This is a discussion about the Machinima animation, not the final fight in Fall of Cybertron.

Well, Windblade as the fan-built bot pretty much is the epitome of the 'special OC snowflake' - female, happens to be the one thing the good guys notably lack (female jet), has the default 'edgy' black-and-red color scheme, and in this animation pulls a B.O.T. because she's so ultra-cool she can take out combiners.

Despite not having fucking been in the Combiner Wars toyline.

Then what does constitute a Mary Sue? Because IIRC the term comes from the name of the archetype OC somebody put into a Star Trek fanfiction for the very reason 'Mary Sue' is now known as a trope.

In fact, to use a former Mary Sue as an example, Windblade is everything that people feared Drift was originally going to be. Only he narrowly escaped being blasted as much by critics because he really didn't do much of anything beyond the occasional badass action sequence, then he got some backstory about who, what, and why he is who he is with the mini-series, and then better writers got hold of him from McCarthy and made him a decent character.

So far Windblade has been shoehorned as-is into almost every single thing made since her conception with the exclusion of AoE. But unlike Drift, in those years she's not been given any real character flaws or anything that counterblances her being some kind of instant badass who never loses.

 

So finally watched the first episode, and it was pretty good.

I have no problem with the run time, for a web series like this I'm use to it with other shows like Red vs Blue and the shorter episodes that were Season One of RWBY.

Animation was pretty good. Loved the falling fight between Menasor & Computron, that is a combiner fight done right. Liked the voice acting too, except I will say Menasor's voice should of been used on one of the limbs to like a Technobot or even a Stunticon. Also I feel like Computron's voice could work for Mainframe.

Speaking of the combiners, I know this is the first episode but I hope we actually see the Combiners de-combined.

Also, really hate how it feels like the Transformers are made of glass. Like seriously? It didn't take much for Nosecone, Afterburner, Dead End, & Breakdown to fall off? Okay yeah it makes sense for Maxima since she got beat the fuck down by Menasor but still, Transformers are made of alien metal and even some like Combiners should be way harder to defeat making them way more of a threat.

Also, really hate what happened to my favorite combiner Menasor. Really don't like how they're handling the combiners right now. Hopefully its just the Motormaster aspect of him thats dead now, not the limbs including the ones cut off.

Overall it was okay, not great but you know thats something to expect with a first episode. Hoping it gets better as the series goes on and we see more Combiners. Not just Devastator, Menasor, & Computron. I mean Superion, Defensor, Bruticus, Predaking, & Abominus. And actually don't kill them off!

 

Agreed.

The G1/Mature Pandering honestly feels like it would have worked so much better a decade ago.

Now it just feels sad and unintentionally silly.

This really is Transformers: Buckets of Blood.

 

I don't think you understand the issue in this discussion. Although I cannot comment on other fandoms, this discussion thread hasn't seemed to have focused on the gender or sex of the character, but rather the seemingly perfect qualities that ruined the suspension of belief. Optimus Prime died in the original animated film (and got chopped-up in the G1 cartoon and turned into a robot crocodile). Megatron got turned into Galvatron, Starscream blasted by Galvatron, etc.

And it's not just new females, either:

(Source: - Drift (G1) - Transformers Wiki )

He was, I believe, criticised as a Mary Sue (as the term can be used, arguably, in an ambiguous form, which is how I've used it), until, it seems, the character was tuned down or reined-in.

Thus, if we assume that the term used here was gender-neutral (see the Wikipedia article for it), and we acknowledge that new male characters have been similarly criticised, while agreeing that even well established (male) characters have been killed off, beaten it "lost", then perhaps, in this case, gender is irrelevant to the discussion?

 

I will definitely say that this incarnation of Windblade felt less like self-doubting-but-noble-intentioned comics Windblade or self-assured-but-fallible RiD Windblade, and more like a female early-life Drift.

 

The problem with Drift was he was introduced as being this 'awesome' character (Wolverine often being drawn as a comparison) that the fans would instantly love.

Except that just gave him a disadvantage from the get-go because trying to tell people how they will like characters is always a bad idea. Because then that simply is assigning a 'cool' status to somebody who hasn't earned it, most likely because the don't deserve it.

