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SlothfulCobra posted:That was the whole point, hence why they did it in the toyline all about retreading their old characters. All of them?
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Jun 15, 2020 03:21
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Kinda, yeah. I feel Transformers is one of the worst offenders with sci-fi writers having absolutely no sense of time scale. Alan Dean Foster wrote a prequel tie-in for the first Bayformers flick and while it was mostly a forgettable bit of mass-market dross, it did have a good part about how Transformers perceive time differently. When you're a robot the very concept of "life" means something much different than it does for organic beings when you don't conventionally age and routinely Ship of Thesus yourself through endless cycles of maintenance, repairs and form shifts, and millennia can begin to pass like hours in bouts of common routine.
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Jun 15, 2020 03:56
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The unimaginable amount of time the cybertronians have wasted fighting each other without conclusion or result does a good job of solidifying how truly alien they are imo, which is important when the main protagonist is basically the galaxy’s strongest dad. The Prime series does a really good job of showing how a lot of that gets ingrained in them too if you’re interested in looking for it. When Cybertronians fight, they tend to use stupid moves that will never hit and waste a lot of opportunities yelling at one another when they could just smash the other bot’s dome. It’s easy to dismiss this as spectacle until the show brings in multiple cases of humans fighting Cybertronians; they might have a sick one liner to start the fight, but beyond that indulgence they always go straight for the throat and they do not stop until they get what they want or they’re forced off of it. Even the annoying tween girl follows this rule. Wheeljack is losing to an insecticon and tells her to bail out. She instead just notices the loving missiles on wheeljack’s ship and murders the gently caress out of it, which Wheeljack could have done if he hadn’t been so preoccupied with winning his dumbass risky way. And the instant she gets power armor that lets her fight on equal terms with a Cybertronian, she immediately starts busting out all the finishers she’s seen on the WWE and putting on a relentless clinic of pain. It does a good job of showing how some of these things literally just don’t and can’t occur to the Cybertronians because their thinking is so different and the millennia they’ve spent ingraining these habits aren’t gonna break without tap dancing on the point.
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Jun 15, 2020 08:59
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It's hard to say how much of that is just cartoon fight scene conventions- the big colourful robots are going to show off what they can do, while if humans are gonna get involved they're gonna be the underdogs and need to use every edge they can get- but I see your point. By human standards, Cybertronians might qualify as having some sort of learning disability. Mind you, that as much might be the result of aeons of brutal attrition warfare, and that Cybertronians are really hard to permanently kill. (except when the plot requires them not to be) Soundwave in Prime is scary as gently caress because he's the one Decepticon who keeps his eyes on the prize and doesn't have an ego problem. Also the whole Predator drone who never speaks thing. And he has access to the spaceship's portals, and uses them extensively in combat.
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Jun 15, 2020 09:28
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I feel like the only person who is a Transformers fan yet thinks the franchise is at its best when its on Earth. I've never gotten into or understood the appeal of the Cybertron-era stuff. Robots in disguise is the core conceit of the whole thing! Anyway: G1 is janky as hell, the G1 movie's greatest moments came at the behest of corporate cynicism, TRUKK NOT MUNKY, Bayformers superior. Prime was okay but you could feel the executive suit shadows hanging over the series.
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Jun 15, 2020 11:56
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I get what you mean, just the problem is the stuff dealing with the humans can be super grating. It's great when done well. Weirdly, sometimes it's best when the Transformers aren't really in disguise. Transformers Animated was pretty cool and sadly cut short. (also, it's really funny watching it after watching Steven Universe, because it comes off as basically a gender swap, especially with how much Gems and Cybertronians have in common)
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Jun 15, 2020 12:39
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Soundwave in Prime is scary as gently caress because he's the one Decepticon who keeps his eyes on the prize and doesn't have an ego problem. I mean...dude said it best himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI1Naz9THmo&t=17s
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Jun 15, 2020 16:28
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I recall little of transformers media except my knowledge that soundwave is always the coolest one
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Jun 15, 2020 17:36
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The Transformers cartoon I grew up with featured a character who while experiencing an existential crisis, seriously considered ritual suicide before deciding to sacrifice himself to save the future and causality itself There was another episode where another character ate a whole bunch of beans and defeated Megatron with a massive fart that could be seen from orbit in the very last episode, there is a castration sight gag
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Jun 15, 2020 17:44
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The Decepticons are always beloved no matter the incarnation since they're THE cliche cartoon villains and work so well. Starscream is more the Skeletor/Cobra Commander type (even sharing his original VA with the latter. Who also made a plausibly deniable cameo in the cartoon) as a power-grubbing schemer always good for throwing a wrench into a plot, Soundwave goes without saying, and there's usually at least one complete lunatic that everyone loves. Sky-Byte is my favourite, a flying shark who is kinda endearingly terrible at being a bad guy and develops a soft spot for humans. It's a bit like superheroes, there's basically a stock cast of characters that have been remixed in lots of different ways and situations, and invite further ideas and speculation.
