Continuity mistake: During the scene in which Tessa is hanging onto the wires suspended above the skyscraper, Lockdown's dogs start crawling on the wires behind her. The dogs then disappear in the next closeup of Tessa, only to reappear in the next shot. (01:39:10)
Continuity mistake: Optimus and the car Tessa is trapped in are caught in a net and are pulled up to Lockdown's ship. Cade then jumps and grabs onto the net whilst it is being raised. There is a brief moment where Optimus is not visible inside the from the net, before being visible again in the next shot. The CG artists likely forgot to add Optimus into the shot during post-production. (01:22:35)
Continuity mistake: When Optimus Prime and Galvatron first fight, after Lockdown comes for Optimus, Tessa hides in the abandoned car. Between shots, the car's door opens and closes.
Continuity mistake: Cade says that this is a no dating household, that he doesn't date and neither does Tessa. Tessa then says that maybe he should, and storms off outside. Cade follows her, and as you see him leaving the shack, there is nothing in his hands. But when he gets outside and catches up to her, suddenly he is holding a power drill in one hand, and an adjustable wrench in the other. (00:23:15)
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Optimus frees the "Legendary Warriors", aka Dinobots, they walk into the canyon area and Optimus addresses them and asks for their help. It appears there are 3, maybe 4 large robots. When Grimlock screams and starts to fight Optimus, the others disappear. They continue to fight, showing from wide angles, and the others are still nowhere to be seen. Grimlock then transforms and charges at Optimus, with nothing behind him or between the two. When Optimus knocks him to the ground, it shows the angle that he falls to the ground in slow motion, and the other warriors appear in the area that Grimlock just ran through.
Continuity mistake: When Bumblebee and Drift reach KSI headquarters a Rolls Royce is in the shot. In the next shot when Bumblebee is transforming the Rolls Royce is far away from Bumblebee. In the next shot when Bumblebee is crashed through KSI headquarters there is no Rolls Royce parked out front.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where the Autobots are escaping from the KSI building, closely pursued by Galvatron and Stinger, the satellite tracker used by Joshua to track them, using an orange false image view, indicates they are driving on a freeway leaving the city. This is backed up by a swooping shot showing the same. However a second or two later and they are in the middle of an open countryside, not a building in sight (there are many 360 degree camera sweeps), a few bridges and other cars, but also old concrete banked curves. This is on a test track which for some reason they didn't CGI to make it fit with the supposed scenery the satellite indicated they were near.
Continuity mistake: When Lock Down is giving the seed to the CIA the scratch on his chest is top left to bottom right, while in the rest of the movie it is top right to bottom left. (01:27:35)
Continuity mistake: When Bumblebee acquires his new Camaro look, Tessa and Shane are sitting inside him. After the new look is complete you get a camera shot in front of Bumblebee where you see that no one is inside the car. In the next shot both are sitting back in it. (01:10:00)
Continuity mistake: When the agents of Cemetery Wind arrive at Cade's house, Lucas is shown in a close up hiding behind a tree, looking out. His arm is stretched out beside him, obviously his hand on the tree and him close to it. But then it cuts to a far shot from behind and suddenly his arm is down and he is further from the tree. (00:34:55)
Continuity mistake: Lucas returns from getting parts for Optimus Prime, saying he went to the doctor. As he pulls up in his car and parks, his window is up. But then it shows him open his door and climbing out, and suddenly the window is halfway rolled down. (00:33:20)
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Cade, Shane, Tessa and Lucas are running away from Lockdown, they leave Shane's car behind. After Lockdown's grenade detonates, the car is nowhere to be found in the aftermath.
Continuity mistake: When the girls in the red jeep pull up to the mail boxes, Tessa gets out and says "almost time for a tan and get wasted." Another girl then gets out and throws one arm up in the air and cheers. From the front shot, you see that both her sleeves are still over her shoulders, and her hair is over her left arm, which is down. From behind and the sleeve on her left shoulder is down so her arm is showing, and her hair is now behind her back, with her pink bra strap visible. (00:07:10)
Continuity mistake: When Cade is forcing the real estate agent and the two buyers off his lawn, he threatens them with a baseball bat. The bat is in his right hand as the three get back inside the car, but as soon as the car begins to drive out of the lawn, the bat has suddenly switched to his left hand. (00:13:15)
Continuity mistake: Near the end of the film, when Cade is helping Hound, he is wearing a black jacket. In one shot, he is seen hiding behind a pillar wearing a green shirt. Then, before he pulls the pin on Hound's grenade, you can see him remove his jacket, revealing the green shirt underneath. (02:16:15)
Continuity mistake: During the scene when the hunter's ship is picking up the Land Rover with the seed, Darcy falls out of the truck twice - once forward and once backward - one right after another. (02:25:32)
Continuity mistake: When the Autobots are reunited it shows Bee, Crosshairs and Drift in his Bugatti form all driving together, than all of a sudden Drift is up on the mountains and jumps off into his helicopter form. (00:52:29 - 00:52:56)
Continuity mistake: At the end you see Bumblebee driving in and in the far away shot you see him drift/stop in front of Cade and everyone but next shot you see him drive in again and transform.
Continuity mistake: When Darcy is at the site in the Arctic, the frozen Dinobots she sees do not appear until she walks up to them. In the establishing shot of the site, they are nowhere in sight. And in the shot where the site worker is pointing a shotgun at her, the only things seen in the background are the vehicles on the site. The frozen Dinobot suddenly appears in the background when she continues to walk towards it. (00:03:05)
Continuity mistake: When Cade is showing Tessa the photo of him and her mother, the right corner of the frame is shadowed compared to the rest of it. A few seconds later, when Tessa begins to walk away, the shadow in the right corner of the frame has disappeared. (00:23:05)
Chosen answer: The battle that lead the government to hunting all transformers was in Chicago, but the incident that took Optimus out of commission was not. He'd been on the run for however long, even changing his appearance to avoid detection, when he was ambushed. Wounded, he snuck into the theater to hide before transforming one last time into vehicle form at which point he basically passed out, lost consciousness, or whatever it is robots call it when they involuntarily shut down (stasis). His aggressive reaction upon waking is simply down to his instinctive warrior reflexes immediately kicking in. All humans are a potential threat to him now, so he reacted accordingly in an instant.
Phixius ★