New cartoon: Robots In Disguise

No noses? No problem! Zombiebots? Sure, why not. A confusing new canon that allows loose and contradictory material? And now a new sequel show with an entirely different art style that takes place way in the future!
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Re: New cartoon: Robots In Disguise

Post by Shockwave »

BWprowl wrote:
Shockwave wrote:I think the question that needs to be asked at this point is what makes something "Transformers" to you?
Robots turnin' into stuff.
Not good enough. Seriously, that could literally be anything. You've actually just described like, at least a good 30 - 40% of everything found in a TRU. There has to be something beyond that which defines the franchise to distinguish it from everything else. Otherwise, anything could fit. Go-Bots, Voltron, Robotech... anything that involves stuff turning into other stuff. I think maybe we've hit on the problem right here...

Yeah yeah I know, GoBots already ARE officially TFs. But they weren't originally.
BWprowl wrote:
Case in point: Kevin Smith when he was writing the Superman movie. The producer wanted to make all these changes like Superman could fly, and he wan't bulletproof, and wanted to have a giant spider
The difference, at least to me, is that Superman is an individual character. That one dude, Kal-El, Clark Kent, the man from Krypton, he's Superman the brand name, the idea, the concept (and hey, even within that we still get crazy alt-universe iterations like Red Son).

Transformers though, simply refers to The Transformers: Those cool shape-changin' robots from Cybertron. The focus of the given fiction could be *any* of them, from any of the dozens of different factions they've used in the past, or brand-new ones created set by that precedent, transforming and changing in unique, interesting new ways. *That's* the beauty of the franchise, not its ability to show us Bumblebee turning into a car, *again*.
The analogy is still valid. There are certain things that define each franchise as being that franchise rather than any of the hundreds of clones that inevitably come out. There are things about Superman that make him Superman and not Thor. There are things that distinguish Transformers and actually Transformers and not just "that thing with the robots". This is where it's carried by the specific characters and settings.

Dozens? You mean all 6? I'd hardly call that dozens: Autobots/Decepticons, Maximal/Predicon/Vehicon, Minicon, Predacon. And, only the last two of those weren't just offshoots of the original two.
BWprowl wrote:
In the case of TF, that means at least a few familiar characters and Autobots vs. Decepticons.
Beast Wars. Beast Machines. RiD.
All of which still referrenced those familiar characters and factions.
BWprowl wrote:
At least with this new show it sounds like we'll get mostly new characters.
We've only seen the three main characters at this point, and already two of them are overused jackasses in generic form, and the other is also a previous character rehashed as a tired cartoon element no one likes anyway! Make a point of using a forgettable Micromaster then turn him into the TF version of Orco? Yeah, this'll be great.
I'll agree that the archetypes listed do make it sound like it'll suck, but I'm still gonna give it a chance.
BWprowl wrote:
And how exactly did you get "Kicked in the balls" with Prime?
By it being a shitty show? My initial distaste with TFPrime had little to do with its pedestrian setup and character choices, and mostly to do with its awful writing and general poor quality.
That gave us all sorts of new characters, especially near the end with Beast Hunters giving is all new characters and alt modes we'd never seen before, even having their own faction!
Admittedly, Beast Hunters was everything I wanted in a toyline for a while, a pity it barely lasted a quarter of a year. But yeah, I bought almost all the Predacons and loved the shit out of them, I've still got them lined up on my shelf.

