ALL THINGS TRANSFORMERS!!!!

[DPrime]

Murderer Prime is something I could never accept. And I'm not sure what Bay's real statement is after all that. He seems to suggest that the Transformers are conscious/sentient creatures, and as such, should be held to a similar moral standard of humans. But murdering an unarmed, non-threatening defeated foe is pretty damn abhorrent when done by humans. I guess you could justify it as Prime being from a different, more savage culture, but then should he still be portrayed as genuinely heroic, as the musical theme and reactions of other characters suggests? I think I posted this before, but if the theme turned threatening and sour after Prime did these things, and if the humans looked on in shock and horror, then OK, I get it. But that's not what happened. Everyone acted like all was right in the world, and that Prime was justified/heroic/not a psychopath.

Sometimes heroes make mistakes? Especially when emotions are running high, during war, etc. It could be argued that his acts made him more "human", especially since Primes are supposed to be held to a much higher moral standard than that.

Not that I think Bay even remotely thought this through. He probably just thought audiences would think it's "cool". It would be an interesting thing to explore with a more thoughtful, creative director at the helm.

 

[karamazov80]

If a hero makes the mistake of committing wanton murder, particularly on more than one occasion, then I would question the heroic nature of this individual personally. Being a flawed human who does abhorrent things in times of stress does not a hero make. But yeah, I'm sure Bay didn't think that through any further than "would be cool if Primed just murdered his ***. The kids will love it!" These movies are meant to target kids, right?

 

[soundwave]

Thanks Neil, it's nice to be back!

Sounds like you're having mixed luck with the tapes, maybe you could ask your folks for the Mech Ideas Wrecking Crue instead?

No worries buddy...place wasn't the same without you

Lol tell me about it...just been browsing Kapow & wrecking Crue could be an idea...although I could go off kilter & get the FP Stunticons or one of the Reformatted Predacons

Tough choices ahead

Sometimes heroes make mistakes? Especially when emotions are running high, during war, etc. It could be argued that his acts made him more "human", especially since Primes are supposed to be held to a much higher moral standard than that.

Not that I think Bay even remotely thought this through. He probably just thought audiences would think it's "cool". It would be an interesting thing to explore with a more thoughtful, creative director at the helm.

This would be a very interesting idea to follow through...they could in all fairness take the approach that IDW did with the "For All Mankind" Graphic Novel for the next movies & have Prime realise what he did & hand himself in to be held accountable for his actions against the Decepticons & the collateral damage caused by the war.

Unfortunately that would then play into his hands for being a human interest piece & even less giant robots.

I do feel it was misplaced for Prime though as mentioned it's almost like having Superman kill Lex Luthor or Batman killing crooks it's just so totally against the grain & should never have been allowed to happen.

Neil

 

[karamazov80]

Killing Luthor was what led to Superman becoming a fascist dictator in the JLU cartoon's alternate reality.

 

[soundwave]

Killing Luthor was what led to Superman becoming a fascist dictator in the JLU cartoon's alternate reality.

I forgot about that...he also lobotomized Doomsday didn't he??

So we could see a fascist Prime in the next installments then

 

[thecorsair]

A dodgy cartoon from the 80's did a much better job of giving the Transformers their own individual personalities than Bay ever will.

Bay's answer to characterisation for the natives of Cybertron is to turn the "badass" up to 11 or just not have them speak at all.

Having an Autobot kill a defenceless prisoner is not unheard of as Impactor took out the whole of Squadron X in an IDW storyline.

The difference from Bayformers Prime being that Impactor suffered consequences for his actions and I don't think he's ever been like Prime in his moral approach....as leader of the Wreckers he did whatever he thought necessary to accomplish the mission goals.

soundwave,
I'd go for a Predacon as official MP Stunticons may seem unlikely now I don't think their chances can be written off entirely.... there's already some talk that Breakdown is under consideration so if Takara make him it's reasonable to assume they'll get the others done as 3D models in case the other licenses can be obtained at a later date.

If you like the FP ones enough then go for them as whilst not my cup of tea they look decent enough, but if you prefer the G1 alt modes and only want one set of Stunticons it would perhaps be better to wait and see.

Given the engineering seen on Soundwave's tapes it would be intresting to see Takara tackle a challenge like Motormaster as it'd be an MP10 sized truck with a trailer that was part of the robot mode and have the combiner features as well!

