X Tutup
TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open
Tropes Media Reviews Popular Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Browse Tools
Cut List Image Fixer New Edits New Articles Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug Terms Of Service
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links

Follow TV Tropes

Transformers (2007)
15 Following

Go To

Transformers (2007) (Film)
Their war. Our world.
Optimus Prime: At the end of this day, one shall stand, one shall fall.
Megatron: You still fight for the weak! That is why YOU LOSE!

Note: This is about the 2007 live action Transformers film. For the 1986 animated Generation One film, see The Transformers: The Movie.

The first in the Transformers Film Series, live-action films based on the long-running Transformers toyline and television series. It is directed by Michael Bay, with the screenplay by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, and the story by John Rogers, Orci and Kurtzman.

Our protagonist is teenager Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf). He wants his first car to impress "evil jock concubine" Mikaela (Megan Fox), who turns out to be rather talented with cars. He ends up getting a beat-up yellow Camaro. But it turns out the car chose him; it's one of many sentient alien robots who can "transform" and disguise themselves as human vehicles. His name's Bumblebee, an advance scout for the Autobots, a noble faction from the planet Cybertron whose mission is to protect Sam from another faction, the evil Decepticons.

On another front, a US military base is attacked by agents of the Decepticons, with the sole survivors handling valuable information on whom they are fighting and how they can stand a chance at fighting back. At the same time, Pentagon analyst Maggie Madsen (Rachael Taylor) finds evidence that there is a Government Conspiracy that knows more of what is going on than anyone else. These plotlines converge as Autobot reinforcements led by Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) arrive on Earth and tell Sam his family heirloom holds answers to the location of the AllSpark, a powerful artifact responsible for the Transformers' existence and lost for thousands of years. The two factions battle over it: the Autobots want to return life to their dying world, while the Decepticons seek to exterminate their enemies.

The film also stars Tyrese Gibson as Robert Epps, Josh Duhamel as William Lennox, Anthony Anderson as Glen Whitmann, John Turturro as Seymour Simmons Jon Voight as John Keller, and Hugo Weaving as the voice of Megatron.

The film was announced as a co-production of DreamWorks and Paramount. During pre-production, the latter acquired the former, thus when the third film in the franchise was released in 2011, it was solely a Paramount presentation, a result of DreamWorks being reformed as an independent entity in 2008, with Paramount keeping its library up to that point. Paramount's involvement came in part because they had recently made a deal with Hasbro to distribute home video releases of several animated films and TV series based on Hasbro properties, including Transformers: Energon and Transformers: Cybertron (these rights are now held by Shout! Factory).

The film was followed by a sequel, Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, in 2009.

This film provides examples of:

  • Accidental Misnaming: Mikaela and Simmons each get Sam's surname wrong when they try to say it. Mikaela says it as "Wilkicky" and Simmons says it as "Wickity", even after Ron corrects him.
  • Accidental Truth: When Bobby Bolivia says that at his shop, the car picks the driver and not the other way.
  • Achilles' Heel: The Decepticon Blackout's armor is mentioned as being weak under the chest. Several minutes later, the same soldier who said that successfully kills him by blasting him through his groin.
  • Action Girl: Mikaela initially proves better at keeping her head during a crisis than Sam, temporarily taking out Frenzy with a hedge trimmer while Sam freaks out over being attacked by an angry robot. She's no slouch during the final battle, either, hotwiring a truck to tow an injured Bumblebee across the battlefield so he can keep fighting. She didn't merely drive him around: she deftly drove the tow truck backwards so that Bumblebee would be in front and have a clear shot.
    Mikaela: I'll drive, you shoot.
  • Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: The discussion between the Autobots at the Griffith Observatory.
  • Action Survivor: Sam and Mikaela. Until Took a Level in Badass kicks in. Also Maggie and Glenn, to an extent.
  • Adaptational Achilles' Heel: While Transformers are shown to have various weaknesses that vary depending on the universe, vulnerability to cold is one of the less common ones. Megatron being frozen in the Arctic is in line with prior stories (Skyfire had a similar fate), but more unique to this film is the depiction of cold as one of the main weaknesses of Transformers, with Sector Seven disabling Bumblebee by freezing him.
  • Adaptational Protagonist: The first three films (Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen and Transformers: Dark of the Moon) have Sam Witwicky as the protagonist. He stumbles upon and befriends the Autobots and then gets help from the human government when they are to face the Decepticons. Sam is a version of Spike Witwicky, who in The Transformers was the primary human ally of the Autobots and a significant supporting character (even getting a few A Day in the Limelight episodes), while his The Transformers (Marvel) self would become the Headmaster partner of Fortress Maximus. An offhand comment in Transformers: The Last Knight suggest that Sam died or was killed in the intervening years.
  • Aliens Are Bastards: Three times we see the AllSpark's energy bring ordinary electronics to life, and all three times the result is a berserk murder machine. The reactions of Simmons and the others to the cellphone-critter in the containment box (along with the box itself being heavily scarred and pitted from previous occupants) suggests that this has happened every time humans have experimented with the AllSpark.
  • Aliens Speaking English: The Transformers assimilate languages from the world wide web. The film's directors stated that Megatron, who was frozen inside the Hoover Dam since its construction, picked up languages from the nearby scientists and engineers.
  • Aliens Steal Cable:
    • Optimus Prime and the Autobots learned English from the Internet. Thus, you have Optimus Prime saying "My bad".
      Jazz: What's crackin' little bitches? (later) This looks like a cool place to kick it!
    • In the novelization of the movie, Optimus first tries to address Sam in Mandarin. The explanation given is that this is the language spoken on Earth by the most humans, completely leaving aside the fact that most international communication does in fact take place in English, to say nothing that the most cursory scan of the surrounding transmission waves would make it obvious that they were in an English-speaking locale.
    • And poor Bumblebee, after getting his voicebox crushed by Megatron, has to rely on radio broadcasts to talk with anyone.
  • Alliterative Name: Three. Bobby Bolivia, Maggie Madsen and Seymour Simmons.
  • AM/FM Characterization: Bumblebee, the first Transformer our protagonist meets, actually has no real voice capabilities (this was caused by battle damage affecting his vocal processors), and instead does all of his vocalizations through playing songs on his stereo. At the end of the film, his voice is restored.
  • Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: When Sam is hiding in his room with Mikaela after bringing the Autobots home, his parents believe he's acting cagey because he's hiding porn, and talk to him about masturbation in front of Mikaela. When Mikaela reveals herself, they then assume he's trying to have sex and awkwardly see themselves out.
  • Amusing Injuries: When Sam first encounters Barricade, Barricade's door flies open and hits Sam, knocking him on his face.
  • Animating Artifact: The AllSpark gave life and sapience to both the Autobots and the Decepticons, but was lost during a battle between the two factions. It just happens to be on Earth, where efforts to keep it away from Megatron inadvertently bring the AllSpark near a vending machine, then an Xbox game console. Both inert devices suddenly sprout limbs and blades and start attacking people.
  • Anyone Can Die: Unlike most Transformers media, named major characters do die (Jazz and Megatron, mainly). We also see humans getting wounded or killed by the robots.
  • Arbitrary Skepticism: One of Lennox’s team claims there’s no such thing as invisible force fields except in comic books, even though they had survived an attack by a shapeshifting robot the night before.
  • Arm Cannon: Almost every projectile weapon used by the robots are like this, produced from their own arms and directly connected to their body — in contrast to most media before this movie, and after Revenge Of The Fallen, which feature more mundane handheld weapons: Ironhide's two huge cannons, Blackout's gatling gun, Megatron's two-arm fusion cannon...
  • Artistic License – Cars: Bumblebee's second vehicle mode is a fifth generation Chevy Camaro, a car that didn't even enter production until 2009, two years after the events of the film. Somehow, 'Bee is able to find one driving on the street and scan it.
  • Artistic License – History: Simmons claims that most of the technological advancements of the 20th century came from reverse-engineering Megatron. He includes cars on the list. The first internal combustion engine was patented by Karl Benz in 1879, a full eighteen years before Megatron was discovered in the Arctic.
  • Artistic License – Military: Averted and played straight.
    • Averted: Captain Lennox's team is an Air Force SERE squad, but the commanding officer of the base is a Marine Corps colonel. This is actually accurate, as while SOCCENT FWD is located at Al Udeid Airbase, a USAF installation, the unit iself is a joint command, with personnel in residence from the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy.
    • Played straight: Lennox's team's encounter with Scorponok leads to him concluding that their most effective weapon against the Decepticons is "high-heat sabot rounds", which Epps says are capable of "melt[ing] tank armor." Sabot rounds do not generate excessive heat; their armor-penetrating capabilities come from the higher velocity achieved by encasing a thinner, streamlined round into a disposable case (the "sabot", from the French name for a wooden clog shoe) that receives the full power of the gun's propellant but transfers it to a smaller projectile. The word "HEAT" in the description of the U.S. military's sabot rounds is actually an acronym for "High Explosive Anti-Tank." Likewise, although there are some sabot rounds that fit the caliber of a rifle, there are no 40mm versions that would fit a military grenade launcher.
  • Atrocious Alias: Sam Witwicky's eBay username is "ladiesman217", which works to his embarrassment when the bad guys are looking for a MacGuffin he's sold. Since they don't know his real name, the Decepticons refer to him by his laughable eBay screenname.
  • Auto Erotica: In the first part of the movie, Bumblebee seems to be trying to encourage Sam and Mikaela to do this. The situation is made weirder by the fact that Bumblebee is the car. The ending scene shows Sam and Mikaela making out on top of Bumblebee's hood while the other Autobots calmly watch in vehicle mode, quite possibly making the term "Auto-erotica" a little too literal.
  • Badass Creed: The Witwicky Family motto: "No sacrifice, no victory."
  • Basement Dweller: Glen Whitmann (and his cousin) still lives with his domineering grandmother. Glenn often gets into verbal fights with her.
    Glen: (to Maggie) This is my private area. My place of zen and peace.
    Grandma: (from upstairs) GLEN!! WHO IS IT?!
    Glen: SHUT UP, GRANDMA!!!! (back to Maggie) What are you doing here?!
    Grandma: GLEN!!
    Glen: GRANDMAMA!!!! DRINK YOUR PRUNE JUICE!!!!
  • Bat Signal: Bumblebee sneaks away to a junkyard and shines what looks like a spotlight into the sky. The following evening, Autobot reinforcements arrive. As it is expected to be seen from space, it is either made of very strong light or uses other components as well.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Throughout the film, it's mentioned and later shown that Megatron desires nothing but to have the AllSpark in his possession. He does end up getting it during the end... by having it shoved into the spark in his chest, causing it to disintegrate and killing Megatron in the process.
  • Big Bad: Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons who's after the AllSpark and aims to use its power to destroy Earth.
  • Big "SHUT UP!":
    • Glenn tries to tell his grandmother to shut up while trying to welcome Maggie to his house to discuss the situation with the information concerning Cybertronian language.
    • Maggie tells Glenn to "SHUT UP" in the interrogation room when Glenn protests his innocence and blames Maggie for their arrest. Glenn responds by also saying "SHUT UP!", before realising his mistake moments later.
  • Big "YES!": Two.
    • Sam at the beginning after he successfully convinces Hosney to up his grade.
    • Glenn lets out a quiet one (but with the same impact) when Maggie tells him the information she's about to show him is so classified she would go to prison for life for showing him.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The Autobots technically win the battle as in they vanquished Megatron and his sternest soldiers minus Starscream and Barricade, but Jazz is dead, and the AllSpark is destroyed, meaning the Autobots are now stuck on Earth.
  • Black Belt in Origami: When being taken in for questioning, one of the characters claims that he has a black belt in karaoke.
  • Blade Below the Shoulder: Towards the climax of the movie, Optimus Prime uses a concealed sword in his right arm to attack Bonecrusher.
  • Bookends: The film starts and ends with a voiceover by Optimus Prime. Also, Lennox remarks in his first scene that he wants to get home so he can hold his baby girl for the first time. At the end of the film we see him doing just that, in silhouette.
  • Boomerang Comeback: Frenzy is beheaded by one of his own CD-shuriken ricocheting wildly.
    Frenzy: Oh shit! [collapses]
  • Brake Angrily: When Mikaela asks why Bumblebee turns back into a "Piece of crap Camaro." It seems that Bumblebee does this in retaliation with Sam thinking it's this trope. However it becomes subverted when he was just leaving them so he could find a better form to turn into.
  • Bros Before Hoes: Inverted; Sam's friend reminds him of the trope, but he's kicked to the curb so Sam can go after Mikaela.
