Toy or character?

 

A bit of both, though Springer is rather boring in G1 which I feel IDW made up for. Mostly talking about the Sunbow designs.

 

I think most TC toys are compromised by definition, but the cartoon didn’t really do any of them any favors. I think Sunbow Springer is probably at the bottom of my list.

 

Shatter and Dropkick shit on pretty much all past triple changers save for IDW Springer and Blitzwing, who’ll always be one of the best Deceptions of all time, regardless of the continuity.

 

It’s just whenever I think of Astrotrain all I see is a giant grey blob. The rest all have more than one color to break up the silhouette.

 

I like them as smart and very powerful, but also rebellious and often belligerent. But despite that, they're still good guys for a reason.

 

The Cybertronian designs from Bumblebee 2018 that were made last minute (meaning excluding Bumblebee, Optimus, the Seeker bodytype, Shatter, & Dropkick) were good, maybe even a little great, but not up to the standard I would want. Most of them are pretty underpolished and lack nuance and character beyond what they get from resembling the G1 characters(note I did not say devoid of character) and feel like they're just the 28th time those G1 guys have been redesigned in a modern aesthetic. I really only think Brawn is the only great one.

Like I said, the character designs that had existed for longer are much better as they'd been fairly refined by the time the decision was made for adding the Cybertron scene, so they translated to Cybertronian forms better. (honestly though I think the Earth mode Seeker design looks better than the Cybertronian one with G1 bits slapped on)

It was nice to see those designs in the movie, as if G1 was brought to life, but seeing G1 faithfulness on-screen is not enough for me to cheer and think the Transformers movies have been saved. A design can both look G1 and still be anywhere on the terrible-to-terrific spectrum, being G1 doesn't automatically make it great. I'm not even saying they're bad though. Even at worst they're "pretty good," and the fact the team making the movie was able to pull them off in as much of a rush as they did is commendable. I'm just saying they could be better.

And no, I'm not ragging on these popular designs just to make recently-revealed ROTB designs look better. Hell, I think even the rushed 2018 Cybertronian designs are better than the more controversial ROTB designs. It just has nothing to do with G1 likeness.

 

This may be unpopular, probably more accurate to describe this as a controversial opinion but I think TF fiction would greatly benefit from having a list of general mandates to follow when making a tv show, movie, comic, really anything where the story and characters are important.

The key is not too much executive meddling but not too little so we end up with things like Prime or the Paramount films. I think a good example not to follow is how tyrannical SEGA is with Sonic in regards to the rules Ian Flynn is kinda forced to abide by (and frankly some of the mandates are just ridiculous) in order to work with them. Obviously that's an example of way too much meddling but I think if we're talking about an established IP if there's not enough direction or oversight we end up with pretty low-quality products.

I think some ground-rules / limitations and even just having someone on-board who is well versed in the characters / lore / mythos would be beneficial.

For instance: If you're gonna make a new character they need to actually be bringing something new to the table, rather than be an amalgamation of other characters or simply a carbon copy of another with one or two superficial changes. If you have a specific archetype in mind maybe consult with the lore expert and they can provide some guys that could work, if none of them do maybe they can help you create someone who's distinct enough on their own as to not draw comparisons with other characters etc.

I'm obviously not saying that creators shouldn't have the ability to express themselves but ultimately at the end of the day they're working on an IP that isn't theirs so naturally they need to follow da rulez. They also need to be conscious / considerate of the fanbase that are already present, because if you get them on your side they can be your greatest asset. If their upmost concern is being able to express themselves and not be limited by things like canon or consistency then they can simply make something entirely original.

Also ideally the guidelines aren't too rigid,

 

Trouble with that is that there is a very small true number of archetypal characters personality that can actually exist, as in essence, the basics are quite similar. The irony is that this is the same in real life personalities, so it's hard to have characters that aren't similar or even the same as others with just a few minor differences.

 

Ah, I should've specified further.

It's okay that there's some similarities, I didn't mean to imply any similarities at all was a no-no, but given how creative you can be with alien robots I think there's a lot of room to flex those creativity muscles.

 

First mandate: no new muscle cars or fighter jets. Get us more cool weird things to transform into we haven't seen yet.