No mean feat, but after seeing what Takara did with Laserbeak I wouldn't bet against them, they may even wait for FP's Motormaster to be revealed and get a few ideas.

 

[DPrime]

If a hero makes the mistake of committing wanton murder, particularly on more than one occasion, then I would question the heroic nature of this individual personally. Being a flawed human who does abhorrent things in times of stress does not a hero make. But yeah, I'm sure Bay didn't think that through any further than "would be cool if Primed just murdered his ***. The kids will love it!" These movies are meant to target kids, right?

Being in the military and having deployed to a war zone, I'm not so sure that's the case.

Emotion runs high in combat. I've been lucky enough not to have been involved in a direct fire situation but I do know that good people - even heroes - do bad things under those circumstances. Do I condone it? Absolutely not... but it's certainly not a clear cut situation, and it would be interesting to explore given that the back ground of a pretty much eternal war between the Autobots and Decepticons...

Anyway, in the end, we're both right - Bay sucks.

Funny thing, though, when I asked my friend's kid - who's a big Transformers fan (he buys him vintage and high-quality KOs of G1 toys from China) - what his favourite part in the movie was, that was it. So go figure.

 

[karamazov80]

It is much easier for me to make those judgments having never been in that kind of situation, so I will defer to you on that one DPrime. I do know that no human being is free from sin, even the most heroic that we know of. But if Bay did want to make that kind of argument with Prime, he would need to provide a ****load of dramatic explanation and defense, I think. Otherwise, it just seems as if Prime is off his rocker.

 

[DPrime]

A dodgy cartoon from the 80's did a much better job of giving the Transformers their own individual personalities than Bay ever will.

Heh, so true.

The difference from Bayformers Prime being that Impactor suffered consequences for his actions...

I don't want to get TOO political here but I think that we have to make a comparison to real life here - what about the guy(s) who killed Osama bin Laden?

I'm not asking the question to get a response, really - after all, I don't want to make this a political thread - but it does make the decision to have Optimus kill Megatron in cold blood a bit more interesting, given the context of the times in which we live...

 

[DPrime]

... if Bay did want to make that kind of argument with Prime, he would need to provide a ****load of dramatic explanation and defense, I think. Otherwise, it just seems as if Prime is off his rocker.

Unfortunately, Bay is either incapable or unwilling to put that sort of effort into his films.

 

[karamazov80]

I'm not asking the question to get a response, really - after all, I don't want to make this a political thread - but it does make the decision to have Optimus kill Megatron in cold blood a bit more interesting, given the context of the times in which we live...

Without being political, I think this is a very good point.

 

[Kuzeh]

What?
Prime killed Megatron in cold blood?
I'm glad I didn't watch that travesty... that's why I insist on him completely missing the mark about what TFormers is supposed to be about... ugh...

 

[Silent Bob]

I don't want to get TOO political here but I think that we have to make a comparison to real life here - what about the guy(s) who killed Osama bin Laden?

I'm not asking the question to get a response, really - after all, I don't want to make this a political thread - but it does make the decision to have Optimus kill Megatron in cold blood a bit more interesting, given the context of the times in which we live...

That is a really good point and TBH I didn't have such an issue with Prime killing Megatron. I can see Prime taking down Megatron as it could potentially stop the whole war. One life to save countless others. I mean even in the 86 movie he indicated he was willing to finish Megs for that very reason. He would feel bad but the greater good and all that.

My real issue was where he blows the head off an unarmed and restrained Decepticon prisoner. Just not something Prime would do IMO

The real problem was that he basically had a split personality. One moment he was trotting out lines about freedom being the right of all sentient beings and compassion. The next he was screaming "give me your face". “Optimus Dread” is something I hope we never see again.

On another nicer note (ie not Bay related) A new blacked out image of MP Prowl has been released and the full reveal will be next week

Bob

 

[thecorsair]

Heh, so true.



I don't want to get TOO political here but I think that we have to make a comparison to real life here - what about the guy(s) who killed Osama bin Laden?

I'm not asking the question to get a response, really - after all, I don't want to make this a political thread - but it does make the decision to have Optimus kill Megatron in cold blood a bit more interesting, given the context of the times in which we live...

