There’s a moment in the third act of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts where the bad guys have taken possession of the transwarp key (the central MacGuffin of the plot) and started their evil plan, and the good guys appear on the horizon to let everyone know that the big final battle is about to happen. Scourge (Peter Dinklage), the lead bad guy, looks at his two henchmen and says, “Protect the key,” indicating that they should stay and protect the key while he turns to face the good guys. At this point, the two henchmen take off to fight the good guys, and Scourge stays in place.
It’s a small moment, but it’s emblematic of the writing of Rise of the Beasts. The film introduces a whole new set of Transformers and complicates the already complicated franchise lore even further. While the big-picture stuff makes as much sense as a story about giant talking robots in disguise as cars and animals can make, it’s as if no one was around to make sure the movie made sense from scene to scene.
Link: https://exclaim.ca/film/article/transformers_rise_of_the_beasts_film_review-directed_by_steven_caple_jr
This piece/episode was produced during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labour of the writers and actors currently on strike, the films being discussed here wouldn’t exist.