It did not help that McCarthy's own justification of the character being a turncoat was 'there's never been one of those before' - which frankly isn't true in the slightest since there's been several and is even the core gimmick of specific toys - and he's vaguely Japanese themed as a 'tip of the hat' to the country that created Transformers - showing complete ignorance that Transformers the franchise is in fact 100% American originated right down to the idea of combining microman and diaclone into one line and ditching the tiny human pilots. In short, Drift was from the outset bad news as a character made to be oh so cool based on blatantly ignorant misconceptions - it's a miracle he managed to only be a misfire ultimately and later earned his place as an accepted addition properly.

Windblade, though...for being 'fan built' she really isn't. There wasn't an option to make her Japanese themed, nor a choice on the final design, all that the voting amounted to was just guidelines for a designer to make something and all the 'fan built' trait crap attributed to as if to try making another movie Bumblebee in popularity. Victorion, arguably, turned out the same way.

 

First of all, I'm going to say "fuck you" to Forbes' reviewer, who claimed that "we" haven't been hot on recent animated TF series. It's clearly a GeeWunner, as the old term goes, writing the review, but still. Animated is the best Transformers story in recent memory and is THE best. I am certainly not part of that "we".

Rant over.

* Acting could use some tuning. Menasor sounded ridiculous when he was screaming and Windblade... Meh.
* The opening fight wasn't that great. Felt like slamming two toys together.

Not super hot about this.

 

Mary Sue usually describes a female character who's perfect in every way possible and never loses a challenge. Windblade in both IDW and in RID15 aren't exactly perfect characters personality wise and fighting wise especially in RID15 when we saw in her debut episode that she's pretty rash and arrogant in what she did only to later on learn from it and both versions actually don't come out in victory all the time either. The term Mary Sue may apply to the CW show version of the character from the looks of it anyway but I can't say the same thing about the others.

 

I saw the first episode and it was... okay.

The animation is nice and they did have cool fight scenes (starting to wonder if fight scenes are supposed to be the main selling point of this series), but wow did they screw up!

Even if I've read (most of) the comics, the first episode just felt too much like you were supposed to know information that was never given. The Menasor and Computron fight, although cool, is given no background so I had no idea what the heck was going on. And this series is not friendly to newcomers. If you never read the comics, you would have no idea what the Enigma of Combination is.

Menasor (whose voice sucks) is apparently made of paper. I can see why he's able to tear Computron apart and easily kill Maxima (who was completely pointless), but it only takes a regular sword to cut him in half. If that is how easily combiner can be defeated, then what's the threat?

I really hope this series gets better.

 

So then why are you complaining about people calling Windblade a Mary Sue because of what went down in this Machinima animation, when you yourself even admit it might be warranted here?

I mean, the character is shoehorned into everything as being 'special' and generally speaking she's taking center stage way too often. She shouldn't even be in this Combiner Wars thing because she was not in Combiner Wars whatsoever.

 

I was talking about how some people seem to be lumping all versions of Windblade as being a special mary suish snowflake despite some of those versions actually not warranting the title of Mary Su to begin with.

Also she already did have a role in the Combiner Wars in the IDW comics so if anything I sort of expected her to show up in some manner here even if she didn't that big of a role like she is now.

 

I think he means in general (as in this is the only exception to the whole "Windblade is not a Mary Sue" thing).

Not sure what to say about your second point. Though at least Windblade actually did something instead of pointless Maxima.

 

I agree with most of your points, but no specific aspect of Transformers was mentioned, I believe, when it was stated that "Japan created Transformers".

Although much of the original franchise/story came from the USA, the UK was aslo at the forefront of much of the established G1 cannon we have today. The toys, with the exception of Shockwave (who was Korean, I believe) were mainly from Japan. THus, the physical aspects were definitely from Japan.

It's a similar debate to the Internet. Al Gore nonwithstanding, the physical infrastructure was mainly American (US military), but the modern internet runs on the "WWW" protocol/software/doohickey invented by British scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee in the UK.

 

By "everything"... I assume you mean the comic series with her name on the cover, and the cartoon where she only showed up in the last four episodes of the first season? I don't care for RiD so I don't know how active she is in the second season, but so far I can only assume that "too often" means... once.

