It’s not clearly seen, but Soundwave appears to possess the ability of mass-shifting, just as he did in G1. He changed alternate modes from a satellite to car (even if they were the same size, getting rid of wings and replacing them with wheels and a chassis and stuff, let alone forming a cavity huge enough for four passengers, must have involved a load mass-shifting) and his facial appearances changed from having a visor and mandibles, to having two eyes and fangs (changing facial appearances on your own, without any injury to require a change, is a grand feat).

Obviously, this is just a toy-selling strategy. But it would be cool to have Soundwave be the one movie Transformer who can mass-shift.

 

All Cybertronians can shift their mass if they scan a different vehicle/electronic.

 

One good example is Frenzy from TF1

 

I don't think the examples you described are cases of mass-shifting. I think those are more examples of the Soundwave being able to seamlessly reconstitute his parts like so many other Cybertronians. For example, you say he could have gotten rid of his wings; I'd say his wings could have been "recycled," for lack of a better word to form more car parts.


Face changing?

Starscream's protoform face

http://tfwiki.net/w2/images2/a/a1/Defiance1_Starscream_Ratchet.jpg


Compared with that of now

http://tfwiki.net/w2/images2/1/19/Starscreammovieheadshot.jpg

 

Umm...do you not think its possible that his satelite form could have been, you know, small?

 

In TF1 Frenzy and Barricade we're both meant to be Soundwave with him beign small like Frenzy and then mass shifting after scanning a hummer or a swat truck of some kind.

 

You want a good example of Soundwave's mass-shifting in the movies? Compare his size to Ravage's.






You can see he is closely normal-human size. Doesn't that make Soundwave gigantic? Then How did he shrink in the third movie? Either Ravage was the one mass-shifting or Soundwave got rid of extra junk to fit into a small car.

 

I always personally subscribed to the theory that he's not the entire satellite, and that he merely transforms into an existing Decepticon satellite and controls it.

 

We never see Soundwave compared to Ravage in robot mode. We only see Soundwave compared to Ravage's compacted entry form.

 

Just being nitpicky, but Soundwave's vehicle mode actually seats two people.

 

Again, makes us wonder if Ravage was the one mass-shifting at that scene.

That makes it have more sense with the SUV mode from the game.

 

Points to consider:

- Military satellite size isn't common knowledge, and there's very little else to go by for scale in space, so that gives some leeway.

- Ravage isn't entirely big, most of his mass is in a 5' x 2' x 2' area. Probably could compact even smaller (which is, of course, not mass shifting).


- The panels make Soundwave look a lot bigger than he is. They may be very wide and long, but they're not very thick.


Granted, they were going to make Soundwave a truck (with a ~20' tall, bulky robot mode) in RotF, and it looks like they simply started from scratch with Soundwave for DotM...

 

That's my theory as well.

Where did you find this? Looks awesome.

 

FINALLY! Somebody posted pictures of this!

 

i may remember this wrong but wasn't Soundwave hacking inside the military building in Revenge of the Fallen? Surely he can't be that gigantic if he succesfully entered there without being seen, right?

EDIT: God! that was in TF: Prime. Where's my head   Nevermind.

 

I dont see a difference.

 

soundwave NEEEDS a master piece toy

 

Nice!

Unfortunately I don't think they handled SW the way they wanted in the movie. It started out right in ROTF, but I don't know why they couldn't explain SW's special transformation abilities.

These mass differences leaves a big gap for questions.

 

Soundwave has nothing on the mass shifting the Mixmaster-looking cement truck undergoes when forming Devastator. Seriously, look at the frame where the head is coming out of the hood of the truck durring transformation and then look at the frame where he is about to eat Derp. The only way an "unfolding" argument works is if Devastator's head has roughly the same density as a cloud of smoke.

 

You can clearly see though that most of the large turbine-grinders come from Scavenger, as that's where Mixmaster plugs in. Its also theorized that Scavenger merged more parts and shoved them through Mixmaster to create the face, while Mixmaster simply shifted back and became solely the grinder vortex.

Its not a crazy assumption, considering you can see tiny green bits here and there in the same shade of green as Long Haul, so he's thrown his parts around a lot in the combination process too.