This is mostly with regards to the cartoons and the prospective quality thereof, though, and I'm not watching through the rest of TFPrime (I gave up after about a dozen episodes) just to get to the Beast Hunters portion which, from what I understand, doesn't even feature any of those Predacons save Predaking.
Well if all you saw was the first 12 episodes of season 1, then no wonder you feel kicked in the balls. I did the same thing with Armada and everyone keeps telling me I should go back and watch the rest of it. I got to the like, the 4th episode? The one where Optimus refers to his minicon as Leader-1 and the very next line of dialogue is not a second later Megatron also referring to his minicon as Leader-1. I was done after that.
BWprowl wrote:
And this picks up from that, so hey, that right there already opens the door for them to have more factions besides Autobots and Decepticons.
Then why aren't they talking about that in the promo instead of just telling us "Bumblebee and his Autobots fighting Decepticons. *Yawn*"?
They probably can't. Information about upcoming entertainment (movies, tv, games, etc...) is usually kept under huge wraps until it's released. You'll notice they haven't even given us a list of Decepticons yet.
BWprowl wrote:
Prime really did at some points deliver in the new and different dept and really did have some interesting high points.
There was very little new or different about TFPrime. The initial setup was cribbed wholesale from Armada (Three kids with the Autobots in an underground base with a bridge system that can teleport them anywhere in the world as they go on a global search for macguffins) and all of the characters were rehashed idiomatic versions of previous ones, most pulled from G1. Knockout was the one interesting one I saw before I quit watching, and while I enjoyed his inclusion, it wasn't enough to stop the rest of the show from being a boring, poorly-written slog of a series that I just couldn't bring myself to continue.
Well yeah, for the only 12 episodes that you watched. Although I wouldn't blame you for not watching the rest of it, I never went back and watched Armada.
BWprowl wrote:
Sure, it had it's low points too, but I personally would rather focus on the positive. I'd rather be an Optimist Prime. If you wanna be a Negatron, so be it.
Like I said, I *wanted* to be positive about this initially. When we saw that first promo, that made it look like we might be getting a show set on Cybertron for the first time in a while? "Well that's something, at least" I thought. Maybe with the Decepticons theoretically taken care of, Bumblebee and a host of new, interesting characters would have to act as a security/police force for rogue Autobots or something, that could be cool. But then we get this: Bumblebee and Jerkswipe and R.O.B. on Earth fighting Decepticons. Whatever.
This kind of circles back to the first thing. Your definition of what makes "Transformers" "Transformers" is too broad. Transformers isn't just "Robots turn into stuff". It's "2 factions of alien robots at war, in disguise on Earth". That's what distinguishes TF from "random robot franchise". This was something that we had to deal with in the early days of G1, when Transformers was so popular that eveybody and their dog was trying to copy it and the only thing that made actual TFs stand out from every other clone of it was the characters settings and factions. If it didn't have an Autobot or Decepticon logo, it was a knock off to be ignored. And the Earth disguise thing is what captured our imaginations back then. That sense of wonder of suddenly looking around and considering that any piece of technology could be a sentient living thing hiding in plain sight was astonishing. Without these elements, or at least some referrence to them, you don't have Transformers, you have some crappy knock off.
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Re: New cartoon: Robots In Disguise

Post by BWprowl »

Shockwave wrote:Not good enough. Seriously, that could literally be anything. You've actually just described like, at least a good 30 - 40% of everything found in a TRU. There has to be something beyond that which defines the franchise to distinguish it from everything else. Otherwise, anything could fit. Go-Bots, Voltron, Robotech... anything that involves stuff turning into other stuff. I think maybe we've hit on the problem right here...
Just as a side-note, I’ve never gotten the Voltron/TF comparison any more than I’ve understood a Zoids/TF comparison. Voltron is mechanical animals combining into a single robot, there’s no ‘transformation’ involved. What’s cool about TF is the singular objects/altmodes themselves turning into their own robots.

That said, I do just greatly enjoy transforming robots on a general level. It’s one reason I love Super Sentai series Go-Busters, it’s one reason I dug Dino-Zone/DinoZaurs back in the day, and it’s why I bought a VooV Patrol Gattai Guardian Robo despite knowing nothing about whatever source material that thing may have (cars turning into other cars combining into a big robot? Hell yeah.)

