Goofs

When Carly is first brought to Chicago, she has straight hair, light shirt, and white jacket. When Sam rescues her, her outfit has changed and her hair is now wavy. Her clothes continuously change throughout the movie during long scenes when she would have no way to switch outfits.

Carly's shoes appear to mysteriously alternate several times between black stiletto heels and black ballet flats in-between shots during the climactic action sequence. This is most noticeable during the collapsing building sequence as well as the scene in which Carly speaks to Megatron.

(at around 1h 55 mins) When Sam and his allies survive a slide down a dwindling building that is almost split in half, they appear near the bottom of the separating top half. Once Shockwave's driller is sent to destroy the building in an attempt to eliminate the survivors, the building falls against a nearby apartment complex. The survivors are seen moving across to this new structure. However, to move to the next building, they are again seen at the highest part of the building, regardless of the slide that placed them near the bottom.

(at around 2h 20 mins) When Sam and Dylan are fighting on top of some rubble, the clock on the building behind them changes time from scene to scene. In the first shot it's 10:40h, in the next 1:00h and in the last shot 11:05h.

(at around 8 mins) When Carly walks up the stairs to wake Sam, she is wearing a white baseball cap. When the camera pans to her face, the baseball cap is gone and her hair is wavy.

(at around 16 mins) At the beginning of the Chernobyl scene, the Ukrainian officer clearly states that Chernobyl will not be inhabitable for 20,000 years. Chernobyl, Prypriat, and surrounding areas will in fact be uninhabitable for about 200 to 300 years. This area is contaminated primarily with Strontium 90 and Caesium 137, both of which have half lives of about 30 years. Most scientists agree that it will take about 10 half life iterations for radiation to return to the background levels before the accident, which would be a time frame of around 300 years. Some people still live in Chernobyl and short term tours are offered in Prypriat. In most places within the city, the level of radiation does not exceed an equivalent dose of one microsievert per hour.

(at around 32 mins) When the Autobots visit the moon, the original Apollo 11 moon lander is shown with the ascent stage (the upper part) still attached. The ascent stage was used to return the crew into lunar orbit, so only the descent stage (lower part) should be still there.

(at around 14 mins) When the Iranian minister's car is approaching the "Illegal Nuclear Site" in the Middle-East, the small Iranian flags on both sides of the vehicle's hood are upside down.

(at around 5 mins) The film depicts Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon as the moment when he hops from the ladder. During the actual Apollo 11 moon landing, Neil Armstrong jumped onto the bottom of the ladder and then slowly placed his left foot (the film depicts his right) onto the lunar surface.

(at around 57 mins) Sam is heard to say that the lunar far side is the same as the lunar dark side. As the moon is tidally locked (ie. rotates in sync) with the earth, it shows the same face to earth at all times. As the moon revolves around the earth, the lunar far side revolves into sun light and back into shadow, this is said to be the phases of the moon. The only time that all of the lunar far side can said to be the lunar dark side is during the full moon. At all other times part or all (during the new moon) of the lunar far side gets some degree of sun light.

(at around 33 mins) When Sentinel Prime is shown in low power mode while in the Ark - and prior to that in the opening sequence - he is shown to have red colouring and windscreen parts on his chest, parts that would be required for his alternate mode of a Rosenbauer Panther fire truck. Sentinel Prime never made it to Earth and would not have been able to scan a truck to give him this alternate mode therefore he should have appeared as a cybertronian protoform. It is entirely likely that he received the coloring as he was left for so long and that he was, in fact, given a vehicle to disguise as during his trip back to earth as he laid in low power.

(at around 1h 3 mins) The character Dutch, despite his name suggesting otherwise, appears to be German, as he has a few lines in this language. However, in the stand-off scene in the Russian bar Simmons shouts at Dutch in a different language, that appears to be part German and part gibberish. Also, the nickname "Dutch" has long been used for people of German background, mainly being a mispronunciation of what Germans call themselves - Deutsch.

After Sam and Carly exit Bumblebee in the streets of Chicago, as they run towards the bus stop there is a quick shot of a green hummer h2. This is Ratchet's alternate mode, despite Ratchet having already transformed. Despite this, there's no reason there can't be another truck like that nearby.

(at around 5 mins) The loss of signal depicted in the movie caused by the Apollo 11 lunar spacecraft being on the "dark side of the moon" is incorrect. The moon rotates and orbits the earth at the same rate so the same side of the moon always faces the earth and the dark side is never visible. The loss of signal depicted, with Walter Cronkite commenting, is actually from when the command module orbiting the moon would pass behind the moon from the earth making radio communication impossible. The landing site for Apollo 11 is located just to the right of center when looking at the moon and just north of the lunar equator, which means that it is nowhere near the far side. However, this is intended to be a NASA Black Op, and since it's shown in the movie that NASA can still communicate with the astronauts after the "signal loss" is announced, it's clear that the loss is intended to give them time to investigate without all of the U.S. listening in, and the general public (of the time) would be none the wiser.

(at around 1h 45 mins) When Sam is speaking to the UAV drone he says that the Decepticons are transporting Cybertron to Earth. But Carly was the only one at that point to have known about this from Dylan, so how did Sam know this, when he was on top of the cruiser fighting Laserbeak when Carly was in the cockpit with Bumblebee? That question is easily answered. How long does it take to say "Sentinel's bringing Cybertron here!"

(at around 1h 29 mins) When the Autobots leave the earth to avoid war with Decepticons. Dylan Gould calls Sam Witwicky but when he places the phone near his ear, no call is actually made as you can clearly see the phone dialer is still visible in his phone screen.

