Hasbro US Conference talks about a Cinematic Universe

[Trent]

I suspect it was needlessly race-bending Matt Trakker which did it. He's a pretty iconic character and a live action movie with the changes wouldn't have gone down well with the nostalgia crowd the movie would be targeting.

Haha. Iconic. Yeah. I used to watch MASK as a kid and until IDW resurrected it I couldn't even remember his name. Let alone what he looked like. So the assertion that Hasbro dropped an entire property from a cinematic universe purely because a niche comic made him black, is laughable.

That'd be like saying that taking G1 Optimus Prime and turning him into a face-claiming murderous psychopath won't go down with the nostalgia crowd and won't make the movies any money...

Oh wait!

[bowspearer]

However I can see that you can remove the word white from that paragraph and have a rich man (regardless of race in a modern reboot) without changing anything else.

To what end though? How does changing the race of Matt Trakker, advance either the character or the story?

But anyway, the main thing I wanted to comment on was how I remember now of this. I misrembered and thought Matt just owned a service station in the American outback!

Certainly the nostaligia demographic are going to fall into three demographics: people who don't remember it at all, people with the vaguest of recollections and the more dedicated fan.

This is all going to vary from region to region. Take Blackstar for example. Meany people here wouldn't have heard of it but you look at places like Europe and the US and you're more likely to find a decent fanbase.

He-Man is even more interesting. Over here it's more likely to be name recognition, in the US you'll have a decent sized fan community, but in Germany for example, it's huge.

Same deal with M.A.s.K. - dedicated M.A.S.K. fans like myself are a drop in the ocean here. Go to the US and parts of Europe though and you'll find sizeable communities there.

Haha. Iconic. Yeah. I used to watch MASK as a kid and until IDW resurrected it I couldn't even remember his name. Let alone what he looked like.

So you're in the middle category I mentioned, that doesn't prove anything. People like you will latch onto something if it looks cool and unless you progress to becoming a dedicated fan, you'll likely ditch it when it loses its lustre.

You're not a dedicated fan and therefore not a part of that cult-following demographic that will keep a brand alive and well.

It's the dedicated fan base that gives properties cult followings and supports them, even demands their reinstatement when they get axed. In investment terms, they are a brand's blue chip investments.

Just look at Firefly fans and their passion giving fans Serenity the Movie, the success of UK G1 being the reason Transformers is alive and well today instead of a dead property that had a 6 year run and Captain Power fans where the upcoming Phoenix Rising reboot is concerned.

That core group is what keeps brands alive and if you lose it, you pay for it.

So the assertion that Hasbro dropped an entire property from a cinematic universe purely because a niche comic made him black, is laughable.

Except that it wasn't simply a niche comic. IDW's days of being some obscure player are long gone and their comics these days are as mainstream as DC or Marvel.

Likewise comics for many of these properties are the main storytelling medium. M.A.S.K.'s dedicated fanbase, the bread and butter of the fanbase, clearly didn't take to kindly to massive wholesale changes to the mythos and diversity-bending characters. That lost them their "blue chips" and when the story wasn't that great, the fad-followers quickly jumped ship. Rather than the dedicated fanbase being there to keep things alive, instead, the bottom fell out of it completely. Financially, it looked like a flop. Now if a "niche comic" can't even make it, why would Hasbro risk hundreds of millions of dollars on a live action movie, for a property that can't even make a buck when it's "some niche comic".

That'd be like saying that taking G1 Optimus Prime and turning him into a face-claiming murderous psychopath won't go down with the nostalgia crowd and won't make the movies any money...

Oh wait!

A few things here - as someone who has refrained from watching every Bayformers movie to date and refuses to watch them because they treat the mythos like crap.

Firstly Transformers broke the mould by catering not to adult fans, but teenage boys by using Megan Fox and her cleavage to hook them in on movie one and from there Bay had a new established fanbase.

Secondly, the claim that Bay's approach hasn't hurt the franchise is debatable. To begin with you have the situation where AOE managed to be the most panned by critics, a Golden Raspberry winner and still managed to be highest grossing. However with TLK, last I checked, the film had taken a major hit in terms of revenue.

So clearly while you can hide a lack of substance with style for a time, eventually people see through it.

[bowspearer]

If idw’s mask failed because of a black Matt trakker (cynical or not), it says more about the sorts of fans mask has, and if so I wouldn’t want to make a film series catering to that sort of person.

Ahh yes, the old "you're a racist"/"Nazi" shaming tactic which people of your political persuasion use for anyone even slightly right of the middle-Left.

