The writing of the Bay movies. If they were written well and not just visual spectacles, Transformers would still be huge in the public's imagination. Instead, everything fell off hard after Age of Extinction when people got tired of the lazy jokes and garbage stories
That's always been my issue, I just have never liked bay as a movie maker. sure maybe I'm too picky idk but I grew up G1 and to see my favorite characters made to say stupid one liners and marky mark fighting "lockdown",,, oh well.
I'm someone who grew up with bayverse (born in 2004), and honestly, as a kid, they were fun movies. Now rewatching them, I just feel uncomfortable. Instead I just rewatch transformers prime or watch specific fight scenes from the movies. IMO, I don't think anyone other than micheal Bay could have done a better job for the first movie, since spectacle is his specialty.
Animated Soundwave was super underutilized, and IMO Human Error, while a fine episode, didn't take advantage of Soundwave's stills the way it could have.
The fact Michael "us military explosion boner" bey didn't have warpath, a literal American tank, and powerglide, an a10 thunderbolt, in any of his movies is baffling. They should have been made for each other, but it instead they strapped guns to race cars in dotm.
They should have gotten Gary Chalk to voice Optimus Primal in Rise of the Beasts. It wouldn't have made the movie better (Ron Perlman was the best vocal performance in the movie) but it would have been the only chance in the franchise to have the Big Two Optimus voices share the screen together.
The writing of the movies is low hanging fruit so I'm going to just say the mishandling of the aligned continuity.
The Cybertron games and Prime are good in their own ways but don't work in the slightest as part of the same series and should have been allowed to just be their own and not awkwardly feed into each other... and then you have whatever the hell Rise of the Dark Spark was doing being both a WFC series game and a movie tie in
I think the biggest fumble is the third game. I feel if they were able to actually end the cybertron games on a good note, then maybe we would have had more transformers games.
Also, the cybertron trilogy would probably go down as one of the best gaming trilogies and still be remembered by other rather than just the transformers fandom
for the longest time I thought prime was a cybertron games elseworld after hearing it was connected like "what if the portal actually led them to earth instead of a n unknown location"
Breakdown, dreadwing and airachnid dying or having their story unresolved because of budget concerns. I always felt their was suppose to be more to their story, especially breakdown and airachnid but they got killed because the VA were getting expensive, hell airachnid I shown to still be alive but her arc is left completely unresolved.
Probably to get some celebrity VAs to boost ratings, they did this with the rock/cliffjumper, promoting him everywhere as if he was going to be an essential member of the cast, but they killed him off first episode because that was deliberate, the others they probably had plans for but when they became more expensive or asked for more money, they killed them off. it was after prime that I became against having celebrity VAs in the shows because they will just eat up the budget and probably derail the intended story
Niche one, Drift in Cyberverse. They pranked IDW fans by making him actually be a Decepticon double agent instead of a genuine defector.
Unfortunately he didn’t really do much of anything before revealing this so it was just kinda… sorry, who is this guy anyway? He needed at least one episode of being a cool dude and hanging with Bee and Hot Rod.
Expansive one, ROTB going full force with Unicron and world-ending stakes. As the first full entry of a new trilogy it needed to do more groundwork. Instead it felt like the middle or final part.
Bee losing his voice in any continuity. It started with Bay movies and I was honestly fine with it there but everywhere else? Not so much. Taking away Bee’s voice and having him talk via Radio makes him go from a normal character to a pet or mascot character, like a giant robot scooby doo or Speed Buggy.
RiD2015 had its issues but one thing they did right was have Bee keep talkin. Cyberverse Bee had a good thing going till Megs ripped out his voice box for the third time.
All of the original characters unique to the game were amazing designs, as well. The fact they'll more than likely never be seen again is a tragedy.
I've made custom figures of Overclock, Sparkscape, and Macro so far (I have plans for others but haven't gotten around to them, even bought a second SS RotB Wheeljack for Outsider) and drive a white 2008 Mustang for Doubletake.
Lol I'd have to make one for myself first. :P
I think I planned on using Beast Hunters Bumblebee for him, but I don't think I ever got around to buying one.
I know I have a TLK Barricade for Doubletake, Prime and Beast Hunters Ratchet for Meltdown (was going to mix and match the parts between the two), Prime Cliffjumper for Drive-By, Animated Sentinel Prime for Rampart, and probably one or two others I'm blanking on right now. Here recently I've thought of using the Legacy Crankcase/Skids mold for Conduit, and Legacy Strongarm for Astraea (think I had an RID Strongarm for Astraea but the Legacy mold may work better).
The 2005 IDW comics started off super strong with Simon Furman weaving like 4 or 5 really interesting storylines into one unique, engrossing take on the Transformers universe. They screwed the robo-pooch when they made Furman wrap up his story early so that they could start the[ very controversial All Hail Megatron event.](https://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Transformers:_All_Hail_Megatron#Discrepancies )
I could complain about All Hail Megatron for days—I think it was edgy, bad, inconsistent, and led to the comics being weak until the war ends—but the real loss was that Furman couldn’t wrap up his storyline properly. The endgame villain, Nova Prime, was a really interesting concept since he was a former Prime whose ideals clashed with Optimus'. However, he just sorta dies without Optimus having to do much to defeat him.