Intresting point. I'm assuming the guys who took out Bin Laden were acting under orders whereas Impactor....went into business for himself.

I take it Prime killed Megatron in DOTM? ( I gave up after ROTF )

Silent Bob,
Great news on the Prowl reveal, even blacked out it looks nicer than any Bayformer

 

[DPrime]

On another nicer note (ie not Bay related) A new blacked out image of MP Prowl has been released and the full reveal will be next week

Bob

^^^ SWEET!!!

It's funny though. I'm almost looking forward to seeing Smokescreen and Bluestreak more, I think. Prowl's my favourite of the three but I'm certain he'll be great - the others will be really good too, no doubt, but I wonder how much will be remolded...

 

[Silent Bob]

Intresting point. I'm assuming the guys who took out Bin Laden were acting under orders whereas Impactor....went into business for himself.

I take it Prime killed Megatron in DOTM? ( I gave up after ROTF )

Silent Bob,
Great news on the Prowl reveal, even blacked out it looks nicer than any Bayformer

Yep, Prime killed Megs in DOTM. Right after Megs saved his life and offered him a truce. I would say sorry for the spoiler...........but Bay already spoiled it

Certainly does mate. Can't wait till next week

^^^ SWEET!!!

It's funny though. I'm almost looking forward to seeing Smokescreen and Bluestreak more, I think. Prowl's my favourite of the three but I'm certain he'll be great - the others will be really good too, no doubt, but I wonder how much will be remolded...

Smokecreen should have quite a lot of differences in car mode. Hopefully Bluestreak will have the sun roof to distinguish him from Prowl too. Really hoping all the Heads are slightly different too.

I'm wondering if they will come with any extra beyond the gun and missile launchers? Hard to think of anything character specific for any of them as they were so underused in the cartoon. Perhaps flaming death head for Prowl

Bob

 

[DPrime]

Smokecreen should have quite a lot of differences in car mode. Hopefully Bluestreak will have the sun roof to distinguish him from Prowl too. Really hoping all the Heads are slightly different too.

Pretty sure the heads will be different at the very least. Red Alert more or less confirms that, imo.

I think Smokescreen's car mode differences are a given, too - but any of the small differences on the cartoon would be going above and beyond, imo. I probably wouldn't be overly disappointed if they weren't there, but I would be very, very impressed if they were.

I'm wondering if they will come with any extra beyond the gun and missile launchers? Hard to think of anything character specific for any of them as they were so underused in the cartoon. Perhaps flaming death head for Prowl

Bob

Yeah, sometimes I like to think that never happened. Or they were reactivated or something.

If their deaths had actually meant something, it would have been okay - but considering it was basically just to clear space on toy aisles for new, '86 characters... f-that.

It's funny, because I still enjoy the old Sunbow movie despite all that. I love all the movie characters... even Wheelie has his charm.

 

[karamazov80]

That's also the one thing I disliked about the movie. Moreso Ironhide, Ratchet, and Brawn than the others IMO because they had such personality in the cartoons, but killing all those Autobots off in such a dismissive, unimportant way kind of sucks.

Putting aside the rebirth of Optimus, reincarnation of Megs et al., and Starscream's ghost, it seems like the first and second seasons had robots destroyed then being put back together pretty frequently though (starting with the first episode), so I'm not sure that "dying" is really final for them in that universe.

 

[UltraMarknus]

Yep, Prime killed Megs in DOTM. Right after Megs saved his life and offered him a truce. I would say sorry for the spoiler...........but Bay already spoiled it

Bob

Ya kinda left out the stipulation of Megatrons truce...the important one...the whole Optimus would serve Megatron thing.....

 

[thecorsair]

Yep, Prime killed Megs in DOTM. Right after Megs saved his life and offered him a truce. I would say sorry for the spoiler...........but Bay already spoiled it

Certainly does mate. Can't wait till next week
Bob

I can understand the viewpoint about wanting to make the characters more acessible to mainstream audiences but dumbing Prime down into a generic "asskicker" =

Transformer movies don't have to be deep and meaningful but as the MCU movies prove it's possible to make popcorn flicks without alienating the vast majority of the established fanbase of a franchise and that can also appeal to the mainstream.

Here's the differences in the animation models for the Nissans,