  • Bus Full of Innocents: During the climax of the movie, Bonecrusher actually rams into a bus, breaking it in half in a fireball of death, and emerges unscathed, Terminator-style.
  • Butt-Monkey:
    • Bumblebee seems to get the short end of the stick of being with humans, such as when he's captured by Sector Seven and chained up in their secret base under the Hoover Dam.
    • Sam does not get off easily, either. The majority of the film’s humor revolves around him getting humiliated or hurt.
  • Cain and Abel: At the climax of the movie, Optimus calls Megatron "brother". Peter Cullen, who voices Optimus, publicly referenced the story of Cain and Abel when describing the revelation. How that works with giant robots was unexplained, at first. It turns out that Optimus Prime and Megatron were both raised by their adopted father Sentinel Prime. More about this is revealed in Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen.
  • Car Cushion: Ratchet leaps into the air to slice off Brawl's left arm with his buzzsaw, and he smashes a car beneath his feet when he returns to the ground.
  • Car Fu:
    • A rather different case than usual — most of the Autobots turn into cars, who apparently know Kung Fu. For the first movie, in fact, Michael Bay instructed the animators to watch Kung Fu movies to get a feel for how they should move. According to the DVD extras, he even had martial artists on wire rigs filmed to visualize the combat movements of the Transformers in hand-to-hand combat.
    • A more traditional case was Bumblebee's slide/drift in vehicle mode to knock down Barricade while rescuing Sam and Mikaela.
  • Car Skiing: Bumblebee does this to scan and transform into the 2007 version of the Camaro.
  • Ceiling Cling: One of the giant robots escapes pursuit this way, clinging to the underside of a bridge.
  • Chase-Scene Obstacle Course: During the Car Chase with Barricade the heroes end up in an Abandoned Warehouse crashing into a stack of what looks like cardboard boxes for effect.
  • Chekhov's Boomerang: Captain Witwicky's glasses. Sam first tries to sell them on eBay, and Barricade implies their importance when he demands to know where they are. Optimus confirms this by revealing the coordinates to the AllSpark's location on Earth is imprinted on the lenses. Optimus then uses the glasses to determine the AllSpark's location. It's the Hoover Dam, which, ironically, was built around it to prevent it from being found.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • During the attack on Qatar at the beginning of the film, Blackout no-sells gunfire from the military, but is dazed by a grenade launcher to the chest. This is what gets him killed during the climax courtesy of Lennox.
    • Early in the film, it's revealed that Sam tried out for the football team the year prior, only to be rejected. He gets to put his football skills to use during the climax when he's tasked with hauling the AllSpark while being chased by Megatron.
    • Optimus outlines a plan that the only way to destroy the AllSpark is by merging it with his own spark in his chest. The idea was that eliminating the AllSpark and Optimus along with it is preferable to Megatron getting it. Sam managing to execute that plan on Megatron was definitely seen as a Million to One Chance.
  • Chekhov's Gunman:
    • As Blackout is attacking the SOCCENT airbase at the start of the film, a second robot is shown being released down into the sand. This turns out to be Scorponok, who later goes after Lennox's small band of survivors.
    • Glenn. He appears early on as a guy whose computer skills are important to Maggie to interpret the intrusion signal. Then, towards the climax, his computer skills come in very handy when the global power cut/power outage means computer skills are needed to contact the Air Force.
  • Chekhov's Hobby: An early scene reveals that Mikaela knows a lot about cars when Bumblebee fakes engine trouble to play matchmaker and she offers to take a look. It later turns out she knows so much because her father is serving prison time for grand theft auto and, in Mikaela's words, "we couldn't always afford a babysitter." Mikaela puts her less-than-legal car skills to use during the final battle by hotwiring a tow truck and hauling an injured Bumblebee around the battlefield so he can keep fighting.
  • Chest Blaster: Blackout's chest cannon, Frenzy's CD blade launcher.
  • Climbing Climax: Used by the hero during the climactic battle at the end of the movie. Sam runs up a tall building (using an inside staircase) while carrying the Allspark, during which Megatron follows him by just bashing through the different floors. Justified because an Army Ranger had radioed for a helicopter to meet him on the roof of said building. Said helicopter was then shot down by another Decepticon seconds before it grabbed the Allspark from Sam.
  • Coitus Uninterruptus: Implied, with Sam Witwicky and Mikaela Banes making out on Bumblebee's bonnet, while the other Autobots look on.
  • Composite Character: Bumblebee has the friendliness of the classic G1 Bumblebee but combines the visual "door wings" of Prowl and the frontline soldier role of Sideswipe.
  • Cool Car: The car forms of Barricade (a Saleen S281, a variant of the Mustang), Bumblebee (his 2009 Camaro form, which was custom-built for the film two years before its official debut), and Jazz (a Pontiac Solstice).
  • Counting to Three: After having enough of Agent Simmons being an Obstructive Bureaucrat, Captain Lennox grabs him by the shirt collar and slams him against a vehicle as the rest of his squad point their firearms at the other Sector 7 agents, leading to this exchange:
    Simmons: I'm gonna count to five, okay-
    Lennox: Yeah, well, I'm gonna count to three. (cocks his pistol and aims it point-blank at Simmons' chest)
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Blackout vs. the troops at the SOCCENT base. Literally almost nothing the soldiers hit him with has any effect (even a direct hit to the chest with a 40mm grenade only slows him down momentarily), and except for Lennox's squad, he kills everyone else and completely destroys the base, all in less than three minutes.
  • Cut the Juice: The movie actually gets this one right: when Blackout attacks the US Special Forces military base in Qatar and begins hacking into the main computer server, the commander grabs an emergency axe and severs the main power line, turning the machine off. This slows the Decepticons down considerably and forces them to find another way to finish getting the data they need (it doesn't stop Blackout from trashing the base, though).
  • Damage-Proof Vehicle: Mentioned on the DVD/Blu-Ray commentary, where the CGI robots were given plenty of dings and scratches to help them blend into the environment, but the prop cars themselves were always buffed, sometimes giving them an almost CGI appearance.
  • Dare to Be Badass: After Bumblebee reveals his robot mode:
    Sam: He wants us to get in the car.
    Mikaela: [scoff] And go where?
    Sam: Fifty years from now, when you're looking back at your life, don't you want to be able to say you had the guts to get in the car?
  • Darker and Edgier: Setting the precedent for the rest of the Transformers Film Series directed by Michael Bay, this movie features a much grittier interpretation of Transformers. The character designs are very busy and complex, with the Deceptions especially being made to look threatening and alien more than toyetic, the violence is much more visceral, there's much more sex appeal, cursing, and crude humor, and a substantial B-plot plays more as a military/political thriller (that just so happens to contain giant alien killer robots).
  • Decomposite Character: The role of Soundwave as the Hyper-Competent Sidekick to Megatron was split between Barricade (the cop car) and especially Blackout (the helicopter), including their use of deployable minions of Scorponok and Frenzy. He was in earlier scripts, but the demands against Mass Shifting led to the role being split up and, eventually, leaving him out altogether because it wouldn't have done the character justice.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: When the Autobots confront Sector 7 over their capture of Sam and Mikaela, Simmons tells Optimus that according to protocol he's not authorized to communicate with the Prime "except to tell you I can't communicate with you."
  • Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: The entire role of Lennox and Epps in the story was figuring out the most effective way of fighting against the Decepticons. They come to the conclusion that HEAT sabot rounds note  do the most damage (besides heavy artillery from a gunship), although it's still Death of a Thousand Cuts from regular infantry.
  • Destroy the Product Placement:
    • Zigzagged with the licensed vehicle modes never getting destroyed (with the exception of Sideways in the second movie), with the destruction/killing occurring only when they're in robot mode. That said, this being Transformers, the robots ARE still kind of product placement in a way.
    • Inverted with the AllSpark animating a Mountain Dew vending machine and an Xbox 360, both of which start attacking bystanders.
    • Played straight at the start of the Final Battle at Mission City, when a Furby-branded truck is sacrificed to protect Sam and the AllSpark from Starscream's missiles.
  • Deus Exit Machina: This what Bonecrusher ends up being — while his attack on Optimus ends up disatrously (he gets killed pretty quickly and Optimus is barely hurt), it's enough to keep Optimus busy, and only rejoins the other Autobots way later, just in time to fight Megatron face-to-face.
  • Donut Mess with a Cop: The FBI agents bring some donuts in for interrogating Maggie and Glen. Subverted, as Glen starts eating the donuts, then tells Maggie that the donuts are the tactic being used for interrogation, the assumption being that not touching them would make the agents assume the interrogation subjects were guilty.
  • Down L.A. Drain: Sector Seven are chasing after the Autobots, Sam, and Mikaela, and they wind up there, as well subsequently capturing Bumblebee not far from the 4th Street bridge.
  • Dressing as the Enemy: To aid in their invasion, the Decepticons disguise themselves as various kinds of military and law enforcement vehicles used by the US government. The effectiveness of this varies — Blackout infiltrates a military base in Qatar as a Sikorsky MH-53 helicopter, but a handful of soldiers realize something's amiss after noticing his tail number, which belonged to a helicopter that was confirmed destroyed days prior and Sam is quickly able to recognize something's up with the police Mustang that keeps tailing him. Starscream, meanwhile manages to evade notice as an F-22 Raptor fighter jet — when several actual F-22 pilots come to fight the Decepticons in Mission City, Starscream momentarily blends in with the squadron, giving them mere moments to spot the imposter before he takes out half of them.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Sgt. Donnelly, a major supporting character in Lennox's storyline up to this point, is abruptly impaled by Scorponok and dragged under the sand, never to be mentioned again.
  • Dude, Not Funny!: Sam has this reaction to Ron driving him to a Porsche dealership, only to tell him he's not getting one. We even hear him say, "It's not a funny joke."
