Quote:
Originally Posted by FatalityPitt
I think it was determined that Tigatron scanned a female tiger form in the BW cartoon, so each time he transformed, he would essentially change physical genders each time.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FatalityPitt
I think it was determined that Tigatron scanned a female tiger form in the BW cartoon, so each time he transformed, he would essentially change physical genders each time.
A male robot that transforms into an organic-looking female tiger.. That creates extra layer to the "Robot in Disguise" element.Quote:
Originally Posted by griffin
The problem is though, if it's intentional, which continuity's Cybertronian biology are we working with?Quote:
Originally Posted by SuspectimusPrime
If it's the G1 Cartoon "robot butlers/maids" continuity, the G2 Comic "I've learned to turn my offspring into X/Y Gender based on observing carbon based life forms" continuity or the Beast Wars/Machines "I'm a specific gender because I have a specific DNA" continuity then it works. But which continuity does the gender explanation work with and I have yet to see a sound scientific explanation as to where and which continuities are compatible with the existences of gender dysphoria.
I realise this is probably asking too much, but it would be nice to get some competent universe building when a concept is introduced for once in recent years.
That isn't necessarily the case. Just because a tiger penis isn't shown, doesn't mean that the tiger is necessarily female. It's worth remembering that where nudity is concerned, seeing a penis on north American TV is very much taboo - kind of like the old animated violence rules of the 1970s where if the villain attempted to kill the heroes with a deadly snake for example, there had to be a rock in place so that the villain wasn't actually attempting to murder the heroes, but rather the snake "discovers" the heroes after moving around the rock. This particularly seems to hold true where children's animation and penises are concerned.Quote:
Originally Posted by griffin
As such, it could just as readily have been a case of it being a male tiger, just made "children's animation friendly".
EDIT: I just checked a screenshot of Snowstalker (who was clearly identified as male) and Tigatron and neither were animated with a penis, while both were so similar that they were confused for one another. Ergo the 'determination' strikes me as a fan theory which is myopically using a visible penis to determine the gender of the tiger mode.
^ There are other differences between male and female creatures than just reproductive organs such as size and body composition.
That does present an interesting situation. Given that the maximal programming blocks were broken, did that in fact make Tigatron a transgender male?Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulbot
It has interesting possibilities, especially depending on where you take the origin of Beast Wars from. There's an argument for it being based on the Marvel G2 comic (eg the Vok/Swarm), but then Beast Machines is clearly based on the G1 Cartoon.
If that is the case, then Tigatron is a very interesting case and one where transgender could work. You'd have a situation where you have a male Autobot (ie 'futuristic robo-butler') where the scanning system would ideally have gone with a male animal to maximise (no pun intended) psychological stability by preventing identity issues. Yes the Maximal programming suppressed the animal side, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't have been designed with a redundancy in place.
Then Tigatron of course has a malfunctioning pod, where his stasis pod scans a female tiger in addition to the other identity malfunctions. Suddenly you have a transgender male Autobot - a male Autobot with a female animal form and female Maximal shell program.
It's definitely fascinating. I'm not sure whether it was accidental, but if it's deliberate, it's incredibly well executed.
And yet sex (and therefore gender by way of gender being a person's sex identity) does come down to reproduction. The reason we have male and female as we do is our reproduction. Asexually reproducing individuals would have a completely different sex than us precisely because their sex organs would be different. That is just a scientific fact and ultimately the only reason LGBTIQ individuals exist in society, much like heterosexual individuals, is precisely because of the nature of our sexual reproduction as a species.Quote:
Originally Posted by DELTAprime
With the exception of post-Furman IDW (and Bayformers which I despise so I'm not going there), every series has understood that - either being technorganic and therefore partly biological, or a deliberate fascimile of a sexually reproducing species of some kind.
With the G1 Cartoon, they themselves didn't sexually reproduce, but the clientele the Autobots were marketed to were. In that continuity gendered Autobots make as much sense as robot butlers, robot maids and even sexbots. Conversely, gendered Decepticons don't - a military generally doesn't care what gender a piece of military hardware is - just as long as it does a heap of damage while having a heap of endurance.
The post-Marvel G2 Comic likewise, took things a step further, establishing that the Cybertronian Empire had the ability to shape their offspring and that female Cybertronian Empire members existed because their parents copied what they observed of gender in carbon based life forms. The same story then has Hot rod giving birth to Arcee.
Beast Wars of course, you have Maximals and Predacons (in what I have heard suggested is an evolution of Pretender Technology) took on the DNA of various animals in their exo-skeletons and their psychology in shell programs, creating essentially a souped up Mega Pretender where the inner robot never leaves - to draw a crude analogy - and where at the very least, a Maximal or Predacon is gendered because their animal has a sex.
Beast Machines takes it further where you have an organic fusion of organic and technological - I'd assert that BM Maximals have a sex in every sense of the term and sexually reproduce. Of course that raises an interesting question where the sparks of the offspring are concerned.
