Why do Optimus, Rodimus, and Nemesis Prime turn into semi trucks? Because another name for a semi truck is a prime mover.
Similarly, Blaster's boombox alt-mode? It's a ghetto blaster.
The main four G1 Autobot Headmasters have names related to heads: Hardhead, Brainstorm, Highbrow, and Chromedome.
In most, if not all Transformers series - particularly the Japanese series, the live-action movies and Transformers: Prime, the Transformers move with impossible grace and agility despite being Humongous Mecha. However, this can be seen as Fridge Brilliance since, in the movies and the Marvel G1 continuity, Cybertron is MUCH◊ larger than Earth - in Marvel G1, it's stated to be the size of Saturn, while in the movies, it appears to be more the size of a Super-Earth. Logically, Cybertron must have a MUCH higher gravity than Earth due to its greater mass, and so, Transformers are Heavy Worlders - on their home planet, they'd probably have an agility more like a human's, meaning non-rocket-assisted jumps wouldn't be too high. On the much smaller Earth, though, they can run faster, jump higher, and are generally more agile - much like Silver AgeSuperman.
Optimus managed to survive re-entry of Earth's atmosphere and only slightly injured.
On the other hand, in the original series story arc "The Ultimate Doom,'' Cybertron seems to be tiny compared to Earth (not that this affects its size in other continuities). It may still have high gravity for its size, since it's made of metal, and therefore dense. Indeed, when humans visit the place, it appears to have roughly Earth gravity. A different possible explanation for the Transformers' ease of movement (and their casual violations of the Square-Cube Law) could be that, judging by Megatron, Soundwave, and the Cassettes, the Transformers clearly have technology to change size and mass. If we assume this tech is ubiquitous in all Transformers, they may actually weigh a great deal less than they appear to, or they may be able to change their mass depending on their situation (probably not giving it any more conscious thought than we'd give to holding our arms out for balance when we're unsteady on our feet). This could also account for a lot of the scale issues that have always plagued the franchise.
Back in G1 there were Cassetticons - in 1985 cassettes were the common media for storing information both audio and visual, but they're hardly mobile. What do those Transformers turn into now? Memory sticks that can store over 4 million years of information! But they're not any more mobile...
The Original Series is often derided for its Nobody Can Die policy. Up until the 1986 movie, we never saw any Transformer die, except in flashbacks to Cybertron's history. This makes perfect sense. The war has been going on for millions of years, with many of the same combatants lasting through the whole conflict. This would be absurd if the war had anything like a human mortality rate. These aren't humans, they're multimillion-year old giant alien robots. Transformers are hard to kill. They're even hard for each other to kill. They fight their war on a mythological timescale, where a single warrior may fight for ages before falling. It should be a rare, major event when somebody actually dies. Notably, this isn't entirely a good thing, because it means the war can drag on forever, and it has. People praise the 1986 movie for having a "realistically" high body count, but in the established context of The 'Verse, it's the movie's high body count that is illogical, not the previous TV episodes.
Not quite as illogical if you realize that during the series, they were always fighting over the resources on a single world. In the movie, the Decepticons have taken over Cybertron, while the Autobots have the run of Earth, so it's not terribly unreasonable to conclude that the reason we suddenly see a high body count is that both sides are operating at full power for the first time in the series. That would also explain why the Autobots who were relying on the limited resources of the moon bases are so easily slaughtered by a small group of 'cons who were on Cybertron, but once the 'cons reach Earth it's a much more even battle.
There is a manga for the Generation 1 cartoon that is notorious for having Rumble and Frenzy disguising themselves by wearing Klansmen-like costumes. While this could be chalked up to Japan being oblivious of the problematic aspects of referencing the Ku Klux Klan, it is a known fact that the Decepticons do not care about humans, so it would make perfect sense that they wouldn't care about the implications of dressing like members of a white supremacist group.
In the episode "Cosmic Rust", Starscream uses his hand-pincer to take aways a piece of meteorite that ends up giving Megatron a huge case of cosmic rust, but it seems weird Starscream himself didn't get infected as well after the procedure. However, Starscream was noted to be a scientists before the war, and scientists are often noted to work with very dangerous materials (from toxic substances to radioactive objects to mention a few). Probably Starscream's pincer is a renmant of his time as a scientist made to handle unknown substances that might be dangerous for a regular cybertronian, as such, the cosmic rust didn't affect him.
