Real animation artists? Do you mean a character designer? From what I know about animation, the animators aren't the ones designing the characters. I think laying the weird character designs at the feet of the animators is pretty unfair, when they likely had little say in the decision to use the CAD files as the basis for the character models at all.

 

Ironhide in particular reminded me of this  

 

Jellymation?

 

No Jellymation is the first attempt at a live action Hulk movie. Any time something hit him in that movie his skin literally ripples like he's made of jello. I have no idea why anyone thought that looked good. Wish I had interviewed Larry Franko after seeing that movie instead of before so I could ask him who the heck approved that animation.

 

So, I asked in the news forum and I didn't even know this thread was here, so I guess I'll also ask here.

What does Megatron want?
What does Optimus want?

Seems like simple and important questions, but I can't figure it out.

 

First episode impressions of Optimus - wtf?! What a pansy.

 

So, Optimus wants to fight for freedom™ and for Cybertron™
Megatron wants to end the war by any means.

Both blame each other for the war, both are arguably making Cybertron worse, something like that.

 

To rule over all of Cybertron.

Freedom for all sentient beings.

Not sure why it's hard to figure out I think they established that pretty well in the first 10 minutes.

 

The weird part of the "freedom for all sentient beings" is that optimus doesn't really demonstrate that belief.
1) Megatron and Impactor implied that cybertron was not free. People like them were forced into a life of labor in the mines by the upper elites of cybertron, who were implied to be the autobots. Did optimus support this? If optimus was about freedom would he not sympathize with the decepticons? Did he intially sympathize with the decepticons but ended up forming his own faction after they became too violent/anarchist?

The main problem here is a lack of a proper backstory. Optimus mentions that megatron murdered alpha trion and that alpha trion had forged a new start for reform in cybertron. But why? Did alpha trion oppose the lack of freedom in cybertron? If so why did megatron murder him?

These questions can all be answered if we got proper backstory instead of snippets and one liners.

2) This is the most frustrating. When Jetfire defects and suggests implementing a bomb into his head in case of betraying the autobots, optimus had no hesitations for it. He did not fight for the freedom of life and making a choice. I knew it was probably smart and wise to do that, but optimus gave no resistance to the idea. None at all. Optimus would never do this. He literally said in the beginning that "They are not the Decepticons." but then allows this with no hesitation. And in the end, it was prowl who ended up realizing how morbid the head bomb was and it was prowl who got rid of it. Not optimus who was literally there the whole time. Not optimus who is suppose to value all life.

Optimus is just a weak character in this show. What does he want really? He is fights for a better life. But what does that mean? Why continue this war?

These questions, if answered, would have greatly improved his character.

 

If Megatron wants to end the war by any means, the war would be over. It's not by any means. Megatron wants to end it on his own terms. Those terms are never even hinted at.

How do we know Optimus wants to fight for freedom? It is never made clear that freedom is in jeopardy, because we don't know what Megatron wants. So we can only guess what Optimus wants.

 

It's spelled out what Megatron wants - everyone to follow him to unite cybertron.. Optimus views that as an end to freedom. Both of them wanted to end the inequality where some are suffering in the mines etc.. and they had different views on how to achieve it.

 

It was pretty much a six episode commercial for the toys. They really need something more than "Transformers wage war on Earth". Not bad, Jetfire's pretty kick ass. I just don't get how Prime can be such a noob if the war's been going on for so long that Elita-1 can't remember a time when a hall played music or some shit like that.

 

I mean in the context of the show, this takes place after Ultra Magnus was gunned down, and after Elita explains to Optimus his problem is being too trusting, and after being ambushed after trusting the fake Magnus communication. It makes sense that Optimus accepts Jetfire's idea.

 

How so? Did you miss the scene where he ordered the Autobots to let Bumblebee leave because "WE ARE NOT DECEPTICONS!" It was a serious security risk letting Bumblebee leave like that when he knows their hidden location but his freedom was clearly more important.

Yeah and it's also implied that Optimus, Megatron, and Ultra Magnus fought together on the same side against them. So again how is that not showing that Optimus cares about Freedom. Megatron turned from just liberating his people against a SMALL GROUP of Autobots to starting a war against EVERY Autobot including those who were originally on his side! It is seriously concerning to me how people are failing to grasp such simple concepts.

Obviously not because again we're told him, Magnus, and Megatron originally fought together for the same cause.

He did, see above.

Obviously.

I mean the backstory is a little vague but the context clues are there to piece it together.

That I don't have an answer for. For some reason Megatron seems to feel that Autobots and Decepticons can't live peacefully even though there were Autobots were were close friends with him and helped him free his people... but it's never explained why Megatron turned from Freedom Fighter to Tyrant. Most depictions just shows him a power hungry war monger so maybe he was always that way? But then how would Optimus not see that before things could escalate that far? Maybe he wasn't always evil but then we've never really been given a definitive answer in any continuity exactly why Megatron became the way he is now.

Yes he did. He went along with it because it was Jetfire's idea, his choice. But him and Prowl especially were against the idea. Prowl even seemed to be feeling shame that such a thing had ever been done before. It was clear from his mannerisms and Jetfire's dialog that he'd done this before but wasn't happy about it.

How, it was Jetfire's idea in the first place, his choice. Optimus was never like "lets put a bomb in his head so we can control him." He only reluctantly went along with Jetfire's own decision.