 

I dislike the idea of having to make work conscious of a fanbase, this need to please fans leads to obnoxious amounts of fanservice and nostalgia fluff in place of an actual story. If (and I hate using this example) star wars were forced to do this we would never get stuff like andor or rogue one but telling the same stories about the same 5 people in the galaxy. I'm not saying creators should just go "fuck you here's a show about dickbot from tf2", but the allowance of creative freedom in this franchise have led to things like Animated, Prime, and Beast Wars and most likely earthspark which have been breaths of fresh air in a franchise that has been stuck on the 80s train for almost a decade. We'd never get things like that if we were forced to stick to the very same lore,cast, locations in every property.

Sure we get some horse shit media with creative freedom but that shouldn't outweigh the significant creative works that helped reimagine past IPs to new heights of storytelling.

I mean the vast majority of TF characters are copies of other tf characters in past media, its impossible to make a wholly new character that isn't derivative of pre existing characters especially in a franchise as stacked as this.

 

I don't really care if PVP gets stolen factory figs to review. Honestly he helps me quickly determine if a figure is worth buying or not.

 

I am sort of in the same boat. I like to use his early reviews as a sort of timing system for when the figures will show up at my stores (its typically 2-4 months)

My issue with him is that he can be stupidly nitpicky and criticize figures based on things that are accurate to what they should have. He comes off as very uninformed sometimes. And I think if he's getting the figure way before anyone else, and he knows his copies are early production runs, he should ease off on the nitpicks.

 

Oh yeah I kinda tune him out half the time to just look at the figure and articulation

 

This is acceptable.

 

Odd, I'm the opposite. I find that he tends to gush overly hard on some pretty lame figures to the point that I'll mute the video, switch to captions and forward to the main transformation.

 

He can be like that sometimes. I think it's just that nitpicking annoys the shit out of me and stands out more in my brain.

 

I'm in the same boat as @Chaos Studios, just here to see the articulation, transformation of the figures, etc, and get in my general judgement of the figure. Otherwise I think that PvP is kind of a massive tool.

 

Oh, agreed, there should be but...

The trouble is what I find is that all of the media ends up humanizing them, but yet go on to make a point that they are NOT humans and think differently, etc.

It's always ironic to me as with the media going with the millions of years thing, either TFs are some of the most mentally and emotionally challenged beings of the universe and have no notion of time and have zero capacity to grow and mature, otherwise after a while, they'd all realize that the self destructive thing with the ongoing wars is just going to end badly for all, on top of so many other things that just doesn't work, or they are programmed to be unable to grow and are nothing more than machines following their basic programming and aren't sentient at all afterall.

You have a bunch of thousands of years (if not millions) old robots that still act like rebellous teenagers, evil leader that laugh out loud as their own (doomed) plans, and so many other stereotypes that one had to separate from reality to just go with it to enjoy any of it. But even outside of TFs and in books, movies, tv shows, we tend to look and wonder, "why didn't they just do "this"? That would have saved time, everyone, the situation, etc.". And of course this is because the shows and comics are targeting a certain audience so they are written like this, but still, some people act as if they are actual "people" and try to analyse their behavior instead of just going with "well, that's how the writer wrote the character". How I love the stuff that cracks the fourth wall at times and shows the ridiculousness of it all.

But that's why I mentioned the reference to real life... it's a bit like the fact that most drivers tend to believe that they are anywhere from passable, good and/or even great drivers, when the reality is that it's simply amazing how much luck ends up being the saving grace for so many... if I was a cop, I'd have a paper schredder for driver's licenses that would overheat every day. Same with people that they are "in the right", the "good person", etc. and so, creating robotic characters that aren't similar is a challenge that in all honesty, has never been won, as every bit of TFs fiction has humanized these robots that aren't supposed to be human.

Heck, my own story does it, but I've done it on purpose in every way because there absolutely are linked to human characterization... and I've reached the point in my story where I've explained it in some part, but it's going to be the next part that will show the true "why" TFs are as they are in every way, why the Autobots, why the Decepticons, why the Decepticons are "evil" in nature, etc.

And also that they aren't really all that old either... their past is a mess which they don't even remember due to Optimus' actions, with some that have "awakened" fairly recently with a fairly blank mind with very little knowledge, but have to grow into their own characters.