i know a lot of us were disappointed with the how shockwave was portrayed as just another snarling monster of a decepticon in the movies. while we see that this was likely just the creators needing another main name in the bad guys, and had not intention of character development in him. but what if there was? we saw in rising storm comics that shockwave was much more like his usual portrayals. while i know that there is no ironclad continuity between the movies an comics, perhaps there is. at the end of rising storm, shockwave is beaten within an inch of his life by optimus before being rescued by the driller. that is whys look is different between the two, but what if that is why his personality is as well. it is possible that he wound up suffering major brain damage because of his injuries, which is why is little more than added muscle in dotm. like i said, the chance of these being related are low, but obviously there is some knowledge of what is happening between the movie and comic writers. does anyone else think this might be a theory with some merit?

 

I thought they needed Shockwave to be a red herring

 

Movies are written years in advance. Comics are written to fit the movies, not the other way round.

 

Pretty much Sentinel was the big driving antagonist obviously they wanted to keep this a secret so they needed a smokescreen Megatron was already in two movies so using him wouldn't work since the general public might find that boring, Shockwave was selected to fill the role. This kind of backfired on them as the comics empathized Shockwave too much as did the media, and the twist was revealed anyway is it a wonder they stopped doing comics it kind of backfired spectacularly in this particular case.

 

Actually I think that's why they stopped making tie-in comics. Bay was upset about the spoilers in the movie adaptation, which was released well in advance of the movie. Plot information/ script drafts are no longer made available for IDW to make their movie prequels.

 

I agree with Nevermore, it's usually the comic writers who tries to fit the movies, not the other way around.

Anyway, I believe Shockwave had more development in the earlier treatments of the movie. With each treatment, his role shrunk. This would explain the movie wanting us to treat him like he's a big deal while in actuality, he didn't do anything of worth at all.

 

He was more like the "Barricade" of DOTM. In the sense that he was the first decepticon to be properly introduced in the movie and being the one that drove most of the plot for the decepticons. He set up the trap for Optimus. And he's also the first decepticon that was able to hurt optimus.

 

Yeah you're right, I shouldn't be unfair to Shockwave, he has done quite a few things too.

Anyway, I still believe he had a more prominent role in the early treatments.

 

He could have been an awesome red herring if they would have spent Driller money on him.

 

I sure think so, besides, all concepts have some level of storytelling behind it. The unfortunate part is we may never know what it may have been.

 

This is a common misconception CG is animated after the script and filming is done the animators have to know what they're animating. By the time post production starts you're locked in you can't afford countless reshoots because then you have to animate the robot scenes again too which you can't do. Cutting the driller won't do any good at this point, Shockwave was written with a small role, and now that filming is done you can't change this only extend certain things which is what they did. They extended certain aspects to give him more but there wasn't a whole lot they could do and in that case it makes sense to keep the driller it gives Shockwave some character he has a pet and he's really mad when optimus kills it, it's not much but it's something.
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There were other attempts to give him personality as well while Barricade was ranting and throwing grunts around in anger Shockwave is standing there in silence ignoring the whole thing this does suggest something that he's very detached and doesn't care. Beyond his reaction to the driller's death Shockwave barely reacts to anything he just focuses on his objective and gets it done, he reacts to the shards of glass falling on him as well as soldier plummeting before turning towards it and looking up, he then calls the driller to get the job, this shows his awareness and efficiency. His posture when he stands is very controlled. All this mostly suggests a controlled and detached personality who just gets the job done.

This is testament to the animators skills not the script there should've been more preparation for this predicament especially regarding the script if they knew they needed a red herring.

 

Based on the DOTM Burger King commercial, we see Optimus fighting Shockwave outside ... using the same choreography that Op, and Sentinel "dance to" in the movie (after the space bridge gets knocked down the first time) -- my speculation is Sentinel replaced some of Shockwave's DOTM story in the later iterations of the script.
Maybe they wanted to save money on scenes already rendered, and stuffed them into the commercial - to at least get some mileage out of it. Perhaps not though.

 

Could be true, because in that commercial Shockwave still has 2 hands

 

Thank you for the explanation, but my point wasn't that the Driller should have been cut. My point is that the Driller should never have existed in the first place.

 

they should have kept the driller and ditched shockwave. saved him for some later project.

 

What project remember Dark of the moon was meant to be the ending why save something if you think you're done. In truth despite my explanation I don't feel they handled the situation right there were easier ways to give Shockwave more screen time and still be cost effective.

First include a scene with the dreads where they infiltrate the Autobot shuttle have shockwave communicating with them and giving their orders continue this after sentinel is revived showing them escape shockwave tells them to await Megatron's orders, this requires little more than a shot of Shockwave's face. Shockwave could later be shown entering a portal to the moon where he leads the army to Washington, a little more but still brief. Doing this along with the Chernobyl scene gives Shockwave a fairly prominent presence and actually does make him seem like a central antagonist. In Chicago have Shockwave capture the Autobots, while optimus gets his trailer back.

All this is very simple stuff and cost effective heck in the second dread scene you could have them in vehicle mode and just hear shockwave's voice. They already shot most of the Chernobyl fight probably just didn't finish it, so only the one action scene of shockwave capturing the Autobots requires prolonged CG. A longer intro, a few brief moments throughout, have him talk throughout the Chicago battle and bam Shockwave seems way more prominent with minimum costs.

 

They could have made shockwave megatrons loyal servant who is pulling the strings for megatron, and is the one making the entire illusion of hunting sentinel.
He is also the one warning megatron against sentinel, but follows megs orders anyway, until sentinel makes megs his b***. Then he picks a fight with sentinel gets killed, and megs finds out, and that would be the reason why megs turn up and save optimus at the final scene instead of carly.

 

For some reason I like the idea of Shockwave sustaining severe brain injuries after his beatdown in "Rising storm". Though I don't think it was planned intentionally.

In the DoTM novelization, they establish that Shockwave is incredibly smart, and he speaks twice if I recall. Only one word statements, but still.