Might as well tow out this old joke. *Ahem*

"I'm sorry. this is the 'unpopular opinions' thread, not the 'objective facts' thread!"    

But yeah, I agree with both of you. Optimus Prime, as the central figure, needs some damned personality or else he starts dragging the whole thing down.

And yes, Armada Starscream, being one o the most complex versions, who only left the Decepticons after all the abuse thrown at him and was honorable, id best version.

And i find him far superior to the Cybertron version.

 

It's possible to do optimistic characters without making them flawless, Christlike figures. Superman really is just a nice guy who grew up with good parents. Something to remind us that there's always good in the world. Hell, just look at Superman and Lois. That pulls off what I'm talking about perfectly.

 

Isn't beast wars silverbolt a flawed optimistic character?

 

Even the most optimistic of people can be flawed. But his optimism is a complete 180 to his later development in Beast Machines where he's brooding and self loathing for doing what he did under Megatron's control as Jetstorm. It kind of balances him because in the end of BM, he finally embraces Blackarachnia once more, saying things are as they should be and they can be together.

 

That's kind of the whole appeal. His Quixoteian drive to do good to a chivalric standard, reaching further than his grasp due to his narrow view, makes him both flawed and lovable to me.

 

On that note- he was flawed even in BW. In his attempts to bring Blackarachnia over to the side of the good guys, he did some pretty unheroic things.
Lying to all his teammates & commander for starters.
Stealing Maximal supplies and giving them to her, trusting that she wouldn’t use them for her own nefarious purposes.
Beating up Cheetor.
Beating up Rattrap.
Constantly insisting that she get reprogrammed even after she’d joined their side.

I like to think that he didn’t so much bring her over to the light as he met her halfway & became just a tinge darker himself in the process.

 

For some reason, I would like to see more new "Convoys" (That aren't any incarnations of Optimus Prime, Rodimus, or any pre-existing Convoys) who are more flawed (With all sorts of personality flaws that could make them unfit choices for a Convoy title at times) and has their own struggles (And maybe they're never destined to be a "Chosen One"); But nonetheless, when the circumstances come in and force them to take on the enormous responsibility of being a "Convoy", they made the decision to stand up it against the desperate situation they saw before them and through that, they slowly grow and eventually live up to their own Convoy titles.

I just thought that it would be more satisfying to see a new Convoy who starts out as a flawed, less-than-ideal leader who slowly grows, receiving all sorts of character arcs and over time, slowly but eventually grows into the benign, heroic Convoy that people say he could be.

 

History is full of people remembered for their great contribution to pushing humanity forward. But in fact probably all of them had a side that would be seen as absolutely abhorrent in the modern age, like Thomas Jefferson, owner of 600 slaves. But that doesn't invalidate their contribution to society. It's been an incremental, additive process, taking us from the savage medieval era to the comparatively more just and fair present. I would love to see historical figures of Cybertron be similarly characterized, advocating for progress in one subject which they would be remembered for without being devoid of flawed views or habits that are simply symptomatic of their era which are to be corrected further down the line, because often people are so indoctrinated that they're more likely to realize one axiom is wrong rather than the entire paradigm. I think that's kind of similar to what you suggest. That's definitely how I'd use the likes of Nova and Sentinel Prime; maybe even Optimus and Rodimus.

 

THIS! THIS HERE!! This is about as deep as the storytelling should get. Where it can make social commentary without having to have some far deeper philosophical, metaphysical, metaphorical meaning that is non existent. No “evil romance”, “demonstration of life metaphor”, no overfocus on some stupid nonexistent and nonsensical sexual hierarchy amongst robots. Dammit, where’s @trokanmariel33. They should take a lesson from this post.

 

YES. Exactly that. Shame it won’t happen, though.

 

Expect a fanfic in like... when you're in geriatric care. >.< I only write long, fully-planned works and don't publish anything that's not 100% finished, and have big pre-existing projects to finish. :/

 

That's not bad and could be an interesting thing to explore; What I had in mind is more on the side of it can be cool to see more Convoys been shown starting out as imperfect individuals with all sorts of flaws, but over time as they get all kinds of character arcs and grow as both a leader and a person, they eventually grow and manages to live up their Convoy titles; Like a character study similar to MCU Tony Stark or Oskar Schindler from Schindler's List, where we get to see all of their flaws and less than ideal personality that they started out having, but as they are faced with great injustice in front of their eyes and saw the greater picture, the audience also see them grow as a person, who despite their flaws can still rises up to do the right thing, and through that they become a hero.

I frankly think this is more interesting than seeing something like Optimus Pime who starts out as already being the great Autobot Leader in a show, and nothing else.

 

What's weird is that Netflix... didn't have the worst idea about Optimus? Like he was temperamental, bossy and not invincible. Only problem is that they leaned too far into it, making him insufferable and ineffectual. I wouldn't mind that basic personality for a beginner Optimus. Hell, even a more experienced Optimus losing his temper can be very effective if you have the right context.

Could be interesting to see a leader learn more about forgiveness and when to show mercy too. You know, so long as they don't go around dismembering people left and right to the point they look like they're a murderous goon getting their rocks off. Could be interesting if there was a murderous thug from the past getting their rocks off who somehow inspired people to do good, maybe from their public mask or some ideals that they somewhat believed in that kind of "aimed" them. I wouldn't want Optimus to be said thug, though.

 

No, they definitely had the worst idea about Optimus. A better way to phrase this would be Optimus is a cheese pizza and a humanizing, flawed habit for him to overcome is garlic seasoning. What you're suggesting is a little pinch of garlic, and what Netflix did is dump a bucket of garlic over the whole goddamn pie.

But yes, you have a point.




EDIT: I want garlic bread now.

 

Huge agreement. Netflix Optimus almost single-handedly made WFC unwatchable. I say "almost" because the series was flawed in too many ways to count.

 

I was greatly misremembering, it would seem. Show isn't all that memorable. All I remembered was thinking Optimus is kinda a jackass. I think they way overdid it but apparently that was still underselling how much they overdid it.  

Just the basic idea of a somewhat green Prime with some humanizing traits. TFA did a pretty good job on this kind of thing. Unless I am misremembering that too.  

 

Netflix Prime isn't even supposed to be that green! He's at the exact same point in the war as almost every single Optimus was at the start of their own series (Animated being the exception of course).

 

What the fuck, he's not? Jesus Christ. The impression I got was that he was supposed to be inexperienced and not know how to handle things.  

 

Siege was billed as taking place in the final days of the war on Cybertron, just like the first episode of the Sunbow series, issue 1 of Marvel, and the Fall of Cybertron game.

 

I knew it was taking place late in the war, I just somehow thought he was carrying the torch from somebody who had recently died like Zeta, Sentinel or Alpha Trion. He just seemed too... ineffective against Megatron to have been fighting him for so long. Man, that dialogue was such a chore sitting through and I still missed stuff. Sorry for bothering you guys.