Brains

Brains is an Autobot-allied drone from the movie continuity family.

"Pinky & the Brain Part II: Pinky is the Brain".

Not long ago, the Decepticons constructed a "brain unit" drone to receive a very important download. However, the Decepticons underestimated the independent thought capacity of their new member, and before long the drone rebelled, defected to the Autobots, and now calls himself "Brains." Despite his somewhat eccentric behaviour and mannerisms, he's essentially a nice guy, and gets along well with his fellow miniature Decepticon drone-turned-Autobot, Wheelie. He transforms into a laptop computer.

Fiction

Movies

Dark of the Moon film

Voice actor: Reno Wilson (English), Shirō Saitō (Japanese), Guo Zhengjian (Chinese), Frantz Confiac (European French), Stéphane Rivard (Canadian French), Tilo Schmitz (German), Simone Mori (Italian), Jorge Lucas (Portuguese), Andrés García (Latin American Spanish), Toni Astigarraga (Castilian Spanish), Talha Sayar (Turkish)

So if he's looking for a home, doesn't that make him a sort of pet?

Brains and Wheelie moved in with Sam and Carly Spencer. Brains and Wheelie had a deep friendship, as shown by their constant companionship and their agreement on the last girl being mean. However, Brains was a complete pervert, going through Carly's underwear drawer and watching Sam and Carly kiss. Brains, not exactly happy with the living arrangements, complained that Carly was treating them like toys or pets rather than the super-advanced alien refugees he claimed they were.

Bad news, nobody!

The duo went with their human housemates to the NEST base to reveal information to the Autobots, however their offer of help was turned down by Charlotte Mearing. During the meeting with Mearing, Brains found himself briefly tied to Wheelie's vehicle mode, and his attempts to establish a bond with Mearing earned him the threat of gunfire. Brains later did research with Sam, Seymour Simmons and Dutch, and learned that two Russian cosmonauts in hiding after a canceled mission to the moon. However, when the Autobots were forced to leave Earth by the human authorities, both Brains and Wheelie were captured and shoved into a small cage. They begged for help from Sam, warning him the whole thing was a Decepticons trap. The duo, along with the other Autobots, were presumed to be killed when Starscream destroyed the Xantium shortly after take-off.

Thankfully, Brains and Wheelie survived along with the rest of the Autobots by hiding in one of the booster rockets, and came to the aid of Sam, Epps and the human race in Chicago. Brains declared to them that no one was going to exile the Autobots, and they soon marched off to battle, riding Leadfoot into the city. Unfortunately, Brains and Wheelie were left behind by the Wreckers when they were done distracting Shockwave, having fallen off while they were firing.

Eh, they're not exactly the Wright Brothers.

As they wandered through the streets hopelessly, mumbling about the lack of support, they happened upon a crashed Decepticon ship. They rode it up to one of the massive Decepticon "mother ships" hovering over Chicago that was controlling several smaller ships like the one they hijacked. Brains and Wheelie sabotaged and overrode the ship's controls, dropping several of the small fighters onto the battlefield, causing a distraction just at the right second for Soundwave, preventing Bumblebee from being executed after Que. This also allowed the Autobots to gain an essential lead in the battle, proving the duo's worth in the end as the massive ship crashed into a large body of water below. Dark of the Moon

Age of Extinction film

Voice actor: Reno Wilson (English), Shirō Saitō (Japanese), Guo Zhengjian (Chinese), Frantz Confiac (European French), Stéphane Rivard (Canadian French), Tilo Schmitz (German), Simone Mori (Italian), Jorge Lucas (Portuguese), Andrés García (Latin American Spanish), Toni Astigarraga (Castilian Spanish), Talha Sayar (Turkish)

Brains learns the hard way that robotics with Ami Mizuno is not a dream come true.

Having survived the battle of Chicago (albeit losing a leg in the process), Brains found himself captured and forced into slavery by Joshua Joyce and KSI. He now sported a makeshift crutch made of pieces of his destroyed leg and a neck brace. Brains was put to work to help KSI engineer their own Transformers, performing mental "autopsy" on the fallen Decepticons gathered from Chicago. It was Brains who made the startling discovery that Megatron lived, and was manipulating KSI to build him a new body as Galvatron. However, Brains found his captors too unwilling to listen to him anyway, as they regularly tortured him whenever he spoke out, not exactly giving him encouragement to warn them. While Joyce was showing Darcy Tirrel the full extent of KSI's work with Transformium, Brains attempted to reveal the true nature of KSI's atrocities to her, but all he earned was an electrocution from Joyce himself.

