Know how everyone jokes Transformers, GI Joe etc cartoons are to sell toys? Basically they were. The people in charge that gave the mandate to get rid of a lot of the older cast completely did not realize people in this case kids had formed attachments to the characters. They entirely viewed the cartoon/movie as nothing more than a thing to move toys. Nothing else mattered. It's why Optimus and so many others were slaughtered so quick and replaced, they never once thought kids would be upset. It was only when the movie came out and kids were literally crying in the seats when Optimus died that some began to realize people gave a crap. Even then little changed for a long time.
I don't think he needed to keep him around for that reason. As far as I know, Thundercracker and Skywarp always thought Starscream was a bit of a wanker and whenever Screamer tried to usurp Megatron they would usually stay out of it and continue to be content with serving under Megs.
At least that's the impression i got from the G1 cartoon anyway.
You know how people always say entertainment was better when they were kids, what happened etc etc? Then you get the other side saying its just nostalgia talking and that this generation will soon be saying the same. Well that’s a load of shit and here’s why.
In Transformers: The Movie mortal enemies O Prime and Megatron are locked in a knock down drag out battle for the ages, resulting in both parties being critically injured. In fact it winds up costing them both their lives, one directly the other indirectly.
Megatron crawls to his treacherous subordinate Starscream, begging for his life who instead throws him off a moving space train to take the king’s crown.
Lost in purgatory (space), Megatron sells his fucking soul to the devil to be dealt back in, is reborn a canon, returns to Starscream’ coronation and shoots and kills him in cold blood to reclaim the throne.
Can you imagine any children’s cartoon today having the balls to take on this kind of story? To kill off the top three characters of their franchise?
I always found it ironic that by chasing the quick buck Hasbro managed to make the series and characters' legendary. Hasbro doesn't slaughter those characters and Transformers goes the way of GoBots.
I always found it ironic that by chasing the quick buck Hasbro managed to make the series and characters legendary. Hasnto doesn't slaughter those characters and Transformers goes the way of GoBots.
Know how everyone jokes Transformers, GI Joe etc cartoons are to sell toys? Basically they were. The people in charge that gave the mandate to get rid of a lot of the older cast completely did not realize people in this case kids had formed attachments to the characters. They entirely viewed the cartoon/movie as nothing more than a thing to move toys. Nothing else mattered. It's why Optimus and so many others were slaughtered so quick and replaced, they never once thought kids would be upset. It was only when the movie came out and kids were literally crying in the seats when Optimus died that some began to realize people gave a crap. Even then little changed for a long time.
Even if it was a fluke or a financially motivated naiveté, it was handled brilliantly by the writers. Like high fucking art good. Most movies today aren't this grim or poetic.
Know how everyone jokes Transformers, GI Joe etc cartoons are to sell toys? Basically they were. The people in charge that gave the mandate to get rid of a lot of the older cast completely did not realize people in this case kids had formed attachments to the characters. They entirely viewed the cartoon/movie as nothing more than a thing to move toys. Nothing else mattered. It's why Optimus and so many others were slaughtered so quick and replaced, they never once thought kids would be upset. It was only when the movie came out and kids were literally crying in the seats when Optimus died that some began to realize people gave a crap. Even then little changed for a long time.
Au contraire. The backlash from killing off literally everyone in G1 with Transformers: The movie caused the GI Joe movie to be hastily rewritten.
Duke was critically injured by serpentor early on, and intended to die in the finale. Three guesses why he didn't?
edit: oh man. the irony. from wiki:
The film was produced by Sunbow/Marvel simultaneous to G.I. Joe: The Movie. The writers of G.I. Joe: The Movie film asked for permission from Hasbro to kill the Duke character. Hasbro not only approved the request but insisted that the writers of The Transformers: The Movie adopt the same fate for Optimus Prime.[6] However, Optimus' death sparked much controversy and incurred so much backlash that it caused the writers of G.I Joe: The Movie to make changes so that Duke simply ended up in a coma (from which he eventually awoke).
I don't think he needed to keep him around for that reason. As far as I know, Thundercracker and Skywarp always thought Starscream was a bit of a wanker and whenever Screamer tried to usurp Megatron they would usually stay out of it and continue to be content with serving under Megs.
At least that's the impression i got from the G1 cartoon anyway.
The comics flesh out his character beyond that voice and always trying to backstab Megatron. Starscream was the legacy commander of the...what..Seekers I guess. (We called em AirBots.) Yeah they thought he was an ass, but Decepticons still valued their hierarchy, otherwise they were just terrorist bandits and not an elite revolutionary guard. He was a shitty leader though, and always jooping the chain of command, so obviously standing close to him would have been a health hazard. But Megs needed someone in that position, and he could count on Starscream to be reasonably incompetent with his coup attemps, as long as Megs was never caught sleeping.
