I think it by default has to be targeted at older audiences.

First, if you’re going to flip things, you need the darkness to be darker and the brightness to be brighter. Otherwise it’s just relabeling toys in a way only fans would care about. I think that means having the SG Autobots do worse stuff. It means examining what makes the heroic Decepticon good and maybe you have some Primus spirituality played opposite atheist Quintesson creation stories or something.

Basically, it’s got to be a fairly deep examination of morality or target people who have associations built up. Even Star Trek’s Mirror Universe was for the type of show it was, with the Nazi symbolism and heightened sexuality. It pushes buttons and some of the buttons it pushes don’t exist yet for kids.

But also, more importantly, Hasbro wouldn’t want to screw up its brand. So even if not targeted at hardcores like many of us, it needs to be targeted at people already familiar with the Fab Four. I think Hasbro would want it walled off where kids wouldn’t see it not because of content but because they’d want anyone who watches to come in knowing that Optimus is normally a good guy.

I also think what would excite a studio like Netflix would be if they got to push nostalgia buttons. (They brought back Full House and wanted to bring back Enterprise. They were the only ones as far as I’m aware who wanted to do Star Trek without introducing a new cast or rebooting.) So unlike the club stuff, I think you’d probably see a lot more G1 riffs. Less repurposing. Probably character designs and old theme music elements and such.

Also, the movies are more morally gray. Inverting them doesn’t make as much sense. Optimus Prime needs to be a kindly saint in people’s heads or making him a monster isn’t as powerful as it could be.

Oh! And I’ll throw something out there:

I liked David Kaye getting tours on both sides of the role. He’d be good. But it might be interesting to get Cullen as heroic Megatron and Welker as evil Prime. Because they’re actors and it’s an interesting challenge.

 

I don't think it'd work as a season in and of itself. But maybe as a series of direct to dvd movies.

Or.....as the second season of a ongoing TV series. The first season slowly builds to a massive Unicron or Hytherion level threat, they defeat it, and in the process rip a hole in reality and the sg verse bleeds through.

 

As long as machinima doesn't make it

 

I think it could work under certain conditions. The first thing that comes to mind is doing the series Sun and Moon game style, and have the Shattered Glass series run at the same time as (and be a shattered version of) another series, allowing its inverted nature to make more sense to viewers.

 

This is why I want animated movies, direct to DvD or not. It could work in that format.

 

I'd think a web series would be the best fit.

Now no one has brought this up so i am going to. It's easy to assume with the collapse of funpub and Botcon that Hasbro took control of full rights of SG. if they had not held it all along. That said i have not seen anything to verify that fact beyond the realm of assumption and conjecture. I believe Hasbro has the rights to the SGTF concept and likely had them all along as part of the licensing deal it had with Funpub.

Now a what if. What if somehow the folks that owned/ran Funpub still held what ever rights they could hold to the SG Universe with out Hasbro's characters. it's really unlikely as with out the TF characters the rest would be worthless or nearly so. At any rate if hasbro really wanted to make such a show and i personally doubt they have any real interest in doing so they would swoop in and buy up what ever small bit Funpub still owned if they still own any at all.

 

It might if the show didn't start getting a hard on for itself over turning everything into 80's cheese and having Autobots be evil like the funpub writers did.
But I doubt a cartoon will not make those same mistakes, so yes it might do well and I'd hate it.

 

A whole series set in Shattered Glass universe? No. If they did that in a cartoon it would have to be like the Mirror Universe in Star Trek. They could make a stand alone series set in that universe later on down the road like the last season of Enterprise but to first introduce viewers to the idea I think it would have to be in the style of the original series or Deep Space Nine episodes where a few characters from the main universe swap places with their SG counterparts. They can't just throw viewers into that universe since most of the cartoon audience isn't even aware of Shattered Glass. Even most comic book readers would be unaware of it's existence since it's exclusive to Botcon releases right now so unless you attended those events or are at least aware of them the majority of the general audience don't have a clue what that even is. I think people need to be eased into it by viewing it threw the eyes of more familiar good Autobots first before just throwing viewers into a universe where the Autobots are evil with no contex as to why they're suddenly the bad guys. Even viewers watching Transformers for the first time would be confused by having the shows heroes being called Decepticons since deception isn't a term normally associated with good guys. Hell I know about SG and I'm still confused why they're called Decepticons in that universe.

They've done stuff like this in DC comics too and the evil versions don't go around calling themselves the Justice League in their Universe. If there's a Justice League at all it's members typically include characters who were villains in the main universe not Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, ect. So it would make more sense if SG Optimus Prime was the Decepticon leader and SG Megatron was the Autobot leader rather than Megatron is still a Decepticon but they're good guys because that name makes about as much sense as a universe were the Justice Leauge are villains.

And to clarify I'm not counting the universe where the Justice League actually kill people because that's not exactly a straight up they're villains universe, it's a moral grey area because they only kill villains rather than putting them in prison. They're still fighting for justice they just have a more extreme method of dealing with criminals they aren't straight up polar opposites of the main universe like typical evil counterparts would be. More like they're heroes who got pushed over the edge and went too far. But basically I'm only including universes that are polar opposites where they were never and could never in any conceivable way be considered heroes. In every black and white version excluding the moral grey universes, they never call themselves the Justice League.

 

Wasn't the story in Shattered Glass that the evil Autobots were actually doing what the mainstream Decepticons were lying about their Autobots doing? Namely using the name Decepticons to discredit their opposition and SG Megatron just opted to turn into a badge of pride rather than one of shame?

