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I have seen the old Transformers movie and I actually really like that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXbXFJxltyo But apparently there's like tons of other poo poo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsLcTtCrqwg There's like comics and stuff? Okay, guys. You can talk about it. This is a safe place for transofmers.
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May 17, 2020 03:27
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 16:47 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-aTbHsZJ9g e: I am posting this because I saw it when it was new, 13 years ago. so some language is not appropriate any more, sorry. didn't realize it until I linked it and now otherwise I have nothing to post here, so let's just view this as a piece from the history of transmotrons on the internet because that's honestly 99% of my exposure to it. AND the 18+ anime convention presentation, a story I will not tell unless this thread ends up deserving that story
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May 17, 2020 03:30
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Just watch Beast Wars
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May 17, 2020 03:42
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Transformers: The Movie remains improbably good for what it is. Beast Wars was way better than it needed to be. Beast Machines was awful, and one of my earliest internet memories is trawling head writer Bob Skier's website at the turn of the century because I was aghast at how much he was loving up the Beast Wars canon. In hindsight the anger was classic overblown adolescent poo poo and Beast Wars has aged pretty poorly, but Beast Machines is still worse and decidedly takes a crap on Wars canon even when you give it the most generous benefit of the doubt. I might do a write-up at some point on that.
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May 17, 2020 03:56
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this scene goes so hard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzNsOGt3bHk
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May 17, 2020 04:11
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You dare to ask, I dare to answer. Robots are fun toys. Toy guns and cars are fun toys. A number of toy companies tried to combine the two. After enough transforming toys were made, Hasbro and Takara decided to team up, rebrand some of the toys they already made and buy up the rights to other transforming toys to make a new unified Transformer toyline. They also decided to take advantage of how in Ronald Reagan's recent series of deregulations, he legalized direct advertising in children's television (which had already been legal in Japan for a long while) and made the cartoon. Since it was the early days of toy advertisement cartoons, they made a lot of weird decisions that you don't see in modern cartoon toy tie-ins, most notably how they felt that they needed to graphically kill most of the regular cast onscreen in the movie to make way for new toys, because they couldn't just make a new toy of the same character. After a while, the show dwindled for whatever reason, but the comicbook tie-in kept going strong along with japanese transformer animes that kept tying into the new toys coming out like transformers where their head or weapon or engine turns into a little person. At some point in the 90s, one of the new toylines decided to label itself "Generation 2" which retroactively made all the stuff that came before it "Generation 1". No later transformers series would ever be known as Generation 3. The toylines eventually did a bunch of experimenting with robots turning into animals (more realistic-looking animals than before, with fancy new balljoints) and that turned into Beast Wars, which got a fancy early-CGI cartoon and 2 animes. Japan produced a lot of transformers animes, but they only started getting translated and shipped to the US in the 2000s, with Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Armada, Energon, and Cybertron. There were also transformers manga series, but I don't hear about them much aside from Kiss Players which is horrible trash and pretty rapey, because Japan has confusing standards for sexual content in media and target markets. The Dreamwave Transformers comics came along around this time, and after the company collapsed in a horrifying mess, IDW picked up the license, although they only really hit their stride in the 2010s. They also labeled their stories as being part of Generation 1 to tie in with the new nostalgic for G1 toyline that ran concurrently with the cartoon-based toylines. That practice would continue to this day. But then America started producing its own Transformers media in 2007 with the Michael Bay movie, which I didn't like, and then the entirely unrelated but pretty good cartoon Transformers: Animated, which was ended to make room for the next Michael Bay movie. Then there was Transformers Prime, which took a little of the Bay aesthetic and a little of Animated's aesthetic and blended them together in CGI, and eventually led into the sequel series of Transformers: Robots in Disguise. They also put out new stuff targeted at a much younger audience under the name of Rescuebots. The Bay movies kept on going, but the latest movie purports to be a reboot of movie continuity. As things stand now, IDW rebooted its continuity because they wanted to make a new unified shared universe between Transformers and the other 1980s hasbro toylines they had comic licenses to (aside from My Little Pony). The current on-tv cartoon is Cyberverse, but there's also a Netflix webseries called the "War for Cybertron trilogy", unrelated to the War For Cybertron videogames which were actually prequels to the continuity of Transformers Prime somehow. There's concurrently a toyline for the current cartoon, a toyline nostalgic for G1, a toyline nostalgic for the Bay movies, and a toyline for younger audiences. That's not counting the weird territory of high-end unlicensed third-party transformers or Hasbro's own Masterpiece line of high-end obscenely expensive transformers. Unicron is coming. 
