Sparky Prime wrote:Also the inconsistent amnesia the Maximals experience is easily explained as the amnesia itself being spotty. The virus didn’t totally wipe their memories, just punched a bunch of holes in them, leaving them with a lot of gaps. ‘s why different characters have different bits missing from their memories.
I'm sorry, but there is nothing easily explained about it at all. There's nothing spotty about their amnesia in the first episode. They talk about remembering each other, fighting the Beast Wars, even being on the way home. Really the way its set up is that the only gap in their memories is the same as what the viewers have seen and the only thing we hadn't seen was the actual trip home or how they ended up being on the run from the Vehicons back to their original bodies. Forgetting Rhinox and Silverbolt is inexplicable. They're too involved with the events from the Beast Wars for the Maximals to not remember.
The first two characters who meet each other are Primal and Rattrap on the train. To begin with, Primal doesn't say anything to the Vehicon drones--he doesn't try to talk to them. He doesn't try to tell them to stop. He doesn't do anything, he just runs away. For all we know he
doesn't remember he's a Transformer.
The way Rattrap says "Optimus?" it sounds like he literally just remembered who the hell he was. He sees Primal and suddenly some memories start flooding back. By the end of the episode, sure, he remembers Primal and Cheetor and Blackarachnia, and that maybe they fought in this thing called the Beast Wars, but he doesn't even remember that the rat body he's in at first isn't his Transmetal body. None of them seem to even acknowledge that they lost their Transmetal forms. Amnesia's screwy like that. Blackarachnia doesn't remember Silverbolt either. It's questionable how much the Maximals remember about the Beast Wars 'throughout the series.'
How is he under pressure? The whole planet is shut down for half a day and he knows it. He could take his time finding weapons anywhere else on the planet... taking them from drones... whatever. There is no reason *at all* he needs to go to Megatron and strike a deal for it.
I have seriously never even thought of this "planet shut down for half a day" thing before because it doesn't seem like it's a big point.
Also, I showed Beast Machines to my girlfriend, who has never seen Beast Wars (and possibly never will), nor Beast Machines before, and in fact hasn't seen a lot of TF in general. But I said, "This is cool, let's watch it," so we did. I had to explain some simple backstory elements ("These guys went back in time and fought on prehistoric Earth, but now they're back on Cybertron in the modern day, the end," basically) but otherwise just let it go. When The Weak Component came up, I didn't say anything. I asked her what she thought.
"That was actually cool."
"You didn't think it would be 'out of character' for Rattrap to go to Megatron, the bad guy, for weapons?"
"The furry guys were being assholes. And they've 'been' assholes to him the whole time because he can't transform, because he doesn't want to get into this stupid pseudo-mystic bullshit Primal is talking about. That whole thing is seriously kind of getting on my nerves about this show. I actually sympathize with Rattrap. Screw shooting energy out of my hands, give me a gun!"
"That's all I needed to hear."
Also! Something very few people bring up. Rattrap was CONSTANTLY talking about how he couldn't wait to get back to Cybertron in BW. He might be the most homesick of all the Maximals in the show. (I actually typed Autobots at first. Wow.) Sure, he deals with it like everybody else, but he's ALWAYS talking about Cybertron, and how great it was, and how he can't wait to get back there and look at strippers. And then he gets there, and the whole place has been shut down and taken over by Megatron, and everyone he ever knew is probably dead. Oh, and now he has to deal with Primal being a mystic for some reason and he can't just transform with a voice command like he used to, and he's a paraplegic, and everyone is giving him shit for it. That'll break anybody. (Or should I take over Earth and kill everyone you've ever known, Sparky? Would that help you sympathize with him?)