So wait, if a fan community respects the mythology and the characters that they don't want to see them changed for the sake of tokenism, they're either "racist" or "Nazis"?

I mean that is what is clearly implied by

the sorts of fans mask has, and if so I wouldn’t want to make a film series catering to that sort of person.

So let's be clear here. I have a disability, making me the very sort of person who the Nazis rounded up and who was "the first to go" under the Holocaust. I have experienced decades of abuse because of the very attitudes which drove the Nazi Euthanasia Program.

Yet according to your strawman, I absolutely love Hitler's mad dream when the attitudes which drove it have brought me nothing but suffering as a member of the most marginalised minority in society.

But go on, tell me again how much I like Hitler and his dream of a master race, when thanks to its attitudes, I have experienced years of discrimination and am a survivor of child abuse, institutionalised child abuse, an institutionalised child sexual abuse coverup, rape and domestic violence.

Yeah, Matt Trakker was a rich white guy, but other than that, he was a basically a cypher - there was nothing in his character that was inherently “white” - no reason whatsoever he couldn’t be a rich black guy, since they also exist.

The problem there is that Matt Trakker and his property gave the appearance of "old money" - as in the kind of family where a charitable foundation has existed for decades and goes back a couple of generations.

The problem is that while if you fast forwarded 50 years, a rich Black American with "old money" and a multi-billion dollar charitable foundation is doable, it simply isn't as feasible in our present society.

If someone found a way to do it, then by all means, however that also requires taking a great deal of care with retconning and universe building, which I strongly suspect that the diversity-benders would simply write off as "too much effort".

[Trent]

So you're in the middle category I mentioned, that doesn't prove anything. People like you will latch onto something if it looks cool and unless you progress to becoming a dedicated fan, you'll likely ditch it when it loses its lustre.

Who exactly are "people like me"? Please elaborate on that a bit more.

You're not a dedicated fan and therefore not a part of that cult-following demographic that will keep a brand alive and well.

It's the dedicated fan base that gives properties cult followings and supports them, even demands their reinstatement when they get axed. In investment terms, they are a brand's blue chip investments.

Just look at Firefly fans and their passion giving fans Serenity the Movie, the success of UK G1 being the reason Transformers is alive and well today instead of a dead property that had a 6 year run and Captain Power fans where the upcoming Phoenix Rising reboot is concerned.

That core group is what keeps brands alive and if you lose it, you pay for it.

Yeah, because those "blue chip investments" have done GI Joe fans so much good over the years. And that fan base would dwarf anything MASK ever had. Even MOTU isn't doing great.

Except that it wasn't simply a niche comic. IDW's days of being some obscure player are long gone and their comics these days are as mainstream as DC or Marvel.

Likewise comics for many of these properties are the main storytelling medium. M.A.S.K.'s dedicated fanbase, the bread and butter of the fanbase, clearly didn't take to kindly to massive wholesale changes to the mythos and diversity-bending characters. That lost them their "blue chips" and when the story wasn't that great, the fad-followers quickly jumped ship. Rather than the dedicated fanbase being there to keep things alive, instead, the bottom fell out of it completely. Financially, it looked like a flop. Now if a "niche comic" can't even make it, why would Hasbro risk hundreds of millions of dollars on a live action movie, for a property that can't even make a buck when it's "some niche comic".

I never said IDW wasn't a significant player in the comic market. But MASK is, by its very definition, a niche property.

A few things here - as someone who has refrained from watching every Bayformers movie to date and refuses to watch them because they treat the mythos like crap.

Firstly Transformers broke the mould by catering not to adult fans, but teenage boys by using Megan Fox and her cleavage to hook them in on movie one and from there Bay had a new established fanbase.

Secondly, the claim that Bay's approach hasn't hurt the franchise is debatable. To begin with you have the situation where AOE managed to be the most panned by critics, a Golden Raspberry winner and still managed to be highest grossing. However with TLK, last I checked, the film had taken a major hit in terms of revenue.

So clearly while you can hide a lack of substance with style for a time, eventually people see through it.

So wait. You are resting the success of a billion dollar movie franchise solely on Megan Fox's boobs? Seriously? That's your argument?

And yeah, the franchise is finally loosing some steam... after 10 years and 5 movies! Now, I'm no fan of the Bay movies either. I haven't seen one since DOTM, but like them or hate them, that there is the definition of success.

Try harder. None of this has convinced me that Hasbro dropped MASK from its CU due to IDW making Matt Trakker a black dude.

