Well, I've lost my copy of ROTF and I can only find one picture on the internet. However that picture is of a very Panther looking hatchling. It might be cute if it wasn't lying in slime, dying of starvation. I also found a high quality clip of the Africa scene from DOTM and there they look like their parents would be Hatchet and Dispensor.
Dispensor dispenses babies? On-topic, I've never really noted the hatchlings to look like Ravage. They look more like miniature Generic-Protoforms. Slimy miniature Generic-Protoforms
I did not notice because at the time I was thinking if you are going to rip off another movie why on Earth would you rip off Van Helsing.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall a plotline where the hatchlings were being harvested to sustain the wounded Transformers, or the Fallen in particular. Of course that scene didn't really come out with that intention in mind... Anyway, the new source of energon was the important thing, it didn't really matter whether it was going to be used for rejuvenating their race or not since their ultimate goal was to blow up the sun and every inhabited world in its vicinity.
You're wrong. Megatron's plot in TF1: Build an army using the Allspark. Megatron's plot in ROTF: Use the harvester for Energon to save the Decepticons and build an army. Using those hatchlings in the Nemesis. DOTM Prologue: The Autobots are outnumbered by the Decepticons on Cybertron. Numerical superiority has always been part of Decepticon doctrine. As such mass production of soldiers. Which explains the multiple Decepticons we see with the same body type.
If by "infant Ravages" you mean "generic, ferocious looking little Decepticons with fangs and claws", then yes. But then by that logic, Hatchet, Crowbar and Crankcase and that giant-@$$ four legged thing on Cybertron are all "adult Ravages". That is to say, THEY AREN'T. Do they look similar? Yes. Vaguely. In the most generic sense. They have claws and fangs and an overall feline/monstrous appearance. That doesn't make them Ravages any more than it makes Megatron an "infant Unicron" because he has hands and a mouth and stuff.
I'm puzzled...what actually is the purpose of the hatchlings? I'm still unable to reconcile how Meg managed to er, manufacture them or imbue them with life without the AllSpark.
Transformers can reproduce. Jetfire had a mum and dad. The Seven Primes are brothers. The Twins are brothers. The Primes are Sentinel and Optimus' ancestors. What the Fallen did inside the Nemesis was create a new Decepticon army using cloning. All they need was Energon. The Allspark the source of Energon was chucked away from Cybertron. But there was another means of manufacturing Energon. Basically the Decepticons won the war using clone troopers. That's how they outnumbered the Autobots.
The Autobots are monsters for not letting the hatchlings grow up. Starving them as kids....that's just evil. Plus they sided with Sam Witwicky one of the worse people on the planet.
I get the feeling the hatchlings originally were a set-up for the 3rd movie's big invasion, though further script revisions (and eventually DotM) rendered it moot. While many references have been made to families and lineage, we really don't know how they are 'born.' The Fallen commanded Starscream to make them (said nothing about clones), and Screamer somehow got it started despite the severe lack of Energon, but nowhere is it even hinted at how they are created.
Maybe the reason Megatron was so keen to sustain them in DOTM is because he knew that if the Chicago Invasion failed then those hatchlings would be the only hope. So maybe he had a fourth plan to make the hatchlings inherit some of his 'genes' so they could be powerful warriors like he was. Bam, Galvatron, Straxus, whoever you want.
Hmm... That works. Villains of TF4, the abandoned hatchlings grown up without their father figure. A plausible means for revenge.
