Transformers: Dark of the Moon/YMMV

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• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Sentinel Prime: Was he a Well-Intentioned Extremist who only wanted his people to have their home restored, or was he an old bastard who simply wanted to return to an era where he was revered as a god?
  • Dylan Gould: Is he a Jerkass Woobie who was unfortunate enough to inherit his dad's allegiance with the Decepticons, or simply a Dirty Coward who wanted to be on the "winning" side?
    • One is also reminded of Saren Arterius, another organic who made a desperate deal with Humongous Mecha From Space in the hopes of saving some remnant of civilization. This is a bit of a stretch, though, as Gould does not express any such sentiment.
  • Megatron: Was he earnest when he wanted a truce, or did he just want to reclaim his role as Decepticon leader? Keep in mind, how you interpret this will also say something about Optimus's following actions.
• Badass Decay: Megatron suffers hard from this, although this is at least partly justified by his injuries in the previous film (the novelization even implies that he has a third of his brain missing). Throughout the movie, he behaves in a somewhat tired manner and tends to stay away from the battlefield, all while getting kicked around by both Sentinel and Optimus (getting killed by the latter in a Curb Stomp Battle when he starts actually trying to fight).
  • Megatron is clearly suffering some psychological effects of repeatedly having the crap kicked out of him. In the first two movies he refuses to "debase" himself with an Earth-vehicle altmode. By this movie, he's broken down and reformatted himself into a big rig so that he can actually move around unnoticed without having his aft handed to him.
• Complete Monster: Patrick Dempsey playing Dylan Gould, a slimy, yet successful billionare who is revealed as an agent for the Decepticons. Although he implies to Sam that the alliance is not exactly his choice (inherited from his father) and he tells Carly that his primary motivation is survival of any sort, his actions tend to go towards doing reprehensible things regardless of being forced by the 'Cons. In particular when some Autobots are taken captive he is the one to suggest executing them, and when the Space Bridge Pillar deactivates he is the one to personally reactivate it. Ulitmately his actions outweigh any possible sympathy as he is willing to betray HIS OWN SPECIES just to walk free when the Decepticons take over.
  • As much of a monster Gould is, he does have somewhat of a reason (although not justifiable) for not defecting: He pretty much inherited the Decepticon alliance from his father, so the alliance was pretty much forced upon him. On that note, his father probably qualifies moreso than his son, since unlike his son, it is fairly clear that he entered the alliance willingly and knowingly for no reason other than to broker a financial deal to ensure his company is the hotshot company. His staff may also qualify as such, seeing how it is strongly implied they supported Gould's alliance with what would likely result in the genocide of the human race.
  • Laserbeak. The lengths he goes to in order to kill his target and the sadistic glee he takes in doing it is just horrible, even for Decepticons. The worst part is when he "befriends" a little girl to get into her house, then proceeds to ruthlessly slaughter the entire family in one go!
  • Soundwave could be considered this as well. At the climax of DOTM, he holds a few of of Autobots hostage—evil robot execution-style—and fully intends to kill the everlasting shit out of them (which he and Barricade actually do to Que/Wheeljack in a rather brutal fashion), with a gleeful Dr. Claw laugh thrown in.
  • Megatron, in contrast to the first film, is clearly not this anymore, as evidenced when he doesn't kill the elephants in Africa or Carly.
• Contested Sequel: It's better than the wretched and reviled predecessor or just as bad?
• Crazy Awesome: Jerry Wang.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Jerry Wang, due to his status. Dino/Mirage may also count for some, and as always, Sideswipe, carrying over from this status in the previous film.
  • Also The new Autobot and Decepticon sub-factions the Wreckers and the Dreads. The former for being a group of Weaponized NASCARs and later for their cool robot modes, awesome fight scene, and being a rare example of three robots having the same vehicle mode and being Palette Swaps of each other.