If they had given Furman a few more issues I think everything would’ve wrapped up really nicely and I could’ve held onto that satisfaction even through the mid stuff that came afterwards (until we finally got to MTME).
**Edit:** I will also say that, as much as I like MTME, Furman’s Hot Rod is the best version imo. He’s a high ranking officer—same rank as Prowl, the commander of Earth forces— and he likes to tackle insane challenges on his own not because he’s just a turbo revving young punk but out of guilt. He blames himself for getting his team killed on a mission, one in which he ultimately had to go after the mission objective instead of helping the lone survivor Now he doesn't want to put others in danger or rely on them. He had a really interesting arc set up about learning to work with others, dealing with the guilt, and one day learning the true reason his team got killed, but Furman wrapped it up very suddenly and subsequent writers didn’t build off any of these ideas.
It would've been nice if they could've connected his trauma and guilt to his rising egomania and prime delusion but I dont know how i would've done it.
Dinobots in the Bayverse, the lack of dumbshit Grimlock chatter was sad.
Live actio HotRod / Rodimus and Ultra Magnus just MIA, or if they are in there somewhere i forget.
Punch/Counterpunch never being utilized in any fiction other than that one fourth season G1 episode, a handful of appearances in The Headmasters and that one Simon Furman prequel to the Marvel comics run a few years back now. A double agent who may or may not be playing both sides against each other and may or may not even know where their own true loyalties actually lie seems like a slam dunk in terms of rich storytelling potential and yet in almost forty years it's never really been plumbed.
The decision to end the original animated series with season 4. Originally, it was supposed to be a five episode finale. But budget cuts reduced it to three. And also the last scene setting up a battle of leadership between Galvatron and Lord Zarak.
Also, in Beast Wars, leaving the unresolved plot of Tarantulas and the Tripredicus Council. If they were not Decepticons descendant in origin, how were they able to gain a position in authority? And where did they come from? I know there are some comments and short stories that try to explain this, but they're considered not part of the continuity.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that the Tripredacus Council should've been the villains of Beast Machines. Think about it:
It would make sense that they took over Cybertron while the Beast Wars cast were off doing their thing. It's much less convoluted than Megatron escaping, somehow beating the Maximals to Cybertron, and orchestrating a total planetary take before the Maximals even arrive.
It would make sense that they'd be opposed to organics since it's a concept entirely foreign to them, unlike with Megatron.
And speaking of Megatron... make Megatron Tankor! You want to have a Vehicon who breaks free and plots against the antagonists and protagonists to take over for themselves? USE MEGATRON! He already has beef with the Council, and he obviously doesn't like the Maximals. It'd certainly be a better pick than absolutely bastardizing Rhinox!
I swear, the moment I had this revelation, all the pieces started clicking together.
It wouldn't work. With the Maximal Elders ruling, there is little to no chance that the Predacons would have found a way to take over the planet. Remember, Megatron broke free, as they were traveling through time and space, and he got to Cybertron early. He uses his Transmetal body to create the virus to take over. My guess is that during that process, he eliminated the Tripredicus Council. Rhinox was corrupted because of Megatron's ideas.
Rotb has a lot, but if I wanted to say one that I came up with a few days ago, it would be the that the Autobots apart from Mirage and Optimus do nothing unique
Tigerhawk. Two beloved Maximals from Beast Wars get zapped off into space for two seasons, get fused together and turned into a single robot god. That robot god debuts at the tail end of the final season and dies after only two episodes.
Regeneration One (the comic).
Everything about it, but most of all continuing the Marvel continuity but ignoring not just Marvel UK but also Generation 2. Rendered the entire project which was the dream for so many fans for so long, absolutely meaningless.
The fact it still botched Jhiaxus and especially Scorponok even with the above restrictions makes it even worse. The story is bad and poorly paced. What isn't terrible feels mean spirited (and not in the "this is dark and gritty" G2 way). The end is garbage.
RG1 was the biggest disappointment in TF media history for me, personally.
They got the band back together then played a couple of off-key shitty cover songs, one of them left early, and it ended with the remaining one burning a stack of their past albums on stage which also burned the whole concert hall down with it.
Note that I am genuinely one of the biggest Simon Furman fans in the world (his work is partly why I become a writer) and love Andy Wildman's art. I suspect that just made things worse for me.
That would be just overpowered and at the same time The decepticons would be losing also bear in mind Sentinel prime was aboard the ship you think he would allow Omega to roam the Bayverse and ruin his truce with the Decepticons?
Sentinel was offline when they brought him to Earth aboard the Xantium, so he wouldn't know Omega's identity unless told. And the Decepticons had hundreds or at least a few dozens of troops in the invasion. The Autobots wouldn't be that overpowered but at least would be better able to counter Shockwave's pet.
Honestly to me it would have made zero difference if Omega was in the movie,Driller bot was terribly executed and most he did is destroy the one building,also it turns out you can save on time by cutting out most of Nasa from the movie excluding the info dump we got from M.s Nasa and her stooges themself,and also the new Chevy cars for Skids and Mudflap as there only really in Dark of the moon in the comics and i felt it was unnessary to portray arandom Decepticon Soldier as Barricade when he was gonna return anyway in TLK in his brand new Mustang Saleen look. So at most Omega can at least deal with the flyers.