Unicron's name seems kind of strange, but there may actually be a reasonable etymology behind it. "Uni," meaning "one," refers to the fact that most versions of Unicron want to be the only thing in existence, the fact that he assimilates planets into himself, and the fact that, up until recently, it was said that every version of Unicron was the same being. "Cron" comes from Cronus, the Greek Titan (Unicron is one of if not the biggest Transformers) who ate his children and whose Roman equivalent, Saturn, gave his name to a planet famous for its rings. Unicron's alt-mode? A planet with a ring.
The Decepticons' faction name makes a fair amount of sense given their out-of-universe origins. Many of the original Decepticon toys were taken from Takara's Microchange line, where the characters were robots that took the form of things in a kid's bedroom (Megatron was an airsoft gun). At least two of them, Soundwave and the Reflectors, take the form of a tape deck and a camera respectively. They're trying to trick people into thinking they're just harmless objects.
Transformers: The war between the Autobots and Decepticons. Depending on the source material, this war may or may not have been going on for millions of years. Just to clarify, the Human race is maybe a couple hundred thousand years old. Not to mention that the body count both sides would be completely insane, the race is pretty much doomed to extinction (again, depends on the adaptation), and the fact that the Decepticons are still determined to win even though it's obvious that the whole conflict is basically glorified genocide. Suddenly makes Megatron and his army a lot less likable...
Also, short of completely destroying a Transformer's spark, it's fairly simple to put one back together and be in fighting order in a few days. Talk about eternal warfare.
Not just the cars. Look at Reflector, the cameraformer. There could be a Decepticon in your room, and you'd never know.
The Real Gear Robots from the first live-action film toyline and the Device Label series from Japan take the concept further. Your MP3 player could be an infiltrator like Soundwave, and all your common electronics could be waiting for you to turn your back to snoop around and stuff. Device Label Ravage transforms into a working USB flash drive. He's got all your secrets in him now.
The entire idea of combiners is pretty horrifying once you think about it. You're joining your body with at least one other person, using specific unfolding connectors. Then you're stuck in this gigantic behemoth's mind. If you're lucky, you get along fairly well with your team and the combined mode is stable (Defensor, Computron, Predaking, Piranhacon) and usually stupid (Superion, Bruticus, Abominus). Then, sometimes you're with a bunch of people you disagree with, causing your merged mind to be completely berserk (Devastator). But oh, it gets worse. What if your components are a psychotic tyrant, a self-obsessed glory hog, a paranoid wreck, a suicidal weirdo and a batshit insane rampager who can't stay quiet for three seconds? Then you're Menasor, who has enough mental problems to warrant his own asylum. Have fun getting in that head.
And the whole combiner thing? The franchise never really goes in to what happens when a gestaltmate dies. When part of their freaking spark is just... extinguished. Gone. Just like that.
I wouldn't worry, as Scrapper died in the IDW G1 comics, and the other Constructicons were perfectly fine after that.
A recent revelation in IDW makes the implications of combination even more horrifying - as the combiner team continually combines, each member's individual personality becomes less distinct. The most likely end-game of this is that it would effectively make the mind of each part a fractal of the whole. As bad as this would be for the Predacons or the Combaticons, imagine how this would be for a team like the Stunticons—or anyone unfortunate enough to cross their paths.
The implications re: the Stunticons get worse in one of the 200x Classics toylines - a Legends-sized release for Menasor features him as a single robot without the ability to separate into individual Stunticons, implying that all of their personalities were suppressed or fully merged.
A lot of Transformers had oddball personality quirks, mental disorders, or were just plan nuts according to their tech spec profiles. Seems a little odd so many of them would be neurotic? Remember most of them have been fighting for millions of years in a war with not end in sight. They've seen untold death and destruction. No wonder so many Transformers have mental issues.
Worse: Some Transformers are said to be "cold constructed", meaning they were built solely for war and sent straight into the fight. All they know is fighting.
The hate plague episode(s) should be put into account we see Transformers vs Transformers fighting each other regardless of their side. And the plague later infects humans world wide. The infected individual will attack just about anyone in arms reach. So we can imagine humans killing each other in the millions, or worse, Transformers blasting and possibly stomping on Puny Earthlings with their weapons and feet.
Unicron is a universal entity, meaning that he exists in all universes. Including ours.
This is not true, as "ask vector Prime" has specifically stated that although there are unicrons in this universe, they are all plastic toys.
Which invites a different kind of Fridge horror. Prior to the shroud, if you owned a Unicron, any Unicron, he could hear and see you. He thankfully couldn't do anything, but he was still aware of you. Every Unicron toy was basically the Doll from Coraline.
◊ larger than Earth - in Marvel G1, it's stated to be the size of Saturn, while in the movies, it appears to be more the size of a Super-Earth