 

I would love to see a Transformers Shattered Glass cartoon in the near future. And why couldn't it work? We would have Rescue Bots and Cyberverse for the younger crowd and Shattered Glass for the older crowd. If it were to happen, it would be more of a darker show just like Prime was

 

For some reason I could say Machinima saying ok to making it.

 

Who's Machinima?

 

You've never heard of Machinima? It's a YouTube channel that originally stated out making funny videos using video game footage with original recorded dialog like Freeman's Mind, a series made using Half Life. More recently they've been making original animations rather than relying soly on Video Games and have an officially licenced Transformers series based on the Combiner Wars toy line with a Titans Return sequel being released soon if it hasn't already. The animation kinda reminds me of the CGI portion of Energon/Cybertron.

 

Nope. Never heard of it.

 

I would love a cartoon that begins in the shattered glass universe with someone later switching over to the regular universe. Everything there is weird for that character, because it's different, but it's also a better world somehow. Later conflicts with the evil Autobots from the shattered glass universe, the Decepticons from that universe and the Autobots would ensue. The Decepticons don't want some "wannabe evil" Autobots to take their place in domination of the universe and the Autobots of course are just the good guys.

 

The market would be way too small for anything beyond what we're getting with the Prime Wars trilogy (and possibly even for that). The trouble with Shattered Glass fiction is that it's too referential, by necessity. It only works if there's a "normal" universe to compare it to, so it requires familiarity with other stories and can't stand on its own.

 

That's why I suggested a reverse from the norm, where you start out in the shattered glass universe and for the viewer and the main character it is the norm, after a few episodes we get to the regular universe, which is the alternate universe for SG. We learn the differences from the point of view of an heroic Decepticon traversing the universes. But of course he does not continue to live in a world where even the war between Autobots and Decepticons seems like paradise compared to his home universe, he needs to get back and of course the Evil Autobots learn of this other universe which is ripe for the taking. The show mainly takes place in the regular universe, although it is actually a shattered glass show. That way even new viewers get to know everything they need. But to make it a little more interesting, it starts out in the reverse, instead of regular good guy jumping to the evil universe  

Maybe it's better to make this a movie instead of a show. But I stand by the idea that this way it could work.

 

I think it would work well in the style of DC's direct-to-video animated movies.

 

I love Shattered Glass, but it wouldn't work in a cartoon that was WHOLLY set in Shattered Glass . . . because the interesting part about SG is comparing a 'normal verse' bot to their counterpart. If no 'normal verse' bots are present then you're depending on the audience already knowing what, for example, Wheeljack or Starscream is like in the normal universe. And that's not going to work because Hasbro is always trying to draw in new viewers (like children) who don't have previous TF knowledge.

So I don't think it would work as a standalone show, but I would love a show that heavily involved the Shattered Glass universe as part of the plot.

The other thing that would be necessary would be to have good characterization for the SG bots. I don't know what it is about SG, but when I'm reading fanfics with them people like to make the SG Autobots fifty times more brutal than the canon Decepticons. (I haven't read the canon SG stuff so I don't know if this originates with them or not.) They should have the same level of evilness as the canon Decepticons and should have goals and traits beyond sadism; otherwise they come across as parodies rather than characters.

 

I haven't read the comics either but I do know just from reading TFwiki that SG Autobots are officially way more evil than the Decepticons. SG Optimus Prime has a throne room with the corpses of his slaughtered enemies hanging from the ceiling. That's not fan fiction, that's actually canon, he is a freaking sadistic freak, way more evil than main universe Megatron. SG Hot Rod has a personality that is similar to main universe Starscream. Meaning he's a back stabbing schemer that wants to overthrown Optimus Prime and take command for himself except Hot Rod is actually competent and eventually succeeds where Starscream never does and just get's killed by Galvatron.

I think the only reason Hot Rod was made like Starscream at all is because they wanted him to become Rodimus Prime in the SG universe as well so he basically ended up as a Stars cream clone by default. It also makes for a nice polar opposite to main universe Hot Rod that never wanted to lead for his evil counterpart to actually want the job. Good Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime is constantly comparing himself to Optimus thinking he can be the leader that Optimus was. The Evil version constantly felt he'd be a better leader and took the leadership position so he's basically a way more competent version of Starscream.

I wouldn't want them to be exactly like main universe Decpticons because in my opinion that would feel like a parody. Realistically Hot Rod is a completely different character than Starscream so it makes no sense to have them just straight up swap personalities acting exactly like the main universe character. Like wise SG Optimus Prime is not main universe Megatron so it makes no sense to have him act exactly the same as Megatron. That would be freaking boring. He's still Optimus Prime, just an evil version of Optimus Prime so the SG version should act like the opposite of main universe Optimus not like Megatron. Main universe Optimus is opposed to killing unless it's absolutely nessisary for self defense and even then he regrets taking a life. So of course SG Optimus is going to be a sadist that loves killing so much he keeps the bodies as trophies.

Also considering the Decepticons typically are much stronger and have larger numbers than the Autobots which in the main universe gives the heroes a challenge to overcome but in SG where the heroes are the Decepticons they have to make the weaker smaller Autobots way more competent and evil to provide a challenge for their Decepticons. If SG Autobots were exactly like main universe Decepticons they'd be easily defeated. Just like in the main universe the Decepticons are presumably built for war and if they were as good as main universe Autobots the war would be over before Optimus could even take command. Evil Autobots have to be way worse than evil Decepticons in order to provide the same threat level. If Autobots and Decepticons were more evenly matched then reversing them wouldn't matter but when one side has a clear advantage but still ends up losing nearly every battle and you switch their personalities then they need that change to maintain balence between the two factions. So that the good guys still have a challenge rather than a clear obvious advantage other the villains.