Thing is, no one else really does transformin’ robots the way Hasbro does, and they certainly don’t pump out fiction showing and relating to transformin’ robots on the level they do.
Yeah yeah I know, GoBots already ARE officially TFs. But they weren't originally.
The thing about Go-Bots is they were just *such* a transparent rip-off of TF that it’s not hard to see why people eschewed them and just went for the real deal. If Go-Bots had had any originality to it, had been its own thing, instead of trying to beat Hasbro and TF at their own game, maybe it would have had more of a chance. As it was, it was more like all those other MMOs that tried to knock off World of Warcraft by…just making slightly tweaked versions of World of Warcraft.
The analogy is still valid. There are certain things that define each franchise as being that franchise rather than any of the hundreds of clones that inevitably come out. There are things about Superman that make him Superman and not Thor. There are things that distinguish Transformers and actually Transformers and not just "that thing with the robots". This is where it's carried by the specific characters and settings.
I suppose if you twisted my arm I could clarify that Transformers to me should also be ‘Robots from Cybertron turnin’ into stuff’, but even that’s pushing it; I loved the recent Mini-Con pack predicated largely on the fact that they were TFs who *weren’t* Cybertronian. Really, I just like ‘em for being ‘Robots turning into stuff made by Hasbro and Takara, because damn, those guys do some cool robots turnin’ into stuff’.
Dozens? You mean all 6? I'd hardly call that dozens: Autobots/Decepticons, Maximal/Predicon/Vehicon, Minicon, Predacon. And, only the last two of those weren't just offshoots of the original two.
BWprowl wrote:
In the case of TF, that means at least a few familiar characters and Autobots vs. Decepticons.
Beast Wars. Beast Machines. RiD.
All of which still referrenced those familiar characters and factions.
And that’s *fine*. Reference the past. Hell, that actually makes it *cooler*, since it’s presented as an ‘evolution’ of the previous material and genuinely makes the setting feel like it’s moving forward instead of stuck in the same place. When BW jumped to BM, the Maximals as a faction were changed into more of a freedom fighter group, complete with an overhauled symbol, and fought new baddies in the Vehicons. TFRID is a similar jump to the BW/BM one, so is there some reason that Bumblebee’s ‘Autobots’ couldn’t be a newly-assigned task force with their own new faction symbol fighting some *other* new bad guy faction on Earth?

There’s nothing wrong with keeping old characters/factions/settings as part of the continuity if they’re already there in the past, but I’d prefer if they did the BW/BM thing and moved *past* them and introduced us to brand new stuff with each iteration. TFRID right now just looks like TFPrime Season 4 rather than BRAND NEW TF CARTOON.
Well if all you saw was the first 12 episodes of season 1, then no wonder you feel kicked in the balls. I did the same thing with Armada and everyone keeps telling me I should go back and watch the rest of it. I got to the like, the 4th episode? The one where Optimus refers to his minicon as Leader-1 and the very next line of dialogue is not a second later Megatron also referring to his minicon as Leader-1. I was done after that.
What? 12 episodes is a crapload. That’s a full cours, a quarter-year of show. That should be plenty of time for a series to come into its own and stop sucking. And despite that possibility, I still skimmed reviews of episodes here, and the same problems with crappy writing and bland storytelling persisted all the way through the show, so. Also, I just checked, and I actually watched 15 episodes of TFPrime. Fifteen! If I got that far in and couldn’t find anything to hook me, I don’t think it was for lack of trying on my part.
They probably can't. Information about upcoming entertainment (movies, tv, games, etc...) is usually kept under huge wraps until it's released. You'll notice they haven't even given us a list of Decepticons yet.
At the very least, most of the ‘classic’ Decepticons being used and dead and gone in TFPrime means we’ve got a glimmer of hope that some new faces might be appearing in TFRID. But…they’re still just going to be Decepticons on Earth, being fought by Autobots. Imagine if they’d name-checked a brand-new faction name in that blurb instead: our imaginations would immediately fire up with the possibilities about what crazy new stuff we could expect from this show. As it is now? We’re pretty much checking off which old guys were used up in TFPrime already to figure out what slightly-less-old guys they can still re-use in the new show. Far less interesting.
This kind of circles back to the first thing. Your definition of what makes "Transformers" "Transformers" is too broad. Transformers isn't just "Robots turn into stuff". It's "2 factions of alien robots at war, in disguise on Earth". That's what distinguishes TF from "random robot franchise". This was something that we had to deal with in the early days of G1, when Transformers was so popular that eveybody and their dog was trying to copy it and the only thing that made actual TFs stand out from every other clone of it was the characters settings and factions. If it didn't have an Autobot or Decepticon logo, it was a knock off to be ignored.
So are Beast Wars and Beast Machines cheap knockoffs? What about the current IDW comics, which completely overturned the faction dynamics and stayed away from fighting on Earth for years, are they cheap knockoffs?

