Other mistake: When Sam and Mikaela are parked at the top of a cliff after "breaking down", Mikaela lifts the Bonnet of Bumblebee to check the engine. Mikaela, who's the car expert, states the motor has a carburetor, but the manifold on the engine was one for an individual throttle body fuel injection system. (00:24:50)
Factual error: The guys in the pentagon say "Predator's coming up in a minute". Twenty seconds later we see this so-called Predator. It has a jet engine and a regular V tail. An RQ-1 Predator UAV has a four-cylinder engine (propellers) and inverted-V tails - /\. An MQ-9 Reaper also has propellers. The only UAV in the USAF with a jet engine is the Global Hawk, which does not have a lethal capability.
Continuity mistake: After Sam and Mikaela arrive at the Griffith Park Observatory (the planetarium closed for renovation), when they start to hold hands the distance between the two of them changes from farther apart, to close together, to farther apart. (00:59:35)
Visible crew/equipment: When Sam rushes to his waiting father after class and tells him about the A- they drive off. In the next close-up shot the filming vehicle, with its top mounted crane and camera at its front end, are reflected on the car's surface as they drive past, before pulling into the Porsche lot. As this shot continues, when they drive onto the Porsche lot, the filming vehicle directly behind them (note its headlights), is reflected on the large windows in front of them and when Sam is told he isn't really getting a Porsche the filming vehicle, which is now beside them, is reflected on the window to their left. (00:11:45)
Revealing mistake: When Blackout sees the green laser light on him, he turns around and flips over some cars, a couple of which don't have engines in them.
Continuity mistake: When Banacheck shows Sen. Kelly comparative photos of Blackout with the one from the beagle probe and Epp's photo, the latter one shows the sun behind Blackout although it was taken at night.
Continuity mistake: During the chase scene, where Bonecrusher and Barricade are chasing the Autobots on the highway, Bonecrusher transforms into robot mode and is shown skating across a 6 lane highway. Optimus Prime is shown to transform into his robot form to fight Bonecrusher. You can see the 6 lane highway in front of Prime stretch on as far as the eye can see, and there are no ramps or overpasses anywhere in sight. Yet at the moment of impact, when Bonecrusher tackles Prime, they are suddenly on a highway overpass, which they fall off of, and fall onto ANOTHER highway overpass.
Continuity mistake: Mikaela begins cuffing the undershirt/boxer wearing Agent Simmons arms around a post in the wideshot, then it cuts to the close-up, as she handcuffs the dark suit wearing right wrist of one agent to the dark suit wearing left wrist of another agent. Then in the two following shots we see that she and Sam have actually just cuffed the undressed Agent Simmons left wrist to the dark suit wearing second agent. (01:24:00)
Continuity mistake: After Mikaela and Sam walk away from all the handcuffed agents, when we hear an Autobots shout, "Optimus! Incoming!" the railroad crossing post is visible behind the Autobots, but Agent Simmons is not handcuffed to it. Then, when we hear, "Roll out!" Agent Simmons is handcuffed to that post as he should be. (01:24:20)
Continuity mistake: When Mikaela is telling Captain Lennox that she'll leave as soon as she gets Bumblebee out of the area, watch her hair. At first, her back is to the camera and her hair is perfectly smooth but when the camera is facing her, her hair is extremely messy. (01:57:55)
Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the movie, during Blackout's inbound flight, Blackout is ten miles out. When the two F-22s take off, the angle between the planes and their shadows on the ground is around 60°. This puts the sun somewhere in the middle of the day. Yet, when Blackout lands at the base it's just after sunset.
Revealing mistake: When Sam Witwicky's great-grandfather activates Megatron's navigation system, he is blown back. As he falls, you can see one of Megatron's robotic fingers wiggle. (01:06:35)
Factual error: When Defense Secretary Keller is having the press conference at the pentagon after the attack at Qatar he said "bases worldwide are at Defcon Delta our highest readiness level" which is incorrect. DEFCON stands for defense readiness condition and is ranked in numbers from 1-5. Force Protection Condition (FPCON) also know as (THREATCON) is ranked from Alpha to Delta, Delta being the highest level. FPCON measures the defensive state of American bases while DEFCON measures preparations for war.
Other mistake: During the last fight, Megatron and Optimus Prime fly through an office building while locked in combat. It is shown that the interior of this building is filled with both people and furniture, but when they crash through the last wall, only building debris fall to the ground with them. No people, furniture, office supplies, papers or any of the things that the building was full of.
Continuity mistake: When the Autobots arrive at Sam's house, we only see Optimus, Jazz, and Bumblebee driving up to the house. But when they transform, Ironhide and Ratchet have appeared and Jazz is nowhere to be seen. Later, Jazz appears from nowhere. Also, when Sector 7 arrives, the Autobots are gone without a trace. (01:09:20 - 01:15:50)
Continuity mistake: When Sam and his friend drive into the park to attend the party, the colour and angle of the sun's rays seem to indicate that the sun will be setting soon. However, when Sam starts talking to Michaela's boyfriend, the sun is much higher and brighter than when Sam arrived a few minutes earlier.
Visible crew/equipment: After Sam is interrogated by Barricade, when Sam knocks Mikaela off her moped the black protective gear that Mikaela wears is visible. It is gone when she gets in the car with Sam. (00:51:05)
Visible crew/equipment: When the base in Qatar is attacked, in one shot two crew members, one with a camera, can be seen towards the left side of the screen. (00:06:55)
Continuity mistake: When Sam is looking at Bumblebee at the car lot, he wipes some of the grease off of the Autobot insignia. When Bumblebee blows out all the windows, all the grease is gone. (00:13:55 - 00:14:50)
Factual error: When the Secretary of Defense is talking about dispatching battle groups to various places around the planet, we get various shots of a Carrier Battle Group. Now this movie is set in 2007. On the aft end of the carrier are F-14 Tomcats. The last Tomcat was retired from service in September of 2006, almost a year before the movie takes place.
Answer: Because the Decepticons didn't know where Megatron ended up for the last 100 years. Bumblebee arrived on Earth as a scout to check out for any clues, found the glasses on Ebay, signalled the other Autobots, which prompted Blackout and Frenzy to investigate the base in Qatar, which lead to Blackout downloading the base computers and Frenzy hacking the computers aboard the aircraft later leading to the discovery of Megatron's whereabouts.
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