Characters / Transformers Film Series – Decepticons

The primary antagonists of the saga, the Decepticons are the followers of Megatron, Cybertron's military commander, who sought to use the AllSpark as a weapon of war to conquer the galaxy. The Autobot–Decepticon war eventually devastated Cybertron, forcing the Autobots to launch the AllSpark into space. Millions of years later, the AllSpark was rediscovered on Earth, re-starting the conflict. Although the AllSpark was destroyed, the Decepticons continue their campaign to destroy the Autobots and restore Cybertron through any means necessary.

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In General:

• Adaptational Ugliness: Almost all of the Decepticons look like they came from a frigging monster movie, with their dark colors, animalistic motifs (and behavior), their spiky designs. Even the more human looking ones look scary.
• Adaptational Wimp: In most works, individual Decepticons are about on par with individual Autobots, if not stronger. Here, Decepticons are more plentiful but also a lot less durable, with many of them serving as nothing more than cannon fodder and even many normally prominent Decepticons being wiped out without any real feats to their name.
• Aliens Are Bastards: The Decepticons, particularly Megatron, don't exactly see Earth as belonging to the humans, they merely follow a Social Darwinistic rule of "The strongest shall rule and conquer all". In Dark of the Moon, they display Nazi-like behavior by intending to plunder Earth's natural resources and enslave humans into rebuilding Cybertron in a similar fashion to the Generation One cartoon two-parter "Megatron's Master Plan".
• Alien Invasion: Their general Evil Plan in the first three movies: invade and eventually conquer Earth while also obtaining the various MacGuffins they're after.
• Badass Army: Boy, are they ever! They outnumber the Autobots by a huge margin and have better weapons and equipment. Ancillary material even shows that Megatron formed the Decepticons from Cybertron's military forces, while the Autobots were mostly civilians forced to become soldiers.
• Dark Is Evil: Most Decepticons are either black or metallic gray. Those that aren't use generally darker color palettes than their Autobot counterparts. Notable exceptions are Long Haul (bright green) and Galvatron (shiny metallic silver).
• Dwindling Party: By the time of The Last Knight, many have been killed off by the Autobots, N.E.S.T., Cemetery Wind, and the TRF.
• Evil Counterpart: A running theme with most of the Decepticons in comparison to the Autobots. By the time of Dark of the Moon, when the Autobot–human alliance has become a serious opponent, the Decepticons conduct a devastating attack on Chicago, slaughtering hundreds of innocents.
• Evil Is Bigger: Most Decepticons are larger than the Autobots. This is an interesting result of the more realistic nature of these films, which make a more vested effort to defy the problems of scale pervasive throughout the Transformers franchise. Decepticons tend to disguise themselves as massively complex and bulky military vehicles, and in preserving the mass and bulk of their alternate forms, they tower over the Autobots that are based on smaller vehicles — even Optimus Prime (who takes the form of a huge truck that includes his tractor rig) is still noticeably smaller than Megatron.
• In Name Only: Though the big names are generally at least loosely recognizable, quite a few of their members take their names from older characters, and nothing else. Barricade and Blackout in particular have nothing meaningfully in common with any prior version (the G1 Barricade and Blackout were Micromasters released late in the original line, and had different vehicle modes), the names being shared for trademark reasons rather than any actual similarity. Funnily, this has led to them being backported into G1 in some continuities, displacing the originals.
• Karma Houdini: The Decepticons as a whole following the events of Dark of The Moon are shown in The Last Knight as having been arrested by the Humans. Compare this to their Autobot counterparts: who throughout both films are actively hunted by the Humans with the intent of outright killing them because of The Decepticons' own actions.
• Kill All Humans: As with other versions, they follow this strategy.
• Light Is Not Good: Some Decepticons are shown with primarily silver coloring, such as Soundwave and Galvatron.
• Mooks: Decepticon fatalities in the movies far outnumber those of the Autobots, balancing out their vastly superior numbers.
• Movie Superheroes Wear Black:
  • A villainous version. Unlike the Autobots, the Decepticons are much less colorful than their cartoon counterparts, excluding the Constructicons and characters introduced in The Last Knight and Bumblebee.
  • This is outright justified in the first film; all pre-kibble protoforms are shown to be gray, regardless of faction, and most of the film's Decepticons scanned their disguises from military vehicles, which usually are subdued in color - Starscream, for example, could never blend in with real jets if he retained his classic colors.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Transforming robots who are aliens.
• Obviously Evil: They have animalistic appearances based on insects, mammals and birds. Also, they have red eyes and speak almost exclusively in animal noises and Cybertronian language to highlight their alien nature.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Most of them have red eyes, another sign of their status as villains.
• The Remnant: Most of their command structure is wiped out in Dark of The Moon, leaving the rest rudderless and easily hunted down/rounded up. Galvatron's plan in the next one revolves around using the Seed to create a massive new Decepticon army from scratch. In The Last Knight Megatron is forced to make do with Barricade until he was able to strike a deal with the TRF to free some of his troops from Earthbound prisons.
• Shapeshifter Weapon: In the same style as the Autobots.
• Transforming Mecha: Notable in that their alt modes are generally more varied than their Autobot counterparts. Most Decepticons, due to their large size, choose to transform into military vehicles such as tanks, fighter jets, and helicopters. Those that choose to transform into civilian vehicles usually prefer larger ones such as semi trucks and construction vehicles. And then there's certain Decepticons who refuse to take Earth modes altogether, such as The Fallen.
• Zerg Rush: There are so many more Decepticons than Autobots it's not even fair. However, because there are so many unnamed ones, they are excellent cannon fodder.

Introduced in Transformers (2007)

Megatron

Megatron

"You still fight for the weak! That is why you lose!"

^{Click here to see him in The Last Knight}

Voiced by: Hugo Weaving (Transformers (2007), Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, Transformers: Dark of the Moon), Frank Welker (Transformers: The Game (Console), Revenge of the Fallen tie-in game, Transformers: The Last Knight), Fred Tatasciore (Dark of the Moon tie-in game)

"I AM... MEGATRON."

Megatron is the leader of the Decepticons. Corrupted by the power of the AllSpark and the Fallen's influence, he wages war on Cybertron. He chased after the AllSpark after it was launched into space, but he crashed into the Arctic Circle and froze. What happens next is pretty coincidental.

He transforms into a spiky alien jet, and after his revival in the second film gains a tank form as well. By the third he has adopted an Earth alternate mode: a Mack tanker truck (still spiky). By the fifth, he's back to being a different, but still spiky, alien jet.

