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[Thad]

The new toon, as I noted on the old boards, has been uneven as hell.  But last Saturday's was damned good, and shows the new series has the potential to be worthy of its name.

Flashbacks to the war are good.  The exploration of Ratchet's PTSD is better.  It's not a subject I expect to see covered in a children's cartoon about giant robots.  GI Joe didn't exactly spend a lot of time exploring the horrors of war.

The writers did a good job handling a mature subject.  More, the cartoon didn't talk down to its audience.

Oh, and has anyone else noticed that the quality of any given episode is inversely proportional to the amount of time humans spend onscreen?  FUCKING TAKE NOTE, WRITERS.  (That goes for you, too, Furman.)

[Lady Duke]

I've always thought that humans were completely awful in every single Transformers show I've ever seen.  I just wish they could write them out entirely.

[Thad]

I liked Spike and Sparkplug all right.

[Arc]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uwUMPw-6n0

So, yeah.

If tonight's liquor store holdup goes smoothly enough, we'll be upgrading to a Check Advance heist next week!

[Thad]

To expand a little on the HU-MAN problem:

IDW has defended its three new characters, Verity Carlo, Hunter O'Nion, and whatever the fuck the third kid's name is, I'm not going to bother looking it up, by explaining that humans are necessary simply to establish the scale, the hugeness, both of the Transformers themselves and of their millions-of-years-old galactic war.

And it shows.

Because that's ALL they do.  They're goddamn yardsticks.  They haven't grown outside the cardboard cutout cliche personalities they got saddled with in the first two issues.  There's Juvenile Delinquent Girl, Conspiracy Theory Guy, and Gearhead Guy.  And I can't even tell them apart most of the time.  I thought for literally MONTHS that Gearhead Guy was the one who had been abducted by the shady organization, but it was actually Conspiracy Theory Guy.  (Er, it WAS Conspiracy Theory Guy, right?)

Transformers Animated has a different problem: Sari is clearly there to try and get prepubescent girls to watch the show.  The Teen Titans comparison is inevitable.  The difference is that Teen Titans did an amazing damn job of putting really gorgeous, grim stories and zany, over-the-top goofiness back-to-back; Transformers Animated has stumbled at making the silly eps, well, good.  (If I want comic relief in my Transformers, I'll take Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots refs in the middle of pitched battles.  Or at least hilariously offensive stereotypes about Arabs.)

Really it's the same problem with the current Doctor Who series -- no, guys, we DON'T need stories to be set on present-day (or not-too-distant future) Earth and feature humans to be relevant.  Especially if your giant robots, aliens, etc. are more human than your goddamn humans are.

Ask anyone worth a damn what the best Transformers series of the past two decades was and they'll say Beast Wars.  You know, the one without any humans.  And ask them what the worst episode of the series was, and...well, they might say it's the one where Rhinox has explosive flatulence, or any number of other less-than-stellar Season 1 eps, but ask them what the worst episode of season *3* was and they'll definitely say the one with the man-ape children.

What KILLS me is that the only Transformers series in recent memory to do humans right was the goddamn Dreamwave series.  I CARED that Sparkplug got blown up in a shuttle launch, damn it.  I sympathized with Spike for holding a grudge against the Autobots for it.  I was digging what they were doing with Marisa near the end, and was really looking forward to seeing Mysterious Shadowy Witwicky, who I reasonably assumed was going to be Buster.  It's a cryin' shame that the company was run by a crook.  (See also: Mega Man.  Man that was a fun comic.)

Which brings me to ANOTHER problem with the IDW series, AND the new cartoon: each one of them is a goddamned relaunch.

How many fucking different Transformers universes ARE there, now?  Let's see...G1 toon, Marvel comic, Robots in Disguise, Dreamwave comic (which tried to fit into established continuity at first but then just said "fuck it"), Armada/Energon/Cybertron, IDW comic, '07 movie, Transformers Animated.  So that'd be...8 fucking different Transformers universes.  Have I missed any?  (Beast Wars/Machines omitted because they fit into various versions of G1 continuity; Japanese series which never aired in America omitted because oh dear God make it stop make it stop.  Never saw Headmasters, Targetmasters, whatever the late-'80's anime were; did they show in the US, and if so, did they establish a new damn universe too?)

And again, ask anyone worth a damn what the best Transformers series of the past two decades was and they'll say Beast Wars.  The one that BUILT on the original series instead of throwing it out.

Anyway.  Damn, that's way too many words spent on Transformers.  Especially for someone who's not really a resident Transformers fanboy -- well, maybe I am on the new board, if Roger and Cannon don't show up.

I guess what I really mean by all this is, dammit, guys, you got it right the first time, stop fucking with it.

[Lady Duke]

I was just going to comment on how fucking awesome beast wars is.  You can't beat it.  No people, awesome robots, good CGI (with no mixing in regular animation I might add, which is a serious pet peeve about shows that I have), and a neat story.

And honestly, I've never cared about whether or not people died in transformers.  I mean, hundreds could be mowed down in a second, and I'd feel glad there'd be less of that crap to worry about showing up in another episode.

[Arc]

hilariously offensive stereotypes about Arabs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbombya

Its formal name is the Socialist Democratic Federated Republic of Carbombya.

Sharkey & myself were wracking our heads over creating such a themed forum title, when the work had already been done for us by Sunbow Productions.

Rewatching these toons today... Does anyone else remember them being so political?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_x8t_nf7AA

[Brentai]

Ask anyone worth a damn what the best Transformers series of the past two decades was and they'll say Beast Wars.  You know, the one without any humans.

To be fair, there were

the man-ape children.

