Does anyone feel throughout this passing decade that the TF's Cybertronian forms aren't done enough justice in recent media?

In Prime, RID 2015, Combiner wars, and Cyberverse, TF's are depicted before they arrive on earth, they already have an earth mode chassis. However, realistically this is probably done for budget / money reasons. But for me, this bugs the shit out of me because the characters don't outright Transform at all before they've scanned an earth mode vehicle to hide the assets being re-used.

And it's awkward as ever too. In one of the Prime episodes for example, Jack helps Smokescreen choose an earth vehicle and we're left to guess what it would be off-screen. But any tension of this mystery is destroyed because Smokescreen already has the earth-car parts he'll soon scan. Same with all the "flashbacks" the recent cartoons are doing too.

But anyway, what are your thoughts on this matter?

 

RID2015 had distinct Cybertronian vehicles. Sure they appear to be altered from their Earth mode CG models (Sideswipe basically just swaps his hover things for wheels), but that's fine with me. That little effort goes a long way, and the basic silhouette of the vehicle changes, which is the main important thing.

In Prime, before scanning a car, Smokescreen had different door decals (or maybe an absence of them, I don't remember). Prime's animation was super expensive and they had to cut costs as much as possible, so I salute them for making some attempt to show a difference between the two forms. The Prime robots were so stylized that they all kind of look Cybertronian anyway. Before Skyquake scans the Earth jet, he doesn't really look like he has Earth jet parts on him...he could easily pass for a Cybertronian jet. And they were clever enough to start the story on Earth, so the majority of robots were already in their Earth forms. I'm not sure I even thought about the lack of Cybertronian forms when I was watching the show, they do a decent job hiding it.

Cyberverse's lack of Cybertronian vehicles ticks me off. The animation isn't as intricate or expensive as Prime, so they easily could have easily given them RID-style hover wheels on Cybertron or something. Just change them up a little bit, I'm not asking for completely new CG models. Again, it's the thought and effort that counts, and it feels like no thought or effort went into that aspect. Especially since they have such a huge cast of characters. Why not just eliminate a couple background Autobots in the Ark, and use that money to tweak Bumblebee and Optimus' vehicle modes? And keep the rest in robot mode until they reach Earth. Worst-case scenario, just don't show them in vehicle form on Cybertron at all.

 

That makes me wonder, why was it in Prime they needed to have earth forms anyway? The entire Decepticon cast practically looked like they had a Cybertronian mode, but in return transformed in a shoddy earth mode instead like Soundwave's "military drone" mode for example. Clearly Mega didn't care about secrecy on Earth anyways seeing how he kept his original form either.

Something that also irked in that episode, was that when Skyquake was chasing Bee and Prime, Prime says they have an advantage because "Skyquake has not yet acquired a vehicle form." So Skyquake basically wasn't "allowed" to use his cybertron mode. Wtf.

 

Yeah, that was a bit weird.

I always found that line a bit odd too. I assumed it meant he entirely lacked a vehicle mode prior to scanning one on Earth (like, maybe he never had one on Cybertron, or abandoned the ability at some point...maybe he was like a protoform). Which is weird, considering he had a cockpit and wings.