Not only that, you can still keep the combined vehicle mode by having all three components combine into say, an SR-71.

 

I would personally love them to be a NASA probe of some sort.

 

That could work as well.

Edit: I just had the thought of doing Seeker trios like this, wherein three Seekers have their individual Cybertronian jet modes, then can combine into a large jet like an F-22. Ironically it might make the individual units too small.

 

Why doesn't Reflector turn into something contemporary military to keep in theme, like say, an RQ-4 Global Hawk?

It's a BIG ass drone, that could easily be comprised of three bots!

 

Wow, unexpectedly controlling and narrow-minded. Proper character and scale don't contradict each other, and even if the former is more important, it doesn't mean people can't discuss scale on a discussion forum. Not to mention we all have a lot of time to spare right now, it's not like we're racing to post here and have to choose whether we talk about scale or story.

 

All scale arguments fly out the window when you realize that if scale was actually being remotely adhered to, the car robots would be hilariously short, because as I've already pointed out, something with a large physical presence like a hummer is deceptively large, as inside its actually mostly hollow. Thus, where the hell are all the robot parts? Trying to go 1:1 scale doesn't work. The only reason designs like Ironhide and Ratchet work is because of this illusion of physical mass being present, thus we assume there's enough mass to pull off the robot, when in reality it isn't, even though their vehicle modes are pretty big. All it does is go right back to the very same argument Paramount used for why Prime was not a cab-over - the robot would end up being too short.

And then he was a cab over with the same robot mode as he had as a long nose, completely obliterating that excuse.

Obviously, the more egregious mass shifting examples like, say, G1 Broadside going from a mere fighter jet into an aircraft carrier that could carry dozens of that same aircraft carrier are still out of the question, but beyond that, robot design largely should depend on the characterization and be worked into an alt. mode, since alt. modes work best when they are an extension of the character they are representing and not just arbitrarily assigned.

 

I'm not even addressing scale here, I'm addressing you being controlling and dictating what should and shouldn't be discussed. I don't interact with you much but I've seen plenty of your posts over the years and this kind of self-importance is really uncharacteristic of you.

If you want to talk scale, I will say that your point of vehicles being hollow for the sake of being vehicles and not actually having the mass to form traditionally-sized robots is a very good point, but it basically upends the entire concept of Transformers. I surmise your solution is scale should be ignored entirely, but I believe it's still something that should be addressed - by choosing plausible robot sizes and alt-modes from the beginning without being beholden to G1 or whatever continuity if it presents a scale issue. Like you said, Transformers uses the illusion of mass inside a closed vehicle to justify robots being the same size as the vehicle. The issue resolves itself - not by being physically logical, but through suspension of disbelief. It doesn't mean scale can't be attempted.

I agree that character and robot design should be intertwined and scale shouldn't interfere with a good way to visually communicate character - in fact, that's my limit with scale. But a really good designer might find a way to work around it. Let me pitch you an idea: Starscream with a body formed just from the fuselage of an F-35 while his wings form a "cape," (though not as literally as AoE Crosshairs' coat) and the tailfins form shoulder armor calling back to his coronation gear. It visually communicates his vanity and narcissism, and homages a memorable moment in TF history, while the wing usage and choice of the F-35, a smaller fighter jet brings down his size quite a bit in comparison to G1 Starscream's design, not to mention using the "Jack of all trades, master of none" F-35 over the similarly-small F-16 is a subtle backhanded comment on how overly-ambitious Starscream is. I think that's a decent balance of character and scale. But if Starscream were more of a competent reinterpretation like Season 1 TFP Starscream and I wanted to have him be a lanky, spindly creep like in TFP, which would spread all of his mass vertically and make him huge if real-world scale, I wouldn't be opposed to a "microjet" over size-shifting to match real-world scale.

 

Bumping this thread up, but here's an interesting idea for beastformers; make them as big compared to the average Cybertronian as the animals they turn into are to a human. I'll use the Predacons as an example.

