I question CJs motives for wanting to go to Earth. I think he just wanted to fight Decepticons. And if CJ was all team Prime and sooo loyal... why did he get separated from Prime in the first place?

What a terrible ACTION MASTER episode.

 

He seemed like he would be the comedy relief, which makes me wish he wasn't dead, bc it made me want more of him.

 

I really agree with everything that is being said in the above quotes. Cliffjumper was an awesome character from the get-go and it's a shame that we probably won't get much of him past this flashback episodes.

It would have been really cool to see what kind of dynamic could have been happening between Cliffjumper, Wheeljack, and Bulkhead. Those three just seem like they would have been one hell of a smashing team.

 

No

 

I'm willing to gamble that he's the best bet for a new Autobot.

 

After rewatching the episode I'm a bit sad, he would've been a fun character

But I want him to stay dead.

 

Yes   I hope we get more flashbacks with Cliff.

 

Not really. It's still been a season and a half of really not knowing the guy at all. Just because they show him having a personality now doesn't mean all that time not being able to feel bad for a character we didn't know didn't happen. It still mades a lot of Arcee's rage and sorrow unrelatable until this point. In fact it doesn't really absolve that, since they were partners in that flashback and she barely wanted anything to do with him until the very end. Hardly a bond forged over the ages to get weepy about. This episode would have worked much better early on. Like, right after Darkness Rising. As it stands, having aired so long after Cliffjumper's death, it really just hits home how empty and barren the Prime universe is now that the only really enjoyable Autobot is dead.

While the episode made Cliffjumper himself looks much better, it really didn't make his death look better or worse. It doesn't make that year of him having no character or link with the audience (and thus no sympathy available for Arcee) dissapear.

 

yeah seeing cliff kinda made me realize he was the damn life of what the gang could have been...they should have killed off bee...hopefully the new guy will have a great personality.

 

Sometimes knowing some aspects of a character is enough to know a character. I can tell that he's a reckless smooth talker but at the same time is a guy that wants to help his friends the best he can. We saw how touched Arcee was by how he tried to help her cope with Tailgate's death in the end so it's actually makes more sense about how much he meant to her in the end so we can imagine what he did for the rest of the team to help them. You don't always have to have a complete backstory for a character that's on for a brief time to see what kind of an impact it had for the characters on the show. I mean in Beast Wars we didn't exactly have complete backstories of all the characters on the show of what their lives are like before the BW and they still came out great in the end. Just because he's the most lively character dosen't make the world around them dead and barren or the rest of the characters boring,bland, or unreatible. And it it really makes you feel any better the new Autobot's character may be exactly like Cliffjumper's. I mean there are more ways of looking at a show and story if you think carefully.

 

Really, when I see how the arc of Cliffjumper carried out, nobody should have died because the Prime writers have no idea how to handle death. They really don't.

It may seem soppy to say that, but it's true. If you have no good reason to kill a character in a TV show, you shouldn't, and the writers never do. A story does not need death to be good. It doesn't make a story seem darker or more mature, it just makes the writers seem focusless and without direction when they muck it up like Cliffjumper. Again, we could never have sympathised with Arcee because we didn't know anything about him or their bond besides being partners before now. This whole character trait of Cliffjumper being a chatty guy? Never mentioned before now. Hell, they were never on screen interacting at the same time before now.

Cliffjumper was a massive wasted opportunity. I'm not saying they couldn't have done the whole "death in the first five minutes" and made it work, (they shouldn't, as I said) but just show us this fashback back when Cliffjumper was relative instead of now when everyone's forgotton about him.

 

But Cliffjumper had to die! The show needs to be daaaaaaaark!

 

Sometimes. Not this time.

Not from his first appearence. Yeah he was reckless, but in the same way every character is reckless. And hardly a trait we'll miss. That smooth talker thing? Didn't exist until now. It's a retcon, technically.

"Imagining'' is not the same as knowing. It is not the burden of the viewer to make up relations between the characters. For all we knew Arcee was being completely off her nut and the only interaction with Cliffjumper she ever had was that one conversation. I could imagine he and Optimus were really conjoined twins who were seperated eons agao and underwent extensive surgeries to alter their appearence due to a deep rivalry. Doesn't mean it's true.

I mean seriously, even after this flashback we still only have Arcee's word that she was severely attached to either of her partners.

No, but seeing a character be a character is not the same as a backstory.

Dude, just look at what you wrote. You don't need backstory to love a character. You just need to see them for more than three fucking minutes. Imagine if Dinobot had died at the very beginning of the show. Like if Scorponok's missle killed him instead of just sending him flying? Nobody would give a shit and there'd be no way we could sympathize with any of the characters who felt loss for him, least of all ones that took a season and a half to get over it. (that is if Arcee even is)

Except it won't. In fact that's the opposite. If anything it'll just show how pointless Cliffjumper's death was and how the writers really don't know how to handle death and characters. Kill a character off early just to replace him with an identical one later? Bullshit and you know it.

