Since Jazz died for the Autobots (hopefully being resurrected for TF2) what could they do for Ironhide and Ratchet, and quite possibly Bumblebee and Optimus......Since this was the main cast for TF1 how are they going to make room for newer Autobots?? Well let me be the 1st to reply to this post.....With Jazz hopefully coming back, they can have Ironhide and Ratchet with limited on-screen appearances(because of where their stationed, or Ratchet being away from frontline combat and being an actual MEDIC), and maybe wrist comm communicating or something.....Prime and BB are a little tougher, they could save Prime until the end of the movie(reason being...thats up to the writers to decide) but BBs' gotta be in it cause Sam is still the main human, they could limit BB's onscreen time to mostly alt. mode shots and voicing and save him till the end as well or have one battle scene in the beginning or middle or end, it don't matter to me as long as the new Autobots get underdeveloped and instead they develop Ironhide or Ratchet who EVERYONE knows already, give some development to Jazz though of course if he's been resurrected, maybe a little side story


as for new Autobots:

Prowl, Smokescreen, or Bluestreak(all the same design but one of them will do)

Dinobot or bots, as long as there is a Dinosaur transformer i'm good, ohh and I highly think they/him should either be like G1 dinobots, or like BW Dinobot

and they should have at least one flyer, possibly Jetfire....Powerglide POWERGLIDE!! and thats it for new Autobots


as for the Decepticons: Megatron will most likely be back, haha just now I was thinking about having the Cons' spending the whole movie trying to resurrect Megs but thats pretty close to what happened in TF1, except SS was the leader and they were looking for the Cube and perhaps unknowingly didn't see that Megatron was right underneath or on top of the Cube but pretty much in the same location..as for Gestalts....as I said with the Dinobots you can't have all 5 of them in the movie together fighting at some point, but with lets say the Constructicons, you have limited action of them as 5 cons, but most of the action involving them is them fighting as Devastator( the real Devastator)

SS will obv. be in it

but that still leaves more spots open for more Cons'

Soundwave
other Seekers who will want to challenge SS's authority and try to resurrect Megs
Astrotrain or Blitwing, just cause they're triple-changers
if NO constructicons, then Tidal Wave or Trypticon



the point of this is this......G1 had a ton of bots, some were more prominent than others, some had specific characters for each episode, BW had far less bots on each side and still had time to concentrate on 2 or 4 bots per episode with not a single appearance from others

YOU CAN INCLUDE ALL THE AUTOBOTS AND DECEPTICONS IN TF2, BUT MINIMIZE ON-SCREEN APPEARANCES FROM OLD CHARACTERS

First off...There is no reason Jazz needs to come back for the story. If he does, oh well. But he doesn't need to come back and I don't see a point for him to be back at all.

Depending on the story, lots of things can happen with all the surviving Autobots. Just some possible ideas...

1.) Bumblebee will probably be used with a lot of screentime devoted to Sam, Mikaela, and possibly Sam's Parents who view Bumblebee as a new extension of the family. I could see some very nice character moments between Bumblebee and Ron Witwicky here. He could also be shown as the close friend who is slowly becoming more distant to Sam as Sam grows up. Bumblebee has tons of potential on screen it's almost ridiculous.
2.) Prime is the main Autobot, he'll be all over the place, whether talking to the government, leading the Autobots, assisting various people and organizations. Optimus has almsot too much potential to really reign in.
3.) Ironhide could be used as a military advisor for the US government. He's the Autobot Heavy Hitter, he'll probably be used a lot in the major fights and used as either a frontline bombardier or a total artillery support guy during the fights. He could easily be used to counteract with New Autobots that are younger and much more reckless, such as Hot Rod, Sideswipe, and Sunstreaker. Having Ironhide trying to be an advisor to younger, less experienced Autobots while the younger 'bots rebel against this "out-dated wreck" they view Ironhide as would make for some great insight into multipel characters.
4.) Ratchet could be actually shown being a combat medic on the battlefield. He could be used to help rescue humans. He also could be shown to be more of a scientist next time around, studying various aspects of human technology. You could even show a neat scene of Ratchet "jolting" himself with electricity for fun, as if he's getting a fix.

As for new Autobots - I think including 3 more Autobots as actual characters is about all you can get away with. I would like to see either Ultra Magnus, Prowl, & Hot Rod or Prowl, Sideswipe, & Sunstreaker or Prowl, Hot Rod, & Wheeljack. However, I don't see Wheeljack being a real possibility due to Ratchet being the "fixer-up" 'bot and they could use Ratchet for the science guy.

For New 'Cons - My personal wish is Soundwave, Ravage, Runamuck, Runabout (or the Stunticons), and a Gestalt (either the Stunticons or Constructicons).

i think now that they see what a franchise TF is that they will be willing to spend more on animation of a lot more characters. most of whick would have no lines and only be seen in the background. if bay isn't making a tapedeck soundwave then he's not going to bring in the dinobots as dinosaurs.... we may have grimlock as a bulldozer or a backhoe but not a t-rex... get over it... gestaults, if ever used would be most likely in the 3rd/final movie.. gotta have a big finish...

Whoever said it's gonna JUST be a trilogy?

For all we know, we could have 10 of these things, mostly crap, with a few gems from time to time.

how many movie's have been more than trilogies.... and how many of those haven't been crap after #3

they'll have to bring out new characters... with the first movie we got 3 different deluxe jazz's, 2 deluxe bumblebee's, and a dozen optimus primes.... i know i don't want to be offered the same figures again just because tf2 is out....