I was 20 when Beast Wars began airing. It's the best TF cartoon without any competition whatsoever. Larry DiTillio and Bob Forward were basically handed the franchise and told to do whatever they want, since Transformers was essentially a dead brand at that point. They did some research, hooked up with some fans online and absorbed the backstory of the G1 continuity, and proceeded to write some straight up kickass sci-fi for three seasons. Season 2 of Beast Wars holds up against stuff like Battlestar and Babylon 5 in its plotting and planning.
It's just plain old good television. I was a G1 kid through and through, and had basically ignored Transformers all through that awful Generation 2 stuff, but Beast Wars brought me back in.
And Beast Machines chased me back out, but that's another story.
Megatron kept Starscream around because it kept him sharp. He's a Decepticon warlord - he can't afford to become complacent. No better way to stay on top than to assume someone's always out to get you. Like a true badass.
You always keep the guy who shares your views, but will readily usurp you around. It keeps you on your toes and they protect you from any other pretender to the throne.
I started with Beast Wars, didn't know much about the original Transformers back then beyond the basis premise, and I always thought Dinobot was the Starscream expy more or less? Or at least a heroic take on it.
Years later I watched Transformers Armada (I really enjoyed it, although apparently people hate it?), and my view of Dinobot was further asserted since Starscream in that show kind of went the Dinobot route.
It's kind of unfortunate that I've gone all this time thinking Starscream was a noble character, and then when I finally watched the originals, I realized, no, he wasn't. Sucks, because I liked Dinobot and Armada Starscream a lot.
I've only watched like 3 episodes of the original Transformers in my life, lol.
Shockwave was commander of the remaining decepticon forces on cybertron while megatron was away. Starscream was always #2 in line for leadership.
Btw, it's funny how everyone pretty much knows the chain of command in decepticon ranks but can anyone name the chain of command for the autobots? (outside of season 3 when they had a much more defined chain).
Speaking of Beast Wars, I remember my first toys were the Optimus Primal Bat and Megatron Alligator, and I was pissed when the show aired and they weren't in it, more so because the gorilla and dinosaur were way cooler than the stupid shit transformations the bat and alligator did.
Eventually I got Optimus Gorilla and Megatron Tyranno.
Damn, Beast Wars was the first toy set I remember seriously collecting alongside Beanie Babies.
Astrotrain had the most random and pointless transformations. A fucking shuttle and train. Like...no wonder he was a laughing stock. QUICK MAKE A GETAWAY CHOO CHOO
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I read through the old US Marvel run some time ago, and that series was crazy. Grimlock ran things for awhile, and then Blaster did too, iirc. Or maybe Blaster was first? I just remember the Autobots losing a video game or something and Prime's program was stored on a floppy disk, then his body was blown up. Pretty wild.
But then, Shockwave being a badass and Ratbat leading the Deceps at one point... and that Ratchet/Megatron hybrid? That comic did some pretty risky stuff compared to the show.
Try watching it before ripping it. It's really smartly written sci-fi, especially season 2 and 3, as opposed to the hilariously loopy crap that was G1. As someone who was the exact target age when G1 arrived, I honestly have no idea what people are thinking when they try to say Beast Wars wasn't infinitely superior to the G1 cartoon. 90% of the G1 cartoon is so bad in retrospect that it makes me wonder if parents thought something was wrong with their kids for watching it.
From what I can remember Wheeljack was supposed to have a one screen death equally as brutal as the rest but it was never animated.
They also changed Ultra Magnus death on the planet of junk, he was originally supposed to be drawn and quartered, funny thing is they had already recorded the voice actors so that's why he makes that labored heaving noise when he dies.
From what I can remember Wheeljack was supposed to have a one screen death equally as brutal as the rest but it was never animated.
They also changed Ultra Magnus death on the planet of junk, he was originally supposed to be drawn and quartered, funny thing is they had already recorded the voice actors so that's why he makes that labored heaving noise when he dies.
Yeah, the film has a couple of moments like that - a few scenes are missing in Autobot City that result in some odd jump cuts, and the original explanation (the lack of rotator in Kup's shoulder allows him to escape the energon bonds) for the Sharkticon pit scene is just replaced by... erm, well the Quintessons are kind enough to let the prisoners out of their bonds so they can fight back.
off topic but does anyone know why the pc version of Fall of Cybertron is still full price a year after it came out? this thread reminded me that I need to play it.
off topic but does anyone know why the pc version of Fall of Cybertron is still full price a year after it came out? this thread reminded me that I need to play it.
