We've got Hall of Fame voting going on up there

[JediTricks]

Wow, really? I heard people bitching for YEARS for him to get a new toy before he finally did.

Perhaps so, but new-toy-bitching isn't really character cred, it's just wanting something they haven't had in a while. Look at all the campaigning for Action Master colors Thundercracker, you think anybody gave a crap about what that figure represented? I don't, they just wanted to own something that looked a certain way.

Anyway, Wheeljack wins... *yawn*. I was really hoping for Sky-Byte, failing that, BW Megatron, and failing that, Prowl. I'm really pretty ambivalent towards Wheeljack. Don't think he's a bad character by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not sure what he's done that makes him deserving of being in the Hall of Fame. Besides existing in 1984, and there's a dozen guys there doing that already.

I sort of see your point, but Wheeljack is somewhat of a unique personality in the main crew, he builds stuff and Dinobots and Aerialbots, he doesn't always succeed at what he's doing, and he's visually iconic and somewhat unique. Like O6 said, he's an endearing character.

Right there with you. I was really pulling for SkyByte. Maybe he'll get auto-inducted next year.

Highly doubt that'll happen, they've been very limited in the auto-inducted characters so far, I cannot see them going so far out on a limb their first time venturing away from the G1 zone.

Wheeljack was the first TF to transform on screen.

He was the first TF on-screen at all.

Skybite? Well, he was in a cartoon that barely made a ripple in the chamber pot.

There is a huge difference between "Hall of Fame" and "insular fan favourite".

Good lord, that was way dickish of you! People in this thread are saying they really like the guy, there's no need to shit on their choices. By putting it the way you did, you are making it difficult for anyone to agree with you - I also feel RID was not a big contributor to the franchise and that the character is a very niche fan-fav one that is a weak representative of the Transformers concept, but now I have to either be on the side of the guy who just spit in those people's faces or sit this part of the argument out.

Just because he was kind of important in the first couple seasons of a cartoon a bunch of kids watched in the 80’s doesn’t make him ‘Hall of Fame’ Material.

The G1 cartoon is pretty foundational to this brand though, and the momentum it generated in our society is infinitely greater than anything the comics or later TV shows created at the time. I'd argue any casual fan of the brand, any kid who got the TF bug from his parent, you can directly trace their interest in the brand back to that G1 cartoon. And it airs today, so it's not only the '80s.

Bullshit. RiD’s success was part of the reason Hasbro even went the direction they did with the next three years of Transformers. And Sky-Byte’s presence in the show is indicative of its overall style and direction. He was a recognizable and iconic character from that series itself, who even rose above it to be well-known in Transformers in general, hence his appearance in stuff like the BotCon set, and the upcoming issue of IDW’s RID.

It's...you keep trying to say that RiD didn't affect anything, or didn't matter, but that series was the catalyst for going back to fully-vehicular TFs after so long (and they haven't stopped since), and we're still seeing homages and references to it this far down the line (the continuing use of the Black Convoy color sheme, TFCC Side Burn, Titanium RiD Prime).

I think you're overestimating the value RID had in the brand. Hasbro had no intentions to air the show or sell the products in the US at all until they had no other choice, at that point they had scrapped Transtech and were planning Armada, and needed a stopgap to keep the franchise on shelves and in the public eye longer. Also, you can't really argue that RID was the catalyst for going back to vehicles-only TF while also espousing the values of its flying robo-beast villain, those two are in conflict.

I can give you the black Convoy thing, although its very merits are debatable - Scourge was a cool character, but the concept has not yielded similar returns in the many reuses afterwards. The rest, I don't know, they seem like a stretch - every aspect of TF gets some homage once in a while, those don't make them specifically foundational.

There is a huge difference between "Hall of Fame" and "insular fan favourite".

I hardly see how. Unless there’s a large percentage of non-Transformers-fans voting on the Hall of Fame.

Interesting point, I look forward to seeing the response. You are sort of correct, I can only say that just because one portion of the fanbase is vocal for something doesn't automatically make it "hall of fame"-worthy, or that those fans represent the views of ALL the fans merely because they're passionate and vocal.

RiD changed the direction of the toyline. That is true.

I disagree that it's true, I think RID was a representative of a change that was already in the works and Hasbro simply took the opportunity to use a turnkey expression they had handed to them while they worked out a new Transformers design team philosophy after having gutted the previous Kenner headquarters where they had given it temporary helming of the franchise.

But, Skybite was not part of that. In fact, he was very much counter to the changes in the toyline that RiD made.

