Ok I was thinking last night at work how about after the final battle of the first movie Starscream flies away and succumbs to his injuries and slams into an underground cavern where he finds 5 dino skeletons and decides that these will make excellent warriors. So he decides to build them into a new Decepticon army. Only problem no sparks so he thinks back to when Megatron when chasing after the Allspark and remembers that there was a crew of Autobots that pursued Megs and if he had crashed here then maybe they had as well. So to that end he scans the planet for any protoforms in stasis lock and comes upon the 5 member crew of Grimlock's lightning strike coalition which had been sent to bring Megs back at all costs. They had however crashed down here just about 24 hours before the meteor hit that wiped out the dinosaurs. Starscream places the sparks into the Dinobots that he has built using remnant parts of both the lightning strike coalition, and his fallen Decepticon comrades. Also during theis time more and more cybertronians arrive on earth any and all Decepticons must join Autobot forces or be incarcerated. There is however a group of 6 decepticon scientists who crash near a construction site and take on the forms of the construction vehicles and they don't like Optimus Prime's decree so they begin work on a way to become an even more powerful force of DEVASTATION. Eventually turning themselves into Devastator. Starscream finishes reprogramming the Dinobots and sends them out on a rampage their reduced intelect a result of his tampering with their thought process circuitry. BB recognizes big Grim and tries to talk to him a decision he quickly regrets and that's when Sam tries to reason with Grimlock surprised that this human doesn't fear him Grimlock enters into broken dialog with Sam and is convinced to help fight Starscream and his Decepticons which have now been released by Devastator, and are rampaging across the planet. How's that?

Biggest issue is that

Megatron does not crash here millions of years ago, so no reason for the Dinobots to do so

However, I can dig LSC chasing Megatron to Earth though. Another problem is

SS doesn't fly around Earth, he flies off into space from all the accounts so far

. So you'd have to work around that one. Also, I don't think the Decepticons can be imprisoned here on Earth, so not sure how you'd want to rework. But, nice start, keep reworking. :thumb

I agree. The other things I also might change is don't make all the Dinobots with stunted speech like in the cartoon. Grimlock was the only one in both the comic and cartoon who had stunted speech. In the comics, the rest of the Dinobots had normal speech.

 

Of course, I don't know how good I feel about the Dinobots starting out as Decepticons???

 

Actually bro I mentioned the stunted speech kind of. I said that SS' reprogramming damaged them leaving their intellects damaged and they have little or no memory of who they were on Cybertron.

But it's boring though. They might as well come up with a different character altogether, like they did with Blackout and Barricade.

 

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I think the best Transformer characters are more than what they turn into.

 

 

That's fine for comic books and cartoons, but I doubt that the makers of the movie would care about that. Grimlock has to be visually interesting.

 

 

And, if you do find the character of Grimlock to be so complex, then why should he tow the line and be a regular, in disguise, vehicle?

But it's boring though. They might as well come up with a different character altogether, like they did with Blackout and Barricade.

 

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I think the best Transformer characters are more than what they turn into.

 

 

That's fine for comic books and cartoons, but I doubt that the makers of the movie would care about that. Grimlock has to be visually interesting.

 

 

And, if you do find the character of Grimlock to be so complex, then why should he tow the line and be a regular, in disguise, vehicle?

 

I find it funny that you would take the stance that the filmmakers don't care about that, since that seems to be the filmmakers entire approach.

 

Fans: "Bwah! He's not a Volkswagen!?"

 

Filmmakers: "Don't worry. There's still a lot of the Bumblebee you loved about him. Don't think that just because he's not a--"

 

Fans: "But he's not a Volkswagen!"

 

And I never said he shouldn't be visually interesting. But he doesn't need to turn into a dinosaur to be visually interesting. In fact, what I said at the beginning of the thread was:

 

I vote for Earth vehicles with strange, dinosaur or dragon-esque robot modes...Sam could very easily label them "Dinobots" in that case.

 

Barring that, just Earth vehicles, please. But heavy duty construction or military. Preferably military. The Autobots could use the firepower.

 

And I still vote for Earth vehicle alt. mode with a dinosaur-esque robot mode and nothing humanoid about him.

 

But, if we have to go humanoid robot, then I'm for ditching the dinosaur thing altogether.

The thing is that part of what makes many of these characters interesting, is not just their personalites, but also their appearances, and their alternate mode is a part of that. Yes, Grimlock is more than his alternate mode, but that T-Rex alternate mode, as well as his robot mode appearance is still a large part of who he is. A vehicle mode really doesn't suite him the way a T-Rex mode does.

Yeah, we know how you feel about alt. modes Mr. Soundwave-only-works-as-a-radio.

 

All I'm saying is: No one complained about War Within Grimlock.

That is because that mode was his Cybertronian mode, not an Earth mode. It was still stylistically reminiscent of his later T-Rex mode, however, in a vehiclular form. Given the changes made to the aesthetics of the robot modes for the movie, the only real way to recognize Grimlock visually is if he retained his T-Rex alternate mode, though more along the lines of a properly structured and proportioned T-Rex, yet robotic, like they did with the Classics Grimlock's T-Rex mode. His T-Rex form is his most iconic form, and the one people attribute to Grimlock.

And one that would make a great toy from Hasbro's perspective, so there is that to consider too.

There is that too.

That is because that mode was his Cybertronian mode, not an Earth mode. It was still stylistically reminiscent of his later T-Rex mode, however, in a vehiclular form. Given the changes made to the aesthetics of the robot modes for the movie, the only real way to recognize Grimlock visually is if he retained his T-Rex alternate mode, though more along the lines of a properly structured and proportioned T-Rex, yet robotic, like they did with the Classics Grimlock's T-Rex mode. His T-Rex form is his most iconic form, and the one people attribute to Grimlock.

 

Recognizing Grimlock visually isn't even an issue when we're talking movie bots. They can pull a Movie Ironhide on him if they want and reinvent him completely.

 

Or, pull a Cybertron Soundwave on him - tons of recognizable features in robot mode, completely different alt.

 

Dinosaur alt. modes are lame in the movie-verse.

In your opinion, maybe, but it appears a lot of people disagree with you. Once again though, it is still purely subjective. What one person thinks is great, another may hate. Regardless, a robotic T-Rex mode for Grimlock is definately my preference because it is his most iconic form. Would Prime really work as anything else than a big rig of some form? (a fire truck is technically still a big rig, though the semi cab is certainly more iconic). Would Jazz work as anything but a sports car? Would Starscream work as anything but a fighter jet? No to all three. Even if there are variations in design, the basic form is still there—the bid truck, the sports car, the jet fighter. The same is true for Grimlock and the Dinobots. They really aren't Dinobots if they lack their dinosaur alternate modes, which is why on Cybertron, they were called Dynabots, which really doesn't work quite as well, IMO.