In the aforementioned making-of doc, producer Ian Bryce says “Dark of the Moon” was developed specifically to win back audiences after “Revenge of the Fallen,” explaining:

“I think the reaction to the second Movie played a large part in the development of the third movie. Michael was very aware, as was the studio in Lorenzo [di Bonaventura], everyone was aware that the reaction to number two was not as favorable as it had been to number one.”

The third Film, “Dark of the Moon,” does have probably the most comprehensible story of the sequels, walking over a low bar that the other films slam into. It also has the series’ best villain, Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy), Optimus Prime’s former mentor turned evil. Sentinel boasts an excellent character design, a surprisingly committed performance from Nimoy, and a concrete motive: he wants to revitalize Cybertron, the homeworld of the Transformers, and thinks it can only be accomplished by subjugating and strip-mining Earth.

Bay’s excesses are still there though, from the worship of the U.S. military to the shockingly cruel “heroes.” The runtime is still far too long and the comedy is no less overbearing, though John Malkovich and Alan Tudyk are at least step-ups from Ramón Rodríguez and racist robots.

“Revenge of the Fallen” proves that shockingly, big-budget movies need human writers with time and resources — writers are once more on strike because producers have to be taught this lesson again. “Dark of the Moon,” on the other hand, shows that whether a script is polished or not, you can’t take the Michael Bay out of a Michael Bay movie.