yeah, I get it, like the "Whose line is it anyway?" show, right? Because the names are so random it seems they're improvising as they go! I mean, really, you guys are not fun.
Im Starting to think Hasbro and the people running the Transformers brand are Geniuses! I hear things similar to " I have every figure of that line and they suck" or " I watch every episode cause its not as good as the last series" Which tells me, that weather you like the line or hate the line and/or series. You still watch the show and collect the figures. Its like the Howard Stern thing, "I listen to see what he will do next I hate/love him" Same thing has happened to the transformers franchise. It will last Forever Loved or despised. LOL!
just because the practice is well established doesn't mean that we should accept it. People get attached to this stuff and defensive about it but so much of what's been done with Transformers across the past 25 years was just a total mess. It didn't start with Michael Bay. People give him more grief about it because of the status and visibility of the movies. Expectations are higher. there's some truth to this. They do tend to string us along in the hope that they'll put stuff right and salvage the thing. I don't expect that to happen with the movies, they jumped the shark so soon. It's too bad they're not stringing us along with actual suspense. I'll check out the special effects and the robot battles, but I don't tend to be excited about how the story will unfold or what twists will turn up next.
The only constant of this fandom is that every part of Transformers is hated. Every generation, every character, every toyline, every company and person involved is hated by a chunk of the fandom. And most of those chunks of fandom actively seek the destruction of that part they hate. I wish the fandom would adopt a "live and let live" mentality. Enjoy the parts you love and let be the parts you don't. Because if you're trying to tear down the parts other fans love, don't forget: there's a bunch of fans out there that want to destroy the parts you love. And if we all go that way, all we end up with is destroying all of it.
I keep bringing the name changing era of A/E/C and BW constantly, and people apparently have selective reading ability and skim over those parts. Any case, yeah you have a point.
But if no character can change alt mode, we are forever locked into only what they were first depicted as. Megatron can only ever be a pistol, Soundwave only a cassette walkman, etc. I'm not sure the majority wants that. I really don't think modern day kids want that. If we continue to extrapolate that, then Starscream and the Seekers can only be tetra jets... Wheeljack a hover van. Rodimus Prime a sports car instead of a space winnebago. Transformers changed alt modes in the first episode and have been changing alt modes ever since.
I don't see it being about G1 vs Armada vs Beast Machines vs Animated vs Movies vs whatver. There are 3 decades worth of stuff to mine and draw from at this stage. if you didn't give a damn how it turns out and what choices they make, what kind of fan is that? If you like this stuff you have certain preferences and expectations. It's inescapable. Some expectations need to be fulfilled, others confounded. It's problematic when they bring in someone like Bay who knows little and cares less about the franchise. The benefit(in theory) is the fresh set of eyes to evaluate what's going to appeal to the outside audience. The detriment is the lack of familiarity, the willful ignorance about what worked and what didn't.
Another way to look at it would be, Every generation has its own different series. And although names and characters are throwbacks to the original, every Generation will have a uniqueness to its line as to set it apart from other generations. I am a G1er but im not going to deprive future generations of Transformer fans of their unique series just because I love the line that was out when I fell in love with transformers. I just started this line of thinking because I started to collect a line of figures for my 6 month old son and realized he wont be interested in classics that look like the 84/85 line. When he is old enough Transformers will be very different. I expect a "who is Sunstreaker?" "there is no transformer named that" Sad but inevitable! EDIT: It would help the Beast wars vs. G1 and other line enthusiasts to get along with one another if this was how we all thought of it. I think!
Agree with you but i feel that movie is different from it's G1 counterpart is because of 1 person,whom we all know is Bay making this vast difference. Maybe that is the reason why there are so many Bay haters around.