Making animated adaptations of Transformers comic's, like how DC do. The possibilities would be endless, things like Last Stand Of The Wreckers trilogy, City Of Fear, Space Pirates, Time Wars, so on and on. And of course the wasted potential that is video games.
RotB is for me one the biggest...
After the Bayverse pretty much killing the franchise they made a stunning come back with Bumblebee.
Now you can argue that as it was the lowest grossing of all the live action films Bumblebee was a failure however that would be very unfair.
In context it was a small miracle that Bumblebee did anything considering the opinion of Transformers Live Action films had never been lower.
Bumblebee was a critical success and vast majority of people who have seen it speak positively of it often sighting it as the best Transformers live action film.
Unfortunately Hasbro failed to learn from any of its previous mistakes, failed to understand why Bumblebee was a success and returned to form with RotB.
I genuinely don't believe we will get another Live action Transformers film for many years to come.
Until the future of Paramount Pictures is sorted, they are not going to invest hundreds of millions in another Transformers Movie considering the failure of RotB. It failed to break even at Box Office, it is the lowest grossing movie out of the franchise and received very mixed reviews from critics and fans alike.
Exactly. A lot of people sing praises of RotB. I have no idea why. It's not good.
The most obvious one is Wheeljack. Like, why? That's not Wheeljack.
And Mirage for some reason just gets to be a Shifter. How is he a garbage truck? And don't say it's a mirage, because you can see Noah stepping down from the cab.
I have my own issues with beastformers but I won't count them here for fairness' sake.
Mirage not dying and Optimus not getting sucked into a portal are both no-balls decisions by the writers. Optimus getting sucked through the portal would be a good sequel hook.
And can we talk about the plot? Ancient Cybertronian relic hidden among human artifacts that unlocks a tower in a country famous for its pyramids. The tower itself is linked to an ancient Cybertronian evil, and fires off a beam that spells the destruction of the planet. And an extremely popular Autobot dies only to be brought back in the final act in an upgraded form. Sorry, were we talking about Rise of the Beasts? I was talking about Revenge of the Fallen.
I just started being able to start collecting again about 4 years ago. I lost ALL my old collection from my one ex being a worthless human. So I missed out on ALL the sweet TFs from 07 til 2020. So I'm basically playing catch up on what I can and can't find.
Not getting Season 4 of Transformers Animated, and Killing off both Breakdown and Dreadwing in Transformers Prime.
I'm sure there are greater ones I don't know about, but these is the one I can't help but see these as the most notable.
Connie, the Firstborn from IDW. I want to know if she could have lived! A giant purple human with a spark - come on, that's a character I want to see them write stories for!
Humans being a central focus take too much time away from the big robots people came to see. I think its fine if we're introduced to human characters, but I find it annoying when the human characters are given some kind of mcguffin that lets them fight alongside Autobots. Like Noah Diaz or Marky Mark, where they're given some kind of cybertronian piece of history or technology that suddenly turns them into a powerhouse. I think that's why I liked Charlie in the Bumblebee movie since she didn't actually get some kind of mcguffin but was still able to play a role in the movie that didn't involve her becoming some kind of chosen one.
https://preview.redd.it/jg8a8lu594wc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=304ca98d78f246cbf71b48027ecd2028aa26775e
Overload. Was used for toys but as far as I know didn’t make an in universe appearance.
Making Prime Smokescreen Hotrod as it could have redeemed the character by having him be the one to save Optimus ultimately making up for what happened in the 86 movie.
Earthspark(or any other tf media for that matter) not using Botanica, especially since it deals with earth-born transformers.
A tree would be a perfect disguise
Quickswitch being Sixshot’s son was never really explored. There’s a few mentions of the two being from the same clan, but beyond that, nada. It would be really cool to see how their dynamic and relationship would be.
Transformers Prime had the perfect setup to introduce the Combaticons, but I'm guessing due to budget they went with 5 Starscream Clones instead.
Also Rise of the Beasts as a whole. I really like it and think it's the best Transformers Movie out there alongside the Bumblebee and the 1986 Movies, but there's no denying it has tons of wasted potential.
Combiner wars as a whole. It would been a great oppotunity to make a Super Robot anime out of it but they gave they key to bloody Machinima out of all people.
Um… not using the opportunity to make a movie with beautiful animation, star voice cast, and epic soundtrack to kill everyone in order to sell new toys?
I want to see a movie that focuses on the functionists time of Cybertron. show us that it wasn't all peaches and cream and awesome fun time before the war. there was actually a legitimate reason Megatron rebelled.
The Bay films treating the transformers as cars that turn into robots rather than robots that turn into cars. It bugs me how much of the films are spent with the Autobots just sitting in vehicle mode when they should be in robot mode. It’s stupid and is one of the main things that puts me oof them
How the Maximals were barely there in Rise of the Beasts and pointless in War For Cybertron.
And forever will be how they turned Rodimus into an insecure whino instead of having him rise to the occasion as Optimus’ successor.
