>>7309722>>7309718A lot of people forget that fucking everyone died in that movie. These cartoons were made as commercials first, and thus shows how the corporate mind works: New toys are coming, so stop showing the old ones any way possible.
The story beats in the movie feel like they were trying really hard to maintain that mandate while still making it a compelling story. They didn't succeed that well, but it was certainly more effort than the LA movies ever gave. It just seems like transformers is always on the cusp of great stories but some toy pushing executive make a mandate that just has to crumble it, like Beast Wars needing to have Optimus Primal in season two, or Beast Hunters, or the IDW toy tie-in comics, or some other crap.
