How does Optimus heal himself in Age of extinction?
In Age of extinction, in the scene where Optimus is on the road with Cade and Tessa (after they take refuge in the broken down gas station), he transforms into a shiny new Western Star 4900 Phantom truck just by 'scanning' a similar truck that was passing by. One should remember that Optimus was pretty beat up and in terrible condition when Cade found him initially.
So all it takes to fix a transformer is a vehicle nearby that it can 'scan' and transform into? Or is this just more Michael Bay crap?
My issue is not with the scan and transform part. Optimus was almost falling apart when Cade found him. He had bullet holes in him and he could barely stand up. Even if he did transform by scanning the truck, how did he repair himself?
Best Answer
Optimus got that missile in his body which make him unable to do self-repair or morph to a better vehicle. However once Cade remove that, he can do it again. How can he morph to another and better vehicle? Well, they were call Transformer for god sake and they have Sparks, their source of life which allow them to do all those self repair, morphing, transforming etc.
Since movie one, all of the transformers got beaten, thrown, shot with missle etc, and they always return to their initial condition. They are made with this superb metal call Transformium and with the power of the Sparks inside them, they can morph to anything they want, by just scanning and imprinting animate object around them.
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Answer 2
Well, while Optimus certainly "was pretty beatup and in terrible condition when Cade found him initially", you also have to keep in mind that Cade already repaired him quite a bit, up to a degree where Optimus didn't need his fellow transformers to repair him anymore. This is also evident from his rather agile and more or less fully functional behaviour during their escape from the farm.
So Optimus already had been repaired up to normal standards by Cade. The rest of his rather rusty appearance was just part of his current appearance as this old truck model and not due to his previous "injuries". Whyever he had that appearance (most likely as disguise to evade the current anti-Transformer pogroms), he didn't see any need to uphold it anymore and switched to a more comfortable/modern appearance as soon as the possibility arose. In addition to that, the correlation between the Transformers' vehicle appearance and their "humanoid" appearance is not entirely clear anyway, as evident from this related question.
So to sum up, he didn't repair himself by scanning that vehicle but simply changed his appearance, as he already had been repaired to acceptable degrees by Cade earlier.
Answer 3
In a bit of exposition in the first one, Scorponok's tail was said to be healing/regenerating (except for the bits hit by the sable? rounds). It could be that once reactivated, Optimus began to heal, but given the extent of damage it would have been quicker to be 'fixed'. As for his rusty appearance (except for bullet holes of course), my guess is it was just the form he had been using to evade the cia and not a direct result of damage.
Answer 4
During the First movie, this exact thing happens with Bumblebee:
He scans another Camaro, and takes its likeness by doing so. It's such an integral aspect of the franchise, there is even a Toy of the Camero Mid-Scan.
As Paulster tried to say above, there is absolutely a Precedent for this... ;)
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