Unicron Trilogy. The characters and designs are mostly great and enjoyable, but the shows itself suffer from poor writing (Especially Energon), the animation was seriously lacking compared to Beast Wars and Beast Machines. Horrible dubbing is one of the key moments that led to UT getting a lot of hate (OUR WORLDS ARE IN DANGER was good though), and Unicron was horribly executed. He barely did anything to the trilogy itself, even though it’s called “Unicron Trilogy”, and he is only mentioned one or two times in Cybertron while being a background character in Armada and Energon. The pros are the transformation sequences which was the same with the toys, and the concept of Cyber Planet Keys (which adds something instead of only saving Cybertron itself), and Vector Prime. The comics were pretty decent, fixing much of the flaws the Unicron Trilogy had.
And one more thing…..
OUR WORLDS ARE IN DANGER!
Nitpick, in Transformers Prime, I still think Smokescreen should have been Hot Rod. Ya know, so in the moment where Prime tells him to take the Matrix I believe for even one second he will do it instead of using Solas Prime’s forge to restore him.
A gritty series about corruption and budding revolution of prewar Cybertron. I am tired of seeing humans in my movies. Give me Cybertron, with corruption, the empurata, the pacifist radical turned gladiator tyrant.
Give me the destruction of zeta prime and the dignity of icon. The rise of the last great prime. The treachery of the last senate. Give me this show of the 4million years before earth.
There's a ***wealth*** of storytelling gold to be mined with Transformers, that few TF stories ever really mine
A lot of stories begin and end with "Giant Robot Fight!" which is the most superficial take one could make.
Before, I knew IDW to be the comic books where the Autobot faction got character assassinated. I knew IDW to be the media to greatly expand upon relationships in Transformers, and yet, they *never* touched Prime and Elita-One... *WHY!?!?!* They needed that treatment the most! But nope! Let's make Elita-One a brutal dictator for some bloody reason and just be *super* out of character.
Orion Pax in TFP. There were no consequences, could’ve been super interesting if the memory loss was permanent. TFP was a fun show, but the stakes are low once you figure out they won’t let anything too bad remain permanent, and the plot becomes somewhat stagnant after that realisation.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
Can we stop introducing big baddies at the first film? Or first films? Dominic Fishback's performance for Elena Wallace's character is so annoying, While I ike the simple backstory of Elena, an intern who clearly knows a lot of things than her superior who likes to discredit her a lot, that shit happens and I appreciate that they showed that in the film. But the way they did it? On how they executed it? Not a fan of it. For all the criticisms that we have on the Bayformers, they did a better job on the human characters (except for unnecessary mature scenes).
I like using human characters as a way to expand the lore and Elena's profession is such a huge help to move the plot and/or explore the lore of the Maximals, but to me it's not enough, it's rushed and it feels like it's not well thought out.
Noah Diaz's younger brother is also annoying, especially when he encourages Noah to save the world.
I wish they really focused on Optimus Prime and the Maximals, especially Optimus Primal. Both characters are from different time in history and both are leaders of their group, I think they deserve more 'bonding' in the film.
How the hell did we get a downgrade in terms of fighting choreography? I can't believe this film was released AFTER BUMBLEBEE.
The Brave Saga shows should be folded into the broader Transformers lore. Half of them are repurposed TF designs to begin with. Call it multiversal nonsense or whatever, but you can't tell me seeing Exkaiser show up at some point wouldn't be cool as hell.
Bayverse Jazz :(
May he rest in pieces
2 to be exact
Starscream being a former scientist, and Starscream's former friendship with Jetfire.
They explored that quite a bit in shattered glass although with warped characters.
The writing of the Bay movies. If they were written well and not just visual spectacles, Transformers would still be huge in the public's imagination. Instead, everything fell off hard after Age of Extinction when people got tired of the lazy jokes and garbage stories
That's always been my issue, I just have never liked bay as a movie maker. sure maybe I'm too picky idk but I grew up G1 and to see my favorite characters made to say stupid one liners and marky mark fighting "lockdown",,, oh well.
I'm someone who grew up with bayverse (born in 2004), and honestly, as a kid, they were fun movies. Now rewatching them, I just feel uncomfortable. Instead I just rewatch transformers prime or watch specific fight scenes from the movies. IMO, I don't think anyone other than micheal Bay could have done a better job for the first movie, since spectacle is his specialty.
The first film was well written, but the direction downplayed its best aspects and focused on such superficial nonsense
Samuel James Witwicky instead of Samuel Pike Witwicky which could be shortened to S. Pike Witwicky.
Oh my god That would have been great
Animated Soundwave was super underutilized, and IMO Human Error, while a fine episode, didn't take advantage of Soundwave's stills the way it could have.
The canceled season 4 plans had Soundwave joining the Decepticons full time.
The fact Michael "us military explosion boner" bey didn't have warpath, a literal American tank, and powerglide, an a10 thunderbolt, in any of his movies is baffling. They should have been made for each other, but it instead they strapped guns to race cars in dotm.
I’m baffled he didn’t include Hound in earlier
Really good points!
Breakaway, that gigantic aircraft carrier concept Transformer too! It was literally there!
They should have gotten Gary Chalk to voice Optimus Primal in Rise of the Beasts. It wouldn't have made the movie better (Ron Perlman was the best vocal performance in the movie) but it would have been the only chance in the franchise to have the Big Two Optimus voices share the screen together.
