I have to say, I'm not a fan. For several reasons.

First and foremost, I feel like the alternate mode itself is part of the robot character. The design, paint, decals, even the specific car itself are all part of what make the specific robot individual. When they re-format, I feel like the character looses a bit of themselves in the process.
I feel like re-formatting is a reflection upon the character itself. If the robot is re-formatting all the time, I can't really see them as a consistent character.
Plus, a lot of the robots have really cool decals/colours in the first place. There's no need for them to re-format.

Another thing that annoys me about re-formatting, is that it takes away time and money from other special effects. Obviously, when a robot re-formats, the ILM people have to re-paint (and sometimes, redesign) the robot models. This takes away valuable time and assets that could be used improving other special effects, or even, putting in another robot.
Honestly, if we took out all the re-formats from TF1 to TF3 (revealed so far), there probably would've been enough money left over to add in another robot to ROTF.

Unless they come up with a good excuse for so many re-formats in TF3, I'm going to be a little disappointed. There's one way they could go about it that WOULD be kind of cool.
So the Decepticons are targeting humans specifically, right? What if, for the Autobots own safety, they had to re-format to new alternate modes to hide them from society, as their old alternate modes were already known by the general public?
That might be kind of cool. I'd accept that.

Generally though, I dislike re-formatting quite a bit. Anyone else with me on this?

 

It's probably the key thing I object to in the movies. If a transformer can just endlessly reformat, it gets a bit like the T-1000, just a shapshifting lump of metal.

I think they should definitely place some restrictions on it. A reformat should be a big deal. Should be like major surgery. Ratchet and Wheeljack should be involved.

It shouldn't be something that just happens on a whim.

 

I mean... what characters are changing vehicle mode? All I've seen are some slight color tweaks or part changes. Rescanning to a new mode, I wouldn't care for that much with most established characters, but I don't really care much about the subtle changes we've seen thus far.

It should be limited... It should be something that requires so much energon that it's not done often. In my mind, they can reformat after entry mode because they've been in a form of statis till they land, so their energon levels are high. Also reformatting can be done if critical to survival (like when Frenzy got his head cut off). That only leaves Bee's random rescanning to new camaro form... I'll admit, while it was cool, I thought it was lame from a Transformers sense. Maybe I can explain it for him that he was in old Camaro form so long, his Energon level was high enough to rescan.

I wish it was teletran one that had to do rescans for them personally, or the second movie idea that was never shown of someone like Soundwave (IE Blaster) picking alt modes for them as they entered the atmosphere.

 

well, the thing is, once it's been established that they can just upgrade on a whim, it raises the question: why would they retain such recognisable altmodes?

 

You forgot the twins' reformat.

 

Well they do it for Sell New cars

and To sell toys - Transformers Wiki

 

Yep. Totally forgot them. Of course they're unique in a sense, so... IDK maybe certain Transformers are 'gifted' with less of an impact being caused by reformatting. The twins shared an alt mode, so you could argue that they each only need to contribute 50% of their energy most of the time.

This is why I prefer if they couldn't just rescan on the fly. Not to mention that it would add an element of team work that sometimes seems sorely missing in the movies.

 

I don't know why that would add teamwork to the movies. It's not like they gain any combat advantage from it. Tiny car robots can rescan into other tiny cars, jetplane robots can rescan into other jetplanes. It's all just aesthetic to offer different and/or more effective disguises.

 

I think reformatting should require a CR chamber or something similar. Reformatting shouldn't be done on the fly, it should take time, parts have to be altered and reshaped. The fact the body has to twist and contort with all the parts lining up and making a smooth vehicle mode should take hours in itself. I think the major down sides of reformatting should be it takes energy and it takes time, I imagine to save energon that the TF being reformatted should be put into a temporary stasis mode until the procedure is done.

Then after the new mode is assigned the bots internal systems would need to be calibrated and adjusted to their new specifications, ie new alt mode length, weight, added or removed armor so they can achieve peak efficiency and control in their new form. It would all be necessary for a bot to actually function properly after upgrading into a new form.


Just my thoughts on it is all.

 

I'm definitely against reformatting on the fly.

It just seems to easy IMO. I personally haven't been a fan of it since beast era. I really like how it was handled in the gen1 cartoon. Tentran had to reactivate\reformat all of the transformers who were in stasis on the ark. Prime had to be rebuilt out of OrianPax.

While gen1 did have its share of magic reformats with Megatron to Gavitron, and Hotrod to, Rodimus. Those both involved gods, or god like powers to do it. It wasn't like it was an every other day occurrence you know?

 

In cases like "Bumblebee decides to become something flashy" and the twins, I agree it's been needless story-wise. If they only used it to play up the "disguise" element that's so commonly discarded in Transformers, it would be warranted (like Frenzy becoming the cell phone), but the casual/shallow usage does stick out more. It's not a big deal for me though, there's way bigger issues.

 

I don't mind, as long as it's explained.

 

Making it too easy to reformat does bring up the interesting questions of could they just find something more useful near by to scan. Could Prime just scan a plane about his size so he could fly somewhere, or could Bumblebee scan a boat about his size to get across a lake. Or if Megatron seems to have Cybertronian forms stored in memory why don't the other robots since some fights don't require hiding any more.

 

Can't argue with that  

 

I like the idea of autonomous reformatting. as long as they have the energy, as long as they retain the shapes and form of their heads, faces, arms, hands, legs, and feet that make each of them distinctive from the other and as long as they have about the same size and form with the alt-mode they're reformatting to, I don't have a problem with it. its just basically the Cybertronian equivalent of changing clothes and ones desire to retain or change their alt-mode is a personal preference and/or for strategic/tactical purposes.

 

This is not different that any other movie when a character has a costume change. Like Batman changing his suit in the Dark Knight.

Do I like in in TF? No. Can I live with it? Yes. It's the movies, they ALWAYS change things up in the movies.

 

EXACTLY, especially Prime. It throws the whole concept right out the window. That was one of my major gripes with the first film. With ease of bumblee's rescan, you'd think they would all rescan after mission city. To hide from humans, Whose government was actively covering everything up. I don't think altmode really hid them from the cons any ways. Remember-Ironhide easily picked out Starscream in his altmode. The whole thing is very cheap. It ticked me off way back when I watched the cybertron toon. The movie brought it to a whole new level.

 

Meh. They've done OK so far. Just as long as one minute a bots a plane then re-formats into a tank I'm fine.

 

Prime is not a flier. but I think Prime could reformat to have a boat alt-mode. if Bumblebee's size and height can enable him to transform into a boat, why not?

 

I like the idea of reformatting, as long as it isn't over done. I can understand Bumble Bee reformatting. He couldn't start off as a New Camaro as it would have been out of Sam's range as his first Car.

The Twins reformatting I think was a waste of time and not required for the Story.