thoughts on the Beast-era

[Dominic]

I read somewhere that a number of the stupid, (uh, that is funny), moments in BW were forced in by the animators. The writers often had to explain them after the fact.

Dom
-dislikes self indulgent artists.

[Sparky Prime]

I meant that Megatron would have been worried about losing too many troops in the sense that he could not afford to replace them.

I know what you meant, but the scene still suggests he'd wanted to save his troops and not just that felt he couldn't replace those troops.

And, there is difference between following a leader and having infrastructure, such a stable HQ that is more than a cave. Yeah, the stealthy beast modes were nice. But, how well would you sleep on a planet full of Vehicons?

As a mobile unit, the Maximals infrastructure would be more determined by their leadership rather than a stable HQ. And really, it was better that the Maximals keep mobile rather than set up a stable HQ to make it that much harder for the Vehicons to find them.

Because we have all the scripts from Season 1.

I know we do, the question is more has anyone actually read them.

[SynjoDeonecros]

I read somewhere that a number of the stupid, (uh, that is funny), moments in BW were forced in by the animators. The writers often had to explain them after the fact.

Dom
-dislikes self indulgent artists.

What's wrong with a little bit of self-indulgence? Without it, we wouldn't have the awesomeness that is Dinobot's rigid grill structure. Or is this an extension to your hate of character-driven stories? You've already sacrificed believable characters and interesting self-sufficient stories on the alter of the almighty sterilized preachy principle, why not artsy indulgence?

Just out of curiosity, could you name a few shows or stories that you're interested in, right now? I'm still trying to crawl into your brain and figure out what kind of media out there would appeal to you, with the parameters you've given us, and the closest I can come up with is a Fox News documentary.

[Dominic]

I know we do, the question is more has anyone actually read them.

Whoa! Dude! Where did that come from? I do not recall you being that sarcastic. Did you and O6 swap screen names?!?!?!?

What's wrong with a little bit of self-indulgence? Without it, we wouldn't have the awesomeness that is Dinobot's rigid grill structure. Or is this an extension to your hate of character-driven stories? You've already sacrificed believable characters and interesting self-sufficient stories on the alter of the almighty sterilized preachy principle, why not artsy indulgence?

Self-indulgence in the sense of privately blowing off a bit of steam is one thing. (Hell, my Action Master Thundercracker was an example of that.) But, generally, creating (writing/drawing/whatevering) something of interest purely to oneself and/or one's inner circle is a waste of resources and more than a bit egocentric.

Reading a story of "deep personal meaning" to the writer is too much like sitting and listening to a drunk ramble on about whatever they hell they decide is important for them to tell others. (Drunks are one of the few groups that can consistently raise my ire and never evoke guilt later. I have a very Nixonian temper, complete with regrets after the explosions. But, anyway....)

If one is going to attempt producting intellectual capital, they should generally try to write about something other than themselves unless they have an account of something that might actually be interesting. (Ralph Peters' work is largely autobiographical. But, he has also led an extremely interesting life. He has seen and done things, and gained insights, that warrant writing about.


I fail to see how writing about, or showing insight into, something is the same as being preachy. A good example of this is a story I really liked: "All Hail Megatron". McCarthy wrote about leadership, organizational behavior and purpose, (and some other stuff, but ah...tired). But, there was no call to action. There were no moral directives beyond the idea that leaders have certain responsibilities. (Though similar burdens also rest on those who follow.)

"Squadron Supreme", (arguably the best capes and tights story ever), is another example of a smartly written story. Yes, Gruenwald is pretty clearly in favor of Bat-erm, Nighthawks', side of the arguement. But, the moral and practical case for Super-uh, Hyperion's, side of things is fairly presented.

Lessee, other stories/series I like, (list not comprehensive or in any real order):

Family Guy (for the potty humour)
-Reign of Starscream
-Man of Steel
-Crisis on Infinite Earths (for being a bold experiment more than anything else)
-Beast Machines
-Man of Iron
-much of Star Trek DS9
-Armor Wars
-much of Gruenwald's run of Captain America
-much of Michelinie's run of Ironman
-Return of Barry Allen (the Mark Waid story)
-Nth Man (ain't read this one for years though)
-the Horus Heresy novels
-the Dan Abnett Inquisitor novels
-All Star Superman (despite the better angels of my nature)

Dom
-there is more stuff....