The way you’re positing it, it’s like if every single Power Rangers series HAD to use Dinosaur-themed mecha, and HAD to star versions of Jason, Trini, Billy, Kimberly, and Zack. Every single version, for twenty years. Or if every Star Trek series HAD to star Kirk, Spock, Uhuru, Sulu, and them on the original Enterprise. Holy crap! Is The Next Generation just a crappy knock off because it seems to think that what Star Trek is is “People from the Federation exploring space” without being constantly bound by the original characters and setting?
And the Earth disguise thing is what captured our imaginations back then. That sense of wonder of suddenly looking around and considering that any piece of technology could be a sentient living thing hiding in plain sight was astonishing. Without these elements, or at least some referrence to them, you don't have Transformers, you have some crappy knock off.
It’s what captured your imaginations ‘back then’. Is it still ‘astonishing’ now, even after thirty years? Beast Wars felt the need to twist and reinvent and reinvigorate the concept after barely ten years, and did gangbusters for it! Because you wanna talk about what was astonishing, what captured *my* imagination?

“Transformers are cars and planes turning into robots on Earth!”
“Now they’re realistic animals!”
“Now they’re robotic animals with organic robots modes, and hybrid/fusion animals!”
“Now they’re freaky cyborgs!”
“Now they’re technoorganic animals fighting alien vehicles on their home planet!”
“Now they’re a secret Autobot force fighting Predacons in Japan!”

You see what I mean? Transformers could be *anything*! That’s what was great about it, that’s what captured my imagination growing up, that’s what I’d love to see them do again, and that’s why this is at least the seventh or eighth time I’ve given this stupid annoying speech, this time at least because you specifically asked me about it. And that’s why, try as I might, I just can’t get excited or even positive about Bumblebots Battling Bad Guys.
Last edited by BWprowl on Mon Jun 16, 2014 4:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: New cartoon: Robots In Disguise

Post by Sparky Prime »

138 Scourge wrote:And I like that it looks like more cel animation and not bad CGI.
I don't think the cel animation is going to be the finalized animation used for the cartoon. It was previously reported from a member of the production team, when the first image of Bumblebee showed up, that it wasn't a good representation of what the designs will look like when they're "fully fleshed out". And a few days ago, the CEO of Polygon Pictures (the company that made the CGI for TF:Prime) said they're working on the new project. So I think we can expect the new cartoon will be CGI similar to TF: Prime.


Anyway, I can't say I'm all that optimistic about the new series myself. With TF:Prime ending on the revitalization of Cybertron and the end of the war, I was hoping they would take the series in a new direction with the new series, show some of the conflicts and hardships of bringing the splintered Cybertronian race back together. Unfortunately, it sounds like it'll just be more of the same conflict on Earth. What's the point for the "new faction of Decepticons" to attack Earth? It better not be because of some MacGuffin, because Prime already did that to death.
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Re: New cartoon: Robots In Disguise

Post by Shockwave »

BWprowl wrote:
Shockwave wrote:Not good enough. Seriously, that could literally be anything. You've actually just described like, at least a good 30 - 40% of everything found in a TRU. There has to be something beyond that which defines the franchise to distinguish it from everything else. Otherwise, anything could fit. Go-Bots, Voltron, Robotech... anything that involves stuff turning into other stuff. I think maybe we've hit on the problem right here...
Just as a side-note, I’ve never gotten the Voltron/TF comparison any more than I’ve understood a Zoids/TF comparison. Voltron is mechanical animals combining into a single robot, there’s no ‘transformation’ involved. What’s cool about TF is the singular objects/altmodes themselves turning into their own robots.

