Everyone conveniently forgets that Orion Pax IS Optimus Prime, and he had a mouth then. Plus, the Prime form having a mouth has existed since 1984.

 

No offense but what you said just comes across as insulting every OC people have made out there especially when they've put all of their hard work into them. Also most of the media's beloved characters started out as OCs and fan pics too just pointing that out.

 

That’s Gobots in Japan, basically.

The thing about Car Robots is, as kiddy as it was, at least it LOOKED awesome for the most part. The designs and shading and everything made it very fun to watch at the time. Now everything seems to be animated for babies. I hope I’m wrong, just like how everyone was wrong about Animated at first. But the first words being “Bumblebee is” doesn’t give me any confidence.

 

Applauds. Fucking A.
One thing that was awesome about OP was that the villain was more identifiable than the hero.
Fuck this lazy humanization shit.
Let OP look alien again. Give him back his faceplate

 

That's about as funny as Spike's joke.

 

I had that book as a kid. For all I know I still have it in storage somewhere ...

 

In a show called transformers, I kind of expect characters in it of the robot alien variety who come from Cybertron to, y'know, use the titular gimmick. Though I will admit the entire cartoon had issues with the fact transforming was treated as little more than an improved form of getting places.

Author's Pet, thank you. I'd forgotten that term but yes, that's what that worthless piece of CG was.

That means nothing seeing as how you're comparing thirty year old comic art to something from what, less than four years old?

NAME a generic lady jet former!

Windblade got her own fucking miniseries without having done shit to earn it and was made a Cityspeaker (some really important Caminus job though I forget what exactly they did).

She was made the 30th silver badged toy during the 30th anniversary thing in Generations before even that!

She got a toy release every year since her conception! Even Optimus Prime or Bumblebee doesn't get made that much!

You say it's about her being a fem bot? Well I can assure you it most certainly isn't, because if you made the character male and still oversold the shit out of it like Hasbro is doing, people would still hate the character being shoved down their throats.

Buuuuuurn!

Don't forget that WB is basically everything that isn't already present in the Autobots.

Female? Yeah, those tend to be in short supply in the Autobots (all the more reason I voted decepticon in that poll - Animated Slipstream was FUCKING AMAZING).

Jet? Going back to the line's origin in 1984, the entire idea was that the Autobots were made up of cars and trucks while the Decepticons got all the planes and the miscellaneous crap like a gun or tape deck. Menasor and Superion were introduced specifically as a counter to make up for what their sides lacked at the time. While things have certainly become slightly more balanced (the Bots getting more jets, the Decepticons the occasional land vehicle member), traditionally the Autobots are more the ground force and the Decepticons the air force. Making an autobot who bucks this trend is obviously something an OC would do to seem cool, since the Autobots don't have anything resembling the Seekers.

Red and Black? The bog standard "edgy" color scheme of any OC ever. Also otherwise notably rare in the Autobot Ranks.

Sword? The only Autobots commonly associated with swords (not counting TF5 bullshit) are Drift, Grimlock, Springer, Vector Prime, Alpha Trion (going off the TR toy), and G2 Optimus Prime. Of those six, two are already Thirteen members, two are sub-group leaders, and one is Optimus Prime. Non-leader sword users are rare and unique. No surprise Windblade is of course a sword user.

Well, if we're to be honest, Optimus Primal started that trend in Beast Wars because originally he was Optimus Prime (before they decided BW took place in the future-past Earth) but Primal is cool.

The first case of Optimus having a mouth was actually Energon on a specific variant of the Leader-class equivelent toy of the time and it's creepy.


It's the framed head directly under the truck.

Cybertron was the first real series that actually pushed Prime having a mouth, but it also introduced it as a happy medium by retaining the faceplate as merely battle gear, something that all Primes have retained since.

Though I do wish he wore it more often in the recent series since the excuse for the mouth is it makes him more relatable. We can blame this on the movies, too.

That was a one-off drawing error out of thousands of depictions of Prime in official media with a face plate. If you're going to be like that, then I'll also point out that same image has Cliffjumper with a white chest logo when no version of Clifffjumper actually has had a white emblem.

You do understand the concept of stereotypes right?

Name some, please. And Drift doesn't count because the only reason people came around to liking the guy is because of what a massive misfire he was at launch. His mini-series was OK but the dude got promoted as 'the next wolverine' and was immediately put into the Wreckers almost from the outset...except instead of just being way to prominent (you know, like what Windblade is doing), he was just there not doing a whole lot. It wasn't until Drift was taken out of McCarthy's hands and given to somebody else in MTMTE to write that the character became widely liked accepted.

 

Putting all the heart and hard work into something is not a guarantee of quality. There's a good reason why professionals working in the field usually have training in visual arts&communication and go through many iterations of their designs, also why it's (or at least should be) reined in by editorial work. That's not a guarantee that the final output will be great, but usually it helps.

"Most of the media beloved characters" are product of this lengthy creative process even when creators worked only on their own using their own criticism and self-awareness.

TBH I don't think that Airachnid's design was entirely terrible. It's sharp, very agressive, creepy and hostile design very well matched with her behavior and personality.
And despite so many fanarts sexing her proportions up, what was in the show isn't that overly feminine. It got both insect and skeletal feel to it.