(at around 4 mins) When the Apollo spacecraft with LEM enters the moon's orbit, the scene was clearly "borrowed" from the movie Apollo 13 (1995). The Apollo spacecraft clearly has the panel missing, antenna array damage, and debris trailing behind it.

(at around 1h 3 mins) In the Russian bar, Dutch takes the bartender's gun. When he turns to hit her, the face of the stuntman and not Alan Tudyk is visible.

(at around 1h 3 mins) During the Russian bar scene, Dutch "pumps" the fore-grip of the breech-loading shotgun to chamber a new shell and eject the spent one. There's even the sound of the shell being ejected and hitting the floor, despite this being impossible for the type of gun he is using.

(at around 1h 40 mins) When Sam gets thrown out of the balcony, you can see the whole balcony has a metal rail running along the top. Just as he hits it the balcony shatters, including the metal rail.

At the beginning of the chase scene(around all the oil tanks), they film the scene driving West, then East bound on Chicago Cline Ave @ US Rt12 +/-.

(at around 3 mins) In the flashback scene of the Apollo launch, the American Flag and NASA logo can be seen on the Vehicle Assembly Building. The flag was not painted till 1976 in celebration of the United States Bicentennial celebrations. The NASA logo was added in 1998 in celebration of their 40th anniversary, replacing the bicentennial emblem.

The film claims that the Ark crashed on the moon in the 1960's implying that Megatron was still waging war against the Autobots on Cybertron during this time. In the first Transformers (2007) it is stated that Megatron had been in cryo sleep at the Hoover Dam since 1935, which obviously makes this timeline impossible.

(at around 2 mins) The opening depicts the Very Large Array (VLA) radio observatory in New Mexico with the caption "VLA Radio Observatory - New Mexico, 1961". However, the VLA was not constructed until the 1970s.

(at around 3 mins) In the opening scene set in 1961, when government officials race to the White House in two black Lincoln Continentals, one Lincoln is period correct, but the other is clearly a 1965 or later model as noted by the squared-off front grille.

(at around 17 mins) When Lennox is searching the Chernobyl site for alien technology, he comes across a box with an "Intercosmos" logo printed on it, which he then says "dates back to Sputnik." Intercosmos was a Russian organization that included cosmonauts from other countries on Soviet space flights. However, Intercosmos existed between 1978 and 1988; Sputnik was launched in 1957, twenty-one years earlier.

(at around 22 mins) When Sam is interviewed by Bruce Brazos there is a glass sphere on the desk, showing the reflection of the cameraman in the bottom left hand corner of the shot. The cameraman is visible throughout this scene.

During several shots of the Autobots driving down LaSalle St in Chicago, the Porsche camera car - the "Bay Buster" - and a smaller camera unit on a black kart-rig can be seen.

(at around 20 mins) At the beginning, when Sam's parents are taking Sam around for job interviews, a camera and its rig are reflected on the driver's side door.

In the opening scene set in 1961, a camera crane is vaguely reflected on the Lincoln Continental (front grills and side doors) as the government officials pull up to the White House.

(around 1 hr. and 32 min.) The camera crane's reflection is visible on the Superfund truck.

For most of the scenes set in Washington DC, the main characters are seen in a city of skyscrapers well over 30 floors high. However, in the real Washington DC, only two structures are taller than the US Capitol Builing, and there are no skyscrapers in the city. The large slanted building in the background is actually the Smurfit-Stone Building in Chicago. (There are no building in DC higher than the Capital building by elevation. The Capital is the highest by law, no building or structure can be higher than it. A building can be taller by floors but not by elevation.)

(at around 16 mins) After the sign 'Chernobyl', Polissya hotel is seen which is in abandoned Pripyat city (as the big wheel), not in Chernobyl town. The damaged reactor is approximately 3 km away from the city and the other side.

Shia LaBeouf's character is seen living in an apartment in Washington D.C. In various scenes where he is outside in the back alley, you can tell there are skyscrapers. However, there are no skyscrapers near Washington D.C.

Various scenes are clearly shot in Washington, DC and Chicago, Illinois, which are hundreds of miles apart, yet edited to try to make it seem like one city.

(at around 1h 6 mins) During the freeway attack outside Washington, D.C., one of the signs that is destroyed reads "West Interstate 88, Aurora". That portion of Interstate 88 runs from the western suburbs of Chicago to the Iowa border, and is nowhere near D.C.

(at around 33 mins) When we see Sentinel Prime being extracted from the Ark by Optimus, we can see that Sentinel Prime already looks the same way as he does throughout the rest of the movie. The Ark crash landed in the 1960's, the Rosenbauer Panther Fire Truck didn't exist in the form we see Sentinel Prime transform into. All of the other Autobots came to Earth in their proto forms and adopted a disguise when they arrived [we see them scanning alternate modes - one Decepticon is shown doing likewise in this movie]. Sentinel Prime already has his disguise when on the ark, which isn't possible.

(at around 28 mins) The film tries to claim that all six lunar missions were to collect samples from the Ark. However, the missions had landing coordinates hundreds of miles apart. If only 35 people knew about the secret mission, that leaves hundreds of thousands of others who believed they were working toward actual lunar exploration, meaning it would be very difficult to fake telemetry data without someone noticing. Also, there are long range photographs of the different landing sites showing the landing craft at their true lunar landing spots.

(at around 1h 35 mins) Lennox says there are aircraft leaving from Grissom Air Force Base, heading to Chicago. Grissom hasn't been an Air Force Base for almost 15 years. He should have said Grissom Air Reserve Base.

(at around 26 mins) When Mearing asks for her Hermes Birkin, green, ostrich bag her secretary hands her a green Kelly instead.