Stuartmaximus wrote:the only ones that didn't need to scan an earth mode were The Dinobots(depending on what you go by....the G1 show had them BUILT to resemble dinosaurs....but in the comics..i think that probe thing scanned dinosaurs & they were automatically built! unless Ratchet had a hand in it). Metroplex, Trypticon, Fortress Maximus, Omega Supreme & Scorponok(Headmaster not Bayformer)...probably coz nothing on earth came close to looking like their alt forms. as for cybertronian forms....in the live action movies...only Megatron(cybertronian Jet & Tank) had one(although he kept a cybertronian jet form for TF Prime), although not sure if Soundwave's satellite alt mode was his cybertronian form or not? none of the others we saw in their cybertronian forms....just their protoform. ok...not quite true...shockwave's toy's a cybertronian tank! but that alt form didn't appear in the movie. the Dinobots are a strange one! coz I dunno if those were cybertronian form dinos in AOE or not? they looked kinda weird. + they already were on Lockdowns ship, so we don't know how they came about getting their alt forms, that wasn't explained in the film.
Yeah, he movie dinobots were from an older era, so in a shoddy writing style (big surprise) it would seem that them looking like earth dinosaurs is a total coincidence.
The G1 characters having cybertronian vs earth forms is actually not clear. Look at Cosmos for instance, that clearly isnt an earth form. What the hell did he scan?
Also, all the alt modes in season 3 of G1 (starting with the movie) can either be cybertronian or scanned from the future earth they were on. Here is what sabreblade told me once:
I guess the real determining factor of distinction would be if we ever saw a TF scan a new form on Earth in a year that took place in the future. But I can't recall off hand having ever seen such a specific case happen.
However, for a lot of cases, it's tough to really tell which "futuristic" forms are purely Cybertronian and which aren't, since a lot of times we really don't know or see if the characters with said altmodes either already had them on Cybertron before their coming to Earth or if they got them on Earth in a future setting.
The 1986 movie cast are really guilty of this since we never saw them come to Earth or saw how they got their altmodes. For all we know they either already had them on Cybertron or got them from the Earth of the future. We just don't know. We know their altmodes are "futuristic", but we don't know if they're purely Cybertronian or not, within the confines of the movie's narrative, that is.
And Takara gave us a pretty big clue actually. It is written on the box that she turns into a Cybertronian cruiser. Meaning that the alt mode we see her transform to in the movie is NOT from earth but from Cybertron. So she never got a new alt mode when arriving to earth. If its true for her, it may be true for Kup, Blur, Rodimus and the other new cast members.
Transformers Legends Arcee Gallery
So by no means a break through in engineering or really remarkable for that matter, but in my book, a necessity.