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May 17, 2020 06:12
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Transformers are robots in disguise, op
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May 17, 2020 06:39
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Roth posted:Just watch Beast Wars Beast Wars was made by I think the script editor? from Babylon 5. The dudes didn't know poo poo about Transformers but they had the creative freedom to approach the material like a little sci fi series and as a result it's still arguably the best Transformers show. I'm of the opinion that the show's second season finale is the best sci fi series cliffhanger behind "Mr Worf... fire" Beast Machines... gently caress that was sad. It's one of those things I look back on as an adult and I'm like, I can see what they tried to do. They had big weird ideas that you'd never find in a stupid cartoon show meant to sell plastic toy robots to children like transhumanism and anti extremism and hey maybe punching isn't always the answer bwuhh? But the execution sucks rear end and what it does to characters that you already love from the previous show is almost prestige-cable drama quality in it's angst. I also thought the enviroments and soundtrack were really cool even if the character models were way off and hosed up looking. e: unrelated: the gay autobots are tailgate and chromedome Tighclops fucked around with this message at 08:21 on May 17, 2020 |
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May 17, 2020 08:18
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I only watched Beast Wars and Beast Machines as a kid so I can't say much about the other series. And even then from what I remember Beast Wars was cool but it was pretty forgettable, like the episodes were more one off and I really like Beast Machines because it was more serialized (i could be completely misremembering all this though). Beast Machines was just so out there and weird that I loved it, like Megatron was the whole city or someshit, Optimus Prime wasnt anywhere to be found for some loving reason it was just like 3 of the good guys, a cheetah, a rat and something else running a guerrilla campaign. e: Optimus Prime was there apparently.
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May 17, 2020 08:49
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Cat Army
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Optimus Prime's sleeping body made a cameo in Beast Wars, but the leader character is "Optimus Primal" because "animal motif." I really liked that they made the Beast Wars characters canonically much smaller/compact than the G1 characters to fit the animal gimmick, so when they find the Ark in Beast Wars and show the cameos all the original Transformers are relative giants. They even did a full episode where one of Soundwave's cartridges shows up and he's about the same size as the other characters. Little detail that goes to show they were being thoughtful. Beast Machines did have a few cool ideas, but it ended up being that particularly bad strain of "NATURE GOOD TECHNOLOGY BAD" backwater sci-fi you saw in stuff like Star Trek: Insurrection which were all very clearly written by people who had never spent a single day doing farm work.
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May 17, 2020 09:19
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Ravage comes back in Beast Wars as a loving KGB agent working for the bad guys who are technically our allies now because lol 90s end of history it's so perfect it's like poetry it rhymes
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May 17, 2020 09:37
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Optimus Primal as a gorilla was always super fitting I thought. Big, gentle and soft-spoken but could and would rip you in half given no other choice and all. Transformers is a weird franchise that's not quite cartoon and not quite anime, revolving around Optimus Prime as a reluctant leader who's a King Arthur esque archetype and mostly well known for inspired voice acting that was based on the original actor's war veteran brother, and Megatron a terrifying charismatic warlord whose original alt-mode as a literal gun cuts rather to the heart of the matter, also Starscream is there scheming and whining. Actual not significantly contested 'good' Transformers media is a tricky question; I'd say Beast Wars and Transformers Prime hold up on their own merits, the original movie is apparently improbably good despite G1 mostly being a janky ridiculous mess, and the comics are a huge mess you're best off with a reading guide to but make an effort to be interesting sci-fi about dealing with a world-shattering war. There's also quite a few crossovers, including with Marvel, GI Joe and other Hasbro properties (even a My Little Pony one as a punchline) and more recently one with Star Trek The Animated Series, and another with Ghostbusters.