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• Adaptational Ugliness: For lack of a better description, this version of Megatron looks like a modern art project that grew arms and legs; his body is composed of chunks and shards of spiky metal, his hands and feet are huge claws, and he has a mouth full of fangs. He gets worse in the third film, where he's adopted a rusty semi-truck as an alt mode and his head is missing a chunk from his last battle with Optimus. However, by the fourth film, he gains a new, shiny, high-tech version of his original body after being resurrected as Galvatron and then in the fifth, he receives a more human-esque, knight-inspired body after joining Quintessa.
• Adaptational Wimp: Make no mistake, Megatron is a savage, but in the second and third movie he plays second fiddle to the Fallen and later Sentinel Prime. However near the end of Dark of the Moon, Carly brings up how he's become a shadow of his former self by becoming "Sentinel's bitch", which triggers his self-destructive lust for power and leads him to take down Sentinel before he could kill Optimus. He then goes back to being a serious threat in the next two films.
• An Arm and a Leg: He loses his cannon arm to Optimus twice; first at the climax of Revenge of the Fallen, then at the climax of The Last Knight.
• Arch-Enemy: To Optimus Prime, obviously.
• Arm Cannon: It wouldn't be Megatron, otherwise. Revenge of the Fallen has it incorporated directly into his arm.
• Ax-Crazy: Especially after being freed from his icy prison, Megatron is downright gleeful to get back to killing.
• Back from the Dead: He's revived in Revenge of the Fallen and again in Age of Extinction, this time as Galvatron.
• Bad Boss: A staple of Megatron's character, and this incarnation is no exception. He has almost no care for the soldiers under his command so long as he attains his goals.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: In Dark of the Moon, he charges and defeats Sentinel to reassert himself as leader of the Decepticons, allowing Optimus to finish Sentinel off after Megatron is defeated.
• Batman Gambit: In Dark of the Moon. He knew the Autobots would find Sentinel Prime on the moon and reactivate him. Since he and Sentinel had agreed to work together, all Megatron needed was for the Prime to gain the Control Pillar for the Space Bridge from NEST, thus allowing them to carry out their long term plans.
• The Berserker: Particularly in the first film, Megatron is an absolute animal on the battlefield.
• BFG: His fusion cannon, which forms out of both his hands in the first movie, is integrated into his right arm in the second, becomes a sawed-off shotgun in the third, and becomes an Arm Cannon in the fifth.
• Big Bad: In the first film by himself and for the film series as a whole, although he's Demoted to Dragon in the second, the junior member of a Big Bad Duumvirate in the third (up until the end), part of the Big Bad Ensemble in the fourth, and in a Big Bad Duumvirate alongside Quintessa for the fifth.
• Big Badass Rig: In Dark of the Moon, tired and hurting, he finally humbles himself to adopt an Earth alternate mode so that he can hide in the African savanna. He still chooses the largest and most imposing vehicle one could find there—a heavily modified Mack tanker truck littered with spikes and chains, which would fit right in on the set of Mad Max.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: He starts out as this in the third with Sentinel, although the latter keeps usurping power from him and he is very briefly Demoted to Dragon before snapping back into action. He also serves as the partner of Quintessa in the fifth. While he agrees to follow her plan (and the only instruction she gives him onscreen is to kill Viviane), he carries it out not because he is her minion but because he is the brawn while she is the brains.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Every film after the first has him sharing the spotlight with a new villain. The Fallen in the second, Sentinel Prime in the third, Lockdown and Harold Attinger in the fourth, and Quintessa in the fifth.
• Big Bad Wannabe: In Dark of the Moon, he still hasn't recovered from the blast he took to the face from his own fusion gun and chooses to stay out of fighting in the battlefield (Chicago). Carly uses this to her (and Optimus Prime's) advantage by telling Megatron he'll be dethroned by Sentinel if he doesn't take him out.
• Body Horror: He loses roughly a quarter of his head when Optimus forces him to take a blast from his fusion cannon, and as a result spends most of Dark of the Moon sitting out of the fighting, unlike the first two movies where he reveled in combat. While his wounds have healed enough to restore his eye, Sentinel rips out another chunk of his head, and he has about half a dozen 'Scalpels' crawling around the wound and trying to repair the damage (the whole healing process might go faster if Megatron didn't kill the medical bots out of sheer boredom).
• Bond Villain Stupidity: In Dark of the Moon he had a chance to kill a badly wounded Optimus Prime relatively easily. He decided to offer a truce instead. In The Last Knight he could decapitate Prime with his own sword, but again, he had to remind Optimus that they used to be brothers. It appears that Megatron is not interested in the easy kill when it comes to Optimus.
• Break the Haughty: Megatron got broken hard twice in Revenge of the Fallen:
  • First by the humans, who Megatron dismisses as nothing more than "insects". Said "insects" proceed to rain fire on him and his Decepticon team (even killing some of the luckless ones) with tanks, machineguns, and aerial ordnance, which totally screwed him over and forced him to retreat.
  • Second was by Optimus Prime, where he attempts jumping on Optimus... only for Optimus to deliver a Curb-Stomp Battle so devastating (specifically, he is forced to eat a headshot from his own cannon that blows off half of his face, gets half his arm chopped off, then blown through a wall by the backblast from the jet engines Optimus obtained from Jetfire) it leaves him incapacitated for several months afterwards and forces him to hide out in Namibia to nurse his wounds, not to mention forcing him to adopt an altmode of a vehicle made by these "insects".
• The Bus Came Back: A variation; by the time of The Last Knight, he has shed the "Galvatron" identity and reverted back to using his original name and a body type closer to his original appearance.
• Cain and Abel: His relationship with Optimus, who is his brother.
• Came Back Wrong: In Revenge of the Fallen, he's rebuilt and brought back to life by his followers, it's in a body that had to be repaired using whatever materials that were at hand, mostly parts from a donor decepticon, resulting in an ungainly and disproportionate form with a massive, bulky Arm Cannon. As a result, he's nowhere near the Lightning Bruiser he was in the original movie.
  • Also applies in Age of Extinction, where his spark remains extinguished, and the Galvatron drone is powered solely by Megatron's mind, namely his personality and memories. This, in essence, makes Galvatron a soulless copy of Megatron, something that is lampshaded in the movie by both Optimus and himself.
• Captured Super-Entity: He was dug up and kept in a classified area for research before the events of the first movie.
• Chained by Fashion: In Dark of the Moon he has a harness of chains wrapped around his torso. Given the general state of him in the movie, the effect is less "so mighty he needs restraints" than "these are keeping him from falling to pieces".
• Character Development: At the beginning, he wanted to rule Earth and enslave the human race. In The Last Knight, he simply wants to go home.
• The Chessmaster: Shows shades of this in Dark of the Moon, setting up the events of the film centuries in advance.
• Cruel and Unusual Death:
  • The Allspark being shoved into his spark caused his chest to melt from the inside out. Considering his thrashing and the sounds he made, it certainly wasn't pleasant.
  • In Dark of the Moon, Optimus kills him again (temporarily) by throwing a giant battle axe into his chest, before jamming the axe into his gaping head wound, and finally yanking his head off with his spine coming with it, à la Sub-Zero.
• Determinator: You have to admire his dedicated pursuit of his goals. Once he's set his mind to it, anything short of decapitation is not going to stop him. And he even survives being decapitated, as Age of Extinction shows.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the Autobot Campaign of Transformers: The Game (Console), after the Final Boss, Optimus grabs Megatron's flail and pulls the Decepticon leader in and crushing the AllSpark in his other hand, punches the AllSpark straight into Megatron's spark, killing Megatron.
• Diminishing Villain Threat: In the first movie, Megatron is an unstoppable killing machine. In the second movie, Megatron is still very powerful, but obeys orders from The Fallen and is more easily taken down by the heroes. Optimus severely cripples Megatron, causing him to become much weaker for the third movie. Then the fourth movie undoes this by having him upload his brain into his much more powerful Galvatron body—and by out-maneuvering the main human villain, at that. By the fifth movie, he's back to his original menace and is once again The Dreaded.
• The Dog Bites Back: When Carly points out that Sentinel made him "his bitch", he decides to try and take back the position of top dog, and turns on Sentinel just before the latter can kill Optimus.
• The Dragon: In the second and third movies, though it is Subverted in the third film, where supplementary material reveals that serving Sentinel Prime was only one method he used in his Xanatos Gambit spanning several millennia.
• Enemy Mine: He pulls this on both sides in the third movie: He sides with Sentinel Prime to stop humanity and the Autobots, although he later ends up aiding Optimus in eliminating Sentinel Prime after the latter makes it clear that he's not in charge anymore, only for Optimus to kill both him and Sentinel Prime. In The Last Knight, he pulls one with the TRF, agreeing to help them hunt and kill Cade's Autobots in exchange for having some of his men freed from prison.
• Epic Flail: Only in his first movie incarnation. By the second film, he replaces it with a blade mounted on his arm.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • A variation; he seems to genuinely love Cybertron, and is ready to sacrifice anyone who stands on his way to return it to it's former glory. However, he doesn't like to acknowledge the fact that he ruined it in the first place, and it's likely he would just re-establish himself as it's leader and ruin it again if it were ever saved.
  • A more straightforward example can be found in The Last Knight, where Megatron carries around (and even talks to) Starscream's head after the latter's death in Dark of the Moon. For all the abuse he put him through, it seems Megatron truly did have a soft spot for his second-in-command.
    Megatron: The end is near, my old, treacherous friend. What a shame you'll be unable to see it.
• Evil Overlord: As with all other incarnations of him, he is the leader of the Decepticons.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Being voiced by Hugo Weaving in the first trilogy does help. In The Last Knight Frank Welker uses a combination of his Prime Megatron voice and the raspy voice he gave Galvatron in Age of Extinction, giving Megatron this trope over multiple voice actors.
• Evil Virtues: Determination and Resourcefulness. Megatron pursues his goal with single-minded resolve, which includes manipulating others to do his bidding. Whenever he hits a major snag, such as getting temporarily killed, it doesn't deter him in the slightest, it just makes him change tactics.
• Fantastic Racism: Against organic lifeforms.
• Fatal Flaw: Pride. In Dark of the Moon, the Decepticons get very close to victory, but the idea of someone else being the one to lead them to it really doesn't sit well with him. His following actions end up ruining everything.
• Final Boss: For the original trilogy, where he's the last opponent Optimus faces [[spoiler:after swooping in to defeat Sentinel Prime.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: His fusion cannon in The Last Knight is capable of spewing flames, though he only demonstrates this in his introductory scene in that movie. His Leader class figure from that movie comes with two flame effects, partly to evoke that scene.
• Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon: His The Last Knight Leader class figure has his fusion cannon stored within his jet mode's nosecone and it can be deployed while in that mode. The instructions even outright demonstrate that one of the flame effects included with the figure can be plugged into the cannon while the figure is in jet mode, thus showing that the figure's designers intended to evoke this trope.
• Foil: Is unsurprisingly this to Optimus in all of the films he has appeared in.
  • In the first film, both are the leaders of opposing factions of the Transformers race who fight for possession of the AllSpark so they could save Cybertron. However, while Optimus is benevolent and cares about the humans as much as his own race, Megatron is malevolent and wants to end all life on Earth. Also, Optimus is accepting enough of Earth to take on an Earth-based alternate mode, while Megatron retains his Cybertronian alternate mode, likely out of repulsion for Earth-based vehicles. In addition, Optimus has been leading the Autobots throughout the events of the film, while the Decepticons initially appear under the temporary leadership of Starscream as opposed to Megatron (naturally because Megatron spends most of the film frozen).
  • In Revenge of the Fallen, both were killed by having their sparks utterly extinguished but later brought back to life after having their spark chambers stabbed with a MacGuffin (an AllSpark shard for Megatron, the Matrix of Leadership for Optimus) and their bodies reformatted with the parts of another Cybertronian, with the extra benefit of new weapons and abilities. However, Optimus retains his full body, albeit wounded, and his new parts were a Super Mode given by a consensual Jetfire and later removed, whilst Megatron had missing body parts with his new parts being a permanent replacement and taken from the body of a not-so-willing Decepticon who was pretty much murdered by his colleagues.
  • In Dark of the Moon, both now transform into trucks, are genuinely concerned about the future of their race, and are working towards making their respective visions of that future a reality. However, while Optimus envisions a future of peaceful coexistence between the Transformers and the humans, Megatron believes in using the humans as slave labor for the sole purpose of rebuilding the damaged Cybertron. Also, much like the first film, Optimus is active in his leadership of the Autobots, while Megatron has become passive due to the injuries he suffered in Revenge of the Fallen, leaving most of the villainy to Sentinel Prime. However, the latter is eventually subverted when Carly calls Megatron out on said passiveness, thus inciting him to turn against Sentinel and reassert his position as Decepticon leader.
  • In The Last Knight, both have taken Cybertronian Knight-esque forms, have red scars going down their faces, and have gained a BFS for a melee weapon. However, while Optimus spends most of his time in outer space in the fifth movie, Megatron spends his on Earth (ironically, Optimus still turns into a truck while Megatron has regained his jet mode, though it may not be capable of interstellar transport like his first incarnation). Also, while Optimus is egged and brainwashed into servitude, Megatron isn't and has absolutely no problem destroying the Earth, for surprisingly good reasons. In addition, Optimus' red scar is on the left side of his face, while Megatron's is on the right.
• Genius Bruiser: Implied by his official bio, but Dark of the Moon and supplemental material reveal his somewhat elaborate scheming tendencies.
• Glasgow Grin: His head design in the first three movies has a set of metal plates that resemble an unnaturally wide smile. This is most apparent in the close up of his head after Optimus rips it from his body.
• The Heavy: Makes all decisions for the Decepticons, and plays a key part in the conflict of each film.
• Heel–Face Turn: In the novel of Dark of the Moon—see Spared by the Adaptation below.
• Hell Is That Noise: He has a tendency to growl like a beast, even when mourning the death of Starscream, and makes extremely unsettling sounds when he's severely injured and/or dying.
• Hero Killer: He kills Jazz in the first film, and killed Optimus and Sam in Revenge of the Fallen (temporarily). In The Last Knight, he kills Sir Edmund Burton.
• Hidden Depths:
  • As much as he hates humans, he seems to have taken an interest in human history, and appreciates the irony of him being frozen by the Americans while Shockwave was frozen by the Soviets during the Cold War (if the video game prequel to Dark of the Moon is any indication).
  • In The Last Knight, Megatron finds Starscream's head...and actually mourns for him. Sure, Megatron always abused him, as is the norm, but we see here he actually cared for Starscream.
    • Also, he seems to have grown tired of fighting Optimus, stating that they were "brothers once".
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: By the third film, this describes him pretty well, as he's still heavily damaged from Operation: Firestorm, and Sentinel has more or less taken command of the Decepticons from him.
• Human Popsicle: Cybertronian popsicle, in the first movie.
• Humble Goal: By the final film, Megatron has let go of his grandiose ambitions of enslaving humanity. He simply wants to go home, and will do anything to achieve it.
• Iconic Sequel Outfit: Played with, in that it's his actual body rather than an outfit. Megatron has a new alternate mode in each film he appears in: in Transformers (2007), he transforms into a Cybertronian jet with massive cannons on either side of the nose cone; a winged tank in the second movie; a beat up tanker truck in the third; and a more traditional yet still alien jet in the fifth. Hasbro itself seems to enjoy using the tank-based body design from Revenge of the Fallen, while fans have latched onto his design in The Last Knight for its more humanoid appearance, G1-aesthetics, and general badassery (being voiced by original Megatron's actor Frank Welker instead of Hugo Weaving certainly helps).
• I'm a Humanitarian: Ancillary material describes him as cannibalistic and eating the Sparks of his victims, but it was cut from the movies.
• In the Hood: In Dark of the Moon, a canvas cover over his tanker trailer becomes a hood to hide his gaping head wound.
• Joker Immunity: Oh, did you really think he'd stay down? He returns as Galvatron in the fourth film after his apparent permanent death in Dark of the Moon.
• The Juggernaut: Virtually unstoppable unless you're a proficiently large amount of human troops or Optimus Prime himself.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Despite Starscream's comment in Revenge of the Fallen about cowards surviving, it's more accurate to describe Megatron with this trope, instead. At the end of that movie, the Fallen had been killed, the solar harvester had been destroyed, most Decepticons had either been killed or captured and Megatron himself was grievously wounded and would have likely continued a battle he had no chance at winning had Starscream not stopped him. Say what you will about Megatron, but the guy knows when the risk is higher than the reward.
• Large and in Charge: With the exception of special 'Cons like Devastator and the Driller, he's unfailingly the tallest and bulkiest Decepticon in each movie. Especially noticeable in the first and fifth movies.
• Large Ham/Evil Is Hammy: Even though he later claimed to have no investment in the role, Hugo Weaving was considerably hammy as Megatron, especially in the first film. When Frank Welker takes over, he's even hammier.
• Lightning Bruiser: His original, and The Last Knight incarnations count as this. Due to being an Evil Cripple in the third movie, his DOTM incarnation has this downplayed significantly, while his ROTF incarnation was literally a walking tank.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: If by "mid-season" you mean technically every movie. He's beefed up to the point where it affects his speed at times, and given a one-handed Arm Cannon with a Blade Below the Shoulder as well as a new flying tank mode in Revenge of the Fallen. By the end of that film, Megatron's so beat up that he requires his cannon arm to be rebuilt, and finally scans an Earth alternate mode, reformatting his fusion cannon into a Hand Cannon for Dark of the Moon, though this variation of him seems more like he's a Dark Lord on Life Support due to the mini "doctor" drones swarming his scarred head. Because this body is so ramshackle, it's easly torn apart by Optimus; however, for Age of Extinction, Megatron transfers his consciousness into the Galvatron body after his seeming demise in the previous film, but doesn't do too much with it. Finally, Megatron gains a permanent body upgrade in The Last Knight thanks to his alliance with Quintessa.
• Monster in the Ice: He's discovered by Archibald Witwicky in the Antarctic ice, where he'd been frozen for thousands of years. He was removed from the ice cave and transported to Hoover Dam, where Sector 7 has been keeping him frozen up to the present day, until Frenzy thaws him out.
• Oddly Shaped Sword: His weapon in TLK, resembling the obscure Ikakalaka.
• Off with His Head!: Is beheaded by Optimus at the end of Dark of the Moon. The head survived.
• Only Mostly Dead: Until Revenge of the Fallen, and again in Dark of the Moon.
• Parental Issues: In the IDW comics, where all the anger in him is over the fact that Optimus, not Megatron, is Sentinel's favorite.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Megatron's reaction in Dark of the Moon at seeing Cybertron again and thinking it's saved. It really shows how he does care for something other than himself. It's brought up again in The Last Knight, where he is furious at Optimus for not taking a role in saving Cybertron, and swears to devastate Earth in response.
  • In Dark of the Moon, Megatron is confronted by an angry Carly, who points out that while Cybertron may be saved, Sentinel will be taking all of the credit as he already overturned Megatron as the new leader of the Decepticons, and that Megatron will be written off as "Sentinel's bitch" if he doesn't do anything about it. Initially, Megatron intends to kill Carly for this, but upon realizing that she has a good point, he spares her and proceeds to confront and attack Sentinel.
  • When the Decepticons are invading Cade Yeager's junkyard in The Last Knight, Megatron comes across the head of Starscream. He muses almost fondly that it's a shame his former lieutenant won't be around to see what's coming.
• Pragmatic Villainy: In The Last Knight, even Megatron knows that Berserker is a nasty piece of work and would cause more trouble than he's worth, and politely agrees to pass on him in favor of Onslaught.
  • As well, in Dark of the Moon when he's told he'll be reduced to nothing but Sentinel's bitch, Megatron fiercely advances toward her... then realizes she does have a point and decides to direct his anger right to Sentinel Prime himself.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: When he kills Jazz in the first movie, he inflicts this one.
  Jazz:You want a piece of me, huh? YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?! (gets grabbed by Megatron)
  Megatron: No. I want two! (rips him in half at the waist)
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Has red eyes in each of his forms. In Revenge of the Fallen, these become visible when viewing his tank mode from the front as well.
• Resurrect the Villain: Twice over. He's resurrected in the second film after his death in the first, and he's brought back again in the fourth film on accident by KSI.
• Retired Badass: Due to his injuries from the second film, he becomes an evil variant in Dark of the Moon. Instead of fighting, he spends most of his time commanding his Mooks and peacefully watching Cybertron about to be restored. It takes Carly, of all people, to rouse him back into action, and he plays a significant part in defeating Sentinel—only for ''both'' villains to be ripped to shreds by Optimus. He comes back into the fray in the next two movies.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: In Transformers (2007), he is kept on ice inside the Hoover Dam, and is pretty angry upon thawing out.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: He uses a handheld fusion cannon that heavily resembles a shotgun in Dark of the Moon.
• Skeleton Motif: Megatron's design in the first three films resembles a demonic skeleton. His chest has armor plates in the first movie that look similar to a rib cage, his face is skull-like with permanently bared teeth and no nose, and has hands lack palms, evoking the look of a human skeleton's palmless hands exposing the metacarpals.
• Slasher Smile: Several times in The Last Knight, most prominently when he steals Quintessa's staff from Optimus.
• Slouch of Villainy:
  • Likes doing it so much that the only reason he blasts apart Abe's statue in the Lincoln Memorial is because the chair is the right size for him.
  • Also does it in his introductory scene for The Last Knight...only to immediately get fired up when Barricade delivers bad news.
• Spanner in the Works: Ironically, Megatron himself becomes the final nail for the Decepticons' total defeat in Dark of the Moon as he can't stand the idea of someone else leading Cybertron, and ambushes Sentinel as he's poised to finish off Optimus.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The novel of Dark of the Moon has him actually teaming up with Optimus against Sentinel ("Three shall stand, one shall fall!") and then suing for peace, sincerely admitting he's tired of all the fighting. Optimus lets him go, and Megatron then heads back for Cybertron, aiming to corral the Decepticons still there into helping rebuild their homeworld, with the intention of calling the Autobots back when they're done to live in peace again. Then again, Age of Extinction did show he did survive, after all...
• They Killed Kenny Again: Megatron has been killed twice, but he keeps coming back over and over, so that he can terrorize Optimus and the Autobots again.
• Took a Level in Badass: Becomes a bigger threat once again in Age of Extinction after he uploads his mind to his Galvatron body. See Galvatron's section below for details.
• Uncanny Valley: Invoked in The Last Knight. He looks much more human than in the first three movies, but his cheeks tend to open up along with his mouth^note Not unlike Mileena in Mortal Kombat X. As a result, he occasionally puts on a grotesque Slasher Smile.
• Villainous Rescue: He comes to the rescue of Optimus Prime when he realized by the end of the invasion he will be nothing more than "Sentinel's bitch". Though Optimus kills him anyway—temporarily.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Starscream. While Starscream's usual habits had to be pushed to ancillary materials to fit the format of a movie series, Screamer tends to cower and grovel before Megatron, who in turn beats, insults, or beats and insults the seeker in nearly every scene they share. But he and Starscream have a bit of a Those Two Guys dynamic in Revenge of the Fallen to the point where Megatron immediately called for Starscream's help after getting a chunk of his head blown off, and when Megatron finds Starscream's severed head in a junkyard, he mourns him, musing on his second-in-command's fate, and goes as far as to wipe dust off of Starscream's chin.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Shows more shades of this as the film series continues, considering that he apparently desires the survival and future of the Transformer race in the second movie, and by the time of the third is in on wanting to restore Cybertron. The latter reason is why he teams up with Quintessa in the fifth film as well.
• We Used to Be Friends: He and Optimus used to be brothers in-arm, a long time ago. Megatron somberly brings this up while they battle at the climax of The Last Knight.
  Megatron: We were brothers once!
  Optimus: Once.
• Wound That Will Not Heal: Subverted. The facial injuries he sustains in Revenge of the Fallen and are still present in Dark of the Moon can be healed. It's just that he casually kills the repair-bots like fleas whenever he gets bored or angry.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: After realizing that he'll be no more than Sentinel Prime's lackey if the latter wins, Megatron betrays him and saves Optimus from being killed, intending to form a truce with him and gain back his leadership of the Decepticons. Optimus. He tries forming a truce with Optimus, the same Optimus, whom Megatron brutally killed (temporarily) in the last movie, had several of his friends murdered over the course of the war by Megatron, indirectly or directly, and who hates Megatron and the Decepticon cause so much he ripped off the face of the Fallen before ripping out his spark and had beaten the everlovin' crap out of Megatron after getting resurrected. It's no surprise that Optimus decides to end this shit by ripping out Megatron's head with an axe.
• Worf Had the Flu: Whenever he fights, he is put on a severe disadvantage, if only to give the heroes a chance for a fair fight.
  • In the Revenge of the Fallen, Optimus Prime had the upper hand on him during most of the forest battle, which is chalked up to Megatron not being used to his jury-rigged and ungainly new body and weapons, and Optimus had been training since the events of the first movie, whereas Megatron was rotting at the bottom of the ocean dead for 2 years.
  • In the Dark of the Moon, the injuries he suffered from Optimus Prime during the battle in Egypt had severely weakened him by that point, and the only reason he was able to throw Sentinel around like that was because he ambushed him. And the second he engaged Optimus in a fair fight, he got destroyed.
  • In Age of Extinction, Galvatron was holding his own against Optimus before Lockdown interrupted their fight, and they never even saw each other again for the rest of the film.
  • And finally in The Last Knight, Megatron had all the Autobots attacking him at once, and even then he managed to nearly kill Hound and Bumblebee before Hot Rod saved Hound and Optimus saved Bumblebee. He also managed to briefly pin Optimus down before Optimus caught him monologuing and kicked him out of Quintessa's ship.
• Xanatos Gambit: One spanning several millennia.
  • Option A: Follow The Fallen's plan to use the Harvester to produce Energon, or power the AllSpark.
  • Option B: Work with Sentinel and bring Earth's resources to repair Cybertron.
  • Option C: Take the AllSpark for himself.
  • All three options end up coinciding and crossing over; he originally chose Option B until Sentinel was apparently killed. He decided to follow Option A, until the AllSpark was launched from Cybertron. The Fallen instructed him to retrieve it, and he followed it to Earth, where the AllSpark had been drawn to thanks to the Harvester. When the AllSpark is destroyed, he falls back on The Fallen's plan, but when Prime receives the Matrix, Megatron returns to Option B, which thanks to Soundwave has been brewing for decades already.