 

Tell that to Dreadwing. Skyquake was killed off to set up a reason why Dreadwing came to Earth in the first place to hunt down the one who killed his brother. Otherwise why would he bother coming here?

That's like saying we can't sympathise with a character in the story if he or she lost someone they cared about in the first few pages of a book when we really don't know. It showed us that Cliff somehow meant a lot to Arcee from the way she took the news of his death pretty tough. Sometimes we don't have to have the information spoon fed to us to understand this. If anything this makes us more interested of what type of guy he was back then and to make us wonder why Arcee was so upset about his death so when we did see the episode of what he was like it makes us understand this a lot more as a result.

Actually showing the flashback now is just as relevant as it could be early on. The team nearly lost Bulkhead like how they lost Cliffjumper,and Miko was trying to be strong about the situation with Bulkhead never being the same again but is going about it the wrong way. Like how Arcee went about coping with Cliff's death the wrong way. These series of events made Arcee remember the times that she had to cope with dealing with Tailagte's death at the time and how Cliff helped her with it so in turn she's helping Miko with it.

 

Tons of other reasons. You're seriously trying to tell me that the only way we could have gotten a new character is because an old one died to be mere motivation? Dreadwing didn't have to be Skyquake's brother or even have Skyquake exist. He'd be almost completely the same without 'Quake, literally just short a few lines of dialogue. And even then, there's no reason he couldn't just be a super loyal 'Con who sought to destroy Megatron's number one foe.

Actually it is. And that's true. I could understand the character's motivation, but unless we saw that loved one and what their relationship was, we can't really understand these extremes Arcee is displaying. Feeling sorry for them is one thing. Accepting this mad bloodlust over someone we have never seen is anotehr. From a narrative standpoint it is fucking weak.

How is seeing a character in a relationship being spoonfed information? I'm just saying that one or two scenes togetehr wouldn't made this whole tired plot of Cliffjumper dying seem way less contrived and drawn-out. It's lasted almost two season. When will she move on?

No it doesn't, because I can't go back in time and show my younger heathier self this episode to explain to him why this lady is going so bananas over a shmoe we never even saw her talk to in robot mode.

No it isn't. No friggin' way. Not after a season and a half. Not after having never seen Cliffumper and Arcee interact in person before. Not even close.

A plot that could easily stand alone by itself, or even better, if the flashback was shown back then and we can make the connection ourselves instead of being spoonfed retcon cereal. How get would that have been? Have the Arcee arc play out reasonably over a decent period of time and then have a callback to that arc which not only gave additional growth to Arcee as a character (as it stands she's just RANDOMLY become all self-aware and resolved about it) but give a strong sense of universe and continuity.

Too bad it only took them an entire year to finally show the two talk.

If it sounds like I'm picking on the flashback, I'm not. It was pretty good, and showed Cliffjumper as a stand-alone character who isn't a prop for other's motivations, and set up the relationship. I mean, we still don't see them be super great friends but it isn't bad. It's problem is it's placement. We're way past the window of relevance. Cliffjumper's been worm food for a year now. This really doesn't absolve any of the poorly handled revenge arc and only makes Cliffjumper's death seem just as pointless as it was a year ago.

 

What about the way he talked to the Vehicons and Starscream? He pretty much did something like a smooth talker something that we didn't hear the others say.

Like I said I can imagine him doing the same for the rest of the team which means I may be wrong. All I'm saying that it's a hint of what he may be like towards the rest of the team. Which means there are ways you can

To be fair none of the Maximals mentioned Dinobot in a mournful again apart from the episode that came after the episode and during the end of the show. Supposing if we saw a lot more of CLiffjumper in flashbacks like how he was like with Arcee more and to the rest of the team would you be at least be happy that he's appearing in more flashbacks other then this?

Again Cliff's death actually did serve a purpose. To have Arcee try to cope with losing a partner again since her last one in a more tougher state until Jack came and helped her with it just as Cliff did years ago.

 

Come on kaiju your aurguing against one of the most competent people in the forums now :L lol anyway I'm sure we'll get more interesting characters later for the autobots... it does make me see why arcee felt so bad about his death and a little insight and I like her abit more now knowing she was a bitch in the past lol. Cliff seemed really likable and such. the cons in prime are really damn entertaining..imagine a show with just the crew on the nemisis having their everyday lives lol. Megatron,dreadwing,knockout,the insecticons, the steves, soundwave all of them interacting is a part of what I love about the show..what the bot don't have..the cons do lol. Now in operation bumble bee that episode is what made me like the autobots more...it was a fun episode written by the writer of beast wars. if this show is gonna get better they need to single out writers who can make one serious ass show and no how to pull off characters. I love prime more than any other tf show ( I hated tfa sari,bumble bee that's why I don't watch it as often lol ) but i'm aware of what slows it down..we just need one character for the bots to lighten them up..just one..