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Jun 15, 2020 18:42
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Pick posted:I recall little of transformers media except my knowledge that soundwave is always the coolest one Shockwave Motherfucker.   Also apparently I need to go find out what The Prime Wars Trilogy, Cyberverse and War for Cybertron are. I didn't even know there was new Transformers media stuff after the Prime era.
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Jun 15, 2020 20:14
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Sanguinia posted:Shockwave Motherfucker. His gun is a small version of the gun he transforms into. Adorable. 
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Jun 15, 2020 21:26
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Ghost Leviathan posted:The Decepticons are always beloved no matter the incarnation since they're THE cliche cartoon villains and work so well. Starscream is more the Skeletor/Cobra Commander type (even sharing his original VA with the latter. Who also made a plausibly deniable cameo in the cartoon) as a power-grubbing schemer always good for throwing a wrench into a plot, Soundwave goes without saying, and there's usually at least one complete lunatic that everyone loves. Sky-Byte is my favourite, a flying shark who is kinda endearingly terrible at being a bad guy and develops a soft spot for humans. I loved IDW's Thundercracker, because he goes native on Earth, gets a dog and a girlfriend and starts writing screenplays. All while being a fifty foot tall alien war machine/F-15.
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Jun 15, 2020 22:55
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I was obsessed with energon cubes and how they could squish them into sparkly energon cubes
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Jun 15, 2020 23:38
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Was actually surprised that Cybertron being post-apocalyptic/unable to support biomechanical life anymore is a G1 thing and not something to make Bayformers darker and edgier, given some of the later shows had the bad guys be on the lam and/or the war on Cybertron being an ongoing stalemate.
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Jun 16, 2020 05:48
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Considering they're a race of car robots, I wonder if the 70's energy crisis influenced the G1 backstory, even subconsciously.
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Jun 17, 2020 22:27
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Sanguinia posted:Shockwave Motherfucker. This was pretty much the point in 1984 where most of us kids noticed that while they were there to sell toys, they were also most definitely Not loving Around: 
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Jun 18, 2020 03:33
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Robot Style posted:Considering they're a race of car robots, I wonder if the 70's energy crisis influenced the G1 backstory, even subconsciously. I feel like there was more than one episode of G1 where the Decepticons outright take over a drilling station/fuel depot/etc. to convert oil into energon.
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Jun 18, 2020 16:17
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GD_American posted:This was pretty much the point in 1984 where most of us kids noticed that while they were there to sell toys, they were also most definitely Not loving Around: I was a little young for most of the OG Marvel Transformers rtun, but my brother collected them all so I did read a bunch. What I remember most: In an early-ish issue, Optimus and Megatron decide to do "battle" to the death in a virtual world some human created, as way to finish the war. Whoever lost would get destroyed and their "side" would win. Optimus loses, and the last panel is Optimus getting blown the gently caress up:  However, is "brain"/personality is saved on a God-drat FLOPPY DISK by the human and he is able to be resurrected in a new body with the brain backup. I think this is the first comic death of Optimus? He has a second death in the comics when he fights/destroys Unicron. But his human (or maybe a weird human-sizxed alien?) "Powermaser" partner kind of goes crazy and starts to think he IS Optimus Prime, instead of just Optimus's weird Powermaster* partner. But then in the "final" issue (I guess it was final for that series/run) the "First Autobot": transforms the little dude into ACTUAL Optimus and then Optimus is back...again...and I guess the actual person that WAS the little Powermaster dude is just dead now? Savage. In some other set of issues, some weird accident merges Ratchet and Megatron into a God-drat unholy Cronenberg nightmare:  And for some reason, the Decepticons had almost as many leaders as there were issues. Off the top of my head: Megatron Starscream Ratbat, at one point for some reason? Yes, the cassette transformer who lived INSIDE of Soundwave was leader instead of the Decepticon who controlled him. Scorpinok Soundwave, I think? Galvatron And some guy whose name I forget but was a Pretender Transformer and his "outer shell" that didn't transform was like a samurai with a skull face. Not that the Autobots didn't have their fair share of shake ups, but that was mostly because Optimus kept dying and coming back. But I do know Grimlock, of all "people," was leader at one point. *Am I crazy, or would being a Powermaster/Headmaster/Triggermaster partner be just a living Hell where death would be a welcome embrace? You had zero autonomy...you live your loving life as either the head/gun/"power source" of a giant robot, and only occasionally get to NOT be that when they're transformed...except the Powermasters, who, because they're the power source or something, are still partnered with their robot buddies in both forms? DrBouvenstein fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 16:34
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DrBouvenstein posted:And for some reason, the Decepticons had almost as many leaders as there were issues. Off the top of my head: Thunderwing. I didn't have a lot of the Marvel G1 comics, but I do remember him being in at least one or two of the ones I did buy.