Galvatron

"That is why I have no fear!"

Voiced by: Frank Welker

"I AM GALVATRON!"

A man-made Transformer meant to be their remote-controlled drone replacement for Optimus Prime, he somehow ended up looking more like Prime's old nemesis Megatron. It turns out that this is because he is Megatron, having uploaded his consciousness into a man-made body. Like Optimus, he transforms into a cab-over semi truck.

---

• Adaptational Backstory Change: Characters who were an upgraded form of Megatron renamed to Galvatron have no consistent backstory, ranging from being reformatted by the evil god Unicron when at death's door, draining the energy of his subordinates to power himself up, or Megatron renaming himself whenever he gets a power boost with an accompanying color change. This Galvatron is unique in that he was built by humans, but is still a reborn Megatron and was not meant to be a new body for him.
• Back from the Dead: Sort of. He isn't a new character, but rather Megatron in a new body.
• Big Badass Rig: About the only aspect of Optimus that KSI successfully copied for Galvatron is his alt mode, a sleek gray cab-over semi that contrasts nicely with the boxy, rusted-out cab-over that Optimus starts the movie disguised as. And it's very likely that only happened because Megatron let it happen.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With Lockdown and Attinger in Age of Extinction. While he and his drone army are definitely dangerous, they're not the only problem to the Autobots as Lockdown and Attinger are also threats, and he only takes part in direct combat once.
• Brain Uploading: He contains Megatron's consciousness.
• Came Back Strong: Following his resurrection, he is capable of standing toe-to-toe with Optimus, compared to the third movie where as Megatron, he was effortlessly curbstomped by Optimus.
• Composite Character: He's a mixture of the Transformers archetypes of Galvatron (Megatron reincarnated) and Nemesis Prime (an Evil Counterpart for Optimus, human-built like the Prime version).
• Evil Counterpart: He was supposed to be a Vehicon version of Optimus Prime, but the programmers were unable to make anything besides his alt mode resemble Optimus. With good reason considering Megatron was pulling the strings.
• For the Evulz: Much like Megatron, when released on a highway, he attacks and kills a number of humans because he can, before engaging Optimus.
• It's Personal: His actions during the freeway brawl suggest this when it comes to humans and Optimus, having convenient "malfunctions" to kill scores of humans for no reason and speaking to taunt his Arch-Enemy with the knowledge of his resurrection.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Galvatron immediately retreats when the Dinobots arrive and soundly thrash his army.
• Large Ham: Very much so, in stark contrast to Lockdown's Cold Ham.
• Mythology Gag: Frank Welker voiced both Megatron and Galvatron in the G1 series, as well as the former in Transformers: Prime. Consequently, Welker voices him with a raspy version of the deeper voice he employed for Megatron in Prime, with very good reason.
• No-Sell: Grabs Optimus's sword and drives it through the hole in his chest, causing absolutely no damage to himself. Though given what he's constructed with, and who he is, it's sort of justified. In a "blink and you'll miss it" moment, he actually grinds Optimus's sword to pieces like a piece of log being shredded!
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Galvatron is meant to be a remote-controlled drone, and Joyce is allegedly remotely controlling him during his battle with Optimus. Turns out Galvy is faking it, and both Optimus and the humans are tipped off by his convenient human-killing malfunctions and ability to speak by the end of the battle.
• Obviously Evil: Lampshaded by Joshua, who complains that him looking so evil means people will have difficulty believing that he's supposed to be a good guy. Turns out to be a bigger issue than he realized since Megaton had uploaded his mind into it.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: He possesses a pale color scheme, the ability to No-Sell attacks, and a transformation sequence that's more or less the giant robot equivalent of going incorporeal, and isn't technically alive by Cybertronian standards, making him pretty much their version of this. Being a resurrected Megatron helps as well.
• Resurrect the Villain: In using Megatron's parts to make a robot, KSI inadvertently resurrected him.
• Rule of Symbolism: Joshua complains about the large hole in Galvatron's chest that they didn't program in, which some scientists consider badass. If you look at the No-Sell and The Soulless entries, the hole is a clear visual metaphor.
• Shapeshifting: A side-effect of Transformium-based transformation, his shifting is more akin to the T-1000 then the more schematized Autobots.
• The Soulless: In-universe, since he lacks a spark. He's not bothered by it, as his first spoken lines prove.
  Optimus Prime: You have no soul!
  Galvatron: That is why I have no fear!
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Meant to be this to Optimus in-universe, but ends up looking more like a cross between him and Megatron. This is undoubtedly due to the influence of Megatron himself.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the third movie, Megatron was out-maneuvered by the actual Big Bad, hardly got to fight, and got killed by Prime in a Curb-Stomp Battle. Now he's back, stronger than ever, and engineered his resurrection by out-maneuvering the apparent human Big Bad.
• Tron Lines: Mostly on his chest, highlighting the big hole in the middle of it.
• Villain Override: Once he breaks free in KSI's factory in China, he hacks into their servers and reprograms all of the KSI drones, Stinger included, to do his bidding.
• Walking Spoiler: Knowing too much about him reveals that he is Megatron resurrected as the new Decepticon overlord, though this isn't really a surprise for people familiar with Galvatron unless you expected Michael Bay to throw a curveball. The bio on the back of the box for his Voyager class figure does not even mention anything about him, but rather how the Autobots face new adversaries after the Battle of Chicago, ostensibly to avoid spoilers about him being a resurrected Megatron.
• We Will Meet Again: He says this nearly word for word in his last appearance in the film.
  Galvatron: We shall meet again, Prime, for I am reborn.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: An odd variant in that he does reappear in the next film - but as Megatron once more. Not only that, but he's lost the Galvatron body/KSI-cloud transformation ability in favour of a more humanesque Knight body/normal transformation sequence. How all this came about is never explained.
• You Can Talk?: Despite being a drone, it or rather, he, responds to a comment from Prime about being soulless during their fight, tipping Optimus off to his true identity and causing Joyce to start to realize something is seriously wrong with his "drones"—they weren't designed to speak at all, let alone on their own.

Starscream

"Oh, my poor master! How it pains me to see you so wounded, so weak..."

Voiced by: Charlie Adler (films, Revenge of the Fallen tie-in game), Daniel Ross (Transformers: The Game (Console)), Steve Blum (Dark of the Moon tie-in game)
Hologram pilot played by: Brian Reece

"Not to call you a coward, master, but sometimes, cowards do survive."

Megatron's second-in-command. Starscream led the Decepticons in his master's absence and didn't fare too badly at the job, maintaining the Decepticons' advantage over the Autobots for several eons. However, circumstances force Starscream to lead a team to Earth in search of the Allspark and the missing Megatron. Now Starscream looks for any opportunity to covertly undermine his master and one day take command of the Decepticons again for himself. He transforms into an F-22 Raptor, which is considered the most powerful fighter jet in the U.S. Air Force.

---

• Ace Pilot: It helps when your own body is the plane; over the course of three movies, Starscream is never bested in the skies.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Somewhat. He is definitely a capable fighter throughout all three films, but he's much more toadying and sycophantic. Although the caption's been removed by now, TFWiki.net once said about Starscream: "Ironhide's reaction to seeing Starscream is the first time in 25 years for it to be fully deserved".
  • In the Decepticon campaign of the Nintendo DS game however, definitely. Most depictions of the character present his attempts to overthrow Megatron as a nuisance that do little beyond provide unintentional aid to the Autobots. Here, he is the game's main antagonist who actually kills two of the main playable characters, with Optimus Prime being treated as a nuisance while Starscream is the main threat. In terms of in game stats, he is almost Megatron's equal.
• Adaptational Curves: To keep him about the same height as the rest of the Cybertronians — due to transforming into a jet fighter that's about the length of four standard cars — Starscream is more wide and portly here than in most incarnations, which depict him with a sleeker or thinner body.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Unlike most versions, he isn't actively trying to usurp Megatron. It's actually implied he was in charge during Megatron's absence, so it's likely that he grew tired of it.
  Megatron: You left me to die on that pathetic insect planet!
  Starscream: (hurriedly trying to justify himself) Only to help spawn our new army! The Fallen decrees it. After all, in your absence, someone had to take command.
• Adaptational Sympathy: He's a straightforward villain in the films themselves, but the comics continuity portray him as a Well-Intentioned Extremist fed up with the war, disillusioned with both Optimus and Megatron for continuing it, and whose treachery is born of just wanting it to finally end.
• Adaptational Villainy: The Starscream in the Decepticon campaign of the 2007 DS game is among the most monstrous incarnations of the character to be depicted. He takes the treachery up to eleven, slaughters Decepticons who turn on him without a thought, and is in general incredibly creepy and sadistic.
• Adaptational Wimp: Although he has numerous points in his favor for the other direction, this incarnation of Starscream still qualifies in how he lacks the indestructible mutant spark that the G1 — and by extension, Beast Wars — version he was based on had. It's evident in how Starscream's death in DoTM not only stuck, but is further alluded to in The Last Knight; making clear he won't be coming back.
• An Arm and a Leg: In Revenge of the Fallen, Optimus cleaves off his right arm and clubs him with it in the forest fight. Later, after Optimus is — temporarily — killed in the aforementioned battle, Starscream is shown trying to reattach it during the argument with Megatron on top of a skyscraper.
• Animal Motifs: His robot mode has some predatory avian features, including talon-like feet, backward-kneed legs, and what looks like the tip of a beak in his mouth. Much like Shockwave and Nitro Zeus later on, the shape of his head also bears a resemblance to a praying mantis.
• Arm Cannon: In most Bayverse media, Starscream has the M61A2 Vulcan Gatling Cannon from his alt-mode in one arm, which serves as his Primary Weapon in the Revenge Of The Fallen game, and can launch missiles from both arms. He also has a more traditional cannon◊ in the Titan comic adaptations.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The Cybertronian glyphs on Starscream's alt-mode he gained later sure look cool, but they end up completely negating his previous advantage of being able to sneak up on opponents by pretending to be an Air Force jet until right when he struck. It becomes a plot point in the climax of Revenge Of The Fallen, when Ebbs uses them to determine that Starscream isn't a friendly.
• Beat Still, My Heart: Starscream kills the traitorous Dreadwing this way in the Reign Of Starscream tie-in comic. After the latter lands on Mars after both Trypticon^note In this universe, the capital city of Cybertron and the Space Bridge between the red planet and Cybertron are destroyed, Dreadwing marvels at surviving the incident and begins to gloat... only for Starscream to sneak up on him and impale him through the back with his claws,◊ crushing Dreadwing's Spark Core and dropping a familiar line as he does so.
  Dreadwing: (laughs triumphantly as he realizes he's okay) I did it! Talk about cutting it close! Wait... where in the name of the AllSpark am I? Who cares? I'm alive! I still func—
  Starscream: (impales Dreadwing and rips out his Spark Core) Wanna bet?
• Butt-Monkey: Despite being Megatron's second-in-command, a crucial player on the battlefield and one of the most sadistic members of the Decepticon inner circle, his master uses him as a punching bag and a scapegoat. It ultimately culminates with Starscream getting an embarrassing, drawn-out death in the third movie... at the hands of Sam Witwicky, of all people.
• Call-Back:
  • In Transformers: The Last Knight, there's a point in the scene where the Decepticons attack the junkyard in which Megatron comes across Starscream's severed head — which had been recovered and put back together in Buffalo since his death in Dark of the Moon — which he looks at, holds mournfully and briefly talks to just as he prepares to fight Hound:
  Megatron: The end is near, my old treacherous friend. What a shame you'll be unable to see it.
  • An earlier one occurs in the Revenge Of The Fallen video game. Starscream's Special Ability there is the Null Reactor — which temporarily increases the damage his weapons deal and gives them the ability to slow opponents with each shot — referencing the similarly-functioning Null-Rays that his G1 self had. He even gets a G1-inspired paintjob as an unlockable Palette Swap, albeit altered to better accommodate his different jet form^note The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, as opposed to the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle in the live-action series.
• Chainsaw Good: One of Starscream's alternate weapons that he gains in Revenge of the Fallen is a large circular saw blade that flips out of his forearm. Notably, he uses it to cut apart several US Army helicarriers in mid-air ("LOCUSTS!"), and then later on to terrorize Sam and Carly as he's chasing them.
• Combat Pragmatist: In the first movie, instead of fighting on the ground like his fellow 'Cons, he takes advantage of the fact he can fly while his enemies can't, and simply ambushes them from the air. This comes to a head when he intercepts Ratchet and Ironhide while they're escorting Sam to the rendezvous. He screams by in jet mode, slams into the ground and skids towards them mid-transformation, fires point-blank at the two Autobots with his Vulcan cannon and a missile or two for good measure, before doing a flip, transforming into jet mode, and rocketing back into the sky.
• Cool Plane: His alt mode is a Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, a fast and incredibly advanced stealth fighter which some would call the cool plane of the modern age.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: One long and violent Humiliation Conga. One optic stabbed through with a grappling hook, the other gouged out with a knife blade, and all he can do is flail blindly and unsuccessfully try to fly off while N.E.S.T troops attack him and Sam swings around on the cable in his eye socket. And it's entirely possible that he overheard Sam tell Lennox that the aforementioned knife was a bomb.
  Starscream: I'm gonna kill y— (the bomb detonates and explodes his head)
• Dead Guy on Display: Partially, anyway; in The Last Knight, Starscream's previously-exploded head is shown to have been scavenged and welded back together by humans in Buffalo. It was eventually found by Daytrader and kept as a display piece in his junkyard.
• Death by Adaptation: Offed by Jazz in Transformers: The Game.
• Dirty Coward: As is typical of the various incarnations of Starscream, but downplayed on the basis of him acknowledging it as pragmatism. In the climax of Revenge of the Fallen, Starscream indubitably dodges away to one side upon seeing a powered-up Optimus coming after him and his superiors; allowing the Autobot leader to tear off the Fallen's face and kick Megatron's ass just so that he doesn't get hurt himself, and then only intervenes to help the latter escape when the former is already dead.
  Starscream: Not to call you a coward, master, but... sometimes, cowards do survive.
• Disney Villain Death: Although it isn't what directly kills him, Starscream blindly stumbles off the top of a tall building after having his head blown up by Sam using one of Que/Wheeljack's bombs in Dark of the Moon, hitting the ground in many pieces while Bumblebee saves Sam and Lennox — who got dragged up there with them — by catching the two out of mid-air with a Diving Save. He clearly was already dead at that point, as Sam points out, but the fall definitely confirms it.
  Sam: (visibly taken aback) ...well, he's dead.
• The Dragon: To Megatron.
• Dragon Ascendant: Between the first film and Revenge Of The Fallen, Starscream temporarily took command of the Decepticons, eventually relinquishing his position when Megatron was resurrected. There is also a five-issue IDW comic story — The Reign Of Starscream — that details what happened during that time.
• The Dreaded: In the first movie, Ironhide screams out his name when detecting him.
  Ironhide: It's Starscream!
• Evil Sounds Deep:
  • In the first film and the Revenge of the Fallen games, where Charlie Adler's voice is heavily synthesized and modulated, or whenever Starscream is voiced by Steve Blum. For the other films and games, Adler's voice is unmodified and is more high-pitched and screechy.
  • The ROTF games in fact combine the two versions, and the end result is someone who, underneath the deep, creepy and authorative voice filter, sounds genuinely insane and volatile. This is particularly interesting in that Frank Welker reprises his role as Megatron in the games, meaning that Starscream's voice is actually deeper than Megatron's in the ROTF games. Even more interestingly, his G1 Counterpart is also in the game and uses the same voice lines without the filter, revealing that he's still using the same screechy tone as there beneath it.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: In the films and most adaptations, his voice is screechy and raspy.
• Eye Scream: Gets both his optics gouged out by Sam; first he gets a grappling hook fired in one and then a Boomstick gouged into the other, which then detonates and explodes his head.
• Informed Attribute: Earns the designation "My old treacherous friend" by Megatron upon discovering his severed head in The Last Knight. Despite this comment, Starscream's typical behavior hadn't actually been displayed in the film series all that much.
• Jerkass: As is typical for most incarnations of the character, Starscream is incredibly arrogant and greatly looks down upon the human race, comparing them to insects and taking his sweet old time making them suffer when he's got — or at least, when he thinks he's got — the upper hand.
• Jet Pack: A variation. Besides being able to fly in his F-22 Mode as you'd expect, Starscream can also use the jet's boosters in his Robot Mode to hover and fly shorter distances, take off from on the spot, or to transform and attack in mid-air. All of those give him a major advantage in aerial dogfights.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: "I'm gonna kill y—" (BOOM!).
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Starscream's lack of involvement in Revenge of the Fallen's final battle has a real sense of this to it. Upon seeing Optimus Prime — powered up greatly through merging with Jetfire — Starscream immediately gets the hell out of dodge, looking on from the sidelines as the Autobot leader tears The Fallen to pieces and beats the tar out of Megatron. He only intervenes to help the latter escape after Megatron had already taken serious damage.
• Nervous Wreck: A villainous version of the trope, he always seems to be at the verge of having a nervous breakdown whenever Megatron is around. But then again, he does work for Megatron.
• Noble Demon: According to the tie-in comics, the only reason he remains with the Decepticons despite having no respect for Megatron is because he nonetheless feels it is his duty to protect the Decepticons from other Starscreams who actually won't lead them effectively.
• Macross Missile Massacre: In Vehicle Mode, Starscream's favorite tactic is to stay far back — or sometimes, swoop in close — and bomb his enemies from the air with volleys of homing missiles. They're also his Secondary Weapon for both his Bayverse and G1 incarnations in the Revenge Of The Fallen video game.
• More Dakka: As you'd expect from a Decepticon based on a high-tech jet fighter armed with one, Starscream frequently uses the M61A2 Vulcan Cannon from his Vehicle Mode in combat. It's the Primary Weapon of his Bayverse self in the Revenge Of The Fallen game, but his G1 incarnation swaps it out for twin Null-Rays.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: His vastly different design from practically every other version of Starscream is the result of this; as mentioned elsewhere, the plane has to go somewhere in robot mode without making him the size of a combiner (hence his wide shape), and his usual red, white and blue color scheme doesn't exactly blend in with the grey planes of the U.S military.
• Pitiful Worms: Starscream likes to refer to humans as various forms of insect as opposed to sapient beings. For example, he calls the US helicarrier crews "locusts" as he cuts apart their aircraft in mid-air, and taunts Sam that he "loves it when [his] little insect feet try to run" while chasing him with his sawblade.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: As with every other Decepticon.
• The Scapegoat: Whenever something goes wrong, Megatron's reaction is to blame Starscream.
  Megatron: You fail me yet again, Starscream!
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Defied. The problem when designing him was that planes are large. His odd appearance — the bird-like legs, wideness, etc. — is because the plane had to go somewhere when he transformed, and using a more humanoid design would have resulted in him dwarfing every other character of the film. Therefore most of his mass was shifted to his torso, and his leg design means he looks a lot shorter than he actually is.
• Smug Snake: As always, he's very arrogant and condescending towards those he looks down upon. It's especially evident when he goes after Sam or any other humans;
  Starscream: What a treat! You and me, alone! (...) YOU CAN'T HIDE, BOY! Oh, I love it when your little insect feet try to run!
• The Starscream: Very, very downplayed. He's less proactive than other incarnations, although he was happy to flee and leave Megatron to die in Mission City. Though Megatron accuses Starscream of actually attacking him ^note As a Shout-Out to the popular fan theory that Starscream was one of the jets that shot him, Starscream at least claims he didn't and doesn't try anything so direct at any other point in the series. This comes back to bite him hard when Megatron makes his return. Then again, the mere fact that he could lead the Decepticons quite effectively in the tens of thousands of years of Megatron's absence would probably have Starscream being justified in feeling that he's the better leader compared to Megatron. However there are some hints to Starscream being just as treacherous as his cartoon and comic book counterparts in the live-action films:
  • A popular theory among Starscream fans is that in the 2007 movie's climax, Starscream blended in with the other F-22s who fired missiles at Megatron.
  • You can also tell that Starscream did absolutely nothing to stop Optimus from completely pummelling Megatron and The Fallen in the final battle of Revenge of the Fallen. But on the other hand, after Megatron suffers a bad enough injury that he's still recovering in the next film, Starscream suggests him to retreat, instead of finishing Megatron off or letting Optimus do it for him.
  • In Dark of the Moon, Starscream mocks Megatron for his burnt and rotted face — thanks to the latter being shot by his own Fusion Cannon in the climax of ROTF — when they're hiding out with the other Decepticons in the African Savannah.
  Starscream: (in a faux-sympathetic tone) Oh, my poor master! How it pains me to see you so wounded, so weak...
  Megatron: Spare me, you gaseous sycophant. You know what you are told, which is nothing!
• Stepping Stones in the Sky:
  • A memorable sequence in the first film has Starscream single-handedly destroy a squadron of US Air Force F-22s in this way. He joins their formation in his Vehicle Mode and flies among them, only to then transform into his Robot Mode, kick one jet out of the air while shooting down another with Vulcan Cannon fire, leaping onto another to crash it into a building, and then making his escape by turning back into his Vehicle Mode and slowing down to disguise himself among them.
  • In a Call-Back to the above, Starscream attacks a group of Helicarriers in a similar way in Dark Of The Moon, diving down at them in his robot mode from a nearby tall building, then clinging onto and cutting them apart in mid-air with his sawblade arm.
  Starscream: (revving up his blade as he leaps onto the first Helicarrier) LOCUSTS!
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Killed by Sam, of all characters.
• Tattooed Crook: At some point before ROTF, Starscream had his Alt-Mode parts covered in Cybertronian Glyphs, which negates his previous advantage of looking like a Air Force jet to sneak up on enemies. Crucially, it allows Epps to notice straight away he wasn't a friendly in the climax of the film.
• Top-Heavy Guy: He's almost triangle-shaped in order to keep him around the same height as the Autobots despite transforming into a jet fighter the length of four average cars. Even then, he's almost as tall as Optimus and Megatron mainly because of his digitigrade legs.
• Undignified Death: It doesn't get much more embarrassing than being killed by Sam Witwicky.
• Unexplained Recovery: A rare non-living variant. Despite Starscream having everything neck-upward blown to bits by Sam in Dark Of The Moon — promptly followed by the rest of him hitting the ground in pieces from the resulting fall off a tall building — his head has been scavenged, repaired and eventually came into the possession of Daytrader by the time of The Last Knight, looking mostly intact and no worse-for-wear besides the visible weld marks. The head even has Starscream's destroyed optics restored.
• Villainous Breakdown: He completely loses his slag when Sam stabs him in the eyes, flailing and screaming like a madman as he frantically tries to yank the bomb out of his head before it explodes and kills him.
  Starscream: YOU HUMAN SCUM!
• Vocal Evolution: His voice was heavily modulated to rival Hugo Weaving's in deepness during the first film, but the modulation was removed for the subsequent films. This was evidently a late decision as he still has it in the Revenge of the Fallen games.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: According to tie-in comics, he doesn't believe in Optimus or Megatron; his only goal is to save his species from extinction. TFWiki.net even refers to him as "a hero on the wrong side", though this personality trait never shows up in the films.
• Your Head Asplode: By Sam, after having one of Wheeljack's knife-tipped bombs stabbed into one of his optics. His head was shown to have been scavenged by humans and repaired, though, as Daytrader finds it welded back together and (mostly) intact in New York by the time of The Last Knight.
  Daytrader: Look what I found in Buffalo. (manipulates it like a puppet speaking) Starscream's head, ladies and gentlemen!