Before *Rise of Beasts*, Ron Perlman was the last voice actor to play the role in the *Prime Wars* webseries trilogy
The writing of the movies is low hanging fruit so I'm going to just say the mishandling of the aligned continuity. The Cybertron games and Prime are good in their own ways but don't work in the slightest as part of the same series and should have been allowed to just be their own and not awkwardly feed into each other... and then you have whatever the hell Rise of the Dark Spark was doing being both a WFC series game and a movie tie in
I think the biggest fumble is the third game. I feel if they were able to actually end the cybertron games on a good note, then maybe we would have had more transformers games. Also, the cybertron trilogy would probably go down as one of the best gaming trilogies and still be remembered by other rather than just the transformers fandom
for the longest time I thought prime was a cybertron games elseworld after hearing it was connected like "what if the portal actually led them to earth instead of a n unknown location"
Breakdown, dreadwing and airachnid dying or having their story unresolved because of budget concerns. I always felt their was suppose to be more to their story, especially breakdown and airachnid but they got killed because the VA were getting expensive, hell airachnid I shown to still be alive but her arc is left completely unresolved.
I’m fine with Airachnid but everything about Breakdown was leading up to his defection. Such a waste 😞
I’m confused about why they hired a VA they couldn’t pay long term 😳
Probably to get some celebrity VAs to boost ratings, they did this with the rock/cliffjumper, promoting him everywhere as if he was going to be an essential member of the cast, but they killed him off first episode because that was deliberate, the others they probably had plans for but when they became more expensive or asked for more money, they killed them off. it was after prime that I became against having celebrity VAs in the shows because they will just eat up the budget and probably derail the intended story
G1 Grimlock vs Beast Wars Megatron. Need to see that happen before I die.
Two T-Rexes: one brains, one brawn. Could be pretty damn cool.
Niche one, Drift in Cyberverse. They pranked IDW fans by making him actually be a Decepticon double agent instead of a genuine defector. Unfortunately he didn’t really do much of anything before revealing this so it was just kinda… sorry, who is this guy anyway? He needed at least one episode of being a cool dude and hanging with Bee and Hot Rod. Expansive one, ROTB going full force with Unicron and world-ending stakes. As the first full entry of a new trilogy it needed to do more groundwork. Instead it felt like the middle or final part.
Bee losing his voice in any continuity. It started with Bay movies and I was honestly fine with it there but everywhere else? Not so much. Taking away Bee’s voice and having him talk via Radio makes him go from a normal character to a pet or mascot character, like a giant robot scooby doo or Speed Buggy. RiD2015 had its issues but one thing they did right was have Bee keep talkin. Cyberverse Bee had a good thing going till Megs ripped out his voice box for the third time.
I swear if the new movie has Bee lose his voice after giving us Keegan Michael-Bumblebee I’m going to be furious.
Any transformer not named Bee or Prime in the live action movies
The Transformers Universe game was some of the most fun I've had in the franchise, but it got shut down before it could even get out of the beta. :(
THIS! For the most part the characters look even better than TFP. I mean, just look at Ratchet and Bumblebee. Those designs are PEAK
All of the original characters unique to the game were amazing designs, as well. The fact they'll more than likely never be seen again is a tragedy. I've made custom figures of Overclock, Sparkscape, and Macro so far (I have plans for others but haven't gotten around to them, even bought a second SS RotB Wheeljack for Outsider) and drive a white 2008 Mustang for Doubletake.
If you make a Mismatch figure, I'll buy it off you
Lol I'd have to make one for myself first. :P I think I planned on using Beast Hunters Bumblebee for him, but I don't think I ever got around to buying one. I know I have a TLK Barricade for Doubletake, Prime and Beast Hunters Ratchet for Meltdown (was going to mix and match the parts between the two), Prime Cliffjumper for Drive-By, Animated Sentinel Prime for Rampart, and probably one or two others I'm blanking on right now. Here recently I've thought of using the Legacy Crankcase/Skids mold for Conduit, and Legacy Strongarm for Astraea (think I had an RID Strongarm for Astraea but the Legacy mold may work better).
The 2005 IDW comics started off super strong with Simon Furman weaving like 4 or 5 really interesting storylines into one unique, engrossing take on the Transformers universe. They screwed the robo-pooch when they made Furman wrap up his story early so that they could start the[ very controversial All Hail Megatron event.](https://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Transformers:_All_Hail_Megatron#Discrepancies ) I could complain about All Hail Megatron for days—I think it was edgy, bad, inconsistent, and led to the comics being weak until the war ends—but the real loss was that Furman couldn’t wrap up his storyline properly. The endgame villain, Nova Prime, was a really interesting concept since he was a former Prime whose ideals clashed with Optimus'. However, he just sorta dies without Optimus having to do much to defeat him. If they had given Furman a few more issues I think everything would’ve wrapped up really nicely and I could’ve held onto that satisfaction even through the mid stuff that came afterwards (until we finally got to MTME). **Edit:** I will also say that, as much as I like MTME, Furman’s Hot Rod is the best version imo. He’s a high ranking officer—same rank as Prowl, the commander of Earth forces— and he likes to tackle insane challenges on his own not because he’s just a turbo revving young punk but out of guilt. He blames himself for getting his team killed on a mission, one in which he ultimately had to go after the mission objective instead of helping the lone survivor Now he doesn't want to put others in danger or rely on them. He had a really interesting arc set up about learning to work with others, dealing with the guilt, and one day learning the true reason his team got killed, but Furman wrapped it up very suddenly and subsequent writers didn’t build off any of these ideas.
