SDCC animated news

[138 Scourge]

That's Hasbro's stock photo. It sucks. He has a real head, I saw it at BotCon. In person.

I was worried for a second, so thanks for setting that straight, CrossRook.

[Dominic]

Ah. That is fine then.

Dom
-was setting up for "Doc-Gate II" and everything.

[onslaught86]

I would get Fracture if it was not a half-assed female character.

Fracture herself, or Crasher? Crasher, at least, was not half-assed, and easily the most interesting of the decidedly mediocre GoBot characters. For that, I'll get her, even though I'm not so fond of the Classics Mirage mould.

[138 Scourge]

I always liked the fact that Crasher's face seemed like it was a projection or hologram or something as opposed to being a "real" face.

I'm about...eh, half-sold on Fracture, myself.

[Gomess]

I must butt in here, simply to sing the praises of the greatest Go-bot of all. Crasher had an awesome design (I generally loved Go-bots / Machine Robo for their sleekness, and the fact that MANY of them transformed so that they'd most conveniently drive off backwards; seriously, compare Jazz, Trailbreaker, and Sunstreaker with Crasher, Turbo, and Leader-1), an awesome voice, and personality. Her banter with Cy-Kill and Cop-Tur made her one of my favourite underdeveloped lackey characters of the few US cartoons I grew up with. And Turbo, the Guardians' resident tough guy, was occasionally SCARED of her. She was Michael Jackson BAD.

But uh, naw, no Fracture for me. Not keen on the mould or the nature of the reference. Get me a cheap whichever-Aquaspeeder-was-that-kinda-car and some black and white paint, and we're in business.

[Dominic]

I do not recall much about "GoBots" for story. I know the basics, organic brains in machine bodies. But, that is it. So, the characters do not resonate with me. (I tried to engage that band of Gobo net-nomads a few years back, but they did not stick around long enough to tell me anything.)

I recall "Gobots" toys, at least the small ones, being better than TFs of comparable size. And, my big regret form BC07 was not being able to afford that Puzzlor I saw.

I am not just annoyed by Fracture being another homage, but I am sic k of fan-service female characters. Ah well, as long as it does not ape Override GTS's box art.....

Dom

[Gomess]

Puzzler is a fantastic gestalt; I only have his two torse pieces, but had friends with the rest (we bought two each, y'know? Organised little kids. You wouldn't think we were cool in school)!

I, too, am fed up of fanservicey female "characters" in TF. But... maybe for a different reason. I'm of the "No female bots" camp. I remember seeing Arcee at her debut, in the actual motherlovin' cinema, and thinking, "WAT". "He", in the right context, does NOT specifically indicate maleness OR masculinity. This is so much of a fact it's taken for granted (MANkind, FELLOWship, etc).

So I pretty much ignore every "female" TF that comes along, for THAT reason, and for the reason that it seems (through nothing other than my gut) that the guys (and I DO mean that gender-specifically) who write the tech specs probably think too hard about MAKING THEM GIRLS. That's not a "nerds don't know the touch of a woman" rip, but seriously, characters like Spiral just seem... tacked on. Shallow.

And. They're. ROBOTS. =3

[Misanthrope Prime]

Personally, I only accept female characters in two situations.

1. If the vehicle they turn into is called 'she', IE, a ship. Few female transformers take advantage of this, save Chromia and a few minicons
2. If they're techno-organic and turn into a female organism. However, I always prefer that the robot/protoform before it takes on the organic characteristics is gender neutral and ONLY becomes female AFTER it becomes techno-organic, so TF:A Blackarachnia just pisses me off. Unless Elita-1 turned into a speedboat.

[Gomess]

Partly agreed, AU (sorry, habit)! I actually have a vague memory of a friend of mine, who's not into TF but knows lotsa stuff about animals, saying something like... I dunno... Tigatron's actually a female tiger? Or something like that. Ha.

[Dominic]

Several BW characters, including Tigatron scanned females. (Snowstalker is specifically referenced as "she" in "Law of the Jungle".) But, those characters were still "male", as much as such a distinction mattered for TFs.

I generally agree with Gomess on the idea that TFs should not differentiate and that "male" terms are more useful for the characters, both in terms of generally agreed to linguistics and their own (fictional) species traits. (Point of information, Spiral was written as female once, along with several other Minicons, in DW's sourcebook. At least one female Minicon, Sureshock, has been over-written as male.)

There are 3 circumstances that I accept female TFs:
-"we need to appeal to organics": This was arguably applicable when the cartoon had the TFs as "consumer goods gone wild" in "Five Faces of Darkness", and explicitly the case in "Prime's Rib".
-"something is very very wrong": The current take on Arcee, as presented in the IDW one-shot, is that female TFs are the result of dodgy science experiments. They are *wrong*, and they know it.
-"female Transector pilots": If one buys into the Japanese show, a Transector with a female pilot may well develop female traits. The only example I can think of for this is Minerva.

Dom
-yes, BA annoys the heck out of me.