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • The voices of the transformers have electronic filters applied at different levels to make them sound robotic, and at times their voices sound entirely synthetic (especially while groaning or grunting). This would be reduced in later films, showing more of the voice actors' unaltered performance, though it would return to a lesser extent in Bumblebee.
    • The Cybertronians are suggested to be radioactive, as a scan of Sam reveals he's been exposed to radiation after meeting Bumblebee. This is never brought up again.
    • While not entirely violence-free, the film is noticeably less violent than the other Bay-directed films in the series. The most violent deaths here are Bonecrusher getting a beatdown before being decapitated and Jazz being torn in two, several deaths have the robots "bleed" a blue liquid (inferred by fans to be energon), while later films include a mixture of a red and green fluids and more debris to make it feel more graphic.
    • When Optimus speaks with humans, he makes a point to crouch low and meet them at eye level as best as he physically can. In the remainder of the series, including the post-Bay films, he speaks to humans in whatever position he was already in (standing, sitting, etc.).
    • Transformations are generally drawn out to make them feel big and dramatic, Optimus Prime's first transformation in the alleyway takes a full 30 seconds to appreciate the Technology Porn and his arrival to the battle in the climax still has a 15 second transformation. Even relatively fast conversions would have them finishing the small details while peeling out. Later movies would have some key moments where the transformation takes some time but by Transformers: Dark of the Moon it started emulating the cartoon that treats the switch between modes as simple as standing up and sitting down, including being able to safely engulf or eject a passenger while doing so.
    • The Cybertronian forms of the Autobots when they arrive on Earth are all the same model, just scaled differently and with subtle color changes. Megatron is the only one who retains a unique design. Some treat it as a standard temporary form to allow them interstellar travel. Later films show a much wider range of "protoform" appearances for Cybertronians who haven't taken an Earth-based alternate mode yet, with some like Sentinel Prime or Dropkick and Shatter where there is no difference in their robot forms from what they take on Earth.
  • Elites Are More Glamorous: Lennox's squad is referred to as "a Special Forces team", which since they're US Air Force, means they're SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape).
  • Embarrassing Cover-Up: When the Autobots are hiding in the Witwickys' back yard and Sam's parents barge into his bedroom, with his mom assuming he was jerking off, Mikaela emerges from her hiding spot to give the impression that he had brought a girl home. Subverted when the parents are impressed by this.
  • EMP: This is the favorite weapon of Blackout, and other Transformers have used such weapons, if only mentioned in their Tech Specs.
  • Epic Flail: Megatron briefly uses one to smash apart his prison chamber in Hoover Dam, and later the rooftop pillar Sam Witwicky is clinging to. Barricade also appears to wield one in his fight against Bumblebee, one with spinning blades.
  • Epic Hail: Bumblebee shining the signal light to call the Autobots down
  • E.T. Gave Us Wi-Fi: The Decepticons' ability to infiltrate Earth technology is Hand Waved by stating that all modern tech was reverse-engineered from the captured Megatron, which would also explain why the AllSpark could be used to transform Earth's tech.
  • Ethereal Choir: Some of the Autobot-specific tracks include an unintellegible choir of voices, giving them a more hopeful feel; specifically it appears during the narration at the prologue, when Optimus Prime and some of the Autobots first arrive on Earth, and after Megatron's death. The Decepticons use a different technique.
  • Every Car Is a Pinto: There's an exploding bus. Bonecrusher (one of the baddies) rollerblades through a bus, causing it to split in half and explode in flames. The bus is labeled as being hydrogen powered. The rest of the film seems to avert this trope. Any damaged car simply is smashed, and doesn't explode. Not surprising, considering they are the main characters. How they survive the fall and subsequent crash without getting any serious injuries, however.
  • Evil-Detecting Baby: When a TV news reporter updates on the situation of the soldiers, William Lennox's infant daughter becomes fussy right after the report.
  • Evil Is Bigger: The realistic outcome happens as most of the Decepticons have alternate modes that include fighter jets, military helicopters, a battle tank, and a mine clearing truck; which are vastly larger than any car. Aside from Barricade, they often tower over the Autobots, with the exception of Optimus Prime.
  • Exact Words: Sam instructs Mikaela to look over a section of his bedroom for the glasses that carry the coordinates for the MacGuffin, but quickly states that he means anywhere but his 'treasure chest' after he thinks she's going to look in the said container.
  • Expy: Sgt. Donnelly is an Expy of Private Hudson. Both of them are experienced, wisecracking soldiers who panic after encountering and being repeatedly attacked by an alien enemy that ultimately kills them while they fight back.
  • Explosion Propulsion: Ironhide uses his cannons to blast himself into a vault to dodge Brawl's missiles.
  • Expositing the Masquerade: It turns out that the government has been studying Transformers for decades in a secret base under the Hoover Dam, and that most modern technology is actually the product of their reverse-engineering efforts.
  • Eye Scream: While fending off Bonecrusher, Optimus Prime punches him hard enough to cause one of his eyes to pop out of its socket.
  • Facepalm: Optimus Prime does this at one point while convening with Sam in his house.
  • Faking Engine Trouble: Bumblebee (who is the car) fakes engine problems to try and bring Sam and Mikaela together.
  • Family-Unfriendly Death: The film had its fair share of gruesome deaths.
    • Bonecrusher and Frenzy both get beheaded (in Frenzy's case, by his own weapon), and just look at the mess of what was formerly Megatron's chest after the AllSpark is rammed directly into his spark.
    • How 'bout that soldier in Lennox's squad who got impaled in his chest by Scorponok?
    • And Jazz's death.
      Jazz: You want a piece of me? You want a piece?!
      Megatron: No! I want— [tears Jazz in half] TWO!
  • Fighter-Launching Sequence: Each time airplanes are called for an air strike, the camera will cut from the battle taking place to show the air planes take off. Happens first when the A-10s are called in to attack Scorponok, and later, when the Secretary of Defense manages to get an air strike order out, we are treated to F-22 Raptors taking off. Both times the sequences are covered with voice-over of the operators giving the air strike orders.
  • Flipping the Bird:
    • Bobby Bolivia's mammy does it to him.
    • Frenzy flips off security forces, after Air Force One lands and he “covertly” sneaks past all the guards where he rendezvous with Barricade.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • Captain Witwicky, according to Sam in his genealogy report, kept babbling, in his last years of life, about a "giant iceman" he thought he'd discovered. Said "giant iceman" turned out to be Megatron embedded in the ice after a crash landing.
    • The final line of Optimus Prime's opening monologue: "But we were already too late." This is because the Decepticons are already on Earth and the Autobots (save for Bumblebee) don't make it there until later.
    • Barricade demands to know from Sam where Captain Witwicky's glasses are. This is because, as Optimus Prime reveals later, the coordinates to the Cube's location on Earth are imprinted on the lenses.
    • Ratchet says in the alleyway scene that the Cube's power could be used to transform Earth's machines. In the climax, Sam, while running with the Cube, runs into a Cadillac Escalade and its power brings the steering wheel to life, as well as doing the same to an Xbox and a vending machine.
    • When Trent recalls that Sam Witwicky tried out in a football team, a brief flashback is shown of Sam being immediately tackled on by the opposing team because there is no one protecting him. When Lennox gave Sam the Cube, he told him to run towards the building being the rendezvous point where he would light up the flare to signal the US military chopper to come and pick him up. In a nutshell, Sam is basically doing football with the Autobots being the defenders to protect him from the Decepticons chasing after him.
  • For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: Parodied when Sam is trying to find his Grandfather's glasses and the Autobots are walking around in the backyard. He tells the anxious robots to wait for him and stay low. A minute later he turns around and the Autobots have turned into their incognito alternate modes... parked in the backyard. Obviously they don't blend in.
    Sam: THIS IS NOT A TRUCK STOP!
  • Four Lines, All Waiting: Besides the Autobots vs Decepticons, there is the military plot, the Sam and Mikaela teenage romance plot, the Sector 7 conspiracy plot, and the mostly pointless Hollywood Hacking plot with the hot NSA agent. The Final Battle also shifts focus between Sam himself trying to protect the AllSpark, the main military cast members fighting the Decepticons, a party consisting of Seymour Simmons, Secretary Keller, Glenn, and Maggie fending off Frenzy as they call for help, and Mikaela helping Bumblebee continue to fight in the battle. Roger Ebert also identified this trope as the reason he refrained from giving the film the full four stars.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus:
    • When he tries to attack Sam, Barricade disguises itself as a police car, with "To Punish And Enslave" written at the side (instead of "To Protect And To Serve" that is the real life motto of the Los Angeles Police Department).
    • During the climactic fight in the city, after Blackout transforms and begins walking toward the battle, he starts spinning his tail rotor in his right hand, which chops a "No Parking" sign to pieces as it spins up.
  • Freudian Slip: When Sam is offering to drive Mikaela home, he initially asks if he could 'ride [her] home' instead of 'drive [her] home'. 'Ride' sometimes has sexual implications, which might have been what some girls would have interpreted the words as meaning.
  • Fun with Subtitles: Cybertronian speech is first subtitled in Cybertronian script before being overlaid with English.
  • Generic Cop Badges: In a clever usage and in keeping with series tradition, the department emblem on Barricade's police car form is actually a Decepticon crest. Also, the motto on his side reads "To punish and enslave".
  • Giant Robot Hands Save Lives:
    • Optimus Prime catches Sam when he falls from a building. In this case, at least, he seems to be lowering his hand as he catches him to slow him down.
    • Bumblebee snatches both Sam and Mikaela out of midair while moving at high-speed. Right before that, the two of them had fallen from Optimus Prime's shoulder, who tried to catch them with his foot.
  • Giving Them the Strip: Sam has his pants taken off while trying to escape from the Decepticon Frenzy; he later is able to grab another pair.