That said, I do just greatly enjoy transforming robots on a general level. It’s one reason I love Super Sentai series Go-Busters, it’s one reason I dug Dino-Zone/DinoZaurs back in the day, and it’s why I bought a VooV Patrol Gattai Guardian Robo despite knowing nothing about whatever source material that thing may have (cars turning into other cars combining into a big robot? Hell yeah.)

Thing is, no one else really does transformin’ robots the way Hasbro does, and they certainly don’t pump out fiction showing and relating to transformin’ robots on the level they do.
Yeah yeah I know, GoBots already ARE officially TFs. But they weren't originally.
The thing about Go-Bots is they were just *such* a transparent rip-off of TF that it’s not hard to see why people eschewed them and just went for the real deal. If Go-Bots had had any originality to it, had been its own thing, instead of trying to beat Hasbro and TF at their own game, maybe it would have had more of a chance. As it was, it was more like all those other MMOs that tried to knock off World of Warcraft by…just making slightly tweaked versions of World of Warcraft.
The analogy is still valid. There are certain things that define each franchise as being that franchise rather than any of the hundreds of clones that inevitably come out. There are things about Superman that make him Superman and not Thor. There are things that distinguish Transformers and actually Transformers and not just "that thing with the robots". This is where it's carried by the specific characters and settings.
I suppose if you twisted my arm I could clarify that Transformers to me should also be ‘Robots from Cybertron turnin’ into stuff’, but even that’s pushing it; I loved the recent Mini-Con pack predicated largely on the fact that they were TFs who *weren’t* Cybertronian. Really, I just like ‘em for being ‘Robots turning into stuff made by Hasbro and Takara, because damn, those guys do some cool robots turnin’ into stuff’.
Dozens? You mean all 6? I'd hardly call that dozens: Autobots/Decepticons, Maximal/Predicon/Vehicon, Minicon, Predacon. And, only the last two of those weren't just offshoots of the original two.
BWprowl wrote:
In the case of TF, that means at least a few familiar characters and Autobots vs. Decepticons.
Beast Wars. Beast Machines. RiD.
All of which still referrenced those familiar characters and factions.
And that’s *fine*. Reference the past. Hell, that actually makes it *cooler*, since it’s presented as an ‘evolution’ of the previous material and genuinely makes the setting feel like it’s moving forward instead of stuck in the same place. When BW jumped to BM, the Maximals as a faction were changed into more of a freedom fighter group, complete with an overhauled symbol, and fought new baddies in the Vehicons. TFRID is a similar jump to the BW/BM one, so is there some reason that Bumblebee’s ‘Autobots’ couldn’t be a newly-assigned task force with their own new faction symbol fighting some *other* new bad guy faction on Earth?

