James Roberts confirms stepping away after Lost Light.

Discussion in 'Transformers News and Rumors' started by GWolfv2, Apr 22, 2018.

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  1. misfire19d

    misfire19d Not a writer. Not an illustrator. Just a fan.

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    MTMTE/LL, Optimus Prime are ending. Roberts is out. And I’ll have a new Transformers comic to read by the end of the year. Looks like I’m getting everything I want.

    Happy days are here again!
     
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  2. Masktique

    Masktique #1 Sideways Fan

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    I think you just nailed the hammer on the head on why I don't like Autobot Megatron, or at least the way Autobot Megatron idea was executed. Such an extraordinary amount of time spent doing the worst of the worst, and in the span of, what, a couple of days he changes? Millions of years of evil just unfolding? I just didn't really like it, at least not in that little period of time compared to his entire, extensive life of tyranny.
     
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  3. hardlurk

    hardlurk Well-Known Member

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    Roberts himself described "pre-war" Megatron's influences as Marx & Engels, Trotsky, and the Fourth International. He's pretty explicitly a (caricature of) a communist.

    James Roberts on Twitter
     
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  4. worldsgreatest

    worldsgreatest Well-Known Member

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    I'm sure you guys are getting dangerously close to an admin wiping this thread at this point. Might want to just dial back the politics a bit.
     
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  5. worldsgreatest

    worldsgreatest Well-Known Member

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    Nah. That issue was awesome. I personally love weird one-offs.
     
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  6. hardlurk

    hardlurk Well-Known Member

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    If I am banned for being too communist on main, let this be my last message to the (TF)world(2005):

     
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  7. justiceg

    justiceg Well-Known Member

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    Admittedly if this thread is gonna go (and I’ve enjoyed a lot of the discussion so I would be bummed if it did) - what a way to go. :) 
     
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  8. Focksbot

    Focksbot Skeleton Detective

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    So again, it doesn't really matter (for the current debate) whether the joke was funny or not. The point is it was a joke, and it was one line. Yet this is the kind of thing that is produced, on prompting, as evidence of Roberts' political agenda being out of control and dominating the comic.

    And again, no one is saying his politics aren't in the book - but we are saying they're a relatively small part of it, and that it is a bit ridiculous that their role is so vastly exaggerated. What on earth is so 'lefty' or 'liberal' about the central premise of finding your ancestors, or the physical battering and elimination of various baddies along the way? Or the time travel shenanigans?

    Same thing with the romantic relationships - they're in the comic. Sometimes the dialogue around them doesn't work, or we spend too much time with the various pairings. But it doesn't define the whole. The poster I'm quoting below says he 'hates' romance, and that's the problem with these criticisms. They seem to be levelled by people who 'hate' one thing so much that they can't like a comic which has any of that thing present in it. I'm no romance fan either, and could do without most of the later Chromedome/Rewind scenes, but they don't exactly dominate the book.

    It makes no more or less sense than them having exactly the same number of arms and legs.

    That's kind of the point. When examples are asked for, they turn out to be really bad examples. That's what we're driving at here. The criticism is made that Roberts' writing is completely, irredeemably overrun with this bad thing, this bad thing, this bad thing. Then, when you get to the specifics, it turns out it's a few lines that are intended to be throwaway and humorous, or the way he portrays a couple of characters.

    I can't really do better than Starscream Gaga's post here, which points out that Roberts, for one, hasn't done that. He has Getaway making a couple of throwaway references to things world leaders have said when caught out in a lie - but Getaway isn't Trump or May. The joke is just that he's a politician covering his arse with slogans. Elsewhere, his bad guy characters are just plain fascists and overzealous communists.

    If anything, his consistent portrayal of the Decepticons as 'Communism gone wrong' completely tallies with the right-wing caricature of left-wing politics.

