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Kinda low-key one of the big sci-fi franchises of the last 25 ish years, and occupying a weird place. A kids franchise that gets hardcore Michael Bay action movies and one of the longest running multi-franchise comic books with an actual ending, a Japanese franchise more defined by its Western produced instalments, a series that's rebooted literally twice a decade at least as a matter of course and the fans haven't been particularly bothered about that since the 90s. Also, its whole backstory and concept has vibes of post-revolutionary factionalism, with the whole deal being the civilian and military factions that overthrew their oppressors and started fighting each other for the right to determine their future path. At the very least, Optimus Prime and Megatron have always had pretty intense messy ex energy. There's some varied, twisted, winding rabbit holes this franchise can take you down, feel free to introduce poor bastards to them who just wanted to talk about how much fun they had with their toys.
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Jan 7, 2022 17:55
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 17:04 |
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Chris McFeely's The Basics series is great and highlights just how many different versions there are of every element of the franchise. Something wild I learned from that channel is that Transformers are actually (in a very roundabout way) a GI Joe spinoff. Apparently when Hasbro was originally trying to sell 12 inch GI Joes internationally, Japan's Takara took the toys and retooled them into "Henshin Cyborg" toys, which they hoped would sell better than the standard military themed versions. When Takara wanted to make vehicle accessories for the toys, they shunk the figures down to make it more cost-effective and created the Microman toyline. When it turned out to be a hit, the went all-in on the vehicle accessories and created the Diaclone toyline, then both Diaclone and Microman toys were licensed by Hasbro to create many of the original Transformers.
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Jan 7, 2022 23:21
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Hasbro put up every episode of the original Transformers cartoon on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/hasbropulse/featured I've been watching them and some are pretty fun. However the episodes are a bit out of order so sometimes characters will appear before their official introductory episodes.
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Jan 10, 2022 03:34
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STAN BUSH APPRECIATION THREAD GROUND FLOOR! DARE TO KEEP ALL YOUR DREAMS ALIVE! https://youtu.be/NouZB6QuCys
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Jan 10, 2022 08:06
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what is the best Transformer? the answer is of course Soundwave. Soundwave superior.
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Jan 10, 2022 12:03
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xyJkUXCkZ8 The Transformers franchise produced a superior grade of themed parody rock/metal band. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTTT0iarzI8
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Jan 11, 2022 03:56
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Action Jacktion posted:
don't worry, this still happens if you watch the show in order
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May 5, 2022 12:50
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I like how there's a big complicated multi-episode saga about how Megatron had to go to Cybertron to access Vector Sigma to create the souls of some new car Decepticons because all those car autobots were ruining his plans (and the Autobots while trying and failing to stop him built some plane soldiers out of Vector Sigma's ancient guardians). And then right after that whole saga there's just an episode of oh hey here's the combaticons, they exist now. The show often gets pretty desperate about filling out Decepticon group scenes because there's so few of them compared to Autobots. Which I guess worked better for later shows/canons where they end up depicting the Decepticons as smaller terrorist groups against an Autobot majority as opposed to the first show where the Autobots are a scrappy band of rebels against the Decepticons who rule most of Cybertron.
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May 5, 2022 16:23
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It's kinda funny how different incarnations establish wildly different status quos. Some versions go with the Autobots ruling Cybertron and the Decepticons or equivalents being a terrorist group, Animated even establishes the Decepticons having already lost the war and been pushed to the fringes of space. The Bayformers movies on the other hand have Cybertron be destroyed, and for a while Hasbro had a loose 'Aligned' continuity/setup across several forms of media (including the War for Cybertron games and IDW comics) where Cybertron was basically post-apocalyptic and uninhabitable, and both Autobots and Decepticons are scattered after aeons of total war. Armada I think had a somewhat rare situation where the status quo is a stalemate over Cybertron and both sides going to Earth to find potential superweapons that could turn the tide either way.
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May 5, 2022 17:00
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For me the absolutely coolest part of the lore that the robots have souls and a loving god but the humans apparently do not
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May 5, 2022 17:20
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Primus has lore about him, but I don't think he really appears much. Most continuities don't even seem to mention him. I guess the fact that they're robots implies more that there's some kind of creator instead of naturally occurring springs and gears somehow evolving on their own. I think some religious people have had weird speculation with sci-fi like whether there would be one god for all the cosmos and whether he'd send a son to save each planet individually or if each planet would have their own god, and it's possible that Earth could have its own cosmological system in the Heavens unrelated to to these weird robot. Except for in Transformers Prime where Earth itself turns out to be Unicron, the Transformers devil.
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May 5, 2022 22:50
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And the last Bay film which had the same plot point
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May 5, 2022 23:41
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Which makes a lot of sense considering the humans who populate the movies.
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May 6, 2022 00:18
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