  • Godzilla Threshold: The military plan to hide the AllSpark in Mission City.
  • Good All Along: Simmons. He seemed like a bad guy when he took Sam and Mikaela away and when Bumblebee got captured, but is still on the side of the good guys and does yield to Sam's demands at the Hoover Dam, namely that Sector 7 release Bumblebee and erase Mikaela's juvie record.
  • Good Is Not Soft: The Autobots are heroic good guys, but are not afraid of intimidation tactics against Sector Seven or brutal violence against the Decepticons. Optimus in particular is quite stern with Simmons, ripping the roof off their van and barking orders.
  • Goggles Do Something Unusual: The map-engraved spectacles that had belonged to Sam Witwicky's great-great grandfather show the location of the All Spark.
  • Gunship Rescue: the Decepticon Scorponok had several soldiers pinned down and facing imminent death, when they call in two A-10 Warthogs and an AC-130 Spectre. Later in the movie, Megatron is beating the crap out of Optimus, when a bunch of F-22 Raptors swoop in and shoot Megs and Blackout.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Optimus is willing to attempt one in the climax. He tells the other Autobots that he would unite the AllSpark with the spark in his chest to destroy it. Ratchet tells him it would be suicide to do so. In the climax, Optimus tells Sam to do this if he cannot defeat Megatron. Luckily, Sam unites the AllSpark with Megatron's spark, killing him.
  • He's Dead, Jim: After the US Army has little to no effect at bringing down the Decepticon Brawl, Bumblebee pelts him with shots from his own weapon, eventually scoring a direct hit on his spark, killing him and having his dead body collapse and crash through a wall next to where the soldiers were taking cover. One of the lines that follow from the soldiers: "OK, the tank is definitely dead now."
  • Hidden in Plain Sight: Parodied when Sam asked the Autobots to back off from the house while he searched for the glasses. The Autobots transform into their vehicle modes... and sit right there in the back yard. Sam screams at them that it's not a truck-stop, and they have to actually go somewhere else and hide. Optimus later invokes the trope in his message before the credits.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Frenzy is killed by one of his own discs slicing his head in half.
  • Hollywood Hacking: The entirety of the slightly-less-than-awesome "signal processing" subplot.
  • Honest John's Dealership: Bobby Bolivia. "Honest" enough to present an old, battered Camaro (which wasn't there yesterday) as a very awesome ride. Ironically, that Camaro turns out to be Bumblebee, a very awesome Humongous Mecha...
  • Hope Spot: Sam reaches the roof of the building, ignites the flare Lennox gave him, and signals the helicopter tasked to evacuate him and the All Spark; he is less than a foot away from handing the cube to the chopper's crew chief when he sees Starscream fire a missile out of the corner of his eye and has to duck, yelling a futile warning to the pilot.
  • Humans Are Bastards:
    • The capture of Bumblebee by Sector 7, which, coupled with them repeatedly blasting him with freezing chemical during and after the capture, has a definite feeling of torture. When Bumblebee almost shoots the engineers after they release him, it's hard to blame him.
    • Some of this is even intercut with the rest of the Autobots questioning Optimus over why they should save us from the Decepticons, given how primitive and violent we are as a race. Optimus Prime reminds them that at one time, Cybertronians were not so different from us. note 
  • Humans Are Smelly: Megatron uses his nose to figure out where Sam is, although Megatron could also had been being sarcastic.
    Megatron: I can smell you, boy!
  • I Choose to Stay: The Autobots stay on Earth. Not that they really had anywhere else to go in that particular continuity. Also notable is one of Bumblebee's only spoken lines: "I wish to stay with the boy."
  • If I Wanted You Dead...: Sam deduces that Bumblebee "Doesn't wanna hurt us. He'd have done that already".
  • I'll Kill You!:
    Megatron: I'll kill you! Mine! AllSpark!
  • Imposter Forgot One Detail: While the Transformers can fool normal people with their disguises, the U.S. Air Force base in Qatar is immediately suspicious of an unannounced helicopter landing on their base, and that is before they realize the same chopper was destroyed some months earlier.
  • Inter-Service Rivalry: Averted. A special forces team is made up of members from several branches of the military (Lennox and most of the team are Army Special Forces, and Epps is an Air Force Combat Controller) with nary a word of disparagement between branch members.note 
  • Introdump: There's a scene where the Decepticons perform a roll-call for Megatron across America, and the scene in "exposition alley" where Prime introduces the other Autobots to Sam and Mikaela.
  • In-Universe Factoid Failure:
    Simmons: Nokias are real nasty! You've gotta give respect to the Japanese - they know the way of the samurai!
    Maggie: (a brief moment of confusion) Nokia's from Finland.
    Keller: Yes, but he's, you know, a little strange. He's a little strange.
  • Invisible President: Played with. We get an out-of-focus blink-and-miss-it glimpse of the President's face on Air Force One, then a shot where his face is hidden by his big red socks. His distinct mannerisms during his brief appearance make it perfectly clear who he's supposed to be. The IMAX cut of the movie even has Simmons directly namedrop him as one of the few Presidents to have seen Megatron.
  • It Has Been an Honor: Optimus Prime delivers this line before the Autobots storm Hoover Dam.
  • Just a Machine: Agent Simmons seems rather against calling Megatron by his true name when it is given to him by Sam, preferring to refer to him as the more machine-like moniker; N.B.E.-01. In fact, it is implied this pisses off Megatron himself, with him seemingly being conscious the entire time he was kept frozen by them; first thing he does upon thawing and awakening is announcing his true name, before proceeding to slaughter all of the scientists and engineers in the room.
  • Just Plane Wrong:
    • During the battle in Qatar, one of the government officials states that they're tracking an AWAC. As the name of the aeroplane in question is an acronym (for "Airborne Weapon And Control System"), the "s" is not there to pluralise it.
    • Also the the battle in Qatar, an MQ-1 Predator drone is dispatched to recon the area and identify the target, however it is depicted as a jet engine based drone flying relatively low to the ground. Predators were never equipped with jet engines, they're pusher propeller based aircraft that operate at medium altitudes.
  • Kick Them While They Are Down: Optimus Prime's fight against Megatron doesn't end up going too well, with the Decepticon leader being more powerful than Prime. One portion of the fight shows Optimus on his knees, wounded. Megatron takes the opportunity to kick him in the face.
  • Kill All Humans: inanimate objects brought to life by the Allspark immediately set about wreaking death and destruction. Agent Simmons mentions that all modern technology has been reverse-engineered from Megatron/NBE-1 — since this means these objects are essentially descendant from him, it's only natural that they be evil as well.
  • Kill and Replace: It's not considered standard for when the Transformers scan a vehicle mode, but the Qatar base realized something was really amiss when Blackout's tail number corresponded to a helicopter that was recently destroyed under mysterious circumstances.
  • Kill It with Fire: Agent Simmons tries to kill Frenzy this way. It doesn't work.
    Simmons: BURN SUCKER! BUURRRRRRNN!!
  • Kill It with Ice: While not necessarily killed by the ice, in the live-action movie Megatron was frozen for decades after crashing into the North Pole. He was kept frozen while hidden in the Hoover Dam. When Bumblebee was captured, they kept him immobilized with blasts of carbon dioxide.
  • Kinda Busy Here: Inverted. It's justified, though, as well as funny. Captain Lennox tries to make a call to The Pentagon while his (dwindling) men fight off Scorponok. The justification comes from Bay's military advisers listing similar issues soldiers had while trying to connect to the Pentagon mid-battle.
    Lennox: This is an emergency Pentagon call! The Pentagon, do you understand—?
    [the window behind him explodes]
    Lennox: I DON'T HAVE A CREDIT CARD!
    Operator: [bored] Sir, the attitude is not going to speed things up any bit at all. I'm going to ask you to speak very clearly into the mouthpiece...
    Lennox: I'm in the middle of a war! This is FRIGGIN' RIDICULOUS!!
  • Kirk Summation: Played straight between Optimus and Megatron during the climatic battle:
    Megatron: Humans don't deserve to live.
    Optimus: They deserve to choose for themselves!
    Megatron: Then you will die with them! Join them in extinction!
  • Landmarking the Hidden Base: The FBI keeping Megatron and the All Spark inside Hoover Dam, which in the story is actually built to block out the Allspark's energy signature... or something.
  • Landmark of Lore: A certain important giant man was found in the Arctic ice.
  • Large Ham: Glenn and Agent Simmons are extremely dramatic in their actions and dialogue.
  • Last Day of Normalcy: In the Mid-East, William Lenox and his Special forces squad enjoy some time off on their base, and on the other side of Earth, Sam Withwicky worked hard to get good grades so his dad could help buy him a car. They're then thrown into the middle of an interplanetary war between the Autobots and the Decepticons when Lenox's base is leveled by the Decepticon Blackout, while Sam discovers his new car is the Autobot Bumblebee, who was sent to protect him.
  • Learnt English from Watching Television: Optimus Prime tells Sam and Mikaela that they learned English from the Internet, with the exception of Bumblebee, who uses the radio to speak Junkion-style (and one of the soundbites he plays is the alien from Explorers).
  • Leave No Survivors: This is Blackout's intention in the opening scene. He attempts to hack into the military defense network in order to obtain any information about the whereabouts of Megatron and the All Spark, but is cut off by the base commander. When Epps manages to take a digital snapshot of him, he dispatches Scorponok to eliminate the escaping soldiers, whilst he deals with everyone else on base. The investigation conducted in the aftermath reveals that he killed every single person on site. Scorponok however, whilst succeeding in killing/wounding two soldiers, failed to eliminate the rest of the group before they could call for help.
  • Leave No Witnesses: Blackout goes to great effort to invoke this with his attack on the military base, taking great care to not just attack the humans, but also destroy as many vehicles (especially planes) that he can to prevent anyone from escaping to warn the military and sending out Scorponok to hunt down anyone who actually got away. It works in that at first the US couldn't find anyone alive at the base, and it's only through luck that Lennox's squad survives the attack by Scorponok long enough to make contact with the military.
