With the new pic of OP's face for the new movie (TF5) a thought popped in my head: Do they heal? More specifically, after seeing how much steel grey and scratches, does the red and blue heal back like our skin or is this something that has to be repaired like a lost limb? Just throwing it out there...
Several versions of the franchise show transformers healing from minor damage. The idea is that they have internal self-repair nanomachines. Beast Wars shows them healing from major damage by recuperating in "CR" (cryogenic repair) chambers. Since the Bayverse transformers are the most "organic" short of literally having organic tissue, I would be surprised if they don't have this same ability.
Well, in Animated a magic key heals them. Maybe Wahlberg found a key. I think Optimus' face just looks torn and battered. He's been through four movies of hell (fighting) and is heading into the fifth. I think he's just roughed up a good bit. After all, the whole Sentinel Prime thing would have made anyone's hair turn gray or, uh, make their paint chip. EDIT: Also, now that I've said my piece, I'm going to skeedaddle the fuck out of here before I end up stumbling across a spoiler in animated like I did the last time I left my threads. >.>
Indeed. It tends to vary across continuities, and there tends to be separate explanations. Sometimes they have a capacity to heal themselves if damaged, as Flamepanther said, with nanomachines or regenerative metals. Alternatively, they can absorb minerals or metals from the environment to repair damaged aspects. Otherwise, they can only 'heal' if aided by another robot or a specialised repair platform. And sometimes both; as with the Beast Wars example above, the robots employed CR Chambers to recover from major injuries, but stated they can heal themselves from minor injuries ala an organism healing over time. Of course, it would make sense that advanced alien robots can heal themselves if need be. Metal or not, any lifeform needs some capacity to repair its own damages, otherwise they wouldn't exactly be fit for survival.
Yeah, Beast Wars implied that they are capable of some (what I would assume is) automated internal repairs.
The damage to Megatron's face was pretty extensive, so it's reasonable that it wasn't fully healed/repaired between films. Unfortunately, the movies didn't give us a very clear explanation of what exactly was going on there. I would cite Bumblebee as another clue. His voice box appears to be healing itself very slowly with the help of some therapy from Ratchet. And if he's "playing it up" as Sam says, then it may be healing faster than Bee is letting on.
It seems like in the bayverse at least that yes, Transformers have some capacity to heal themselves, though significant damage requires outside help to address.
I always figured that whatever their metallic "skin" is made of has limited regenerative abilities. Like they can't regrow an arm without repairs, but a deep wound or scratch will eventually heal up with energon intake.
That would make some sense. Would explain OP in TF4 at the beginning. All beat up and a huge hole on the grill
