets his fingers horribly twisted.
  • Quintessa wakes up Unicron, who was dormant and heavily asleep, by trying to drain out his life force.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Lennox, Simmons, and Morshower return, having last been seen in Dark of the Moon 6 years ago.
  • In regards to names, Galvatron is back to using his old identity of Megatron, complete with a refurbished body more closely resembling his appearance in the first trilogy. He even has a helmet-like mantle encasing his head like his Generation One counterpart.
  • Barricade returns meaning that he survived the Battle of Chicago and fled the scene after having been presumed dead.
  • Despite the Dinobots being allowed to run free on Earth at the end of the previous film, Grimlock and Slug rejoined the main Autobot unit at Cade's new junkyard.
  • Wheelie returns after having last been seen in the crashing Decepticon ship in Dark of the Moon. His fate has been unknown while Brains turned up in Age of Extinction.
  • Topspin is taking shelter in Cuba with Simmons. For some reason, Topspin has Leadfoot's head.
  • Starscream makes a return in the form of a corpse (but only his head) found by Daytrader. Megatron recognizes his fallen lieutenant's head when finding it in the junkyard picking it up and talking to it.
• Bus Crash: With Vivian being the last surviving member of the Witwicky line, Sam is implied to have died some time after Dark of the Moon.
• But Now I Must Go: Optimus and the other Autobots head for Cybertron, telling humanity they must now return to their home world and repair it but that they shall return if Earth needs them again.
• Call-Back:
  • Izabella was orphaned during the Battle of Chicago, and has been living in a dilapidated neighborhood ever since.
  • Daytrader tosses Starscream's severed head to the Autobots, and Megatron later finds it during the scene where the Decepticons attack the junkyard, and muses that his treacherous lieutenant will not bear witness to what's coming.
  • Quintessa accuses Optimus being responsible for Cybertron's destruction in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, since he ordered the Autobots to stop the Decepticon's plan of saving it at humanity's expense. When Optimus mentions how Megatron started the Great War, Quintessa throws it back in his face, likely referring to Optimus' launching of the Allspark.
  • We now know why the Creators wanted Optimus brought before them. Quintessa wants Optimus to bring Merlin's staff to her so she can drain Unicron's power to revive Cybertron at Earth's expense.
  • Daytrader gifts the Autobots with the Knightship, last seen under attack by Chinese forces at the end of Age of Extinction.
• The Cameo:
  • Slag the Triceratops Dinobot has one assisting Grimlock in demolishing the TRF forces.
  • Topspin is in Cuba playing soccer and asks Simmons to join him.
  • Cade receives a call from Tessa, who is away at college.
  • Burton has a framed photo of Sam Witwicky's eBay profile picture.
• Canon Discontinuity: The fact that the Autobots have been on Earth for centuries erases a significant chunk of Expanded Universe tie-material (including The Veiled Threat novel and prequel comics) out of continuity.
• Canon Foreigner: Along with the human cast, Sqweeks, Dragonstorm, Steelbane, Cogman, the Infernocons (and by extension Infernocus), the Dinobot babies and Quintessa are all original characters created for the film.
• Character Development:
  • In Age of Extinction, Optimus denounces the human race to be violent and betraying, Cade included. In The Last Knight, he has a change of heart and tells Cade that Earth is the only place whose people welcomed him to call home.
  • Megatron at the beginning of the film series wanted to enslave the humans, take over the Earth and continue his rule over Cybertron. Here, he claims to be tired and just longing to go home. That said, he's still interested in enslaving humanity and taking over Earth, but his main goal is clearly the revival of Cybertron.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Tiny Sqweeks proves vital for the final battle of the movie. Thanks to that Decepticon arm Izabella attached to him, he has enough firepower to destroy a gun battery holding off fighter jets.
• Cliffhanger: Unicron's awakening is left unresolved, and because the sequel to The Last Knight was cancelled due to disappointing box office returns, we may never know the outcome.
• Combat Medic: Hound visually appears to have taken up the role of medic for the team, following the death of Ratchet in Age of Extinction. However, he's never shown tending to anybody.
• Combining Mecha: A staple of the franchise; Infernocus is the combined form of the five Infernocons, horned Cybertronians that serve Quintessa.
• Composite Character:
  • Grimlock is more of a jovial naughty dog in this film, bringing to mind his more goofy counterparts in the 2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon and the third season of the original G1 series.
  • Quintessa's name is a clear nod to the Quintessons, the race of beings who created the Transformers in the G1 continuity. She refers to herself as the Prime of Life, giving her cues from Quintus Prime of the Aligned continuity, who was a member of the Thirteen and created the Quintessons.
