Drift

Drift is a former Decepticon who defected to the Autobots, introduced in Age of Extinction (2014) as part of the ragged surviving band Optimus Prime assembles after the Cemetery Wind purge. Ken Watanabe voices him, and the character is built around a bushido conceit: he speaks in aphorisms, quotes haiku, carries swords, and wears armour styled after samurai plate. He is a triple changer, alternating between a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse and a helicopter, and switches to a Mercedes-AMG GT R in The Last Knight (2017).

Within the films he functions as the disciplined counterweight to Crosshairs' insubordination and Hound's belligerence. He is the one who defers to Optimus on principle, and his defection backstory is used to explain why: a Decepticon who chose to change sides has more invested in the choice than one who never had to make it. The Bay films do very little with this beyond a handful of lines.

The character has drawn sustained criticism. Drift originated in IDW's comics as a well-developed figure, created by Shane McCarthy and later given considerable depth by writer James Roberts in More Than Meets The Eye, where his past as the Decepticon killer Deadlock and his adopted Circle of Light philosophy are treated seriously. The film version reduces that to a collection of samurai signifiers voiced by a Japanese actor, and the racial-stereotype criticism levelled at it on release was substantial and largely unanswered.

He survives both his films without an arc of consequence, which is the honest summary.

Triple changer, alternating between car and helicopter modes, which no other Autobot in the films can do. Armed with a pair of swords, one of which extends into a larger blade, and he is the most skilled melee combatant among the film Autobots. Limits: he is thinly written, rarely central to any action set-piece, and outclassed by Lockdown and the Knights in both his appearances.

• Optimus Prime: the reason for his defection and the object of a loyalty he treats almost as a discipline.
• Crosshairs: an opposition of temperaments, the disciplined swordsman against the openly insubordinate paratrooper.
• Bumblebee: a working relationship within the surviving Autobot cell, largely undeveloped on screen.

This is the widest gap in the film roster. IDW's Drift, particularly in More Than Meets The Eye and the Drift miniseries, is a fully realised character: a former Decepticon assassin named Deadlock, saved by the Circle of Light, struggling with the pacifist philosophy he adopted. The film version retains the defection premise and almost none of the substance.

Survives Age of Extinction and The Last Knight. He does not appear in Bumblebee (2018) or the subsequent reboot continuity.

• Voiced by Ken Watanabe, an Academy Award-nominated actor whose casting drew criticism when paired with the character's collection of samurai signifiers.
• Drift originated in IDW's comics, created by Shane McCarthy in 2008, and was substantially developed by James Roberts in More Than Meets The Eye, where his past as the Decepticon Deadlock is central.
• He is the only triple changer among the film Autobots, with both a car and a helicopter mode in Age of Extinction.
• His Age of Extinction alt mode is a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse, one of the most expensive production vehicles ever placed in the franchise; The Last Knight switched him to a Mercedes-AMG GT R.
• The films' Autobot roster was rebuilt almost entirely for Age of Extinction after Dark of the Moon, with Drift, Crosshairs and Hound replacing the earlier ensemble.

Where the cartoon, the Marvel comics and the toy bios disagree, or where a popular claim does not hold up. We record these rather than smoothing them over.

• Whether the film character is meant to be the IDW Deadlock at all is never addressed on screen; the films reference the Decepticon past without naming it.