That's a pretty good point.

There is a different between "fan favourie" and "important"

There are plenty of obscure characters that I like for various reasons, such as Windcharger. But, I would never say that Windcharger should be up for what is not being called a "Hartman Award".

The problem is that the fandom cannot separate what they happen to like from what is actually important in the franchise. (And, no, the franchise is not, nor should it be, all about the fandom.)

Surprisingly well-said.

I will agree that the *story* of RID was pretty cookie cutter. Pretty forgettable. But the *characters* of RID are memorable. The fact that SkyByte is more memorable than the stories he's in is testament to that.

I dunno, SkyByte seems memorable because he's such a BROAD character, because he's loudly being stupid and silly, but as a character himself I doubt you could get 10 fans to name a few things about who he was without describing how he looked or what he did. I remember how he sounded and his antics, but I don't really remember him for being a character. I can barely conjure up characterizations for anybody on the show - Side Burn barely, Ultra Magnus just because he was a douche to Optimus, Slapper and Megatron just basically on the broadest of strokes based mainly on how I remember their voices sounding, and Optimus' rather mediocre voice work, that's it. No real memorable characters come to mind for me. Hell, I just realized the most memorable RID character for me was T-AI!

I'd argue that Hasbro already inducts those real live people and iconic characters that they deem important to the brand, and leave the fun votes to the fandom. In that regard, the fan voting is purely for fun and should thus not be taken too seriously.

This mindset devalues the HOF, I think.

The plot in RID is cookie-cutter because that's how you service the parody. For example, one could easily call the plot of Spaceballs cookie-cutter, but it's that way specifically so that they can parody elements of the Star Wars series (and other sci-fi movies too). RID is very clearly a loving parody of Masterforce, Victory and other such mecha-influenced TF shows. Some of that kinda gets lost in the dub, I'm sure, but it's clearly there from the animation and the way everything is laid out. RID (or at least Car Robots) is the Carranger of Transformers. (Carranger was the series that became Power Rangers Turbo, which was known for being 'very' different from its source material.)

Dude, I think you are totally retconning the show's intentions, you are seeing what you want to see out of it.

Yeah, see, this is what I was doing by voting FOR Skybyte. Because a vote for Skybyte wasn't really a vote for "Skybyte" the character but a vote for "RID". And I think RID was an important part of the franchise and is worthy of being recognized over yet another Ark Crew Member from G1.

IMO, that's bad policy, ultimately you end up with an individual you don't actually care that much about, and it's harder to get people behind him. Look at 3rd party candidates in the US presidential election, for example, not that many people might believe in the Green Party's candidate, but they want the Green Party to get more attention so they vote for him without as much passion, and when he doesn't meet their goal it only hurts their brand next time around rather than help focus the party to pick better candidates.

Also, you say RID is an "important" part of the franchise and worthy of being recognized, yet the only character from it you can drum up is SkyByte who you yourself aren't that excited about. If RID is so worthy, why aren't there more lasting characters and ideas from it around the franchise beyond Scourge/Nemesis Prime? What is so important about RID then, the fact that it ushered back in the vehicle TFs? That was already Hasbro's intentions once they decided not to go with Transtech, RID was only a convenient way to fill the void, it was only an easy way for Hasbro to do what they were already planning to do. I can't think of anything else that RID did that made it so important - you can't say it created the idea of gestalt teams in the franchise, or of minibot-types, or of sub-teams, or of comedy-relief characters; and clearly cel-animation wasn't terribly important since Hasbro didn't stick with it long afterwards. There's a reason RID's TFwiki entry is so small, both its overall page and its cartoon page, it didn't do much and it didn't resonate well with fans and it didn't inspire much passion.

"Noteworthy achievement," is the key phrase here. Sky-Byte has, if nothing else, the noteworthy achievement of being a really likeably and memorable character in what some think was a forgettable series.

Hmm, I dunno dude, SkyByte was pretty much forgotten by me until this all came back up, and I know I wasn't alone in finding him the opposite of "really likeable". Also, I'd argue those aren't truly enough to be called Noteworthy Achievements - yes, Kim Kardashian is "famous" for those same noteworthy achievements (plus one more) but I don't think anybody would argue she's "hall of fame" material in most ways.

[BWprowl]

Perhaps so, but new-toy-bitching isn't really character cred, it's just wanting something they haven't had in a while. Look at all the campaigning for Action Master colors Thundercracker, you think anybody gave a crap about what that figure represented? I don't, they just wanted to own something that looked a certain way.

