The Energon Pub

[Electron]

How come in the movie Bumblebee, can turn side ways and change into a different shell of a car, but in the cartoons the only time they change there look is when teletran 1 sends out, the little drone thing, to scan vehicles in the normal world.
But from then on they all decide to pretty much stay the same all the time.

you'd think if they were really robots in disguise, they might want to change there disguise once in a while to fool the enemy.

[Sledge]

Because the Movie isn't the G1 cartoon.

[i_amtrunks]

Because the Movie isn't the G1 cartoon.

ding ding, we have a winner.

There are also plenty of "fan-made" reasons as to why the G1 bots and cons maintained their same alt modes, ranging from too much energy expenditure, to that they cannot change alt mode without a major reformat/teletran.

The real reason of course is because Hasbro didnt want them too, as they were selling enough toys as it was.