He's probably too young now, but of course he'll be interested in classics. They're cool. When I was a kid I was still interested in toys from decades earlier, like the Corgi 007 Aston Martin and 60s Batmobile. It didn't matter that there was a new Batman and a new James Bond. Kids had stuff like that that just got passed down, and cool is cool. Of course there will be new shows for the kids, with new settings and characters, new looks and different approaches to animation. I don't begrudge them that. One test is whether it appeals to young as well as old. If there's enough of a connection there, you retain a portion of the older audience, and kids can still connect with the past and appreciate the history of the franchise. If you take the etch-a-sketch approach, you create antipathy between generations. You create the fractured fandom we see today. It's not good business to alienate one generation after another. that was never the point I was making. Changing altmodes can be perfectly reasonable, but that doesn't mean that any altmode is appropriate for any character. In the case of Hound, the main objection I had is that if you turn him into a hulking bruiser it ceases to be the same character. It also muddies the waters, making the character of Bulkhead less unique. It isn't the most heinous example of change being foisted upon us, but that doesn't mean I have to think it's a good idea.
Dino was Mirage and Que was Wheeljack up until a month or so before the film was released in theaters and they did some last minute audio changes. So while he MAY be Hound now, by the time the film is released, don't be surprised if his name changes to Poopdeck or Sniffer, or something else totally lame.
The fandom really isn't all that fractured. The transformers concept is the same thru all the generations: something "normal" turns into big robot. It's the same no matter what generation. It's not a fundamental shift such as what happened with Star Trek. TOS was VERY focused on the Captain, Spock, and McCoy, with Kirk being the main lead. TNG changed all that by making ALL the senior bridge crew important characters. There is a definite gap with Trekkies. Any issues I see with TF fans is generally Gwhiners complaining about ANYTHING that came after season 1 of G1, or the Beast Wars purists who think the vehicle transformers are lame. That has nothing to do with the brand, just the fans dividing themselves over non-issues. The brand itself remains the same.
This generalizing, gives me a migraine. Maybe there are G1ners out there that are that specific,but I have yet to find them. At the end of the day, people simply want a good story with any kind of relevance to drama, impact, heroes' journey etc. We get none of that in any of these movies. So when changes are made to characters that just seem arbitrary, its just a bit of salt to the wound. Im a movie goer first and foremost, I want a good movie. everything else is secondary.
I was hoping it was Bulkhead. If they were going to use Hound he should've been an RV but I do realize this is Michael Bay. He's willing to make Transformers who are based very loosely on any of their previous forms in the tv shows.
I only have a very superficial knowledge of Star Trek, but isn't that all basically the one universe. There's a tone shift from the campy original to the blandness of TNG. It's still about space exploration, trekking across the stars in the starship Enterprise. They don't go around changing one character into a completely different character for no good reason with no explanation. I can't see anything as dramatic and destructive there as some of the shifts in the Transformers brand. It's not like going from the original series to something like Beast Wars. There's nothing like the multiple conflicting origin stories. All you can say about Transformers from one era to another is that "something turns into a robot". Almost everything else is apparently disposable. My complaint about this isn't as a closeted G-wunner. I think it'd be a stronger franchise if it wasn't such a convoluted, contradictory mess. There can be a richness there when you get into it, but there's so much inconsistency and confusion involved that I think it can be off-putting to the outsider or casual fan.
"An eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a-tooth would lead to a world of the blind and toothless." Totally agree.
A million times this. I just want a consistent story, that shows just a small iota of respect for not the franchise, but the story telling medium as a whole. I have no problems with respecting and enjoying a different take on Transformers, if its handled properly. I wasnt fond of beastwars, but the storytelling and the humor won me over, I thought robots in disguise was complete garbage, but I respected the show for trying to tell decent stories,. same with armada, and energon. Tranformers animated won me over with its humor and style, and I actually Prefer TF PRime over the orginal G1.. I think the movie universe warrants little to no respect due to the fact that the stories, and characters were handled so haphazardly. Theres zero respect for the franchise. and just story telling as a whole. So I can see how the annoyances of characters being changed for no other reason that to do it, can be a bit hard to overcome because there is no story, nor do the movies allow us to emphasize with the characters in anyway. Also these are the movies. not a series, that takes the time build their characters and personalities. So the movies HAVE no choice but to lean heavily on a previous franchise for its character building, which is why changing them from what they were remembered as makes even less sense.