Well, I know I wanted AM Thundercracker because it represented TF (and toys in general) in the early 90’s, which defined a lot of my tastes growing up. But anyway, I kinda see your point about Wheeljack, in that a sizable portion of the people bitching for a new toy of him were doing so just because they wanted to add to their Ark Crew display, rather than because they actually gave a crap about who Wheeljack was.

(Can I just say that ‘Ark Crew’ has become my least favorite phrase in Transfandom as of late? Just for all the incessant bitching that’s come out of it. No one cares about Gears, you idiots.)

I sort of see your point, but Wheeljack is somewhat of a unique personality in the main crew, he builds stuff and Dinobots and Aerialbots, he doesn't always succeed at what he's doing, and he's visually iconic and somewhat unique. Like O6 said, he's an endearing character.

He’s endearing, I guess, and I don’t deny that he probably deserved to be inducted into the HoF at *some* point. I guess my point was it would’ve been more *interesting* to see Sky-Byte or even BW Megs make it in. This is the equivalent of Cold Stone’s having a big survey to find out people’s favorite flavor, and Vanilla coming out on top. Another Autobot car gets into the Hall of Fame, woo hoo.

The G1 cartoon is pretty foundational to this brand though, and the momentum it generated in our society is infinitely greater than anything the comics or later TV shows created at the time. I'd argue any casual fan of the brand, any kid who got the TF bug from his parent, you can directly trace their interest in the brand back to that G1 cartoon. And it airs today, so it's not only the '80s.

Lately I’ve been starting to wonder if not growing up with the G1 cartoon (and to a lesser extent, the toys) has cheated me out of ‘understanding’ or ‘enjoying’ Transformers at the same level a lot of other people seem too (similar and possibly related to my issue with the ‘Ark Crew’ above). I think I may start a separate topic about this soon, since I’ve been thinking about it for a while now.

I think you're overestimating the value RID had in the brand. Hasbro had no intentions to air the show or sell the products in the US at all until they had no other choice, at that point they had scrapped Transtech and were planning Armada, and needed a stopgap to keep the franchise on shelves and in the public eye longer. Also, you can't really argue that RID was the catalyst for going back to vehicles-only TF while also espousing the values of its flying robo-beast villain, those two are in conflict.

I’ll give you that Sky-Byte is counter-indicative of the vehicular merits of RiD, and admit that that occurred to me while I was originally typing that. Still, I maintain that Sky-Byte himself encapsulates the general attitude of RiD as a cartoon, and that’s what makes him a great representative of the series, especially as far as reincarnating in other continuities to remind fans of the series’ small, but memorable contributions to the franchise.

As a brand thing, maybe Hasbro did intend to bring vehicular TFs back with Armada regardless of the use or success of RiD, but you can’t deny that, in the public eye, RiD was the series that brought that back to TF. This is the line where you’d hear stories about encountering older people in stores, happening upon the RiD toys and going “Woah! Transformers are back!”. Never mind that they’d been back since ’94 with Beast Wars, those were so far removed from the public’s nostalgic image of ‘Transformers’ as to be considered a separate thing regardless of how successful it really was. This was the line that tipped off the nostalgia ride that TF has been on and hasn’t looked back on since, that defined that ‘brand-identity’ that you espouse as the reason TF has carried on the way it has since then (if both RiD and Armada had flopped, if no one had cared that vehicular Transformers were ‘back’, then the line would have either folded, or reinvented itself again a la Beast Wars). That’s the value of RiD as a line: regardless of what Hasbro intended to do with Armada, as far as the public is concerned, RiD was the true return of ‘classic’, ‘real’ Transformers.

Interesting point, I look forward to seeing the response. You are sort of correct, I can only say that just because one portion of the fanbase is vocal for something doesn't automatically make it "hall of fame"-worthy, or that those fans represent the views of ALL the fans merely because they're passionate and vocal.

To be fair, Transfandom is so splintered and opposed at this point that it’d be impossible to get them to agree on anything, much less whether they should vote for their favorite character or the character who was the most important. At any rate, it’s a moot point now, since Sky-Byte lost, so obviously the ‘vocal minority’ pushing him was just that, and the people who recognized Wheeljack’s ‘importance’ won out. I’m not saying those fans are wrong or that anyone who thinks he deserved to be in is wrong (I admitted earlier that Wheeljack probably does deserve to be in the HoF), I’m simply expressing why I voted for Sky-Byte, and why I’m disappointed he didn’t make it in.

