Wonder if this is the same pose we will see on the front of the SS Scourge box.

 

well, yes? One of the easiest ways to make villains, more villainous, and you know, evil, it to make them ugly. Have you looked at any alien movie? Generally they arent friendly looking and cute.(E.T. Is an important ecxeption to this rule)

I like the claw hand, and love the assymetry. Been too long since we've had some solid assymetrical designs. Other than charachteres with a gun hand, shoulder launcher or arm gun, has there actually been any mainline assymetry since UT and RID?

 

Pretty sure Scraphook does have some mainline asymmetry in his design according to Mark Maher.

 

ROTF Megatron and DOTM Megatron are asymmetrical. TLK Megatron is too to a smaller extent.

 

He meant asymmetrical

 

Now I can see why we got the head we have on the Studio Series figure he used to have a giant chained throat in early art.

 

Making your bad guy look ugly / monstrous is also very surface-level stuff. It's a pretty blunt way of hammering it into your audiences heads that THIS GUY IS EVIL, very lacking in any subtlety. The level they've gone to with Scourge is almost comical in how over-the-top it is.

Plus there's plenty of aliens in fiction that aren't overly monstrous in appearance, including evil ones.

 

I accidentally deleted the "a" but fixed it. Regardless, they're still asymmetrical

 

"Giant chained throat" sounds like some inappropiate shit that I will not talk about.  
Hint: Starts with B and ends with M

 

No? The books don't say that at all. This is a sequel to Bumblebee which is in a new universe.

 

I mean that's exactly the thing. It's easy to design a monster that that triggers our bonehead unga bunga instincts to fear predators. It's much more impressive to make a design that doesn't take that easy route yet can be even more intimidating.

Like, oh, say...

 

Looking closely I can see his crotch is like ROTB Prime's.

 

Okay?

 

I'm gonna be honest and say I don't think this design looks good for live action.
(Personal opinion)

 

Scourge has a mouth? Looks weird.
And also, have to agree it is strange how all the Con major villains in these movies are grey, black or some mix of the two. Monochromatic coloring is boring.

 

Exactamundo my friend: that's not to say that making your bad guys look like ugly monsters is somehow forbidden / off-limits... but it's easy to make your bad guy look, well.. bad. Give them a bunch of signifiers that they shouldn't be trusted, make them ugly... etc. This is a very common trope in fiction for children, this idea that evil in the world will look obviously evil.

It takes actual talent and effort to make the audience feel intimidated by something that isn't designed in a manner to elicit fear from people.

 

I mean we are talking Transformers here. I would say most designs or even characterization isn't subtle.

I wouldn't really call BB Shockwave intimidating, at least on a design level. As a giant alien robot standing in front of me he would be but that would apply to just about any Transformer. DOTM Shockwave is much more intimidating and he has more of those monstrous designs elements.

 

Something about him just looks meh. Maybe it’s he lack of details and truck parts? He just doesn’t seem like he fits in with the other designs.

 

Fair point. Having villains seem evil without being ugly is great. But like you said, Its surface level stuff. As a kid, watching transformers prime. Shockwave wasnt the scary one, he barely attacks and isnt too savage, predaking was the big scary dragon, Now rewatching, shockwave is obviosly the scarier one, with all his experiments and things. But these movies are also meant to sell toys to younger kids, and even if they do understand plot to a point, its much easier to just make the bad guys uglier. Especially if the child has only seen some transformers shows, they dont know if the charachter has a terrifing backstory, they know he looks ugly and scary, and is a bad guy.
I like complex villains, Its just in a movie to sell kids toys, I dont know if they can do too much with the charachter building side of things. There isnt a single decepticon in the movies that I can think of, that isnt scary becuase theyre big, ugly, and covered in sharp bits.

Tldr:
Scary design, scary toys, easy sale for kids that want a bad guy in their toy-tub
Hasbro is taking the easy way out

 

Well, you're not wrong. It is easy to do that. Explains exactly why the Transformers movies do it. I guess the filmmakers are creatively incompetent when it comes to making good villain designs that they take the easy way out. Just adding some colored accents would go a long way in improving this design.

Animated Lockdown. ROTF Megatron.