Straight to homophobic accusations. Want to throw racism and transphobia in there as well? Might just hit the trifecta. Wait, misogyny. Cannot forget that everyone who dislikes MTMTE does so solely from being racist, homophobic, xenophobic, millennial-phobic, sexist, phobo-phobic misogynists. Did I miss any of the usual social media strawmen?

 

See the post above yours to find out why they get deleted. THAT is the kind of opposition you face around here for disliking something that the greater group likes. The only added bonus here is that it's faster to slander someone as perpetrating hate crimes than to accept that some people simply like different aspects of the fiction. Could you imagine if the TFA or BW crowd could fall back on those strawmen? Yeeeeeesh...

 

I'm not saying that everyone who criticizes IDW is homophobic because I of course don't believe they are, but let's be honest, there has been a LOT of blatent, unadulterated homophobia in past MTMTE threads, so it's not like it's not there. I can understand people being a touch apprehensive.

Also, I don't believe the humanization complaint is a particularly relevant complaint. IDW Transformers are no more and no less human that any other Transformers series... honestly to me it feels like a stock complaint that someone once said way back and a bunch of other people began parroting without considering all the other Transformers franchises. There just aren't anymore examples of IDW characters acting more "human" than the other series... there are actually a bunch more examples of specifically alien customs, social structures and biology, though.

 

Liberals gushing over a book because it shares their worldview are just as political as conservatives gashing their teeth because it contradicts theirs.

 

Honestly, Cybertronians never were any more inhuman than Roberts's musing about transformation affecting their culture or Budiansky at times accenting their mechanical nature and what they don't get from the human pop culture. Thinly veiled metal humans, pretty much.

 

That's exactly right.

And the thing is, there are lot of legitimate things you can criticize Roberts work about: Homogeneous and sarcastic dialogue, too much focus on romantic relaitionships (but NOT that the relaitionships exist in the first-place as they're a franchise stlble), Anode, meandering plot threads, overuse of comedic elements, the lack of on-panel transformation despite the series' emphasis on their cultural importance, Anode, an inability to commit to main character deaths and an over reliance on fake-out deaths to produce tension, an ongoing failure to produce satisfactory climaxes for storylines, a cast that's simply begun too big to give everyone their right amount of focus, too much technobabble, Anode...

But no, people like to repeat a complaint about a thing that isn't actually there ad nauseum.

 

No.
I mean: "please, this a story about robots. So please, for once, please, I beg you, use this and DON'T use the same boring old tropes, stereotypes and clichés that utterly destroy any potential of being entertaining (not even anything more than that) in every fiction about humans. Don't portray these fictional alien creatured as fratboys in some cheesy story. Please, put some effort and creativity into the stories you write about these fictional alien robotic creatures who happen to share aspects with humans and other creatures (which doesn't automatically makes them human) for marketing purposes.

 

That, and for a book in space, there is not a lot of focus on said space travel. When you have the whole universe to explore and spend 80% of the book in hallways, bars, and random empty wastelands, you can't help but feel disappointed.

 

i don't know anything about liberals, dude.
what i do know is some evasion when i see it; you're again completely ignoring the fact that nobody can name these apparently massive and glaring faults, and no amount of partisan posturing changes that.

 

Did you miss Gaga's post? He points to the reasons have problems with the book:

The book has faults. Maybe people are unable to articulate why they dislike it, but people did dislike the book.

 

You've misread the tone. I'm being snarky, but I don't have a particular problem with G1 - I actually quite like it. I'm just pointing out that it's a bit late in the day to object to Transformers having human characteristics - and, more importantly, if what you want is fiction that plays up the fact that these characters are transforming robots, Roberts is your guy.

It's all part of the same point I've made several times on this thread, in various different ways, and I'll bold it here for emphasis: Roberts gets stick for his stylistic tics and for the decisions he's made with a small number of characters, but then when his harshest critics tell you what they want from Transformers, it turns out it's pretty much exactly what Roberts is already doing, minus some of the affectations/attitude.