Let's use, say Bumblebee as a proxy for the average Cybertronian - according to Bay, Camaro Bumblebee is 17.5 feet tall (roughly 5.3m). By contrast, the average human male is about 5 foot 10 (roughly 1.78m). This means that Bumblebee is roughly 3.35 times taller than the average human.​

Razorclaw: The average male African lion (which we'll assume is the source of Razorclaw's altmode) is 3.5 feet tall at the shoulder and about 10 feet in length - however, the largest ever wild lion recorded (a male shot in Traansval in 1936) was 4.5 feet tall at the shoulder and almost 12 feet in length. Extrapolating from this, in beast mode at his smallest, Razorclaw would be 11.7 feet at the shoulder and 33 feet in length. At his largest, he'd be roughly 15 feet at the shoulder and roughly 40 feet in length. If Razorclaw's robot mode height is the same as his beast mode length, Razorclaw would be roughly 33-40 feet tall in robot mode.

Divebomb: Let's assume Divebomb turns into a golden eagle. The largest ever recorded golden eagle was about 4 feet in height and had a 9 foot wingspan - whilst the average golden eagle is between 2.5 and 3 feet tall and has a roughly 7 foot wingspan. Extrapolating from this, Divebomb in beast mode at his smallest would be about 10 feet tall in beast mode and have a 21 foot wingspan, whilst at his largest, he'd be roughly 12 feet tall and have a whopping 27 foot wingspan. If he's as tall in robot mode as he is in beast mode, he'd be about as tall as the average Autobot - and he's the smallest member of the team.

Rampage: The average Bengal tiger is roughly 3.6 feet tall at the shoulder and about 10 feet in length. The largest ever recorded was about 11 feet and roughly 4.5 feet at the shoulder. Extrapolating from this, in beast mode at his smallest, Rampage would be 12 feet at the shoulder and 33 feet in length. At his largest, he'd be roughly 15 feet at the shoulder and roughly 36 feet in length. If his robot mode height is the same as his beast mode length, he'd be roughly 33-36 feet tall in robot mode.

Headstrong: The average black rhinoceros has a shoulder height (which Headstrong's beast mode mouth shape indicates he turns into) of roughly 4.5-6 feet and is about 10-12.3 feet long. Extrapolating from this, in beast mode at his smallest, Headstrong would be 15 feet at the shoulder and 33 feet in length. At his largest, he'd be roughly 20 feet tall at the shoulder and roughly 41 feet in length. If his robot mode height is the same as his beast mode length, he'd be roughly 41 feet tall in robot mode, roughly the largest of the bunch.

Tantrum: The average Asian water buffalo has a shoulder height of about 5-6.2 feet tall at the shoulder and is about 7.8-9.8 feet long. Extrapolating from this, in beast mode at his smallest, Tantrum would be 16 feet at the shoulder and 26 feet in length. At his largest, he'd be roughly 20 feet tall at the shoulder and roughly 32 feet in length. If his robot mode height is the same as his beast mode length, he'd be roughly 32 feet tall in robot mode.

In robot mode, all of the Predacons, except Divebomb, would tower over the average Autobot and Decepticon, and, possibly, be even taller than Optimus Prime (28 feet) and Megatron.

 

Amazing, isn't it? A post calculating, in great detail, how big the Predacons would be if they were as big compared to the Autobots as the animals they turn into are to a human - followed by a bunch of emojis. Kind of shows the two degrees of discourse on here, doesn't it?

 

You know what they say, an emoji a picture is worth a thousand words.

 

What's the point of "disguising" if all you're going to be is a comically oversized gorilla?

 

I kinda wonder, if Sector 7 are still gonna be a thing, which seems likely at this point, would they be the S.H.I.E.L.D. or Monarch of the HasbroVerse? Dealing with other aliens like the SpaceKnights, Dire Wraiths, Micronauts, Inhumanoids, Visionaries, etc.

 

Firstly, in the case of the Predacons, it'd make them more intimidating, both from an Autobot point of view and a human point of view. If the Predacons were the size of the animals they turn into, they'd be either average or pathetically small in comparison to the average Autobot. Not only would he tower over the average Autobot, but, from a human viewpoint, Razorclaw would be much scarier if he turned into a Tyrannosaurus-sized lion rather than a regular-sized one.

Secondly, who's to say that every beastformer gets their beast modes from Earth fauna? The Predacons, for instance, could have scanned their alt-modes from an Earthlike planet with lions, tigers, rhinos, eagles and buffalo that really were that big and kept their alt-modes on Earth for the sake of practicality - and possibly a sense of personal attachment.

There's precedent for that in the franchise - IDW Rattrap scanned his alt-mode from a rodent-like alien species on the planet he was stationed at, that really was that big.