But when they tried to shove in a vehicular altmode it went downhill. If you never saw her transforming then there's no way you can guess what kind of vehicle kibble those panels on her arms are supposed to be.

I have absolutely no idea why she wasn't made a regular spiderformer. This would make absolutely zero difference for the show and maybe her toy would end less of a failure.


It's not as if she would end any more similar to Blackarachnia than, let's say, Tarantulas was. Different personality, different color scheme.

 

I don't really know the Gobots (besides the super cool G2 cars) but I feel its something I could get behind.

You're spot on about the animation. Even though its not exactly artistically high brow, it uses the the medium well for expressions, plotline etc.... That's always tricky with the fully computer generated stuff. (Though Beast era cartoons show its totally doable) Do you remember the hand drawn bits in Energon that give you that 'this show could have actually been watchable' feeling?

 

Yeah I was pretty okay with that. It was still colorful and expressive but also consistent. Then Cybertron ruined it by going with the weird full plastic faces look.

 

I love that picture for the sheer horror.

 

I mean imo both energon and cybertron were trash. There's just a couple of scenes where they use RID (2001) style hand drawn animation and it just looks so much better

 

Most of the folk in this thread ain't gonna make to the shows release date with the rate their blood pressure is rising.

 

I feel like that could apply to almost any thread on this site

 

EVERYONE is dropping dead by 2017, but..atleast people are getting their points across INTELLIGENTLY on the other sites I'm on, people just start ripping heads off.

 

Not sure I like the direction they're going with this. Willing to give it a chance but it sounds a bit too..off the mark for me. I rather something more like Beast Wars, Animated or Prime or something.

Also, they're really pushing Windblade aren't they? Hmmm, wonder why that is.......hmmmmmmmm.

 

Psssst

We're not the ones making money. And at my height, EVERYTHING goes over my head.

And I'm not focusing on desperation, or greed. I'm focusing on what a business is concerned with, and they're concerned with that is the most profitable approach. Because they don't exist as a fan-service for adults who are NOT the target audience for the series, or for the minority of their comic audience etc (and in the current comic audience, people calling for a broader focus on a much wider cast is in a minority). They exist to turn a profit and risks are only taken when there is a significant chance of return. Doing a show focused on Sunstreaker, Cloudburst and say Flamewar is not a risk which is likely to bring real, tangible returns. Hell, doing a show with a G1 style Arcee is a huge risk due to the likelihood of negative reaction (there's a reasons Prime Arcee has very little in common with the original). Doing a show with the characters that are their most popular, and the ones children have reacted the strongest to is a safer option. There would not be as many Bumblebee toys if there was not the economic payout on making Bumblebees. He's not getting a movie because he's so well loved. He's getting a movie because they want to minimize risk.

You can buy anything you like. It doesn't mean it has to be made with you in mind. Because you are a specific audience and they are concerned with the largest market. And that's not desperation, or greed or whatever. That's business. Hasbro is very open to fans and to fanservice. That's a choice. They don't owe us anything because once we hit a certain age, a toy company doesn't have to give an ounce of consideration to an audience.

This show is almost certainly not for me, and I'm a vocal critic of Lost Light in recent months. And it doesn't matter because children will watch this show and Lost Light will plough along because the audiences that economically matter give it a thumbs up. We get a greater voice than many fan communities (hell, we even have a toy line where we are a major consideration) basically because someone at Hasbro gives a crap, that's something that could disappear tomorrow and Hasbro would continue on with no worries.

Basically. Target Audience. They want Bee, Prime and Blade. They'll get them. Other voices are not going to factor in. The real world doesn't care what 1980s robot character an anonymous internet post is demanding in their products aimed at a young child demographic. At all.

 

I can see that. At the time we were coming off Armada which had a lot of problems, including rushed animation. So Energon was somewhat welcome, at least in the beginning. But when I watched the better animation(and undoubtably voice acting) of Micron on dvd I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It’s hilarious that I’m begging for another Car Robots/Micron style series now. Even just a utterly superficial anime would be enough.

 

I agree with you almost entirely on all points save the last one. I don't think Generations is going anywhere any time soon. However, to build on what you've said, Generations is the older fan's playpen. That's what we get - our concession. As you've said, the target audience is young kids, and the progression of shows is clearly demonstrating this. Rescue bots for youngsters, then the bridge show RID15 for the late single digits to early tweens, and now Cyberverse, which looks to dovetail into opening the franchise to the demographic as it ages.

To put an additional point on it, as it's been inferred by you, Windblade IS this generation's Arcee. In the 1980's, it was okay to have a pink girly girl shoot a few pew pew lasers and then wipe your forehead and consider yourself a progressive animator. Nowadays, the female character has to actually DO something and be involved with the narrative AND not be robot Barbie. While I don't feel that we're quite there yet in mainstream entertainment with proper female representation... well, it's better than Arcee's prior roles of: 1) Daniel's babysitter and love interest to the manbots in G1; 2) robo secretary and love interest in Headmasters; 3) paperweight in TF:Animated; 4) IDW's transgender murderbot.

 

Thats the thing. Whenever Japan dubs something, it turns out bad. Takara needs to make its own anime. I must say Transformers Go had the right idea. To me the flaw of it was its not only short but there were remnants from Prime there.