Theories: who did Unicron turn into who?

[Raider]

I personally never accepted that a lowly Insecticon (or clone) would be turned into one of Galvatron's main henchmen... especially how intelligent they were in the UK comics... and always assumed it was one of the hundreds of animation errors in the 1986 movie, as it made more sense to me to have Thundercracker and Skywarp be the two main henchmen, and the Insecticons (clones) be the Sweeps and Armada clones. (not that the "armada of Cyclonus clones" ever reappeared after the attack on Autobot city, so were probably in the original script to make up a more significant fighting force of Decepticons when they returned to Autobot City - a bit like the seeker clones and Reflector clones in the first few episodes of the original cartoon just to make up numbers)
Before the storyboards surfaced in 2005 (Wally Burr was selling them at BotCon that year), it was one of those fan debates that had no end, between those who saw Bombshell on screen become Cyclonus, and those who believe it was just another animation error and it was meant to be Skywarp who was also black and purple.

I'd like to see the original script, to see if Ron Friedman actually had anyone specific become Scourge and Cyclonus, as storyboard scripting (the action described below each frame of the storyboard), doesn't say any specific Decepticon, but does name who each new Decepticon is called. I think the storyboard artist working off Ron's script, probably just picked random characters that were thrown out in the previous scene, not knowing if any were more significant than others. After all, this was originally written during the first year of Transformers, and the writer didn't really need to feature many of them in a significant way, as they would be off toy shelves by the time this movie would be out)

The IDW comic version of the 1986 movie (printed in 2006) did a lot of fixing of errors and inconsistencies, but stayed true to the animated movie by having Bombshell become Cyclonus. Then again... the actual animated scene with Cyclonus and his Armada being created at the same time doesn't necessarily mean that Cyclonus is the one at the front.

I agree mostly with this. In particular, the aspect about the intelligence. As we know from Megatron, he retained his memories and to a large extent his personality. The same can said for Cyclonus if you agree he is SKywarp. Skywarp was always fiercely loyal to Megatron. As such, Cyclonus was always fiercely loyal to Galvatron. On the other hand, I seem to recall instances where Bombshell was anything but loyal to Megatron.

As a kid this was always a massive mindf^&* for me. I just couldn't get my head around what was going on. I put it down to the large amount of animation errors in the Movie. How many bots again where in the battle at Autobot City to then show up later again on the same ship that Prime came in on? The animators messed up and Orson Wells probably didn't want to redo the voice over if there was an error by him or a change in the script.

To me, it will always make more sense that the two new henchmen were the two more popular characters.

Side note, I am sure I read somewhere before that "Armada" (or the second Cyclonus) was actually smaller than Cyclonus. Given that they were reformatted and not completely rebuilt, it would make sense that the larger bot (ie Skywarp) became the large Cyclonus.

I know that country folk can be a bit slow, so let me explain it to you in small, bite size portions your A Country Practice meets Sesame Street brain can comprehend.

Bombshell is named & drawn in storyboard. Bombshell in front. Bombshell becomes Cyclonus.

Next time you're in Sydney, I'll staple the storyboard to your forehead in case you're having trouble seeing it.

Mate you live that far west you are almost country so I wouldn't go that far on Trev.... Not to mention, those storyboards are FULL of errors. Pinning your rationale on that, and that alone, is like Trump taking the word 'exonerate' from the Mueller report and stating "See, totally exonerated!". Let's keep context in mind.... I expected better of you too...

C’mon Griff. You’re reaching here mate. Like, Go go gadget arms! reaching. Saying that the one in front wasn’t the main Cyclonus? That same logic also means that Scourge might not have been front and centre when all the sweeps were created and that maybe Kickback actually became Scourge.

And Trent... not you too... I mean you are as wrong about this as you are about The Last Jedi being a good movie... what a load of garbage... nothing of substance to add to the discussion and all you do is have a go at griffin for setting out a logical basis for his opinion. Tsk tsk tsk. Back to the wacky tobacky for you my south coast friend.