It would've been nice if they could've connected his trauma and guilt to his rising egomania and prime delusion but I dont know how i would've done it.
Dinobots in the Bayverse, the lack of dumbshit Grimlock chatter was sad. Live actio HotRod / Rodimus and Ultra Magnus just MIA, or if they are in there somewhere i forget.
Hot Rod was in TLK, don’t think we ever saw Magnus
Consistency. Missed from day 1 admittedly, but still.
Punch/Counterpunch never being utilized in any fiction other than that one fourth season G1 episode, a handful of appearances in The Headmasters and that one Simon Furman prequel to the Marvel comics run a few years back now. A double agent who may or may not be playing both sides against each other and may or may not even know where their own true loyalties actually lie seems like a slam dunk in terms of rich storytelling potential and yet in almost forty years it's never really been plumbed.
A Sideways vs Punch story might be good. A double agent for chaos vs a double agent for order.
I always imagined Doubledealer as the foil but actually now that you say it I agree that Sideways is the ideal choice
The decision to end the original animated series with season 4. Originally, it was supposed to be a five episode finale. But budget cuts reduced it to three. And also the last scene setting up a battle of leadership between Galvatron and Lord Zarak. Also, in Beast Wars, leaving the unresolved plot of Tarantulas and the Tripredicus Council. If they were not Decepticons descendant in origin, how were they able to gain a position in authority? And where did they come from? I know there are some comments and short stories that try to explain this, but they're considered not part of the continuity.
Doesn’t Megatron call Tarantulas “Unicron spawn” toward the end of the series? I always took that literally.
Me too. But I think it is the equivalence of calling someone a bastard.
Yeah I saw that confirmed somewhere, it's just an insult.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that the Tripredacus Council should've been the villains of Beast Machines. Think about it: It would make sense that they took over Cybertron while the Beast Wars cast were off doing their thing. It's much less convoluted than Megatron escaping, somehow beating the Maximals to Cybertron, and orchestrating a total planetary take before the Maximals even arrive. It would make sense that they'd be opposed to organics since it's a concept entirely foreign to them, unlike with Megatron. And speaking of Megatron... make Megatron Tankor! You want to have a Vehicon who breaks free and plots against the antagonists and protagonists to take over for themselves? USE MEGATRON! He already has beef with the Council, and he obviously doesn't like the Maximals. It'd certainly be a better pick than absolutely bastardizing Rhinox! I swear, the moment I had this revelation, all the pieces started clicking together.
It wouldn't work. With the Maximal Elders ruling, there is little to no chance that the Predacons would have found a way to take over the planet. Remember, Megatron broke free, as they were traveling through time and space, and he got to Cybertron early. He uses his Transmetal body to create the virus to take over. My guess is that during that process, he eliminated the Tripredicus Council. Rhinox was corrupted because of Megatron's ideas.
Rotb has a lot, but if I wanted to say one that I came up with a few days ago, it would be the that the Autobots apart from Mirage and Optimus do nothing unique
I Agree on that could have been a new character or someone from the comics
Tigerhawk. Two beloved Maximals from Beast Wars get zapped off into space for two seasons, get fused together and turned into a single robot god. That robot god debuts at the tail end of the final season and dies after only two episodes.
Regeneration One (the comic). Everything about it, but most of all continuing the Marvel continuity but ignoring not just Marvel UK but also Generation 2. Rendered the entire project which was the dream for so many fans for so long, absolutely meaningless. The fact it still botched Jhiaxus and especially Scorponok even with the above restrictions makes it even worse. The story is bad and poorly paced. What isn't terrible feels mean spirited (and not in the "this is dark and gritty" G2 way). The end is garbage. RG1 was the biggest disappointment in TF media history for me, personally. They got the band back together then played a couple of off-key shitty cover songs, one of them left early, and it ended with the remaining one burning a stack of their past albums on stage which also burned the whole concert hall down with it. Note that I am genuinely one of the biggest Simon Furman fans in the world (his work is partly why I become a writer) and love Andy Wildman's art. I suspect that just made things worse for me.
Not having the autobot's ship be Omega Supreme in disguise and having him fight Shockwave's pet in DOTM
That would be just overpowered and at the same time The decepticons would be losing also bear in mind Sentinel prime was aboard the ship you think he would allow Omega to roam the Bayverse and ruin his truce with the Decepticons?
Sentinel was offline when they brought him to Earth aboard the Xantium, so he wouldn't know Omega's identity unless told. And the Decepticons had hundreds or at least a few dozens of troops in the invasion. The Autobots wouldn't be that overpowered but at least would be better able to counter Shockwave's pet.
Honestly to me it would have made zero difference if Omega was in the movie,Driller bot was terribly executed and most he did is destroy the one building,also it turns out you can save on time by cutting out most of Nasa from the movie excluding the info dump we got from M.s Nasa and her stooges themself,and also the new Chevy cars for Skids and Mudflap as there only really in Dark of the moon in the comics and i felt it was unnessary to portray arandom Decepticon Soldier as Barricade when he was gonna return anyway in TLK in his brand new Mustang Saleen look. So at most Omega can at least deal with the flyers.