Barricade

"Barricade enroute."

Voiced by: Jess Harnell (Transformers, The Last Knight), Frank Welker (Dark of the Moon, The Last Knight)^note A bizarre editing/animation gaffe has Barricade animated to Soundwave's voice for the former, temp track audio left in for the latter, Keith David (Transformers: The Game (Console))
Hologram driver played by: Brian Reece

"Are you username ladiesman217? ARE YOU USERNAME LADIESMAN217?! Where is eBay item 21153? Where are the glasses?!"

An aggressive Rabid Cop who transforms into a Saleen Mustang police car. He and Frenzy hunt down Sam Witwicky to get information on the glasses, but he is defeated offscreen by Bumblebee, who gets established as his arch-enemy. Barricade's presence in the films goes "on and off" each movie.

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• An Arm and a Leg: In Dark of the Moon, he gets his right leg blown off by human soldiers.
• Ascended Extra: Has a more prominent role in The Last Knight than his previous film appearances.
• The Bad Guys Are Cops: Even though his alt-mode is a police car, he's definitely not your benevolent justice enforcer. A Freeze-Frame Bonus shows that the livery on his alt-mode says "to punish and enslave" where one would typically find "to protect and serve" on a cop car.
• Breakout Villain: Barricade proved to be one of the most popular movie exclusive characters and gone on to appear in three films, outliving most of the cons that debuted with him. He was adapted into Transformers: War for Cybertron and future G1 stories either bring him in or modify the existing G1 Barricade to better resemble his movie version. He was specifically brought back for The Last Knight in a bigger role despite seemingly being killed in Dark of the Moon due to his popularity with fans.
• Cool Car: While he generally turns into a police car, Barricade turns into a Saleen S281 Extreme version in his appearances in Transformers and Dark of the Moon and a Ford Mustang version in The Last Knight.
• Death by Adaptation: Tends to get killed in the tie-ins.
• The Dragon: After the death of Starscream in Dark of the Moon, it seems Barricade has become Megatron's new second-in-command in The Last Knight. It also helps that he and Megatron are the only active Decepticons left by the time this film rolls around.
• Epic Flail: He uses an in-built flail as a weapon.
• Evil Counterpart: Of sorts to Generation 1 Prowl, the Autobot police car who was also one of G1 Optimus Prime's lieutenants. This is further confirmed in the TFWiki.net entry for Barricade, which states that his character's conception in fact started as the movieverse's counterpart to G1 Prowl. Also lampshaded in the mobile phone game Transformers: Forged to Fight, where both characters appear: G1 Prowl's signature ability is called "Good Cop", whereas Barricade's is named "Bad Cop".
• Evil Sounds Deep: He has a deep growling voice, most clearly heard when interrogating Sam in the first movie.
• Eye Scream: He gets his left eye shot out by snipers in Dark of the Moon.
• Hero Killer: In Dark of the Moon, he blows Que's head right off his neck.
• Impersonating an Officer: Taken to a new level; he impersonates a police car.
• Joker Immunity: He survives the first movie, is nowhere in the second, seemingly dies on the third, but returns in a new altmode in the fifth one, which he also survives; You just can't keep this guy down.
• Made of Iron: He gets beaten down by Bumblebee near the beginning of the first film, and turns up for the climax looking no worse for wear. Then he gets turned into metallic Swiss cheese in the third movie, only to get better from that two films later. The fifth film sees him take a thrashing from Grimlock, which left him none the worse for wear.
• Mean Boss: In Dark of the Moon, he gets angry at the Decepticon soldiers for the unexpected release of the captured Autobot prisoners (including Bumblebee), and he starts strangling, blaming, choking them in an angry Cybertronian rant (probably to keep the profanity light for a PG-13 movie).
• Mook Lieutenant: He commands several generic Decepticons in Dark of the Moon during the Chicago invasion.
• Mook Promotion: With all other Earthbound operatives dead or captured, Barricade has been promoted to become Megatron's second-in-command by the time of The Last Knight.
• Obviously Evil: Even in his police car disguise, the "To punish and enslave" quote is a red flag.
• Rabid Cop: When he catches up to Sam, he goes straight for the bad cop model of interrogation.
  Barricade: ARE YOU USERNAME LADIESMAN217?!
• Recurring Character: Here's a little game: number each live-action CGI Transformers movie by release date from earliest to newest (count Bumblebee too!). Then separate them by odd and even numbers. Barricade's only in the odd-numbered ones, that's how you know if you'll find him or not.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: As to be expected from a Decepticon, Barricade has red optics.
• The Rival: To Bumblebee: all three of the films that Barricade's appeared in have him interacting with Bumblebee in some antagonistic capacity.
• Schrödinger's Cast: The adaptations of the first film say that Optimus killed him along with Bonecrusher; Reign of Starscream says that Ironhide ran him off the road (nonfatally) during the highway chase; pretty much any given piece of supplemental material gives him a different fate.
• Shoot the Hostage: Has no qualms about doing this at all. Poor Que...
• Sole Survivor: He's the only member of Starscream's original band of Decepticons who's still alive.
• Standard Police Motto:
  • His altmode has a dark twist on this, with "To punish and enslave" written instead of "To protect and serve".
  • In his Last Knight form, he has "protect" and "serve" engraved in reverse as brass knuckles, as to imprint those words on any unfortunate Autobot victims.
• Unexplained Recovery: In Dark of the Moon, he is last seen being blinded, crippled and shot at by human soldiers. Despite this, he somehow managed to survive both this and Cemetary Wind's Transformer hunt, as he's appearing in The Last Knight with an updated Saleen alt-mode.
• Vocal Evolution: Jess Harnell reprises his role in The Last Knight, but he gives Barricade a quieter, more dignified voice with a vaguely British accent, compared to the deep, loud voice he had in the first film. Possibly justified, as in the first film he's interrogating Sam, whereas in The Last Knight he's addressing Megatron. He also lacks the vocal processing he had in that film that made his voice much deeper, since the films retired most of that sort of processing for the characters after the first film.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The king of this trope in the series.
  • In the first movie, he chases the protagonists alongside Brawl and Bonecrusher, but subsequently disappears from the rest of the film with no explanation.
  • In the junior novelization, Optimus knocks him and Bonecrusher into a construction pit in the chase towards Las Vegas, leaving both still alive and struggling to get out. Bonecrusher appears later on in the battle, but Barricade does not.
  • The prequel novel to Revenge of the Fallen reveals that he was damaged in battle by the Autobots shortly before the film, and was likely still recovering by the time the film's events took place.
  • The UK comics have a lot of fun with this—Barricade and Ironhide co-host the letters page, and Barricade fluctuates between treating the movies with disdain and demanding more screen time.
  • He disappears again towards the climax of The Last Knight, last seen fighting the human military at Stonehenge, and doesn’t appear in the final clash in Quintessa’s lair.

Frenzy

Voiced by: Reno Wilson

"Oh shi—"

Barricade's partner, Frenzy serves as recon and sabotage. He speaks in garbled words and is Multi-Armed and Dangerous. He transforms into a CD player, which no one on Air Force One thinks is suspicious, and later on his head transforms into Mikaela's cell phone after being separated from the rest of him.

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• Abled in the Adaptation: In the junior novelization, Frenzy doesn't lose his head in the construction zone fight. Instead, Sam knocks him out with a piece of rebar.
• Deadly Disc: Frenzy can launch razor-sharp shurikens from his chest cavity.
• Death from Above: In the junior novelization, Frenzy is killed when Keller drops a fax machine on him.
• Flipping the Bird: He does it to the Secret Service.
• Fragile Speedster: Frenzy's quite a fast opponent but it doesn't take much to bring him down. Both of his defeats were at the hands of humans rather than any Autobot soldier.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Killed by one of his own shurikens.
• Losing Your Head: Twice: once from Mikaela, which he survives, crawling around on little spindly legs until the AllSpark restores his full body; and once from his own ricocheting shuriken, which kills him. The second movie shows that Simmons kept the head as a trophy even after losing his job.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Frenzy has two sets of arms; one are his hacking tools and the other is a pair of guns.
• Off with His Head!: Towards the end of the first film. This time it's permanent
• The Unintelligible: He does say a few words in English, especially his last words: "Oh shit". It's just that he chitters so much that it's difficult to pick out what's English and what isn't. According to Micheal Bay, he's saying "Tutankhamen" rapidly.

Blackout

"A human has it? Then the AllSpark is as good as ours."

Voiced by: Brian Stepanek (Transformers: Beginnings Motion Comic) Noah Nelson (video games)
->Hologram pilot played by: Brian Reece

"Blackout incoming. All hail Megatron!"

