There's no part of the thing you're a fan of you have to like no matter what. It's nice if you can apreciate it and acknowledge its part in the hobby you love, but that's about it. Some of my favorite musicians like Al Di Meola , Joe Satriani or Andy Timmons were inspired by the Beatles, and while I clearly recognize the Fab Four's influence on 20th century pop/rock music, it doesn't mean I have to like them better than the aforementioned artists, or at all (off-topic disclaimer: I'm not a big fan of the more "boybandish" early '60s Beatles á la Please Please Me, but really like Revolver or their more experimentative, psychedelic stuff like Sgt. Pepper or Rubber Soul. Frank Zappa owns them all doe  ).

 

Yeah, I'm a huge YES fan. But I can't say that YES would have done the music they did without the Beatles influence. Not a big fan of the Beatles (truly feel they're overrated) but I do respect them.

 

Everyone's saying that without G1 there would be no Transformers, but everyone is forgetting that without Diaclone there would be no G1.

 

No one ever forgets that. But that's really not the point, either.

 

I havent. I remember seeing Diaclone cars in the department stores when I lived in Japan in the early 80s. Good times.  

 

No. While G1 is the foundation for Transformers, there is much more to enjoy.

 

This is a partially true statement. I say partially because the G1 Transformers line was not only comprised of Diaclone but a few others as well. That being said, I think in this thread the mention of G1 is more in regards to the show and storyline rather than the toys themselves. I could be mistaken, but Diaclone didnt contribute to the story of the Transformers, only the molds for the toys. Someone feel free to correct or heckle or both if I am wrong.

 

You're absolutely correct. Which is why I said:

I'm starting to think no one reads my posts...

 

Oh yeah, I tend to agree that they are overrated (or at the very least their huge influence on pop music wasn't an entirely positive one), but any time I hear some of my favorite musicians talk about them with total adoration I just could't bring myself to dislike them. And yeah, YES is awesome!

 

You know the more I think of this the more it reminds me of people asking "Do I have to read Marvel comics to be seen as a fan of the Avengers?" Answer is no, no you don't. It helps the company monitarily if you buy the comics but you do not have to read the comics to be a fan of the Avengers. Consequently you don't even have to like the movies, and can prefer the cartoon series or the comics over them to be a fan of the Avengers.

The only way I can say I wouldn't qualify someone as a "Fan" is if they only have like the auto sticker on the back of their car because it looks cool and they have no idea what it means. Those are the only people I would say wouldn't be fans because they really don't care about any aspect of the franchise.

Look we're all going to come into Transformers in different ways. Some came from G1, some come from Beast Wars, some from the Japanese Animated series that followed (Armada, Cybertron, Energon, OG RID), some come in from the Comics, others will come in from Prime, Animated, and the movies. And new really young fans may come in from Rescue bots and Cyberverse. It doesn't matter. Just as long as you enjoy the series that you like, and don't act like one series is better than the others, you're fine. Respect the past, respect the present, agree to disagree at times, but remember to have fun with them as that's what Transformers are there for. They are toys to be played with, a world to invade in your own imagination, so do that, and stop worrying about if you are required to like this or that. No matter what there will always be things you don't like and things you like, and that's part of human nature.

 

Easiest poll of my life. No, why would it be?

Like what you like. Accept that others like what they like and all shall be happy!

Heck, I had fuzzy memories of the show growing up in the late 80s to mid 90s, love and identify with the toys and figures so much I decided to re-watch the original show. Gosh, do I hate the cartoon, but love the characters.  

What I think is weird that people turn it into some kind of mutually exclusive preference to the different iterations. You don't have to hate G1 to like Bayverse. You don't have to destroy at every opportunity RiD2015 because it's more kiddy and has less complicated figures and themes than Prime (and I never wanna hear people complain about rid2015 deluxes again after Cyberverse   Yes, different toys for different audiences, but Rescue bots are designed better than SOME of the Cyberverse stuff - while others are pretty awesome, like the shockwave figures  ).

Also, don't worry if someone else disagrees with you, don't worry if a toyline comes out that you don't like (just don't buy the figures).

 

I haven't forgot that but what makes Transformers for a lot of people is the fiction not just the toys. Diaclone, I'm not sure there even was any fiction attached to it and if there was it was likely very different from Transformers.

For starters Diaclone where originally intended to be piloted mechas. That's why a lot of the toys have driver seats. I'm not entirely sure about this but I believe even the G1 Dinobots had cockpits for Diaclone pilots. This was probably very confusing for anyone who didn't know what Diaclone was since they ditched the pilots when the toys were repurposed for Transformers. The seats remained but became completely useless.

I believe a few figures also changed sides. Since they weren't really called Autobots or Decepticons yet I'll just go with the generic good guys and bad guys. Anyway... Soundwave or rather the toy that would become Soundwave I think was originally suppose to be a good guy but Hasbro decided to base the Decepticon insignia on his head because they thought he looked more like a villain than a hero.

Also I think you're forgetting that not every Transformer came from Diaclone. Jetfire/Skyfire was a Macross figure, Megatron came from a different toy line along with Browning in Japan I forget what that line was called but I believe those were the only figures to become Transformers from that toy line. Most of them are Diaclone figures but there are a few exceptions.

Also a lot of the movie, season 3, and four Transformers with the exception of Ultra Magnus who was once again a Diaclone figure, the rest them were actually original figures created specifically for Transformers. Those were among the first figures specifically made for Transformers rather than being reused from other toy lines.

Now I'm also going to point out that while I like Jetfire/Skyfire... mainly Skyfire because I grew up with the cartoon and that's what I knew him as. I don't really care about Macross at all. The thing that got me interested was the character and his back story in Transformers. The original Macross version is just a piloted mecha not even a real character. The guy who pilots Jetfire is some dude I don't care about and can't even be bothered to learn his name. There are literally hundreds of anime exactly like it and they just aren't interesting to me in the least because there are so many copies doing the exact same thing. Transformers brought something new and unique to the table... well technically Go-Bots was doing the same thing at the time and I actually liked both as a kid but Go-Bots didn't last and Transformers did.

Basically what I'm getting at is whatever made Transformers stand out from other giant robot cartoons, whatever allowed it to outlast those other similar properties and made it so we still love it as adults, that started with G1 not Diaclone. That might be different for different people but it's pretty clear that without the Transformers fiction Diaclone would have just been another generic piloted mecha toy line no one cares about anymore.

 

Also I think you're forgetting that not every Transformer came from Diaclone. Jetfire/Skyfire was a Macross figure, Megatron came from a different toy line along with Browning in Japan I forget what that line was called but I believe those were the only figures to become Transformers from that toy line. Most of them are Diaclone figures but there are a few exceptions.

Megatron, Soundwave and some others came from Takara's Micro-change line. Shockwave along with Jetfire also was not part of Takara's catalog.