[bowspearer]

Who exactly are "people like me"? Please elaborate on that a bit more.

As I previously stated:

Certainly the nostaligia demographic are going to fall into three demographics: people who don't remember it at all, people with the vaguest of recollections and the more dedicated fan.

People like you fall into the second of these - people with the vaguest of recollections. You remember it, might pick it up because it looks interesting or cool, but you're not invested in the characters or mythos at even remotely the same level as a dedicated fan is.

Yeah, because those "blue chip investments" have done GI Joe fans so much good over the years. And that fan base would dwarf anything MASK ever had. Even MOTU isn't doing great.

And yet they're doing infinitely better than Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Starcom, Air Raiders, Spiral Zone, Silverhawks, Sky Commanders and Centurions, to rattle off 7 now dead 80s properties off the top of my head.

I never said IDW wasn't a significant player in the comic market. But MASK is, by its very definition, a niche property.

If it's so "niche" then why did IDW try and piggyback it off one of their main titles? Just like if Visionaries is so "niche", then why are IDW trying to piggyback it off Transformers and make it mainstream? Why would the bean-counters at IDW have given that the go ahead if there didn't look like a sizeable return in making it mainstream?

So wait. You are resting the success of a billion dollar movie franchise solely on Megan Fox's boobs? Seriously? That's your argument?

Well that, car set piece chases and a litany of explosions - last I checked, that was the Michael Bay formula for churning out blockbusters which have little if any substance but are almost guaranteed to generate alot of box-office revenue.

And yeah, the franchise is finally loosing some steam... after 10 years and 5 movies! Now, I'm no fan of the Bay movies either. I haven't seen one since DOTM, but like them or hate them, that there is the definition of success.

Define success though? Financial success, sure, like I said, the Michael Bay formula works and it's arguably the only reason he keeps getting the director's chair. Critical success is another story. In fact a while back I watched an episode of Spicks and Specs where it was noted that Age of Extinction simultaneously managed to be the highest grossing box office film of 2015, whilst earning 7 Golden Raspberry Nominations and winning the categories for Worst Director and Worst Supporting Actor.

In fact the Michael Bay formula proves that it's possible to make a movie that is both a steaming turn and a runaway financial success.

Try harder. None of this has convinced me that Hasbro dropped MASK from its CU due to IDW making Matt Trakker a black dude.

Because you don't want to see it. You don't want to see that it's the dedicated fanbase that is the reason that someone in a media or toy company floats the idea of resurrecting a property, by serving as a core clientele to build on. You don't want to see that tokenistic change for the sake of change, is going to be rightly seen by that fanbase as treating that property with disrespect - at which point it alientates that fanbase.

You don't want to see that losing that core clientele is tantamount to ripping the foundations out of a house - sure it might look ok at the outset, but the moment the supporting walls come under strain, the whole thing is going to topple - which is essentially what happened with it.

So you're right, I haven't convinced you that tokenistic change for the sake of change was the start of the end for the book.

However here's the thing, you haven't convinced me that you're even remotely open to being convinced.

[bowspearer]

and I certainly wouldn't have a go at anyone who didn't know about that cartoon/toyline (which I think lasted longer than MASK).

But it's ok for certain people to make veiled accusations here that because someone takes issue with change for the sake of change, that they must be a white supremacist - if not a Nazi? After all that is precively what the following amounts to:

If idw’s mask failed because of a black Matt trakker (cynical or not), it says more about the sorts of fans mask has, and if so I wouldn’t want to make a film series catering to that sort of person.

In other words, if someone hates tokenistic change for the sake of change, they just hate black people - in other words, they're a white supremacist, if not a Nazi (which are the typical shaming tactics which get used in these sorts of situations).

Do I even need to point out the 50 shades of ****ed up, levelling that sort of a vile, baseless and inexcusible slur at a person with disabilities is?

After all, under the Nazis, it was people with disabilities, like me, who were forcibly sterilisied long before the Jews and who were rounded up and butchered in research hospitals like Hadamar - the precursors to the Concentration Camps?

Do I even need to point out how many of us with disabilities have suffered years of child abuse, institutionalised child abuse, rampant discrimination, and as adults, were left vulnerable to domestic, sexual and general violence, due to that child abuse -precisely because the same attitudes which drove the Holocaust where people with disabilities are concerned, are still alive and well in society today.

Can you honestly say that this sort of behaviour which took the form of sexism or racism would be acceptable on the forums?

So tell me Griffin, how the hell is this sort of behaviour in the form of ableism even remotely acceptable behaviour from another forum member?