There’s nothing wrong with keeping old characters/factions/settings as part of the continuity if they’re already there in the past, but I’d prefer if they did the BW/BM thing and moved *past* them and introduced us to brand new stuff with each iteration. TFRID right now just looks like TFPrime Season 4 rather than BRAND NEW TF CARTOON.
Well if all you saw was the first 12 episodes of season 1, then no wonder you feel kicked in the balls. I did the same thing with Armada and everyone keeps telling me I should go back and watch the rest of it. I got to the like, the 4th episode? The one where Optimus refers to his minicon as Leader-1 and the very next line of dialogue is not a second later Megatron also referring to his minicon as Leader-1. I was done after that.
What? 12 episodes is a crapload. That’s a full cours, a quarter-year of show. That should be plenty of time for a series to come into its own and stop sucking. And despite that possibility, I still skimmed reviews of episodes here, and the same problems with crappy writing and bland storytelling persisted all the way through the show, so. Also, I just checked, and I actually watched 15 episodes of TFPrime. Fifteen! If I got that far in and couldn’t find anything to hook me, I don’t think it was for lack of trying on my part.
They probably can't. Information about upcoming entertainment (movies, tv, games, etc...) is usually kept under huge wraps until it's released. You'll notice they haven't even given us a list of Decepticons yet.
At the very least, most of the ‘classic’ Decepticons being used and dead and gone in TFPrime means we’ve got a glimmer of hope that some new faces might be appearing in TFRID. But…they’re still just going to be Decepticons on Earth, being fought by Autobots. Imagine if they’d name-checked a brand-new faction name in that blurb instead: our imaginations would immediately fire up with the possibilities about what crazy new stuff we could expect from this show. As it is now? We’re pretty much checking off which old guys were used up in TFPrime already to figure out what slightly-less-old guys they can still re-use in the new show. Far less interesting.
This kind of circles back to the first thing. Your definition of what makes "Transformers" "Transformers" is too broad. Transformers isn't just "Robots turn into stuff". It's "2 factions of alien robots at war, in disguise on Earth". That's what distinguishes TF from "random robot franchise". This was something that we had to deal with in the early days of G1, when Transformers was so popular that eveybody and their dog was trying to copy it and the only thing that made actual TFs stand out from every other clone of it was the characters settings and factions. If it didn't have an Autobot or Decepticon logo, it was a knock off to be ignored.
So are Beast Wars and Beast Machines cheap knockoffs? What about the current IDW comics, which completely overturned the faction dynamics and stayed away from fighting on Earth for years, are they cheap knockoffs?

The way you’re positing it, it’s like if every single Power Rangers series HAD to use Dinosaur-themed mecha, and HAD to star versions of Jason, Trini, Billy, Kimberly, and Zack. Every single version, for twenty years. Or if every Star Trek series HAD to star Kirk, Spock, Uhuru, Sulu, and them on the original Enterprise. Holy crap! Is The Next Generation just a crappy knock off because it seems to think that what Star Trek is is “People from the Federation exploring space” without being constantly bound by the original characters and setting?
And the Earth disguise thing is what captured our imaginations back then. That sense of wonder of suddenly looking around and considering that any piece of technology could be a sentient living thing hiding in plain sight was astonishing. Without these elements, or at least some referrence to them, you don't have Transformers, you have some crappy knock off.
It’s what captured your imaginations ‘back then’. Is it still ‘astonishing’ now, even after thirty years? Beast Wars felt the need to twist and reinvent and reinvigorate the concept after barely ten years, and did gangbusters for it! Because you wanna talk about what was astonishing, what captured *my* imagination?

“Transformers are cars and planes turning into robots on Earth!”
“Now they’re realistic animals!”
“Now they’re robotic animals with organic robots modes, and hybrid/fusion animals!”
“Now they’re freaky cyborgs!”
“Now they’re technoorganic animals fighting alien vehicles on their home planet!”
“Now they’re a secret Autobot force fighting Predacons in Japan!”

You see what I mean? Transformers could be *anything*! That’s what was great about it, that’s what captured my imagination growing up, that’s what I’d love to see them do again, and that’s why this is at least the seventh or eighth time I’ve given this stupid annoying speech, this time at least because you specifically asked me about it. And that’s why, try as I might, I just can’t get excited or even positive about Bumblebots Battling Bad Guys.
Oooooh, ok.
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Re: New cartoon: Robots In Disguise

Post by Shockwave »

Ok. So apparently I'm old. As in, I've just realized that TF has evolved to the point where it can mean different things to different people. And apparently that's the main disconnect here. To me, Transformers is Autobot vs. Decepticons. Why does it have to have that? Well, it all has to do with a little known tidbit about the origin of rubsigns. You might think of rubsigns as a silly gimmick they were trying back in G1. Not so. Rubsigns were originally created by Hasbro as a means of combating the endless glut of knock off other lines of "robots turning into stuff". Yes, you read that right. There were so many other companies trying to knock off Transformers that Hasbro actually created an on toy gimmick and a lot of advertising to combat the issue. So, for several years from 85 and beyond of constantly being told by Hasbro that Transformers is Autobots vs. Decepticons and if it's not, it's not Transformers, it's hard to get out of that mindset.