  • Unicron is the Earth in this continuity, as he was in the Aligned continuity. Quintessa is seeking to drain his power to revive Cybertron, meaning Unicron is nominally opposed to her as the G1 Unicron was opposed to the Quintessons.
  • Daytrader is a combination of Wreck-Gar and Swindle; he transforms into a garbage truck and hoards a lot of junk like the former, but is seen as shady and unreliable much like Swindle.
  • Izabella is a combination of traits inherited from Carly — her ability to fix things, including Autobots — and Lori — also mechanically gifted, as well being a Little Miss Badass Latina.
• Continuity Nod:
  • To the second and third movies: moving parts of Cybertron brought to earth by Quintessa using electro-kinetic technology collided with the Ark on the moon and the Sun Harvester on top of the Great Pyramid of Giza, destroying both "monuments" in the process.
  • While being forcibly transported by Hot Rod, Vivian asks if she's been kidnapped by Soundwave or Shockwave.
  • Attinger mentioned early in Age of Extinction that a handful of Autobots were given political asylum on Earth. Topspin appear to be one of those 'bots, as he is seen living in Cuba with Simmons.
  • The Witwicky family motto of "No Sacrifice, No Victory" is revealed to go back as far as the establishment of the Order of Witwiccans by King Arthur himself.
  • Cade and Vivian are hunting for something in a room, and somehow get mistaken for doing something else, just like Sam and Mikaela in the first movie.
  • Cade had a "no-dating household" rule in the previous movie, which is still in effect as he briefly mentions that "it's been a while".
    Vivian: What are you saving yourself for, old age?
  • Within Sir Burton's chambers of photos and artifacts, one of them is a space bridge pillar.
  • Hound brings back his Pre Ass Kicking One Liner from Transformers: Age of Extinction: "Come and get some you little bitch!"
  • Sound wave vectors are briefly visible inside Optimus's mouth for the first time since the first movie.
• Continuity Snarl: The film's official app listed a long, lengthy backstory that was clearly lifted wholesale from the Aligned continuity, presumably the writers' room's attempt to do their homework on the franchise. However, the Aligned continuity's backstory of the Transformers is completely irreconcilable with the film series's decade-old lore, convoluted as it is.
• Cool Old Guy: Sir Edmound Burton knows why the Transformers keep coming to Earth, and in general is a pleasant, wry old man.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Grimlock and Slug easily bulldoze the TRF forces pursuing Cade and Bumblebee's team through surprise attacks having burrowed under the ground and arising out of the pavement itself.
  • The Decepticons' assault in the deserted town on Bumblebee and his team of Autobots does not go well. The Decepticons are immediately thrown off by the group's explosives rigged, even if they don't kill any of them. Mohawk is too small to poise a threat to anyone, and Onslaught is quickly pinned down and killed by the smaller, faster duo of Crosshairs and Drift. Then Grimlock himself arrives, knocks Barricade aside, throws Megatron around like a toy, and eats Dreadbot. Megatron quickly orders his troops to flee, but only he, Barricade, and Nitro Zeus escape, with Mohawk getting lost and separated, and quickly killed by Bumblebee.
  • Optimus's battle with Infernocus goes real smoothly.
• Darker and Edgier: The trailers seem to imply this to be the darkest entry in the film series to date. The finished product isn't all that dark, though unless you count that off-screen it's been mentioned that populated cities have been scraped away by the moving fragments of Cybertron caused by Quintessa.
• Destroy the Product Placement: Bumblebee gets a new voice box that makes him talk like Siri, and immediately rips it out.
• Detachment Combat: Bumblebee now has the ability to separate his major components and control them remotely. He uses this to pull a Playing Possum gambit at the start of the film, and it lets him reattach his door wings when they're ripped off.
• Earth Is the Center of the Universe: Sir Edmound Burton apparently knows why despite there being "one hundred billion trillion planets in the cosmos", the Cybertronians keep coming to Earth. It's because Earth formed around Unicron, and draining him of energy is the only way to restore Cybertron.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Vivian's mum and friends have zero argument over her dragging Cade to her home out of the blue. Of course, this is Mark Wahlberg we're talking about.
• Enemy Mine: Although they are sworn enemies let alone high-ranking commanders of their own respective forces (Decepticons and U.S. Army), Megatron and Lennox join forces to hunt down the Autobots now led by Bumblebee. Both Megatron and Lennox had plans to slaughter the other as soon as the alliance serves its purpose.
