Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves, this will be my only post in here as I don't much feel like getting caught in another argument. If you don't agree with the opinions posted here, I don't care.

That being said so far in this series they have killed Cliffjumper and Skyquake both in the first episode they appeared in. I see this as a bad thing.

On the plus side it is nice to see signs of a real war going on with characters being killed off more often than any other series but there going about this all wrong.

For one thing how do you show war with a main cast of 5 Autobots and 3 Decepticons? In most other series Optimus would not even dare facing the Decepticons with only 1 partner at his side. In other words, it doesn't really make sense to leave over half your team at the base while you go solo a Decepticon army. You need every warrior you got Prime. He's still a better leader than his RID counterpart though. At least he doesn't sit at home base while sending his troops in to do his work for him.

The other issue I have with this is that you're not suppose to introduce one time characters with the sole intent of killing them off right away. What's the point? From the short time Skyquake was on the show I can tell he's loyal to Megatron but that's all. What is he other than loyal? Megatron usually has 2 kinds of loyal servants, the genius strategist types like Soundwave or the idiot blind fate follows like Lugnut. Skyquake wasn't alive long enough to show one way or the other but based on size I'd guess he's more Lugnut's type.

No if they're going to kill people off we have to get to know them first so the audience will actually care about their death. In a movie it's a little more forgivable because you have less time to tell the story in so you have to figure out how to introduce the character and kill them at the same time. In a series you're not limited by a single episode to do what a movie does, you can introduce a character and then kill him off 3 or more episodes later. I think before this Tigerhawk had the shortest screen time before getting killed not including movie Jazz.

These writers just seem really bad at killing people. It doesn't say they're at war to me, it just says the writers are lazy and don't want to develop new characters.

My prediction for this series, and I hope that I am wrong, is that by the time this series is over we will still have the same main cast that we do now the only dead characters will be every new character getting killed off in the same episode they get introduced in. At the very best we might get some recurring characters who don't join the main cast but at least won't die right away so as not to seem repetitive.

On the plus side, the animation and sound effects are getting better and I'm really liking Arcee and Ratchet in this series. Of course I'm going to keep watching, hoping my prediction is wrong and this gets better story wise. So far it's little to be desired. And if all else fails there's still Dark of the Moon to look forward to.

 

It's not bad writing, shows everywhere kill villains on first episodes.

It's just that Transformers fans, due to the "toy collecting" part of the franchise, are particularly picky about characters staying alive.

 

The thing about Skyquake is less that he's supposed to show up and be a fully wrought character in his own right. Really, more or less, Skyquake is a use of Characters as Device. Now, while the trope entry I just linked isn't exactly 100 % favorable to the concept, let me remind you that tropes are not bad.

To elaborate, here's what I said about the character on another forum:

 

The problem is that here, we have an actual faction they can oppose. A faction that is currently made up out of one character who actually speaks, one who's silent, and one who is indisposed and probably won't be seen back in action for a while. Other then that, it's just drones, though at least they occasionally talk.

But let's face it, the Cons NEED to have more characters, to be a bigger threat to the Autobots and keep things dynamic. Skyquake could have been a great character, and a great foil to Starscream. I don't mind killing characters, but only if there's either a point to it (like with Cliffjumper), or if that character had proper time to develop and has a fitting death. Skyquake had neither. Unless they go against what they said about dead characters being dead and have him hauled off by Soundwave to a secret lair where he's being repaired, for a later reappearance.

 

I think the Cons are just fine. Starscream has proven to be enough of a threat on his own, and Soundwave, while never speaking, has a decent dynamic with everyone in and of himself. Really, the fact that he says so much by never saying anything at ALL is a credit to how well he works as a character here.

Furthermore, the Eradicons are still dangerous, even if they aren't much more than mooks. Remember, they beat Cliffjumper within an inch of his life, and while they've been defeated afterwards, they haven't exactly been cut down with incredible ease. A number of them is still a credible obstacle, at the very least.

EDIT - Furthermore, Beast Machines managed to handle things just fine with four villains and a pack of drones. Really, the Vehicon generals were the most endearing things about that show early on.

 

When they killed off Cliffjumper 5 minutes into the first episode, i thought it was a ballsy move to show that this is an actual war, and people (bots) die. Killing off Skyquake in his first episode could (emphasis on could) be the writers way of showing Con causalities, since Megatron was found to still be alive at the end. However, if the trend continues, and they kill off future characters right away, then we will know it's not a plot device, but just laziness on the part of the writers.

 

I think the main issue isn't so much that they're killing off charaters as so much as they're killing off characters people assumed would be apart of the main cast. I think that's important distinction to make.

A lot of cartoons do this, it's nothing unique. In fact they do it all the time, sometimes in every episode! So am I surprised Skyquake was knocked off? Not really.