[SynjoDeonecros]

Lessee, other stories/series I like, (list not comprehensive or in any real order):

Family Guy (for the potty humour)

Ugh, each time I hear someone say they like something for the potty humor, I just want to slap them, hard. I absolutely hate potty humor, in any media; it's disgusting, it's cheap, it's lazy, and it's not funny. It's like, what, you can't find any other way of making a scene funny, so you're just going to settle with flatulence and incontinence? I don't think so.

-much of Star Trek DS9

I have to wonder which parts: As a huge Trekkie, I found quite a bid of DS9 enjoyable, though at the same time, quite a bit of the Dominion arc was anvilicious and annoying - the crap with Eddington, for example, or the Ferengi Reform subarc.

-Armor Wars

Ah, I've never read the comics, but I've watched the cartoon adaptation of it, and if it's at all accurate...wow, just wow. It's an entertaining story, but god, Tony Stark was a dick, there; I understand his motives, but really, being so far gone that you'll attack War Machine, your best friend and ally in armor, JUST because he's wearing armor with your technology in it? Technology YOU GAVE TO HIM, and a man who is under YOUR payroll? Is fanaticism driven by mental illness REALLY this easy?

[Mako Crab]

As for the duckie and pet-head, I am not sure how much we should consider those, when they were animator indulgence/whimsy.

and

I read somewhere that a number of the stupid, (uh, that is funny), moments in BW were forced in by the animators. The writers often had to explain them after the fact.

Dom
-dislikes self indulgent artists.

Welcome to movie making. It's just the nature of the business. Unless you have someone like George Lucas that can produce, write, and direct his own movies and control every last little thing that makes it onto the screen, you'll always find divergence between the script and the finished product. And even in Lucas's case, actors still bring a lot of themselves to a role. Their tone, their inflection, little things everywhere. Even after a movie is complete to the director's liking, producers can go in afterwards and edit it however they want, because they're the ones fronting the cash. It's why Alan Smithee gets so much work.
Even listening to the commentary on ROTF, the writers state their dislike of the kitchen scene with all the little robots. But there it is on the screen. And Shia Lebeof's improvving of dialogue in the TF movies is common knowledge. Lots of the behind-the-scenes footage showed him using different dialogue with every take until they found something that worked. Sometimes something looks good on paper that just doesn't work when spoken out loud.
It's completely unrealistic to expect that the finished product will ever be 100% the same as the written script. It just doesn't happen. Therefore, Megatron petting his beast head and brushing its teeth is canon. It happened. it's there. Artistic indulgence or not, it's there.

[Sparky Prime]

Yep. And, it is an example of indulgence staining the end product. In the case of a show, the idea should be to screen for indulgent twits before hand. (It would be hard to do before hand of course, unless they have a proven body of work.)

I really can't agree that "indulgence" was "staining" the show. In the end, that helped to make Beast Wars what it was, and like it or not, as Mako said, it's canon.

[SynjoDeonecros]

You hate "over-humanized" and "real" characters, you refuse to watch anything that isn't solely based around pushing an author tract of some kind, you think any media that ISN'T moral-driven is a waste of time, you think artistic indulgences and fun details stain media...Dominic, I've said it once, and I'll say it again: how in the hell did you become a moderator on here, or even a fan of Transformers, with such a septic, sterilized view of how storytelling and visual media should work? Seriously, who taught you this was the standard by which all media should be judged upon? Because it's pretty clear that most people here do not agree with that viewpoint. I honestly don't think that, if the world in general - or Transformers fans in particular - had the kind of philosophy you do, about this, that Transformers would've made it past its first G1 season. And yet, you don't like Ted Turner's brainchild, because its villains do evil to be evil, which makes it preachy, despite being exactly the kind of show that you'd be interested in, given your personal criteria. The more we learn of your tastes, the more confused and appalled I get.

[Onslaught Six]

how in the hell did you become a moderator on here

Dom is fair and logical and isn't likely to fly off the handle and do drastic moderation stuff. He mods pretty soft-style and rarely takes excessive action. (Not that we need it around here.)

Also, he's our friend. There's really no better reason. And someone's gotta mod the place.

[SynjoDeonecros]

Synjo, not everybody conflates writing about something with making moral proclamations. There is a difference. I expect people who work with intellectual property to know something about well....something other than big robots.

Dom
-is unworthy!

Not in your book, from the sound of it, what with all of your talk about the evils of "over-humanizing" characters and how they're tools for the message and creative indulgences are bad and whatnot. And if the intellectual property they're working with is about big robots, don't you think that's what they should FOCUS ON?! Not pointless drivel about free will vs. instrumentality or some environmental message? I mean, that's what they're PAID to write about, isn't it? Giant robots? Autobots waging battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons and all that?