• Everyone Has Standards: TRF is willing to negotiate with Megatron, who wants to release a few of his Decepticon allies (with certain conditions), but draws the line at releasing a monster like Berserker. This is compared to Dreadbot, who killed nine people for fun, but Megatron relents and instead picks Onslaught.
• Evil Brit: Quintessa, voice by Gemma Chan.
• Evil Versus Evil: Megatron and his crew plus Quintessa are working to destroy Unicron.
• Exorcist Head: While strangling Cade, Cogman's head turns a full 360 degrees at one point.
• Fanservice:
  • As with most female leads in Micheal Bay films, Vivian is not only extremely attractive, but dresses in a ridiculously sexy manner in everyday life for who her character is supposed to be. Lampshaded by Cade, who refers to her as "the professor in the stripper dress."
  • Cade gets a turn too, lifting his shirt and displaying his chiseled torso as he checks the activity of the Cybertronian Talisman that's attached itself to him.
• Fearsome Foot: Grimlock's entrance focuses on him chewing on a car, to then pan down and show his giant, frame-filling foot striking the ground. The single footstep shakes the ground, hard enough for nearby cars to jump and for Izabella and Sqweeks to recoil, and kicks up a cloud of dust.
• Fingore: Crosshairs tries to cut off Cogman in his conversation with Cade, only for Cogman to grab and twist one of his fingers.
• Foreshadowing: Megatron working with Quintessa shouldn't be too surprising, given that he has the same mark on his face that Optimus gets when he's brainwashed by her.
• French Jerk: Hot Rod is described as "brash and arrogant" by official sources... and has a French accent. Downplayed somewhat, as he hates the accent, but just cannot turn it off.
• Gentle Giant: Canopy, the Autobot who hides Izabella, Sqweeks, and a group of kids from a TRF drone. Too bad he doesn't make it.
• A God Am I: Quintessa calls herself a god as Optimus attempts to strike her down.
• Good Versus Good:
  • Continuing off from Age of Extinction, the United States are still at war with the Autobots.
  • Cogman and Crosshairs are both fighting for Cade Yeager, but their encounter isn't very friendly.
  • Cade and Lennox are hostile to one another until they have to band together when brainwashed Optimus Prime takes away the staff.
  • Also of the Guardian Knights beating up Optimus mistakenly assuming he aligned with Quintessa.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Unicron, the planet eater who is the ancient enemy of Cybertronians, has been awakened from Earth's crust. It is the main reason that Cybertronians keep coming to Earth, thus making Unicron the overarching antagonist of the Transformers film series.
• Heel–Face Turn: Cade calls out the TRF for never giving up chasing after him, telling them that he was fighting on Optimus Prime's side the entire time, and that it was Earth's governments who turned their backs. When he says that it's an honor to fight alongside them, they rip their emblems off.
• Help Mistaken for Attack: Cogman due to his casual statement of "collecting Cade" is first treated as a hostile by the heroes before he then clarifies that he's not kidnapping Cade, he's trying to bring him in to his master Burton so they can find the staff. This makes Cogman more of The Kindnapper.
• Heroic BSoD: Izzie has one after Canopy is killed by a TRF airstrike, and even refuses to leave him until Cade convices her otherwise.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: After waking up from the mind-control virus Quintessa inflicted on him, Optimus starts getting brutalized by the Knights until Cade dissuades them. Optimus then laments to Cade over how he failed him and that he helped Megatron and Quintessa start tearing apart the Earth and exterminate humanity, but then Cade states it's not his fault and pleads to him to take action as only he can save the day.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Much like in the previous film Transformers: Age of Extinction, the Autobots are labeled public enemies and the United States government spreads propaganda posters that has their faces and the word ENEMY.
• High-Pressure Blood: Megatron when Optimus cuts off his right arm with the same sword from Age of Extinction, leading to Megatron immensely bleeding.
• Hopeless Suitor: The blonde kid keeps hitting on Izabella, to the point that she tries to politely tell him off by saying that, for all he knows, Canopy is her boyfriend.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: When Optimus attacks both Bumblebee and Cade, neither one believes that he's doing this of his own accord and are both reluctant to even attack him even as he continues on his violent rampage against them. Bumblebee finally gets his voice back just as he was about to be killed, getting Optimus to snap out of Quintessa's control.
• I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: The dying Knight Steelbane hands over the Talisman to Cade Yeager, who turns out to be The Last Knight.
• Insult Backfire:
  • When Izabella confronts the Decepticons for hassling Sqweeks.