I disagree that it's true, I think RID was a representative of a change that was already in the works and Hasbro simply took the opportunity to use a turnkey expression they had handed to them while they worked out a new Transformers design team philosophy after having gutted the previous Kenner headquarters where they had given it temporary helming of the franchise.

See above. Hasbro may have been working on the brand’s change already, but RiD’s success was a precursor to that change whose influence (and the public’s reception of it) can still be felt to this day.

Hell, I just realized the most memorable RID character for me was T-AI!

I’ll brofist you on this one, at least.

The plot in RID is cookie-cutter because that's how you service the parody. For example, one could easily call the plot of Spaceballs cookie-cutter, but it's that way specifically so that they can parody elements of the Star Wars series (and other sci-fi movies too). RID is very clearly a loving parody of Masterforce, Victory and other such mecha-influenced TF shows. Some of that kinda gets lost in the dub, I'm sure, but it's clearly there from the animation and the way everything is laid out. RID (or at least Car Robots) is the Carranger of Transformers. (Carranger was the series that became Power Rangers Turbo, which was known for being 'very' different from its source material.)

Dude, I think you are totally retconning the show's intentions, you are seeing what you want to see out of it.

Nah, he’s pretty much got it, there’s a lot of stuff there that’s pretty direct, mostly of Victory with a little bit of Masterforce thrown in. Gigatron/Megatron running away even when he’s winning directly parodies the actions of Deathsaurus, Sky-Byte and the Predacons are an extreme exaggeration of the ineptness of Goryuu and the Dinoforce, Magnus is strongly styled after Godbomber with elements of Victory Leo in his actions. For god’s sake the robots regularly ‘disguise’ themselves by wearing cheap paper-mache costumes, Wedge does an attack call for *lunging at someone*, and Fortress Maximus gets powered up by fan mail at the end, how could you think any of this was supposed to be taken seriously?

There's a reason RID's TFwiki entry is so small, both its overall page and its cartoon page, it didn't do much and it didn't resonate well with fans and it didn't inspire much passion.

For the record, the Wiki these days generally acts as a mouthpiece for a small, insular portion of the fanbase that likes to try to use it to swing opinions on things their way (check out their needlessly petty and biased page on All Hail Megatron sometime). It’s not a good indicator of what the fandom as a whole thinks.

Hmm, I dunno dude, SkyByte was pretty much forgotten by me until this all came back up, and I know I wasn't alone in finding him the opposite of "really likeable". Also, I'd argue those aren't truly enough to be called Noteworthy Achievements - yes, Kim Kardashian is "famous" for those same noteworthy achievements (plus one more) but I don't think anybody would argue she's "hall of fame" material in most ways.

Hey, Sky-Byte’s at least a lot more attractive than Kim Kardashian!

[Dominic]

To be fair, the wiki has cleaned up a bit. But, it is still pretty slanted.

O6 is right about RiD being written as a parody. But, being an in-house parody (meaning only a few people are going to "get it" and fewer still are going to care at all) does not make something great. By that logic, Ambush Bug is one of the most important characters of the 80s and 90s.

tely I’ve been starting to wonder if not growing up with the G1 cartoon (and to a lesser extent, the toys) has cheated me out of ‘understanding’ or ‘enjoying’ Transformers at the same level a lot of other people seem too (similar and possibly related to my issue with the ‘Ark Crew’ above). I think I may start a separate topic about this soon, since I’ve been thinking about it for a while now.

Looking forward to this. (I disagree that missing G1 means that you cannot appreciate the hobby as much. But, we should hash this out in a different thread.)

But, for the record, I was not voting for Wheeljack because he is an Autobot from 1984. I pulled for Wheeljack because the character was the most important of this year's candidates. As I stated above, I would vote for Skybite before I would vote for Windcharger. (Of course, I would also consider either of them being in the top 5 to be reason to end the Hartman Awards.)


Dom
-still waffling on "Prime" Wheeljack.

[Shockwave]

Lately I’ve been starting to wonder if not growing up with the G1 cartoon (and to a lesser extent, the toys) has cheated me out of ‘understanding’ or ‘enjoying’ Transformers at the same level a lot of other people seem too (similar and possibly related to my issue with the ‘Ark Crew’ above). I think I may start a separate topic about this soon, since I’ve been thinking about it for a while now.

Yeah, I'll help you with this one and the answer is no. I grew up on G1 and I'm right there with you in the "wow. Another 84 bot got it. Again. Woo. hoo." camp.

