The differance between proto and Cybertronian forms.

[Shadow]

Okay… I have now been asked like 30 times why some of the Decepticons are in their protoforms. I have also been asked why they are in their Cybertronian forms.
First off the protoform bots we see in the movie are this way because they come down and join the fight right away. They don’t have time to rescan and or even reformat to their Cybertronian forms.

I’ll clarify. All Autobots and Decepticons have both a protoform and a Cybertronian form. Yes this is correct… their protoforms are not their Cybertronian forms.
Think of us humans for a second. We have bone and muscle under and skin over. If we were Transformers our bone and muscle would be our protoforms and our skin would be our Cybertronian forms.

The same applies to Transformers. When they drop down through orbit or go into deep space travel, they shed their current exo-stucture (Cybertronian forms) and return to their most basic, stripped down configuration (protoform). This is why in the first movie all the Autobots looked very similar when they came to Earth. A lot of people thought they got lazy and just didn’t give the Autobots individual unique looks because of budget issues. This was not the case and this was why everyone got Optimus and Ironhide mixed up as a lot of people thought it was Optimus climbing out of the pool.

Like humans if you strip away our outside appearance then we all look very much the same as it would be kind of hard to tell who was who because our unique look is no longer there.
So in ROTF, the protoform Decepticons we see are Decepticons that are stripped down to their basic protoform configuration. Now when a Transformer does scan something, its Cybertronian or outside skin for the most part reformats and like we see in the movie, takes on Earth like appearances.

[Double]

I assumed that Non-flying Bots had to strip down to protoform to fly (in a limited capacity), which is why Megs made it to earth in cybertronian form and Starscream was able to leave earth.

[Shadow]

I assumed that Non-flying Bots had to strip down to protoform to fly (in a limited capacity), which is why Megs made it to earth in cybertronian form and Starscream was able to leave earth. even the flyers have a protoform... they just dont use them much as your right they can fly. But if you remember... in the comics, it shows Starscream and the others come down to Earth in their protoforms. Starscream does not use his Cybertronian jet mode and also... in the book to ROTF both Megs and Starscream come back to Earth in their protoforms as in the book it is Megs who hits and sinks the Carrier not the five protos we see in the movie. So even Starscream and Megs do use their protoforms from time to time. And all none flyers can use their protoforms to left off and get back into space from a planet. They would have to, otherwise they would be stuck on a planet. There was also a movie one protoform deep space Starscream remember?

[Sonya]

....This was why everyone got Optimus and Ironhide mixed up as a lot of people thought it was Optimus climbing out of the pool.




I had to watch the movie twice before I could figure out that it was Ironhide for sure.

[The Last Autobot]

Wow, that made sense.

Remind me to ask you that again in a few weeks.

Lol