Transformers Dark of the Moon 3′s Missing Piece: Personality
Last week saw the release of the Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon, the final installment of Michael Bay’s Transformer franchise. There are many things to like about Bayformers (fan term, FYI), and there is also much to hate. Some people love the movies because they have giant space robots ripping each other apart. Long time fans of Transformers, going back the 1980s cartoon and comic book (known henceforth as Generation One, or G1) find pain when watching these movies, because they don’t want to go to something called Transformers and sit through an hour and a half of humans and their problems. They want to see a robot war, not Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) trying to get a job. There’s such a large emphasis on the lives of the human character that the Autobots are supporting characters at best, with barely formed personalities, and the Decepticons don’t even get any speaking lines, unless they’ve survived a movie or two. I grew up loving Generation One, which is what Bayformers is based on. I’m particularly familiar with the comic book series, the original Marvel run and the current IDW run. Bay’s movies missed wonderful opportunities with these characters by not making them the main focus. What I’d like to do is look at each of the characters in Dark of the Moon and see how they’re portrayed in the movie versus the G1 cartoon and comic. Let’s start with the new bots.
Dino/Mirage
This red Ferrari 458 Italia was originally named Mirage for the film and is called as such in the novelization and comic adaptation, yet he calls himself Dino. Since in the majority of publications he goes by Mirage, that’s how I will look at him. In the film Mirage is there mostly to just fight the good fight alongside his fellow Autobots. Aside from an Italian accent, there’s virtually no personality to this character, which is a common theme among the Bayformers. The G1 character Mirage is based on has a very complicated past and storyline. In nearly every G1 continuity he is suspected of being a traitor at some point. He is often depicted as living an easy, lavish lifestyle before the war, enjoying a high-priced life. When he was forced to choose a side, he found himself aligned with a bunch of commoners he had no relations with before. He views violence as a last resort, preferring diplomatic solutions. Because of this soft side, his fellow Autobots believe he sympathizes with the Decepticons. Adding on to that, he’s an expert spy, using holograms to make things appear where they are not, and a cloaking device that renders him completely invisible. He’d be the perfect traitor if he didn’t fully believe in the Autobot cause. Yet none of these traits come even close to being expressed by Bayformer Mirage. He doesn’t even get his cool weapons (although, to be fair, they do appear in the prequel comic books).
Que/Wheeljack
The new inventor-type character, Que/Wheeljack (he had the same naming problems as Dino/Mirage), has a surprising amount of personality to him. I’d chalk this up to the writers not wanting to kill someone completely undeveloped. He’s designed to look and sound like Albert Einstein, and it comes off creepy. Robots shouldn’t have human-like faces. The original Wheeljack was an inventor, too, so that part they got right. What they got wrong was Que’s lack of combat skills. You never see him fight, and he’s executed without so much as a struggle. In fact, he begs for his life. G1 Wheeljack would have gone down swinging. He was a seasoned warrior, made all the more dangerous by the deadly gadgets he invented.
The Wreckers
There are three Autobots that make up the Wreckers: Leadfoot, Roadbuster, and Topspin. I’m lumping all of them together under one heading, because anyone can be a Wrecker, as long as you have the right attitude. So really, I’m looking at the personality of the unit as a whole. The Wreckers first appeared in the Marvel UK G1 comics. They were composed of the toughest bots around. They would gladly throw their lives away to get a mission done, and that’s often what it took. The line up of the Wreckers constantly changed, because the members kept dying. They were the guys you brought in when you had no other options, when the battle seemed like a lost cause. More times than not, they won. So looking at Dark of the Moon, is that what these Wreckers were? They kicked a lot of metal butt, but they didn’t do it any better than Optimus or Bumblebee. They seemed kind of bumbling, even. They looked hardcore, but acted rather silly.