[JediTricks]

Well, I know I wanted AM Thundercracker because it represented TF (and toys in general) in the early 90’s, which defined a lot of my tastes growing up.

Your generation was just wronged by bad Hasbro decisions. There's nothing good about those figures IMO, they are bad ideas crystallized into an expression of the brand and desired simply for nostalgia's sake or hipster irony (you would be the former). Not everything has value just because it came out when we were kids, there are plenty of forgotten toy lines that probably have a few fans still, but AM TC really looks so bad that I can't see any objective point to it.

(Can I just say that ‘Ark Crew’ has become my least favorite phrase in Transfandom as of late? Just for all the incessant bitching that’s come out of it. No one cares about Gears, you idiots.)

Gears is such a snore to me, I'd really like a good Brawn, I wouldn't mind having a decent Huffer with a more creative design than the Botcon one (it's a good figure, but it's not as good as I'd like), but I don't give a frick about Gears, Trailbreaker, nor Cliffjumper or Bluestreak or any repaint that has no love in the reuse's design. And I sure as hell would prefer a new Reflector or something along those lines before Gears, but at the same time I'm not going to deny anybody their interest I suppose.

He’s endearing, I guess, and I don’t deny that he probably deserved to be inducted into the HoF at *some* point. I guess my point was it would’ve been more *interesting* to see Sky-Byte or even BW Megs make it in. This is the equivalent of Cold Stone’s having a big survey to find out people’s favorite flavor, and Vanilla coming out on top. Another Autobot car gets into the Hall of Fame, woo hoo.

That's not a particularly glowing motivation for induction into a hall of fame. "Interesting" is what a kid does when acting as a pseudo-scientist, they pour soap into their milk to see if it'll make something interesting, but that's not enough reason to recognize soap-milk as a great thing. I did think BW Megs was an ok choice for Hall of Fame, I can close my eyes and see him, hear him, remember his actions and imagine how he'd react to new situations with ease, I believe any fan from that era could do the same, and I think that is a good sign for a nominee.

Don't knock vanilla, it's an incredibly complex flavor, it's an extremely expensive commodity, and is the basis for some of the finest desserts ever created. Yes, our society treats it as "plain", but the truth is that there's great value to vanilla, I'd take vanilla over some crazy new concoction like Mocha Soybean Cherrypit any day of the week.

Lately I’ve been starting to wonder if not growing up with the G1 cartoon (and to a lesser extent, the toys) has cheated me out of ‘understanding’ or ‘enjoying’ Transformers at the same level a lot of other people seem too (similar and possibly related to my issue with the ‘Ark Crew’ above). I think I may start a separate topic about this soon, since I’ve been thinking about it for a while now.

My mom knows Transformers from the G1 cartoon (mainly from the toy commercials that used the cartoon iconography), a lot of my friends and family who aren't really into TF at all are the same way, they know the themesong and how the opening credits looked. I don't think one has to grow up with the G1 cartoon to be aware of it and its influence over the brand, it's not about nostalgia, it's about foundation. Anything you see in TF today is going to be a reflection of the G1 cartoon, toy line, commercials, or comic book - either by being a direct comment from it, or by actively trying to eschew it - simply because that's the foundation of the brand and where it had its biggest impact on society.

I’ll give you that Sky-Byte is counter-indicative of the vehicular merits of RiD, and admit that that occurred to me while I was originally typing that. Still, I maintain that Sky-Byte himself encapsulates the general attitude of RiD as a cartoon, and that’s what makes him a great representative of the series

I do agree with this, but I don't take it as a positive the way you do.

, especially as far as reincarnating in other continuities to remind fans of the series’ small, but memorable contributions to the franchise.

This argues that every small TF expression should be represented in future expressions, and I'm not sure I can agree with that, just because something happened in the past does that necessarily mean it was valuable and worth pursuing again, especially in place of wholly new ideas, simply to remind people of a different time?

As a brand thing, maybe Hasbro did intend to bring vehicular TFs back with Armada regardless of the use or success of RiD, but you can’t deny that, in the public eye, RiD was the series that brought that back to TF. This is the line where you’d hear stories about encountering older people in stores, happening upon the RiD toys and going “Woah! Transformers are back!”. Never mind that they’d been back since ’94 with Beast Wars, those were so far removed from the public’s nostalgic image of ‘Transformers’ as to be considered a separate thing regardless of how successful it really was. This was the line that tipped off the nostalgia ride that TF has been on and hasn’t looked back on since, that defined that ‘brand-identity’ that you espouse as the reason TF has carried on the way it has since then (if both RiD and Armada had flopped, if no one had cared that vehicular Transformers were ‘back’, then the line would have either folded, or reinvented itself again a la Beast Wars). That’s the value of RiD as a line: regardless of what Hasbro intended to do with Armada, as far as the public is concerned, RiD was the true return of ‘classic’, ‘real’ Transformers.

