Three soldiers becoming a camera, Glue. That's just not an effective way to wage a war, regardless of Mass Shifting's restrcitions.

Ehh, they seemed to get rid of Reflector pretty quick! Kept him 'round long enough to entice sales of an exclusive toy and that was that. Although, that point is also debatable in that it's purely up to imagination. You have a camera that turns into three soldiers instead of just one.

Except they're soldiers first. It's not a "chicken or the egg" situation.

 

Would you prefer to have 2 extra giant robot warriors, or 2 extra cameras?

How about three extra tanks and you steal a camera?

"Enlargement, I'd regard as.. somewhat separate since it seemed to consistently serve the same purpose: carrying someone else. Bumblebee riding inside Wheeljack on Cybertron, or in Ironhide. People riding in Skyfire. When Scourge asks Starscream why he possessed Astrotrain, Starscream specifically replies that Astrotrain has "more cargo space" than Scourge does. In bot mode, they are all depicted as being roughly the same size.

 

So while there were animation errors aplenty, this suggests that there can be certain "rules" that some of the writers even seemed to try to follow. Carrying/transporting stuff may be a special ability."

 

... how about Hoist riding around in Huffer? Octane in Sandstorm?

 

Anyway, we don't know the constraints and drain for each of these things. Mass-shifting has been described as difficult to do because it requires more energy, or it is something innate (depending on the continuity). I like the idea that it is an unconscious part of transformation, not something that can be learned or applied willy-nilly.

 

Trans-scanning I just assume is more draining to do rather than keep your form. And, in addition, the Transformer would be forced to adjust to a new body with new abilities. Hence why Bumblebee only scanned a car rather similar to his initial form. He wouldn't be forced to relearn everything all over again.

 

For example, why didn't they just all get new Beast modes in Beast Wars? Surely the Maximals could've gained from having a second flyer in the first season (until they get Airazor, of course). Maybe getting a new Beast mode is difficult, but it's almost definitely difficult to adjust to having a whole new body. Take, for example, Cheetor's adjustments to having a Transmetal body. If I recall correctly, he screwed up quite a bit getting used to the jets.

Would you prefer to have 2 extra giant robot warriors, or 2 extra cameras?

How about three extra tanks and you steal a camera?

See, to me that's not a mass-shrinking issue but a choice-of-alt-mode issue. One could say in G1 that since Teletran was deciding what the alt modes were (according to whatever scheme, or lack thereof, it uses), the camera mode wasn't really Reflector's or Megatron's choice.

 

I also think there may be too much application of a human perspective here. Why is a tank necessarily of greater importance to the decepticon cause than a camera? Cameras and tape recorders can sneak into places a tank can't sneak into, to say nothing of 3 tanks sneaking into.

 

... how about Hoist riding around in Huffer? Octane in Sandstorm?

I don't recall those specific incidents but they don't sound like too major a stretch of the imagination if we're still talking about the function of "transporting/carrying". Now if you guys had said "Galvatron... riding in Cyclonus's COCKPIT!!" I woulda said, "... kay yeah, that one was way pushing it."

REALLY at this point, i don't think there is any Realistic reason for the Transformers to have kibble at all. Frenzy and Bumblebee multi- scanning in the movie is proof of that (well that and frenzy's nonexistent kibble).

 

As has already been discussed adinfinitum - why would SoundWave have any kibble at all? His entire Altmode ie "kibble" would end up essentially being the size of one of his eyes. At what point does he need a 20ft tall "PLAY" button in robot mode?

 

But IMO, this whole discussion falls into the same category as Jazz being black, or the fembots. They take on these unrealistic traits (gender, race, kibble) because its what WE as an audience expect and identify with.

 

Once you start exploring NanoTechnology in a scienceficional universe (or heck in real life) its clear that the T-1000 is the most realistic TRANSFORMER ever filmed. (or maybe the T3 if she didn't suck and stuff).

 

But we expect our TRANSFORMERS to have kibble so that we can identify them and tell them apart from random Terminator Style bots. or the Wooshy bots from the end of AI.

 

As for instory reasons for Transcanning: Habit. They pick an alt-mode most comfortable and start to associate to their new "alien" terrain through that alt-mode. BB and Frenzy show us that its not too difficult to change if there is a reason to leave your comfort zone but why would say, Ironhide need to turn into a mobile Taco kitchen? At that point, whats in it for him?

I also think there may be too much application of a human perspective here. Why is a tank necessarily of greater importance to the decepticon cause than a camera?