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May 17, 2020 13:55
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I feel like the toys never worked right, they were always a billion pieces and interlocking mechanisms and they wouldn't stay in either form without untransforming just a small, useless amount. Boo I Say!
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May 17, 2020 17:30
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FunkyAl posted:I feel like the toys never worked right, they were always a billion pieces and interlocking mechanisms and they wouldn't stay in either form without untransforming just a small, useless amount. Boo I Say! what we think of as modern Transformers toy engineering didn't really start until just prior to Beast Wars in the mid-90s
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May 17, 2020 17:42
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SlothfulCobra posted:You dare to ask, I dare to answer. Thank you very much for thoroughly explaining Transformers to me, now I know the answer to my question. 
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May 17, 2020 17:45
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Ghost Leviathan posted:the original movie is apparently improbably good despite G1 mostly being a janky ridiculous mess, and the comics are a huge mess you're best off with a reading guide to but make an effort to be interesting sci-fi about dealing with a world-shattering war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9iab0z6Kyg It's an hour sit, but genuinely interesting as he works around the topic of artistic intent versus audience perception-- e.g: The Transformers franchise is unambiguously a corporate marketing algorithm come to life and not even bothering to hide it, but it still managed to say things that were artistically relevant and potent to such a great number of people that we're still talking about it.
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May 17, 2020 22:29
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May 20, 2020 05:29
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A giant Decepticon logo somewhere would be on brand but on the other hand make things almost too easy.
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May 20, 2020 05:47
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Good but needs his curly chest squiggle on his coat somewhere
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May 20, 2020 05:53
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Pick posted:this scene goes so hard I've said this elsewhere on SA but for a dude who was basically phoning in his performance for a paycheck a week before he keeled over and died, Orson Wells as Unicron is kind of one of the best portrayals of Satan I've ever seen in any medium. It's loving great. That "...And?" / "AND NOTHING!" exchange is loving chilling.
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May 20, 2020 06:01
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Ghost Leviathan posted:A giant Decepticon logo somewhere would be on brand but on the other hand make things almost too easy. they put it on the hat 
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May 20, 2020 06:09
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nine-gear crow posted:I've said this elsewhere on SA but for a dude who was basically phoning in his performance for a paycheck a week before he keeled over and died, Orson Wells as Unicron is kind of one of the best portrayals of Satan I've ever seen in any medium. It's loving great. That "...And?" / "AND NOTHING!" exchange is loving chilling. My favorite part of that whole scene was this bit at the beginning: "I have summoned you here for a purpose." "NOBODY summons Megatron!" "Then it pleases me to be the first." The sheer, raw, unadulterated  in that response sets the whole tone going forward, with Unicron dictating the terms for how things are going to be, and Megatron impotently raging about it while having no choice but to accept it.
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May 20, 2020 17:54
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I loved how the first part of the movie is a wholesale slaughter of all the characters from the show the kids went to the movie to see
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May 20, 2020 18:33
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Tighclops posted:I loved how the first part of the movie is a wholesale slaughter of all the characters from the show the kids went to the movie to see I saw it on VHS when I was like 9 or 10 while the TV was still on the air in syndication, so I could easily name all the characters who got fragged. But instead of being traumatized by it I was just like “I wonder why nobody died in the TV show? Did the Decepticons finally figure out how to aim or something?”
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May 20, 2020 18:47
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Did they ever explain the Quintessons' whole deal with the Guilty Or Innocent thing? I know they were said to be the ones who built the Transformers at some point.
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May 20, 2020 19:27
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Polaron posted:Did they ever explain the Quintessons' whole deal with the Guilty Or Innocent thing? I know they were said to be the ones who built the Transformers at some point. The Five Faces of Evil miniseries/compilation movie goes into it, yes. The Quintessons built the machine race that would eventually evolve into the Transformers, who then overthrew them and drove them off Cybertron. They were so loving pissed about it that when they built Quintessa (the planet that Kup and Hot Rod land on in the movie) as their little Cyberton In Exile planet, they set up a kangaroo court to put all cybernetic life on trial for the crime of rebelling against the Quintessons and stealing Cybertron from them. Folks like Kup, Hot Rod, Krannix, and the other survivors of Lithone are deemed “innocent”, because they played no provable part in the uprising. Yet in the Quintessons’ eyes that still warrants a death sentence. So down to the Sharkticons you go, boys!