• Fridge Horror: The Decepticon attack on Washington D.C. leads to military going to Defcon 1. Let me repeat that. The government was prepared to use nukes before The massacre at Chicago and Cybertron being transported to Earth's Atmosphere. This also leaves open the possibility that The Pentagon was seriously considering nuking Chicago at some point.
• Hate Dumb/ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontWatch: Suffers incredibly from this, partly due to the Hype Backlash against the previous movie and Michael Bay in general, though it may also be because, like many things, the films are primarily for teenaged boys and adults who act like teenaged boys so anyone outside the demographic will likely dislike it. Although some negative reviews and complaints about the movie are completely valid, a good few of the movie's negative reviews suffer from Media Research Failure / Did Not Do the Research, shallow criticism without justification, and plain old inattention. Similar to the previous movie, it was nominated for "Worst Picture" at the Razzies; arguably, the Hype Backlash in this case is more blatant. The entirity of Movie Juice's review (of which many believe they didn't bother to watch the film) of this film consists of this: Rating the film 'rancid', making a comment about how any film produced by a toy company is stupid, make joke about funny names, make joke about transforming robots, make joke about the fanservice, repeat step three to 5 over and over. When called out on this, the reviewer replied by just trolling the comment. Not a good day for movie reviewers, or reviewers in general.
• Like You Would Really Do It: The writers might be prepared to kill off Wheeljack and even Ironhide, but Bumblebee? Get real!
• Moral Event Horizon: Sentinel Prime crosses this when he reveals himself as a traitor willing to enslave humaity in order to ensure Cybertron is rebuilt, killing Ironhide in the midst of revealing it.
  • Any sympathy for Dylan pretty much leaves when one sees the lengths he's willing to go to ensure that he isn't harmed by the coming Alien Invasion. Of particular note is when he reassures himself that he's safe... while watching hundreds of innocent civilians be slaughtered by the Decepticons.
• Padding: It's 2:30 hours long, so a few people find many scenes unnecessary.
• Replacement Scrappy: This was anticipated with Megan Fox / Mikaela's departure and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley brought in as a new character, as a lot of fans appreciated that Mikaela wasn't a useless screaming love interest and disliked that Rosie was a Victoria's Secret model with no prior acting experience. The potential anger was ebbed slightly when Rosie's character was named Carly after the G1 character and Rosie herself commented on being proud of being a part of the franchise. But to a lot of people's surprise both Rosie's acting and Carly herself turned out better than expected, as Rosie wasn't a rehash of Mikaela as a blonde and she was consistently cheerful and friendly even through Sam's moody moments in the movie.
  • On the other hand, one hilariously vicious review said that Dark of the Moon is the only movie that could possibly make you miss the acting talents of Megan Fox.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Wheelie was better received than in the second movie because A) no leg humping and B) he actually helps in the climactic battle. Along with his partner, the even more quirky Brains, they manage to liven up the mood without being too obnoxious.
  • Sam also earned the respect of some when he Took a Level in Badass and killed Starscream.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Of course it is up for debate, but the movie does aim to fix the problems that happened in the second film and fans were generally impressed with some of the story twists like Sentinels betrayal and Ironhides death, Gould's reveal as a bad guy and Carly convincing Megatron to retake his leadership of the Decepticons.
• Uncanny Valley: Wheeljack/Que's face might seem a little too human-like for some viewers.
  • Most of the time they show their cg JFK's face out of focus. They focus on it one time briefly. And boy is it creepy.
  • There's also the CGI version of Sam as he swings around after stabbing Starscream in the eye. The CGI becomes noticeable when they show the close up of his face.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: It's shown in the third film that humans are aware of the Transformers, and that the Autobots are not well liked by the US population (being referred to as "alien mercenaries"). There are clear reasons for this dislike; the Autobots cause countless property damage in their battles, and there's the fact that the average US citizen has to worry about whether or not the car or machine near them is not a dangerous alien warrior. Sadly, the movie only touches lightly on this, and never really explores how the Transformers' known presence has affected the world at large.
  • Transformers 4, anyone?
• Take That: Against Megan Fox's character for the actress comparing Bay to Hitler.