Transformers: Movie Club Discussion Points

Although I am not a teacher myself, I associate with a lot of teachers.  One teacher in particular teaches some kids who are really interested in Transformers.  She was asking me if I knew anything about them one day and I said "Well I think one is named Optimus Prime, that is all I know" but then I remembered that for some reason, my household owns the Transformers movie (the Michael Bay version) so I suggested we watch it so she could do some research for school.

So last night, we settled in to watch Transformers.  I am not sure what we were exactly expecting, but I don't think we were expecting to end the movie more confused than when we started.  I think if you have a movie club, or would like to start a movie club, and are looking for a movie with a lot of discussion points Transformers would be a good pick.  I'll start you off with some questions:

• Does this movie have a plot?
• Why do you think Michael Bay chose a runtime of 143 minutes, but also chose to pack 95% of the plot (if you decide there was a plot) into the last half hour?
• Discuss the obstacles Rachael Taylor's character ("the blonde girl") must have had to overcome prior to the movie - i.e. what would a 23 year old Australian woman have to do to be granted such high US government security clearance so early in her career as an analyst?
• Did this movie have a script? 
• My opinion here:  it seemed like this movie did not have a script.  It reminded me a lot of high school drama class where we had to write plays, but a group of slacker boys just "sort of knew the plot" of their play but did not write a script, and it ended up being them bantering slightly too long while trying to advance their plot.  It was scarily a lot like this movie.  They got a bad mark because they did not hand in a script.
• What happened at the end of the movie?  (Seriously - what happened???)
• We honestly watched the ending twice, then Wikipedia-ed the plot, and still could not figure out what happened.  How did Shia LeBleaughsfss defeat Megatron?  Was the power within him all along?  Was the cube destroyed?
• How did Bumblebee get his voice back at the end of the movie?  (Seriously - this was not explained.)
• Who was the Autobot that Optimus Prime was referring to at the end when he said "We lost one"?  (Seriously - WTF happened.)
• Is this movie sexist?  Why do you think the only woman who worked for the entire US government (except the flight attendants) was a 23 year old Australian analyst?
• Do you think Michael Bay knows that women can be in the military?
• Did you understand the movie in any way whatsoever?
• Why do you think the best hacker in the world wasn't already employed by the US government, and instead was living with his grandmother and playing Dance Dance Revolution with his cousin?  Also, why was this character so mean to his grandmother?  (e.g."SHUT UP GRANDMA!")  She seemed nice enough.
• Was Megan Fox's character ("the dark haired girl") a static or dynamic character?  If she was dynamic, how did her character grow over the course of the movie?  What did she learn?  
• What was the purpose of Shia LeBleaghfs best friend at the beginning of the movie?  Do you think Michael Bay promised him a speaking role in the movie and then added him in at the last second when he showed up on set and Michael Bay was like "oh YEAH I forgot about you uhh go climb that tree I guess"?
• Who was your favourite character and how were they different from the other characters?
• Did the female characters add substance to the story in any way?  Do you think Michael Bay had to fill a quota and have at least two "strong female characters"?
• Do you think that $4000 was a reasonable price to pay for an old beater Camaro that spewed exhaust fumes all over the place and the cops would probably ticket you for driving?  Is that how much junker cars cost in the States???

Well, I think those are enough questions for now.  Feel free to add your own questions in the Comments section.