Is a Generations Astrotrain Voyager toy needed? I think so..

[Onslaught Six]

Hey, Gigatron is badass. Cybertron Megs sucked.

Defend that statement please. I only remember RID Megatron being a bumbling, generic cartoon villain who ran away a lot and mistreated his handful of loyal idiots.

Okay. Gigatron was a parody of Deathsaurus. I win.

In all seriousness, when Gigs actually shows up in the cartoon (which isn't often; he usually hangs back at base) he's treated as a legitimate threat who can cause some serious damage. The Predacons are stupid, sure, but once Scourge and the Combaticons turn up, everything gets a lot more serious.

[Tigermegatron]

Now come up with more new characters than just leaders since that's what that conversation was talking about. Come up with hundreds of new characters. Keep coming up with them. Also come up with Transformers characters that capture audiences' imaginations as well as the main guys because the brand is in jeopardy when it's not recognizable to audiences.

Okay I'll play.....

Instead of using the same core cast of characters that they've been using in The Movie-verse,2008 Animated & TFP/BH. I'd prefer they use other MTMTE core characters & even some 1986 core charactrers. Here's some replacement core characters ideas below.

1- Replace Bumblebee with the following: Sunsteaker,Hot rod,Sidewsipe,

2- Replace Arcee with the following: Elita-1 or Blackarachnia.

3-Replace Bulkhead with the following: Ironhide,Brawn,

4- Replace Starscream with the following: Cyclonus,Thunderwing,Dreadwing

5- Replace the Decepticon clown with muscles with: Scourge

6- Decepticon female robot can be: Nightbird

7-Decepticons drones can be: Scourges sweeps & Cyclonus Armada. in different colors,different weapons & different inner faces.

8- The fast car autobot with courage can be: Mirage,Tracks,

[BWprowl]

Now come up with more new characters than just leaders since that's what that conversation was talking about. Come up with hundreds of new characters. Keep coming up with them. Also come up with Transformers characters that capture audiences' imaginations as well as the main guys because the brand is in jeopardy when it's not recognizable to audiences.

Didn't the Kenner guys who dreamed up Beast Wars have to do just that? They seemed to make it work okay. I mean, how hard could it be to bottle lightning twice, right?

Of course I can't really contribute, since I'm far beyond just wanting new characters. I want new *everything*. I suppose I can just keep buying the Predacons from Beast Hunters and pretend they're a whole new line on their own, but who are they gonna *fight*?

I hated the 2008 TF Animated cartoon because it was too silly,off the wall clown/circus humor. Lugnuts,blitzwing & starscream acted like the three stooges. bumblebee & bulkhead were too incompetent & needed constant adult supervision from their higher ranking peers. Sari was the ugliest,dumbest & most annoying human kid to ever grace the TF media fiction. Clearly animated was meant for a much lower kids age group than any other TF cartoon series that came before it.

Uh, did we watch the same show? The 'Animated' cartoon I watched had episodes like the ones dealing with Ratchet, Lockdown, and Arcee, involving stuff like war crimes and post-traumatic stress disorder, or anything involving Omega Supreme, which obstinately dealt with the supposed 'good guys' lobotomizing a living being into a WMD for their own personal gain, and all the baggage that went with that, or little things like Sentinel Prime's extreme xenophobia, or Prowl's sacrificial nature, or all the moral compromises Sumdac made. There was plenty of stuff in there for it to be a Mature Cartoon for Mature Viewers such as yourself, or at least as much with TFPrime which contributed (as far as I watched) more screen time to Wacky Human Sidekick Hijinks than Animated ever did to Sari's escapades.

Also, just as a personal reference, Sari was way more visually appealing than the generic mannequins that the TFPrime kids are, and the fact that she had more personality than the three of them put together goes for a lot too.

[Sparky Prime]

Also, just as a personal reference, Sari was way more visually appealing than the generic mannequins that the TFPrime kids are, and the fact that she had more personality than the three of them put together goes for a lot too.

I actually see the 3 Prime kids as a different aspect of Sari. Miko is her suicidal wild side. Raf is the impossibly smart tech genius (although he doesn't have the excuse of getting his smarts from the Allspark key like Sari). And Jack is the rarely listened to voice of reason.

[Tigermegatron]

Uh, did we watch the same show? The 'Animated' cartoon I watched had episodes like the ones dealing with Ratchet, Lockdown, and Arcee, involving stuff like war crimes and post-traumatic stress disorder, or anything involving Omega Supreme, which obstinately dealt with the supposed 'good guys' lobotomizing a living being into a WMD for their own personal gain, and all the baggage that went with that, or little things like Sentinel Prime's extreme xenophobia, or Prowl's sacrificial nature, or all the moral compromises Sumdac made. There was plenty of stuff in there for it to be a Mature Cartoon for Mature Viewers such as yourself, or at least as much with TFPrime which contributed (as far as I watched) more screen time to Wacky Human Sidekick Hijinks than Animated ever did to Sari's escapades.