Case in point:

I'm not really clear if this is a complaint against Roberts or not, but surely, you've got your wish. Roberts has layered in weird sci-fi concepts in spades, he's continually fleshed out aspects of the war and pre-war Cybertronian society, as well as Cybertronian biology. He does inventive deaths, inventive weapons, inventive uses of alt modes ... (etc)

QFT. Most of the people on this thread who get sent up as fanboys have actually made plenty of criticisms of Roberts over the years, some of them pretty harsh. I know I have - I felt like the end of MTMTE and the beginning of Lost Light completely lost the plot.

But why are the criticisms others make of Roberts' writing so often so completely wild and nonsensical? 'Cosplaying humans'?? Come on.

 

dude i'm not saying the book has no faults or is above criticism - heck i've had a critique in this very thread!
what i'm saying is that we're constantly getting dudes having a sad about "heavy handed preachy Social Justice" but no one can ever give me a single example.
Only possible thing i can think is There Are Gays, except everyone is real quick to lay on thick how they have no problem with the LGBT so that couldn't possibly be it..... so what is it? a lot of people are real cranky about it so it must be big, yet i've missed it entirely?

 

That's so disingenuous you should be ashamed of yourself.

The relationships between characters like Chromedome and Rewind are about the only thing I unequivocally DID like about Roberts' tenure. What I don't like is everything about the Cybertronians and their culture being a thinly veiled analog of humans and our culture. If I want to read about human characters, there are hundreds of better comics being sold about that than any Transformers comic is ever going to be. And I already DO read them. My #1 favorite comic of all-time by ten billion zillion miles, Love & Rockets, has been published since the early 1980s through the present day, and features more gay, bi, trans, and anything else you could care to name characters than Roberts could ever hope to dream of. So please keep your BS homophobia accusations to yourself. I just want the alien characters to be aliens. Aliens who have relationships, but alien. All I'm asking for is some imagination to be used by the writers.

I'm not saying there aren't homophobes out there complaining about this, because clearly there are some, but you can't just lazily paint everyone with the same huge brush.

 

@everyone who won't stop fucking arguing

Ahem...

It's not all that surprising that Roberts is taking a break from Transformers once Lost Light ends, he's been at it for six years, longer including collaborating on Sins, planning and everything for MTMTE, and Chaos Theory.
As I've said elsewhere, MTMTE and Lost Light have been massively important parts of my life, so I'll definitely miss his writing. He's created what very quickly became without a shadow of a doubt my favourite iteration of Transformers ever, given me everything I never knew I wanted from Transformers fiction, and in the process made me appreciate fiction in general in a completely different way than before.
It'll be very interesting to see what he does next, and I hope, after some time, he can return to the franchise.

 

Without commenting on specific issues, may I point out that even when one paints with a broad brush, it need not be taken to mean literally everyone, but is merely a reflection of the fact that there is indeed a broad reality being referred to? No need for everyone who considers him/herself an exception to come out and say so.

 

Ugh. As a fan of his Transformers books I am gutted. I honestly don't like anything else I've read by other Transformers authors (Wreckers is OK), so his departure is, effectively, also mine. I really just have no interest after this.

I'll be following him wherever he goes, though. I think overall this may be a good thing for him and he could create his own series where he can flourish and not have to be restricted by a toy company. He could have the next Saga or Paper Girls, and that idea is pretty damn exciting.

 

You have people accusing ANYONE who dislikes the book of being homophobic. Why wouldn't you have people call them out on their bullcrap?

 

When Freddie Mercury is introduced into a thread, its serious, lol....

 

Welp, for one I really liked early James Roberts (even though I don't like his sense of humor), he introduced some interesting concepts to the franchise and some good story-lines, and this is coming from someone who hated what he did to Star Saber. That being said, in the last few years his writing seem to get monotonous and the plot doesn't seem to go anywhere.

What about those who dislikes any sort of romance in transformers fiction, do they go in that list too?