What I got out of that post was that it's a whole different experience for people that got into it with BW or later. BW had different factions and characters from before and they looked different as well. And, by then, almost all of the knock off competition was gone so Hasbro didn't feel like they needed to compete the brand as hard as they did in the beginning. In fact, they felt this relief to the point that they actually handed the brand off to Kenner, who had previously been making one of the very knock offs they were fighting against (Go-Bots). This freed up the use of or creation of new factions. Then, after that, it just kept going. There was a new version every year/two or so years so things kept changing. So it becomes this experience of being "that thing with the robots that's always been there and will always be there". This is a huge contrast to the experience during the first decade where we were beaten over the head with two factions only to have the franchise effectively die 5 years in. Yeah, there were still toys being produced but they took up such a small section of the toy aisle that it was obviously in it's death throes. The comics and cartoons were over in 88 and it wasn't until 1992 that there was any new material. And even that was short lived. Sure, BW started in 1996, but without the internet to really boost that knowledge, hardly any of the fan base actually knew that. I certainly didn't. I didn't come back to it until just happened upon it by accident one day in 1999. And even then, I wasn't 100% sure that what I was watching was actually Transformers. It wasn't until I saw "The Agenda" that I realized it was in fact, a new version of TF. It was at that point that I'd realized that my favorite robots were back and that I'd been missing out.

Anyway, I don't know where I'm really going with this, and I'm horribly off topic at this point, but it's just some interesting comparisons to our two experiences. Sorry for making you repeat yourself, but at least this time you can take some comfort that your point and perspective finally got through. I really do appreciate you answering the question in spite of it being the bajillionth time I've asked. I'll leave it alone from here on out.
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Re: New cartoon: Robots In Disguise

Post by Tigermegatron »

I think this newer TF cartoon series will be epic terrible. Can't say,I care much,won't lose any sleep cuz of it. To be quite honest,I always lower my epectations for any TF cartoon series,As I think most of them are terrible.

I'm in it for the TF toys and not the media. As long as their is some decent designed newer TF toys in this 2015 Rid toy line. Then I'll be a happy camper.
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Re: New cartoon: Robots In Disguise

Post by JediTricks »

BWprowl wrote:
Yeah yeah I know, GoBots already ARE officially TFs. But they weren't originally.
The thing about Go-Bots is they were just *such* a transparent rip-off of TF that it’s not hard to see why people eschewed them and just went for the real deal. If Go-Bots had had any originality to it, had been its own thing, instead of trying to beat Hasbro and TF at their own game, maybe it would have had more of a chance. As it was, it was more like all those other MMOs that tried to knock off World of Warcraft by…just making slightly tweaked versions of World of Warcraft.
GoBots came out in 1983, many months before TF. And until the fiction started coming down the pike for both, GoBots had the lead in popularity and sales in the US. (I can't speak to Machine Robo vs Diaclone/Microman sales in Japan though.)

