The people behind the movies are laughing at you right now for caring at all. They have your money.

 

THIS

 

They renamed Mirage in the film because Ferrari has an exclusive marketing deal with Mattel, and thus didn't want the car to sport a Hasbro trademark. Wheeljack was renamed simply because Bay wanted to.

And don't say the Mirage/Wheeljack names were nameslaps. Wheeljack/Que pretty blatantly fulfilled Wheeljack's traditional role as the kooky team inventor, and had the light-up hair in homage to his ears in G1, so the "Can we has Realjack in TF4?" mindset is pretty stupid. Mirage didn't fulfill his spy function in G1, but his alt-mode reflects his aristocratic tendencies, plus his concept art pretty much tells us that he was going to have Mirage's trademark invisibility (also of note, remember how that botched interview, plus the false report of his eyes being red made us think he was going to be the traitor? Who does that remind us of? Yeah...) Obviously since Ferrari had the right to approve the name and voice of the Ferrari, it's not a stretch to believe that they asked Bay to remove the cloaking feature (along with his death scene). I don't think any of the BTS legal stuff negates the intent behind his identity.

The movieverse versions sure got a hell of a lot more in common with G1 than they do their AEC versions, so why don't we have people going "That wasn't Wheeljack in Armada!" or "EFFWUN NOT BOTE" ?

 

F*ckin' this...

 

Just adding this, but Mirage is also said to have cloaking powers, next to a picture of him going invisible, in one of the children's picture books.

 

It's the whole Brawl/devastator thing again. The characters are called wheeljack and mirage in every source but the film, including toys, and i always choose to believe Hasbro has the final word on character's names. Besides i think Que and Dino are ridiculous names for transformers. I'm okay with the nickname idea but the characters are definitively Wheeljack and Mirage.

 

I can begrudgingly accept and understand the name thing. But I still wonder why Mirage's cloaking ability was apparently cut.

 

i completely agree; it sucks that his cloaking ability was intended to be there but cut. It really helps make him more mirage-ey for me and it's something that i choose to believe that he can, we just didn't see him do it on screen. Bit off topic but i also choose to belive dotm wheeljack has a battle mask like prime wheeljack that would make him look more like the traditional wheeljack. I know it was not in the movie or ever intended but i just like the idea  

 

You guys must lead some rich rich lives to be this upset over the name changes. There is NOTHING about that red ferrarri that says "mirage". It's as disconnected as Energon Cliffjumper.

 

The cloaking would've accomplished that. But where did it go, and why?

 

Budget?

I mean they never showed Optimus merge with his trailer either.

 

THIS!

 

Agree with most of what has already been covered.

However, I'm still disappointed that they did not go all in with the name Mirage and have him fight some of the Dreads (Predators) while both sides were slipping in and out of invisibility.

 

Iguess I should clarify why I started this thread

regardless of the how's and why's Mirage became Dino and Que became Wheeljack, my question is once they chose a name, why give both names billing?

In other words if the red Ferrari is officialy named "Dino" why even mention Mirage in the credits if the name was decided on?

it would be like seeing closing credits for "Blackout/Vortex" and "Devastator/Brawl" at the end of the first film

 

But that raises the question. Why did they let Bay keep Soundwave 'Soundwave'? If both are Mercedes, then why change one?

 

Because Soundwave was in the previous movie too, and changing the name between films makes even less sense?

 

I think Que was named by Bay and company, not Mercedes. Anyway, I actually like him being named Que, for the James Bond homage.

 

i LOVE ur sig.

 

Que is to Wheeljack as Q is to Major Boothroyd.

As for Dino, just Ferrari getting in a mild hissy fit over two toy companies using their cars.

 

Just as a little something to make the fans feel a little better? Also Brawl and Blackout werent in the credits anyway.