At least this plot was understandable and it existed.
But much more importantly (which is kinda sad), it didn't have any of the humour attempts that made the second one so abysmal. There were no racist twins, no leg-humping robots, no high parents, no absolutely needless comic relief characters, nothing like that. Now, the comic relief scenes here were largely pointless, but at least they were harmless. The second movie is a racist, sexist, insulting travesty largely due to its attempts at humour (which are everywhere). They ruined what was already going to be bad due to the plot and action with some of the worst cinema I have ever seen.
Also, for all your hate of Shia, it's basically just hatred for hatred's sake. I mean, that's not a compliment to the guy, but are you going to tell me that he compares at all to such RotF greats as John Tuturro's ass?
Hell, for all your complaints about the Starscream thing, at least that had Sam contributing as a character and having a well-choreographed, well-shot action sequence. A human wasn't totally useless in the film, that's more than you can say for the last one. That's what you want to see, really, if you're going to have the humans at all I'd rather have them useful and involved rather than just there.
By the way, Starscream was in character. This last statement will make me unpopular, but let's face it. He was always a loser. He's been a loser in every Transformers series except Armada (and maybe the comics, of which I have not seen enough). If I may quote one of my friends regarding his death "he died the ay he lived".
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^Poorly disguised anti-caps sig