Animated Character Focus (A soapbox style thread)

I had a strange thought as I wandered the aisles of Toyworld. I was curious as to why certain characters get revisited. For example in Animated, we've got our stock standard Megatron, Optimus, Starscream and Bumblebee. Obviously these are safe introductions to a line, and clearly there's a formula to the different transformers series. If I were to compare Beast Wars to Animated, my comparison would go as follows.

Optimus Prime = Optimus Primal, the young leader out to prove himself
Rhinox = Ratchet, the intelligent gruff character as well as trained in repair
Cheetor = Bumblebee, the young kid appeal character

These are just a few examples. I understand why Optimus is revisited time after time. However that is not my focus.

I'm curious to know why out of all the Combaticons, Swindle has seen so much attention these past few years. The same applies to Blurr. What makes their characters appealing enough to make them worthy of a revisit. Is Kup just not worth revisiting because he's too "old man" to appeal to kids? I'm not really look at Universe since as far as I can tell, we're the ones buying them, and kids will buy them purely on "wow that looks cool" factor. I suppose this applies mostly to the Animated line.

So, for what reason did Hasbro and the creators of Animated decide "Let's revisit Blurr, Swindle, Blitzwing, the Dinobots and more." Were the other combaticons not worth looking at? Why choose to place Blitzwing in animated and leave Octane for Universe? I'm curious to know everyones thoughts on these characters that Hasbro revisits while leaving others behind.

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Originally Posted by Thanatos

I'm curious to know why out of all the Combaticons, Swindle has seen so much attention these past few years.

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He's arguably the most unique of the Combaticons as far as characters go. Brawl's a belligerent ball of rage - we get that in a lot of Decepticons. But Swindle's like totally self-serving... as Animated Megatron said, he'd sell his own motherboard. ;)

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Originally Posted by Thanatos

The same applies to Blurr. What makes their characters appealing enough to make them worthy of a revisit.

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Cos super speed is kewl. ;)

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Originally Posted by Thanatos

Is Kup just not worth revisiting because he's too "old man" to appeal to kids? I'm not really look at Universe since as far as I can tell, we're the ones buying them, and kids will buy them purely on "wow that looks cool" factor. I suppose this applies mostly to the Animated line.

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As far as Animated is concerned they already have a grumpy old coot in the form of Ratchet. :p

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Originally Posted by Thanatos

So, for what reason did Hasbro and the creators of Animated decide "Let's revisit Blurr, Swindle, Blitzwing, the Dinobots and more." Were the other combaticons not worth looking at? Why choose to place Blitzwing in animated and leave Octane for Universe? I'm curious to know everyones thoughts on these characters that Hasbro revisits while leaving others behind.

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The Dinobots were chosen because they're popular characters. The Animated Dinobots are awfully written characters, but they're already fan favourites due to the fact that they're just Dinobots. So it's a winning formula for Hasbro. I guess they chose Blitzwing because of all the G1 Decepticon Triple Changers he's the most "aggressive" because all his alt modes are military vehicles - a jet fighter and tank. There's not all that much threatening about a oil tanker, steam engine or space shuttle (which would also be why Blast Off isn't that popular as a Combaticon - the choice of a space shuttle in a team of combat vehicles is odd!)

I know what you mean in terms of wanting to see Hasbro spread out more and include more lesser used characters from previous TF series - and I totally agree with that. And it seems that Hasbro will be doing that with some upcoming Animated characters such as Waspinator, Strika and Dai Atlas*! So kudos to Hasbro for reaching out more and including more characters that haven't been revisited as much as others. I was impressed that even the live action movie went and used some pretty obscure G1 characters such as Blackout and Barricade!! Sadly All Hail Megatron seems obsessed with predominantly sticking to characters from the first 3 years of G1. :/

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*historically a rather unpopular/controversial character within the fandom

An animated Thunderclash

now that_would be cool!

All the colours!!!!

they should really revisit Actionmasters too

with Swindle its simple, since he is arguably IMO the only combiner character that has a stand out personality. Didn't he sell the other Combaticons at one point in the G1 toon? Now that's cool.

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Originally Posted by Thanatos

I'm curious to know why out of all the Combaticons, Swindle has seen so much attention these past few years. The same applies to Blurr. What makes their characters appealing enough to make them worthy of a revisit. Is Kup just not worth revisiting because he's too "old man" to appeal to kids? I'm not really look at Universe since as far as I can tell, we're the ones buying them, and kids will buy them purely on "wow that looks cool" factor. I suppose this applies mostly to the Animated line.

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Swindle is one of Derrick Wyatt's favourite Transformers, according to an interview with him, hence why he's in. Apparently, Wyatt remembered the bits of 'B.O.T' involving Swindle selling off the other Combaticons and getting in a spot of trouble, and none of the other bits. This resulted in some confusion for him when he saw the episode years later and realised how much it sucked compared to how he remembered it.

Also, while there seem to be quite a few Decepticon (TM) tank- and plane-character names to choose from there aren't so many distictive Jeep-character Isn't Jeep also a TM? names.

Likewise, Swindle is a pretty useful trademark to have for an indefinitely ongoing toy series with (comparatively) genericised character types - let's face it, if you've TMed a name like Swindle you hold onto it so those other toymakers out there don't get their grubby little mitts on it, hence why we Westerners never technically got a TM Inferno (a.k.a. Scavenger). Better yet, anytime you have a con-man/hustler type character the Hasbro naming committee must basically get the afternoon off...

And besides, Swindle is so awesome he just barely makes B.O.T. watchable...

I why certain characters frequently pop up are the result of a number of things:

- Brand recognition. Certain characters have to reappear. They get chosen b/c Hasbro wants to develop them and build them into brands.

- The writers. A lot of them do a bit of research and the ones that stand out to them are the more special ones. Blurr always had a speed factor, unique style of speaking. Swindle as you've noted was one of hte more standout Combaticons. Remember that episode where he tries to bargain with Galvatron? That moment was ingrained in my mind b/c of his sheer audacity. Blitzwing is similar. He was featured more in G1 than say Octane. And if I was going to pick a triple changer, the best for the Animated role with the colour scheme in mind was Blitzwing. So these guys, running through TF history, pick up guys that stand out or have potential to them.

For this reason, I don't think the Unicron Trilogy characters will ever have the same focus. They weren't created for an American/Western audience. They were for Japanese audiences and the I don't think they resonate well with writers who go back and look for ideas.

- Story need: For balance, certain characters are always needed. Starscream's a perfect example of this and why will he be one of top several transformers. Cyclonus doesn't come up often surprisingly enough b/c in terms of loyalty he was the one who had it. I guess the problem with him is he is more closely associated with Galvatron and given the lead villain is Megatron, that makes sense why Cyclonus has had little air time.