Revealing mistake: During the highway chase scenes there are two "out of sync" animation sequences of the Decepticons in action. 1) In the front view with all the cars facing the camera, the Decepticon robot on the right shoves the car sideways (to the right), however, the car flies into the air a second later and in the opposite direction. 2) The scene cuts to the side view of the Decepticon and you see him motioning to pick up a car and begin to toss it in the air. However, when he does this, his hand is empty and the car just flies just below him.
Factual error: When the Autobots return to the moon in the present day to retrieve Sentinel Prime, they pass by the Apollo 11 lunar module (LEM). The LEM consists of an upper part (ascent stage) that houses the astronauts, and a lower part (decent stage) that holds the braking rocket used to land on the moon. When leaving the moon, the ascent stage blasts off, leaving just the decent stage on the moon. In the film, the entire LEM is shown sitting on the moon, which is impossible since the astronauts came back to earth.
Continuity mistake: 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.
Factual error: Many of the Washington, D.C., scenes show skyscrapers in the background, but there aren't any in D.C.
Continuity mistake: Towards the end of the film Carly is holding Sam, in some shots she has dirty hands in front of his shoulders and in other shots she has clean hands that are over his shoulder.
Visible crew/equipment: At the beginning of the parents taking Sam around to interviews. A camera and rig can be seen in the reflection of the driver side door.
Factual error: Several references are made to objects being on the dark side of the moon. The moon's rotation is locked into its orbit, meaning the same side of the moon always faces toward Earth. The dark side is simply the side facing away from Earth (which doesn't always make it dark since it receives sunlight when the moon is between Earth and the sun). For plot purposes, the Ark has to have landed on the dark side of the moon or else it would be visible using Earth telescopes because it is so big. But when we see Decepticons hidden on the dark side of the moon crawl out of the dust, Earth is floating in the background, which would be impossible since Earth is not visible from the dark side of the moon.
Continuity mistake: When Sam is first shown at his new flat and the two small robots appear, Sam has a small argument with them, and takes one of the robots in his hand to put him on the floor, but in between these two shots Carly walks in front of the camera thus focusing our attention on her, but if you look at Sam putting the robot down, there is nothing in his hand. And when it's only him in the shot again the robot comes back. They must have missed adding the CGI maybe because he was in the background of the shot at the time.
Factual error: After Sam and Seymour visited the Russian cosmonauts, they were attacked on the Interstate by three Decepticons disguised as dark SUVs. During this part of the movie, they are in the Washington DC area. However, during the chase, a green interstate sign is passed by and knocked down that is for I-88 to Aurora. This interstate is in the Chicago area.
Revealing mistake: During the scene where Bumblebee says goodbye to Sam, Bumblebee is leaning with his right arm to the construction. When the camera rotates, you cleary can see the his hand is moving through the structure, making it a flaw in the CGI.
Continuity mistake: During the chase with the black GMC's, Mirage has black rims in Ferrari mode. When they finish the chase, he now has chrome rims.
Continuity mistake: In the scene with Richard Nixon speaking to the Apollo astronauts, the TV showing the phone call shows a lamp behind his head, and the seat being right behind him. But if you look at the actor sat there, there is no lamp, and the angle of the camera shows the chair would not be in shot.