You know, I'm aware its still a contentious topic and I shouldn't poke too much but I wonder, why Wheeljack for that role. Not Ironhide? Brawn. Cliffjumper? Anything more macho? Who the hell had such a beef with WHEELJACK?! What did he do anyone! Except maybe make the Dinobots, I guess.

 

He was talking an awful lot of smack about Nightbird, though.

 

One thing I've always suspected about The Movie and Season 3 is that Rodimus Prime was a late addition during the feature production that left the TV series' team scrambling to make room. This summary kind of supports that, in that it ends with Hot Rod as A Leader rather than The Leader. Certainly the TV show (and Marvel UK) treats Ultra Magnus as the counterpart to Galvatron as often as Rodimus, and a lot of Rodimus scenes in the first bunch of episodes involve him essentially saying, "I don't feel like I'm a good fit here."

 

They probably were looking for an established Autobot who was both experienced in the field and a technological gadget guru who also was thought of as arrogant, stubborn, and sometimes oblivious to the situation. With that in mind, Wheeljack is the perfect mad scientist for the role.

It also isn't meant to be seen as contentious like you might be imagining, the original intent seems like he and Arcee's relationship was to be played up for laughs with Wheeljack acting the know-it-all while Arcee is actually the one always bailing him out of various dangerous situations.

 

Had a couple of odd thoughts after reading the first draft of the movie, What would the musical score be like, Would it be like the score from the movie we actually got?
Also what songs would be on the soundtrack?

 

Because to this writer, they were just names. What you're speaking of are characters created and defined by someone else. Other people's ideas don't help him go into a meeting with an executive and brag his way into another job.

 

That's TFNation, baby!  

 

Naw, while he's not in this draft, Rodimus is added by the second outline in March 1985, at a point when a good half of season 2 was still to be written, and a year before "Five Faces of Darkness" was written. They knew what they wanted to do with the character.

 

Wow! this movie still surprise me.

 

I dunno, Mr. McFeely; I'd be pretty entertained by that.

 

Pretty sure he's been married for quite some time now.

 

Eh. I would've thought that was freaking hilarious if I saw it in the movie. After several scenes of Galvatron just killing the shit out of several Autobots--he gets his comeuppance from a race of "miserable fleshlings".

 

All aboard the Serpent Expresssss!

 

Dude, everyone was talking smack about Nightbird. Does the phrase "probably runs on batteries" sound familiar to ya?

 

So more like he didn't INTEND to come across as misogynistic, he just assumed he knew more about situations than he really did.

 

Yes, everyone was, but it's especially rich coming from Wheeljack considering this was right after he made those useless metal detectors and all those other crackpot inventions of his that almost never pan out.

 

Talked a lot of smack for a bot without a mouth too.

 

It's fascinating how built-in Optimus Prime's death seems to have been from an early point in the series, then. Do you know why that might have been the case?

 

Because when Hasbro debuted The Transformers at Toyfair '84 in February, they ended those two weeks with $100 million in retail orders. That led them to not only go forward with their plans regarding imports and existing Takara developments for Year 2 (George Arthur Bloom was instructed to cram Shockwave into MTMTE revisions by March), but to also start looking to what new developments would be approved for Year 3.

The toy world moves fast. Even on a two-year retail cycle, by the time the toy comes out, the company is already planning for what's going to replace it.

 

And the first time I saw her, she was wearing green.