Ok as a Transformers fan my whole life I'll offer a different perspective. I don't compare this to any other version. It is a different universe than G1, the Cybertron trilogy or the recent Prime series.
In my opinion AOE was the best of the 4 so far. There was more robot screen time, whether you felt it or not. The autobots had more personality than any previous movie. The crude humor was subdued by Bay standards.
This film was meant to wash away the inconsistencies of the last two. Revenge of the Fallen was an abortion and Dark of the Moon didn't make sense following that storyline, albeit a better movie overall. The story wasn't as convoluted as you might think. Humans trying to make their own transformers. This was stolen from the Transformers: Animated with Megatron head being used to reverse engineer many things and eventually being remade. Lockdown was sent by the creators to retrieve Prime. He was helping the humans as only a means to an end. He was a bounty hunter plain and simple.
Some people aren't liking Optimus in this because he's not the noble leader in past versions. But if you look at how things have progressed, you can see why he is wary of humans. The autobots were betrayed in every film up to this by those they were trying to protect. Prime had enough once they decided to hunt them down and kill them. They turned from protectors to survivors. This made the last of the autobots cynical at best. Most importantly though we finally saw real emotion from them. In the past when a comrade died they weren't mourned at all. This time when Prime saw Ratchet killed it sent him and the rest in a noticeable rage. No planning, no discussion just action. They still were not allowed to harm humans and only went to destroy the results of the research. And still they didn't even do that. Prime only broke his vow of never killing humans when he had to save Cades life. In the end, Cades family were the only humans Prime felt trustworthy. Telling the rest to guard them. He wasn't guarding the planet anymore just his friends. This was the Prime we needed in earlier films but never got. A Prime that had been broken by war and deciet, but still willing to do what it took for his friends and family. He didn't hold back.
The only true let down was the Dinobots. Too little screen time and not enough back story on them. But this could be fleshed out in the sequels.
This film had alot to overcome. It had to reset the series so it could start over. I feel it did that, while not totally dismissing the previous films. We got more robots, more personality from them, and really a better story than the last two. It was a little to long, but this is also Bays last go. This movie sets up a new trilogy. It's a good start moving forward.