    Izabella: Go to hell!
    Megatron: This planet is hell!
  • Between Daytrader and Hound as well.
    Daytrader: [dodges Hound's bullets] You always resort to violence, right off the bat!
    Hound: I love violence.
• Joker Immunity: After becoming notorious for surviving the tie-in material set between Transformers and Dark of the Moon again and again, it turns out Barricade even survived his apparent death in the latter. Barricade also apparently survives this film by disappearing again.
• Karma Houdini: Despite their involvement in the destruction of Chicago and constant threat to Humanity across all previous films; its' revealed that unlike their Autobot counterparts who were being actively hunted and gunned down by Cemetery Wind and later the various governments aside from Cuba at every opportunity: The Decepticons in the film were instead arrested by the Humans and sent to Prison where all but Berserker were given a pardon at the behest of Megatron whom they were released into the custody of. At the end of the film: Megatron, Barricade and Quintessa do not receive any serious comeuppance for their actions.
• Kid-Appeal Character: Sqweeks. He's Izabella's Autobot partner, with a much cuter, less angular design than the other Transformers, and big expressive eyes. Think of a combination of BB-8 and WALL•E.
• Last Stand: When the Decepticons and Quintessa are preparing to begin the final phase of destroying Earth, Burton takes matters into his own hands to try to delay them. His cane is revealed to be a Cybertronian machinegun, and he opens fire on Megatron, Nitro Zeus, and Barricade. He does get in some good shots, but Megatron quickly kills him with a blast from his fusion cannon.
• The Last Title: The Last Knight.
• Left the Background Music On: When Edmund finally reveals to Cade and Vivian the true history of King Arthur and the Transformers, the swelling and booming background music is... coming from a massive pipe organ played by Cogman. Just moments later, the story is interrupted again by Cogman doing the One-Woman Wail for the music.
• Literal Disarming: Optimus does this to Megatron during the final battle at the end.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": Just about the entirety of humanity have this reaction when they notice Cybertron heading towards Earth.
• Menacing Stroll: Megatron does one as he arrives for his meeting with the TRF.
• Mistaken for Gay: Vivian has little interest in dating and prefers science. Her mom and aunts have taken on the task to find her a man, and as she remains indifferent, her mom assumes this and wouldn't care if her daughter prefers women. Vivian and Cade eventually get together.
• Monumental Damage:
  • The Giza Pyramid is completely demolished by Cybertron.
  • Subverted with Stonehenge, despite the huge firefight in the middle of it, not a single stray shot even grazes any of the stone blocks.
• Mook Promotion: Barricade has become Megatron's second-in-command following the deaths of Starscream and Soundwave.
• Mr. Exposition:
  • Due to his vast knowledge of the Transformers' history, Sir Edmund's main contribution to the film is explaining the plot to Cade and Viviane. Subverted later when he actively attacks the Decepticons to buy the heroes more time, albeit at the cost of his life.
  • Likewise, Agent Simmons returns in this film to tell Sir Edmund where to find the information regarding Unicron.
  • During the descent of Cybertron to Earth, one of the lab scientists explains in detail how shooting down a chunk of the landmass will stop the descent. This is the only thing he really does in the film, and it doesn't even work.
• Mugging the Monster: Quintessa tries to drain the life force out of Unicron. Unicron wakes up upon sensing Quintessa doing so.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The concept of Optimus apparently going rogue against his will takes cues form a couple of G1 Transformers episodes:
    • "Attack of the Autobots": Optimus and about half of the Autobots are reprogrammed to be evil by Megatron. The climax features Bumblebee vs. Optimus in an "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight, with Optimus only getting better once he clearly hears Bumblebee's voice.
    • "Dark Awakening": The Quintessons (a.k.a. the Creators in the Bay-verse) happen upon Optimus's inert and battle-worn shell. They then reactivate him to serve their purposes and he nearly leads the Autobots into a trap. The climax is basically the same as before, only this time it's Hot Rod who has to face Optimus, who is aware of his actions and literally begging to be stopped.
  • Similar to the film's premise, the three-part G1 cartoon episode titled "The Ultimate Doom" involves Optimus being pressured to save a ravaged Cybertron at Earth's expense by activating a mechanism that will bring it into Earth's orbit. Unlike the film, however, he wasn't brainwashed into it, but he was talked into it.
