Awesome analysis of the designs, Deadput! That was really cool to read where each design came from and where it went (and/or didn't go) in the movie proper
Insurgent wrote:Watching the opening again, i realised the red knight isn't part of dragonstorm. He's still talking to merlin and hands him th staff after dragonstorm is already airborne. Maybe he really is scorn who later was captured by lockdown?
I mean speaking from a rational point of view, in terms of the intent of the movie itself, he's just a generic character who was never intended to be anyone or ever appear or matter again. Outside of that and especially from a toy design perspective, I can definitely see him inspiring/being inspired by Scorn, particularly the new Voyager toy. Check it (embedding this again for the second time in three posts, sure why not):
Those shoulders seem pretty distinctly Scorn-like to me, I can see where the wide semi-rectangular chest became/came from Scorn's toy(s), the hip-armor is very similar in general design, long pointy crotch-armor, general shape of the calves and the pointy-toed boots (albeit not pointing upward like Scorn's). I could even see where those pointy bits on either side of the helmet's chin could've become Voyager Scorn's weird dumb Kronk chin.
Personally what I think is most likely, is the following: Hasbro wanted to make a toy of the red knight because they thought it'd be somewhat marketable (and let's be honest, if they decided to make multiple
Berserker toys but nothing of say, Onslaught, they're not exactly basing their decisions on screentime here). They didn't have an altmode or really
anything definite so they noticed the concept art's similarities to Scorn, decided that'd work, slapped some dino kibble on the concept-art guy, gave him a half-melted version of Scorn's head and called it a day. Makes more sense than Scorn getting a Voyager-class toy for
literally no reason, especially one that's still red when all the other Dinobot toys were toned-down silvers, browns and blues.
But hey what do I know, I'm just some guy with too much spare time to overthink things and way too many toys