There are horrific spoilers here!
So, I went to go see it at 9 PM on June 28th, and I took my Optimus Prime Real D 3D glasses to be as awesome as I could. I had actually seen the first five minutes of the movie, because they showed that at BotCon. It makes me pretty sad about the current state of the space program.
I think they handled Megan Fox not being in the movie quite gracefully. Apparently, Mikaela broke up with Sam. They don't talk about it much. There are not many good female characters in this movie, I will warn. Sam's mom, Judy, is probably the best female character, if only because she tries to make Sam read She Comes First. Then there is a government lady who is in charge who mostly only exists to be an obstacle to Our Heroes and not listen to reason and also to be Simmons's love interest. Then there is Carly, who is mostly just there to get kidnapped. Carly does, however, have enough courage to kick Megatron in the metaphorical balls and give him a pep talk, which was pretty brave of her.
I absolutely adored Bay Sentinel Prime. I cheered for him out loud at a number of points. I am so glad that I bought his big toy while it was on sale and his little toy, too, and today, I went and bought his medium toy on sale. I am a fan of Animated Sentinel Prime; he's my second favourite Prime after Rodimus, and Nova is probably my third. I like Animated Sentinel Prime because he is a huge jerk. Bay Sentinel Prime takes the jerk clear into evil. Now, some Animated Sentinel Prime fans might be upset, because they like Sentinel Prime being a jerky good guy. However, I love seeing ex-Autobot Decepticons who became Decepticons out of their own free will, due to ideology shift, and Bay Sentinel Prime is that to a t. Also, in the IDW comics, the first godlike Primes brought forth the later generations of Transformers as basically a slave labour force. Sentinel Prime is older, so him looking at younger species as a slave labour force and his own kind as gods makes a lot of sense, given the culture into which he was built. (It is a nasty and wrong way of thinking, but it makes sense for him.) Also, I was expecting Sentinel Prime to be a boring father/mentor figure who dies while giving Optimus some advice - gag me. Instead, he's a stone cold Decepticon killer. This is delightful and unexpected. I love seeing corrupted Primes, because they're usually so goody goody. Seeing the paladins fall is delicious. In retrospect, how he goes beserk when awakened? Oh, the Autobots ought to have paid more attention! I figure he doesn't take the Matrix, because hey, Decepticons don't need mystical baubles like that. Sentinel Prime's definitely a robot supremacist, which is a fun character flaw. He's also a genius, who invented the space bridge, so somewhere, Shockwave is crying to his mining worm. In retrospect, the humans grilling him about the military applications of his bridge? Oh, they had no freaking clue. Sentinel Prime is also a very passionate Cybertronian patriot, which makes him a neat contrast to Optimus, who would put the humans ahead of his home planet and ahead of his own men, too. I want to cosplay him, but I am already working on a different costume, and I need to get that done before I start anything else. Also, cosplaying a Bay character would probably be pretty hard for me. Anyway, I have never really 'clicked' with any Bay characters. Barricade, Jazz, Ravage, and Sideswipe were pretty, but they didn't really grab me. Ratchet and Scalpel were medical, but they didn't really grab me. Soundwave was okay. I didn't really love any of these characters, though. I think I care more about Lennox than any of the robots, and I'm still not going to go out and buy toys of Lennox. I love Sentinel Prime, though. I have finally found my favourite Bayverse character.
Also, he is voiced by Leonard Nimoy, who also voiced Galvatron, who is better known for being Spock, and this is awesome.
Also, he is an evil firetruck, and I love evil emergency response vehicles.
Optimus Prime is very brutal and violent. I don't think this makes him a bad person. His enemies are very hard to kill, after all. However, he lacks the mercy that most other Optimii posses. This makes him different, so it is interesting.
Megatron is, I think, something of a submissive and something of a switch. I don't mean this in a lifestyler sense. However, I do think Megatron wants to have someone strong and forceful tell him what to do and take the burden of thinking off his shoulders. Now, Megatron's clearly dominant in how he relates to Starscream, but he was submissive to the Fallen, and he's very submissive to Sentinel Prime in this. A submissive Megatron is an intriguing concept.
The robot head lice make me twitch. They're disgusting.
Megatron has a weird paternal streak to the ugly little baby Decepticons.
I think Cybertron turns to dust at the end?
Hair is now canon for non-Beast-era Transformers. This makes me sad.
The aesthetics and designs get even weirder in this movie. There are a lot of tentacles. I do not mind the tentacles, but I think some of the aesthetics would be more appropriate for a non-Transformers movie.
The characters need to namedrop more. I only figured out Dino's name by watching the credits, and I still do not know what the inventor Autobot's name was. I almost wish that they had just made Ratchet an inventor in this movie and then executed Ratchet, because Ratchet really doesn't do much of anything in all of this. Also, then the fangirls who ship Ironhide/Ratchet could write them having ghost sex.
I wonder why they added Dino at all, because he appears to just be Sideswipe II. On the other hand, I shouldn't complain about more robots.
A lot of good characters die in stupid ways, particularly the Decepticons. Someone who looks awfully like Barricade shows up just to die. Shockwave and Starscream both die in somewhat stupid ways. Megatron dies but not in a stupid way. Soundwave may well be Decepticon leader after this movie shakes out.
As far as I can tell, none of the Wreckers die! I do not like the potbelly look of Leadfoot, but Topspin and Roadbuster look great. Also, I love their backstory. The Wreckers were exiled to a NASA base to keep guard on a spaceship, away from the public because, "They're assholes." This is amazing and perfect. Also, the spaceship they’re guarding? The Xantium. I cheered in the theatre. The Xantium makes me so happy.
Apparently, there are only nine Autobots on Earth? This seems weird. I suppose Skids and Mudflap really are dead!
Shockwave is apparently the huge worm thing? Did he hook up with Hellbender and forget to de-hook? That is not how the beast with two backs works, Shockwave!
A lot of characters seem like they're talking, but I can't make out what they're saying. Is it just weird alien grunting? I don't know.
There is less stupid vulgar humour, which makes me happy. Also, the fight scenes are easier to follow and make more sense, which also pleases me.
We see a lot more of Decepticons interacting with each other and getting character development, which is nice.
Bumblebee 'talks' more. This is good.
I liked the humans having energon detectors. That was a good, logical development. The humans did maybe kick a bit too much butt, though. I want to see robots punching robots, not humans shooting robots.
I kind of want to see Simmons/Dutch, even if Simmons is aggressively straight. I am silly.
In short, I think this is a much better movie than the other two Bay Transformers movies, and I think it is also better than Green Lantern.