Watch the scene again... there was plenty of resistance. They don't need to drag it out for hours to show that.

Again, there WAS hesitation. Jetfire HIMSELF pitched the idea and convinced them to do it. When he said "They are not the Decepticons" that was in a moment where the other Autobots were discussing either murdering or locking up Bumblebee in a holding cell so he doesn't reveal their location to the Decepticons. From a tactical stand point this makes sense because he was a security risk but doing so would violate everything they were fighting for which is why Optimus ordered them to let Bumblebee leave. But this is a totally different situation. He's not an unaligned scavenger, he's the leader of the Seekers. He's not being forced against his will, he's VOLUNTEERING!

Yeah, and it was also specifically mentioned that Prowl had a past history of using those types of bombs while Optimus did not even know about it till Jetfire brought it up.

FREEDOM how it that not obvious, it's clearly said multiple times.

Because Megatron supposedly wants to enslave half the planet but again seeing as how he was enslaved himself you'd think he'd be less willing to push that life on others... I mean Prime Megatron disbanded the Decepticons after Unicron used him as a tool and he didn't want to do that to others anymore... but if he had already experienced that in the mines why did he become a Tyrant in the first place? Again we're never given an answer to this in any continuity we're just told that Megatron was a freedom fighter who became a tyrant but we never see this character development take place. We're never given a clear idea of when or why Megatron stopped being a freedom fighter and became the thing he was suppose to be fighting against.

I'm still more concerned about Megatron's character.

The only thing Optimus did in this entire series that made me question his character is take the AllSpark off Cybertron. He was warned by multiple characters including oddly enough Megatron that taking the AllSpark off world would destroy Cybertron but he still insists on doing it just to stop Megatron from getting it. Megatron actually made a valid point when he said "And you call me the bad guy. That's far more evil that anything I was going to do with it."

Sure the Decepticons were going to enslave half the population but Optimus' actions were putting the lives of the entire planet at risk. It would of been better if they didn't already know what taking the AllSpark off world could do but having that knowledge and doing it anyway... that is far more evil than Megatron's plan. They would of been reformatted into Decepticons but they'd still be alive.

Maybe the idea is that the destruction of Cybertron was only said to be a possibility but we're never told exactly how likely that possibility was and when multiple characters are all saying the same thing it stop sounding like a calculated risk and starts to sound like there is no doubt this is going to happen... If it wasn't for this one thing Optimus would of been fine. Cause who dooms an entire planet just because they don't want the enemy to get something... the villain... so why is Optimus suddenly in the mood to destroy a planet when both friends and enemies are advising him against it?

 

If they were going to use the same models over and over for background characters , I wonder why they didn’t use some of the actual toys/characters that actually Exist.

Why give us a yellow coms/Cog officer who speaks, but no Bluestreak , tigertrack, clampdown ? Ect

 

Just for some clarification. When you say he decided to go after all Autobots even those who fought beside him, wouldn’t Optimus and such be Decepticons at the time? The two sides are factions that seem to be a personal choice rather than something a Cybertronian is born into.

 

Same reason as any other cartoon. Each character model costs money to make. They have a limited number of models they can use and after that they have to keep reusing the same ones to keep costs down.

Well it's stated that the Autobots all share some sort of code. This was to be reformatted to Decepticon code... and they also took advantage of this to spread a virus using Ultra Magnus. The Decepticons also still refer to Bumblebee as an Autobot even when he hasn't chosen a side in the war.

On the other side of things, it's implied that the factions didn't really exist until Megatron killed Alpha Trion, Optimus split off leading the Autobots and Megatron leading the Decepticons. That seems the be the catalyst where everyone had to choose a side.

Basically it's really kind of confusing because there's dialog that suggests it's something you're born into AND can choose. Normally it's one or the other not both... but to be fair it's always kind of been that way. Consumer Goods were Autobots while Gladiators were Decepticons. They were built to be that way but they could also choose to switch factions so a Consumer Good could be a Decepticon and Gladiator could be an Autobot. We see this again in Beast Wars. The Maximals are descendants of the Autobots and the Predacons are descendants of the Decepticons... but they could at any time switch factions allowing for Autobot descendants to be Predacons and Decepticon descendants to be Maximals.

At least before they used different names so it was easier to understand they were talking about different things but here they use Autobot to refer to both something you're born into and something you choose. But to my understanding... especially from Starscream's dialog... Even if you choose to change factions they're not considered the same as someone "born" into that faction.

So that explains why Bumblebee both is an Autobot but also is neutral, he CHOOSES to be neutral in the war but he's built to be an Autobot.

 

LOL, ummmm you either dont know who those characters are ( which I find hard to believe since you been here so long and have so many post ) or you didnt really read what I wrote .

all of those characters I named have models in the show already EVERY SINGLE ONE. No need to make new models. which is obvious because they used those models in the show

Prowl---Bluestreak-- same model and they of course used those models for nameless guys in the background- so they could have easily done blue streak
Clampdown, Tigertrack,-- same model as Sideswipe and they did give us Deepcover or what looks like him at least, but they also used this model for background characters so again Clamp Down and Tigertrack could have easily been done.

 

Neat!

 

I think what he is asking is what do they want in more detail. In the comic books their wants are more sophisticated than “freedom” and “end to this war”

To be fair to WFC series I get why they don’t want to lean too heavily into their motivations because it will mirror some form of politics and will alienate one section of the viewership or another.