Shockwave wrote:Ok. So apparently I'm old. As in, I've just realized that TF has evolved to the point where it can mean different things to different people. And apparently that's the main disconnect here. To me, Transformers is Autobot vs. Decepticons. Why does it have to have that? Well, it all has to do with a little known tidbit about the origin of rubsigns. You might think of rubsigns as a silly gimmick they were trying back in G1. Not so. Rubsigns were originally created by Hasbro as a means of combating the endless glut of knock off other lines of "robots turning into stuff". Yes, you read that right. There were so many other companies trying to knock off Transformers that Hasbro actually created an on toy gimmick and a lot of advertising to combat the issue. So, for several years from 85 and beyond of constantly being told by Hasbro that Transformers is Autobots vs. Decepticons and if it's not, it's not Transformers, it's hard to get out of that mindset.
Just to clarify, these "knock offs" weren't actually knockoffs usually, they were other companies who ALSO licensed the Japanese Diaclone, Microman, Dorvack, and other molds that made up the US Tranformers line. Look at Shockwave, Hasbro was actually doing a "knock off" by using that mold, they weren't the first... actually, they weren't the first to even bring the Autobot cars to the US, they were doing a knock off of those toys since Takara themselves released them in the US a few months prior and got no traction. Why? Because, as you said, no fiction to drive interest. The fiction of Autobots vs Decepticons, of Optimus Prime vs Megatron, that's the core of what drove Transformers. It's not a "mindset", that fiction is what makes the brand.
What I got out of that post was that it's a whole different experience for people that got into it with BW or later. BW had different factions and characters from before and they looked different as well. And, by then, almost all of the knock off competition was gone so Hasbro didn't feel like they needed to compete the brand as hard as they did in the beginning. In fact, they felt this relief to the point that they actually handed the brand off to Kenner, who had previously been making one of the very knock offs they were fighting against (Go-Bots). This freed up the use of or creation of new factions. Then, after that, it just kept going. There was a new version every year/two or so years so things kept changing. So it becomes this experience of being "that thing with the robots that's always been there and will always be there". This is a huge contrast to the experience during the first decade where we were beaten over the head with two factions only to have the franchise effectively die 5 years in. Yeah, there were still toys being produced but they took up such a small section of the toy aisle that it was obviously in it's death throes. The comics and cartoons were over in 88 and it wasn't until 1992 that there was any new material. And even that was short lived. Sure, BW started in 1996, but without the internet to really boost that knowledge, hardly any of the fan base actually knew that. I certainly didn't. I didn't come back to it until just happened upon it by accident one day in 1999. And even then, I wasn't 100% sure that what I was watching was actually Transformers. It wasn't until I saw "The Agenda" that I realized it was in fact, a new version of TF. It was at that point that I'd realized that my favorite robots were back and that I'd been missing out.
You're leaving out G2, which tried to rebrand by changing the faction logos. But what makes Star Trek: The Next Generation a piece of Star Trek instead of being any old thing isn't the name, it's the common threads both visual and storytelling which drive it - the factions may be a different name, but what drives them still is what matters. Like TF, there were points where Star Trek seemed to be dead and forgotten only to return, and like Transformers Paramount is ruining the franchise with awful movies that are loud explosion-fests with no soul. ;)
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See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
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Sparky Prime
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Re: New cartoon: Robots In Disguise

Post by Sparky Prime »

The preview video that was shown at SDCC has been posted on the Transformers Facebook page, in all it's dubstepyness. Appears that the show will use cell shaded CGI animation. Not a bad look but I have to say I preferred the higher detailed look of fully CGI models of TFPrime.
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BWprowl
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Re: New cartoon: Robots In Disguise

Post by BWprowl »

Why does the song sound like a dumbed-down version of Prodigy's Invaders Must Die?

Anyway, I...actually kinda like the animation. It's got that slick, "3D-as-2D" thing that I'm seeing/loving in the new Guilty Gear, and doesn't feel as...processed as TFPrime. There's at least a smidge of style to it. Also, looking at the title logo as well as the new toys they showed off, the Autobot symbol DID receive a tweak for this team, with that red/white ring around it, so that's something! So...looking a little better. Strongarm looks cool too.
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Almighty Unicron
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Re: New cartoon: Robots In Disguise

Post by Almighty Unicron »

BWprowl wrote:Why does the song sound like a dumbed-down version of Prodigy's Invaders Must Die?

Anyway, I...actually kinda like the animation. It's got that slick, "3D-as-2D" thing that I'm seeing/loving in the new Guilty Gear, and doesn't feel as...processed as TFPrime. There's at least a smidge of style to it. Also, looking at the title logo as well as the new toys they showed off, the Autobot symbol DID receive a tweak for this team, with that red/white ring around it, so that's something! So...looking a little better. Strongarm looks cool too.
Did I write this post? That's exactly how I felt, from the serial numbers filed off version of Invaders to actually liking the style (though not Sideswipe's "hair")

EDIT: Though another thing I don't like is how fucking BEEFY Bumblebee looks. For fuck's sake, he's called Bumblebee because he's yellow and small. I get this is an older portrayal of the character, but fuck, the dude looks like he's been bench pressing jumbo jets or something. He should still be a little weedy, n'est pas?
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