Megatron's Yes-Man, and the first Transformer seen on film. Blackout transforms into a Sikorsky MH-53 "Pavelow" helicopter and obliterates an American air force base in Qatar, in a foiled attempt to obtain military documents relating to the locations of Megatron and the AllSpark. He is partnered with Scorponok. Blackout fights in the Mission City battle, but is killed via Groin Attack by Captain Lennox plus a storm of missiles from Air Force F-22s.

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• Breakout Villain: Not to the extent of Barricade, but this portrayal of Blackout became so popular that future appearances began to take after this incarnation rather than the original, most notably Transformers: Animated where Blackout is made bigger and has a design that is basically his movie version with little differences.
• Butt-Monkey: Somewhat. While his usual demeanor is menacing and dignified enough, the way he goes out in the film and various adaptations can come off as this. His deaths include being shot in the crotch, being killed by Jazz despite having backup from two Dreadwing drones and Starscream, being one-shotted by Starscream in the Decepticons campaign, and less humiliatingly, being defeated by Ratchet in the Autobots campaign.
• Canon Foreigner: Played With. "Blackout" has existed before, but this Blackout's character is an original creation for the film. Due to his popularity, as noted in Breakout Villain, pretty much any new incarnation of Blackout takes after the 2007-introduced character as a result.
• Chest Blaster: Though he never gets to use it.
• David vs. Goliath: Gets killed by Jazz in Transformers: The Game (Console) who's about a third his size. In the DS game he goes down at the hands of Ratchet, who is only a bit bigger than Jazz.
• Decomposite Character: As Soundwave was ultimately excluded from the 2007 film, Blackout assumes some portions of the role that would’ve gone to him. His personality as the diehard Megatron loyalist is also taken from Soundwave.
• Depending on the Artist: He weaponizes his rotors, but which rotor depends on how he's drawn. The films and the mobile app make it his tail rotor, whilst the video games and the toy make it the main rotor. His DOTM toy and Studio Series toy switches it back to his tail rotor.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Jazz offs him alongside Starscream in Transformers: The Game (Console) while Ratchet or Starscream does the job in Transformers: The Game (DS)'.
• Drone Deployer: Scorponok is the drone, deployed out of his back.
• EMP: Can create them. He also happens to be a walking version, with electronic equipment shorting out near him.
• Evil Sounds Deep: In Transformers: The Game (Console) and Transformers: The Game (DS) due to being voiced by the guy who did Tohru.
• Expy: For Soundwave, largely because his role was originally meant to go to Soundwave.
• Glass Cannon: In the DS games while he’s huge and powerful, he lacks the durability that Brawl has or the speed of Barricade or Starscream, meaning he’s rather weak for a Decepticon of his size.
• Groin Attack: Lennox nails him with a single grenade fired between his legs during the Mission City battle late in the first film.
• Helicopter Blender: How he uses his rotors.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: He single-handedly obliterates a military base, gathers enough intelligence to pinpoint the location of the Allspark, and deploys his minions to orchestrate Megatron's return.
• Karmic Death: Blackout led the attack on the Qatar Base at the start of the film, after having gotten his form from a military helicopter belonging to the Bases' detachment, and proceeded to wipe out all but a small handful of USAF Marine survivors: whom would ultimately be the ones to finish him off.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Blackout doesn't play around. When he attacks the Qatar base, he takes great pains to Leave No Witnesses by launching widespread attacks with massive blast radii, destroying many vehicles so the humans can't escape, and sending out Scorponok to hunt down survivors. During the Mission City battle, he's ready to attack Optimus while the Autobot leader is busy with Megatron, and the instant he notices the laser sights from the humans he turns around and starts firing on them. It takes the air strike blindsiding him (plus Lennox's Groin Attack) to put him down.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: As with most Decepticons.
• Sacrificial Lion: To a lesser extent than Barricade in the DS game. He is Starscream’s first Decepticon victim in his coup now that he has the AllSpark and the way he goes down in one hit shows just how dangerous the Seeker is now.
• Spotting the Thread: Subjected to this in the first movie. He uses the tail number of the MH-53J Pave Low III he scanned and destroyed to gain his alternate form (4500X), apparently unaware of its significance. This slightly bites him when one of the drone operators recognizes the tail numbers as the same that his friend was on when he was killed in its destruction several days prior, and he loses most of the element of surprise. Granted, he still managed to wipe the human base off the map since no one was expecting a Transforming Mecha, but he was not able to completely surprise the humans, which may have attributed to his failure to hack the base's server and eliminate all witnesses.
• Undying Loyalty: To Megatron.
• Vocal Dissonance: He has a quiet, sophisticated voice in the games, particularly the DS games, which are a creepy contrast with his huge, hulking form.
• The Voiceless: Does not speak English in the first film.
• Yes-Man: Some sources portray him as this to Megatron (almost certainly as a holdover from earlier versions of the first film's script when he was originally written to be Soundwave, who is traditionally Megatron's most loyal lieutenant among the Decepticons).

Scorponok

"My mother, she had the gift. You know, she saw things. Now I got the gene. That thing that attacked us, I got a feeling it ain't over."

—Figueroa

A Scary Scorpion who works as Blackout's partner, having a symbiotic relationship with him. He is deployed to chase Captain Lennox's team across Qatar, but retreats when attacked by US aircraft. He reappears in Revenge of the Fallen.

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• Adaptational Nonsapience: The original Scorponok was a Mad Scientist and other iterations while not as bright were not idiots. This version is a practically feral monster who is more akin to a highly intelligent animal than a sentient being.
• Animal Mecha: The first one in the film series, he is a big scorpion mecha.
• Animate Body Parts: His stinger tail is blown off the rest of his body and taken aboard an aircraft when Lennox returns to the US, and tries to attack some of the military personnel.
• Back for the Dead: Briefly reappears in Revenge of the Fallen where he seriously injures Jetfire who then rips Scorponok into pieces.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: Like a real scorpion, he has a rather fearsome one.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Behaves just like a scorpion, only a lot bigger, faster and armed with weapons.
• The Brute: Muscle that backs up Blackout.
• Dynamic Entry: He makes his reappearance in Revenge of the Fallen with one of these. It doesn't end well for him.
• Healing Factor: Scorponok seems to have some sort of it. After the end of his tail is blown off after the village shootout, it's regenerated to cover several tables on an aircraft.
• Scary Scorpions: A giant scorpion, he doesn't appear to have any other mode. The console game confirms this as Scorponok doesn't have a vehicle mode, he just burrows into the ground. However, his toys often give him a robot mode in addition to his default form.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Killed randomly by Jetfire in Revenge of the Fallen, out of self-defense.
• Wormsign: He can tunnel beneath the earth. It's how he follows the soldiers across Qatar.

Bonecrusher

"I HATE YOU!!"

Voiced by: Jimmie Wood (Film), Daniel Riordan (Transformers: The Game (Console))

"Bonecrusher rolling."

Bonecrusher transforms into a military Buffalo mine-clearing vehicle, which includes a back-mounted minesweeping claw. Bonecrusher uses it to flip cars out of his path on the freeway.

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• The Berserker: Rollerblading, hate-driven 'Con who rips up a highway before fighting Optimus Prime. It doesn't go very well for him.
• Drives Like Crazy: Is incredibly dangerous to human drivers because of his road rage-induced speeding and behavior.
• Hates Everyone Equally: We cannot emphasize this enough. It's even explicitly stated in his backstory that he hates Megatron and the rest of the Decepticons just as much as the Autobots, but stays under Megatron's command because he's afraid of being terminated by him.
• I Know Madden Kombat: His moves are based on sports (cross-checking a bus, tackling Optimus).
• Off with His Head!: How Optimus kills him after a short highway chase.
• The Power of Hate: Most Decepticons get by just fine on greed or ambition, but not him. Bonecrusher is powered by sheer, unrelenting hatred of everything and everyone in existence, including Megatron. The only reason he remains under Megatron's command is because he hates being killed more than he hates Megatron.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Like the other Decepticons.
• Rollerblade Good: Deploys his alt-mode's tires onto his feet, so as to continue rolling down the highway towards Optimus after transforming.
• Screaming Warrior: He does nothing but yell in rage whilst fighting Optimus. If you listen carefully it even sounds like he shouts "I hate you!" when Optimus cuts his arm off. Which definitely fits with his character.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In the junior novelization, Bonecrusher survives his encounter with Optimus and menaces Mikaela during the battle. His fate is the same as the film's version of Brawl.
• Too Dumb to Live: Attacking the leader of the Autobots (who also happens to be the strongest and best fighter) is not particularly a smart move. Makes you wonder why his teammates didn't warn him not to engage Optimus (or they perhaps did off-screen in some capacity, but Bonecrusher did so anyways out of rage).
• The Unintelligible: Before Optimus decapitates him, Bonecrusher screams, "LET ME HAVE YO—!" but it sounds distorted.

Brawl

"See, me, I go by one guiding principle—keep it stupid... simple!"

Voiced by: David Sobolov (Transformers: The Game (Console))

"Devastator reporting."

—Brawl doesn't even know his real name!

A Decepticon built for war, Brawl transforms into a tank and is armed to the teeth with weapons. After suffering several Rasputinian Deaths, Brawl is taken down by Bumblebee.

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• Adaptational Dumbass: In the console game's Decepticon campaign, he's too stupid to do anything, whether it's fending off U.S. military units or locating Mission City. Although a pivotal combatant in the movie, he's actually absent from the Mission City battles forcing Barricade to take his place. In the Autobot Campaign, he does take part in the Mission City battles but he kills Jazz in front of Ironhide and is killed during the ensuing boss battle.
• Arm Cannon: Take your pick: the missile rack, or the Vulcan?
• Ascended Extra: Brawl has no character in the film and serves mostly as a big mook to take down. He's given a large role in the video games and placed alongside the more narratively important Starscream and Barricade. He even had a comic issue dedicated to him in the Titan magazine.
• Backpack Cannon: Twin missile launchers over the shoulders as well as two high-calibur guns.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: A forearm mounted claw blade.
• Deadpan Snarker: In the Decepticons DS game, where he shows a bit more of a personality. Just for one example:
  Brawl: Gee, blow up a bunch of stationary targets that won't fight back. How exciting.
• Blood Knight: Word of God refers to him as such, stating that he not only enjoys battle, but is consumed by it.
• Death by Adaptation: In the junior novelization, Brawl is killed just before Megatron kills Jazz. Gets killed by Ironhide after killing Jazz in Transformers: The Game (Console).
• I'm Melting!: In the junior novelization, he is melted by a barrage from Jazz and Ironhide.
• Manchild: He fits this trope in the console version of Transformers: The Game, though maybe Brawl really is a child. He's useless to the Decepticon cause being unable to fight off weak, fleshy human units on his own nor find his way into Mission City to help crush the Autobots forcing Starscream to "babysit" him. Gets somewhat better in the Autobot campaign where he sneaks up on Jazz, but him doing it in front of Ironhide and gloating about it results in the big brute's death.
• More Dakka: Several missile launchers, three cannons, and a bullet spammed chain gun.
• Not Quite Dead: He falls early in the Mission City battle after Jazz, Ratchet, and Ironhide triple-team him, but gets up a few minutes later.
• One-Man Army: Not even the combined forces of Jazz, Ironhide, Ratchet and multiple US soldiers are enough to take him down. But that's before Mikaela and a paralyzed Bumblebee come in to take him down.
• One-Steve Limit: One big reason for calling him "Brawl" instead of "Devastator"; the latter name is more famously applied to Combining Mecha, as it is in Revenge of the Fallen.
• Palette Swap: A brownish Palette Swap of Brawl's model appears briefly in Dark of the Moon before being killed during Optimus' big rampage towards Shockwave.
• Rasputinian Death: He gets shot up with grenade launchers — several heavy magnesium sabot rounds to be precise — and has his various appendages cut off for nearly half an hour before he finally goes down for good. And was dropped into the Laurentian Abyss for good measure.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Like all Decepticons, has red optics.
• Shoulder Cannon: Two of 'em.
• Sudden Name Change: He is actually referred by the name "Devastator" in Transformers (2007), but by his real name in the merchandise. Bay considered "Devastator" a cooler name. The actual Devastator appears in Revenge of the Fallen instead.
• Super-Toughness: Even by Transformer standards, he soaks up a lot of damage before going down.
• Tank Goodness: Subverts this by being a bad guy.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Brawl's made entirely out of Weapons and Wielding Tropes.
• Too Dumb to Live: In Transformers: The Game (Console), he kills Jazz in front of Ironhide and gloats about it. Cue Brawl's death during the ensuing boss battle.
• Walking Armory: Too bad most of his weapons get shot or sliced off before he gets a chance to use them.

Dispensor

A Decepticon that was made out of a Mountain Dew dispenser machine activated by Sam carrying the AllSpark.

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• Death by Adaptation: In issue #1 of the Alliance comic books, Ratchet crushed him to death with his foot, and commented Mountain Dew isn't good for you.
• Harmless Villain: He intends to harm humans, but all he shoots is Mountain Dew in aluminum cans. But Ratchet would disagree, he claims Mountain Dew has ingredients harmful to human structures.
• Product Placement: Zigzagged. He may look like a "Drink more Mountain Dew!" banner in the movie, but in the comic book Ratchet uses him as an example of poor dietary habits.
• Vengeful Vending Machine: He immediately joined the Decepticon cause upon creation.

Introduced in Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen (2009)

Megatronus Prime / The Fallen

"Now I claim your sun!"

Voiced by: Tony Todd, James Arnold Taylor (video game and Non-Dubbed Grunts)

"Revenge is mine."

The Greater-Scope Villain to Megatron's Big Bad, The Fallen is the true founder of the Decepticons. Having Fantastic Racism against humanity, he tries to wipe them out by building a Sun Harvester machine on Earth, but is thwarted by his fellow Primes. Millenia later, he returns to exact his revenge.

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• Adaptational Backstory Change: The only thing kept from his original backstory is his betrayal of the other Primes, with no mentions of Unicron corrupting him to be seen. Notable as at the time he was a Universal Singularity, meaning he was the same Fallen as the Dreamwave Comics version given there was only one across the multiverse. The fact that his backstories were so irreconcilable, among other continuity errors across the franchise, lead to the Shrouding event that ended Universal Singularities as a concept.
• Adaptational Jerkass: In the video game adaptations of the movie, The Fallen is portrayed as a more cruel leader towards Megatron by calling him a pathetic and unworthy minion. The PS3 and XBox console stories have Megatron turning against the Fallen and even killing him.
• Adaptational Wimp: Optimus kills him fairly quickly when they do actually fight. Most versions require a team effort to bring him down.
• Ax-Crazy: In his backstory (where he murdered all of his brothers solely because of Fantastic Racism that they disagreed with). In the movie proper, he is more restrained.
• Big Bad: Of the second film, as he's the titular Fallen and the one behind the Evil Plan of that movie.
• Composite Character: While largely based on the character introduced in Dreamwave's continuity, he also takes some cues from the Liege Maximo, another evil Prime from G2 comics who was the forerunner of the Decepticons.
• Deader than Dead: Age of Extinction established that a transformer's spark is their equivalent to a human soul as well as their power source, and theoretically, a transformer could survive having their spark removed as long as it's quickly connected to a steady energon supply (indeed, in an alternate continuity an Autobot is explicitly shown surviving mortal wounds by having his spark transferred into a blank protoform^note He died soon afterwards, but because he chose to shut himself down rather than because of trauma). Optimus denies The Fallen this opportunity by tearing out his spark and immediately crushing it into oblivion.
• Evil Sounds Deep: It's Tony Todd.
• Fantastic Racism: Against humans.
• Forgot About His Powers: Uh, Fallen? Fighting Optimus like a normal clearly isn't working; maybe you should try your Mind over Matter or Villain Teleportation. No? Okay then...
• Greater-Scope Villain: He founded the Decepticons and is Megatron's master, making him this for the original trilogy of films.
• The Man Behind the Man: He's the one behind Megatron's Face–Heel Turn in the IDW comics, and the original founder of the Decepticons.
• Mind over Matter: He shows talent for telekinesis when he levitates a ring of fallen stones from the pyramid containing the Harvester, and guides them into the paths of several jet fighters.
• Omnicidal Maniac: His only solid goal is wiping out all life on planet Earth, then repeating the process somewhere else.
• Rasputinian Death: In a manner of thirty seconds: The Fallens' jaw was sliced open by Optimus' sword, impaled through his collar from behind by his own spear; followed by Optimus twisting the spear around his neck to rip off The Fallens' faceplate. Then as he tries to run away, Optimus punches through The Fallens' back as the ancient Decepticon sees Optimus' fist sticking out of his chest: clenched around his Spark before it is crushed.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Especially fitting since he was the first Decepticon.
• Satanic Archetype: A Prime that ended up leaving them with his fellows and can only be killed by a Prime. However, his hatred of life on Earth specifically and his plan to destroy it by taking the sun, make him more like Apep, which is fitting as Apep is close enough to be considered an Egyptian counterpart to Satan and The Fallen seems to have touched down somewhere around Ancient Kemet when he came to Earth.
• The Sociopath: In contrast to Megatron, The Fallen couldn't care less for the Cybertronian race, the safety of his homeworld or any similar noble goal; he is merely a bloodthirsty maniac killing whoever he sees fit (read: everyone).
• Spell My Name with a "The": Some sources refer to him simply as "Fallen", and Megatron does so once in the film, but otherwise, he's referred to as "The Fallen".
• The Svengali: More clear in the novelization.
• The Unfettered: Has no regards for any life besides himself.
• Villain Teleportation: Jetfire pulls off the "personal space-bridge" trick once. The Fallen uses it for Teleport Spam.