 

Dude, seriously? I haven't seen straw grasping that desperate since my last posts in the movie forum.

Nothing he said was smooth, and certainly was the uppity, sarcastic chatterbox speaking he portrayed here. He had the same generic snark all the characters have when talking to the opposite team. He said TWO LINES to Starscream, both of which were just straight up statements without any inflections or colourful wording.

That's a lot of time wasted on a "hint." You don't craft multi-seasonal character stoyarcs around a "hint." Not ever mysteries.

To be fair you just proved my friggin' point, dude! The characters recognised his sacrifice, had their mournful moment but were all stalwart enough to not disrespect his memory by letting his death bring them down. They were plenty sad or mournful when appropriate. Arcee's behaviour is outrageous for somebody we didn't know. And that's ignoring that the whole point about Dinobot's death was what it meant for HIS character and not OTHERS. Cliffjumper's death was a prop to kickstart a subpar character arc and meant nothing to him as a character.

It really depends, but it certainly couldn't hurt. Knowing the Prime writers it would probably amoutn to nothing, but at the very least it would make Arcee seem less obsessed.

You know what the best part about Beast Wars was? There were barely any flashbacks. All we knew about the characters was what happened to them in present day, and that worked perfectly. Now before you say anything I'm not saying flashbacks are bad, but Beast Wars is a good example of them not being needed. Prime relies on flashbacks too much as it is, and now important character information is being conveyed through them. This is not good. Flashbacks need to be reflected in present day to have any weight, otherwise they're just a story without legitimacy. This wouldn't be a problem, nor has it been so far, except for Cliffjumper being dead, and so this character info on him can't be reflected by modern day Cliffjumper.

That is not a worthwhile purpose. That just goes to show how pointless it was. His death meant nothing for the character, a character we didn't even know. He could've been a generic and it would've amounted to the same. You don't take somebody we don't know and expect us to feel sorry for them.

 

I never said that at all. I'm just saying that Skyquake's death had a purpose. Stupid or good whatever but pointless it wasn't.

It was enough for me anyway to see how much he mattered to her by the way she reacted. If anything that got my interest about what he was like in life. It doens't work for you but for me it does. Am I a simpleton as a result for thinking that way?

First off Arcee's actually making progress of moving on though she still had a few missteps. For example if she didn't really moved on then why is she growing a close bond with Jack and his mother and being more opened to them? Or how about the time that Airachnid was trapped in the pod and Arcee could've easly killed her on the spot but instead took her back to base? What do you call those? Didn't you paied any attention to those at all?

Again Arcee being aware of what's happining with Miko right now didn't happen at random. Again if you payed attention to what I said about her developed at all you'd see what I mean.

I never said you were picking on it I was only saying that showing Cliffjumper's death now is just as relevent as it may be if it was shown earlier on the show. And even if it was shown earleir you'd still bash it to pieces because even if the show did what you want you'd still tear it to shreads.

Well for a guy that's perfectly competent he's really coming across as being very narrow minded and biased about how the show can work. I mean seriously I understand that he's being critical about the show and maybe one day I may agree with him but as it is he's coming across as being quite rude with his thoughts not to mention agressvie. And I know that isn't his intention but at least he can try to be fair about it too. I mean you can be both critical and fair at the same time because otherwise he's only going to give people the wrong impression and being very spiteful and scathing about his opinions doens't help.

 

What if those hints came into play in a more major fasion would you change your mind then?

How can you say Arcee's behaviour was ourragous when it was clear that this wasn't the first time she had to cope with the death of one of her friends? The first time she went through it shook her to the core and when Cliff died it brought those feeling back ten fold so it's actually understandable that she's going to take it pretty rough.

They did say we'll see more of him and the last episode is proof of this. So until then we should wait to call them off on that. Again how is calling Arcee obssesive when it was clear that she had to cope with two deaths that roughed her up?

That is not a worthwhile purpose. That just goes to show how pointless it was. His death meant nothing for the character, a character we didn't even know. He could've been a generic and it would've amounted to the same. You don't take somebody we don't know and expect us to feel sorry for them.[/QUOTE]

It's to make us feel sorry for the characters that knew him that had to cope with it. We also saw how Ratchet mentioned Cliff's death to Optimus in Stronger Faster which meant how he too hard too though not in a way that's obvious.