TF Views

The Autobots are supposed to be screw-ups getting their lives in order.

Prime: wash-out.
Prowl: drop-out
Ratchet and Bulkhead: burn-outs
Bumblebee: middling talents, and partook is some dirtly dealing in school.

Think of it as the the same process Prime went through in "War Within", only more drawn out.

Dom

Dominic wrote:In terms of visuals, I can see the link from G1 to "Cybertron" to "Animated", but in terms of character, it does not work. "Animated" does not ever have the parallels that one would see in a correctly written "Elseworlds" story.

We're acknowledging, though, that the character's a clearly different guy--but the 'design' is meant to evoke G1 Soundwave. The big point here is that--without G1 Soundwave--Animated Soundwave would probably look entirely different. Which leads to...

In "Animated", Megatron and Starscream are the only ones who are idiomatically the same as their old counter-parts. I suppose Sentinal and Magnus could also go in that category. Prime is too much the drop-out here, in contrast to the heroic persona in other series.

It's a different case, though. Yes, they are all clearly different 'characters,' but they share enough common design elements that they work together. You can put G1 Soundwave and Animated Soundwave next to each other and clearly go, "Oh, okay, that's basically the same guy in terms of design." You can do the same with Energon's Shockblast and G1 Shockwave, or mostly 'any' Prime and Megatron toys. You *can't,* however, do the same with, say, Animated Prowl and G1 Prowl, because--while they share a name--they're clearly not using similar design elements.

Stuff like the movie and "Animated" though....those are too idiosyncratic to fit with anything but themselves.

While I agree with Animated in general (with the exception of the aforementioned character displays) there's some toys from previous lines that 'do' kinda work decently enough with the movie for general display. Some of the darker-coloured Vehicons like Tankorr and Jetstorm work well enough, as do certain entries from the ArmEnerTron lines--just glancing over, I could definitely see Cybertron Menasor and Energon Mirage fitting into the group. Assuming you don't care about their altmodes fitting in.

Decepticon Spike wrote:Which is my big (and mostly only)problem with Animated. Why isn't OP the big leader/hero that he is in every other universe?

Because they already *did* that eight times over, and felt like trying something different for once? You already WATCHED the show where the guy named Optimus Prime is a perfect, awe-inspiring leader, why do you want to see it all over again?

BW "Gosh, I know that came off as harsh, but you guys know how much I take issue with this line of thought..." prowl

You *can't,* however, do the same with, say, Animated Prowl and G1 Prowl, because--while they share a name--they're clearly not using similar design elements.

I'll call that. Prowl and Bulkhead are clearly designed to be new characters rather than homages/retreads, but Prowl 'does' have G1 Prowl's hat.

They've both also got that whole cop thing going on, though with AniProwl, that's more the result of the whole motif the five main guys all have going.

BWprowl wrote:They've both also got that whole cop thing going on, though with AniProwl, that's more the result of the whole motif the five main guys all have going.

All together now! Y-M-C-A!

onslaught86 wrote:

BWprowl wrote:They've both also got that whole cop thing going on, though with AniProwl, that's more the result of the whole motif the five main guys all have going.

All together now! Y-M-C-A!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1ZMKfFHU3U

Dominic wrote:In terms of visuals, I can see the link from G1 to "Cybertron" to "Animated", but in terms of character, it does not work. "Animated" does not ever have the parallels that one would see in a correctly written "Elseworlds" story.

In "Animated", Megatron and Starscream are the only ones who are idiomatically the same as their old counter-parts. I suppose Sentinal and Magnus could also go in that category. Prime is too much the drop-out here, in contrast to the heroic persona in other series.

I tend to see "Armada", "Energon" and "Cybertron" as being similar enough to display together. RiD fits well enough on a Beast shelf. (Of course, early Beast era toys do not look consistent with later ones, which is another problem.)

Stuff like the movie and "Animated" though....those are too idiosyncratic to fit with anything but themselves.

Rigid thinking, Dom.


Here's what I find weird, you guys are all from BWTF, Beast Wars TransFormers as the original name went, where the leader was not the commander of the entire faction but merely his small group. Optimus Primal wasn't on the council of Maximal Elders, he was merely the commander of the Axalon. This is far more believable than the leader of an entire race of people getting into the trenches and leading from the front lines. Yet when Animated goes there, it's somehow too hard for you geezers to understand why they'd make Optimus Prime the leader of only a small, rag-tag band - yeah, real challenging.

when Animated goes there, it's somehow too hard for you geezers to understand why they'd make Optimus Prime the leader of only a small, rag-tag band - yeah, real challenging.

I haven't seen too many say that, it seems to be more a case of illustrating that Animated Prime and G1 Prime are two fundamentally different characters. AniPrime definitely has more in common with Primal than G1 Prime, but there's hints of Rodimus as well, and he seems far less tested than Primal - Primal was only 'not a leader' when the plot demanded it, and got very little original characterisation until BM.

JediTricks wrote:Here's what I find weird, you guys are all from BWTF, Beast Wars TransFormers as the original name went, where the leader was not the commander of the entire faction but merely his small group. Optimus Primal wasn't on the council of Maximal Elders, he was merely the commander of the Axalon. This is far more believable than the leader of an entire race of people getting into the trenches and leading from the front lines. Yet when Animated goes there, it's somehow too hard for you geezers to understand why they'd make Optimus Prime the leader of only a small, rag-tag band - yeah, real challenging.

'You guys?' What, you aren't from there, too? Or has whichever of your alter egos slipped onto your main account?

Anyway, it actually stood for, y'know, 'Ben's' World of Transformers. The BeesWus TeeEff thing is a coincidence. Or an intentional pun.

And Primal being an Important Guy is somewhat debatable when you take into the account that he A) Has a Matrix, B) Got chosen by the Oracle and C) Even if you don't think he has a Matrix, he eventually gets one anyway in TFU, so nyaah.

onslaught86 wrote:I haven't seen too many say that, it seems to be more a case of illustrating that Animated Prime and G1 Prime are two fundamentally different characters. AniPrime definitely has more in common with Primal than G1 Prime, but there's hints of Rodimus as well, and he seems far less tested than Primal - Primal was only 'not a leader' when the plot demanded it, and got very little original characterisation until BM.

Yeah, Primal didn't actively screw up a whole lot. I thought him to be a very capable leader and he was able to kick ass when asses needed kicked. And *that's* what I need my Good Guy Faction Leaders to be able to do. Fire Convoy pulled it off nicely.