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: After driving the tow truck into an alley, out of the line of fire, Mikaela pounds the dashboard and lowers her head to the wheel, terrified to go back out there, but hating herself for staying back while Sam and the others are fighting and very likely dying. Then she looks at Bumblebee, who just nods at her... and she throws the truck into gear and hits the gas.
  • Lightning Bruiser: As a whole, Transformers are not incredibly fast in their robot modes, but can cover distances quickly and have enough firepower to go toe to toe with a US Air Force garrison by themselves.
  • The Load: Sam starts out as this; despite being in possession of a crucial MacGuffin (his great-grandfather's glasses), he doesn't do much to help the good guys and in fact slows them down more often than not, such as when he's cornered by Barricade and forces Bumblebee to waste hours trying to lose the Decepticon. It's not until the last third or so of the movie that he really starts to be helpful, first negotiating Bumblebee's release and then risking his life to protect the AllSpark before finally killing Megatron with it.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: There's a situation when Sector Seven head Tom Banachek shows Secretary of Defense Keller a frozen Megatron being kept in Hoover Dam:
    Keller: And you didn't think the United States Military might need to know that you're keeping a hostile alien robot frozen in the basement?
    Banachek: Until these events, we had no credible threat to national security.
    Keller: Well, you've got one now!
  • Long Song, Short Scene: Disturbed recorded "This Moment" as a straight-forward fight song with the intention of putting it in a film. They chose this one, which played it for a few seconds, then later during the end credits, and not during the fight scene the band was probably hoping for.
  • Magical Negro: Used car salesman Bobby Bolivia attempts to act like this as a sales pitch.
  • Magnetism Manipulation: Jazz seems to have magnetic powers, pulling the firearms of soldiers away from them. Blackout also has an EMP weapon.
  • The Matchmaker: Bumblebee on trying to hook Sam up wiht Mikaela.
  • Meaningful Echo: "No sacrifice, no victory."
  • Men Can't Keep House: Sam's room, with his suggested Porn Stash.
  • The Men in Black: Sector Seven. Provides a nasty Threat Backfire in the third act when Lennox and his men get into a Mexican Standoff with Simmons and his men and Simmons' attempt at pulling authority is answered with "we don't take orders from men who don't exist".
  • Men of Sherwood: Lennox and his band of soldiers, who are the only survivors of the airbase attack by Blackout. Donnelly is killed by Scorponok and when that battle is over, Fig needs medical attention after being wounded, but Lennox, Epps and the rest of them fit the trope pretty well.
  • Meta Origin: The AllSpark is written to be described enough to explain their origins but vague enough to not answer everything.
  • Midair Collision: Starscream shoots up a squadron of F-22's, causing one of them to spin out of control and crash into another one.
  • Mighty Glacier:
    • Ratchet is one of the physically strongest Autobots. He's also one of the slowest.
    • Ironhide even more so, especially due to the cannons mounted on his arms.
  • Mirrored Confrontation Shot: One poster for the movie has Optimus Prime and Megatron do this. The former has the word "Protect" appear next to him, while the latter has the word "Destroy" instead.
  • Misaimed Stereotyping: This exchange while household objects are being turned into robots using the All Spark:
    Agent Simmons: [looks at a Nokia phone] Ooh. Nokias are real nasty. You've gotta respect the Japanese. They know the way of the samurai...
    Maggie Madsen: Nokia's from Finland.
    Keller: Yes, but he's, you know, a little strange. He's a little strange.
  • Mistaken for Masturbating: Sam Witwicky's parents notice that he's hiding something from them. Sam's mother outright asks if he's masturbating, and his parents proceed to try to give him space.
  • Mistaken for Quake: When Ratchet walks into power lines and crashes to the ground hard enough to incite a tremor, Ron Witwicky runs under the table screaming that it's an earthquake. And later when the Autobots hiding in Ron's own backyard cause another tremor, Ron assumes it's an aftershock.
  • Moment Killer: Invoked by Mikaela. Sam's parents were questioning Sam's nervous and twitchy behavior (due to the Autobots hanging out in the backyard) after coming into his room, with her trying to hide. To end the conversation Mikaela presents herself, making it seem that Sam was acting that way because they interrupted an intimate moment. Rather than being upset, Mom and Dad Witwicky are thrilled for Sam.
    Judy Witwicky: Oh my gosh you're gorgeous! I'm sorry you had to hear our little "family discussion."
  • Monster in the Ice: Megatron was discovered by Archibald Witwicky in the Antarctic ice, where he'd been frozen for thousands of years. He was removed from the ice cave and transported to Hoover Dam, where Sector 7 has been keeping him frozen up to the present day, until Frenzy thaws him out.
  • The Mountains of Illinois: It seems Michael Bay mistook Qatar for Afghanistan, since you can clearly see hills and even mountains in some background shots.The highest point in Qatar is only 338 ft (103 m) above sea level.
  • Movie Superheroes Wear Black: Downplayed and at times, even justified. All the robots are shown to be gray before they scan their alternate modes, and the film crew wanted the Autobots to disguise as civilian vehicles and the Decepticons to disguise as law/military vehicles. Out of the Autobots only Jazz and Ironhide play this trope straight, while the Decepticon's military disguises require this trope to be in effect for the whole "Robots in Disguise" part.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Mikaela Baines is heavily used for fanservice, given she's played by 2000s sex symbol Megan Fox. This includes shots of Mikaela's rear and exposed midriff as she checks on Bumblebee's engine and lots of low cut shirts.
  • Multi-Track Drifting: When the Autobots meet up with the Sector Seven convoy heading to Mission City, Optimus pulls a pretty impressive 180. The skidmarks are still at the filming location over a decade later.
  • Mundane Object, Advanced AI: Efforts to keep the AllSpark away from Megatron inadvertently bring this Animating Artifact near a vending machine, then an Xbox game console. Both inert devices suddenly sprout limbs and blades and start attacking people.
  • My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That:
    • Ratchet's introductory comment: "The boy's pheromone levels suggest that he wants to mate with the female."
    • Earlier, when Bumblebee pretends to cut out at a local make-out point, his radio starts playing Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing".
  • Mythology Gag:
    • The franchise's signature transformation sound is heard a few times throughout the movie:
      • The sound can be heard at the beginning of the film during Blackout's first transformation.
      • It can also be heard when a cell phone transforms after being exposed to the AllSpark's energy.
    • At the used car lot, next to Bumblebee is a yellow Volkswagen Beetle, which was the character's alternate mode in Transformers Generation 1.
    • A possibly unintentional one, but Ironhide and Ratchet's faces resemble the "faces" from their original 1984 toys. note 
    • At one point in the film, Optimus says "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings." This was the motto on packaging for the original toy for the character back in 1984.
    • Ironhide also says a variant of his G1 catchphrase, "leaking lubricant," after Mojo pees on him.
      Ironhide: He's leaked lubricant all over my foot!
    • When Jazz blitzed beside Brawl before diverting the tank fire away, it's a nod to Kup who did the same thing to Blitzwing in his tank mode from Transformers The '86 Movie.
  • Never Trust a Trailer: Towards the end of the first theatrical trailer, a Cybertronian protoform that climbs out of the pool as a little girl watches is seen with red optics, indicating it to be a Decepticon. In the actual film, the protoform has blue optics, indicating it to be an Autobot (more specifically, Ironhide).
  • No Conservation of Mass: Mostly averted, since care was taken so that the Transformers had the same amount of mass in vehicle and robot formnote . However, the Cube can apparently go from house-sized to basketball-sized with no release of energy. That said, the Cube is a magical MacGuffin responsible for the creation of not just a race of transforming giant sentient machines but their entire world as well so it gets a little leeway.
  • No MacGuffin, No Winner: There's Sam thrusting the AllSpark into Megatron's spark, destroying the cube and killing the villain at the same time. Though in the sequel the remains still have some power, and put the plot into motion (one piece teaches Sam about Cybertron and reactivates Jetfire, and another resurrects Megatron).
  • No Man Should Have This Power: Optimus Prime says that if there's no other way to keep the Allspark out of Megatron's hands, he'll shove it into his own spark to destroy it. This option is a last resort because it would also kill Optimus. In the end, Sam shoves it into Megatron's instead. But as the sequel shows, turns out that doesn't quite work.
  • No Peripheral Vision: A particularly odd example comes when Frenzy skitters right between two guards completely undetected (doubly odd in that Frenzy was also making plenty of noise as he did so), which the RiffTrax crew is quick to lampoon:
    Mike: So, how's your peripheral vision, Bob?
    Kevin (as "Bob"): Terrible! Yours?
  • No Time to Think: The final battle ends with Sam Witwicky jamming the omnipotent Allspark into Big Bad Megatron, betting on the off chance that the relic everyone spent the whole movie chasing would be too powerful for Megatron to handle and destroy him... and not, for example, make him an unstoppable machine god. Pretty lucky guess there, Sam!
  • "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: Michael Bay mentioned in the DVD commentary that the sequence where Lennox had to deal with an obnoxious telephone operator to get a call transferred to the Pentagon while under fire was taken from a Real Life incident he heard about while talking with some military personnel.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: Ironhide complains to Optimus Prime for his affinity for humans and insists that humans are violent, primitive brutes. Optimus asks, "Were we so different?"
  • Not This One, That One: Invoked by Sam's dad. When taking him to get his new car, he drives Sam through the parking lot of a Porsche dealer, waiting until Sam says in disbelief and excitement, "You are not getting me a Porsche!" to which Dad replies, "You're right. You're not getting a Porsche," and drives into a used car lot.
  • No, You: When Maggie and Glen are arguing while in FBI custody:
    Maggie: Glen, shut up!
    Glen: No, you shut up!! DON'T TALK TO ME, CRIMINAL!
  • Obstructive Bureaucrat: While fighting Scorponok, Lennox uses a cell phone to get in contact with the Pentagon and call for backup — only to wind up talking to a bored customer service representative who won't let him make any calls until the phone bill is paid. Cue Lennox scrounging through the active battle zone for a credit card and lampshading how absurd the whole situation is.