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May 20, 2020 21:04
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robots in the skies
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May 20, 2020 21:25
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When I was a kid a transformer blew up near my neighborhood and I asked what the explosion sound was and my dad said a transformer blew up and for a minute there I believed Transformers were real.
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May 20, 2020 21:37
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Animal-Mother posted:When I was a kid a transformer blew up near my neighborhood and I asked what the explosion sound was and my dad said a transformer blew up and for a minute there I believed Transformers were real. 
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May 20, 2020 21:43
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Animal-Mother posted:When I was a kid a transformer blew up near my neighborhood and I asked what the explosion sound was and my dad said a transformer blew up and for a minute there I believed Transformers were real. I knew what a transformer was because of Small Soldiers, what I'm saying is everyone should watch Small Soldiers to save them self from this kind of embarrassment.
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May 20, 2020 23:52
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dudeness posted:I knew what a transformer was because of Small Soldiers, what I'm saying is everyone should watch Small Soldiers to save them self from this kind of embarrassment. I actually think that movie is really good
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May 21, 2020 02:03
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Pick posted:I actually think that movie is really good Oh it is, I was not recommending it sarcastically.
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May 21, 2020 03:24
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there's a guy who posts on these forums who works on Transformers figures and I told him to pitch a Transformers line where they do Star Trek things in addition to turning into vehicles and such it's sad but I'm really glad I got to do that and I think the internet is kinda neat
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May 21, 2020 03:30
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While I don't care much about Transformers I do follow Thew, robot-reviewer extraordinaire. Notable highlights are his regular reviews as well as the Knockoff Beatdown series. Even preordered a Spinister based on one of his recent videos.
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May 21, 2020 12:33
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Tighclops posted:I loved how the first part of the movie is a wholesale slaughter of all the characters from the show the kids went to the movie to see I remember seeing a video where one of the writers laughed about how if kids were upset by Optimus Prime dying, they would have totally lost their poo poo at a cut scene where a bunch of Autobots make a 'charge of the light infantry' and all the Gen 1 bots got gunned down while the new bots are the ones that survived. "Their whole toy collection just got killed!"
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May 21, 2020 13:58
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Transformers sucks. Transmorphers however, rule https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LvgH0gwvhI
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May 22, 2020 09:44
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:I remember seeing a video where one of the writers laughed about how if kids were upset by Optimus Prime dying, they would have totally lost their poo poo at a cut scene where a bunch of Autobots make a 'charge of the light infantry' and all the Gen 1 bots got gunned down while the new bots are the ones that survived. I mean, probably. As I think was mentioned, they did make hasty changes to the GI Joe movie specifically because the went 'oh poo poo' at the reaction and how it would probably be even worse with a character who was actually human. Probably meaningful that later on they'd just flat out reboot the franchise when they wanted to sell new toys, and figured out they can have the Transformers rebuilt from critical damage with a totally new look and sometimes a new name. Also sometimes they just come back from the dead. Cybertronians turn out to be incredibly hard to permanently kill.
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May 22, 2020 13:07
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Cybertronians turn out to be incredibly hard to permanently kill. Presumably this is the main reason their civil war has been going for over four million years. W.T. Fits fucked around with this message at 15:05 on May 22, 2020 |
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May 22, 2020 13:37
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That's part of the reason why it was such a big deal when Dinobot died and stayed dead until like the last 40 seconds of the final episode of the series
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May 22, 2020 19:44
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 16:47 |
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Tighclops posted:there's a guy who posts on these forums who works on Transformers figures and I told him to pitch a Transformers line where they do Star Trek things in addition to turning into vehicles and such Star Trek things? Like what?
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May 22, 2020 23:56
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