The Dreads
The Dreads (Crankcase, Crowbar, and Hatchet) seem to be the Decepticon’s answer to the Wreckers, except the movies manage to mess it up even more. While the Wreckers had voices (well, two of them did), the Dreads might as well have been named the Generics. Nothing they did separated them from the countless other nameless Decepticons that appeared throughout the film. What’s a guy got to do to get some life breathed into these robots? His comrades, for constantly complaining about his existence, despised Crankcase’s G1 namesake, and he hated them right back. He was only briefly happy when he was killing those weaker than him. Unfortunately, Crowbar and Hatchet weren’t named after anybody, so there’s nothing to compare them to. Well that’s not true. There’s dozens of Decepticons they could have been based on!
Shockwave
This could quite possibly be the most frustrating character for me. Shockwave’s only spoken line in all of Dark of the Moon is to say, “Optimus Prime!” menacingly, before disappearing for almost 2 hours. When he finally returns, he just growls and grunts and eventually dies. The Shockwave I grew up with was driven by pure logic. He would weigh a scenario and its possible outcomes and come to a logical decision. If he were given an order that wasn’t logistically sound, he would ignore it. He couldn’t feel emotion, only that pure, beautiful logic. Eventually Shockwave came to the conclusion that it was only logical that he became leader of the Decepticons, and so he did. He defeated Megatron effortlessly. He wasn’t a simple drone, like the bunch of no-names in the movie. Unfortunately, this character was given a lobotomy. Instead of being a servant of logic, he was the servant of bad character development. The trailers made Shockwave seem like he would be the big threat in this movie, but he was just an utter disappointment.
Sentinal Prime
Sentinal Prime is a surprisingly complicated character and easily the best of the new characters. He’s based off a common character who was usually spoken of but rarely seen in the G1 universe. He’s always Optimus Prime’s predecessor, but is portrayed a little differently in each incarnation. In the movie, Sentinal at first functions as a mentor, but he soon shape shifts into the enemy, betraying the Autobots. This is classic archetype known as a dark mentor. It’s a tad cliché, but for a movie like Transformers this is as good as it gets, and it was truly shocking when he turned on his teammates, killing Ironhide.
Wheelie
We’re backing it up now to look at the surviving characters from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, starting with Wheelie. Wheelie is a spot of annoyance for me. He gives Transformers a bad name by being a foul, perverted machine. It makes no sense that a robot would be horny for a human, none at all. But there it is. In the G1 cartoon, Wheelie wasn’t any more popular. He was found stranded on the planet Quintessa and could only speak in rhymes. He got some redemption 20 years later in IDW’s rebooted continuity, where he became a spunky little warrior nobody paid any attention to, and thus nobody noticed when his ship disappeared and crashed on an unknown planet. Wheelie fought each day to survive. He still rhymed, except it was to communicate with an alien who also crashed on the planet.
Sideswipe
This Autobot is portrayed as a cocky combatant with the need to show off. That sums up Sideswipe in a nutshell, although he was much more reckless in G1, preferring to endanger himself just to get a victory. During IDW’s run, they added even more to Sideswipe, creating more depth for his character. His mission in life is to impress his training officer, Sunstreaker, who’s always looked down on him. Nothing Sideswipe ever did was good enough in Sunstreaker’s eyes, and that led to his reckless nature and need to be seen as a skilled fighter. At one point, he takes on two immortal Decepticons and wins. That’s the kind of fight I wouldn’t have minded seeing from Bay’s Sideswipe.
Soundwave
Soundwave is essentially who he was in the old cartoon, except you wouldn’t really be able to tell by how little he is in the movie. He’s incredibly loyal to Megatron, and he spies on the enemy. That’s what Soundwave does, but as with most characters, the basics aren’t the whole picture. In the comics he was a two-faced snake. He doesn’t hesitate to eavesdrop on his fellow Decepticons and use the information he gathers as blackmail to keep his high-ranking position. He audibly has no personality, speaking monotonously, but he has motives of his own, even if they’re just about staying in Megatron’s favor. His trusted partner Laserbeak also appears in the movie, but whereas the G1 incarnation was silent, this one almost never stops talking.