  • Off with His Head!: Optimus Prime dispatches Bonecrusher by stabbing him through the neck and wrenching his head from his body.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • Colonel Sharp when the 4500X copter transforms into Blackout and starts attacking the SOCCENT base.
    • Epps's "WHOA!" when he sees Scorponok's pincer right behind an unaware Lennox.
    • All the fleeing soldiers have an Oh, Crap! as Scorponok bursts out of the sand behind them. Those were real reactions to the explosion effects caused by Enforced Method Acting.invoked
    • Sam has one when Barricade converts into his robot form in front of him.
    • Omar and Glenn when the FBI invade his home to arrest Glenn and Maggie.
    • Sam when, while talking to Ron, sees Optimus in his robot form climbing into the yard.
    • Simmons when Frenzy is about to attack him, Keller, Maggie, and Glenn from the airduct he's hiding in, saying, "This is not good."
    • Frenzy, moments before his death. Understandable, considering he'd just lost most of his head.
    • In the climax, Lennox, after being told Devastator is getting back up, and then when he sees Blackout on top of a building nearby, and lampshades it with this: "We're so dead."
    • Understandably, the woman driving the Cadillac Escalade in the climax when, thanks to the AllSpark, the steering wheel comes to life.
    • Bonecrusher tries to attack the Autobot-human convoy, and finds himself locked in a one-on-one fight with Optimus Prime. The second he realizes he's about to lose, he frantically calls out to fellow Decepticon Blockade for backup before being dispatched by Optimus.
      Bonecrusher: "Blockade! Help! BLOCK-" *decapped by Optimus*
  • Ominous Cube: The AllSpark, the source of all life on Cybertron, instantly transforms any mechanical device that it comes into direct contact with into a sapient entity with its own transforming abilities. The AllSpark itself is also a Sizeshifter, starting off larger than Bumblebee, who is already enormous, then compacting itself to be small enough for a human to carry.
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: The Decepticon's Leitmotif prominently features an "Ominous Cybertronian Chanting", which adds a lot of tension and gravity to any scene it's used; it appears during Blackout's raid at the start of the movie, Frenzy's attempt at hacking the Airforce One, and during the battle at Mission City. This contrasts well with the Autobots' more subdued counterpart.
  • Online Alias: Sam's eBay username of LadiesMan217 attempts to suggest he's more popular with women than he actually isnote . When the Decepticons find a listing of Sam's with an item containing directions to the film's MacGuffin and track him down, Barricade ends up addressing Sam by his alias because they don't know his real name.
    "Are you username LadiesMan217?!?"
  • Only One Name: Averted with Lennox, his wife calls him Will at the beginning before the connection between them freezes. Epps's first name is revealed to be Robert, as Fig calls him Bobby in their opening scene.
  • Only the Chosen May Ride: While Sam Witwicky is looking for a car to buy for his birthday at a used car dealership, the dealer explains to him that ‘the driver doesn’t choose the car, the car chooses the driver’. Though in this case, it’s because the car in question is a sapient Transforming Mecha, named Bumblebee, who was tasked with protecting Sam.
  • Opening Monologue: There's one where Optimus Prime explains about the Allspark. Somewhat unnecessary, since he explains again to Sam and Sam explains to the government agents and Optimus explains again to the other Autobots.
  • Operator from India: Lennox attempts to call the Pentagon in Qatar when his squad is attacked by Scorponok, but his call is redirected to a disinterested Indian operator. According to Michael Bay, this was based on a true story, presumably minus the giant robot attack.
    Lennox: This is an emergency Pentagon call! The Pentagon, do you understand—?
    [the window behind him explodes]
    Lennox: I DON'T HAVE A CREDIT CARD!
    Operator: [bored] Sir, the attitude is not going to speed things up any bit at all. I'm going to ask you to speak very clearly into the mouthpiece...
    Lennox: I'm in the middle of a war! This is FRIGGIN' RIDICULOUS!!
  • Over-the-Top Secret: Sector 7 classified footage obtained from Beagle 2 landing as "Above Top Secret", as well as the existence of Megatron and the AllSpark.
  • Palette Swap: When the Autobots arrive on Earth we see Ironhide, Optimus and Jazz in their "protoforms," silvery skeletal modes they transform into after crashing in their comet re-entry modes. Because of how briefly each one is seen they are the exact same model, just resized (and different body movement) according to the character.
  • Papa Wolf: Ron tells Simmons this when he comes for Sam: "You're not taking my son." Optimus as well: "Taking the children was a bad move."
  • Parents Walk In at the Worst Time: Sam Witwicky tries to find a small chip placed on his treasure glasses which belonged to his grandfather, which he forgets where he left them in his room, and gets Mikaela to help him. It gets so noisy that Sam's parents go up to check him out. His mother gets completely wrong ideas both before and after she finds the girl in his room.
  • Patched Together from the Headlines: The teaser trailer, and Tom Banachek's private conversation with SecDef Keller, informs the audience that mankind's first actual contact with the Cybertronians came when one of them was captured on film by NASA-JPL's Beagle-2 Rover, which "officially" was lost and failed to transmit any footage from the surface of Mars.
  • Patrick Stewart Speech: Optimus Prime delivers one of these in response to Ironhide's query of why they fight for the humans, a primitive and violent race.
  • Pheromones: Ratchet apparently has the ability to sense pheromone levels; specifically, he can sense Sam's pheromone output whenever Mikaela is around.
  • Porn Stash: Sam is implied to have one in his room when Mikaela almost comes across it. His copy of Busty Beauties that he got from his Uncle Charles is likely part of it.
  • Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: "Join them in EXTINCTION!" *blam*
  • Precision F-Strike: Frenzy's demise when his head is sliced in half with his own weapon.
    Frenzy: Oh, shit!
  • Private Polymorph Reveal: After Frenzy causes an incident aboard Air Force One, he sneaks off the plane after it lands as one of the police cars surrounding it pulls up to him and allows him inside, indicating it's another Decepticon. Later, when Sam encounters said police car, the audience knows he's in danger before it reveals itself as Barricade.
  • Product-Promotion Parade: The scene where the Decepticons scattered across the world discover Megatron's location and converge on said location, which has the purpose of listing off the toys available in the movie's toyline. Even earlier when the other Autobots arrive on Earth and Optimus Prime lists off their names and attributes. At least in the Decepticons' case, Tropes Are Not Bad.
  • Profane Last Words: After Frenzy accidentally rips half of his head off with one of his own shuriken, he mutters out "Oh, shi-!" before dropping dead.
  • Pyrrhic Victory: The Autobots win the battle of Mission City, but they don't celebrate due to the heavy losses. Jazz was sacrificed and the AllSpark is destroyed so they can't return to Cybertron.
  • Rapid-Fire "No!":
    • Sam, multiple times.
    • Also Simmons, after being told they can't contact the Air Force without mics.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Megatron to Optimus:
    Megatron: You still fight for the weak! That is why you lose!
  • Reasonable Authority Figure:
    • Colonel Sharp keeps a cool and serious demeanor, even when a Sikorsky Pave Low helicopter is acting strange. Even when that helicopter is revealed to be Blackout, sent to steal classified data from a military base, he still tries to perform his job as a colonel and protect the data.
    • Secretary of Defense John Keller as well; even if he didn't believe Maggie's theory of a living program, or was responsible for the arrest of her and Glenn, he's never been portrayed as overly antagonistic. And after being convinced of the existence of alien robots by Tom Banachek, he does become far more supportive of them, and of Sam Witwicky, once they meet. He also contributes personally to fighting Frenzy in the Hoover dam.
  • Reliable Rustbucket: Bumblebee at first transforms into a seen-better-days '76 Camaro that belches clouds of smoke when started and breaks down at convenient make-out spots. 'Bee is actually a giant robot from outer space and considerably tougher than he looks. He later turns into a much snazzier 2009 Camaro when Mikaela comments on his shabby appearance.
  • Rousing Speech: Optimus gives a speech on their obligation to help the humans, before they do the car equivalent of the Team Power Walk. The Decepticons have a team-up montage at the same time, so you know it's on.
  • Rule of Cool: Giant robots... Giant robots. The advertising campaign amounted to, "Look at all the cool shit they can do!"
  • Rule of Pool: Omar, Glenn's cousin, is tackled into the pool when the FBI break in to take Glenn and Maggie into custody.
  • Sapient Tank: The Decepticon Brawl who turns into a tank.
  • Say My Name: When The Cavalry arrives in the city in the form of Optimus:
    Optimus Prime: Megatron.
    Megatron: Prime!
    (Cue Duel to the Death)
  • Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Sam's body reads on a Geiger counter at 14 rads when Simmons scans him. In the few days that he's spent with Bumblebee, Sam has incurred a minimum of 47 times his annual dose of naturally occurring radiation, enough to measurably increase his lifetime cancer risk if this wasn't a silly movie about giant robots trying to kill each other.
  • Screaming Woman: A slow-motion shot of one in Mission City as Ironhide leaps over her to avoid missiles fired by Devastator/Brawl. The scream is partly muted, but the effect is much the same.
  • Screams Like a Little Girl: Glenn during his Oh, Crap! moment; also Sam echoing Mikaela's "we're gonna die!"
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: Starscream ups and flees the battle at the end, and a mid-credits scene shows him flying off into space.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Megatron is kept on ice inside the Hoover Dam, and is pretty angry upon thawing out.
  • Secret Society Group Picture: The initial seven agents who dealt with NBE-1 are shown in photographs on Sector 7's walls.
  • Seen It All: Agent Simmons. Optimus Prime even noted that they weren't surprised to see the Autobots, they just didn't expect them to show up. He does seem to be surprised at one thing in the sequel though: that Wheelie has been somehow "tamed" by Mikaela.
    Simmons: All my life I've been searching for aliens. And you've got one tied on a leash like a little Chihuahua.
  • See the Whites of Their Eyes: There's a Decepticon known as Starscream. Whilst primitive Raptor aircraft employed by the US Air Force were designed with the capability to lock and fire at ground-based targets outside visual range, this advanced alien warrior apparently is unable to target and hit the Hoover Dam's power station unless he's stationary and in robot mode. On the other hand, he's Starscream. He may have just wanted to add a personal touch.
  • Selective Magnetism: Jazz is able to rip guns out of the hands of Sector Seven agents with magnetism, but their cell phones still work. Advanced living machine alien technology may justify that.
