Transformers Movies: All 8 ranked from Worst to Best!
Rise of The Beasts is now finishing up in theatres, the 7th instalment in the live-action Transformers Movie franchise and the 8th Transformers movie overall. More than any other part of Transformers, be it the comics or cartoons or toylines, the movies have divided fans. Many Transformers fans have grown up on the live action movies, or were first attracted to Transformers by it hitting the…
All right so. I get that one of the whole gimmicks of the Studio Series is a consistent scale, accurate to the films. But when characters like Bumblebee are tiny Deluxes, that means characters such as Scorponok, Ravage, etc., can only be little non-transforming figures. Too small to have a variety of moving parts at that scale.
So I think it’d be really neat if the Studio Series did a… Out-of-scale line? Or something like that. Where it’d focus on creating new, accurate toys of characters who would normally be too small to fit into the main Studio Series line, so scale and size is thrown out the window to have a proper transforming toy, alt-mode and everything. So even though Ravage is way too big, at least we get a fully functioning toy of him again, hopefully with a fish alt-mode based on the original animatics for Revenge of the Fallen.
We could have the Microcons, which would basically be Bakugan. Wheelie and Scalpel, the latter with an alt-mode accurate to the one he actually had on-screen. Dunno about Brains, since his transformation into a flat laptop seems impossible; Maybe they’d HAVE to come up with a new alt-mode for him, like a Cybertronian USB drive. Scorponok can transform into a helicopter engine, and as for characters like Laserbeak and Frenzy…
Well, those two are harder, since they can transform into anything but retain the same robot mode no matter what. So they’d probably have to come up with a new alt-mode, or stick to one; I could see Frenzy being a stereo like in his first appearance.
If we REALLY want to get silly… Well, there are two transforming watches we’ve seen in the movies, so what if they made Studio Series versions of them that to scale with real life, actual humans? Identical in size to the actual objects they represent? Though I imagine there’d probably be licensing issues with the Nokia bot… Imagine if they made an accurate Dispensor. And Ejector. And OREOBOT.
Also, and I get that it’s kind of impossible to do a truly accurate toy of him. But a toy of Reedman would be fun, just for the sole novelty of seeing how they’d pull it off. Or not a toy, but like… A cardboard cutout with Reedman’s left and right printed on both sides. Comes with spares in case you break it, obviously. I doubt they’d make a proper plastic, posable toy of Reedman unless they took a lot of liberties with his width, nor would it transform. Which, technically he’s a combiner, and people don’t expect those to transform to begin with. Not that I expect the Studio Series to have a Reedman combiner, given he’s composed of millions of Microcons. That’s a LOT of Bakugan to interlock.
In the end, we’ll probably get redone versions of previous figures before we get a scaled-up Microcon. Not that I’d complain about that, either; ‘Crankcase’ needs a SERIOUS remold (or reuse of a pre-existing one that was literally right there), KSI Boss needs an accurate head. The Shadow Raiders need to resemble themselves instead of Lockdown but with some orange. And the KSI sentry… Literally just a recolored Stinger with a different head. Which sucks, because the KSI sentry is the most plausible KSI transformer to make a toy out of, they could easily pull it off if they managed to do a better Galvatron!
I dunno why I care about toys of obscure side characters. But then, I’ve always loved the obscure side characters, so that may be exactly why. And I think the allure of finally getting proper, accurate, transforming toys of characters you’ve seen on-screen since over a decade ago… There’s something very nostalgic and wish-fulfillment about that to me. It’s never too late for your childhood dreams to come true, it’s part of why I appreciate the Legacy line, even if I haven’t really engaged with most of the shows it represents.
Anyhow, I guess I’ll ramble about Studio Series figures I want to see, because lord knows we don’t need another, slightly-altered version of Bumblebee (unless it’s his Stinger lookalike form with a proper battle mask). Again, give some love to the neglected characters who have never had the chance, just for the fun, not characters we’ve seen over a million renditions of! And yeah I get it, it’s because they’re recognizable and so sell well.