Transformers Armada was pretty much an objectively terrible show. The animation was consistently off model (it later came to light that the US version was using unfinished versions of the episodes for some reason), and you literally couldn't go a single episode without some sort of error in continuity, coloring, voicing, or naming. It was a giant clusterfuck. Now the original series was plagued with such errors too, mind you, but almost every show in the 80's was. Armada kind of stood alone from its contemporaries in that regard.
I love G1 for all it's cheesiness, but it's not a good show. It ranks pretty far down on my list of Transformers series.
A lot of the backlash I think was augmented by the fact that in the months prior to the release, Hasbro had been pumping up Armada as an unprecedented partnership between Hasbro and Takara to bring the same product and show to both sides of the Pacific at (more or less) the same time where as previously both companies had just kind of done their own thing with the brand. Then the previews for the premiere of the Armada "movie" (Really just the first three episodes in a marathon) on Cartoon Network were chock full of bait and switch G1 cameos that were literally only in one scene of the first episode and never heard from again, and the "movie" was just awful (The third episode was a flashback episode!).
Yet more of the backlash can probably be traced back to the fact that Armada was coming on the heels of the Robots in Disguise installment of the franchise, which took the franchise back to its roots post the lukewarm reception of Beast Machines, albeit in the form of a goofy slapstick anime show. This was supposed to be a standalone "filler" line while Hasbro and Takara were working on their epic undertaking to reboot the franchise, and while I never actually cared for the cartoon that much, the toyline was fantastic, full of amazing new molds, plus repainted releases from previous lines. The US release of the line expanded considerably upon the Japanese version, and quickly became something of a Transformers Greatest HIts line up.
Then Armada dropped. And we went from awesomeness like this:
...to stuff like this:
The Minicons and their subsequent gimmicks that they activated chewed up the budget for parts and paint applications, and the overall result was pretty underwhelming for a long while.
Now Armada picked up a bit as it went along (Both the show and the toys, including the awesome Unicron figure we got out of it. And it's not like everything released under the RiD banner was a hit), but the show never really got above mediocre, and the toys were a very mixed bag.
EDIT: SIdenote: Beast Wars was great, arguably the best over all series (I still place it behind TF Animated, but just barely), but let's not all forget that the goofy slapstick Loony Toons shit went a very long way in undermining that.
Kup is Lionel Stander, who's in a zillion old TCM fodder movies, and of course all the usual TF voice facts apply (Casey Kasem as Cliffjumper, Col. Roy Cambell as Perceptor, Scatman Crothers as Jazz, Micro Machines guy as Blurr, etc)
And Unicron is, of course... this guy:
You know what I did this morning? I played the voice of a toy. Some terrible robot toys from Japan that changed from one thing to another. The Japanese have funded a full-length animated cartoon about the doings of these toys, which is all bad outer-space stuff. I play a planet. I menace somebody called Something-or-other. Then I'm destroyed. My plan to destroy Whoever-it-is is thwarted and I tear myself apart on the screen.
--Orson Welles
My favorite was when the ghost of Starscream was assisting Unicron ( post-movie head-only ) in connecting to Cybertron to use as his body. Unicron gives Starscream a body to make the final manual connection, then he says "Do it yourself" and I kills himself in the process. lol
I like Prime Starscream. From the very beginning he was treacherous and opportunist and put Megatron in too much crap, but Megatron did not easily forgive his treachery nor did he ignore his combat skills.
I really liked that, at the end, after all the crap he went though,
he genuinely become loyal to Megatron. Too bad it is his fault the Decepticons lost the war. Starscream may have payed off with loyalty, but Megatron killing Dreadwing to save his life(One of the few living cons who could take on Optimum in a one on one fight besides Megs and Soundwave) was not only was horrible tactic decision, but Screams incompetency basically made the Decepticon's forces destroy themselves. The Autobots basically made the mercy kill.
I read through the old US Marvel run some time ago, and that series was crazy. Grimlock ran things for awhile, and then Blaster did too, iirc. Or maybe Blaster was first? I just remember the Autobots losing a video game or something and Prime's program was stored on a floppy disk, then his body was blown up. Pretty wild.
But then, Shockwave being a badass and Ratbat leading the Deceps at one point... and that Ratchet/Megatron hybrid? That comic did some pretty risky stuff compared to the show.
Blaster never fully got leadership. There was a huge power struggle between guys loyal to him and guys loyal to Grimlock , and right when they were about to settle it someone says "WTF? We're all Autobots! Optimus was a better leader than both of you" or somesuch, owning the both of them. Blaster stopped trying to be leader after that.
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EDIT: SIdenote: Beast Wars was great, arguably the best over all series (I still place it behind TF Animated, but just barely), but let's not all forget that the goofy slapstick Loony Toons shit went a very long way in undermining that.
