What happened to Originality in Transformers?

Hasbro has been largely 'playing it safe' the last decade or so, in no small part because the Transformers brand has been a decent seller all that time. The last truly big shakeup was the Beast era - Transformers was at a very low point then, so Hasbro had less to lose and more to gain by trying something unusual. Currently they're doing well enough with a group of roughly G1-derived lines and media that there's a 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' mentality now, with little incentive to make any big plays aside from expanding the toy brand to peripheral markets (Kre-O, Rescue Bots, RPM/Speed Stars, Crossovers). At least in the cartoons and comics they manage to have a handful of new characters along with new takes on old names.

I agree that Rescue Bots is pretty original, or at least a departure from the TF 'standard', with a different set of characters and goals. It helps that desipe being aimed at younger children than Prime, it avoids being 'kiddy'. In that sense I found the episode with a visiting Bumblebee kind of off-putting, 'cause Bumblebee was the "Poochie" of that episode. Whenever BB was not on screen, someone was required to talk about him.

old names are always going to come back periodically, thanks to the nature of trademarks and Hasbro's desire to hold on to them. I'm glad Hasbro is not against still coming up with new names from time to time, however lame (Pan-handler, Swashplate) . I also find it a pleasant surprise that name reuse can produce new characters that might equal or surpass previous usage in one way or another. (Inferno, Silverbolt, ... Bulkhead)

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Well, I don't quite think being the antithesis of her gender is a driving force either. She does crazy stuff, yes, but Starscream is also very meek—that doesn't mean he acts like a girl, it just means he's a wimp. Applying the analysis that Arcee acts male simply because she's hotheaded among hotheads (which none of the male Autobots actually are) is akin to Starscream being a girl because he's submissive among the strong. (Not exactly the same, I'm aware, but for purposes of argument.)

As for Arcee's actual character, she has shown many sides. A protective instinct towards Jack, a sisterly disposition toward Bumblebee, a soldierly respect for Optimus. Some of these shade masculine, others feminine. But none of them paint her as a stock male character, or a stock female rebel. Your analysis is...shortsigted.

To paraphrase Warner Wolf "If you had JDK convincing people to buy Weaponizer Bumblebee.... YOU LOST!!"

That has to be one of the funniest takes on a modern TF that I've read in a while.

How does her protective instinct towards Jack differ from Bumblebee's protective instinct towards Raph, or Bulkhead's towards Miko? How does her sisterly disposition differ from Bulkhead's brotherly? Which Autobot doesn't show a soldierly respect for Optimus? None of these qualities are unique or unexpected. The only time I can recall her having any remotely interesting tension is her anger over the loss of her partner, but of course, who wouldn't be angry after losing a partner? She is a bland character, and I don't mean to play up her being a fembot as important: it's not. I think the writers sold her short by assuming that it would be.

Alright, now we agree. Her being gender isn't important in one way or another.

It has to do with how she shows those aspects. For example Arcee views Jack more like a partner while Bulkhead and Bumblebee view their human charges more like little siblings. And how Arcee shows her anger towards her enimies is arguably different from how Optimus,and Bulkhead do with their rivals. Arcee's anger towards Airachnid and Starscream is how we'd expect someone from real life to react like a cop with a criminal while Optimus and Megatron's rivalry is more on an epic and traditional side. Again it's how she shows those aspects is what sets her apart from the rest of the team in some ways in my opinion.

And I agree about how it's nothing to do wit gender being different too. However Arcee has aspects that in my opinion help sets her apart in a lot of ways.

Hold on, are we not discussing originality in Transformers? Because this seems to be turning into a thread about TFP Arcee--unless you're going to discuss the originality (or lack thereof) of her character, in which case ignore me.

Anyway to get back on topic it depends about how often do you use old matrial. On one hand it can get old if you use the same old things over and over again. On the other hand it does help to bring back characters that wern't used often at all in the past.

There are times too that having an old character be different from his/her original self can help the character be just as good if not better then the old self.

Woah, you're right. From the familiar to fembots in two pages flat.

It's one of the reasons I love BWNeo. It changed the format up.

100% new crews, set in space with different planets, characters of all types, from rookies, to battle hardened and jaded soldiers. Time travellers and liars. Just when you think you've got the series figured out, they change the dyanamic by introducing a third faction and ramping up the drama; a series that started out with a simple mission, find out what happened to another Convoy turns into a battle on Cybertron for all of Transformers.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg. How it managed to feature the casts was fun and allowed for their personalities to shine through.

Honestly, I'm pretty sick of G1. With the HUB I figured there was a chance for a new series that didn't feature Prime and Megatron, it would be with the HUB. After all, they've shown they can show multiple TF shows and since they only need to make a toy, it's not that hard when you've got more than one show to not include Prime and Megatron in one iteration and have them feature in the other.