  • Ironically, people have noted the similarity of Optimus's situation in the trailer and Galvatron's in the 1986 movie. After a large-scale battle, the leader of a faction ends up in space and goes offline. They cross paths with a larger threat (Both of whom have ties to Transformer's origins) and are reprogrammed to work for it. Later, they return to the battle worse than ever, but dislike their status as a slave.
    • Megatron's new alternate mode slightly resembles G1 Cyclonus's alt mode, at least in toy form.
    • The last time we saw Cybertron, it was an absolutely massive honeycomb-like planet. Since Dark Of The Moon's events essentially halved it, and it appears to have condensed even further, it is much closer to it's G1 counterpart's size.
    • Hot Rod's temporal bubble ability is a subtle reference to how time only slows down when G1 Hot Rod touches the Matrix.
    • Moments before the battle of Stonehenge begins, Sir Edmund Burton's cane gun makes the iconic transformation noise.
  • Megatron's new design sees him take on a mouth guard that looks like the muzzle his Beast Machines counterpart had. His overall body bears similarities to his Prime (and by extension Animated Cybertronian mode) counterpart's body and build. For the first time, Megatron finally also has the Arm Cannon style he's known for, which bears the most resemblance to his Prime counterpart's fusion cannon. Also in this film, Megatron's voice sounds much like his Prime counterpart.
  • As in Transformers: Prime, The Earth formed around a dormant Unicron, with his body serving as the planet's core.
    • While under Quintessa's control, Optimus has purple optics. While many a Transformers character has had them, a prominent recent example would be users of Dark Energon.
    • Dragonstorm bears a few similarities to Predaking, especially his presence in medieval times, as ancient Predacons walked the Earth alongside ancient humans in the prehistory of Prime. His wings are filled with membrane-like holes similar to the Transmetal II body of Beast Wars Megatron. The three-headed design, however, is more reminiscent of Scourge.
    • Nitro Zeus landing on Earth to avenge Shockwave mirrors the situation of Dreadwing and Skyquake from Transformers Prime - though they resemble each other, only Nitro Zeus has the correct vehicle mode.
  • The initial premise of the film bears similarities to that of the 2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon - the Autobots, led by Bumblebee, and the Dinobots are living in an old junkyard with an adult human as their main benefactor. They are also joined by Izabella, who fills Russel's role as the main child character, and Sqweeks, who already heavily resembles Fixit, down to being a Pint-Sized Powerhouse.
  • Canopy uses the Long Haul body type (who debuted in Revenge of the Fallen), though his coloration is more reminiscent of the 2010 Transformers repaint Payload.
  • The medieval knight Cybertronians are the Knights of Cybertron, the first descendants of the Transformer god Primus; a story idea first introduced in the G1 IDW comics.
  • While he is under her control, Quintessa refers to Optimus as Nemesis Prime, who is Optimus' Criminal Doppelgänger whenever he appears in a series.
  • Megatron holding Starscream's head evokes memories of Season 3 of Transformers: Animated where Starscream was decapitated (but didn't die) and was forced to ally with Megatron to regain his body.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • The trailers make The Last Knight seem like the darkest, most serious and somber entry in the series. Due to characters such as Cogman and Sir Edmund being introduced, alongside most of Megatron's cohorts being more Affably Evil than before, it's actually Lighter and Softer than the other films for the most part, especially its direct predecessor.
  • The TV spots and online marketing bill the movie as the epic Grand Finale of the Transformers saga. The Stinger has a blatant Sequel Hook for future installments, making this unlikely. This may be justified however as it was already announced that a Cinematic Universe was in development and the "Final Chapter" was actually referring to the film being Michael Bay's last directorial work in the franchise.
  • The way one of the trailers was edited had some people believing the Autobots and Decepticons would be joining forces in order to defeat Quintessa and save Optimus. That never happened.
• No Endor Holocaust: The entire planet of Cybertron entering Earth's gravity and atmosphere not once but twice would've caused massive tidal destruction all across the planet. The sinewy parts of Cybertron sticking out from the main of the planet even touchdown on Earth, with news commentary stating it's an extinction level event that would no doubt cause the deaths of millions of people as they literally scrape across the planet. It's implied that Hong Kong was one such casualty. The movie never goes into any detail just how severe the destruction may have been.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: During the fight in the abandoned town, Izzy walks out from hiding after Megatron grabs Sqweeks, telling Megatron to put him down. This messes up Cades and the Autobots' plan to take out the Decepticons. Cade is quick to call her out on this.
• No Honor Among Thieves: Megatron and his crew came to steal the Talisman from Cade, but the Autobots intervene driving them away — except for Mohawk, who was left behind as he pleads for them to come back for him but then he gets blown up by Bumblebee.
