TFARCHIVE FORUMS

So how easy is it for Transformers to take on a new form? The autobots seemed to do it pretty easily in the movie, but are the limited to one form every few years or so? Could one conceivably scan a new form mid-battle that fits a necessity for that moment? Does it have to do with their inherent abilities, like Bumblebee's no good at flying so he sticks with yellow cars? Come, then... let us discuss!

It's been subject to variations over the years. Originally, in the opening cartoon pilot and comic miniseries, some *serious* reconstruction was required to change a Transformers' alt mode. Teletraan I/Aunty had to rebuild 'em with equipment and machinery. It was a heavy-duty job, and any change in body or alt mode only came about through a total overhaul, like kicking the bucket and being rebuilt, or magic Unicron/Matrix hoo-doo. This carried on into Beast Wars, too, where it was fairly evident that some major work went into outfitting their original beast modes, as it too appeared done by machinery involving external scanners. Again, changes in bodies and modes for these characters was ill-defined science-magic like the Quantum Surge, the Transmetal Driver, or a reformatting courtesy of the Oracle.

Beast Machines was responsible for introducing the concept of Transformers being able to select their alt mode and change their bodies independently, as Nightscream explained that, during the BW characters absence, an upgrade had internalized DNA scanners, so that individual robots could now pick their modes on the fly.

Basically, that approach (sans the "DNA" aspect) has continued on through all the subsequent fiction - the Armada cartoon has the characters scanning a passing vehicle and adopting the form in a snap, and the comic wasn't much different, except that Starscream got the schematics and brought them back. That was the approach taken for Cybertron, as well, where Jetfire gathered up various schematics and handed them out like candy.

Mind you, the movie remains the only bit of fiction where a Transformer willfully just decides "You know what, I'mma change my alt mode, here," and happily scans another vehicle. Changes in body seen in the Cybertron cartoon DID simply involve spotting something else they wanted to change into and scanning it, but they only ever did that when they were getting a power boost from another source.

The notion of constantly changing alt modes... well, I think it would work in the movie fiction, as it's certainly established that it's totally possible to do. That they DON'T is more of a merchandising thing, of course - if a Transformer can look like anything, and constantly changes bodies, then it's got no one visual identity that'll help sell a toy. The Movie DS game totally made use of this ability, though, allowing your nameless player character to scan over thirty different vehicles spotted throughout the game, which you could switch between however you liked - including flying vehicles like helicopters and jets.

It should be noted that in regard to the Marvel comic, it was often noted that new arrivals had been converted (though, as with all the 1980s alt-mode changes, whenever we saw their robot modes before they had bits of Ferrari Testarossa or Pterodactyl or whatever on them)... it's difficult to say exactly how hard a process this is in that regard (Ratbat bothered to put patsies like the Throttlebots and Triggerbots through it for tenuous reasons, but then he did all sorts of mad stuff). But then it must be fairly difficult or there wouldn't be so much call for niche alt modes - someone like Seaspray would have an alt that would be more straightforward, and they could all switch to something seaborne for a nautical mission...