The tanks are just an example. The point is there are a lot of better options for alt. modes out there. News vans, tanks, police helicopters, -- even three guys into three cameras is a marginally better use of the technology than three guys into one camera.

 

The choice of better alt. modes is particularly apparent when you consider how easy it would be for a Transformer to carry the equivalent of a camera in his eyeball and be able to take pictures of stuff just by looking at whatever they wanted, rendering the need for a camera moot, except for sneaking into stuff. Which bring us to...

 

Cameras and tape recorders can sneak into places a tank can't sneak into, to say nothing of 3 tanks sneaking into.

Sneak in, yes. But in order to remain effective once you're in, you need to remain small. Soundwave's robot mode wouldn't really fit into any human structure worth getting into. He'd be unable to transform without destroying the place. So Mass Shifting only serves to hinder your cause at that point. A small robot like Frenzy is much more useful in those situations.

but why would say, Ironhide need to turn into a mobile Taco kitchen? At that point, whats in it for him?

... selling more repaint exclusives?

The "Trans-scanning" ability is something that was newly introduced in the movie and something that we didn't see in other Transformers stories.

 

Pre-movie Transformers needed computers to scan alt modes for them and rebuild them - such as Teletraan-1's "trans-scan beam-o-matic", AUNTIE's repair drone (which looked a lot like Optimus Prime's Combat Deck robot), CR Chambers, stasis pods etc.

 

So in previous Transformers incarnations, they would need to be completely rebuilt in order to acquire a new alt mode, something which would certainly expend a lot of energy and resources. Pre-movie Transformers were typically rebuilt if they were mortally wounded or resurrected.

 

The problem with gross external mass shifting isn't so much the science behind it, but the aesthetics - to most audiences it requires too great a suspension of disbelief. There will ALWAYS be mass-shifting (all those robot parts have got to go somewhere in alt mode!) in Transformers but what most audiences find difficult to accept is gross external mass shifting. To believe that a 6 metre robot can transform into a hand gun or cassette player requires the audience to massively suspend disbelief, something which most audiences would have difficulty doing - especially a general movie going audience. Remember that in order for the movie to succeed it needed to be acceptable by a general audience of people who have NO prior knowledge of Transformers. Most ordinary folks would find the imagery of gross mass shifting to be ridiculous, even with ample amounts of exposition to back it up.

 

And to Bay's credit we did get gross external mass shifting with the AllSpark Cube - but that's meant to be some mysterious divine artifact (like the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones) so as a plot device audiences can suspend disbelief - and it only happens once. For a primary cast member like Megatron to be performing gross mass-shifting back and forth between robot and gun mode during the movie would be demanding a lot of suspension of disbelief from the audience. To be honest, the movie already does ask a lot as it is insofar that the audience needs to accept that these robots - with all those thousands of complicated robot parts, can transform into vehicles with those robot parts somehow mysteriously vanishing into subspace (because it's not like the inside of Bumblebee is full of robot parts like the toy is).

 

I for one am glad that they're not always trans-scanning new alt modes, because that would mean waaaaay more versions of the same character to collect!! Bumblebee trans-scanned once in the movie and we already have 5 versions of that character (70s Deluxe, 08 Deluxe, Cyber Slammer, FAB, Ultimate). Then there'd be the repaints/variants of all those versions - you'd end up with this many versions of Optimus Prime within ONE year's worth of toys alone!

 

wuaaaagh! (@_@)

but why would say, Ironhide need to turn into a mobile Taco kitchen? At that point, whats in it for him?

... selling more repaint exclusives?

 

No.

 

Tacos.

...

 

But about the "trans-scanning" thing... since in the movie all the Autobots are shown scanning while in their *identical* protoforms, I'd assume that it's not something that can be done constantly. Like, they need to be converted to a protoform by an outside source first (purging their old mode, and ending up looking like Prime... :tflaugh ), then they can scan.

 

And Bumblebee's double scan can be attributed to it just being a upgrade to an existing mode.

 

...and/or a plot hole...I mean why was that concept car driving down the SAME EXACT TUNNEL THAT BB was in! (BB is Bumblebee BTW, not some Blotty Predacon repaint that no one gives an F about...lol.)

 

And as for mass shifting...well, even in a hypothetical strict G1 remake live action movie, I'd rather Megs be a tank. Maybe have a joke at the end with him being turned into a gun, and he's defeated because of his 7 inch robot mode... :tfevil

My personal theory:

 

Trans scanning came from Mr Bay. It's simple...he was given the movie project and of course his high school jock mentality was "this sucks!". He needed to make this look cool and do able for him.