    I don't want to get into portrayals of right-wing arguments elsewhere, except to say that I readily admit I've seen them caricatured and unfairly portrayed. However, that's true of left-wing arguments as well - see McCarthy's straw man liberal back in AHM, or Furman's feminists, or pretty much every portrayal of an environmentalist in pop culture (outside of Captain Planet). The default mainstream assumption in pop culture about what is normal and right is actually pretty conservative - the State is always portrayed as corrupt and naive, and corporate billionaires often get to be big damn heroes. Plus there is an insane amount of emphasis on the purity and importance of the nuclear family and/or the individual, compared to broader social cooperation.

    I agree with this, to an extent - the lurch from revolutionary to genocidal maniac in IDW isn't earned. Roberts tried to smooth this over by implying mnemosurgery, but it's still a pretty lamentable portrayal of idealism turning to Satanic evil almost overnight. I can't really criticise any individual creator for this, though - the problem is that Megatron was always such a cartoon villain in the first place. Trying to redeem him even slightly was always going to create a kind of schizophrenia.
     
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  9. Rodimus Prime

    Rodimus Prime Sola Gratia, Sola Fide TFW2005 Supporter

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  10. raindance773

    raindance773 Well-Known Member

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    But that's not really fair, is it? That really becomes one group of people's opinions being more valid, more correct, more just, than another's.

    And that is not only wrong, but dangerous.

    To some, those specifics are throwaways. To others, they are insurmountable. For some, the work is wonderful. To others, the work is terrible.
    Despite the difference, both equally valid opinions, and neither group has any right to tell the other they are wrong, or right. Can they criticize each other? Absolutely, but how does that communicate anything?

    We can't have it both ways. We can't be all about inclusion and everything else if interpretations we don't like are declared invalid (with few exceptions for stuff like inciting violence or fighting words). Either everyone is gets to speak their opinion and have it accepted as valid (again, with rare exceptions, most of which will get one banned here anyway), without being criticized for it, or no one does. We either all get a voice, and a place to speak that voice, or we don't.

    Facts can be facts. Interpretation of those facts is where opinions form, and unless those opinions are totally, way out there (i.e., I am reading MtMtE/LL, and think it's telling me that JR thinks the sun is actually a tomato), those opinions cannot be wrong (with exceptions - LOL).
     
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  11. sharkrainbow

    sharkrainbow whirl is a trans girl

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    nah m8, what's actually dangerous is this notion that all opinions are equally valid and benign and should be given equal space and attention.
    there are many opinions out there that have no place in a civilised society and i have absolutely no qualms saying they should be snuffed out.
     
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  12. dragon_lord

    dragon_lord great dragon god

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    All opinions are equally valid, but I do agree that you don't have to give equal space and attention to them, you can disagree or denounce it according to your own values, but to do that you should first have to listen.

    Like Desiderata says "listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story." :thumb 
     
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  13. misfire19d

    misfire19d Not a writer. Not an illustrator. Just a fan.

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    Snuffed out how? With violence? Censorship? Who gets to decide which opinions are acceptable? You? Do you believe you are divine enough to create the world in your image by all means necessary? This is what terrifies people. Do you hate people who don’t precisely believe the things you do? Are we all evil nazis to you? How angry and self-righteous do you have to be to believe this?
     
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  14. dragon_lord

    dragon_lord great dragon god

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    Hey guys, if it's hard to keep it on topic, at least let's keep it polite.
     
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  15. G.B. Blackrock

    G.B. Blackrock Autobot Ally

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    I actually wrote something on this earlier, then deleted it as off-topic, but here goes.

    All opinions are NOT equally valid. Opinions are based on things. Sometimes, they're based on things that everyone can agree on, even if everyone doesn't ultimately come to the same conclusion as you do. Opinions based on such solid foundations can differ without one being more valid than the other.

    But some opinions are based on flimsy foundations. Misunderstandings, for example. Such opinions are NOT as valid as opinions based on solid foundations, and should be called out when they appear.

    To hide behind the "all opinions are equally valid" excuse is to close oneself off to potential growth. Some opinions are simply wrong.

