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)
Revealing mistake: As the flat bed trailer hits the Winnebago, the stands holding the motor home stable are visible.
Plot hole: After everyone flees the family home, as Optimus is escaping he is pursued by a helicopter. He is driving down a road in a straight line. He never deviates. Yet the helicopter misses him every time, only narrowly hitting him on the side.
Visible crew/equipment: During the scene where Cade and the rest are running for their life on the roof of the huge apartment building, when the Decepticons are shooting at them, the long shot of them running shows a few crew members crouching against a wall and a camera and also another crew member crouching down in the brick doorway.
Visible crew/equipment: After Drift transforms into a helicopter, Optimus Prime continues driving through the desert. In the first shot after, a camera truck can be seen reflected in the chrome bumper. (00:53:15)
Factual error: Once they escape the large ship, the humans and Bee hop on the ship Crosshairs is piloting, and they take off through the city, being chased by three enemy ships. Bumblebee, standing on the back of their ship, shoots a grapple hook at a good sized fishing boat and then flings it up into the path of the enemy ships, destroying one. But this is where physics fails. The ship they are in is not affected by this action at all, yet Bee is standing on it and uses brute force to lift a heavy object into the path of an identical ship very swiftly, and the ship they are on does not even get fazed by the action. At the very least, the ship should have suddenly bucked down in altitude from the sudden additional weight of the ship Bee grappled and pulled on, having a effect similar to an anchor, as well as Bee's motion in jerking it upwards really fast, having an equal and opposite reaction to the ship he is standing on. (01:41:05)
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: 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: 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)
Visible crew/equipment: In the final battle scene, just after Bumblebee temporarily knocks over Lockdown, Cade shouts "Get out of here, now" and it cuts to Tessa and Shane about to get into a tow truck and Shane telling Tessa to get in. In this shot, the reflection of a crew member, most likely a cameraman can be seen briefly reflected on the door of the tow truck. (02:31:40)
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: 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)
Visible crew/equipment: When the red car flips through the truck during first car chase after locating Optimus at the house, the first shot doesn't show anything there, then after the car flips through truck, a camera is shown on the ground, presumably filming but looks like they never used the shot. (00:41:53)
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 ★