I have come up with two different possibilities. 1. Based on the toy design alone, keep in mind I came up with this idea before actually seeing the movie but I think it could maybe still work even though there's no evidence within the movie itself supporting this idea. Traditional headmaster are normally separate characters from the heads that they transform into. It's Hazard and Blitzwing not just Blitzwing or just Hazard. Cogman however, rather than transforming into a different character like Hazard does, he instead transforms into a larger version of his own head. This difference between Cogman and how Headmasters are normally portrayed has lead me to believe that he isn't the typical small robot partner to a larger robot that every other Headmaster has been. Rather than transforming to form the head of another character I imagined that Cogman has the ability to make anything transform into his body. His vehicle of choice however is the Aston Martin DB11 that we see him driving in the movie and that the toy is designed around. The way I imagine this working is like how the AllSpark Cube emits energy that can make any human technology into a Transformer. Except he doesn't make them come alive. He just makes them transform into a body for him to control. Imagine how awesome this would of looked in the movie, Cogman is driving along down the road in his car when Nitro Zeus appears in front of him and rather than stopping the car he transforms into his head mode, energy is emitted from his neck eventually engulfing the entire car, and then the car itself transforms into his body and it all happens in one smooth motion as he tackles Nitro Zeus. 2. This is my slightly revised possibility based on the information from the actual movie not the toy. At one point during the movie when we first meet Cogman it's implied that he has two personalities, the second being that of his former partner. At some point his partner's body was destroyed trapping his personality forever inside Cogman. Normally they would switch more naturally during transformation but since Cogman can't form his head mode without a body to attach to and he's been stuck in robot mode for so long the other guy, whoever he is, is fighting to control Cogman instead. Based on this line of reasoning, the car is just an ordinary car that was never meant to transform. And Cogman should not transform into a larger version of his own head, he should transform into another character like every other Headmaster does. The animation model doesn't actually have a face on his back. There's nothing to indicate what his head mode would look like if he actually transformed. Basically what I'm asking is, which theory do you think is more accurate to how Cogman works. Is the toy based on a concept that never made it to the final film? Is he just Cogman? and if so then what's up with the multiple personality disorder, is that entirely unrelated to his gimmick? (I know that's a real thing, I have it.) Is the toy like a lot of toys just entirely inaccurate to the movie and Cogman actually transforms into a totally different head. If there is another character locked inside him who's head do you think he transforms into? If you have your own theory or an idea of how to combine these two let me know. Cogman is THE MOST INTERESTING HEADMASTER IN THE WORLD! I don't always give head but when I do it means something totally different than what you're thinking. Get you mind out of the gutter filthy flesh bags.
The only reason no we got about him being s headmaster was that he rips the heads off other robots and take their bodies over. Hence Nitro’s removable head. This takes inspiration from TF Animated Headmaster. The toy is like the Japanese Headmasters in that the car/body is a transector for the Headmaster robot, which indeed is the same character in the small and large forms. As it is, on-screen Cogman’s so tiny he’d have to mass shift quite a bit to become a big enough head even for Bumblebee.
We're directly told in the movie that Cogman was a headmaster. The only reason he never transforms presumably is because the body of the larger robot he was suppose to be paired with was destroyed though that part is only vaguely implied by some dialog, I just kind of made up the rest to fill in the blanks for stuff that wasn't fully explained. What we actually know for sure is that he's a headmaster with multiple personality disorder. The idea that the other personality belongs to his partner who no longer has a body is just entirely made up by me to explain away the multiple personalities and why he never transforms. Except TF Animated was a human in an exso suit like American G1. Also that's not the only reason, it's also because his toy is a headmaster and the movie directly calls him a headmaster. Also about that removable head. I wish they had done that for Animated instead of making Headmaster hollow inside to fit over the existing head. It would of been so much nicer having a Headmaster that can actually transform even though he was only ever in robot mode once for like two seconds. Still it's a TRANSFORMERS toy line I want him to actually TRANSFORM not a solid chunk of plastic with a hollow cavity. The only non-Transforming toys I actually want out of transformers are the Quintessons and Vok, things that aren't actually Transformers but Hasbro rarely if ever actually makes toys of them. We got Alpha Q back in Energon and that TINY little Quintessa that comes with Infernocus in the Last Knight and that's about it. Wait, I knew the Japanese Headmasters were robots rather than humans in exso-suits like the American version but if they're meant to be the same character then why do they have different names and appearances? Cogman is the only one I've ever seen who is just called Cogman in both forms and who basically just transform into a larger version of the same robot mode. Well Rollout and Overload from Armada kinda looks like he just transforms into a larger version of himself but they're actually two different characters. Although in the comics it's very clearly two characters but in the cartoon Overload seems to be a non-sentient thing that Optimus just uses as a power up. I don't even recall ever seeing Rollout at all in the cartoon and I hate that series so much I'm not going to bother going back to look for him. Besides, Mini-cons can't even talk in the cartoon anyway, only the comics. Not really. All Headmasters have always been about the size of humans... partly because some times they literally are humans. You want to talk about mass shifting, in Dark of the Moon the original concept was suppose to be that Brains was a Headmaster and he'd transform into Que's head. This never actually made it into the movie, they ended up being totally unrelated to each other but you can still tell that was suppose to be a thing because they have similar designs, mainly with the shared fiber-optic hair. They're the only characters who have that kind of hair and it's because it was a left over from the headmaster idea. Now that would require some mass shifting considering Brains is so small if he transformed into a head it would be about the size a human head. I don't know how that was ever suppose to fit Que... unless maybe they made him smaller after they decided to scrap the idea? Can you image if Brains was human sized instead of being tiny?
It's a throwaway line by Anthony Hopkins, when Cogman is flipping out on Cade he says something like "Don't mind him, he's a Headmaster, it makes him twitchy." Aaaaand that's all we got.
I meant in the sense of removing other robots’ heads and replacing them to take over the body. That’s the same. His toy is a Headmaster because he was going to use this ability in the movie, not the other way around. In vthe Japanese Headmaster cartoon the head units are the robots and are referred to as Chromedome, Highbrow etc. (though this wasn’t changed for the Toys). Their vehicles are not different robots that they become heads for but ‘transectors’ which they use as a larger body while still being themselves. The power master and Headmaster juniors concepts were the same in the Japanese cartoon, aside from them being humans who use the transectors.
In the DOTM comic he’s depicted as being larger than humans, could be taken that his size was taken from the original Headmaster concept and they shrunk him down when they decided to make him a laptop instead. But I guess we’ll never know.
I was going to answer this, but Ultrawave beat me to it. I will add he actually says that Cogman has multiple personality disorder not just "makes him twitchy." Though again, my theory about exactly how multiple personality disorder relates to being a headmaster is pure speculation because that part is never explained. It seems to be implied but I might just be reading way too much into a throw away line.
Ahh maybe I remember, i certainly remember him saying ".. makes him twitchy" .. I didn't see Ultrawaves reply, seems i have him ignored, don't really remember why, so i'll unignore and see how it goes! Tbh, it's seems like a part of script they forgot edit out after they cancelled Cog's HeadMastery!
Well it's better to have a transformation that we never see than to be a Transformer who just doesn't transform at all. Also since you said he's on your ignore and quotes normally turn invisible as well, this is what he said. "I will add he actually says that Cogman has multiple personality disorder not just "makes him twitchy." Though again, my theory about exactly how multiple personality disorder relates to being a headmaster is pure speculation because that part is never explained. It seems to be implied but I might just be reading way too much into a throw away line."
