Right up there with misspelling Predacon as Predicon. It's like, the base of the word is "Predator." Preda-tor. Preda-con. Anyway.

Yay! Common ground.  

And I'd be one of those people that welcomed Stryka precisely because of her ability to both be a girl and not be constrained by the extremely limited portrayals of girls in TF fiction up to that point. We could discuss what constitutes feminine and masculine traits all day, but there will still be those fans out there, that no matter what, will hate a character the moment they open their mouth and a female voice comes out. There are those people, that, no matter how the character is written or drawn, they will hate solely for being female.
For these people, having female robots around translates to robots hugging, robots kissing, robots being intimate and having feelings and showing emotions other than "Bro-fist!" Not saying that everyone that dislikes fembots thinks this way. But this segment of the fandom is definitely out there.

And yes, Crasher is the best. Crasher will always be the best.  

So I've heard. Plus they put Sky-Byte in it, so you know, that makes me happy  

This reminds me of an interview I read with the director of the first Silent Hill movie. In the game, Harry Mason is the star and he's out looking for his daughter. The director said that halfway through watching footage of the game, he had this sudden realization that Harry was, in fact, a woman, because of his paternal worries. Clearly this is a mother in disguise looking for her daughter! And so the movie recast Harry Mason as Rose Da Silva. I was always irked by that.

 

Admittedly, that's part of the problem for me... that any opposition to the Fembot concept is commonly linked with these attitudes. Which is fair play, I suppose, since Fembot supporters are all shippers and perverts, right?  

Well, that's in Robots In Disguise... the relatively less-awesome of the two series. It's alright. But the gooood stuff is More Than Meets The Eye. That is the series that has the gender-neutral relationship in it, and the one that regularly explores the building blocks of Cybertronian culture and biology. It's amazing.

Just one example of how casting women in a role can actually be done for all the wrong reasons. Which is not to say that the mother-daughter bond isn't a fertile subject for fiction, but it also isn't a female-exclusive concept. Besides, in this case I call bullshit on the director. Women are often cast as leads in horror films because they convey a greater sense of vulnerability, the 'woman in peril' stereotype that dates back at least to the Gothic novel. It's a commercial motivation, not necessarily a progressive choice.  

zmog

 

arrggh i fucking hate that. anyone that does that is in dire need of some lessons in social grace...

MAN that really sets me off.

 

God, yes.

 

Bay.

 

But here your missing a key point.... Most people.go.the the movie pay their.money want to be entertained for the 2+ hours of films and shown previews of other movies that might entertain them. The majority of.movie goers do not say he I liked that fil.I need to see if.there are any novels or comics or cartoons or.toy bios I can read to learn more. Cause most films may not even get a sequal.

 

It's putting in work to get entertainment versus just watching it

 

Wow, I've never seen that happen. Ouch. It does kind of remind me of when people substitute transformers-themed exclamations for normal ones. Like saying, "oh my god" becomes "oh, Primus!" and so on. I hate that. Just one more filter separating nerdiness from being, I dunno... a normal, unmediated person.

zmog

 

Entertainment should not be work. It's not school work or your job. It's entire purpose for existence is to relax the person and let them take their minds off such things as work. Never understood the work for it in enjoying something was an excuse for something not being good.

I want to be entertained. If I have to work at it, I better start being paid for it.

 

The thing is, our expectation to be "entertained" without any edification, self-improvement, commitment or judgment on our parts, is kind of a creation of our entitled, decadent, selfish society. Entertainment is the opiate of the working classes.

The other side of it is that THINKING is its own reward. It should not be work. "Entertainment" that also makes us think, or rewards us with clever, challenging, refreshing ideas should be far more invigorating and exciting than entertainment that lulls us into a docile, robotic state of couch-potato self-satisfaction.

Just another way to look at it. "I don't want to think tonight." is a mantra I understand well, but it still makes me sad.

zmog

 

Well, I do occasionally find myself replacing actual expletives with made up ones or just say something random, sometimes Transformers related...But for me that's more connected with my mother, who has tendency to replace most expletives with something she makes up on the spot. I guess it sort of rubbed off on me. But I don't do it all the time. In fact, usually what I say is usually a food (Ex. "Ow! Cr--MUFFINS!).
Though I certainly don't pull out "Till all are one" stuff when tragedies happen. That's just taking it too far.

 

is it me or is thread the unpopular opinion thread mark 2.0, nothing wrong with that.

 

A friend of mine uses names of scarsely known dinosaurs as expletives.

 

As far as fans arguing over 1980's vs. 2000's Transformers, I'm actually surprised that both "sides" seem so equally represented on this forum. I see both "sides" able to celebrate their preference and also able to gripe about how they're not represented enough (let's face it we all love to do both.   ).

I say surprised because I've been on some forums (for things as seemingly harmless as the Muppets) where you're barely allowed to say anything remotely critical for fear that a fight will erupt. For instance, if you in any way imply that post-Henson Muppets aren't as good, you're instantly attacked as too negative and as a result fans learn to keep silent. Which just ends up resulting in a lot of pent up rage.  

I know things can get heated here as well, but trust me you guys have it good, lol.

 

Oh, and I really, really, really, really, really, really hate how stores always over-order on wave 1 on everything and only order more Wave 1 toys after they run out of stock.

 

Personally, I think "Awww... MUFFINS!" or "Holy Shantungosaurus!!" is waaaay better than using Transformers-themed expletives.  

It might be, though theoretically the content should be a bit different.

Word. I've got the Wave 1 Blues right now.  

zmog

 

^THIS^THIS^THIS^THIS DING!DING!DING!DING!DING!

They should just put all the desirable toys in the first wave to sort of counterbalance the problem, but off course does not solve it.

 

people who hate everything that isnt g1

 

Those fans and kids who beat me to the Transformers section and leave me all the Bumblebees and Optimus Primes  .

 

-Slash-Fics/Pics <----Winner right there

-Fans who continue to over-criticize and bash Transformers: Prime EVERY single episode, when they can simply just stop watching.

-People who call me an idiot and a problem with this world for liking the first Transformers movie, I'm not kidding, this has happens a lot to me.