Injecting 10% seriousness into a 90% silliness toddler cartoon series like TF Animated doesn't make it a 100% serious series.

[Gomess]

Tigs, take it from someone who reads about this stuff for fun- and has read about it for a job- TF Animated was not aimed at toddlers. You just didn't like the art style (and, I suspect, didn't actually watch more than a couple of episodes). Simple as.

But as this thread has shown, Hasbro can't please everyone. They're trying, of course. But to dismiss a cartoon aimed at children- again, not *toddlers*- which is part of franchise aimed at children as "childish" is just... puerile.

[Tigermegatron]

Tigs, I suspect, didn't actually watch more than a couple of episodes). Simple as.

I saw the entire TF Animated cartoon series,As it was free to do so,since My cable plan includes the Cartoon Network.

[Shockwave]

I want new *everything*.

What you want is to have been there for the beginning in G1. Seriously. Imagine it. Imagine living in a world where everything Transformers was new and had never been done before. That's exactly what G1 was and I know you and O6 have mentioned not feeling like you've really missed anything by not having been around for it, but ya kinda have and this is it. Because that's sort of one the things that made G1 so great and why those of us that were there cling to it so much is partially because of that. There are other reasons too which I've mentioned before, but this is one of the biggest ones. I mean, really picture it: Cars and trucks turning into robots? New! Jets? New! Walkman and tapes? New! Dinosaurs, bugs, more than one alt mode? New! New! New!

The other thing too that I hadn't realized until now is I think what Gomess is calling for is that the toy industry worked differently back then. In 1984, there was a set line of characters for that year and when toy stores sold out, they just got new supply of those same characters. In 1985, the toy line continued with new characters in that same setting so in 1985, (in theory) you didn't just get new versions of the same characters you just got all new characters. And they would be available continuously throughout the year. Unfortunately, now the business model is that there are several toys planned for the year, under several different lines and they come out in waves. So you get one set of characters in the stores, then when those are gone, they get replaced not by more copies of the same characters but by new characters (usually wave 2 of whatever line it is). Not to mention that the Transformers subline gets rebooted every few years or so which kind of causes Hasbro to go back and start the character line up all over again. Generations so far is the only line that has been consistent for several years now and we've seen a lot of characters come out of that. If there are going to be any new characters, that's the line that's going to carry them because Hasbro won't feel the need to go back and redo Optimus and Megatron every five minutes due to a reboot.

[Shockwave]

But to dismiss a cartoon aimed at children- again, not *toddlers*- which is part of franchise aimed at children as "childish" is just... puerile.

He does that a lot. Especially when talking about any toy that's not at least Voyager or bigger because he has some weird chip on his shoulder about "I aM tEh BiG bOi, I neEd TeH BiG tOiS1!!!"

Yeah... Seriously.

[BWprowl]

What you want is to have been there for the beginning in G1. Seriously. Imagine it. Imagine living in a world where everything Transformers was new and had never been done before. That's exactly what G1 was and I know you and O6 have mentioned not feeling like you've really missed anything by not having been around for it, but ya kinda have and this is it. Because that's sort of one the things that made G1 so great and why those of us that were there cling to it so much is partially because of that. There are other reasons too which I've mentioned before, but this is one of the biggest ones. I mean, really picture it: Cars and trucks turning into robots? New! Jets? New! Walkman and tapes? New! Dinosaurs, bugs, more than one alt mode? New! New! New!

Hey, I was there for that, after a fashion. TF blew me away when I found out about it as a kid, I didn't even know I was looking at a 'Generation 2' of the line when I was getting Hubcap, and Constructicons, and the like, so I still got that exciting 'New!' thing going on. Robots turning into cars? New! Construction vehicles that combine? New! Dinosaurs, super-posable jets with pressure missiles, and light up laser classic cars? New, new, new indeed! And I still got that when BW and BM rolled around. Realistic animals, robot animals, mutant stuck-together animals, crazy twisted cyborg animals, living alien vehicles? One new after the other. So no, my problem isn't that I missed living through having my mind blown by crazy new toy robot concepts, clearly I got all that. My problem is that Hasbro hasn't attempted anything new like that with TF SINCE around the BM era, at least until we just started getting Beast Hunters this year. And as I've said, I'm extremely happy with the introduction of the Predacons, and what they represent. I'm almost cautiously optimistic about where Hasbro'll take the franchise after TFPrime.

But as this thread has shown, Hasbro can't please everyone. They're trying, of course. But to dismiss a cartoon aimed at children- again, not *toddlers*- which is part of franchise aimed at children as "childish" is just... puerile.

Tigs has a very strange understanding of how TF's demographics work, often asserting his personal belief that different size-class toys from the *same line* are targeted to different age groups, alleging that Legends/Legion class toys are directed at 'toddlers' while Leader Class and Weaponizer figures are clearly aimed at 'teens/young adults', apparently based entirely on their size difference. Seriously.