    (I'm NOT trying to attack any particular opinions or foundations in this post. I'm simply trying to give examples to illustrate the point. Foundations may not be as obviously good or bad as the examples here. That's what discussion is for.)
     
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  16. Focksbot

    Focksbot Skeleton Detective

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    We can separate out fact and opinion, and that's what I'm trying to do here.

    I notice that you contrast 'throwaways' with 'insurmountable', but those aren't opposites. 'Throwaway' is, I think, an accurate representation of the facts. Bluestreak's 'mansplaining' line is a throwaway comment. It's not intrinsic to the plot, it's not a fundamental piece of the puzzle, and it's intended to be humorous. Surely this is demonstrably true and not my *opinion*.

    'Insurmountable', however, is indeed an opinion. You're right that it's up to individual people if they feel that way. It's entirely fair if people want to say, "James Roberts puts in occasional references and lines of dialogue that I find so offensive that I can't stick with the rest of the book."

    What's not right is for people to claim that this is some sort of constant barrage of political content that buries everything else in the book.

    Let's imagine, for simplicity's sake, that the problem was swearing. Suppose every issue James Roberts dropped one f-bomb. Some people might say, "I can't read this book - I find swearing so offensive that I can't sign up to read the work of an author who swears." Fine. That's your call. But if you then spend your time in the TFW2005 forums repeatedly posting, "James Roberts' comics are a torrent of four-letter filth - he's constantly blaspheming right in our faces", then you're exaggerating massively, and you should probably stop.

    Surely that's fair?
     
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  17. Monari

    Monari Well-Known Member

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    Mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, MTMTE season 1 is probably some of the best comic-book writing i've ever read, period.

    On the other hand, the James Roberts who wrote that season seemed to have vanished immediately afterwards, to be replaced by another James Roberts who had a meandering storyline and who seemed hellbent on putting the spotlight on absolutely awful original characters like Anode and Lug.

    I hope that that first James Roberts escapes whatever cage he's in, comes back, and kills the second James Roberts.

    Oh, and also partners up with Alex Milne again. The book absolutely lost a major part of its feel when Alex left. Unfortunately i've heard that Alex and James don't get along anymore, so that likely is off the table
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2018
  18. Focksbot

    Focksbot Skeleton Detective

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    Off-topic observation in a separate post, so that if this thread does get 'cleaned up', hopefully my previous one can be left to stand:

    Just to point out that 'snuffing out' outlier opinions is just something all cultures do, all the time. The rather specious idea that all opinions can somehow be accorded an equal degree of protection from censure is very recent, and impossible to uphold. It's always difficult to express opinions that other people around you consider to be extreme or damaging - you will always generate a degree of opprobrium. That's why pioneers in new ways of thinking have always had to be pretty fearless.

    The concept of free speech is primarily a legal one that stops the state controlling what can and can't be said using blunt force. But cultural forces still exert control over what is the acceptable range of opinions all the time. There will be things you can't say in your workplace if you want to keep your job, things you can't say in school without getting detention or worse, things you can't say among certain friendship groups without them chiding you, ridiculing you, or maybe disowning you. This is all just human nature.

    Ironically, one example of this is the forum rules. Undoubtedly, there are people who have left this forum feeling their free speech has been curtailed because they weren't allowed to keep calling other people names, or worse.
     
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  19. dragon_lord

    dragon_lord great dragon god

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    Agree.

    I Agree, they should be call out, but according to what has been said on this thread (which I can't claim to be true or false since I haven't seen the specific posts they're talking about), one thing is calling it out, and another thing is deleting it or dismissing it instead of doing a proper rebuttal. I don't think most people are actually afraid of constructive criticism, unless you give them the perception of trying to shut them off.
     
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  20. General Magnus

    General Magnus Da Custodes of the Emprah

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    As that saying goes:

    "You are entitled to your own opinion, as I am entitled to call it on you because it´s wrong and you still hold on to it."
     
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