A Studio Series protoform would be great; As well as a Decepticon counterpart, which is just a different head, comes with a gun, and has back spikes. The Decepticon Protoforms were VERY common through the movies and would function as army builders. And even though they were never Transformers, just regular vehicles…
I’d LOVE to see an Orbital Assault Carrier, from Dark of the Moon. Give him a robot mode, but mostly prioritize his vehicle mode (a change for once), and its ability to open up and house a deluxe-sized character, ideally a Decepticon Protoform. And also, do one of those Moon Protoforms, the ones with four eyes and the more bestial appearance! I’m sure somebody has access to the original CGI models to work with, so we can finally get a good look at them. And while the regular Decepticon Protoform has to transform into a comet, they could potentially make up anything for their moon variant.
…Would they do the freaking Hatchlings? Who knows. Devcon would be great, he actually looks like his alt-mode, which got frustratingly rarer with the start of Dark of the Moon. And since we got a Studio Series Thundercracker that they basically completely made up, it’d be nice to complete the trio with a Studio Series Skywarp. In the same vein as Thundercracker, he’d probably be another flying character, but repainted and with a new head. Maybe they’d use one of the older molds from when the films first came out, like Mindwipe or Breakaway.
The submarine from The Last Knight would also be fun, and like the OAC, it’s a case of the vehicle mode being prioritized, and making whatever you want for the robot mode. Could they even do a transforming Driller, given the size? Would it just be a Leader-class, but only come with one segment of the Driller; With the idea that if you buy multiple, you can extend its length to be more accurate? And what would it transform into, besides… A cybertronian train?
Infernocus is a challenge, but if they TRULY wanted to be totally accurate to him being comprised of six identical Infernocons… Well, the best scenario is to just make a single, Voyager-class Infernocon toy. Which sounds simple enough, except this Infernocon has to be a quintuple-changer, forming into an arm, leg, lower torso, and head with upper torso for Infernocus. The arms and legs would have to be symmetrical so as to avoid having to make new transformations for Left and Right versions.
Admittedly, I think this is fairly impossible unless they employ some Third-party level complexity in transformations, and make the limbs fully static. Pretty sure Infernocus’ head and torso are too big to just be two Infernocons total, when compared proportionally to his limbs. The Studio Series Infernocon would come up with each of the melee weapons that the individuals wielded, as well as a large arm cannon for Infernocus. Buy five more and you can complete him! Sure you’ve got a lot of extra weapons, but there’s no way to work around that.
Again, it really boils down to if they can pull of a quintuple-changer Infernocon, whose different body parts are actually to scale with one another. And it’d have to be Voyager class… Or maybe a Leader-class, since they did that to DotM Megatron, who is about the same height as the Voyager-class RotF Megatron, but has more mass due to his involved transformation and alt-mode. In the end, they’d probably just do different Infernocon molds for different body part… In which case!
Release a ‘Limbo Infernocon’, so-named because of the Hell-theming, and the fact that it forms a limb. It’s a triple-changer, turning into either an arm or a leg; Still an involved transformation, but a lot more plausible than a quintuple-changer. Then there’s the Infernocons for the lower and upper torso with head… The lower torso would be named ‘Torment Infernocon’ to subtly get the idea it forms part of the torso, specifically the lower part. And the other would be ‘Head Infernocon’, because it forms the upper torso and head, and is like the leader of the group. Torment and Head would just have one alt-mode each, the usual.
What would REALLY be insane, however, is Dragonstorm… The Knights of Iacon transforming into him makes zero sense. Let’s be real. But I’ve seen what Third-party figures have pulled off, so there’s a morbidly curious part of me that WANTS to see them try. Each Knight is Voyager-class, and Dragonstorm himself is… Whatever you call Devastator, except even bigger.
Given the Knights of Iacon only transform into Dragonstorm, each would only have a single alt-mode, their combined form. There’d be some heavy-duty ratchet joints involved, and it’s a similar case to the Infernocons, where it’s same the robot mode more or less, but re-engineered to have a different alt-mode. This does get me into my conspiracy theory that their leader, Stormreign, forms one of Dragonstorm’s front legs.
It’s been criticized that Dragonstorm was somehow formed without him, but! We only see a brief silhouette of Dragonstorm, in which his two front legs aren’t visible. And then there’s a minor but definite cut to a bit later on, in which Merlin has ridden some distance back to the battle going on, and Dragonstorm is flying beside him. So, let’s just say that during this brief cut, Stormreign joined up with the other knights to finish Dragonstorm as his missing leg!