 

I can understand Cliffjumper's death because it gave the show a sense that anything could happen and that the writer's are not afraid of having real consequences. I don't really understand Skyquake's death as much. For the amount of money and man hours it takes to create the three models necessary (robot, alt, transformation) I just can't believe they are dumping the show's resources into non-recurring characters AGAIN. I'm really hoping we get more regular cast and not a never ending parade of "bot of the week" coming and going.

 

All I ask is that they don't go down the killing/resurrecting road that's so worn out the asphalt's turned into gravel. If they're going to kill someone, kill them dead. If for no other reason than the elimination of tedious exchanges along the lines of "he's dead", "no he's not", "yes he is", "he didn't turn gray", "but he was cut into pieces", "but we didn't see his spark go out", "did you see a spark at all?", "no, but he didn't turn gray", on and on and on (see also: Blurr). I'm not averse to them appearing in flashbacks, but coupled with the apophenia popularized by Lost, the over-analysis of character fates just sucks the enjoyment out of the whole thing like a fart in an elevator.

>AM<

 

exactly

 

While rather peeved with the writers' predilection for bumping off characters before they get a chance to shine, so to speak, as we have also seen in Prime, death isn't necessarily the end of things. Who's to say Megs doesn't decide to resurrect Skyquake at some point?

I guess my main prob is that perhaps they should give a character a few episodes so we get used to them n grow attached, before they decide to off them? Would mean a hell of a lot more to us viewers, and would make for an interesting dynamic in the show; revenge!!

 

To be honest one of the reasons I was excited for the Transformers Prime cartoon was that I thought it would be a nice break from the kill, kill, kill of the movies.

I'm not saying there can never be a death in Transformers. The death of Dinobot in Beast Wars was an iconic moment for the franchise. Even the death of Cliffjumper accomplished something because it set the tone early on that these Decepticons are deadly and the Autobots are really in mortal danger this time.

Skyquake felt like a throw away death. It honestly didn't serve any purpose that limping off injured wouldn't have served just as well. Instead of saying the writers really know their stuff in a way it kind of soured me a little toward the series because it reminded how much I didn't like Ravage showing up just to get killed my Bumblebee in the movies.

I don't know maybe I'm just really missing Beast Wars or something where a character could take a ton of damage, go into status lock, and fight another day.

 

It always surpirse how naive some TF fans are. They have been at war for millions of years. Of course transformers will die.

 

I don't have a problem with death. I LIKE the fact that there are permanent consequences in this universe (as opposed to say 80s GI Joe where everyone always escaped everything). My problem is in realizing that the resources to make this show are limited and if they keep spending them on characters we only get for one episode we are never going to have the permanent cast to get to epic G1 scales of awesomeness.

 

But there are consequences. No matter how badass you are, there´s a chance that you get killed by an act of destiny. Look how many badass WWII soldiers died in battle, sometimes too easly.

 

You're trying to argue a point I'm not contesting. Re-read the first two sentences of my post you quoted. I just don't want to see them burn the show's budget on characters who will only get one episode. If they must die, then at least get a few episodes out of them. Or better yet make it like the G1 Marvel comics where fallen warriors can be stored in stasis if the resources/time to restore them are not immediately available. That way bots could "die" but still have the chance to be revived later(like they are doing with Megatron).

 

I have to say, Skyquake died too fast. Killing off a character should have a big dramatic impact for the audience but Skyquake was just so so.

His death made him seem kind of weak, even with his initial burst of power at the end it will be those that survive that will have more of an impact.

Also killing off the characters left and right can dull the impact of deaths in TF Prime so much so that people don't care anymore when a character dies. If there is a death of a character, I think there should also be profound consquence to the death, but Skyquake does not do that. His death to me seemed meaningless to the overall scheme of things.

 

If Starscream wanted him to live he would have recovered him as well, but Skyquakes personality was like a toned down Lugnut, and Starscream didn't want to have to contend with someone that could clearly smack him around something fierce since that would cause the drones loyalty to waiver, and Skyquake would advocate for Megatrons speedy recovery upon learning of his rescue. sure we are short a Con but at the moment Starscream has dark energon and that just as much tips the balance in his favor as it does the autobots team size, but i wonder do you all think that Starscream might run out of drones.

 

I like the darker tone to this series. Only six episodes in and will already have two deaths. I hope the cast grows on both sides.

 

Well, I suspect that many Transfans aren´t keen on the killing because they mistake TFs for the "superhero" genre, and on that area heroes rarely kill (which is stupid, but that´s another thread). TFs aren´t superheros so even if a character has a rich background and has character it might die because, well it´s war.

The average soldeir in real life has character, motivations etc, and yet when he dies on some battle, he becomes a casualty of war.