The films have nicely designed characters.But alot of them seem to lack character development. In this thread, I would like to state which robot character acutally got enough development throughout the film series.


My best answer would be Sentinel Prime. There was alot of primary focus going on him in DOTM when it comes to robots. I like the unique design of him and the brief history he shares with Optimus.

So despite having characters who lack personality and other features whatsoever, do you think there were characters that received enough character development?

 

Optimus Prime (TF07 DOTM), Sentinel Prime, Bumblebee TF07 and maybe Jetfire

 

Yeah, Optimus...Bumblebee...Sentinel Prime. Problem is that there's such a large cast of robots that the chances of those being a fans favourite are very small, so people will always be bothered that their own choices didn't get development.

 

I have a feeling that this thread is going to devolve into 15 pages of arguments about what qualifies as "character", "characterization", "development" and the like, and how X or Y may or may not fall into said categories...

"Development" implies growth and change for the character as the plot progresses. And even the most prominent of the robot characters don't do a whole lot of that (though I'm sure we'll come up with something for certain characters). Now, that pretty much boils down to the fact that, as much as we may not like to admit it, the robots aren't the focus of these movies. A large part, yes. But the focus? No.

We could make arguments for the likes of Sentinel, Optimus, Megatron, maybe even Bumblebee or Jetfire "developing", but even I'll admit that they'd be surface-level attempts at creating and showcasing complex characters. And there's that fine line between "what the movie tells/shows us" and "what we imply". And that's the tricky part. Some people think that piecing together the backstory and history of a character from the movie and trying to decipher who they are from movie X is fine, but laugh at the concept of doing it with movie Y. We had to write a page about what we could infer from a five minute scene with a character from a movie in my 'Story Development' class in university recently. If we can infer and imply something - things that we haven't been told or shown - from Max in Collateral, why can't we do the same for Jetfire in RotF? If we wanted, we could write entire essays of backstories for these characters by inferring and implying based on what we're shown/told, but with this material, we'd probably get lambasted for it.

This. No matter who directs the movie, no matter who is cast, no matter which robots get included, some party will always be disappointed that "[insert favourite character here] didn't get the spotlight/most lines/most development!!1!"

 

I honestly never saw any real development. Each character was the same in every movie.

 

Sentinel had a lot of back story - but most of that comes from the comics in my opinion. In the movie he was essentially just explaining the plot until his betrayal.

In the movie verse i would say Bumblebee given he was essentially the main Autobot in all three films. The first being about him interacting with humans, the second dealing with consequences and the third copeing with the possibility of leaving everything behind (via death/spaceship)

 

I liked Megatron's progression from a psychotic brutal juggernaut to a wounded shadow of his former glory. In the first film, he's nigh-unstoppable, ripping Jazz apart, wrecking shit without a care, beating up Optimus, and it takes a whole Raptor attack just to weaken him, and the ultimate power shoved into his heart to killl him. Second film, he's not as powerful as he used to be, but goddamn if he isn't durable, taking every hit Prime dealt out without a dent, surviving his own cannon to the face and running through a whole air-strike for the sole purpose of shooting Sam.

Granted, I'm sure quite a few individuals would risk an air-strike for the sole purpose of shooting Sam  

But the third film? Poor guy, he just ain't what he used to be. No bestial fury, no insane resistance, no grand confidence. In hiding for three years, and now sat in a desert, wounded, rusted and with only babies and an occasional jibe from Starscream for company. But then, turns out he's got a whole new plan ready and waiting, and damn if it doesn't work like a charm. He's turned a crushing defeat into a fucking awesome table-flip.

For all his losses, even his own death in the first film, Movie Megs just does not give up. No matter what shit he goes through, he persists in his plans for total domination, and nothing short of death will stop this motherfucker.

I admire that.

 

I like the way you put it, Meta.

 

Thank you, Honorbound! I like the way I put things too  

 

I agree with Meta on Megatron, he was proly the character that changed more in the whole trilogy. Optimus also went through a bit of a change, but I wouldn't call that development, bc there's nothing implying (thx, Tylermirage, for again explaining things so well!) at what brought that development. Sentinel had a bit of development, as his true character was revealed throughout DOTM. Bumblebee just had a tiny bit of development in the first movie, then he just became Sam's dog and nothing more. As for the rest, well, they are all nothing more then set pieces and plot devices.

But we're reaaally pushing at what "character development" really means. Tyler is right, we can infer a lot of things from a character, but that's when the character alows for that, by the way he acts, reacts, and all that, and the movie bots just feel like complete hollow husks. I feel I should point out the small moment between ironhide and optimus in DOTM, when ironhide says "optimus, make something of yourself". I felt that was a beautifull little tidbit of character development between the two, that let us in on what these guys realy mean to each other.

 

none

 

The only one that really changes is Prime and Megatron and guess what I don't like what they did with them by the end of DOTM.

 

Optimus, Bumblebee, Sentinel, all the annoying ones and maybe Jetfire.

 

Definitely Optimus.

 

Megatron. Becuse he gose from being only stop able only by the ultimate power to being stopable bya punch for two atoubots and pirty much a pathetic loser who won't stop till he's dead

 

Scrapper. 

 

The obvious choices here are Bumblebee and Sentinel, maybe Jetfire (I also love how Meta summed up Megatron). However, I'm going with Optimus Prime, if only cuz of the third film.

See, he has to deal with his "ally" betraying him, as well as killing Megatron, also a previous ally. Basically, there isn't a whole lot of development, but that final scene of him making the choice and killing Megatron, is to me a whole lot of development. Atleast in my opinion, that scene is very powerful.

Other than that, not much. Wheelie shifts sides but without much characterization.

 

-Physically small.
-Sassy.
-Crude.
-Skittish/possibly paranoid.
-Someone who was a Decepticon but obviously didn't feel so strongly about it that he'd never switch allegiances, because he did. Almost felt like he was coerced into being a Decepticon to avoid being destroyed, like he never truly believed in the Decepticon cause.
-Irritable.
-Rude.
-Strong camaraderie for those he does care about.
-Brave.
-Sarcastic.

Seems like a lot of identifiable characteristics to me, given his relatively small role.

Also, you don't need "characterization" to switch teams.

 

Development?

None. Development to me means a character growing/changing/evolving, and we didn't see that from any of the TFs.

There's no in fiction explanation for the change in Optimus Prime's behavior from TF1 to the sequels. We're told a couple characters switched sides (Jeftire/Sentinel) but we're not shown any of that evolution. We don't see the characters as they were before.

Sam's the only character with true development - an ordinary teenager who didn't think he was meant for anything special suddenly has to help save the world, and we see him change, (even if I don't like parts of it). We actually see it.

 

I think they mean characterization as in the changes of the character throught the films/movies with Wheelie staying relatively the same. Though he does change from being annoying and evil in ROTF to just being annoying