Which mostly sucked except when Dinobot sacrificed his life for them.  Just like Optimus Prime-not-al kept doing, and we loved him for it (except when he kept fucking doing it over and over again, and reached for the most ridiculous reasons to blow himself up for us.  But ignore that for a moment here.)  Personally I think that's what the humans in the series' are really there for: not just to give the viewers the impression that the Transformers are really tall and old, but in doing so to also demonstrate how noble they can be: to give their all for, well, a bunch of squishy whiny neanderthals about as large and as important as their fingers.

...come to think of it, that's just stupid.  Fuck you, Prime.

[Thad]

I think the most interesting thing about Beast Wars was how much death they managed to get away with.

Shit, in just the last three episodes, Tarantulas, DepthCharge, Rampage, Tigerhawk, Inferno, QuickStrike, and Dinobot II ALL eat it.  That's 8 characters (counting Tigerhawk as two, which you should) in just 3 eps, assuming I'm not forgetting any.  I can't think of a children's cartoon with a higher bodycount.

All that said, Beast Wars actually explicitly states that the humans are vital to the Autobots' defeat of the Decepticons.  THAT'S why Megatron goes after the man-ape village, because he says the Autobots could not have won the war without the support of humans.

I can't say as I remember mankind making a tremendous difference in the war outside of the Witwicky family.  Of course, that in and of itself is a wonderfully cynical take, that as far as the Transformers are concerned the entire human race exists only so a half-dozen or so people can provide limited support in an intergalactic war.

Oh hey, and EDIT:

And honestly, I've never cared about whether or not people died in transformers.

See, I would have actually CHEERED at seeing Verity and Whatsisface die at the end of the latest issue of the comic, if I had never actually seen a comic book before and thought they were going to stay dead.

THAT is how you know you have made a legitimately bad character: if the audience is actually cheering for his death.  Jar-Jar is the most obvious example, of course, and I don't know how far I'm going to make it into the upcoming, all-Donna season of Doctor Who.

At least with Jason Todd and Adric, they actually DID kill the fuckers off.

[Büge]

All that said, Beast Wars actually explicitly states that the humans are vital to the Autobots' defeat of the Decepticons.  THAT'S why Megatron goes after the man-ape village, because he says the Autobots could not have won the war without the support of humans.

I could be wrong, but I think Lady Duke was referring to the episode where Cheetor, Depth Charge and Rattrap have to babysit the ape-kids.

[Thad]

Well yes, actually it was me talking about it, and yes, that's the episode I was referring to.  But Brent brought up Code of Hero.  And also mentioned that the Autobots are noble because they keep saving squishy primates who don't actually necessarily deserve it.  I responded that, per Code of Hero, there actually IS some sort of unspecified tactical advantage to saving the humans, but no, that's not really what it's about for the Autobots and Maximals.

[Brentai]

I think the implication is that it's not what it was about for Dinobot in the end, either.

Of course they needed to bring him back from the dead in order to properly get that point across, and then kill him again to maintain the status quo.

[Thad]

I think the implication is that it's not what it was about for Dinobot in the end, either.

Well right, I was counting him under "Maximals".  He clearly did it out of honor.

[Lady Duke]

Man, Dinobot was the best ever.  Other than silverbolt, who just looked awesome and stuff.

[Thad]

And don't forget Rattrap and Waspinator.

...What I'm saying is, Scott McNeil is awesome.

[Cannon]

Don't get me started on Transformers voice actors (or their ilk in general), or we'll be here all night.

To humanity's credit, they made an effort in the original series to actually combat the Decepticons as early as season one. Want to guess if they made a tactical impact? Hey, I didn't catch Reflector on-screen anymore after a few episodes in, did you? We may see some of that in Animated, if/when the 'Cons become a concerted threat. Human villains have certainly been a constant, if you want to talk about the inverse. I find it darkly amusing and a little realistic (if one wants to be cynical) that it seems us squishies are more likely to hinder the good guys than help them (and to be honest, the likes of Nanosec and Angry Archer haven't really topped the efforts of, oh, Circuit Breaker or Lord Chumley). None of this is meant to be a counter; I'm just nerding out to encourage conversation.

Was the biggest flaw of the live-action movie its attempt to emphasize the human cast? Yeah, probably. Circuit Breaker was pretty boring, but she was rather unique, in that she wasn't there for direct contrast and wasn't a P.O.V. character. She was a victim and she always played one. You kinda' get those in war. A lot.

When I think about it, ol' Irving's death aboard the Ark II really was tragic. He was a dopey bear of an ally to the Autobots, but his non-sequitur absence in the animated flick and third season suddenly became depressing when viewed through the original Dreamwave mini-series.

Oh, hey. It seems Pyoko is a multiverse now. Keen.

[Thad]

Don't get me started on Transformers voice actors (or their ilk in general), or we'll be here all night.

Hi Cannon.

Ladies and gentlemen, THIS is your resident Transformers nerd.

When I think about it, ol' Irving's death aboard the Ark II really was tragic. He was a dopey bear of an ally to the Autobots, but his non-sequitur absence in the animated flick and third season suddenly became depressing when viewed through the original Dreamwave mini-series.

He was more serious in the Marvel comic, IIRC.  Leastways, in the original series, when the Decepticons took him prisoner and tried to make him build weapons for them, he sabotaged them, and revealed in narration that he'd done the same thing as a POW in Nam.

[Arc]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSsXlRytRDs

No, seriously. Have a bucket.

[Niku]

.. why was Saint Seiya being set to shitty Transformers renders in the first place?

[Arc]

Because you weren't there to stop it.