Soundwave

"Soundwave acknowledges. Pursue her, retrieve it."

Voiced by: Frank Welker (films) Peter Jessup (Revenge of the Fallen video game), Issac C. Singleton Jr. (Dark of the Moon video game)

"Decepticons, mobilize. It is time."

Megatron's loyal Communications Officer. In Revenge of the Fallen, he remains in orbit as a satellite, hacking into US military communications and conveying intelligence gathered thereby to the other Decepticons, and deploying Ravage when he needs an agent of his own on the surface. In Dark of the Moon he has returned to Earth as Carly's Mercedes.

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• Animal Motif: The pointed tips on either side of his head resemble Batman-like ears. He also has an insect/bat-like mouth.
• Ascended Extra:
  • In Dark of the Moon, he's revealed to be far more involved in the plot of the series than it seemed at first, and has been working for centuries to help Megatron's scheme.
  • He also serves as one of the main protagonists of the Nefarious tie-in comics.
• Badass Bookworm: While he spends most of his time hacking and manipulating human communications, he's still a force to be reckoned with in combat.
• The Beastmaster: Utilizes Ravage and Laserbeak, animalistic Transformers, to do his dirty work.
• Big Brother Is Watching You: While serving as a satellite, he's constantly observing the Earth, and the tie-in comics really establish that he's always watching. Always.
  Soundwave: Nothing moves on this orb without my being aware of it. I see and hear everything, be it out in the open or behind closed doors. My reach is invisible, intangible. My grip... cast-iron.
• Big "NO!": Lets one out before Bumblebee blows his head off.
• Boom, Headshot!: How he dies.
• Combat Tentacles: Uses them to snare Carly, as well as to plug himself into a satellite.
• Communications Officer: Evil version.
• Cool Car: A Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, which happens to belong to Carly.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • Becomes one to Bumblebee in Dark of the Moon.
  • His transformation is a more violent version of Jazz's breakdancing.
• Evil Genius: One of the Decepticon's greatest strategists, largely because of his ability to analyze intercepted communications data.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Welker uses his Dr. Claw voice, this time without as much reverb.
• Fangs Are Evil: In his Dark of the Moon form only; in Fallen, he has insect-like mandibles instead.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Can be considered the most competent of all of the Decepticons, hiding in the shadows for decades before Megatron reemerges and successfully manipulating the United States government and setting up the Gould family as billionaires in order to make them more useful pawns, as well as hijacking a satellite for surveillance use in Revenge of the Fallen without ever getting caught. Remove Soundwave from the movies and the Decepticons come nowhere near as close to victor as they managed to do.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: In Revenge of the Fallen he hijacks a satellite and keeps track of Sam and the Autobots throughout the movie...and is never discovered, so that film ends with him getting away clean. He remains a serious threat in the next film, Dark of the Moon, but ends up finally dying at the hands of Bumblebee in the third act of that film.
• Killed Off for Real: Torn apart by Bumblebee.
• Kill Sat: He turns into a satellite in Revenge of the Fallen.
• Light Is Not Good: Both his Satellite form and robot form resemble angels.
• Mission Control: For the Decepticons.
• Not So Stoic: He's clearly having the time of his life in the Shoot the Hostage scene. He even went against orders (hold the Autobots hostage) after Gould said they should teach the Autobots respect.
  Soundwave: I understand. No prisoners. Only trophies.
• Off with His Head!: How Bumblebee kills him: by jamming his cannon upwards into/through Soundwave's chest and pulling the trigger, blasting Soundwave's head to bits from below/inside.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: As with all Decepticons.
• Shoot the Hostage: "[Evil Laugh] I understand. No prisoners. Only trophies."
• Sinister Surveillance: His specialty.
• The Spymaster: A Master of the trope, especially since, as revealed in DOTM, he's been around since the Cold War, infiltrating and manipulating both governments to further Decepticon goals. DOTM also shows he has a quite large and powerful network of spies across the globe, including, most importantly, Dylan Gould.
• The Stoic: He's always calm and cool-headed.
• Undying Loyalty: Unlike, well, Starscream, he's very faithful to Megatron.
• Villainous Friendship:
  • A type I with Megatron, as is franchise tradition.
  • A type III with Dylan Gould.
• Villain Protagonist: He serves as the main viewpoint character of the Nefarious tie-in comics, and though he does spend a bit of it allied with the Autobots, he never stops being his usual self.
• Vocal Evolution: This is notably one of the few if any incarnations of Soundwave to not have any vocoding to his voice. Though Soundwave did have the vocoder for the Revenge of the Fallen games, it was dropped for the Dark of the Moon game for consistency.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: In Revenge of the Fallen, he remains in orbit, coordinating the other Decepticons.
• Your Head A-Splode: Bumblebee kills him by blowing his head off during the final battle.

Ravage

Soundwave's loyal minion.

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• Back from the Dead: Ravage's death in Revenge of the Fallen was a very late addition to the film, which threw a monkey wrench in IDW's post-Revenge of the Fallen tie-in comics in which he had a major role. This necessitated having a human agency hit him with Allspark power, restoring him to life.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: He gets resurrected in the IDW tie-in comics by the Initiative, but placed entirely under their control until Soundwave is able to get him back to normal.
• Came Back Wrong: The IDW tie-in comics have him be resurrected, but entirely under the control of the Initiative.
• Cruel and Unusual Death/Family-Unfriendly Death: Bumblebee literally tears his spine out.
• Cyber Cyclops: An animal variant.
• Informed Species: Ravage has never really looked like a jaguar, but the live-action movie version of him is especially hard to read as one.
• Killed Off for Real: At least when ignoring the comics.
• Mega Neko

Reedman

Voiced by: Frank Welker

Reedman is the form taken by a swarm of microcons when they combine together. The combined, mantis-like form is razor-thin, allowing for nigh-invisibility when seen from certain angles.

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• Absurd Cutting Power: He has a razor-sharp body, as shown when he walks through a soldier and cuts his entire body into pieces.
• Canon Foreigner: Created for the film series.
• Cyber Cyclops: Only has one big optic when combined.
• Fluffy the Terrible: An alien mantis-bird made of razor-thin blades that can hide in plain sight via perspective trickery and can kill people by walking through them, named... Reedman.
• Meaningful Name: Its name is verbally parsed as "reed man", and it's a creature that's thin as a reed.
• Red Eye, Take Warning: As with most Decepticons.

Sideways

Voiced by: John DiMaggio (video game only)

"Just 'cause I'd always rather flee than fight, don't mean I can't!"

A relatively weak Decepticon refugee who hides in Shanghai with Demolishor. He flees but is chased by the Twins, Arcee and co., and then Sideswipe who slices him in two.

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• Advertised Extra: He tended to be heavily used in the advertising of Revenge of the Fallen, though the fact that it was usually the same few shots tipped off some viewers to the fact that in the actual film, he's a minor character.
• The Artifact: Sideways was nearly cut entirely from the film when Audi started zig-zagging about representing their brand in the film, and his role in the story was largely given to Demolishor. When Audi eventually did agree to using the R8 in the film, Sideways was given Demolishor's original role as a small distraction as it was too late to reverse anything.
• Ascended Extra: Sideways plays a major role in the Revenge of the Fallen console game. He's also this in the Universal Studios ride Transformers: The Ride being Bumblebee's main opponent.
• Cool Car: An Audi R8.
• Destroy the Product Placement: Sideways is the only character in the film series to die in his vehicle mode.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Ironhide punches him off the roof of a building in Shanghai in the video game and is blown to bits by his own bombs in the DS version.
• Dirty Coward: According to his bio, he's a simple courier who shuns combat and hides behind bigger Decepticons like Demolishor. When Demolishor himself is overwhelmed and chased by NEST, Sideways gets a whole army of Autobots chasing him down.
• Half the Man He Used to Be/Single-Stroke Battle: How Sideswipe kills him.
• Harmless Villain: Spends all his time hiding or running, he never throws a single punch or fires a gun.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Due to Audi zig-zagging on whether they wanted their brand represented on the film, Sideways's role was largely given to Demolishor. As a result, Sideways barely does anything in the finished movie, with even his death supposedly being reused from a proposed scene of Sideswipe destroying a ferrari.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When discovered by the Autobots and NEST, he makes it a priority to get the hell away. Not that it does him any good.
• Suddenly Voiced: He speaks only in the Revenge of the Fallen video game, while he didn't have any lines in the actual film.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He is only shown for a few minutes in the film's opening where he is killed by Sideswipe.
• You Don't Look Like You: Audi didn't give permission to use the R8's design in toys, so while the film and tie-in games use could use the real R8, the toys are more generic, "kind-of but not really" versions of the real car.

Grindor

Voiced by: Frank Welker (film), Fred Tatasciore (video game)

"End of the line, Earth scum!"

A Decepticon who looks a lot like Blackout. He captures Sam, Mikaela and Leo, delivering them to Megatron, Starscream and Scalpel to remove Sam's brain. He fights Optimus in battle, but gets cut down.

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• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Maybe. When Optimus is about to kill him, it sounds like he is saying "No, Not Me, No. NOOOOOOO".
• An Arm and a Leg: Optimus chops off one of his arms, and as it has his rotor deployed, it goes flying and knocks Megatron sideways causing him to miss a shot at Optimus.
• The Brute: Largely serves as extra muscle during the forest fight.
• Clock King: What his bio makes him out to be.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Gets eliminated by Bumblebee in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: The Video Game and is blown up by his own (hacked) jets in the DS version. At least in the Autobot campaigns, as he survives the Decepticon campaigns.
• Elite Mook: No effort is made to differentiate him from Blackout, nor is there any attempt to develop him as a character, leaving him to be extra muscle during the forest fight, and the only casualty of the battle that sticks.
• Expy: Of Blackout.
• Eye Scream: Courtesy of Optimus.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Optimus literally rips his head in two by jabbing Energon hooks in his eyes.
• Helicopter Blender: Has this as a weapon. Unfortunately, he never gets to use them, due to Optimus cutting off the arm he uses to wield it.
• Identical Stranger: He looks awfully similar to Blackout, don't you think?
• Informed Attribute: Grindor's character bio claims he's a brilliant strategist, but that talent was never demonstrated during his brief screentime.
• Killed Off for Real: Optimus kills him in the former's desperate stand between him, Starscream, and Megatron.
• Made of Iron: Takes a lot of fire and wounds from Optimus during the forest fight before he goes down.
• Palette Swap: Of Blackout, though with a technically different alt mode.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: As with all other Decepticons.
• Reused Character Design: He reuses Blackout's robot mode, only differing in color scheme. Subverted with his helicopter mode, where he transforms into the larger CH-53E Super Stallion instead of the similar MH-53 Pave Low.
• Villainous Friendship: In the games and the Titan comics, he and Sideways are usually paired off together and they get along pretty well.

Demolishor

Voiced by: Calvin Wimmer (film), Fred Tatasciore (video game)

"The Fallen shall rise again!"

A giant Constructicon who hides out in Shanghai. A Psycho for Hire in the comics, Demolishor destroyed several Autobot colonies before coming to Earth. He flees from the Autobots on Earth until taken out by Optimus.

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• Ax-Crazy: Tie-in comics especially play him up as this, revealing that he likes to lure in as many enemies as possible to kill more.
• Boom, Headshot!: How Optimus kills him.
• Dirty Coward: He doesn't try to fight the Autobots at all, he just runs away after slaughtering numerous humans.
• Expy: In Tales of the Fallen he becomes one of Rampage.
• Palette Swap: Demolishor, who is white with red details, into Scavenger, who is red with white details.
• Paper Tiger: His towering size makes him look like a very imposing foe, but a few well-placed shots from Optimus and Ironhide make him tumble down easily.
• Pet the Dog: His treatment of smaller, weaker Decepticons like Sideways.
• Psycho for Hire: As seen in Tales of the Fallen; he especially enjoys hiding in populated areas, both to cause as much collateral damage as possible and to lure large groups of Autobots toward him to fight.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When discovered by the Autobots and NEST he and Sideways flee on sight. Not that it does them any good.
• Starfish Aliens: Just look at him◊.
• Starter Villain: He's the main antagonist of Revenge of the Fallen's opening sequence and the reason they come to Shanghai.
• Team Mom: According to the toy bio.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Killed during opening minutes of Revenge of the Fallen.

Devastator

Voiced by: Frank Welker (vocal effects, film), Fred Tatasciore (video game)

The mighty Devastator is the combined form of at least nine Constructicons.

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• Adaptational Achilles Heel: Most versions of Devastator ignore the Square-Cube Law and can run around quickly, jump, and fall over without issue. This version of Devastator is hindered by his massive size, with his weight forcing him to stand on all fours and even then he can only move slowly. While an experimental railgun does damage him quite a bit, what actually kills him is the resultant tumble down a pyramid causing his body parts to crush each other.
• Adaptational Wimp: Devastator is usually either a prototype, much stronger than anything but a handful of individuals but inferior to other combiners or the be-all and end-all for raw power (best exemplified in IDW where it takes three other combiners to take him down). Here his head is badly damaged by the comedy relief Autobots and he's dropped by a single shot from a railgun.
• Combining Mecha: Formed out of nine smaller Decepticons that each transform into industrial equipment, the Constructicons.
• Death from Above: Via railgun.
• Depending on the Artist: How many robots make up Devastator, and which ones do? The range of bots is from six to nine. The film uses nine, his original supreme toy uses six, his Legends toy uses seven, and his Studio Series toy uses eight. Beyond that sometimes Scavenger (lower torso) can be swapped out for his white pallette swap Demolishor as can Rampage with his red palette swap Skipjack. Scrapmetal, the Constructicon who was killed for parts to ressurrect Megatron is integrated as a hand in the siege version. The yellow dump truck and bulldozer who help form him in the film have been excluded from the toy releases (the latter's role given to Scrapmetal for the Siege toy). Beyond that Devastator has a red face in film but other adaptations (and toys) give him a gray one like in the concept art.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Bumblebee kills him in the video game.
• Explosive Instrumentation: He's the cause of a meta-example. Devastator is likely Industrial Light & Magic's greatest accomplishment to date. The scenes with him had such a massive level of detail that rendering him took the ILM equipment to its limits. "Took the ILM equipment to its limits" as in smoking and melting one of the motherboards. He was originally going to play a bigger role, but the destruction of a very expensive computer put an end to that. According to some of the crew, Devastator had so many moving parts and was so complex and detailed to animate that his animation model was the cause of the critical failure.
• Eye Scream: Eating Mudflap turns out to be a bad idea when Mudflap punches his way out through Devastator's eye.
• Hive Mind: Implied by forcing a slug straight through the merged Devastator's cranium, killing all Constructicons at once.
• Humongous Mecha: Bigger compared to the regular bots than the regular bots are compared to humans.
• Killer Gorilla: Built like one, and to top it all off he climbs a famous monument in the climax before being killed by the military.
• Meaningful Name: In-universe; Devastator was named after harsh "Devastator" winds that blew through Cybertron's landscape, due to his ability under Vacuum Mouth.
• Mighty Glacier: Being several times the size of other Cybertronians makes him quite a daunting opponent for any one of them, especially when combined with his vacuum mouth. On the other hand, he's about as slow and cumbersome as you'd expect from something of that size, to the point where he requires grappling hooks to climb a pyramid barely larger than he is.
• Square-Cube Law: Their huge size doesn't help when a small, yet very heavy slug of metal is impaled straight through where all their heads merge into.
• Suddenly Voiced: Frank Welker provided speaking lines for a Devastator race track playset.
• Vacuum Mouth: His mouth can vacuum up an enormous quantity of whatever is in front of him and grind it to pieces, notably including Mudflap (who survives). According to ancillary material, he accomplishes this by generating a miniature black hole inside his head.