• No Name Given: The aircraft Autobot guarding Edmund's castle, and the submarine Transformer that takes our heroes to Merlin's staff.
• Nuke 'em: Earth's military decides to launch nuclear devices at the ropes of Cybertron, intending to let gravity and physics do the job of creating a pendulum to take out the Ignition Core. It doesn't work, as the core remains active. They do discuss that only nuclear weaponry would be able to do enough damage fast enough to make the attempt first.
• Off with His Head!:
  • Optimus kills all five Infernocons in one fell swoop by decapitating them after they separate from Infernocus, asking them did they forget who he is when they dare charge at him.
  • Onslaught is decapitated by Drift, who remarks "His fat head!" Mohawk finds his comrade's head before the same fate befalls him too when Bumblebee shoots him albeit he survives.
  • Nitro Zeus gets his head blown out by Bumblebee.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Cade and Jimmy have this reaction when they find out that the TRF have discovered their junkyard.
  • With the assault on the Ignition Chamber judged a failure, the team is preparing to parachute to safety — then Vivian suddenly changes her mind and turns back, and Cade has one of these moments before dropping his parachute and going after her.
  • Cade and Viviane when Barricade joins the chase in London.
• One-Word Vocabulary: Sqweeks' vocabulary is limited to "Chihuahua".
• Out-of-Character Alert: Cade notices something is wrong with Optimus when the latter takes the staff from Viviane (and, a few seconds before that, threatens to kill Viviane if she doesn't hand over the staff).
• Our Dragons Are Different: Dragonstorm is a robotic dragon that is ironically composed of Knights, when dragons and knights are traditionally enemies. Though he's not the first robotic dragon to have three heads.
• Out of Focus: Hound, Crosshairs, and Drift don't get quite as much focus in this film, though they're far from Demoted to Extra.
• Palette Swap:
  • Both Canopy and Onslaught are retools of Long Haul's design, with Canopy being naked of any vehicle mode kibble and having a different head, while Onslaught has much of the same coloration but with different decals and kibble to match his different vehicle mode.
  • Dreadbot and Berserker reuse the models of Crowbar and Crankcase, two of the Dreads from Dark of the Moon, with Dreadbot having a Volkswagen bus as a new vehicle mode.
  • Nitro Zeus reuses the model of the KSI Bosses from Age of Extinction, but has Shockwave's head repainted to accommodate it.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Cogman is shorter than your average human male, but he's still strong enough to casually arm-wrestle the much larger Crosshairs to the ground and crush his fingers.
• Plug 'n' Play Technology: Despite Ratchet trying to fix Bumblebee's voice since before the events of the first movie, all it takes here is installing a new voicebox. Then again, it's not quite the voice he was going for.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Two in the climax of the movie, both delivered by Optimus; the first is a Shut Up, Hannibal! The second doubles as a Shout-Out to Tony Montana. Downplayed Example as they are still at large.
  Megatron: We were brothers once!
  Optimus: Once.
  [later]
  Optimus: [to Quintessa before Bumblebee sics her from the back] Say hello to my friend, Bumblebee!
• Put on a Bus:
  • Tessa and Shane do not appear in the film; Tessa is away at college, but Shane goes unmentioned and it's implied they broke up, since Cade tells Izabella he'd tell her to stay away from any drummer boys.
  • Scorn and Strafe are absent from the film despite Grimlock, Slug, and the baby Dinobots living at the junkyard with the main Autobot unit.
  • Brains is also unaccounted for, though we at least know he intended to completely remove himself from the war.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The main Autobot unit is this even moreso than in the previous film. You've got Cade as the de facto team leader and benefactor of the group. Then there's Bumblebee who is trying to be the leader, but gets more contempt than respect from the other Autobots. You've got the quiet samurai and ex-Decepticon Drift still working on controlling his violent impulses, the sarcastic and confrontational sharpshooter Crosshairs who wants to take over, and the fat, borderline psychotic vet Hound who presumably serves as the new medic. Then you've got a bunch of gigantic Dinobots hanging around, including three baby Dinobots. There's also an Autobot with an excavator vehicle mode living with them, and then there's diminutive former Decepticon Wheelie. And they're joined by orphaned scavenger Izzy and her tiny companion Sqweeks.
