I remember before DOTM when news and leaks were posted. I remember when they announced the Main Villain for DOTM was Shockwave. I heard from Michael Bay that Shockwave was suppose to be more vicious than Megatron. For that long time, I was excited to see Shockwave in action. I even read the prequal comic books and heard how threatening Shockwave was. There was even an interview from Corey Burton saying they should consider David Warner to voice Shockwave. I was really excited to see a threatening main villain in action, shooting things with his large gun and having a voice like David Warner...

Only to find out Sentinel Prime was really the main baddy and Shockwave basically only had 2 minutes in the movie.

I think Shockwave should have had lots more to this, actually make him the main villain more dangerous than Megatron and more lines than just 2 line with some growling.

What do you think?

 

The whole point of Shockwave being heavily promoted was to cover up the fact the main villain was actually Sentinel.

 

Shockwave was just a red herring, and a pretty effective one.

 

There should’ve been a lot more to everything in the Bay movies.

 

Have more to him like how?

 

Actual importance to the plot? A personality?

I mean he's usually a scientist, Shockwave could easily have been apart of Sentinel's scheme.

 

No, no, no. You’re looking at this all wrong. The robots aren’t characters in bay movies. Neither are the humans. There are no character in Bay movies. You go to a Bay movie to see a male twelve-year-old’s ultimate pubescent fantasy of ultraviolent giant robots.... Getting beaten up by the U.S. military. And to see beautiful women and famous actors...... In outfits a woman would never feasibly wear in that scenario, and said actors in parts where they somehow come off as downright pained by the writing of the script they got themselves involved in.

 

that's how more or less the majority of mecha animes are.

 

Like Evangelion?

 

I think i would've preferred it if Shockwave had been Marvel comics styled, he overthrew Megatron, the one who made the deal with Sentinel Prime and Megatron being the sad sack of crap in the movie, the climax is him and Optimus teaming up against their betrayers.

Also the David Warner rumour casting, would've been nice to have had him in the movie finally voicing the character that Corey Burton based his voice on for.

 

Yeah, have Shockwave replace Megatron and have Megatron get killed by Shockwave to really sell him as a threat.

Problem is that you don't use one of the most iconic and loved villains of a franchise as a red herring. Because people get justifiably upset that you wasted someone with such potential.

But given it's Bay's films, nobody had any potential, so it's not a tremendous loss. If anything Bay would've made him sniveling and subservient, possibly spitting and barking for no reason.

 

"Drillerbot t h i r s t y"
-Shockwave

 

A little more yes

 

there are some gems out there. Lately i was surprised by Gundam Iron blooded orphans. Great criticism against children soldiers, or a complete reversal of the classical teen hero anime tendency.
And it wasn't criticism. I do love destruction porn, which Evangelion also have more then enough of

 

A parachute falling over his eye might seem silly, but since he could probably predict anything you'd try on him, it made sense for him to be killed by a million-to-one accident. It was an epic moment as everyone ganged up on him until Optimus arrived for the final hit. It felt like a relief to finally be rid of someone who's been in power for so long. The only reason it felt like that is because of our familiarity with him in the Transformers lore. If you were a casual moviegoer, it'd just seem like they killed an insignificant character. It's not really the fault of DotM itself. He should've had a bigger presence in the previous two films, maybe whenever Megatron needed to call the Decepticon base on Cybertron, to build him up. It seems like they just forgot about him until the end of the "trilogy." At least DotM did a good job making him an intimidating presence with the time it had.

A lot of DotM is written like a finale to a lot of things we never saw. For example, Optimus killing Megatron without hesitation instead of listening to his negotiations seems like a callback to the 1986 film in which his mercy (and Hot Rod) gets him killed. Optimus not making the same mistake feels like the character has grown (or at least gotten angrier), even though they aren't the same continuity at all. There are several mild "retcons" as well to make it feel more on-brand. In addition to Shockwave having prepared the army all this time in the background, it also turns out that Soundwave has been on Earth for a long time and served as a spy just like in the cartoon.

I doubt they planned for Sentinel in the trilogy, even though Sam utters his name in astronomy class in RotF, especially since an early draft of the DotM script called him "Ultra Magnus." They also made a big deal about the Dynasty of Primes and all that in RotF. I don't blame them for initially overlooking Sentinel's name. There's not much lore on Sentinel, to begin with, and to suddenly introduce him as Optimus' mentor is pretty tough, but they did a good job making him up on the spot. They use several clever tricks to make it more believable that he's existed all along. He's modelled to look like an older Optimus, he's given an Ancient-Chinese-looking armour like many ancient G1 characters such as Alpha Trion, and he's even voiced by Leonard Nimoy for more G1 nostalgia. They really had to make this guy fit in with both old lore and the Bayverse timeline when he really wasn't a big presence in either, and they clearly did a good job because his betrayal and eventual execution held a lot of weight.

I don't mind them pushing all of this lore last-minute because we otherwise wouldn't have gotten any of it. I also don't mind them promoting the hell out of Shockwave if he was a red herring for something as interesting as Sentinel. They've retconned the Transformers' backstory many times, often involving evil Primes, but this is one of the best times they've done it.

 

Took the words right out of my mouth. . . 

 

I definitely would have preferred Shockwave have a bigger role. I personally would have loved him to have been the main villain of DOTM. Since Spock was an inspiration for the Shockwave character, Nimoy would have been the perfect voice for him, I kind of view that as a big missed opportunity. I think I created a thread a while back where I pitched the idea that Shockwave and Sentinel could have been merged into the same character (since Shockwave was a shapeshifter in animated). I would have really enjoyed that twist. But even if Shockwave and Sentinel were kept separate and Sentinel was still the main villain, I still feel like Shockwave could have been given more to do.

 

Yep, only problem I have with DOTM. But it’s still the best Transformers movie by far.

 

It's unfortunate that he was a red herring and that they were considering DOTM to be the final film and therefore found it necessary to kill off all of the Decepticons.

Even with the size of the role he had, it would have been neat if he survived and flew off to Cybertron. Maybe he could have been the one to first come into contact with Quintessa.

 

I would have liked him to have a larger role and at least interact with megatron once.
Would also have been nice to see him transform.

I was hoping before the movie that Shockwave would have been leading his own group of decepticons.

That said... At least he was instantly reconisable in the film and had his usual sinister prescence.