For better or worse, the Michael Bay Transformers movies define an entire era of the franchise. Bay’s movies helped usher in the new wave of blockbuster genre films alongside the Marvel Cinematic Universe and The Dark Knight Trilogy; helped cement IMAX as the dominant premium theatrical experience, and introduced a whole new generation to the lore and characters of Transformers. That said, Bay’s run on Transformers was a very mixed bag of good, bad, and ugly results – and that is very evident in the range of success (or not) Bay had with adapting iconic Transformers characters for the big screen.

Below we break down some of the biggest character FAILS in Bay’s Transformers films – while also giving him flowers for the characters he got right.

Transformers: 5 Characters Bay’s Films Got Wrong (And 3 They Did Right)

Jazz – WRONG

One of the earliest and biggest red flags about Bay’s Transformers movies was the character of Jazz. In the G1 cartoon, Jazz was the loyal lieutenant of Optimus Prime and a standout character in the series, with his Jazz-inspired improv style of combat, and the way he walked, talked, and even showcased breakdance moves with the swag of 1980s urban America.

It was shocking (at the time) to see Michael Bay take that iconic character and reduce him to an offensive hip-hop stereotype who was indiscernible in his character design, and clearly coded to be the “black” member of the Autobots squad. Things only got much more offensive when Jazz was the first major member of the Autobots to be killed off in the first Transformers movie, only compounding the number of offensive cliches at work.

The recent film Transformers: Rise of the Beasts tried to correct things by making Pete Davidson’s Mirage a stand-in for Jazz, but the Bay version of the character only looks worse with time.

Soundwave – WRONG

Another one of the most iconic characters from the original Transformers G1 cartoon, Soundwave was actually multiple Transformers in one – not to mention one of the greatest toys the franchise ever produced.

True to his name, Soundwave eschewed a traditional Transformers “vehicle mode”; instead, the Decepticon Communications Officer took the form of a large tape deck, and his “mini-cassette” tapes were each able to transform into their own robotic infiltrators or fighters, including the dog-like Ravage, bird-like Laserbeak, and piston-armed robot, Rumble. The toy was one of the best Transformers ever produced, with actual metallic bits and an actual tape deck in the robotic figure, with tapes that could transform into the robotic spies Soundwave commanded.

Michael Bay’s Soundwave understandably had to be updated for the digital age of the 2000s, but having the iconic villain serve as an orbital satellite spying on Earth was lame – and later making him into a Mercedes car didn’t save it. Like so many of Bay’s Transformers characters, it was hard to distinguish his sharp-edged design from so many other Decepticon foes, which was a crime, considering how iconic Soundwave’s look was. While Bay got some aspects of the character right (like Ravage and Laserbeak), he even messed up easy bits, like mimicking Soundwave’s iconic voice.

The Dinobots – WRONG

The Dinobots are probably the biggest breakout successes of the second wave of G1 Transformers characters, combining two of young boys’ favorite things: robots and dinosaurs. However, the original Transformers cartoon series made Grimlock and his team of Dinobots (Slag, Sludge, Snarl, and Swoop) into rowdy anti-hero types, whose signature primitive dialect and intelligence were as iconic as their robotic dinosaur forms.

By the time the fourth movie Transformers: Age of Extinction arrived, Michael Bay was clearly on creative burnout. The film used the Dinobots as the center of its promotional campaign, but fans got nothing but massive disappointment when it came time to deliver. Bay’s version of the Dinobots were mindless, colorless, brutes that never uttered a word of dialogue. Their entire role in the film was a climactic rampage against enemy forces, before disappearing forever.

Worst of all: Bay didn’t even bother to create actual dinosaur forms for the Dinobots, instead mixing Eastern mythology with biological history, resulting in the Dinobots looking like mythical creatures instead of dinosaurs. Yikes.