• Red Shirt: Canopy, Dreadbot, Mohawk, and Onslaught die without much characterization. At least Mohawk has a couple of lines.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Cade gives one to the TRF for losing faith in Optimus Prime and the rest of the Autobots
• Retcon:
  • Age of Extinction implied that the Creators were an entire race of organic aliens, whereas in this film, only Quintessa, who is very obviously a mechanoid, appears. Further complicating the issue is Quintessa calling herself The Prime of Life, implying she's a Cybertronian, and the fact that the previous film implied that the creators wanted to wipe out and rebuild transformers, yet Quintessa is actively trying to get rid of the obvious solution.
• The Reveal: The reason why Earth Is the Center of the Universe for Cybertronians. Because Unicron is the planet's core.
• The Remnant: At the start of the film, Megatron and Barricade are the only active Decepticons left. They thus make a deal with the TRF, offering them two human hostages and the capture of the Autobots in exchange for the release of Decepticon prisoners: Onslaught, Nitro, Dreadbot, and Mohawk (they initially request Berserker as well but the TRF decline to release him). Ironically, by the end of the film, the released Decepticons and Quintessa's Cybertron based forces have all been wiped out, leaving Megatron and Barricade right back where they started. Even more ironically, the Decepticons that Megatron had released are all easily dispatched in the first skirmish with the Autobots.
• The Scapegoat: Optimus, big time.
  • When they first meet, Optimus and Quintessa play this game over whose fault Cybertron doesn't scream "Leasing Rooms". Optimus protests that Megatron relentlessly pursued an unnecessary war mad with his own power that he destroyed Cybertron to stay in charge. Quintessa sticks with blaming Optimus.
  • Optimus also becomes this to the Guardian Knights who thought that he was obeying Quintessa of his own accordance, when really he was brainwashed.
• Series Continuity Error:
  • In a huge example of Writers Cannot Do Math, the beginning of the film establishes that the King Arthur section was set in the year 484 A.D. Then it also establishes that this happened 1600 years before the events of the film, making it set in the year 2084, indicating that the entire series has been set in the near future. This is despite the very fact that the first film was definitely set in 2007 and that there aren't huge gaps in years between films, with the largest being the 5 year gap between Dark of the Moon and Age of Extinction.
  • Megatron finds Starscream's severed head, despite the fact Starscream's head appeared to be completely destroyed when Sam killed him in Dark of the Moon. However, given that the bomb only exploded in one of his eye sockets, it's possible that at least some of it survived. Daytrader mentions he found it in Buffalo, NY, implying that humans had gotten a hold of it and tried to repair it.
  • Bumblebee speaking is what snaps Optimus out of Quintessa's mind control. Prime remarks he had not heard Bumblebee's voice since the fall of Cybertron, despite the fact that Bumblebee was speaking at the end of the first film.^note This mistake may have been simply unnoticed by the writers, seeing as this revelation was completely ignored in the sequels preceding The Last Knight.
  • In the previous film, Lockdown states that their creators (plural) want Optimus brought to them so they could "wipe the chessboard clean" after their creations started meddling with other races, implying their plan was some sort of genocide and starting from scratch. Here, the one creator we see wants Optimus to help her to destroy Unicron, even though logically Unicron would be the best way to wipe everything out. She also identifies as a Prime, and is Cybertronian, yet the previous film shows a brief glimpse of an organic hand collecting materials to build Transformers. Her existence also contradicts the lore introduced in Revenge of the Fallen. There is a chance that she is lying, especially since the Guardian Knights call her The Great Deceiver.
• Sequel Hook: Optimus declares that the Autobots must work together with humanity if Earth is to recover from the devastation inflicted by Quintessa basically parking Cybertron on Earth. Additionally, Quintessa, Megatron, and Barricade are still at large, and Quintessa has taken on a human form to interact with humanity, and is still scheming to destroy Unicron and Earth in the process.
• Shipper on Deck: Vivian's family are very ecstactic when they meet Cade, and ask whether he has a dungeon (referrencing an earlier scene where they're trying to find her a boyfriend and suggest someone with a dungeon as a potential candidate). One of them even tries to have a peek at what they're doing, clearly thinking Both Viv and Cade are making out.
• Shout-Out:
  • Isabela Moner's character and her relationship with Sqweeks is partially based on Rey and BB-8 from The Force Awakens.
  • Cade gets a Clingy MacGuffin from a dying alien in a crashed spaceship and unknowingly becomes a Legacy Character.
  • The released Decepticons get a rap sheet reading and big red subtitles that scream Suicide Squad.
  • Mohawk, with his huge jaws and teeth, angled-outwards eyes and greenish hues, looks more like a Murloc.