As for whether she "should" be in Combiner Wars, she was in the CW comics that this is ostensibly based on. Half the story takes place in her series, so I'd certainly say she's got a right to be present.

 

Ok Y does Menasor have a Hispanic accent and sound like he's 13???

 

I loved the planetary re-entry fight; it was super cool how it progressed.

 

Actually the G1 cartoon was pretty good about making you know Combiners were powerful. They had half a season where every time Devastator showed up, they knew they were in trouble. His first episode he stalemated the Dinobots, who had always kicked everyone's asses until then, and it took trickery and every autobot shooting at him to bring him down. Most later apperences tended to have the Autobots either try to hit him in a weak spot to get him to split or try and trick him into a trap or something. Thus we had this build that big bots like him were a huge problem for smaller bots before Omega even showed up. They established this.

Yeah, and how often did we even see that? I remember Cliffjumper using his glass gas twice... Once of which backfired because Devastator blew it back. Fancy sounds cool, but the old military rule is never use a scalpel where a sledgehammer will work. Combiners are sledgehammers.

That said they should have hired the guy who plotted the moves for Devastator and Menasor in Devastation. We had Devastator making the ground pop up to trap autobots, and put them at grabbing hieght, shooting his drills, and Menasor splitting into the Stunticons to run you over, channelling lighting through his sword and whipping up tornados.

Windblade had one episode where she was more than the one that could fly on Optimus away team... And she almost caused them the mission because she was so concerned that Optimus was in a weakened state and that she couldn't let the Prime be attacked and harmed.

I think they needed more build and establishing for combiners than just dropping a couple on Caminus. Here's how I would have done the first episode.

Caminus has the enigma of combination in a vault, where it is kept as both a sacred relic, and a weapon of mass destruction. The Stunticons and a mysterious employer break into the vault and steal it. Windblade and Maxima lead the security forces in attempting to capture the intruders. The Stunticons hold off the Camians while their employer escapes with the Enigma. Windblade asks them if they have any idea what they've unleased. Motormaster responds they know exactly what it does. It makes more like them. As the Camians look on in horror and terror the Stunticons form Menasor.

Menasor tears through the Camian forces, and city, laughing about swatting flies. In a daring move Windblade manages to land on his face, and puts her sword in one of his eyes. But Menasor grabs her, and in a rage throws her into a building. He then throws another building at her, as Maxima leaps in desperatly shielding Windblade with her own body.

Later Windblade is rescued. She desperatly asks about Maxima only to see her friends mangled corpse, crushed saving her. Menasor and whoever the Stunticons were working for has escaped back through the space bridge leaving Caminus in ruins. Windblade filled with grief and rage vows revenge.

 

 

Technically she was in the Combiner Hunters exclusive pack.

This is a pretty weak justification, since while yeah, the toys came from Japan, Transformers as it is was entirely Hasbro-Marvel created. Take everything they did away, and there literally wouldn't be Transformers, just Diaclone figures. "Transformers" in every sense of it's deffinition, originated outside of Japan.

probably because it's splittine hairs otherwise. She's still being injected, virtually unchanged or teaked at all, into every facet of the brand over a short span of time with no real reason for doing so. She's not a fan favourite, she's not being reinterpreted or reimagined in any way. (her RID design is virtually identical to her other designs, minus a nose) She's just there to be there.

She also had a completely different role in those comics.

So no matter how you slice it, they dun fucked up.

Not to mention Prime was pretty damn popular as well.

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed that. I mean, I guess there's no reason why he shouldn't, but it's nice to see I wasn't the only one noticing it. A Hispanic Jonah Hill.

 

That was total and utter sh*t!

As others have said I like the concept of a fight where two combiners are falling in orbit while fighting, but that was just a repetitive loop.

It gave me no reason to care for any of the characters.

Combiners should not get killed that easily by Windblade.

I'd agree with those who say Windblade is a complete and total Mary Sue. Frankly, I am sick of her being shoved into every damn continuity. There are far more interesting, underused Autobots that would be more fun or relatable.

The voice acting didn't really fit the combiners by any stretch.

I'll see if it improves, but that was awful for an introduction to a series.