So... I've noticed there's basically about two approaches to handling adversaries and battles in Transformers series. Maybe there's more, but these are the two I've seen as a casual fan. First, there's the G1 approach, where all the main characters battle each other, and there are no cannon fodder/red shirts, so they basically just end up missing each other all the time, a la The A Team. Well, up until The Movie, where they suddenly get shot and basically melt right in front of our eyes, while coughing up black smoke. This is also the approach that Beast Wars uses, IIRC. Then there's Prime, where the Decepticons suddenly get an army of generic drones that get hacked up and trashed in action scenes all the time. On one hand, it's smart because it allows your characters to open up and unleash without any real consequences, and you avoid the silliness of Autobots and Decepticons shooting with awful aim. On the other hand, these battles are just against drones, and so there's less interaction between the main Autobot/Decepticon characters. Which approach do you guys prefer?
I prefer the idea that Decepticons are a military army and the Autobots are untrained reactionaries. So, I suppose the latter. Although that essentially means that, if the war has been going on for some time, the remaining Autobots are the most skillful or resourceful of what's left, usually with some serious PTSD issues...
I vastly prefer the former. The villain's character interactions is one of the things that makes Transformers such a unique franchise. Instead of armies of generics, we get characters fighting characters, and the villains' interactions with each other are often the most interesting and entertaining. The latter can be fine, but when misused, I absolutely HATE!!! it. Seriously, there is nothing in the entirety of the Transformers franchise that I loath more than when the action sequences are Autobots gunning down cannon-fodder in lazily choreographed fights, while there's only one or two villainous characters being heavily featured in entire episodes. The fact that nearly all of modern TF has become this is the main reason why I find it so hard to be enthusiastic about this franchise anymore. Beast Machines is probably the only TF series that actually used this competently. The Vehicons were drones, not regular Cybertronians, and could actually be threats in large numbers. The initial generals had an entertaining dynamic that was featured in most episodes, while their replacements were capable tacticians. Megatron was the mastermind who carried out a larger plan. No other series has managed to replicate BM's success with generics. Not Prime, and certainly not the movies. That's why I'm always going to prefer the villains to be entirely comprised of characters.
I always liked the personal touch in battles. Besides, I don't think there's anything stopping bot-to-bot fights form being serious. Losing an appendage or a head isn't that much of a problem for a transformer. In original cartoon characters ended up in pieces plenty of times (although usually in off-screen scenes). There were episodes where Megatron kept Optimus' head as a trophy, Scrapper made a throne out of a few Autobots or Combaticons got sold for spare parts. Autobots getting heavily damaged was pretty common in Marvel comics. One of the main issues was deciding on who should get repaired first (usually the one needed the most at the time) or if they had enough resources to repair anyone at all. I remember Shockwave planning on using some of the defeated Autobots as spare parts in his project. The original G1 was pretty brutal, albeit portrayed in a very cartoony way.
I like the Prime approach because it shows what the war is like. Although aimed at kids, when you put it into perspective, the main backstory concept of TF is really dark. A war that is usually so devastating that they have to evacuate an entire planet? What part of that isn't dark? It's not all bad though. Animated managed to put this into more light where the war was already over and Cybertron isn't a barren wasteland, but they usually take the dark approach. So with a war that managed to render a planet uninhabitable, you'd expect its dark tone to carry over to the earth. In other words, lots of deaths. That's what redshirts are good for, you can have a lot of deaths without killing too many important characters. And some of those redshirts that do get personality tend to be very memorable. Remember how people called a lot of Vehicons Steve? I liked that. And what I absolutely hate is when despite the dark war setup, they treat the conflict like the two groups just have a regular dislike for each other. In G1, Megatron could have destroyed the Autobot base and actually went there a lot. Instead, his attacks were just minor assaults in which his weapons were barely ever lethal. It took him 2 seasons to step up his game, and then Galvatron lost it, using nonlethal weapons again. If it's meant to be a war, shouldn't people die regularly?
Even though in IDW a characters ability in combat is still way too much linked to their popularity and less popular characters still are way more likely to die, at least popular characters do have a chance to die so i prefer the IDW approach. But for the sake of the thread i vastly prefer the G1 approach because it shows us what war is really like. War is not: the popular guys hardly take damage and never really die while a bunch of guys that all look the same get easily mowed down without being any real threat. That's a concept Prime fans still apparently have trouble with. And i remain unconvinced BM really did do a better job then Prime. The drone approach is also a side effect of the whole (we can't do interesting characterisations if we have to deal with a large cast) cop-out. You don't do interesting characterisations, you write clichés, period. If you really want to write interesting characterisations you can just as well do it with a large cast where you focus on a handfull of different characters each episode. This way we at least get the feeling of an actual world with an actual society waging an actual civilwar instead of a skirmish between a few Geewun fanfav clones and a bunch of drones. Plus i'm getting kind of tired of the limited cast and the drones just take up space that can be filled with clones of less popular G1 characters or entirely new characters, so i will always favor the G1 approach.