I am not trying to be arbitrary when I say this, but yes I can deny that RID was the series that brought back vehicles to the general idea of TF. Beast Machines had already been doing that with Vehicons, people outside the BW fandom were starting to take notice and to buy those pieces - I think it's part of why Hasbro backed off Transtech. I remember having discussions on my Star Wars forum with folks who were very "Trukk not munky" and were taking notice of Vehicons from BM. RID was exciting in that it brought back a more classical expression of that, yes, but the groundwork was already underway IMO.

I'd also point out that Armada and Energon somewhat derailed the "classic vehicles" thing by having chunky playskool-type toys, they took a big hit in the nostalgia-consumer department for being thick and simple.

In any case, your argument is that RID was important because it brought G1-style TOYS back to the masses, which it did, but that has exactly jack squat to do with the RID fiction's impact on that same global audience. Had Machine Wars been a better line with new molds, or just come out a few years later, it would have the same honor. People were identifying with RID toys because of the Transformersness of them, not because the cartoon made them out to be compelling (which I'm sorry to say means the G1ness of them - at that time G2 had horrible colors and big character stickers and goofy weapons, none of which carried over to RID, Machine Wars had no impact on the brand so that didn't carry over, and the Beast era was represented in RID and those toys all sold poorly compared to the vehicles).

To be fair, Transfandom is so splintered and opposed at this point that it’d be impossible to get them to agree on anything, much less whether they should vote for their favorite character or the character who was the most important. At any rate, it’s a moot point now, since Sky-Byte lost, so obviously the ‘vocal minority’ pushing him was just that, and the people who recognized Wheeljack’s ‘importance’ won out. I’m not saying those fans are wrong or that anyone who thinks he deserved to be in is wrong (I admitted earlier that Wheeljack probably does deserve to be in the HoF), I’m simply expressing why I voted for Sky-Byte, and why I’m disappointed he didn’t make it in.

The entirety of fandom doesn't have to agree, only create a majority voice, which is hardly impossible.

SkyByte losing doesn't tell us anything really, we don't know by how much, do we? The real test of the fandom's interest in him is how he fares NEXT year, will he be forgotten and unsupported the way Kup was from 2011 to 2012, or will he endure the way Grimlock and Shockwave did?

I’ll brofist you on this one, at least.

I can still hear her shrill nagging in my head when I close my eyes, and see her wagging her finger, OH GOD!

Nah, he’s pretty much got it, there’s a lot of stuff there that’s pretty direct, mostly of Victory with a little bit of Masterforce thrown in. Gigatron/Megatron running away even when he’s winning directly parodies the actions of Deathsaurus, Sky-Byte and the Predacons are an extreme exaggeration of the ineptness of Goryuu and the Dinoforce, Magnus is strongly styled after Godbomber with elements of Victory Leo in his actions. For god’s sake the robots regularly ‘disguise’ themselves by wearing cheap paper-mache costumes, Wedge does an attack call for *lunging at someone*, and Fortress Maximus gets powered up by fan mail at the end, how could you think any of this was supposed to be taken seriously?

You guys see them as parodies, but they look like anime tropes to me that are hardly unique to any one Japanese TF expression. All the cutesy stuff was not parody or satire, it was one of the aforementioned tropes that Japanese cartoons aimed at younger viewers did a lot of not to mimic and comment on others doing it, but because that's what was done there around that time. Like I said, you guys seem to be spinning it to see what you want to see, to give it more actual intentions rather than falling into the same traps as other Japanese kid cartoons.

For the record, the Wiki these days generally acts as a mouthpiece for a small, insular portion of the fanbase that likes to try to use it to swing opinions on things their way (check out their needlessly petty and biased page on All Hail Megatron sometime). It’s not a good indicator of what the fandom as a whole thinks.

I don't see any passionate versions edited out of those pages in their histories. In all of the main RID page's history, it's never been bigger than it is now, nobody's felt the itch to sit down and share with others everything that isn't currently said about RID, to try to cite sources and all that comes with a wiki. It's a free system, anybody can edit, yet there haven't even been 500 edits to that page in the 7 years it's been up - a well-known and respected wiki like TFwiki would show that even if there was an active conspiracy to keep that sort of thing down.