  • Self-Deprecation:
  • Self-Destructive Charge: The end of the movie has Megatron, shot up by Optimus and airstrikes from the US Air Force, madly crawling after the AllSpark, even as he takes more punishment from the planes. Justified in that if he had gotten his hands on the AllSpark (which he was still fully capable of) he could have easily fully repaired himself.
  • Shout-Out:
    • At the site where one of the Autobots crashed, we see a nerdy guy screaming "This is a hundred times cooler than Armageddon!"
    • The scene where Captain Lennox and his team are pinned down, need to call the Pentagon over a phone and need a credit card to pay for the call is almost identical to a scene in the film Heartbreak Ridge.
  • Skewed Priorities: The driver of the Cadillac Escalade in the climax is more concerned with Sam hitting her car that the battle unfolding before her eyes that involve giant alien robots. Then the car's steering wheel (brought to life by the Cube and Sam's impact with the vehicle) starts attacking her.
  • Snap Back: Bumblebee regaining his ability to speak. In the next two, he's again talking in sound bites without explanation. Also, the first film ends with a very public battle between a ton of robots that no Weirdness Censor could possibly cover up, and yet the Transformers are back to being a secret only conspiracy theorists believe in by the next film.
  • Space Is Cold: The Reality Is Unrealistic aspect is demonstrated by all the people who think they found a huge plot hole where Megatron freezes upon crash-landing in the arctic, and Cybertronians are stated to be weakened by freezing temperatures, but of course can manage space just fine (they're also expecting Elemental Baggage, incidentally); an example features in this comic.
  • Square-Cube Law: In truck mode, Optimus became a conventional tractor (one with a hood) instead of his original cab-over design, to give him enough extra mass to get to 30 feet tall when in robot mode, rather than 25 feet like the other Autobots.
  • Stairwell Chase: A form appears when Sam runs up a stairwell to the roof as Megatron smashes his way up after him.
  • Standard Hollywood Strafing Procedure: The A-10's that attack Scorponok are shown shredding the ground in plenty of space before and after his spot.
  • Standard Police Motto: Parodied. Barricade's alt-mode is a police car mode with the phrase "To punish and enslave."
  • Staring Kid: Two notable cases:
    • The girl who has Ironhide land in her pool. She asks him if he's the Tooth Fairy.
    • A boy who witnessed the fight between Optimus Prime and Bonecrusher in a highway, including Optimus punching one of Bonecrusher's eyes from his socket. He then turns to his mom, and tells how cool it is.
  • The Stinger:
    • First, Sam's parents vehemently (and poorly) trying to deny the existence of aliens to reporters.
    • Then, Starscream retreating to space.
  • Stock Scream: A decapitated Frenzy utters the Wilhelm scream when Sam kicks his head across the power plant.
  • Strapped to an Operating Table: Bumblebee is chained down to an appropriately sized table and tortured. It's never really explained why, besides the government agency needing to hold the Villain Ball.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
    • Pinned down, Lennox tells Sam to take the cube to the roof of an abandoned building nearby and wait for a chopper to extract them both. The already desperate plan utterly falls apart, as the building is old enough that Megatron can tear through it like tissue paper, three of the Decepticons can fly and Starscream has absolutely no problems taking out the chopper before Sam can drop off his cargonote  and in the end Sam ends up being trapped between an angry giant robot and a massive, obviously lethal fall to the street. Sure, if the opponents were humans the plan probably would have worked, but with giant robots who can turn into military vehicles it's not quite as effective.
    • One of the snipers in Lennox's platoon attempts to snipe Blackout's weapon using a Laser Sight. Unfortunately, the weapon is in use and is therefore in the Decepticon's plain line of sight, and seeing the impossible-to-miss green flash of light on his arm Blackout instantly turns towards the sniper (and the viewers). As a result, all the sniper accomplished was tipping off the mechanical giant that he's got puny fleshlings literally aiming at him. Real-life laser sights are best used at night, where non-visible ones can be seen and traced with night-vision goggles. Using a visible laser in broad daylight will only tell the enemy where the shooters are and are aiming at them.
  • Take a Third Option: The backup plan for the final battle is to either defeat Megatron outright, or have Optimus sacrifice himself to keep the AllSpark out of the Decepticons' hands. Sam instead takes a clear opportunity by fusing it with Megatron's spark instead.
  • Take That!: The Invisible President (meant to be) is portrayed as an oblivious moron who sits around and asks for snack cakes while alien robots hack the US Military.
  • Tanks, but No Tanks: Ironically, despite being Backed by the Pentagon, the film has a tank filled with M60 Pattons which were phased out in the '90s instead of more appropriate M1 Abrams tanks. Brawl is also a fictional mock-up of an Abrams the same one used in xXx: State of the Union with the addition of the two missile pods and the mine pushers. invoked
  • Tanks for Nothing:
    • The Transformers' destructive power is first shown when Blackout singlehandedly attacks a US military base in Qatar, deploying a Sphere of Destruction and an Energy Weapon that send tanks flying.
    • Devastator, a Decepticon, actually has a modified Abrams as his vehicle mode, but isn't able to contribute much more than collateral damage to the climactic battle: he gets ganged up on by several Autobots and cut to pieces.
  • Technology Porn: Prime's first transformation is accompanied by a 360-degree camera pan.
  • They Would Cut You Up: They're actually shown experimenting on Bumblebee. And by "experimenting", we mean basically torturing him.
  • This Is Gonna Suck: This line from Lennox during the Mission City battle:
    [Hears helicopter and turns around in time to see Blackout landing on top of a building]
    Lennox: Oh, we're so dead.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Sam and Mikaela. Both start out as just Ordinary High School Students, then end up actively taking part in the climax with the Autobots and soldiers against the Decepticons. Sam even ends up dealing the final blow against Megatron.
  • Tooth Fairy: A young girl mistakes Ironhide, who landed in her home's swimming pool, for the tooth fairy.
  • Train Escape: Sam is chasing his "stolen" car when it runs over train tracks just before a train passes, cutting Sam off. Also, later in the movie, a concerned Mikaela follows Sam on her scooter and is cut off by a police car.
  • Translator Microbes: The movie gives the first attempt in the series why the robots are capable of speaking English just fine, their minds access the internet and are able to assimilate personality quirks appropriate to them, such as Jazz talking and acting like a hip black guy (itself based on the G1 character, voiced by renowned black musician Scatman Crothers), and 'Bee implicitly being a Back to the Future fan. Both Megatron and Frenzy speak in both English and mumble in what seems to be a Cybertronian language.
  • Under the Truck: Captain Lennox grabs an abandoned motorcycle, drives it straight at Blackout, and puts it in a powerslide right between Blackout's legs, firing his assault rifle and Grenade Launcher straight into him (while at the same time, F-22's are shooting him with missiles), apparently killing him.
  • Unnecessary Combat Roll: Watch Ironhide, particularly when he and Ratchet are covering Witwicky in the big city battle. It's practically all he does.
  • Urine Trouble:
    • Mojo urinates on Ironhide's foot during the backyard scene.
      Sam: Mojo! Mojo, off the robot!
    • Bumblebee lubricating on Simmons is very reminiscent of this.
  • Vengeful Vending Machine: The power of the Cube animates a soda machine, which sprouts limbs and goes berserk.
  • Watching the Sunset: The film ends with Optimus staring at a sunset.
  • What Are You in For?: There's this exchange on a helicopter:
    Maggie: What'd they get you for?
    Sam: Bought a car. Turned out to be an alien robot. Who knew?
  • What Measure Is a Mook?: While he probably expected to die in the process, Jazz's attempt to slow down Megatron ends up just like you expect the fight between a tiny Autobot and the three-times-as-large Decepticon leader to go - a Curb-Stomp Battle where Jazz is literally torn into pieces, followed by Megatron noticing Optimus, off-handedly tossing away the remains of now-dead Autobot, and resuming the battle with no worse for wear.
  • Why Won't You Die?: While trying to take down a particularly well-armoured Decepticon with a tank for a vehicle mode, one whose name is either "Brawl" or "Devastator" depending on who you ask, Captain William Lennox watches the robot shrug off a severed limb, several disabled weapons systems, and constant fire from Lennox and his marines, and says in disbelief, "These things just don't die!"
  • Willfully Weak: Deconstructed. Optimus Prime deliberately holds himself back in his Final Battle with Megatron to avoid collateral damage, which leads to Megatron quickly curb-stomping the Prime and nearly claiming the AllSpark. It takes an airstrike and quick thinking on Sam Witwicky's part to kill Megatron and save Optimus's life.
  • You All Share My Story: The three separate subplots involving Lennox's team, the NSA hackers, and Sam and Mikaela converge when all three are assembled at the Hoover Dam for the final battle.
  • You Can't Go Home Again: At the very end after Sam rams the AllSpark right into Megatron's chest thus killing the tyrant for good and leaving the Decepticons without a reason to continue the war anymore, Optimus plucks the last remaining shard of the cube out of Megatron's corpse and holds it in despair. They needed the cube to restore their home planet Cybertron. The Autobots are left stranded on Earth for the remainder of the film series.
"With the AllSpark gone, we cannot return life to our planet. And fate has yielded its reward: a new world to call home. We live among its people now, hiding in plain sight, but watching over them in secret, waiting, protecting. I have witnessed their capacity for courage, and though we are worlds apart, like us, there's more to them than meets the eye. I am Optimus Prime, and I send this message to any surviving Autobots taking refuge among the stars: We are here. We are waiting." note 

 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Chased by Scorponok

After escaping the Decepticons' attack on their military base, the survivors find themselves pursued through the desert by a Cybertronian scorpion bent on finishing the job.

Example of:
Scary Scorpions

Autobots vs Brawl

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Browse Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top

Chased by Scorponok

After escaping the Decepticons' attack on their military base, the survivors find themselves pursued through the desert by a Cybertronian scorpion bent on finishing the job.

How well does it match the trope?

4.8 (15 votes)

Example of:

Main / ScaryScorpions

Media sources:

Report

Chased by Scorp...

Autobots vs Brawl
X Tutup