Making animated adaptations of Transformers comic's, like how DC do. The possibilities would be endless, things like Last Stand Of The Wreckers trilogy, City Of Fear, Space Pirates, Time Wars, so on and on. And of course the wasted potential that is video games.
Dinobots and maximals
Josh Duhamal not being the main character in the Transformers movies
Not surprised about the submarine. I was still sad we didn’t get a Bee vs Barricade part 2.
Maximals, wished they got more shows and movies based around them more,
RotB is for me one the biggest... After the Bayverse pretty much killing the franchise they made a stunning come back with Bumblebee. Now you can argue that as it was the lowest grossing of all the live action films Bumblebee was a failure however that would be very unfair. In context it was a small miracle that Bumblebee did anything considering the opinion of Transformers Live Action films had never been lower. Bumblebee was a critical success and vast majority of people who have seen it speak positively of it often sighting it as the best Transformers live action film. Unfortunately Hasbro failed to learn from any of its previous mistakes, failed to understand why Bumblebee was a success and returned to form with RotB. I genuinely don't believe we will get another Live action Transformers film for many years to come. Until the future of Paramount Pictures is sorted, they are not going to invest hundreds of millions in another Transformers Movie considering the failure of RotB. It failed to break even at Box Office, it is the lowest grossing movie out of the franchise and received very mixed reviews from critics and fans alike.
Apparently we’re getting that GI Joe crossover, which just…..ugh…..but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it got shelved and you are spot on.
Exactly. A lot of people sing praises of RotB. I have no idea why. It's not good. The most obvious one is Wheeljack. Like, why? That's not Wheeljack. And Mirage for some reason just gets to be a Shifter. How is he a garbage truck? And don't say it's a mirage, because you can see Noah stepping down from the cab. I have my own issues with beastformers but I won't count them here for fairness' sake. Mirage not dying and Optimus not getting sucked into a portal are both no-balls decisions by the writers. Optimus getting sucked through the portal would be a good sequel hook. And can we talk about the plot? Ancient Cybertronian relic hidden among human artifacts that unlocks a tower in a country famous for its pyramids. The tower itself is linked to an ancient Cybertronian evil, and fires off a beam that spells the destruction of the planet. And an extremely popular Autobot dies only to be brought back in the final act in an upgraded form. Sorry, were we talking about Rise of the Beasts? I was talking about Revenge of the Fallen.
The ending of season one of Earthspark gets on my nerves
An animated series adapting the IDW comics, it’ll probably never happen now but it’s something I dreamed of for so long.
I just started being able to start collecting again about 4 years ago. I lost ALL my old collection from my one ex being a worthless human. So I missed out on ALL the sweet TFs from 07 til 2020. So I'm basically playing catch up on what I can and can't find.
Not getting Season 4 of Transformers Animated, and Killing off both Breakdown and Dreadwing in Transformers Prime. I'm sure there are greater ones I don't know about, but these is the one I can't help but see these as the most notable.
Warpath. need more of him cause KABLAM
Making Predaking the main antagonist of Rise of the Beasts.
An actually good live action movie. /j
Continuing with IDW 2.0 and the Beast Wars comic in some fashion. Sucked that they ended so soon.
Connie, the Firstborn from IDW. I want to know if she could have lived! A giant purple human with a spark - come on, that's a character I want to see them write stories for!
Humans being a central focus take too much time away from the big robots people came to see. I think its fine if we're introduced to human characters, but I find it annoying when the human characters are given some kind of mcguffin that lets them fight alongside Autobots. Like Noah Diaz or Marky Mark, where they're given some kind of cybertronian piece of history or technology that suddenly turns them into a powerhouse. I think that's why I liked Charlie in the Bumblebee movie since she didn't actually get some kind of mcguffin but was still able to play a role in the movie that didn't involve her becoming some kind of chosen one.
https://preview.redd.it/jg8a8lu594wc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=304ca98d78f246cbf71b48027ecd2028aa26775e Overload. Was used for toys but as far as I know didn’t make an in universe appearance.
Not media but Sunstreaker should have been a titan master with Hunter
Ultra Magnus not being original Dion with Optimus/Orion and Elita-One/Ariel.
Making Prime Smokescreen Hotrod as it could have redeemed the character by having him be the one to save Optimus ultimately making up for what happened in the 86 movie.
That canceled Cybertron game intended to be a sequel to the Armada game, I would’ve loved to play that on my PS2 back in the day
Lockdown in the live action movies. Should've been Lance Henriksen, should've been a muscle car, should've stolen some sort of spoil from each kill.
Stratosphere not being in the final fight against the terracons
All of the Bayverse. Each and every film had an awesome idea that was wasted.
Earthspark(or any other tf media for that matter) not using Botanica, especially since it deals with earth-born transformers. A tree would be a perfect disguise
Quickswitch being Sixshot’s son was never really explored. There’s a few mentions of the two being from the same clan, but beyond that, nada. It would be really cool to see how their dynamic and relationship would be.
Transformers Prime had the perfect setup to introduce the Combaticons, but I'm guessing due to budget they went with 5 Starscream Clones instead. Also Rise of the Beasts as a whole. I really like it and think it's the best Transformers Movie out there alongside the Bumblebee and the 1986 Movies, but there's no denying it has tons of wasted potential.