Hey, Sky-Byte’s at least a lot more attractive than Kim Kardashian!

Well, that says a lot about your true motivations behind all of this, doesn't it? J/k, but consider the very next thing in your post is your sigpic and compare the 2 statements.

Looking forward to this. (I disagree that missing G1 means that you cannot appreciate the hobby as much. But, we should hash this out in a different thread.)

I'm going to confess something to you guys right now. I didn't watch G1 but a handful of times when I was a kid. It didn't do it for me all that much, I watched some of MOTU and some of GI Joe (although also not much), a bit more of Voltron (lions, I sat through a few of vehicles but they were such a boring group) and MASK, but I was more into the funny cartoons than the action ones back then, and it didn't help that the LA stations that aired them were on poor-reception channels (stupid antenna TV). I didn't watch any Robotech. And I was more loyal to Go-Bots for the first year of Transformers. I liked Transformers toys, and the show SEEMED ok (although I was aware of how crap the movie was even without seeing it), and I read a few comics but they were hard to get into, but TF wasn't as big a deal to me when G1 was full-tilt, I collected the hell out of GI Joe ARAH and MASK, had a ton of LEGO and a good interest in MOTU, but only dabbled in TF and even Star Wars partly because I'd be late to the collecting party and miss getting all the best main guys. So it's not a foregone conclusion that being a child of the early '80s is that important to the matter. I'm only really watching G1 now and only in bits and bites.

-still waffling on "Prime" Wheeljack

Buy it. It's currently available easily and it won't be soon as it's not going to be in later cases. Everybody's telling you it's a good figure or better. Even DvD gave it one of Prime's 2 "strongly recommended" ratings.

[Onslaught Six]

Perhaps so, but new-toy-bitching isn't really character cred, it's just wanting something they haven't had in a while. Look at all the campaigning for Action Master colors Thundercracker, you think anybody gave a crap about what that figure represented? I don't, they just wanted to own something that looked a certain way.

Well, I know I wanted AM Thundercracker because it represented TF (and toys in general) in the early 90’s, which defined a lot of my tastes growing up. But anyway, I kinda see your point about Wheeljack, in that a sizable portion of the people bitching for a new toy of him were doing so just because they wanted to add to their Ark Crew display, rather than because they actually gave a crap about who Wheeljack was.

(Can I just say that ‘Ark Crew’ has become my least favorite phrase in Transfandom as of late? Just for all the incessant bitching that’s come out of it. No one cares about Gears, you idiots.)

Remember my running joke that I was mixing up Brawn and Gears, because they were both random Minibots who did nothing ever? To the point of showing Brawn's death in my signature, and having, "Take that, Gears!" written under it?

Well, I know I wanted AM Thundercracker because it represented TF (and toys in general) in the early 90’s, which defined a lot of my tastes growing up.

Your generation was just wronged by bad Hasbro decisions. There's nothing good about those figures IMO, they are bad ideas crystallized into an expression of the brand and desired simply for nostalgia's sake or hipster irony (you would be the former). Not everything has value just because it came out when we were kids, there are plenty of forgotten toy lines that probably have a few fans still, but AM TC really looks so bad that I can't see any objective point to it.

JT, have you ever looked at my signature? The insane colours and shit? That's what almost all of my album art looks like. (Termina's relatively subdued direction is a diversion from the path and I don't intend to carry on with it.) I don't do that for irony. I do it because weird inverted colours and crazy shit is, to me, cool. G2 Ramjet and AM Thundercracker fit into that. They are weird colours for pretty much no reason, yeah, but that doesn't mean they're objectively bad. When time came to create my character in Halo: Reach, I decided he was going to be purple and teal like G2 Ramjet, because I actually liked that colour scheme.

(Can I just say that ‘Ark Crew’ has become my least favorite phrase in Transfandom as of late? Just for all the incessant bitching that’s come out of it. No one cares about Gears, you idiots.)

Gears is such a snore to me, I'd really like a good Brawn, I wouldn't mind having a decent Huffer with a more creative design than the Botcon one (it's a good figure, but it's not as good as I'd like), but I don't give a frick about Gears, Trailbreaker, nor Cliffjumper or Bluestreak or any repaint that has no love in the reuse's design. And I sure as hell would prefer a new Reflector or something along those lines before Gears, but at the same time I'm not going to deny anybody their interest I suppose.