As for the dilemmas of Skullitron and two other knights dying, only for Dragonstorm to be formed whole regardless… Well, Skullitron only fell, we never saw him actually die. And yes those two knights got stabbed, but so was Optimus in the previous film, and he walked it off just fine somehow? So let’s say the same thing. Maybe when Optimus and Bumblebee were duking it out, the other Knights of Iacon took a while to arrive, because they were busy repairing their three fallen comrades.
Let’s say they had… A repair chamber or something. And that it fixed all three as good as new, especially Skullitron; Removing the decay so that he’s unrecognizable by the time the Knights of Iacon head outside, now resembling the rest. What am I, Trans Theories, coming up with explanations for the obvious flaws of the Bayverse? Maybe. Reminds me of a post I reblogged earlier, about seeing flaws and plot holes as opportunities to come up with your own stories and explanations. I really like that post and you can see how that applies here with Dragonstorm.
And yes, I know there’s one more Knight of Iacon(?) unaccounted for, the green dude who dies at the beginning and gives Cade the talisman. But he’s evidently a lot smaller than the other Knights of Iacon, who are the same size as each other; So he’s a blatant outlier. So let’s just say that he’s a servant and not an actual member or something. Would he even get a toy? Honestly.
Speaking of, the actual logistics of a Dragonstorm toy. I’m not even a toy designer, why am I discussing this? The Knights of Iacon would probably be panel-formers, turning inside out to reveal the textured armor of Dragonstorm, like the toy we got in TLK’s line, the one comprised of Stormreign and Dragonicus. When combined, Dragonstorm’s belly and the inside of his legs, as well as his wings, will probably be hidden to hide the obvious Knight kibble.
How would Dragonstorm be split up? Well, there’s twelve Knights of Iacon. I already suggested Stormreign as one of the front legs, so each leg is a Knight. That leaves eight Knights left. We’ve got the three heads with long necks, so each is a Knight. That leaves five Knights. The wings, easily the hardest part, will probably be downsized and be a single Knight each. Three Knights of Iacon, to form the front torso, back torso, and tail.
There’d be obvious spots where you can see the knight armor that breaks up the barbed aesthetic of Dragonstorm. But that’s okay, because it’s such a Herculean task to pull off a functioning, accurate combiner of him, that nobody is going to be critical of a minor flaw here or there, as long as it generally works. Hell, Dragonstorm might actually benefit from those spots, because they’d make him actually resemble his components more!
I dunno why I bother with all this ruminating. I guess a part of me just LOVES the idea of some line actually going out of its way to do EVERY character justice, even the most obscure ones.
we,ve seen multiple versions of barricade inspired by the tyran cluster. so are they versons of stinger,the dreads,quintessa,infernocus ect in other universal clusters
Dear Resonance Researcher,
Certainly, many archetypes are shared across the multiverse. In one universe, Stinger led the Decepticon Mini Vehicles against their Autobot foes. Though their diminutive proportions led others of their kind to look down on them, the Mini-Decepticons were unfortunately nonetheless devastating against humanity. Stinger's fellow Mini-Cons included Nightracer, Wipe-Out, Oilmaster, and Viper.
The Dreads existed in another universe, where they were a trio of Decepticon Pretenders who employed horrific alien shells during their assassination attempts on Autobots. They consisted of Crowbar, whose ferocity and patience made him the perfect predator to prey upon Autobot victims; Hatchet, a strategist who used their serpent-canine-like avatar to provide matchless mobility in the wildest terrain; and Airachnid, cold and heartless, her alien thought processes making her an impossible foe to predict.
Though Quintessa has concealed herself with many names, it is her very duplicity that makes her recognisable without a doubt across the multiverse. In one Level she was a lover of the Master Renegade, but her attempts to betray him to the Evil One made it clear that their forms of evil were incompatible. As punishment, she was imprisoned deep within the third world of Antares, where she remained until she was accidentally released by Nick Burns and Scooter.
One version of Infernocus Maximus was created by Primus to guard the Dark Energon pool that existed deep within an alien world. He was made up of the Inferno Team, a group of Decepticons that used their monstrous appearance to drive away any who might be called by the dark substance. Unfortunately they were not themselves immune to the corruption—when Megatron used the foul substance to become Galvatron, they became one of his most loyal forces, their minds warped to serve him.