Bumblebee
I think one of the biggest mistakes Michael Bay made was taking away Bumblebee’s voice. It was fine for the first film, but it really draws into question Rachet’s skills as a medic if he still hasn’t fixed him. The movie Bumblebee does his job as friend to Sam very well. They have a great friendship, even if Sam is the only who ever gets to speak. But one of the most important aspects of Bumbleebee is missing, and it has nothing to do so much with him, but his comrades. Bumblebee is physically one of the smallest and weakest of the Autobots, but he makes up for it with sheer bravery. He looks up to the likes of Optimus and Ironhide, but they also look up to him. His courage is a point of respect among the Autobots, and that never comes out in the movies.
Ironhide
The biggest difference between Bayformer Ironhide and G1 Ironhide is age. The original Ironhide was one of the older Autobots, essentially a crotchety old man, while movie Ironhide seems a lot younger as far as Transformers go. They both share a love of fighting and a short temper. The age difference isn’t a huge deal. He’s been around since the first movie, so we know him better than most, yet when he’s killed, I still didn’t feel that I knew him. Really all I can say about him is he likes guns and hates Decepticons. This is a prime example of missteps taken in creating this franchise. No time is spent with these robots unless they’re fighting or searching for something. They don’t have conversations, reliving the old days. All they talk about is the war. If we took away the majority of the human scenes and replaced them with the Autobots/Decepticons talking, I think the films would have improved infinitely.
Ratchet
Ratchet is the kind of medic who is completely by the book, no nonsense. He’s also the kind of medic who’s never really seen doing any actual healing. Then, in the second movie, he was barely seen at all, and when he was he was shooting guns. Same thing for number three, though once Ironhide bit the dust he received more screen time. G1 Ratchet was a relaxed, carefree kind of guy. And he found himself to be most useful when he was fixing other bots. He fights when he has to, but he doesn’t feel like he’s anything more than an expendable warrior.
Optimus Prime
The Optimus Prime I grew up with spoke about how the death of every human weighed heavily on his spark, yet this new Optimus doesn’t bat an eyelash when he and his Autobots destroy city blocks fighting the Decepticons. He was always portrayed as a rather unwilling leader, forced into the job at a young age. This aspect of the character was roughly shoved in to Dark of the Moon when he tries to return leadership to Sentinel Prime, but that’s the only time it gets brought up in three movies. G1 Optimus had so much responsibility and yet he never let his soldiers see him in despair. He was the rock of the Autobots, a great strategist, and a tough fighter. We never once see the movie Autobots talk military strategy. It’s like they make it up as they go. They’re hardly careful, and this reflects on their leader.
Starscream
Starscream is by far my favorite Transformer and another example of how Michael Bay neutered the Decepticons. The original Starscream is an incredibly dangerous aerial commander with never-ending ambition. Part of that ambition openly believes himself to be better suited for command than Megatron. He schemes to usurp the mighty tyrant, but he’s so obvious about it Megatron always puts a stop to it, or if he does manage to take control, he gets in over his head and loses his power as quickly as he got it. Part of his charm is his never learning from his mistakes, and Megatron is too arrogant to put an end to Starscream’s life. Bayformer Starscream is a sniveling sycophant, constantly sucking up to Megatron and never taking his life into his own hands.
Megatron
Finally we get to the big bad leader of the Decepticons. What sets this Megatron apart from the original Megatron is mostly motivation. Throughout the film franchise we learn that Megatron started his war under the command of The Fallen, and in the latest film he pretty much gets put on the bench by Sentinel Prime. He’s kind of a pushover, a pawn. G1 Megatron started the war to bring order to the universe through tyranny. No one ran his campaign but him. He had cosmic goals, to place he and his Decepticons above what they considered to be lesser beings. Both Megatrons could be considered insane; both are too arrogant to see the holes in their plans that ultimately lead to their defeat time and time again.
That covers all the characters worth covering. I deliberately left out a few, like Brains and Igor, because they were original creations with no one to base their personalities on. This article was just meant to point out how much we missed out on by Bay’s not giving the Transformers the screen time they deserved.
About 