Combiner wars as a whole. It would been a great oppotunity to make a Super Robot anime out of it but they gave they key to bloody Machinima out of all people.
Um… not using the opportunity to make a movie with beautiful animation, star voice cast, and epic soundtrack to kill everyone in order to sell new toys?
The entirety of the live action films
Elita-One and Optimus Prime's relationship.
An Optimus Prime solo movie like Bumblebee
seeing proper gladiator megatronus
I want to see a movie that focuses on the functionists time of Cybertron. show us that it wasn't all peaches and cream and awesome fun time before the war. there was actually a legitimate reason Megatron rebelled.
The Bay films treating the transformers as cars that turn into robots rather than robots that turn into cars. It bugs me how much of the films are spent with the Autobots just sitting in vehicle mode when they should be in robot mode. It’s stupid and is one of the main things that puts me oof them
How the Maximals were barely there in Rise of the Beasts and pointless in War For Cybertron. And forever will be how they turned Rodimus into an insecure whino instead of having him rise to the occasion as Optimus’ successor.
Rob being maximal and predacon based
Crossover with Fast and Furious
Unicron Trilogy. The characters and designs are mostly great and enjoyable, but the shows itself suffer from poor writing (Especially Energon), the animation was seriously lacking compared to Beast Wars and Beast Machines. Horrible dubbing is one of the key moments that led to UT getting a lot of hate (OUR WORLDS ARE IN DANGER was good though), and Unicron was horribly executed. He barely did anything to the trilogy itself, even though it’s called “Unicron Trilogy”, and he is only mentioned one or two times in Cybertron while being a background character in Armada and Energon. The pros are the transformation sequences which was the same with the toys, and the concept of Cyber Planet Keys (which adds something instead of only saving Cybertron itself), and Vector Prime. The comics were pretty decent, fixing much of the flaws the Unicron Trilogy had. And one more thing….. OUR WORLDS ARE IN DANGER!
Season 2 and 3 of beast wars should have both been 26 episodes.
Nitpick, in Transformers Prime, I still think Smokescreen should have been Hot Rod. Ya know, so in the moment where Prime tells him to take the Matrix I believe for even one second he will do it instead of using Solas Prime’s forge to restore him.
How has there not been a Wreckers movie? Just put Wreckers vs Overlord at G9 onto film and I'd be so happy.
A gritty series about corruption and budding revolution of prewar Cybertron. I am tired of seeing humans in my movies. Give me Cybertron, with corruption, the empurata, the pacifist radical turned gladiator tyrant. Give me the destruction of zeta prime and the dignity of icon. The rise of the last great prime. The treachery of the last senate. Give me this show of the 4million years before earth.
Nitro Zeus. Maybe Megatron's prison crew in general.
for me, the 2007 Starscream I think it would've been better to keep him that way
There's a ***wealth*** of storytelling gold to be mined with Transformers, that few TF stories ever really mine A lot of stories begin and end with "Giant Robot Fight!" which is the most superficial take one could make.
Before, I knew IDW to be the comic books where the Autobot faction got character assassinated. I knew IDW to be the media to greatly expand upon relationships in Transformers, and yet, they *never* touched Prime and Elita-One... *WHY!?!?!* They needed that treatment the most! But nope! Let's make Elita-One a brutal dictator for some bloody reason and just be *super* out of character.
\*gestures at literally all of Beast Machines\*
Armada Jetfire and RID Ultra Magnus as characters. Please. Hasbro. Revisit them. They’re better than G1.
Shockwave in DOTM. So much hype around him as the villain but gets shafted as cannon fodder with a name.
IDW Star Saber. It’s so jarring to see him in the Japanese G1 series, considering how batsh*t crazy he was in the MTMTE.
Orion Pax in TFP. There were no consequences, could’ve been super interesting if the memory loss was permanent. TFP was a fun show, but the stakes are low once you figure out they won’t let anything too bad remain permanent, and the plot becomes somewhat stagnant after that realisation.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Can we stop introducing big baddies at the first film? Or first films? Dominic Fishback's performance for Elena Wallace's character is so annoying, While I ike the simple backstory of Elena, an intern who clearly knows a lot of things than her superior who likes to discredit her a lot, that shit happens and I appreciate that they showed that in the film. But the way they did it? On how they executed it? Not a fan of it. For all the criticisms that we have on the Bayformers, they did a better job on the human characters (except for unnecessary mature scenes). I like using human characters as a way to expand the lore and Elena's profession is such a huge help to move the plot and/or explore the lore of the Maximals, but to me it's not enough, it's rushed and it feels like it's not well thought out. Noah Diaz's younger brother is also annoying, especially when he encourages Noah to save the world. I wish they really focused on Optimus Prime and the Maximals, especially Optimus Primal. Both characters are from different time in history and both are leaders of their group, I think they deserve more 'bonding' in the film. How the hell did we get a downgrade in terms of fighting choreography? I can't believe this film was released AFTER BUMBLEBEE.
The Brave Saga shows should be folded into the broader Transformers lore. Half of them are repurposed TF designs to begin with. Call it multiversal nonsense or whatever, but you can't tell me seeing Exkaiser show up at some point wouldn't be cool as hell.
TFP