The Twins (Skid & Mudflap) – WRONG

Skids and Mudflap are two of the most obscure Autobot characters out there – which is maybe why Michael Bay figured no one would notice or care when he re-imagined them as “The Twins” Skids and Mudflap in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. But oh, we noticed – and boy did we care!

Like Jazz, The Twins sparked major controversy for being coded to be offensive African-American caricatures. Highlights like proudly proclaiming illiteracy or sporting gold teeth made The Twins seem like they just walked off the set of a Cybertronian rap video. The backlash may have worked, because Bay cut the characters’ appearance from the next film, Dark of the Moon.

Devastator – SO WRONG

This one hurts because it’s a clear case of Michael Bay snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. By and Co. did a fine job adapting the individual Construction characters for the screen in Revenge of the Fallen, and had fans hyped for a climax that promised to bring them together into the combined form of “Devastator” in full IMAX glory. As one of the biggest, baddest, and most iconic foes of Transformers, Devastator’s big-screen debut was a franchise milestone.

Unfortunately, Bay dropped the biggest ball – literally. The final design for the movie version of Devastator is one of the worst in all of Transformers and the epitome of the insane amount of over-thining the filmmaker did with his version of Transformers. Sure, Bay’s Devastator reflects the actual mechanical physics of all those construction vehicles merging – but who the hell cares when the combined form is such an eyesore? The digestive-cycle super-attack of sucking up everything and pooping it out a flaming butt-mixer was absurd; turning a couple of wrecking balls into actual gigantic robot testicles baffles the mind when you consider Industrial Light & Magic had computers actually exploding trying to render footage of those balls in full IMAX.

Bay’s Devastator is quite possibly one the biggest wastes of production effort, screen time and screen space ever put to film.

Bumblebee – Right

The original G1 Bumblebee was a lovable (if not mouthy) sidekick character, but Bay’s Transformers films transformed him into a bonafide screen icon. By centering the story around “Bee’s” relationship with human Sam Witwicky (Shia Labeouf), Bay gave that first film a smart nostalgic blend of a boy owing his first car and his first pet. Those core themes resonated with so many viewers and allowed them to bond with Bumblebee in an intimate way that’s otherwise impossible for a giant GGI robot character.

Bumblebee would only get more badass and hilarious as the franchise went on – which is why Paramount smartly gave him the soft reboot/prequel shot of his solo film. Now Bumblebee is one of the major faces of the Transformers franchise, and the non-verbal twist on the character Bay introduced has both become synonymous with Bumblebee (even in the newer films) and is one of the kinder-coded representations in the series. It also says something that Bay made such a breakthrough with a character that avoids his usual choices in dialogue.

Megatron – RIGHT

There’s a whole separate debate to be had about the overall design aesthetic of Bay’s Transformers films, and how much it deviates from the series’ G1 roots. However, putting that debate aside: Megatron is more than a look, he’s a whole vibe, and Bay needed to get the character right. Thanks to a great vocal performance from Hugo Weaving (The Matrix Trilogy) movie fans got the Megatron they deserved.

Megatron may represent the single biggest win Michael Bay achieved in presenting a new vision of Transformers. Despite retaining the same confusingly spik and color-muted design aesthetic, Megatron was distinct enough to hold the screen, and the change to make his vehicle mode a speedy tank instead of a pistol made sense in the context of the film. Even with the changes to the Decepticon leader, the true spirit of Megatron always showed through, ensuring we had the proper counter-balance to the biggest presence on the Autobots’ side…

Optimus Prime – SO RIGHT

They kept the character design G1-accurate (for the most part). They kept him colorful. Most important of all, they went out and tapped the only person who could properly bring him to life onscreen: original Transformers cartoon voice actor, Peter Cullen.

None of Michael Bay’s Transformers movies would’ve worked if Optimus Prime had ever been done wrong. The fact that Bay was successful in once again making Optimus Prime a generational icon – on a global blockbuster scale – arguably redeems anything else he did wrong on this list – or with the Transformers franchise as a whole.

Every Transformers movie is streaming on Paramount+