1. They are created, give Autobots a hard time that Prowl had to isolate them. 2. They are enslaved by Meltdown. They kick his ass and his two mutants. 3. They knock Sentinel Prime on the ground (not a hard task) and Ultra Magnus show up, make thunder appear, they are scared and run away. 4. They are Blackrachnia's pets and are in a love affair. (Grimlock look ridiculous) 5. Still Blackarachnia's pets, Snarl get 1 hit KOed/Offlined by Safeguard, Swoop doesn't last long. Ok, Grimlock was in a disadvantage (can't fly and fight vs. 2 or a combined mode) and managed to last the whole episode fighting until he is defeated at the end. 6. Sari just shoot 1 energy ball and they give up fighting... Snarl is now Scrapper's pet. Snarl had a hard against Ratchet and get 1 hit KOed/Offlines by a lone Optimus Prime. I didn't see the 2 Endgame episodes (Live in Canada) but from the sound of it, they don't appear. Not only that but we rarely see them fight and when that happens, their fight is skipped to focus on other scenes (SP confronting BA, Wasp turn into Waspinator, ect.) I undestand not seeing them fight often with the Autobots since they are supposed to be very ''powerful'' (Kinda like Megatron) but lately they look weak.
Yeah, they do. They were originally going to have the Dinobots fight Megs in Megatron Rising, but that whole bad animation thing. But there aren't any holes really in that plot, so I think they would have been just brushed aside. So...yes. Yes they are weak. And we can't do anything about it. At least they existed.
To be fair, they're not portrayed as particularly weak... just incredibly useless. They really did nothing good at any point, just make trouble for the most part.
I don't think they were portrayed as weak, just animalistic. They were basically wild animals, and a lot of their actions reflect that. As far as being afraid of UM's thunder abilities, after seeing Endgame, I think they had good reason to be afraid. And in regards to Safeguard beating them, Safeguard is incredibly powerful for an Autobot (in the comic, he took out 'Starscream' by himself, and did the same to Ramjet in 5 Servos). The fact that Grimlock was still moving after fighting for essentially a whole episode is pretty impressive in my books.
I don't think we would have missed much. Supposedly, Megatron was going to defeat them in one blow anyway. Hai wait, wasn't Grimlock supposed to be as strong as Megatron? Olol.
I think a lot of potential was wasted with them. They could have been a powerful chaotic element of the show, but instead they end up lackeys for pretty much any bad guy who comes to their island and barely do any productive fighting at all. I still like the Animated Dinobots as fun characters, but they are pretty much just big dogs that transform - and one can talk. If I had one wish, it would be an episode where Prowl and/or Bulkhead take time to train/educate the Dinobots to be more independent, culminating in them fighting and beating one or more actual Decepticons (Blitzwing or a couple Starscream clones would be good candidates here)
The dinobots in animated are weak. However, I don't see why people are so upset about it. Animated dinobots are weak. G1 dinobots kicked ass. Who cares? I like seeing different takes on transformers characters