 

Anybody seen John Carpenters The Thing? Bay sure as hell did...and just like how the thing trans scanned (before killing and mutilating) his victims. From there it was able to be the vary thing it scanned. Well that sure applies very well to transforming robots. This consept fit perfectly and was very believable.

What? you actually wanted big robots to pilot a ship? Thank gawd Bay said NO to this. Instead these aliens can transform into a planetary entry form.

 

Megatron was the ultimate Thing, or did we miss the homage to the Carpenter film.

 

As to why only Bumble Bee and Frenzy trans scanned the most: G1 fans! and Bay being nice. There really is no science to this.

 

Think about it, if most G1 winners tried to petition to have Primes flames removed imagine whine fest we'd have if Bay said "I think Prime needs to fly at some point, you see that A10 wort-hog over there?!" G1 fans would lose it..."No Prime cant be fighter plane...that's not G1" and then the death threats would double. To bad cos Hasbro could have made a killing character resales.

 

Bumble bee only scanned to an up-dated version of his car mode. Frenzy; well who cared about him...make him a cell phone, a cheap boom box, front grill of a cop car.

 

So that's my answer to this mystery.

 

I only hope that Bay really ignores the G1 babies and has all the characters trans scanning all over the place. That would be cool.

Get over it guys. Scanning for alt modes has been something that's always existed in Transformers. Always. Pre-movie it was done by an external computer typically hooked up to a ship or stasis pod. In the movie, they have in-built scanners and nano-technology that allows them to reformat themselves. That's it. Why did Bay do it? I can think of two reasons... introducing Transformer starships and pods etc. would:

1/ require a lot more exposition eating into movie time

2/ more money in order to CG animate said ships/pods, eating into the movie budget

'

What? you actually wanted big robots to pilot a ship? Thank gawd Bay said NO to this. Instead these aliens can transform into a planetary entry form.

Agreed. Even if they had them piloting ships it would have to be totally reinvented... there wouldn't be any lights inside that ship which means youd see nothing - maybe some ambient light, but you wouldn't see much - it would make the dark interiors of the Axalon and Terrorcrasher/Darksyde look like a lighting show. Also they wouldn't be sitting in seats operating control panels like humans do - as machines they would be directly interfaced with the ship. Slotted into the ship as part of the ship... there would be no control bridge, rooms, corridors or anything like that. It would just look like a big engine, kinda like the machine-city in The Matrix but on a far smaller and compact scale.

 

As to why only Bumble Bee and Frenzy trans scanned the most: G1 fans! and Bay being nice. There really is no science to this.

Well, it's also the writers being nice. And to their credit they did write the story with plot devices that made the rescannings plausible - Bumblebee wanted to impress his new friends and Frenzy needed to continue his mission objective.

 

Think about it, if most G1 winners tried to petition to have Primes flames removed imagine whine fest we'd have if Bay said "I think Prime needs to fly at some point, you see that A10 wort-hog over there?!" G1 fans would lose it..."No Prime cant be fighter plane...that's not G1" and then the death threats would double. To bad cos Hasbro could have made a killing character resales.

Hasbro wouldn't have allowed Bay to make Prime into anything but a truck. Aaron Archer was initially skeptical about Prime's flames but Bay explained that metallic red is a nightmare of a colour to photograph and that he needed to make the truck blue in order to save money on principal photography (and film stock is expensive - I knew a guy who made a short 10 minute film, cost him $6000 in film stock). Hasbro said that they at least wanted Prime's chest to be red, so a compromised was reached by introducing the flames. Yes, Bay is a personal fan of the flames, but it also allows Prime to have a red chest while being a primarily blue truck and saving Dreamworks Blotloads of money.

 

...and/or a plot hole...I mean why was that concept car driving down the SAME EXACT TUNNEL THAT BB was in! (BB is Bumblebee BTW, not some Blotty Predacon repaint that no one gives an F about...lol.)

You know, in the time it took you to dis out BB, you could've just typed "Bumblebee." Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of using an abbreviation? (and an ambiguous one at that)

 

Anyway, that's not a plot hole. It's a coincidence, but not a plot hole. A real plot hole would be how when Prime is scanning the truck, the truck has the Autobot insignia hood ornament, yet when Prime first forms into the truck he has NO Autobot insignia on his grill. I think the idea was for the CG animators to put the non-insignia grill onto the truck that drives by, but they put it on the truck that is forming (ie: Optimus Prime) instead! Oops!