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Jun 18, 2020 16:50
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DrBouvenstein posted:In some other set of issues, some weird accident merges Ratchet and Megatron into a God-drat unholy Cronenberg nightmare: Ah yes, the other big iconic cover 
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Jun 18, 2020 16:53
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U2 probably didn't need the help but it was kind of them to offer!
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Jun 18, 2020 17:26
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The notepad they grabbed that sheet of paper from must have been absolutely massive
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Jun 18, 2020 17:33
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Tighclops posted:The notepad they grabbed that sheet of paper from must have been absolutely massive Oh man, don't get me started on how bad Transformers were with scale. Ok, most of them are like car sized, a little bigger if you account for the fact that the legs often fold out when transforming. So a 15' car should make maybe a 25' tall robot. Only...that 25' tall robot is just as tall as, like, Optimus who transforms from a 50' long Semi, and then in some shots being next to people they look only, like, 10' tall, and other times they're as tall as a God damned 100' tall building.
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Jun 18, 2020 17:41
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DrBouvenstein posted:In some other set of issues, some weird accident merges Ratchet and Megatron into a God-drat unholy Cronenberg nightmare: Holy poo poo what the fuuuuuuck
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Jun 18, 2020 17:45
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Optimus Prime dying has become one of the almost mandatory Transformers things. https://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_many_deaths_of_Optimus_Prime And don't know if it's come up, but there's an official Transformers mirror universe, Shattered Glass, which is basically literally an April Fools joke that went a bit out of control. Has some interesting differences; mirror Optimus Prime is batshit insane, and apparently dug up some unknown secret from Cybertron's past that drove him particularly round the bend, and no one's ever heard of Primus or Unicron.
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Jun 18, 2020 18:47
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not for nothing but they put out a "Rodimus Unicronus" figure awhile back that was literally painted with an evil spock beard and moustache
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Jun 18, 2020 18:56
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DrBouvenstein posted:And some guy whose name I forget but was a Pretender Transformer and his "outer shell" that didn't transform was like a samurai with a skull face. Bludgeon. quote:Am I crazy, or would being a Powermaster/Headmaster/Triggermaster partner be just a living Hell where death would be a welcome embrace? You had zero autonomy...you live your loving life as either the head/gun/"power source" of a giant robot, and only occasionally get to NOT be that when they're transformed...except the Powermasters, who, because they're the power source or something, are still partnered with their robot buddies in both forms? The Japanese explanation for Headmasters always made more sense to me: The heads are small robots who can attach to and control otherwise non-living bodies. So you have just one individual controlling a larger body instead of a robot needing a separate person to transform into their head. Likewise, the Powermasters or Godmasters are humans who can transform and control robot bodies. It's a lot closer to traditional Japanese giant robots like Gundam and Mazinger, which needed pilots. Targetmasters are still just characters who turn into guns though. DrBouvenstein posted:Oh man, don't get me started on how bad Transformers were with scale. There's also size changing, explicit (like when Soundwave grows on screen from a tape player to a robot) or implicit (like when two characters are the same size in robot mode but one has a vehicle mode that the other can ride in).
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Jun 18, 2020 22:54
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What I like is that G1 often stays consistent with the toys in the relative size of the characters, so you get things like Huffer being the same vehicle as Optimus Prime but a little tiny version because he's a little tiny toy. You still get things like characters traveling inside of Astrotrain though. Also the writers weren't really great at marketing the toys, so Bumblebee was a cheap little thing, but since they were drawing him the same size as the humans, he's the character they use constantly to interact with the humans, hence his popularity.
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Jun 18, 2020 23:40
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DrBouvenstein posted:Oh man, don't get me started on how bad Transformers were with scale. And then you get into the truly tremendous robots. Like, Superion is an Autobot combiner made from a bunch of fighter jets and should be probably a couple hundred feet tall. But he's usually SMALLER than Menasor, a Decepticon combiner made out of cars, who by all rights should probably be a third his size. And don't even get started on Metroplex compared to Fortress Maximus compared to Trypticon...