I like Bluestreak because of his character! He's a guy who talks a lot to cover up the fact that he's so messed up. (For a while, there was this group of people on Tumblr roleplaying as various TFs; I followed Bluestreak but nobody else. It was kind of gay but it was fun to read.)

[JediTricks]

Remember my running joke that I was mixing up Brawn and Gears, because they were both random Minibots who did nothing ever? To the point of showing Brawn's death in my signature, and having, "Take that, Gears!" written under it?

Ha, yeah I do remember now, I had forgotten. Brawn was way better than Gears though, Brawn did a bunch in the first seasons of the cartoon and even fought Soundwave several times.

JT, have you ever looked at my signature? The insane colours and shit? That's what almost all of my album art looks like. (Termina's relatively subdued direction is a diversion from the path and I don't intend to carry on with it.) I don't do that for irony. I do it because weird inverted colours and crazy shit is, to me, cool. G2 Ramjet and AM Thundercracker fit into that. They are weird colours for pretty much no reason, yeah, but that doesn't mean they're objectively bad. When time came to create my character in Halo: Reach, I decided he was going to be purple and teal like G2 Ramjet, because I actually liked that colour scheme.

That's not taste, that's anti-taste. I don't know your motivations, where they came from, so I can't say for sure they're from you getting mindscrewed by '90s toys in horrible colors, but ultimately I suspect your personal taste is not going to be the same as your anti-taste - look at your little "my stuff" link deal banner under your sig, that's your taste, not anti-taste. "They are weird colors for no reason, that doesn't mean they're objectively bad" yeah it actually does, you choose colors that don't go together, that are displeasing to the eye, that is OBJECTIVELY bad, that is something nobody else would like, hence objective - so to you, you don't find them bad (subjective); but outside of yourself to the general human mind they still are bad (objective).

I like Bluestreak because of his character! He's a guy who talks a lot to cover up the fact that he's so messed up. (For a while, there was this group of people on Tumblr roleplaying as various TFs; I followed Bluestreak but nobody else. It was kind of gay but it was fun to read.)

I didn't say I don't like Bluestreak OR Cliffjumper, I said I don't give a crap about any of those kind of repaint characters where the new design has no passion to do something good in the redesign. The CHUG Bluestreak looks like shit because it's based on an already mediocre mold and they foolishly went with the cartoon colors of black and gray when they didn't work at all, and they didn't even bother painting his back windows - CHUG Bluestreak makes me really mad actually because I'd have dug that figure with the paint not looking so horrible; Cliffjumper is a red snore in the line, I don't feel angry about him the way I do with Bluestreak, I just don't give a crap.

[138 Scourge]

Remember my running joke that I was mixing up Brawn and Gears, because they were both random Minibots who did nothing ever? To the point of showing Brawn's death in my signature, and having, "Take that, Gears!" written under it?

Ha, yeah I do remember now, I had forgotten. Brawn was way better than Gears though, Brawn did a bunch in the first seasons of the cartoon and even fought Soundwave several times.

Found some dude's website the one time wherein he gave an impassioned tribute to Brawn, and I gotta say, it changed my mind about the little dude. Yeah, he fought Soundwave a few times, and that is awesome. He also once got a hold of Megatron's fusion cannon and promptly shot Megatron with his own damn gun! And...I think he picked up Optimus Prime and threw him the one time, though I forget the circumstances. It was voluntary and all, but stll, picking up a robot that much bigger than he is and tossing him? Might over microchips, indeed. I like Gears, too. Dude was a pretty niftly little toy (at least as good as the other minibots) and he was a cranky bitch. One Autobot says something good, Gears can be counted on to gripe about it. Dude was like the Oscar the Grouch of the Autobots.

I'll just address this here, I guess, because I lost track somewhere and don't know where this shit started, but why have there been so many mentions of Kim Kardashian lately? If she's Armenian, I think I can see the Turks' point.

[Dominic]

Man...even I avoided making that joke.


Over in the Trek thread, somebody (I think it was O6) made an obvious Kardashian/Cardassian pun. I mentioned proposing to her, and thus a meme was born.


Dom
-wondering what mentioning "Kim Kardashian" in a sig line or two would do for our searchability...

[Onslaught Six]

I'll just address this here, I guess, because I lost track somewhere and don't know where this shit started, but why have there been so many mentions of Kim Kardashian lately? If she's Armenian, I think I can see the Turks' point.

It started with Dom bringing back an old joke from long ago...