Transformers 4

This is about "Age of Extinction," right? Anyway, I thought that this movie was okay. Like, it's not as bad as the second Transformers movie and I liked it a bit more than the third movie, but it wasn't as good as the first movie.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. It's genuinely impressive that they found a main character and an actor I dislike more than Sam Witwicky and Shia Lebeuf.

At least he didn't commit any hate crimes and say he wasn't sorry for them.

They put togheter to many elements.at this i would had removed galvatron and save it for a unicron movie.

Surprised anyone dislikes Cade Yeager more than Sam Witwicky since Sam to most people is pretty insufferable—though not me. Not sure what it is that's unlikable about Cade.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Nov 15th 2023 at 3:23:55 AM

I think Cade is just irredeemably boring.

Cade: I’m an inventor!

I just don’t see him as the right character for this franchise. Sam had a lot of issues but he kind of grew on me. Cade just feels so generic and yet simultaneously ridiculous.

Sam fit the vibe of the Michael bay films better in my opinion.

Plus Cade Jaegers name is just beyond ridiculous.

Edited by Patar136 on Nov 18th 2023 at 10:25:55 AM

Sam comes off as a whiney entitled manchild.

Cade comes off more as a smug, amoral prick.

Edited by Kaiseror on Nov 19th 2023 at 8:23:07 AM

In Sam's defense, he's a teenager for the first two movies and barely into adulthood in the third. As annoying as he can be, it does make sense for him to be immature.

Not that any of that really excuses him being a worryingly wet fart of a protagonist from a writing standpoint, especially when Bumblebee gave us what was basically Sam-but-not-terrible in the form of Charlie.

Edited by Chortleous on Nov 19th 2023 at 9:50:34 AM

Cade also has the issue of the issue of the 4 movie having his annoying daughter and sex offender boyfriend.

So there was some improvement in the 5th movie when the 2 didn’t come back.

Charlie was a great protagonist and as much as I loved Hailee Steinfeld in the role, I'm a little bummed they didn't bring Charlie back as an older character in Rise of the Beasts though.

Cade because he was a widower trying to do right by his daughter and make a name for himself was more effective to root for. I also find it hilarious how Isabella Merced as Iz plays a girl you think he's gonna adopt at the end of The Last Knight and then about a year later, Mark Wahlberg DOES adopt her in Instant Family. Haha. Also despite The Last Knight technically underperforming, it's too bad it means that we didn't ever get to see that version of the story completed as well.

Charlie is basically what you would have gotten if Mikaela was the main protagonist instead of Sam.

Again—especially now that it's a different continuity, I want them to retire the gag of Bee talking through the radio as well. It's played out at this point. Would've been great to hear him use his real voice with Charlie because even with Dylan O'Brien not doing the voice for the majority of the movie, their chemistry would've been fire.

Why is Cade insufferable? Oh man, happy to go into this.

Performance: I... do not like Marky Mark in this role. He doesn't do "scientist" well, so him going "I'm an inventor!" is... not good. I hate his high-pitched "scientist voice" he does. Well, that's untrue. I find it hilarious when it's in a comedy like The Happening^note Wait, The Happening wasn't a parody?.

Speaking of his inventor-ness, his bizarre Small Name, Big Ego. Stop making me side with the bank, AOE. You haven't paid your mortgage in half a year and are stealing electricity from your neighbors. You're not making money because you're bad at inventing, even with your incredibly shady ethical practices involving practices with his sole employee that cannot be legal. I DON'T WANT TO SIDE WITH THE BANK but they should take your house away. Except you're threatening them with a baseball bat.

Then there's the creepy Oedipal thing. Like, we laugh at the Card of Statutes but we gloss over the fact it's only plot relevant because Cade is weirdly possessive of her and wanted to go her prom with her.

Seriously, in this 47 second clip he shows himself as an incredibly abusive boss and completely smothering father while completely ignoring peoples' valid objections to his actions.

And again. Played by a racist. Nothing Shia's done is as bad as a hate crime.

Those might just be unfortunate takeaways because I would agree that this writing is definitely not the smartest. Haha.

What?

It's dumb writing with bad ideas. Bottom line.

Even though this one was a huge hit, I wonder if audiences not being fond of it likely attributed to the failure of the next movie as a result. Thoughts?

Well personally I didn't watch any more Transformers movies until Bumblebee because this one was so bad. So I could see that being true.

Sam worked fine in the first film. He was not as annoying as he would become and his bonding with Bumblebee is pretty good, not as good as Charlie with Bumblebee but still pretty good.

By comparison the problem with Cade is that I never feel like he bonds with the Transformers. He has a couple of empty talks with Optimus and treats the rest like annoyances. Like I think he was missing a good dynamic with one like Sam and Charlie had with Bee or Noah had with Mirage, to make him feel less annoying and unneeded.

I would say so.

Edited by Bullman on Nov 20th 2023 at 3:44:08 AM

Yeah. Sam in the first one worked pretty well and did indeed devolve as each film went on. Bee's dynamic with him in at least the first film and definitely Bee's dynamic with Charlie were effective—with the latter being a HUGE bright spot.

The first movie's strength came from interesting human characters too. To me anyway, I got pretty invested in most of them.

Funny enough, the human villains were huge bright spots too. With Age of Extinction you had Kelsey Grammer and with Dark of the Moon you had Patrick Dempsey.

Transformers IV: Please, no more.

This thumbnail just captures everything insane about the “I’m an inventor movie.” The video as a whole is just such a fun deep dive into the stupidity of this film. And the craziest thing. This isn’t even the worst movie in this franchise.

This one was a financial hit. The next one wasn't. Your point is indeed proven. Haha.

Concept art of a female Decepticon called Widowmaker who was going to appear in the movie.

We do still have yet to see the Pretender Transformers show up. Haha.

Yeah this one made a billion and the next one didn't, which is why Age of Extinction is considered a hit while the other isn't. I personally think that because it still made way more than its budget back that the fifth one's still not really a failure though.

There was that one Decepticon in... the second movie, I think that it was? The one that took the form of a human woman in order to get to Sam.

Yeah Widowmaker looks very similar, maybe they were going to reuse the same model and actress