Who Will Be The Villain For Transformers 4? Six Characters THN Wants To See!

With a fourth TRANSFORMERS film announced, and the news that it won’t be a reboot but a continuation, THN wonders, who’s left for the heroic Autobots to go up against? Of course, there are countless (unless you’re, like, really, REALLY hardcore) Transformers who haven’t made the jump to the silver screen. And a few we rather hadn’t bothered (I’m looking at you, Shockwave). With all the big name Decepticons wiped out, some villains THN thinks may be waiting in the wings. Let’s start with an obvious one…

UNICORN
Making his on-screen debut in THE TRANSFORMERS: THE  MOVIE (1986), Unicron has made an appearance in one form or another in every series to date, and is generally considered a Very Bad Thing. The Planet-munching Über-former is effectively the Transformer equivalent of THE ANTICHRIST. He exists only to consume and destroy, locked in an eternal battle with Transformer ‘god’ Primus. In the comics, that is… long story.

While there are a few different ways of playing the Unicron card – TV series TRANSFORMERS PRIME has a very nice spin – actually pulling it off onscreen would be tricky, just given the size of the character. Besides, Michael Bay’s already given us ARMAGEDDON. It’s more likely that Unicron will be established as a background presence, observing and influencing the events unfolding on Earth and acting through his Herald, maybe…

GALVATRON

Established back in the ‘80s movie, Galvatron was in fact Megatron. Left for dead by Starscream, found and rebuilt by the movie’s Big Bad, Unicron, Megs was bestowed with a new cannon-based vehicle mode, new powers, and sent forth as the planet-eater’s herald (sound familiar?).

In any case, Megatron Galvatron escaped Unicron’s control and went back to the old Insane Megalomaniac routine… several other versions of Megatron have gone by the name of Galvatron down the years, so why not the movies? Well, because, that already happened…

In REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, Megatron gets resurrected by the Constructicons and gets a chunky new tank mode. This revamped version was meant to be Galvatron, but the producers decided not to bother changing the name ‘for the sake of the general audience’, which makes Galvatron’s appearance on-screen unlikely. But Galvatron wasn’t the only villain given a Unicron makeover…

CYCLONUS

A cold, calculating and devoutly loyal Decepticon. In the later years of the ’80s series he was right-hand man to Galvatron and go-to guy for important missions and leading disposable Sweeps into battle. He’s double-hard to boot, often wiping the floor with various Autobots and being a pain in the skidplate for Autobot stalwart Ultra Magnus. He’s arguably a better choice of second in command than Starscream, anyway.

Making him the main villain would be a little much; making him a lieutenant with perhaps a hidden agenda or a grasp of the bigger picture is more his style.

MEGATRON II
In 1996, Mainframe animation studio gave us BEAST WARS, in which Autobot and Decepticon descendants fought for survival on primeval Earth. The villain of that series was a renegade Predacon commander who – amongst other things – stole several Autobot relics and the old Megatron’s name. Yess.
THIS Megatron was a master manipulator, often playing both sides against the middle. And he’s not above wiping out an entire species to achieve his ends.

Despite an unfortunate resemblance to Barney the Dinosaur, he’s arguably more successful than most versions of Megatron, having actually SUCCEEDED in conquering all of Cybertron in followup show BEAST MACHINES, and in cheating death more times than the average Time Lord.

If he were to take on duties as Big Bad, a few things would have to change: The purple T-Rex beast mode would have to go for a start, and compared to your average Transformer, Beast-era ‘Formers are… well, tiny. Based on a random video game bio, he’s 10.5 ft tall. That’s shorter than Bumblebee (17 feet]), meaning he could be taken out by someone tripping over him. And the name thing would probably confuse matters even more.

Who else?

SCORPNOK/ZARAK

There’s already been at least one Scorponok in the movies, but this dude took over Big Bad duties in the Marvel comics and made a brief appearance in the original 80s cartoon as leader of the Decepticon Headmasters – robots whose heads could detach and become little robots or power-suits for human pilots.

In any case, Scorponok was huge, capable of transporting a small army as either a flying city or a giant robot scorpion. In the Japanese Headmasters cartoon (in which he went by the name Zarak) his head alone was the size of an average Transformer and was the real villain of the series, which would make a great reveal in the final act. After proving an effective opponent on his own, Zarak combines with his own starship for The Final Battle as a Devastator-sized mega-Former.

Or, maybe, Optimus Prime’s next big challenge could come from within…

AUTOBOT CIVIL WAR?

As more Autobots find their way to Earth, more room will have to be set aside for them, an Autobot City. Among these refugees, it’s likely that at least one of them would have a beef with Optimus and challenge his authority.

Take a Transformer like Grimlock. The fanbase has been waiting for this guy to make an appearance since the movies began, and given his past rivalry with Optimus both on-screen and on the printed page, it makes him a likely candidate.

We will of course have to wait and see.

The as-yet untitled TRANSFORMERS 4 is due in cinemas June 2014.