Optimus Prime: blue Megatron: red Soundwave: red Starscream: yellow Dinobots: red Ultra Magnus: yellow Hot Rod: blue
the Stunticons and some of the Combaticons having purple eyes made sense to me as a kid; they change into cars. The Autobots have blue eyes and the decepticon red so mixing it would give you purple. But following that logic all decepticon cars should have purple eyes which Runabout and Runamuck clearly don't have.
I think the correlation of physical features with social alignment (i.e. good guys have blue eyes, bad guys have red) is somewhat akin to racism. I don’t assume a blue-eyed human is inherently good simply because they have blue eyes. Nor do I consider all blondes evil, despite having dated a couple who seemed to be [j/k]. It’s a very immature, ignorant notion. Seriously, within the fiction, variety in optics seems to make the most sense. IRL with respect to the toys, I think yellow/gold and red most often look the best, though.
I think tribalism or classism would be better fits then racism. We can make a choice about our social alignment by picking who we interact with and match things like fashion etc as signifiers to others, we can't pick our race. I'd say it's far more likely they(transformers) would change eye colours to reflect their social alignment as a sign to others since being a robot and all simple colours are a choice and colour changes are a common thing in lore. This also can cover why some colours come up more in particular groups more then others. But IRL it's about colour theory. Even if little Johny/Debbie have never seen a show or cant even read at a basic level we know that red reads as dangerous blue as a more calming colour.
I could believe that being mostly military hardware, Decepticons would use appropriately intimidating colors like red. However, I also like to think it's sort of a choice thing, being robots and all. Yellow eyes, blue eyes, purple eyes, green eyes, red eyes, they should be able to have a full variety of colors and some measure of ability to change them, like getting new optics installed if not having a built in system that allows them to change it.
If you assume that the robots have a choice of eye color, then yes— it’s like tribalism. In those cases it’s the physical aspects that are derived from the social choices. With racism, it’s the reverse. The physical features are innate, and the social assignment is based upon them. You’re right with the Johnny/Debbie color theory argument, though. That is what annoys me about the red/blue assignment. It’s so juvenile. I prefer a little more depth and “grey” in my characters.
I'm glad we agree on why IRL it is the way it is. But to cut to the chase I'm basically asking you to prove a negative, the burden of proof is on you to substantiate your claim with this eye colour/race observation you have. I don't see any evidence for it but I see a lot against it. I can point to examples of characters changing eye colour like Armada Red Alert who went from red to blue and then back to red for Cybertron, Energon Inferno went from Blue to orange. Armada Jetfire went from gold to blue back to gold in energon and then to red in cybertron the list goes on to show that it's more then possible to change eye colour and body colour. special shout to the RiD2001 who used mostly red and gold for everyone. And it's cool if you want depth but I'd say that introducing the idea that red eyed characters are almost de-facto deceptions and blue eye'd autobots is maybe counter intuitive to adding depth. it's a very simple idea that runs counter to existing lore. IDW's functionalist movement was a decent go at implementing the idea of social assignment into transformers. So here's my point. I think it's really, really dangerous to point to something as potential coding for racism because as you know it's a huge issue and it'll get people fired up. So if anyone wants to go down that path with anything it really, really needs to be a water tight argument with clear examples and evidence. saying it feels like racism isn't a good argument. I'm sorry if this feels rather targeted that's not my intent.
The burden of proof is on me? That was good for a laugh, really. Are we in a legal hearing, now? Kick it back a notch-- this is all just chat about a fictional story involving robotic lifeforms. On an intellectual scale, it's a couple of ticks above superfluous nonsense and at best harmless entertainment. I don't think my comment is any reason for getting "fired up". I simply suggested that it reminds me of racism-- where people make judgements on someone's values, character, social status, rank, or worth based on their innate physical qualities. It's like the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover". I wasn't going anywhere close to implying that Sunbow writers had white supremacist leanings. But what the original cartoon did was definitively link blue eyes with inherently good characters, and red eyes with evil ones. Maybe Cybertronians' eyes are like traffic lights can change depending on intentions, I dunno. Perhaps eye color is no more significant that the adoption of a faction insignia. Whatever. Regardless, it's linking physical appearance to behavior. You show some kid in 1985 a Transformer with no faction symbol but with red eyes, and they'll say it's a bad guy. That's not how the world works, and that's why I said I like more "depth" and more "grey". Blue and Red in Sunbow TF is like the White Hat and Black Hat in old Westerns. It's childishly simple, and misleading. My apologies, but I have no idea what they did in Armada, Cybertron, or Energon. There was some good animation there, but hardly anything else I found worthwhile. I've only watched enough of it to know it wasn't for me. Anyway, think what you like. I generally feel that there shouldn't be faction-based eye color.
Burden of proof is actually more of a basic way to make a point just in general. It's not a legal term tho I can see why people would think it. The gist is that if you make a point that challengers the norms you need to back it up otherwise we get into hitchkins razor territory. that second paragraph basically was in G1 when they autobots landed on planet Junk. Turns out that red eye'd bikers were just nice guys who all ended up jointed the autobots... apart from that one guy E-hobby made like 20 years later. lol I thought you were the one pushing for it in a weird way that it's both bad and interesting. hense all the examples and why I said that it's a bad idea to have fixed colours.
No, no, I don't like faction-based eye color at all. At least that explains why I didn't completely follow your argument, as we weren't exactly on opposing sides. As for "burden of proof", I've really only heard it used in the subjects of law and philosophy. I understand the term, I was just being a sarcastic smartass (typical) because you were making it sound so formal. I like discussing this stuff, but I never take it too seriously. But as for eyes, I tend to like yellow/gold optics on the toys for aesthetic reasons, but otherwise whatever looks good. Sometimes blue or red is a good choice, but I would hand that out independent of faction.
Son, you just brought a lamppost to a 1984 Radio Shack. And we’re all out of affordably priced CB radio components. … I really don’t have any idea what that means.
New Soundwave looks so bland compared to G1, and Masterpiece Soundwave. Those red eyes just come out of no where, being the only red that appears on the entire figure. While the G1 and Masterpiece figure is covered with little tiny red details, along with yellow and gold details as well. The red Soundwave eyes don't look superior to me at all. In fact, they look incredibly inferior, combined with the inferior proportions, hollowness of the arms, thick lower legs, tiny arms. Blah, I don't collect modern Transformers anymore, and I can see why I don't. Glad others think this looks superior, but to me it's inferior in every way that matters to me.
See but that's why I love the red visor on him. Just in the one I happen to own, the ER Netflix one, since that is the only red on the figure it really stands out and brings attention to his incredible lightpiping I feel. The yellow is fun but I like the striking nature of red on him.
It stands out in away that doesn't fit the rest of the figure. It looks like you added it yourself. Even though it is a feature of the toy. Doesn't sound like a good thing to me.