As if characterization from one source means shit to these films. You could easily recreate the characters for the audience, especially since almost none of them ever engaged with the original creations.
Admittedly I've only seen the first one. I agree they didn't really get close to the source material so it probably doesn't matter. I shudder to think how Bay would have characterised female autobots and decepticons though. I'm guessing he would have either gone with a cold, ice queen villain decepticon or nagging female autobot who disapproves of everything.
Kurtzman & Orci (writers of the first two Michael Bay Transformers movies) wanted Arcee in the first Michael Bay Transformers movie, and imagined her as a motorcycle. Michael Bay told them their idea was stupid, because he was rejecting the size/mass changes of characters like the original Megatron and Soundwave, and a girly motorcycle would be too small and weak to play with his man toys.
K&O came back with a revised idea for Arcee in the second movie. Arcee would be
three motorcycles, all of whom share one identity even though they can move around independently, and when they transform into robot mode they combine like a sort of mini-Devastator, which is sized to match the other characters. Michael Bay put her in the movie and then killed her out of spite.
After K&O left the movie franchise they became showrunners on the "Transformers Prime" cartoon, and they revived their original motorcycle Arcee idea, and she's a great character, in a great cartoon.
