It seems like they really had a great chance to go interesting places with Starscream in the second movie. With Megatron dead he would have been the big name Decepticon for the film and they could have gone for something less black and white to the war.

But then the bad ideas got crammed in like Megatron back from the dead or just dropping the Fallen into the movie universe. Devastator just to have a combiner without any real purpose to him and characters being safe if it's characters the director loved. I think they just starting cramming so many bad ideas in that Starscream ends up as more of an afterthought than a character to mine for great film moments.

 

Not enough money, terrible writing and of course GEEWUN. The main reason was most likely to make things more GEEWUN however even if they tried to keep him, they wouldn't have had enough time. They didn't have enough money for a TF centered movie and what screen time they did have was crammed full of hundreds of unnecessary characters. It didn't help how stand alone the movies were.

 

Because all those dumbasses who didn't like his new character in TF1, the badass with his own agenda with the characteristic "too cowardly to fight on ground for long" G1 thing complained.

I mean, he had all that coolness, cool voice, badassery yet cowardliness, and the whole fed up with both Optimus and Megatron thing to set him apart...

And the GEEWUN pricks ruined it. Still, he turned out ok. His death was fitting for his character. He mocked and terrorized Sam, laughing all the way, and got killed because he was too much of a dumbass to pay attention, even with all that epic firepower.

 

Read Reign of Starscream. It uses that take on Starscream, and it's a brilliant story as well!

 

Right, because hyperbole is the only alternative to what they have done.

 

I was rolling around the idea of lost opportunities in my head and it seems like they missed a really big one in Dark of the Moon by just reversing who gets killed.

Sam Witwicky's story arch really seems done early on in the third film so the character is hanging around rather than being needed. Shia LaBeouf really doesn't want to sign a contract for Transformers films. So imagine if Starscream killed Sam in Dark of the Moon rather than Sam killing Starscream. Just seems like it would have far more impact on the viewer and it would have added something more to why Prime would go relentless in the end. The heroes win, but victory seems at a much heavier cost with the main human character in the series being dead.

The only reason for Sam to live seems like a vain hope they could talk Shia LaBeouf into returning. But now film four is no Sam and no Starscream.

 

Yeah, hey! Making Starscream a decent character would've taken away the important character development Optimus and Megatron went through!!

... What was that again? I seem to recall no character ever getting any character development in those movies except arguably the annoying protagonist.

 

You forget Laserbeak and Sentinel Prime, the only two Cybertronians with nearly perfect characterization.

 

Wait what  
They explained that they never died...they weren't even in the ship when Starscream shot it down.

 

I won't speak for anyone else, but regarding Optimus and Megatron, I vehemently disagree that they recieved no development throughout the triology.

Take Optimus. In the first movie, his desire is to get the Allspark before the 'Cons. With that power on his side, the victor of the war would be the Autobots and he could rebuild Cybertron. But there is an underlying desperation to him, desperate to just end the war. If all else fails, if the Decepticons win the fight, he will destroy the Allspark by merging it with himself. While he would die, at least he also denies the Decepticon's achieving ultimate victory. The constant battle has worn him down to this point, that even the destruction of the Allspark is considered, just to stop the Decepticons from winning.

Of course, Sam interfered and destroyed Megs and the Allspark.

Come ROTF and DOTM. This Prime is no longer desperate. He has found a new home, and new allies. The Autobots have an entire planet on their side and they put it to good use, hunting down the Decepticons. Prime had hoped in ROTF that the 'Cons, with their leader dead and the Allspark destroyed, would give up and leave. But they don't; instead, they have the Fallen and soon Megs is back to life and eventually Sentinel is a traitor. Put simply, the Decepticons didn't stop, didn't give up like Prime had hoped. They continued to threaten Earth, threaten the Autobots, threaten humanity, pushing Prime again and again. He died, Ironhide died, his father figure turned out to be a traitor. He is constantly pushed, and finally, he decides that if the Decepticons won't quit, then he will, put bluntly, kill them all.

He went from a desperate man trying to end the war at any cost, to a warrior that, with the deaths of innocent civilians and fellow Autobots, realised that even without the Allspark, the Decepticons would never give up, not until either they or the Autobots were dead.

Megatron, meanwhile, undergoes a sort of reverse change. In the first movie, he is the warrior, the one that beats Prime to the ground, killed Jazz, who desires the Allspark for its great power to secure his victory. He wanted every Autobot and human to die, simply because they were obstacles to his goal of tyranny. Ultimately, he meets his end from the Allspark itself.

Resurrected in ROTF, his brutality is lessened somewhat. He is more tactical, bringing in back-up to kill Prime, forcing the humans to look for Sam lest his troops destroy them. He is still a savage fighter, but he thinks more. However, he is beaten by Jet-Power Prime and forced into hiding. His tactical edge again increases, tricking the Autobots in bringing about his Sentinel plot. But he is weak, a shadow of his former power, desperately struggling to regain Cybertron and all the power he had upon it. While Optimus grows more brutal as the 'Cons persist, Megatron grows more complacent as he is beaten down, to the point of simply being content that his home planet may be saved.

But Carly reawakens his most consistent trait; pride. Suddenly, his old goal emerges, to be the top dog, to get his power back. You could say Carly tricked Megatron into reverting from a more subdued character into the dominating monster we knew him as before.

When the two finally confront each other in DOTM, we see their goals from the first film; Optimus wants the war to end, Megatron wants his power back. We all know who won that one.

 

This, this, this!

 

It's not their well characterized. I didn't enjoy it.

I like Optimus Prime not being Rambo or Megatron as a someone elses bitch.

 

To bad he did not had a chance to say hello, it's me.

 

Beautiful... just beautiful! And totally true!

 

Starscream isn't manly, he's a coward.

 

I wouldn't really describe Megatron as a bitch, per se. After all, given the plans he made, it's fairly safe to assume that his end-game plan was very well thought out. He makes an alliance with both Sentinel and the Fallen. If one plan fails, he has the other to try, see if it works out. Let's say the Fallen had won and the Star Harvester did its job. A whole load of fresh Energon and the return of the Matrix.

All Megs would have to do then is steal the Matrix, resurrect Sentinel and set him on the Fallen. Since only a Prime can kill him, Sentinel would pretty much kick the Fallen's ass and send him on a one-way trip to Hell. And then Megs back-stabs Sentinel. He pits them in a fight to the death and kills the winner.

Voila! The competition is dead and he keeps the spoils all to himself. Clever old Megs.

The only flaw in Megatron's plans? Optimus kicking all their asses  

 

...Now, what exactly stops the fallen from being killed by anyone other than a prime? I never got that...


And seeing as Optimus did not have the matrix at first...what made him more than just a powerful Autobot? And even then, the matrix didn't do anything for him, far as I can tell.....was it just bad writing?

 

The Matrix revived him. That's not something?

 

Voodoo magic, man.

 

The Fallen seems to lose his supernatural power to levitate tanks to throw at people and teleport around once Optimus starts fighting him.

This is very poorly explained in the series, but it seemed as if the Ancient Prime's had unnatural even for Transformers abilties, that wouldn't work against other Primes. This is why they can't seem to find any way to stop the Fallen beyond sealing the Matrix from him, as opposed to killing him, or sealing the Fallen himself. Their magic prime powers wouldn't work on another Prime.

The decent Optimus Prime seems to lack the powers of the Ancient Primes (or the knowledge of how to use them was lost and he was never able to learn how) but keeps the immunity to them, so when Optimus steps in Fallen goes from all powerful Robo Wizard to old guy with a stick.