  • The handgun that Cade uses repeatedly throughout the movie looks one hell of a lot like the Eviscerator shotgun from Mass Effect 2 and 3.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  Megatron: We were brothers once!
  Optimus: Once.
• Suddenly Shouting: A Guardian Knight as he asserts to Optimus, "Quintessa is the Great DECEIVER!!"
• Trailers Always Lie:
  • The line "You can't fight them" seems to indicate the "them" that can't be fought is one of the robot factions. It's actually the humans of the TRF.
  • All marketing material suggests that "The Last Knight" of the title is Optimus. It's actually Cade.
  • The third trailer depicts Optimus decapitating the Infernocons while still having purple optics, but in the actual scene, Optimus has blue optics as he has at this point recovered from being Brainwashed and Crazy.
  • Marketing heavily implies that Optimus will be one of the main antagonistic forces of the film, however that comes about. However, most of Optimus' scenes for the first half or so of the movie are brief ones simply showing the real Big Bad brainwashing him and once he actually shows up on Earth he's evil for all of 5 minutes before he is snapped back to his senses thanks to Bumblebee.
• Truer to the Text:
  • Megatron's design this time around is closer to his traditional look (in particular his Transformers Prime design), including his "bucket-head" and arm-mounted fusion cannon.
  • The Decepticons in general, being much more diverse, colorful and talkative, unlike the monstrous, greyish, unintelligible, hardly distinguishable from each other Mooks from the previous movies.
• Time Skip: A few years have passed since the previous film.
• That Man Is Dead: Megatron has abandoned his new persona Galvatron, possibly because it was given to him by humans.
• Twitchy Eye: Cogman's right eye keeps twitching to show how volatile he is.
• Unexplained Recovery: Barricade was critically wounded with explosives by US military forces at the end of the third movie Dark of the Moon but here he's perfectly fine and his eyes are repaired (he even gains two extra eyes) when back in the DOTM battle both his eyes were shot and he was blinded.
• Unreliable Expositor: Quintessa claims to have created the transformers, yet seems to be one herself, and the previous film showed something organic gathering the materials to build transformers. Her design also doesn't match the primes shown in ROTF, and her plan to revitalize Cybertron is the exact opposite of what the previous film implied. One of the knights even mentions that she is not to be trusted because she is the Great Deceiver.
• Vocal Evolution: Barricade is still voiced by Jess Harnell, though he has a more dignified, quiet voice as opposed to the deeper, more growling voice he used during the original film.
• Wall of Weapons: Sir Burton has an epic one in his mansion. It's so jam-packed with countless swords that the actual wall behind them is barely visible anymore.
• We Used to Be Friends:
  • Bumblebee and Lennox are now on opposing sides, since Lennox joined the TRF.
  • As is recent tradition for the franchise, Optimus and Megatron:
    Megatron: We were brothers once!
    Optimus: ONCE.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Quintessa and Megatron's main goal is actually fairly benign: destroy Unicron and revive Cybertron. The only problem is that destroying Unicron destroys Earth as well, given that Unicron is the planet's core.
• Wham Line: Quintessa revealing to Optimus that Unicron is the Earth's core.

  Optimus: Earth. Is. Unicron?

• What Happened to the Mouse?: Having previously done this in the first movie, Barricade ends up pulling off this trope again just before the final battle.
• What Have I Done: Optimus, realizing he nearly succeeded in killing Bumblebee under Quintessa's mind control, becomes guilt-ridden and asks himself, "What have I done?"
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Cade calls Izzy out after she runs into the street of an abandoned town, ruining cade's and the Autobots' plans to take down the Decepticons
  • He also gives one to both the TRF and the world leaders for losing faith in the Autobots
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • The TRF almost vaporize a group of boys after they're caught tresspassing on government property. But back down upon realizing who they are and instead order their and Izabella's extraction from the area upon seeing Canopy.
  • Drift sees the baby Dinobots as just bugs and is more than eager to slash them if he could.
• You Shall Not Pass!: When the junkyard comes under attack, most of the Autobots flee into town to set a trap. Hound, meanwhile, stays behind to buy them some time, and singlehandedly takes on Megatron's unit and survives the fight.

---

"At the heart of every legend, there is truth: a few brave souls unite to save their worlds. We can be heroes in our own lives—everyone of us—if we have the courage to try. Our fates were always intertwined, but now, our worlds are joined as one. We need to repair our planets, work together, if we wish to survive. A dangerous secret is buried deep inside the Earth. There is more to this planet than meets the eye. I am Optimus Prime, calling all Autobots: It is time...to come home."