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Jun 19, 2020 02:30
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IIRC, the first Robots In Disguise show was actually a lot better on scale than most Transformers series- so Team Bullet Train towered over everyone else.
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Jun 19, 2020 05:52
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I loved that the Transformers game for PS2, which was somewhat loosely based on the Armada series, was pretty consistent with vehicle/alt mode sizes. It doesn't come up much since you mostly fight drone enemies called Decepticlones, but the boss characters throughout the game are Megatron's various lieutenants and enforcers and they're logically significantly larger than even Optimus because their alt modes are jets and heavy attack choppers and stuff. And then there's the aforementioned Tidal Wave, which is a real treat if you were unfamiliar with Armada before you played the game. The entire level leading up to him is infiltrating a massive Decepticon sea carrier, which upon reaching the end begins shifting and threatening to crush your character as it transforms into his equally titanic robot mode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ymNA87LSVg The game hilariously throws all this away when you get to the final level after the Megatron fight, a fight with Unicron around Cybertron which is maybe about the circumference of a basebal stadium at most, lol.
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Jun 19, 2020 10:48
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That game was pretty awesome. The level where youre Tokyo drifting through Mayan jungles and poo poo was rad
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Jun 19, 2020 11:35
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METROPLEX HEEDS THE CALL OF THE LAST PRIME (One of the few times someone realized someone like Metroplex would be something like a thousand feet tall)
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Jun 19, 2020 12:49
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Ghost Leviathan posted:It's hard to say how much of that is just cartoon fight scene conventions- the big colourful robots are going to show off what they can do, while if humans are gonna get involved they're gonna be the underdogs and need to use every edge they can get- but I see your point. By human standards, Cybertronians might qualify as having some sort of learning disability. Mind you, that as much might be the result of aeons of brutal attrition warfare, and that Cybertronians are really hard to permanently kill. (except when the plot requires them not to be) Ghost Leviathan posted:I get what you mean, just the problem is the stuff dealing with the humans can be super grating. It's great when done well. Sanguinia posted:Also apparently I need to go find out what The Prime Wars Trilogy, Cyberverse and War for Cybertron are. I didn't even know there was new Transformers media stuff after the Prime era. Ultimately who cares because what really matters is giant robots beating the tar out of each other but they're fun details to notice. McSpanky posted:I feel like there was more than one episode of G1 where the Decepticons outright take over a drilling station/fuel depot/etc. to convert oil into energon. Polaron posted:And then you get into the truly tremendous robots. Like, Superion is an Autobot combiner made from a bunch of fighter jets and should be probably a couple hundred feet tall. But he's usually SMALLER than Menasor, a Decepticon combiner made out of cars, who by all rights should probably be a third his size.
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Jun 19, 2020 17:54
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And why does Megatron ever become a gun in the FIRST place? When he's a gun, Starscream is usually the one to fire him. Let's just say that, despite shrinking in size, his arm cannon is just as potent when it becomes some model of Walther. Ok, so you went from TWO robots with THREE guns (Starscream has two arm cannons,) to ONE robot with ONE gun (I have never seen Starscream use the Megaton-as-a-gun and one of his arm cannons.) What did you gain?
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Jun 19, 2020 18:49
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Well, that is how they managed to chump 4 autobots in one sitting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koQY7s9dgn8
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Jun 19, 2020 19:35
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DrBouvenstein posted:And why does Megatron ever become a gun in the FIRST place? Because Hasbro/Takara bought some existing toy robot designs from other companies to flesh out the launch roster, and one of them was a series of handguns. We never got the others.
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Jun 19, 2020 19:41
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I think the toy that eventually became soundwave was supposed to originally be the leader since the decepticon logo is based off his head sculpt, a guy with an alt mode like that would have made even less sense as a leader
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Jun 19, 2020 19:55
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The original "microchange" toyline that Megatron was part of had the gimmick of everyday items a kid had changing into robots. So there's a commercial where you see a watch, a camera, and then a Browning M1910. Kinda weird. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en3m-ggLrSc&t=56s There was a whole conversation about them on the BSS thread a couple weeks ago. Knormal posted:There were also a handful of Microman figures who didn't make the cut for whatever reason. A binoculars guy who looks pretty lovely so I don't blame them for not including him. Realistic toy guns used to be real big before the proliferation of real guns prompted a crackdown on the fake guns. Or at least that's the story I've pieced together. I don't know if there are more realistic toy guns in Europe.
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Jun 19, 2020 20:04
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