Also, a fun idea for the Beast Wars could be that they took place on prehistoric Cybertron - with the Maximals and Predacons being sort of the Cybertronian versions of the Neandertals. In that case, their beast modes would be Cybertronian fauna, which also could be that big. The modern Predacons could have chosen their moniker in honour of the ancient faction.

 

That's like, defeating the purpose of alt mode.
Transformers use alt mode to hide, they're not Animorphs who use "other mode" to fight.

 

So you don't like G1 Shockwave, Cosmos, the Dinobots, Predacons, Seacons, pretty much everything 1986 and onward, et cetera et cetera?

 

Exactly. Disguises are just one of the purposes of transformation. Alt modes can also be used for travel, transport, weaponry, tactics in combat, intimidation, or to express the character or personality of the robot. There are plenty of other functions an alt mode could perform.

 

TBH, as much as I love Shockwave, his alt mode as a gun is as stupid as G1 Megatron, at least for me. Why'd a robot who can shoot turn into a gun who can shoot?

And as much as I love combined Predacon/Seacon or Dinobots, sometimes I just don't see the purpose of their alt mode, at least in combat.

But like Galvatross say, it can be used for intimidation, which actually didn't crossed my head before.

 

In cybeast's defense, we're talking about characters made for an 80s toyline that were largely repurposed from other pre-existing toylines and Hasbro could only work with what they had - the dinobots as we know them likely wouldn't exist if for whatever reason Diaclone didn't have pilotable robot dinosaurs. And from 1986 onward, that was supposed to be futuristic in the far flung year of 15 years ago  lol) and that was when Hasbro was flinging things at the wall and trying to see what stuck given we soon got even sillier ideas like giant human Pretender suits and eventually straight up non-transforming Action Masters.

The problem with simply ignoring size limitations for the more out-there beast formers like the G1 Preds or Seacons is that, well, they're inherently stupid and cartoony simply by existing. If it's a cartoon then sure, not a big deal. However, since Live Action somehow is still in the mix because Paramount is stupid, you have to juxtapose the CGI robots alongside real life scale humans and structures. And then you'd just get the audience probably thinking that they all turn into Zords since the Power Rangers movie was basically this when it came to the Zords anyway.

The focus really should be more about trying to just get a good core cast of transformers in a film that's genuinely well liked, as opposed to trying to shove in some sub-gimmick like beasts before the films even have a firm footing, which Bumblebee is not even though it managed to salvage a bayverse prequel into its own standalone thing. Trying to shove in sub gimmicks in a concept which itself is not really all that well established leads to films on the level of ROTF or TLK.

Now you're just ripping off the whole backstory of the Predacons from TF Prime. And we all saw how well copying ideas from TF Prime worked in the 'Unicron is Earth' stupidity in TLK.

 

Yeah, some of the odder beastformers are inherently stupid and cartoony, but there's been plenty of times where stupid and cartoony things have been made scary by the way they are portrayed. For instance, the Daleks shouldn't be scary - they're basically pepperpots with an eyestalk, a whisk and a plunger. Yet they've terrified generations of children for almost 60 years.

And I'm not sure on that last part - I think the audience are clever enough to distinguish between Transformers and Zords. Nobody connects, say, the Peter Jackson King Kong to Jurassic Park because they both have dinosaurs.

I agree with you absolutely re: waiting before delving into the weirder aspects of the brand - this is just a possible idea for when the films have room to establish all the different Transformer sub-groups. However, I do think that, once we've got a good core cast and some solid TF films, we should start to introduce some of the more unusual aspects of the brand.

That was actually the main influence - I really liked the backstory of the Prime Predacons, because it was a fun and inventive twist on the idea of beastformers, portraying them as prehistoric Cybertronians. A pity that it was never utilised properly in the series - we only see one Predacon for most of the series and we know next to nothing about the period in which they ruled Cybertron.

However, that doesn't make it a bad idea - I personally think it'd be fun to portray Optimus Primal as sort of an ancient warlord from the Cybertronian equivalent of Neandertal times, who is then put in the present and shown what his race has become. It'd also give us a bit of an insight into Cybertronian ancient history.

The idea of the Beast Wars being the first Cybertronian war, fought in the planet's prehistory, with the Maximals and Predacons being to modern day Cybertronians what the Neandertals are to humans, is certainly an interesting one.