Well now that the fallout from TF: ROTF has well and truely started it appears we have a bit of a civil war of our own started. The fan base is seperated by a love/hate of the movie. What should we call the faction sides? We have Autobots and Decepticons what will the love/hate groups be called?

 

Um.

Transformers fans have never agreed with each other. About the movies, about the franchises, about nearly anything. This ain't no recent development.

 

Um... Autobots and Decepticons?

 

Dude, people are still split from the FIRST film. And Animated. And many still hate Armada/Energon/Cybertron!

 

Well before TF1 it was more of a unified group of fans. TF1 came out and there was some gentle ribbing back and forth but nothing compared to what is going on here.

 

Yeah I know all about that but the thing is when you have those groups it was always:

Hey I like animated, do you?

No.

Oh, well I think it's pretty good, let's have a hamburger.

 

So true. Every fan has their favorite flavor of Transformers whether it be TFA, Beast Wars, G1, Movie, Energon.......and half of them think their opinion on why one is best over the other is somehow factual.

It's quite silly really and makes me embarrased for the fandom. I rag on different flavors of Transformers but I certainly do not think my opinion carries anymore weight then anyone else. Some people obviously do.

 

Yea its heating up. I like the Mods not playing GOD and telling people how to post. That is sensational.

I would call the negative posters BayHaters

I would call the positive poster BayFormerlovers

I think the major issue with most of us negative posters is Michael FREAKING Bay....

We will not be united until The Film universe is rebooted.

 

Not really a recent development. In all honesty this fandom has been splitting ever since Beast Wars first started. The fact of the matter is that Transformers fans seem to have an issue with change even though they're fans of a franchise who's core premise is all about change. It boggles my mind really as I can't think of one series in the entire franchise that I can't at least find something enjoyable in it.

At the end of the day, I think the real issue is that you have a lot of new members who can't disagree with other members without just being downright nasty, rude and condescending about it. There also seems to be a recent surge in people expressing their opinions as facts. Discussing one's opinions is great and can lead to interesting back and forth between individuals and maybe have some people coming away with a new found view on something they didn't like or liked previously. However, there can be no discussion when people don't want to listen and want to pick apart other's posts and see only what they want to see.

That's the real issue as I see it. Not that the fandom is divided (we've always been divided since BW), but that we seem to not be capable of rationale discussion with each other anymore.

 

Not tru, I have been blogging since 2001 and When the DVDs for the Real Transformers came out everyone loved them. I think it was a peaceful environment until Bay was announced to direct...then people got nervous.

 

MG:

Nope. There was a ton of controversy before the movie came out. After the movie, we had a huge influx of fans brought in by the movie...because of this origin, a lot of them were positive about it.

When we first saw Starscream? Huge blowup! Huge! With every new design that appeared,there was a ton of argument, friendly and otherwise. If the vets were calmer by release time, it's because they'd already flared off a lot of the excess temper (not to mention a few of the more volatile posters).

We had fights over other things, too. We had fan-wars over BW when it rebooted things. We had fan-wars over BM when it messed with BW. Before that, there were wars between the Decepticon and Autobot sympathizers. All of them got out of hand at times.

This is to be expected and even welcomed. All of us are united by some liking for Transformers, but every one of us is different. We will have a lot to talk about and argue about, and as long as it's civil I say let's do it.

 

As I've said elsewhere: a lot of new people have come into the fandom, who can't disagree with opposing viewpoints without being disagreeable. They can't disagree without rude attacks on opposing viewpoints. This is a sad development, but I'm not surprised by it. Manners have gone by the wayside.

 

QFT all the way.  

 

Actually there are several factions:

Those who love the film because it's Transformers, and they love everything Transformers. This group was gonna love the movie no matter what.

Those who hate Michael Bay simply because it's cliche to do so. This group was going to hate the movie no matter what, and spends most of their day on AintItCool.com.

Those who hate the film because the "movieverse" is too far removed from the Transformers they know and love. This group still doesn't understand why the movie characters don't look like the cartoon characters.

Those who claim to "really want(ed) to like the movie", but couldn't because of (fill in blank). This group spent way too much time getting excited for ROTF, and built up expectations so high that nothing would have satisfied them.

Wanna-be film critics who nitpick over every single perceived plot hole/continuity error/revealing mistake. This group has never and will never be able to truly enjoy any movie, and spends a lot of time on IMDB.com.

Those who will never be satisfied with anything less than a 100% Transformers movie with no human element at all. This group has no idea how money works.

 

I don't know if that's got much to do with just TF fans, because that's happening in almost every facet of life  . Everyone nowadays has a "My way or the highway" mentality.

I'm definitely new to the fan-side of Transformers, but just seeing people split over the two movies and Animated, its kind of scary that some people can't stop and breathe for a few seconds.

I'm just a hater of irrational haters  

 

Oh I remember. I was very active on the donmurphy.net board before TF1 and I had to leave after the stuff got way too heavy.

I've been a fan since '84 and as long as it has robots turing into stuff, there will always be a little enjoyment. Heck Ieven caught myself giggling at the Twins, a couple chracters I thought for sure I would hate.

I don't mind a disagreement as long as people can be civil about it.

Oh well
Maybe we need a middle faction in this as well. Civiltrons

 

Dude you are spot on. I mean people are hacking into dudes computer, protesting his office. People are mad man. Anytime something bad happens to the dude some fans are happy about it. The people that are defending the movie they have a strange "let it be" argument that they always push. Its heating up, and its not just on this site it is on many others. But this site is a little more "freedom of speech" than some of the other sites I have seen, but war and arguments is on many of them.

 

You obviously weren't around for Beast Wars...
Or Beast Machines...
Or Armada....

Etc.

It was just as ugly back then if not worse at times. I'd personally say the ending of Beast Machines was worse than anything that's going on now as far as fan reaction and fan wars.

 

Yea Lets kick tail gate!!!

 

Civiltrons: unite to seperate!