The Constructicons

Scavenger

Hightower

Longhaul

Mixmaster

Skipjack

Rampage

Scrapper

Overload

Scrapmetal

Decepticons that transform into construction equipment and combine to form Devastator, the Constructicons include:

• Scavenger, an excavator similar to Demolishor.
• Hightower, a truss crane.
• Long Haul, a dump truck (voiced by Neil Kaplan in the Video Game).
• Mixmaster, a cement truck (voiced by Dave Boat in Transformers: Dark of the Moon).
• Skipjack and Rampage, bulldozers. (Skipjack voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson)
• Scrapper, a front load shovel.
• Overload, an articulate dump truck.
• Scrapmetal, who is destroyed for parts to revive Megatron well before Devastator appears.

As well as a few unnamed vehicles that are barely seen onscreen by themselves.

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• Arm Cannon: Long Haul.
• Ascended Extra: Long Haul is a major character in the Revenge of the Fallen console game.
• Bizarre Alien Locomotion: Rampage and Skipjack share a jackhammer-cum-pogo-stick contraption instead of legs, while Scavenger shares Demolishor's weird unicycle bodyplan.
• Combat Medic: Long Haul is the Decepticon counterpart to Ratchet in the game, having a Combat Repair Sequence to rapidly heal himself and his allies.
• Combining Mecha: They combine to form Devastator.
• Composite Character: Scrapmetal of the Studio Series toyline combines the character who was killed for parts to ressurrect Megatron with the unnamed buldozer that formed Devastator's left hand.
• Death from Above: How Scrapper and Long Haul die.
• Elite Mooks: Distinctive compared to the later KSI drones, but their bodytype is reused to fill out the Decepticon ranks.
• Epic Flail: Scrapper.
• Half the Man He Used to Be / Off with His Head!: Mixmaster needed a lot of killing, apparently.
• Human Resources: Scrapmetal.
  Scalpel: Need parts. Kill ze little one!
• Killed Off for Real: All of them.
• Kill It with Fire: One of Long Haul's weapons in the game.
• Meaningful Name: No points for guessing what happens to Scrapmetal a few minutes after he's introduced.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Overload, despite the fact that he did not appear in robot form.
• Non-Standard Character Design: A few of the Constructicons blend inhuman design elements with the humanistic ones expected under the Bayverse art style.
  • Scavenger and Demolishor transform into wheeled robots, with one positioned high above their heads and the other being used for mobility.
  • Rampage and Skipjack each have a large jackhammer-like appendage in place of traditional legs.
  • Despite never transforming in ROTF, Overload received a robot mode in concept art that would later influence his toy designs. The art shows him bearing multiple legs and arms, and only the latter would be retained for his Studio Series release. Hightower is in a similar position, only with all of his transforming toys retaining what makes his design so different from his contemporaries. His robot mode appears to be one that adopted a truss crane not just as a disguise, but as a body-type.
• One-Hit Polykill: A railgun slug through the combined Devastator's head killed them cleanly.
• Palette Swap: Rampage and Skipjack are this to each other, Rampage red and Skipjack yellow (albeit Rampage has had toys in both colors). Demolishor is white with red accents, while Scavenger is identical but red with white accents.
• Starfish Aliens: Most of them, to some extent, since they tend to defy the traditional humanoid visage of other cybertronians while defying the exception made to most animal-based ones. Hightower resembles a humanoid stretched over the skeleton of a theropod, Scavenger shares Demolishor's "tumbling bicycle" bodytype, etc.
• Unusual Weapon Mounting: Mixmaster's spine-gun.

Scalpel (The Doctor)

Voiced by: John Di Crosta

"Ve must have ze brain on ze table, chop-chop!"

A tiny Decepticon field medic who transforms into an antique lensometer (a device for measuring spectacle prescriptions), Scalpel revives Megatron and attempts to remove Sam's brain to extract the knowledge implanted therein by the AllSpark shard.

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• Ax-Crazy: Utterly delighted to torture and kill Sam.
• Canon Immigrant: To Transformers: Animated tie-in material. Art director Derrick J. Wyatt liked his design so much, he made fan-art of the character, before the design was canonized in The Allspark Almanac II with his own backstory and personality.
• Herr Doktor: Played up with his German accent.
• Mad Doctor: It's in the name.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: They make him look even scarier.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The novel says that this particular mouse gets squashed by Optimus, but the film leaves it unclear.

Alice

Played by: Isabel Lucas

"Is that your girlfriend?"

A Decepticon Pretender, "Alice" is responsible for trying to recover whatever remains of the Allspark. Unfortunately for him, what remains of the Allspark currently resides in a certain Witwicky's head, resulting in the spy infiltrating Sam's college as a co-ed who lives in his dorm. She tries to get his AllSpark knowledge via seduction and likely would have succeeded, but loses her patience and attacks, revealing her true form, when Mikaela interrupts.

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• Alice Allusion: Source materials reveal that this is down to the fact that she's based herself off of an Alice in Wonderland animatronic.
• Alien Autopsy: This is shown to be her ultimate fate in the IDW comics.
• Becoming the Mask: It's mentioned in John Barber's "Convergence" prose story as a risk that all Pretenders like her take; going undercover as another species for long enough causes one to start thinking like them.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: Has a very sharp, very metallic one which she would have attacked Sam with had Mikaela not interrupted.
• Deceptively Human Robots: Par for the course for being a Pretender.
• Demolitions Expert: According to Venus, an apparent self-professed "trans-dimensional magazine for Decepti-femmes", she is this, knowing how to disarm bombs such as the notoriously unpredictable foldspace warheads. Must be those tiny hands.
• Determinator: In Barber's "Convergence", she murders an entire station of people while looking for the AllSpark, and it's implied that this may not be the first time she's done something like this. She also gets hit by a car in the movie, only to be revealed to still be ticking in the IDW comics. It takes a blade through the chest by Sideswipe after she tried to ram a NEST blockade with a vehicle containing human hostages to finally take her out of commission.
• Driven to Madness: While perhaps not completely insane, she's clearly very unstable by the time she shows up again in IDW, with what exactly happened to her in between then and her last appearance being unknown, although it's implied through her having to hijack a human vehicle that she may have somehow lost contact with her fellow Cons.
• Fan Disservice: Making out with Sam and giving the camera a good view of her underwear would be straight-up Fanservice if it weren't for the lethal-looking robotic tentacle poking out from under her skirt, which is followed by revealing her robot form shortly afterward.
• Fragile Speedster: Her small size means that she can move and navigate through human premises very quickly, even being able to catch up with a car. But, compared to other, much larger Cybertronians, she can't take many direct hits before going down for a fight.
• Friend to All Children: Within her own species at least, that is. After returning from a mission to locate the AllSpark in Convergence, her only request to Soundwave is for him to let her see the hatchlings before being put back into stasis.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Tends to be quite calm when things go her way, but when Bumblebee sprays her with lubricant she's visibly angry and storms off, and when Mikaela interrupts her attempt to kill Sam she's angered to the extent where she drops the human act altogether.
• Multipurpose Tongue: She uses one of these to try to suffocate and then impale Sam.
• Mythology Gag: "How about tonight, you pretend I'm your girlfriend?"
• Really 700 Years Old: A millennia-old Cybertronian who poses as a human college student who appears to be in her early 20's at most.
• Robotic Reveal: Turns out that the very strange college girl is actually a Cybertronian assassin.
• Terminator Impersonator: A Killer Robot disguised as a beautiful woman with the goal of seducing and then killing protagonist Sam Witwicky. To really sell the comparison, while chasing Sam, she pursues with The Slow Walk in a very Terminator-like manner.
• They Look Like Us Now: A Decepticon spy perfectly capable of passing herself off as human.
• The Vamp: Potentially justified in that, like most Cybertronians, most of her human knowledge is likely based off of the ever-questionable Internet. This could mean that she's actually basing her entire human persona off of this trope because that's simply what she thinks college girls are supposed to act like.

Introduced in Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Shockwave

"Optimus!"

Voiced by: Frank Welker (film), Issac C. Singleton Jr. (video game)

Much like Megatron crashed into the North Pole and was discovered and kept on ice by the USA, Shockwave arrived at Tunguska, Siberia in 1908 and wound up in the Soviets' hands. Now he's awake, and he's not very happy about being kept in stasis by these filthy organics. His most dangerous weapon is the Driller, a gargantuan, tentacled sandworm-like monster that does Shockwave's bidding.

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• Adaptational Dumbass: In the film, Shockwave shows absolutely no sign of his usual cold-blooded Mad Scientist self, and mostly just serves as a mostly inarticulate Giant Mook who gets killed quite easily by a combination of Optimus, human guns... and a parachute.
• Adaptational Jerkass: He has only two lines in the film and is clearly no nice guy. In the IDW comics, Shockwave is in a class of his own when it comes to brutality.
• Advertised Extra: He had as much prominence as Megatron did for the first movie in the promotion and toy line. He's ultimately a minor supporting character, and while he does have a significant presence during his little screentime, he was always intended to be a Red Herring for the true Big Bad, Sentinel Prime.
• Arm Cannon: His most prominent weapon is his arm-mounted AstroMag Cannon. Unusually for a Shockwave, it's mounted on his right arm. When Optimus kills Shockwave, he uses his own cannon to destroy the nearby control pillar for the Space Bridge.
• Animal Motifs: With a big segmented eye, spiky and segmented armor plating and the creepy, spider-like mandibles, Shockwave has a very insect-like appearance reminiscent of a praying mantis. It's taken even further in how he's the one who controls the Driller, a worm-like Mechanical Abomination.
• The Beastmaster: Much like how Soundwave had Laserbeak and Ravage under his command, Shockwave controls the Driller, an enormous worm-like monstrosity that can tunnel through anything in its path. Notably, when Optimus destroys it, Shockwave is very visibly pissed.
• Berserk Button: When Optimus kills his pet, Shockwave instantly stops what he's doing and launches a barrage of missiles towards Optimus. The track that plays during that is even called "Shockwave's Revenge".
• Big Bad: Subverted. Although Michael Bay claimed that Shockwave would fill this role, this may have been misinformation to make the reveal of the true Big Bad more shocking.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: His left hand has very long, claw-like fingers to match his AstroMag Cannon, and an even bigger curved blade can extend out from his left forearm.
• The Cameo: A drone almost identical to Shockwave is part of Galvatron's army... aside from the extra head.
• Cold Sniper: Manages to shoot Optimus out of the sky. Not an easy feat.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Much like Starscream before him, Shockwave's death is a particularly brutal and drawn-out Humiliation Conga. After first having a parachute dropped over his face, he's shot and stabbed from all sides by N.E.S.T. soldiers and paratroopers, gets shot in the face with an RPG — blowing off most of it and leaving his optic dangling from a single cable — and then Optimus flies in while he's writhing in pain. Shockwave then gets punched practically all the way through with Cybertronian brass knuckles, and then Prime either rips his optic out through his throat (film) or vertically splits him in two (novelization).
  Optimus Prime: (as he's pulling Shockwave's optic out) YOU DIE!
• Cyber Cyclops: Besides his insect-like mandibles, a single, red optic is Shockwave's main facial feature. Said optic ends up being a crucial weakness that leads to his demise, when it gets knocked out after being shot in the face with a rocket-propelled grenade, before being yanked out through his neck by Optimus.
• Dark Is Evil: Has an extremely dark purple color to him.
• Dramatic Gun Cock: Shockwave does this each time he fires his AstroMag Cannon, pumping it like a shotgun with his other arm just beforehand. Curiously, Optimus doesn't do this when he uses it himself to destroy the Space Bridge pillar after taking out Shockwave.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Shockwave makes one in Revenge of the Fallen, on the cover of a newspaper◊ that can be very briefly seen before being sucked up by Devastator. Sure enough, he appears in the next film.
• Eye Scream: On two counts. Being shot in the face with an RPG by the N.E.S.T. troopers leaves Shockwave crippled and with his optic dangling out from his head by a single cable. When Optimus arrives shortly after to assist, he ultimately kills the Decepticon assassin by pulling said optic out through his throat.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Optimus either tears his optic out through his neck (film) or bisects him vertically (novelization), both of which are preceded by him being shot more-or-less to pieces by N.E.S.T. troopers.
• The Hero's Idol: An evil variant. The Last Knight reveals that Shockwave was greatly admired by Nitro Zeus, to the point where the loud-mouthed newer Decepticon not only reformatted himself to look like his hero, but vowed to personally get revenge on the Autobots for Shockwave's death.
• Hero Killer: Not in the movie, but in the IDW comics, good Lord. There, he killed Elita-1, Jolt, Knock Out, Dune Runner, Longarm, and Salvage, as well as Galloway. In fact, the go-to explanation for why an Autobot from Revenge of the Fallen is not present for the third film seems to be "Shockwave did it".
• Killed Off for Real: Killed by Optimus just before confronting Sentinel.
• Loves the Sound of Screaming: In the IDW movie comics, Shockwave openly admits to enjoying the sounds Autobots make when they die, and describes his self-perpetuated slaughter of the humans in the Diego Garcia N.E.S.T. base as "scintillating".
• Menacing Stroll: The whole time he's on-screen, Shockwave is never seen transforming or breaking into any sort of run; only taking long, deliberate strides as he lines up his shots.
• Mighty Glacier: In the game. He's got a top damage gun, but he runs like a turtle and is the only character in the game that doesn't have a vehicle form. It's also seen in the film itself, given that Shockwave hits hard and takes a lot of punishment, while barely moving above a walk and never transforming.
• Psycho for Hire: Functions as Megatron's top assassin, and absolutely revels in slaughtering Autobots and their human allies in the most brutal ways possible.
• The Quiet One:
  • Has one, maybe two, lines in the entire film, yet unlike the other characters who get hit with that, he's a significant presence.
  • Notably only in the final film, though; in the comic adaptation, he's actually quite talkative.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Or in this case, red eye. As is common for the character, Shockwave has only a single red glowing optic, and he's one of Megatron's most dangerous assassins.
• Red Herring: Michael Bay made a very public announcement that Shockwave would be the Big Bad of Dark of the Moon, he got a massive part in advertising befitting a Big Bad, and the first few scenes of the film play him up as the new main Decepticon threat. However, Sentinel Prime turns out to be the actual Big Bad, and Shockwave has only a minor role.
• Sadist: In the IDW movie comics, he describes his massacre of the N.E.S.T. Diego Garcia base as "scintillating", and remarks that he loves hearing the sounds Autobots make when they die.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Prequel comics for Transformers: Dark of the Moon reveal him to be this. He was found in Siberia by the U.S.S.R. long ago, and had been sealed underneath the abandoned Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in Ukraine for decades. When he gets out, he's ticked off.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Optimus Prime kills Shockwave in about twenty seconds upon confronting him directly. He doesn't even manage to get a hit in on the Autobot leader.
• Tank Goodness: As seen in the toys and IDW comics, Shockwave's alt mode is a heavily-armored Cybertronian tank◊ with his AstroMag Cannon for its turret. Sadly, he never gets to use it on-screen.
• Undignified Death: For all his reputation as a master assassin, Shockwave gets probably the most embarrassing death for a main Decepticon besides Starscream. He gets his face covered by a parachuting N.E.S.T. trooper, shot practically to bits by the other soldiers while barely managing to fend them off, and he's then curb-stomped by Optimus within less than 20 seconds of the latter's arrival.

The Driller

Shockwave's warbeast/"pet", essentially a massive Mechanical Lifeform version of a Sand Worm. Drillers are Cybertron's apex predators. This absolutely humongous beast (in the novel, Optimus outright calls this particular specimen the largest Driller ever seen) was, at some point, tamed by Shockwave. It travelled to Earth with him, was entombed in cryo-stasis by the Russians with him, and woke up when he did. Large and strong enough to bring down a skyscraper (by tunneling into and up through it, finding a weak spot, wrapping around, and then making like a boa constrictor). Killed by Optimus Prime.