I think the drone approach is okay if enough of the drones represent an actual threat. Even at the very end of Beast Machines, when Megs threw everything he had at the Maximals, they overwhelmed them. That was freaking awesome. Beast Machines also had a mix of not only the drones but the main Vehicon characters. I think a mix of competent drones and main characters is a good approach. I remember once in Prime, there was a huge fight in that data cylinder episode where we saw Knock Out and Breakdown leading a big squad of Eradicons against the Autobots, and the Decepticons were actually holding their own. We could use more fights like that. As much as I love Beast Wars, after a while, dragging the cast back to base each episode after a fight got a bit silly. Especially when Rampage was introduced. Which led to a pretty brutal scene later on when the entire gang of Predacons stormed the Ark specifically to kill Blackarachnia.
I think Prime did it ok. Energon was the one that did it the worst. At least in Prime, they looked like they were actually shooting at things. In Engergon, they would usually just fire randomly into a huge group of terrorcons, and then there would be explosions everywhere.
Seconded, and I will add that it should be an option for both sides. I wouldn't mind seeing the core cast of Decepticons tearing through hordes of Autotroopers or whatnot every now and again. And as much as I liked the Vehicons in Prime, I did vastly prefer the themed Vehicon drones in Beast Machines. I think it gives you the best of both worlds, where you have identifiable core characters, but some of those characters lead clone armies. Like, give Bumblebee his own Swarm, for instance. That way we can finally have a purpose to the surplus of Bumblebee toys that exists.
Good animation didn't stop the fights in Prime from being stupid. Vehicons were so slow to react that I'm convinced they were mentally challenged.
I prefer the way animated handled it, where the decepticons were incredibly powerful, but not invincible. I like the drone approach, but I'd like the drones to be smart and tricky. I wonder what it would be like if we ever had heroes with generics (autotroopers actually being used).
I kinda want to see how ineffective Autotroopers would be in combat. Them and the Vehicons could maybe rally together and rise up against their oppressors.
Out of those, I prefer the idea of a mass produced drone army/an army of genericons, as it allows the Autobots to cut loose, yet not making either side look incompetent. Not to mention it gave Transformers: Prime some incredible fight scenes without bumping off an entertaining character like Starscream or Knock Out three or four episodes in. That being said, my preferred approach is something like Marvel G1 or Beast Wars did, by taking advantage of the fact that these, while being sentient, intelligent beings with thoughts and feelings, are still robots, and they can endure having limbs ripped off, being shot through the torso, and being ripped in half. They can be blown up, shot, ripped apart, or cut to pieces, and just about live through it. What I'm saying is, I'd prefer to see a series where characters endure this sort of punishment, but, being robots, they can survive these injuries long enough to be repaired over the course of a few episodes. It changes the game long enough for one side to have an advantage, but doesn't necessarily get rid of a beloved character.
In some universe Autotroopers volunteered for their job, the matching body was part of it. If they are like Vehicons and have sparks of their own I'd imagine ALL Autotroopers would be voluntary. We need some more Autotrooper love in the franchise. I myself prefer an individual cast. You have an entire species locked in a civil war. Thats BILLIONS of people of each side. Each a person like you and me, who have their own story to tell. I can totally be down with Vehicons or Autotroopers existing, but alongside a large cast.
Beast Wars/RID/Unicron Trilogy/Animated. Two sides with small groups ranging from five or so to a dozen fighting it out. I was never much of a fan of the way Vehicons were used in Prime, and though Beast Machines did them better by actually explaining how they worked and directly linking them to the plot, it was really the Vehicon generals that were interesting.
I'm not a fan of the "oodles of drones" method that was used in Prime and BM. None of the fights have any weight to them, no matter how many drones they kill, there's still dozens more. None of the kills mean anything, sure you killed ONE drone, big whoop. Plus scenes of Autobots hacking and shooting drones gets old quick. And I'm not a fan of the "five or so good guys vs. hundreds of unnamed baddies" thing. I much prefer armies of equal size and named apponents.
personally, i prefer the fights and battles in War for Cybertron/Fall of Cybertron multi-player death match.. no drones. they are Cybertronians fighting in a war and designed by each player. that's how Cybertronians should fight. the concept of drones is confusing. are the drones Decepticon conscripts? meaning they are Decepticons who are Cybertronians but are decreed to have a "uniform" form so the fact they all look alike means that they are soldiers. but how come the Autobots don't have the same types of soldiers? so see, this is another area that needs to be hashed out.