Brains' predicament finally came to an end when the Autobots stormed the KSI headquarters to avenge the recently slain Ratchet. Brains was freed by Hound, and was pleased to see Joyce silenced by the Autobots. However, Joyce informed Optimus Prime that they had technologically advanced past the Transformers, demoralizing the Autobot leader, who called a retreat. Brains was more than a little bit disappointed, as he was looking forward to getting retribution on his former captors. Brains later regrouped with the Autobots and their new human allies at a train yard after their rescue of Optimus from Lockdown's ship. He then shared the truth about Megatron/Galvatron and his plot to overthrow KSI. Tessa bitterly questioned why he never told Joshua the truth about Galvatron (apparently having ignored the whole slavery-torture thing he just told them about) and Brains mocked humanity for essentially causing their own extinction with little care for the situation. He then left to enjoy his new freedom—by happily sniffing some flowers. Age of Extinction

IDW movie comics

Hello to you, too, sir.

When Shockwave was tasked by Megatron to help put his house in order by re-consolidating the scattered Decepticon forces, Shockwave naturally set about it in the most duplicitous manner possible. Tasking his subordinate Astrotrain with the construction of an enclosure for his pet Driller in upstate New York, Shockwave provided him with a brain unit that supposedly contained a data download that was integral to the cage's construction. The unit, however, had deliberately been equipped with a level of independent thought its kind were not normally outfitted with, and when it overheard Shockwave telling Astrotrain to terminate it upon completion of its task, it decided to flee, adopting the name "Brains" and fleeing across the state line to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Failing to understand that the fleshy meat-poles walking around were the dominant lifeform, Brains tried to get some aid from local machines, but after getting no response, he kicked a car in anger. This car, as it turned out, was Bumblebee, whose partner Sam Witwicky was not far away. Rising Storm #1

Sam brought Brains back to his school, where he formed a quick friendship with Sam's live-in Transformer "buddy", his fellow scrap drone Wheelie. Unfortunately, Brains's arrival at Sam's school had all been part of Shockwave's plan: attributing a non-existent significance to the drone, Shockwave had tracked down and forced Starscream and the Decepticons loyal to him to recover Brains, leading a huge Decepticon assault force to strike Sam's school. Rising Storm #2 Brains spent the entire fight trying to avoid getting killed, stumbling across Carly Spencer in the midst of the chaos. Rising Storm #3 He was amazed when Optimus Prime's Autobots arrived to join the battle, and was told by Wheelie that he'd be seeing a lot more amazing sights now that he was with the Autobots. Brains teared up a little, deeming that the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him. Brains subsequently took up residence with Wheelie and Sam, and when Sam moved to Washington, D.C. to live with Carly, Brains and Wheelie went with him. Rising Storm #4

Toys

Studio Series

• Shockwave (Leader Class, 2019)

• Movie: Dark of the Moon
• Hasbro ID number: 56
• TakaraTomy ID number: SS-45

A non-transforming figure of Brains is included with Studio Series Leader Class Shockwave, being included alongside his pal Wheelie to match with the brief scene where the pair runs away from the larger Decepticon foe. The figure is barely over a centimeter tall, making it amongst the smallest toys in all Transformerdom.

Notes

Left: Brains in Dark of the Moon
Right: Brains in Age of Extinction

• Brains's head design seems to be based upon the archetypical 'mad scientist', with enormous goggle-eyes and a wild white hairstyle.
• Brains's head also constantly emits smoke, likely to show that his brain is overheating from his intelligence.
• According to Transformers Generations 2012, Brains transforms into a Lenovo Think Pad.
• There is an obvious size difference between the comic Brains and the movie Brains. The comic version depicts him as larger than cars and humans, while in the movie he is shown as around 1 foot tall.
• Brains's CGI model in Age of Extinction is completely different and a lot simpler-looking when compared to his original Dark of the Moon model. Much like the rest of the Age of Extinction cast, he is more refined and less greebly looking, especially in his face and around his eyes, which used to look more like lenses.
• Brains has the honor of being the only character Reno Wilson voiced in more than one movie; he had been recast as a different character for each movie up until Age of Extinction.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Brains (ブレインズ Bureinzu)
• Mandarin: Nǎu-ts^hán (Taiwan, 腦殘, "Idiot"), Xiǎo Zhūgé (Mainland China, 小诸葛, "Little Zhuge")