Continuity mistake: When we hear the Qatar base commander say: "4500X, something's not right," we see the sun has already set (the sky is purple) but when everyone starts to mobilize, the sun is still visible above the horizon.
Continuity mistake: When Bumblebee is caught and then frozen, you can tell that he isn't animated and is rather an enormous prop, because he is a lot cleaner than his animated counter-part.
Continuity mistake: In the scene in the interrogation room with the two programmers there is a big plate of doughnuts which the hacker eats very quickly. But take a look at the plate between shots when he's talking and you'll see that the amount of doughnut left on the plate varies greatly: Sometimes there's one whole doughnut left, other times, in the same conversation, there's only crumbs.
Continuity mistake: When Captain Lennox's wife is watching the broadcast saying that everyone at Qatar was killed, the door is wide open. When she sits down to feed her baby, the door is now closed and the high chair has been moved accordingly.
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.
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: 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.
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 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.
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.
Continuity mistake: When Bumblebee is caught, so are Sam and Mikaela. They were on the ground being handcuffed. But then Sam gets away and starts running for Bumblebee to stop him from being frozen. Sam is no longer handcuffed at this point.
Visible crew/equipment: When Sam is at Bobby Bolivia's cars dealership intending to buy the Chevrolet Camaro and all the cars' windows explode, as the camera turns around a shocked Bobby Bolivia the shadow of a boom microphone is visible on his face.
Visible crew/equipment: When Sam is brought by his father to the Porsche's dealership at the beginning of the movie you can see the camera car reflected on the building's glass while chasing them.
Continuity mistake: When Sam and Mikaela are in the SUV with Simmons, the look of the backseat of the vehicle, between the two teenagers, changes when Prime appears, and provides them with his version of a sun-roof.
Continuity mistake: The rather large hole at the back of Sam's long and short-sleeved tee shirts, that appears after Barricade interrogates him and he knocks Mikaela off her moped, changes size, position etc. There are other small rips around that hole that appear, disappear and change as well.
Factual error: When briefing the Secretary of Defence, Banacheck refers to NASA/JPL having lost the Beagle 2 probe on Mars. Beagle 2 was part of the European Space Agency Mars Express mission. NASA/JPL were not involved. Beagle 2 was also not a rover-type mission, as portrayed in the film, but a static scientific lander.
Continuity mistake: When the troop is flying in the helicopter at the start of the movie, Epps is not wearing sunglasses. When it cuts back to him, he is, then again it cuts away and back several times and you can see an indentation on the side of his head where the Oakley sunglasses were.
Chosen answer: There is no reason to think they can't. They simply choose not to. They may feel it's too deceitful.
Actually in this movie (when joining up with bumblebee and the others after they pick up the All Spark) and Revenge of the Fallen, Ironhide uses holographic humans in his cargo bed. Also, Arcee and the twins use holographic drivers at the beginning scene in Revenge of the Fallen.