Furman era IDW again, had Arcee being created by being mutilated by a twisted science experiment and much like Monstructor, is best thought of as being like one of the victims of Dr Moreau. Again, this experiment was the result of a twisted inspiration from what had been observed in carbon based life forms.
In all of these cases, gender as sex identity, absolutely tied back to sexual reproduction. Whether you're talking about the Quintesson version of True Companion (arguably all the Autobots), being spliced with alien life forms for protection and exploration purposes, being a seamless blend of animal and machine, designer children or unethical science experiments, all of it ties back to sexual reproduction (and yes I skipped over Masterforce, but considering Godmaster Transectors were glorified mecha, it's kind of redundant - besides it's a continuation of the G1 Cartoon).
In fact the only one which seems to get it wrong (with the exception of Bayformers which I wont even go into), which is more concerned with identity politics than universe building, is post Furman-IDW, where it's clear that the planet asexually reproduces the Transformers (who themselves don't reproduce, yet we have Transformers with sex identities and pseudo-sexual pairings which simply make no sense for the universe).
In short, while there are certainly different characteristics to sex (and by extension sex-identity aka gender) than merely physical size and genitalia, it is those reproductive organs which are the defining trait of sex.
I knew I’d read the idea of Hot Rod giving birth to Arcee before, but I had to dig into the archives to find the summary of UK FanFic I first read online 20 years ago.
I don't know if I'd necessarily call it fanfic. The problem is that if you're going to call it fanfic, do you also call the Collectors Club and Botcon stories fanfic (particularly the early Botcon days)?Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulbot
After all, last I checked, this actually came out of Transmasters, to my knowledge, the first ever international TF fan club to exist. I actually wish I'd taken up the opportunity to join it mid-90s when I was sent an invite in the wake of having my letter published, because apparently the comics produced are almost impossible to get hold of now.
I just watch the Transformers episode of The Toys That Made Us. I couldn't stop smiling, at least till they got to the part where one of the interviewees decided to kill the 84 cast.
That was great to watch. And I learned that not all Transformers from the 80s were made by Takara. Now I have to do some research to find out when Hasbro took over design production from Takara.
I wish HasTak would dig the Universe 2.0 Sideswipe and RTS Tracks moulds out of storage and do a CHUG Tigertrack and Road Rage.:o
Those were solid moulds.Quote:
Originally Posted by DELTAprime
It shouldn't be too hard for you to get your hands on Botcon 2012 Shattered Glass Turbo Tracks. EvilBay price is the same as when it first came out (still exy).
That's what I ended up doing, can still pass for Road Rage :)Quote:
Originally Posted by SuspectimusPrime
I cant believe that I only realized this morning that Heatwave has the same voice as Wolverine :eek:
Talk about late to the party :p:o
It would appear that yet another one of my April Fools jokes has ended up coming true. :p ;) Especially given that the G1 Devastator box set was one of the toys that was explicitly used in the prank and now Hasbro are set to reissue it for real.
This would be at least the 3rd April Fools joke that I've done which turned out to be true later (previous ones were MP Grimlock and Encore Fortress Maximus). Mind you there are plenty more that haven't come true, so I don't have a terribly high success rate. But it's still fun when what was initially just a joke ends up becoming an actual prediction. :p
I agree with everyone, Studio Series Thundercracker (Nitro Zeus repaint) is a fantastic toy. :cool:
Doublecross has two personalitiesQuote:
Originally Posted by griffin
And with Counterpunch passing out, one could say that his Decepticon persona is becoming a real character.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tetsuwan Convoy
I can see from the profile write-up, that they were focusing on the beast mode, which had two heads, and that makes it easier to play on the two personality concept, even though it was more like a conjoined twin concept. But when in robot mode, would he have been arguing with himself? And that was where my original query had come from - does any character who doesn't have multiple faces or heads, have a split personality.
My first thoughts that have multiple faces or heads were the Quintesson judges and the three Gen1 two-headed beasts (Hungrrr, Sinnertwin, Doublecross)... while Doubleheader had a two-headed pretender shell, but shells don't have their own sentience.
Animated Blitzwing perhaps?
If you're including Pretenders, a few of them seemed to have different personalities to varying degrees in-shell and out of shell.
This youtube video is a year old, but probably the best way to explain the five Michael Bay movies to newbies... or fans who have trouble trying to piece most of it together, historically.
It misses some of the contradictions and plot holes that we love to make fun of and get upset over, but that wasn't the point of this 12 minute video... it just puts the main events of the five movies in chronological order, and might mention some things that fans here missed, or didn't pick up on at the time.
A couple of things I didn't realise - Sentinel's spaceship actually crashed on the moon in 1961, (I thought it had crashed after it left Cybertron thousands/millions of years ago and figured that since it was on the dark side of the moon, it just took until 1961 for it to be seen by probes)... and, is "the Last Knight" really Mark Wahlberg's character just because he is wielding Excalibur (as a descendant of King Arthur), as I kept assuming that Optimus was the titular character (but then, he wasn't the last of the Cybertronian knights, so kinda makes sense that he wasn't the "last" knight).
