When you say: "a little bad dialogue, some unnecessary plot lines, some cheesy kid crap, and that it would just kind of need to be tidied up" I know EXACTLY what you mean. As it is now, the movie wasn't bad at all, but with those above changes, I think it could really become great. As it is now, I feel that underneath the surface there IS a great movie there. The good news is that in my opinion, it is almost right there at the surface, it isn't buried deep down like some other movies (I am trying to think of a good example, but nothing is coming, maybe like the two newest Pirates movies...bleh). I don't know if you understand what I am saying, but whatever the case, I had the exact same feelings as you. Dammit, the movie is already fading from my memory, but I'll try to type what I can remember. Let's see...
Over all, they seemed to start several unnecessary plot type things that were half or even quarter-assed. Let me remember:
- The whole soldier and his wife thing. What the hell? It never went anywhere.
- The one girl, Mikeala or something and her dad and their criminal past. Why even bring it up? It seemed as if Sam didn't really seem to care and didn't brood about it and forgot about it right away. I dunno, seemed half-baked.
- Optimus and Megatron with that brothers line. Were they really brothers? I was confused, and again, Optimus didn't seem to show very much sadness or remorse.
- The whole entire girl programmer thing really bugged me. They introduce these two characters, and they don't do much, except eat a plate of donuts. They just solve the code, and that's it. Wow. Yippie ki-yay motherf*&%$#. Big deal. They almost seemed like dead weight to the movie.
- Ah, just remembered another one. I don't know what fan editor's can do, but I'll just throw it out: The Score. First off, let me say, that like the movie, it was in no way bad per se, but it could have been better and could have made the movie better. Again, I don't know if you can do anything, but I seriously thought that it could have carried the movie a lot farther. There was one particular scene I can't remember and a couple of others too where the music was building up, and I was waiting for something good, and then it just kind of petered out. The same feeling overtook me during the HP5 movie. It seems(ed) to me that in both cases, the composers were too tentative, and then did not want the music to overtake the scene, when it could/should have. Again, it wasn't bad, but could have been better.
- Lastly, I am forgetting all my ideas, but it almost seemed to me like the producer or directors or whoever were trying to portray the Autobots as thinking, highly sentient and sensitive beings. I got that feeling, but again it never really seemed fleshed out. I don't know if that was what they were trying to do or what, but just throwing it out there.
- Ooh, remembered another one. That little silver bad robot and his high pitched annoying as hell voice, if you can call it that. WTH? That just really annoyed me.
Well that's enough typing for now, if I remember more I'll try and remember to type them up. And just keep in my mind, that I am not particularly a Transformers fan, but just liked the movie. Good luck with your fan-edit, it maybe one of the select few that actually grab my attention and I follow.