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• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: He's several football fields long.
• Combat Tentacles: Has at least four of them in addition to its main head.
• Off with His Head!: How Optimus kills it, by flying down straight through its "neck" from above with enough force/momentum to tear its "head" off.
• Sand Worm: Mechanical Lifeform version of one, anyway.
• Super-Persistent Predator: Justified as it's being commanded to be so.
• Wormsign: Capable of tunneling through streets, and buildings, and evidently across the distance between Chernobyl and Chicago.

Laserbeak

"With pleasure."

Voiced by: Keith Szarabajka

"Is your daddy home?"

Another of Soundwave's loyal minions. Laserbeak is capable of transforming into pretty much anything, and is Soundwave's personal agent in a massive conspiracy.

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• Animal Assassin: Not in terms of personality (he's rather chatty), but due to the fact that he's a murderous robotic bird.
• Artifact Title: In that he doesn't even have any lasers this time, but ballistic slug throwers like every other Transformer in this universe.
• Deadpan Snarker: He has a habit of making sarcastic quips towards his victims (general either before or after killing them).
• Feathered Fiend: Transforms into a condor-like robot form and is one of the deadliest Decepticons in the series.
• Furry Confusion: He can talk, while other animal-based Transformers like Scorponok and Ravage can only roar and growl.
• Killed Off for Real: Killed by Sam and Bumblebee early into the Battle of Chicago.
• Manipulative Bastard: Manipulated human scientists for decades.
• Master of Disguise: Much more than other Decepticons and Autobots, Laserbeak is shown changing his alternate mode numerous times to quick and horrific effect. He can even become other Transformers, just not in the proper scale or color.
• Off with His Head!: His death, courtesy of Bumblebee.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Compared to other Transformers, that is.
• The Spymaster: For Soundwave.
• Suddenly Voiced: He's the first version of Laserbeak to speak on-screen, as well as the first Transformer with a beast mode in the films to speak.
• Vile Vulture: His bird mode looks distinctly vulture-like, and as a Decepticon he qualifies by default.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Laserbeak goes about murdering his and Soundwave's human pawns when they've outlived their usefulness to the Decepticons.

The Dreads

Crankcase, Crowbar, and Hatchet

Crankcase

Crowbar

Hatchet

Three Decepticon assassins who all transform into FBI-esque black SUVs with cop lights. They attack Sam, Carly, Simmons, and Bumblebee on the highway on their way back to the NEST base.

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• Alien Hair: All three of these have this, but Crowbar's in particular are long, Medusa-like tendrils.
• Animal Motifs: Crowbar has raven-like features; Hatchet's robot mode is a giant robotic Angry Guard Dog; and Crankcase, in addition to looking like the Predator, resembles some manner of stag beetle.
• Bringing Running Shoes to a Car Chase: All three are capable of running at highway speeds, even overtaking Bumblebee, Sideswipe, and Dino during their pursuit.
• Combat Pragmatist: In their battle with Ironhide and Sideswipe, Crankcase and Crowbar drop their weapons and feign surrender, only to whip out hidden spears and attempt to pull a cheap shot on their would-be captors.
• Elite Mooks: Their bios describe the Dreads as an elite infiltration unit, specializing in assassination of high-value Autobot targets and hacking enemy systems to acquire vital data.
• Flipping the Bird: Crankcase's middle finger is longer than the others. As such, some shipments of his toy came with it snipped, while Takara-Tomy opted to simply remold the hand entirely.
• Informed Attribute: Despite their descriptions as an elite unit with multiple specialties (see above), their talents were never shown or made clear in the film.
• Killed Off for Real: All of them.
• Shout-Out: All three of them were designed after aspects of the Predator films. Crankcase and Crowbar are designed after the Yautja itself, while Hatchet looks like a Predator Hound.
• Terrible Trio
• Theme Naming: Crowbar and Hatchet are both named for objects that can be used as weapons. Their team name is derived from the fact that all three of them have robo-dreadlocks.
  • Odd Name Out: Crankcase.

The Traitor (Spoilers)

Sentinel Prime

See Transformers Film Series – Autobots for tropes regarding him.

Introduced in Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

Galvatron

"That is why I have no fear!"

Voiced by: Frank Welker

"I AM GALVATRON!"

A man-made Transformer meant to be their remote-controlled drone replacement for Optimus Prime, he somehow ended up looking more like Prime's old nemesis Megatron. It turns out that this is because he is Megatron, having uploaded his consciousness into a man-made body. Like Optimus, he transforms into a cab-over semi truck.

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See Megatron's entry above.

Stinger

A man-made Transformer meant to be their remote-controlled drone replacement for Bumblebee.

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• Always Someone Better: Even though by Cybertronian standards Stinger isn't "alive", he still manages to keep up with Bumblebee for most of their fight.
• Cool Car: Transforms into a Pagani Huayra.
• The Dragon: To Galvatron.
• Evil Knockoff: Made in-universe as an "improved" version of Bumblebee. Bumblebee is not amused.
• Expy:
  • A Transformer that is presented as better than Bumblebee in every way. Are we sure we're not talking about Wasp?
  • His chest looks like the face of Waspinator, Wasp's predecessor, except in red, like Waspinstor's Transmetal version in the toyline.
  • The red color scheme and heavy resemblance to Bumblebee also makes him look like an evil version of Cliffjumper.
• Killed Off for Real: Debatable. He was never really "alive" to begin with, at least by Cybertronian standards.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Just happens to be bright red, and designed to seem better than Bumblebee in every respect.
• Mecha-Mooks: What Stinger and the other vehicons are. They are lifeless (by Cybertronian standards) shells controlled by remote.
• Off with His Head!: In the end, with Strafe's help, Bumblebee decapitates Stinger and tosses the head to Strafe for the Dinobot to chew on.
• Red Is Heroic: Intended to be this. But then Galvatron comes along.
• Reforged into a Minion: Once Galvatron breaks free in KSI's factory in China, Stinger is quickly reprogrammed into serving him instead.

Introduced in Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)

As A Whole:

• Karma Houdini: Despite being a part of the same faction responsible for destroying Chicago during Dark Of The Moon, these Decepticons are actually arrested by the Humans and imprisoned. Compare this to their Autobot counterparts who had fought against the Decepticons across all previous films to protect Humanity; and that throughout both Age of Extinction and this Film have been hunted by the Humans with extreme prejudice.

Onslaught

"You need a bigger door!"

Voiced by: John DiMaggio (unconfirmed)

A hulking Decepticon tactician who Megatron has freed to join his crew.

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• Adapted Out: He is usually the leader of the Combaticons, but none of the other Combaticons appear in The Last Knight. Brawl (the tank) did appear in the first movie, but Bumblebee offed him.
• Big Guy Fatality Syndrome: He's big, dangerous and dies within seconds of being introduced. Megatron upon witnessing his biggest soldier fall orders a full retreat with him, Barricade and Nitro escaping.
• The Brute: Definitely the largest of Megatron's new Decepticon crew.
• Fat and Proud: Not fat, but just huge. Onslaught is extremely proud of being so humongous, especially amongst his fellow Decepticons. It ends up costing him as he's too slow to fight off two smaller Autobots.
• Informed Attribute: Much like Grindor, Onslaught's character bio claims he's a brilliant strategist, but that talent was never demonstrated during his brief screentime.
• Mighty Glacier: He's too slow to fend off a dual attack from the smaller, faster Drift and Crosshairs.
• Mythology Gag: In robot mode, his truck mode's smokestacks end up on his back, like his G1 version's cannons. (This Onslaught has no cannons in vehicle mode.)
• Off with His Head!: Drift cuts his head off in the movie and remarks his head was fat at that.
• Reused Character Design: His character model is an altered version of Long Haul's.
• The Strategist: Much like his G1 counterpart, Onslaught is the Decepticon's resident tactician.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Along with Dreadbot and (maybe) Mohawk, he is killed in his first battle.

Dreadbot

A rather unhinged Decepticon who Megatron has freed from prison.

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• All There in the Manual: According to his TRF prison dossier, Dreadbot's weapon of choice is a distinctive Cybertronian firearm that's rigged to outright obliterate its struck targets. Sadly, he never gets to use it on-screen.
• Ax-Crazy: Even among the generally evil and violent Decepticons, Dreadbot is considered insane; as evidenced by the Christmas decorations on his robot mode, and the fact that he turns into a Volkswagen camper — which is considered a hippie symbol of peace and love — despite his violent, psychotic tendencies. Case in point, he was caught after breaking into a human bank; blowing the vault up and killing at least nine witnesses rather than actually taking anything.
• Blood Knight: Dreadbot's aforementioned "bank robbery" — where he didn't actually steal any money and just used the heist as an excuse to blow up the vault and kill at least nine humans there — nicely demonstrates his absolute lust for violence. It's for this reason why he was (initially) refused release from TRF custody.
• Extra Eyes: He has an extra pair of glowing red optics, making four in total.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Grimlock bites him in half.
• Hippie Van: His vehicle mode, a rusty old Volkswagen camper van.
• Ironic Name: Downplayed: -bot suffixes are usually used in Autobot subgroups.
• Palette Swap: A slightly altered variation of Crowbar's character model. See Working Title for more details.
• Shout-Out: The "Dread-" prefix in his name is definitely a reference to the Dreads, a vicious trio of Decepticons who appeared in Dark of the Moon (of which Crowbar, whose design was reused and tweaked for Dreadbot, was a member).
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Along with Onslaught and (maybe) Mohawk, he ends up getting killed in his first battle.
• Working Title: For the longest time, he was referred as Hooligan^note This was the working name for Crowbar as well, until it suddenly changed to Dreadbot.

Mohawk

"I'mma kill all you mofos later! Hahaha!"

Voiced by: Reno Wilson

A small, impish Decepticon who was Megatron's first pick to be freed from TRF prison.

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• Cool Bike: Transforms into a Confederate P51 Combat Fighter motorcycle.
• Evil Counterpart: Could be seen as one to Mudflap and Skids, as he's a diminutive member of his crew who is usually forgotten about, and speaks "gangsta" style. He even shares the same voice actor with Mudflap.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Not as bad as Berserker, but Mohawk is quickly forgotten by his comrades and left to suffer at the hands of the Autobots when things go south.
• Informed Species: Of the Minicon variety due to his height being the same as that of an adult human.
• Major Injury Underreaction: He simply moans, "Aw this ain't right!" to Bumblebee blowing his head off.
• Meaningful Name: He has a mohawk.
• Motor Mouth: He is clearly one of the most, if not the most, talkative Decepticons in Megatron's army.
• The Napoleon: The shortest of the Decepticons and is nothing short of a bloodthirsty attitude.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Even for a Decepticon, this guy looks off. He is also the only new Decepticon of the film to not reuse the design of a Decepticon from a previous film.
• Off with His Head!: Bumblebee blasts him, decapitating him in the process.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: One of the smaller Decepticons; he is the shortest member of the team in the film (Well, unless you count Wheelie), and is the first movieverse Decepticon to transform into a bike.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Though he survived being decapitated by Bumblebee, he was never seen again in the movie.

Berserker

"I'll suck your veins!"

Voiced by: Steven Barr

An extremely violent, bloodthirsty Decepticon who even gives Megatron pause.

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• Advertised Extra: He gets an awful lot of toys, but ultimately, Berserker appears in the film for only a few seconds.
• Ax-Crazy: Berserker is a nasty piece of work even by Decepticon standards, which is why the TRF refuse to release him for Megatron's team. Even Megatron agrees that it was a tall order.
• The Berserker: Come on it's his name, it's kind of expected him to be a ravaging lunatic.
• The Dreaded: So much so that the TRF absolutely refuses to release him for Megatron's team. Megatron instead has Onslaught take his place.
• Eviler than Thou: He proves this of the TRF and Megatron, the former absolutely refusing to release him and the latter actually accepting their decision. Keep in mind, Megatron absolutely wanted and the TRF (albeit begrudgingly) cleared for release with some restrictions Dreadbot, who robbed a bank but simply killed nine people without actually stealing money.
• Face–Heel Turn: His artwork suggests that he was an Autobot who switched sides, as it depicts him with that faction's symbol on his torso, painted over with a large red cross. While the cross made it into the film, the symbol was left out.
• Meaningful Name: Take a guess.
• "No. Just… No" Reaction: The TRF has this reaction when Megatron requests his release, and unlike with Dreadbot, they're immovable in this situation. Megatron accepts their decision because Berserker is just that deranged.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Despite being originally envisioned as a former Autobot, his character model has always been the same, non-humanoid features and all.
• Reused Character Design: He has the same appearance as Crankcase.
• Shout-Out: Since he reuses Crankcase's model, he also bears a heavy resemblance to Predator.

Nitro Zeus

"Baby, free at last! Thank Megatron, I'm free at last!"

Voiced by: John DiMaggio and Steven Barr^note depending on version

A loud, boisterous Decepticon who Megatron has freed from prison.

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• Avenging the Villain: He is apparently intent on avenging Shockwave's death.
• Boisterous Bruiser: A straightforwardly evil variation. He's one of the largest Decepticons in Megatron's new Decepticon crew, an obnoxious chatterbox, and actually a pretty jolly fellow until the fighting starts.
• Boom, Headshot!: How Bumblebee kills him off.
• Co-Dragons: Alongside Barricade, he serves as Megatron's chief goon in The Last Knight. It helps that aside from Barricade, he's the only Decepticon from Megatron's team to make it to the last act alive.
• Composite Character: He is a combination of Starscream (transforms into a jet and is The Dragon); Soundwave (is silver, has Undying Loyalty to Megatron, to the point where he was killed by Bumblebee with a shot to the head), along with Shockwave (same basic head design).
• Cool Plane: Transforms into a SAAB JAS 39 Gripen.
• Cyber Cyclops: He may not have originally been this, as he went through a reformatting to honor Shockwave's appearance.
• Determinator: He was able to fight four Autobots at once with a missing leg, and even after his leader was defeated.
• Evil Counterpart: Of Jazz, namely because he is energetic, silver, and has taken on some of Earth's customs (such as putting a golden chain around his neck and acting like a stereotypical street thug).
• Expy: His being a loudmouthed braggart who transforms into a jet and isn't as powerful as he hypes himself up to be is evocative of G1 Thrust.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's genuinely overjoyed to be freed by Megatron, then bids his captors goodbye in the most obnoxious manner. He then makes a not-so-subtle threat towards Enrique, saying he knows where he lives.
• Informed Attribute: His character bio claims he's become vengeful after Shockwave's death, but no evidence of that is shown during his scenes in the film, not even when he holds Optimus, the one who killed Shockwave, at gunpoint.
• Invincible Villain: Downplayed somewhat. Whereas every other new Decepticon in this film was killed so quickly and anticlimactically, Nitro Zeus makes it all the way to the third act without so much as a scratch. During the final battle, he is the only Decepticon to make it with Megatron to the ignition chamber where Quintessa is, and later battles the combined forces of Optimus, Bumblebee, Hound, and Hot Rod. And even after Megatron is knocked out of the plummeting chamber and defeated, Nitro Zeus is still fighting on his own for a few moments before he is killed.
• Motor Mouth: He must have one if his captors took the precaution of wearing earmuffs while seeing him off.
• Odd Name Out: He is the only Decepticon in the entire movie franchise who has a double name.
• Poke the Poodle: As while the other Decepticons have sadistic desires of killing their human jailers, Nitro simply harasses them verbally. Nitro makes a sadistic comment to one of the NBE Supermax jailers for his wife having an affair on him (it differs by the version whether Nitro meant the wife's cheating with him or with someone named Jet), provoking the jailer to flip Nitro off.
• Reused Character Design: His character model is an altered version of Shockwave's. His character bio explains that it was intentional, since he apparently admired Shockwave and was so angered by his death that he reformatted himself into Shockwave's appearance as a tribute to him.
  • It is also much closer in design with the KSI Bosses, a type of robot made by KSI with Transformium in the last movie, implying Nitro Zeus is a KSI Boss who survived the Shanghai battle.
• Shout-Out: His name was also the project name of a planned cyber attack against Iran.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Towards Optimus when he chooses to rebel against Quintessa.
  Nitro Zeus: You blew your chance to kill Unicron!
• Your Head A-Splode: Bumblebee kills him by blowing his head off in the final battle.

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