Gigatron has SIX personalities and Devil Gigatron has TEN! :D This is totally lost in the RID dub, but if you watch Car Robot in its original Japanese format you can hear Gigatron's voice and personality totally changing with each mode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfI0Pzu-uAc
Multiple heads though.:pQuote:
Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime
Bayformer Optimus Prime. He did a 180 on his moral compass between the first movie and the sequels.
And for that I will forever blame Ehren Kruger.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime
Does the combiners bots (Individually) have Cybertronian alt mode? I'm basing this from the TV cartoons that I watched as I have never got the comics.
If we're talking TV show canon then at the very least we can say that the Combaticons don't, as we see them being built on Earth from scraps of old WW2 vehicles (which then magically update to 1980s contemporary vehicles...).Quote:
Originally Posted by techx
And in the cartoon the Aerialbots were created from scraps of old Cybertronian vehicles so kind of too. The Stunticons didn't and the Protectobots origins were untold.
In the original comics, they all originated on earth too (although the Combaticons and Protectobots origins were unclear in the US books and art errors suggest Defensor existed on Cybertron).
Later comics (like the War Within series, IDW comics) and War for Cybertron games and toylines gave most of them Cybertronian alt modes.
Thank you SharkyMcSharky and Paulbot 😊👍
You can also include Generations Blitzwing.Quote:
Originally Posted by CHILENO20
I don't know if this qualifies but G1 Wreck-gar might be an inclusion. He is very much all over the place with his various TV quotations.
It still blows me away just how recognisable & mainstream the Transformers brand is. Just about every time I visit the Transformers shelf of the toys section in retail stores, there is always a kid or parent calling out Transformers character names: Optimus, Megatron, Bumblebee, Grimlock, Starscream.
Just as often I get to watch the scenario play out:
Parent: Put that Megatron down. I can't afford it. You just have to wait for when it's your birthday.
Kid: It's not Megatron. It's Grimlock!
I was trying to figure out some storage space stuff and did some sums about my own collection.
G1 toys (original and reissues) make up almost exactly half my collection and I really didn't expect that. CHUG toys makes up a quarter, and "all other lines" makes up the remaining quarter.
It would be quite easy to set up some display for "all other lines" with a few of those Aldi cabinets but the idea of putting the G1 stuff on display is very daunting. Same for the CHUG stuff honestly.
So does Barricade in WFC - just noticed that when replaying it for the first time in near a decade todayQuote:
Originally Posted by BigTransformerTrev
I'm willing to give HasTak a lot of leeway on their high pricing as for me most items seem reasonable to me and if I get say a Deluxe for $25 I feel like it's a bargain.
But when I went into Target today and saw how much the Cyberverse toys are at a big retailer and not a small independent like Toyworld I was actually left feeling that the price is completely unreasonable.
At least with the higher cost of MPs now I can somewhat justify the spend for a character I really like given how much engineering goes into it, but I can't do that with a Cyberverse figure.
I could really go for a reissue of BW Tigerhawk.
I bought a used/incomplete/slightly but not fatally broken one for a tenner at a toyfair years ago and have thoroughly enjoyed it.
I'd personally go for MP of Tigerhawk, but a reissue would be cool also.Quote:
Originally Posted by SharkyMcShark
Fornicating purgatory, I just scoped out some of the online prices and nearly fainted. :eek: Although I don't know if a reissue these days would be much cheaper. Both Hasbro and TakaraTOMY seem to be releasing reissues at pretty inflated prices. And Encore God Fire Convoy has more QC issues than the Australian Parliament has changes in Prime Minister! I wonder if it'd be cheaper to buy a loose Universe Razorclaw and repaint it yourself. :/Quote:
Originally Posted by SharkyMcShark
Normally I would wonder why you didn't just buy this toy when it was out in shops and save yourself all this trouble, but I know that the Australian distribution for the Ultra Transmetal 2s were horrifically inconsistent. I personally never saw them in shops locally despite my best efforts to find them. :( I was fortunate to get them from another source, but still, I definitely remember these toys being impossible to find. :(
I was 9 years old and my access to retail Transformers was local Toyworld once a month and Myer in the CBD every school holidays. Unfortunately, it was never going to happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime
Not all of us have been serious collectors since 1984. Anything before 2007 for me is a "must hit up ebay" item.Quote:
Originally Posted by SharkyMcShark
A thought just occurred while watching some Fall of Cybertron Youtube clips...Peter Cullen is now pushing 75-80 years old...he's been pretty much The Voice of Optimus Prime for 30-odd years.
Who on Earth are they going to get to be The Voice of Optimus Prime once he's gone?
Garry ChalkQuote:
Originally Posted by Ode to a Grasshopper
Or one of those Cullen sound alikes they've got to do G1/Movie Optimus Prime's voice for toys or ads and other things like that.