why is he like this, can someone legitimately rationalize why his design is this because i have a few choice words,

also his hands look like spaghetti noodles

 

his legs look like..

 

Ask the creators of TFP

 

Probably to give off the impression of an untrustworthy, wormy guy who would betray anyone to gain more power for himself.

 

It takes inspiration from his movie design, while giving him a build that fits his personality. So like a snake. It's honestly one of the best designs he's had imo.

 

This, pretty much.
Also, I think the high heels are hysterical.

 

From an interview in the past, I think that's on one of the DVD's for the first season of Transformers Prime, they allege that their version of Starscream's design started with a drawing of a cobra, and was also compared to Iago from Aladdin, personality-wise. Regarding the high heels, perhaps it was just something they didn't think too much about when designing him, but interestingly enough it adds to his character in my opinion. During the 16th century, men and women both began wearing high-heeled shoes to appear taller or "larger than life." This kind of footwear was seen as a symbol of high social status in society. In regards to Starscream, it's like he's trying to appear larger and more powerful than he actually is.

His slender, willowy appearance makes him looks very sneaky and untrustworthy. Long talon-like claws on his hands, a lot of these design choices were an active attempt to make him look very suspicious, sinister and duplicitous.

 

His thin lankiness implies physical weakness, which implies he makes up for it with cunning or non-physical strengths. His long claw fingers and general spikiness allude to his nature as a villain, and his hunched, down-turned head shows he's deceptive and won't look you straight in the eye. Speaking of, his long face and beedy eyes imply distrustfulness and a lack of vulnerability. His legs aren't really feminine at all, unless you just think thin legs equal female, in which case you're sorely mistaken. His "high heels" as they were aren't really high heels. His feet are for-pronged, with the back and front "toes" being more prominent. They actually resmemble hyper-slimmed version of his WFC/FOC feet.

They don't, though. Your very own comparrison image shows that they don't match up.  

 

The designer said he originally designed him much bigger and bulkier (along the lines of Megatron) but decided that making him skinny and weak looking would be more suitable for the character. Something like that.

 

Buagh, I always hated this design. Make me think of a robot Kermit in high heels. RID has a lot of problems, but I think in regards to Soundwave and Starscream, their new bodies are improvements. Especially Starscream.

 

Kermit?

Like, the frog?

*looks at Kermit the frog*

*looks at Prime Starscream*

what the fuck how did you what

 

It's the face that does it, the lack of a nose and the way the eyes are spaced out.

 

Whatever that thing in the second pic is... It's absolutely terrifying.

 

My paternal grandmother is hunchbacked, overdramatic, and incredibly paranoid.

When TFP was airing the very first thing my brother called Starscream was "Grammy the Robot" which made my father keel over laughing.

I don't hate the design at all but the likeness is definitely there.

 

thats on par with Nightmare Ratchet

 

Umm...what the flying sawsbuck is a Nightmare ratchet?

 

He had high heels in Animated as well. And we learned in that continuity Starscream has a hidden feminine side, soooo...

(That's how we got Slipstream in Animated, she was a clone of Starscream, a facet of his personality.)

I'm just throwing that out there.  

 

To attract girls to the series of course.



Didn't bulkhead call him a stiletto wearing freak or something?

 

I mean sure, if you redraw Starscream, you can make him look like whatever you want.

But to everyone else I think your own picture makes it clear that they look nothing alike. Not only did you have to basically draw an entire head and chin on Kermit (which he lacks) the eyes and mouth still don't match up with the character.


And I don't even like Prime Starscream's face deisgn because of how much it resembles most of the rest of the cast in it's base structure, but I don't make up reasons why. :I

 

Prime Starscream is the best, w/ the humor and his mannerisms and Steve Blum's voice, like this at mark 2:37: