What G1 characterizations have been improved upon?

[GoktimusPrime]

IDW Overlord is based on Hasbro Overlord, not Takara Overlord.

I personally prefer G1 Thunderwing over IDW Thunderwing to be honest. IDW Thunderwing is definitely more of a powerhouse, but I find him to be an utterly dull character. He's someone who tried to play god and then became a monster. Uummm... okay. G1 Thunderwing on the other had more character to him. He climbed up the ranks to become Decepticon leader and he actually cares about the Decepticons under his command. He does have a sense of responsibility towards those under his rule - it's not a position that he takes idly. He soon became obsessed with hunting down the Matrix. This desire soon ate away at his soul. One of the more emotionally moving moments was when Thunderwing backhanded Ruckus, and we see Thunderwing momentarily pausing as he realises what he has allowed himself to become, only for the Matrix-obsessed aspect of his personality to assert itself. This heightened even more when Thunderwing shot Spinister.

"...you... You... are a fellow Decepticon -- one of my loyal warriors! Spinister, I -- GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

Longtooth experienced this madness too, but nowhere near to the same extent as Thunderwing. Longtooth was - very obviously - obsessed like Captain Ahab from Moby Dick. Thunderwing became more like Gollum from The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings!



That's not to say that I dislike IDW Thunderwing per se. They're both good antagonists for different reasons, but IDW Thunderwing I find to be more of a relentless and unstoppable creature rather than a person. G1 Thunderwing, once powered by the Matrix, was nigh-unstoppable too. The only thing that could destroy him in the end was Unicron.

[plakstift]

IDW Overlord is based on Hasbro Overlord, not Takara Overlord.

The first time Overlord appeared in any media was in Masterforce, and unlike the rest of the cast the character was an original for the cartoon and his toy came later. As far as the western market he had a brief toy bio for his European/Australasian release, but that was all we saw of him until IDW released Last Stand of The Wreckers.

The new Hasbro TR/ Takara Legends toys came well after this new IDW iteration of Overlord, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

Totally see where your coming from with Thunderwing, he was always a real contender for a competent and effective Decepticon leader with a fleshed out personality with a matrix affinity in his original comic appearances. I liked how IDW tied in the pretender shell part in their story, yeah he wasn't as deeply explored character development-wise but the Stormbringer story line was pretty interesting with Bludgeon and his crew and the Wreckers being called in (for the first time in IDW maybe). I loved the Thunderwing design/artwork, and would love to see it in a leader-sized toy.

But to be honest just really want a leader Thunderwing, so would be more than happy with a G1 take.

[GoktimusPrime]

IDW Overlord is more influenced by the Hasbro toy's bio rather than Takara Overlord.

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"I stand my ground... I accept any challenge... I am hungry for conflict."

A legend by nature of his existence, he emerges as a new and deadly Decepticon anti-hero. This mighty machine has the Autobots guessing. No location is too remote and no terrain too tough for this megalithic power-monger. With amazing capabilities he traverses the dimensions, his multiple functions activated by Energon mini figures in engine mode. A tank to steamroll a path ahead and a jet for C-SAC duty (carrier, spy and air-combatant). The colossal body houses an arms manufacturing plant, producing a multitude of sophisticated super-weapons. The ultimate conversion is to Battle Station Complex. A strategic support base ready for the arrival of the Decepticon fleet... ready for all out war!
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↑IDW Overlord is pretty much this - hungering for conflict, an unstoppable force of destruction etc. The main thing that wasn't carried over was the battle station/base mode with the weapons plant, which is actually something that Hasbro carried over from Takara Overlord's tech specs:
「体内に兵器プラントを持ち、次々にミサイルや武器を生産する殺人兵器の集合体である。」
"Body houses weapons plant, producing and amassing a multitude of missiles and weapons."
IDW overlooked the base mode and Energon figures (Godmaster gimmick).

But that's where the similarity ends. Takara Overlord's persona is very different from Hasbro's. Whereas Hasbro Overlord is described as a relentless and unstoppable force who roams about the galaxy wreaking havoc, Takara Overlord is has a more noble personality. This culminates towards the end of Masterforce when Giga and Mega choose to leave Devil Z and ally themselves with Ginrai, and as punishment they were expelled from the Overlord transtector. And we know that at the end of Masterforce, Giga, Mega and the Decepticon Headmaster Jrs. go off to lead their lives as better people.

Post-Masterforce Takara Overlord really had zero personality. He was just a faceless goon in Transformers Zone. Really just put there alongside the others because by 1990 Takara's new Transformers were almost all Autobots. And they had to obscure these Decepticons with bling and capes because their toys were no longer in current production. Post-MF Overlord was little more than a plot complication, not a character.

[GoktimusPrime]

I have mixed feelings about Animated, but I don't want to derail this thread talking about it. The one Animated character who I feel was an improvement over his original namesake would be Omega Supreme. I really wish they'd give us an Animated Omega Supreme toy. Doesn't have to be a huge Titan Class figure -- a Leader, an Ultra, or even a good Voyager would suffice.

[Magnus]

I found that Car Robots/RiD 2001 had an interesting take on Ultra Magnus in that while he is a tough fighter, he had a sibling rivalry with Optimus Prime, so they didn't always see eye to eye. I appreciated the fact that while he feels he has been denied his dues, he didn't come across as a jealous whiny little brother.

People often bemoan movieverse Optimus's seeming bloodthirstiness, comparing and contrasting him negatively with G1 cartoon Optimus, but I find that as a character, movieverse Optimus is actually more interesting than G1 cartoon Optimus. Movieverse Optimus strikes me as jaded by thousands of years of war, so much so that he knows that the Decepticons are a threat that needs to be put down quickly, especially since their war has now come to an innocent third party. That could be why he is so aggressive in battle, although part of me suspects that the writers/producers/Michael Bay took note of criticism that Optimus was thrown around like a rag doll by Megatron in the first movie and made him more aggressive in the sequels to compensate.

The other thing with movieverse Optimus is that he feels betrayal very keenly - he was betrayed first by his mentor, Sentinel Prime, which is probably part of what led him to declare "we will kill them all" upon arriving in Chicago in *DotM;* and then by humans before *AoE,* which left him with a negative attitude towards humans in authority positions.

Movieverse Wheelie was an improvement on G1 Wheelie, although to be honest, that's not a particularly high bar

[GoktimusPrime]

Remember that God Magnus (RID Ultra Magnus) was never intended to be a version of Ultra Magnus, any more than RiD Grimlock is a version of Grimlock. Hasbro just reused these names to maintain trademark. I appreciate the God Magnus character too, but I don't see him as an Ultra Magnus.

The issue I have with Bayformers Prime isn't so much that he's different from G1, it's more to do with the inconsistencies and character contradictions. TF1 Optimus Prime only resorted to violence if he had to and took no pleasure from taking lives. Optimus Prime's plan was to stop Megatron, but failing that he would place the Cube into his own chest in order to merge it with his own Spark and destroy it. Ratchet reminded him that this would be suicide, but it was a risk he'd take to prevent the Cube from falling into Decepticon hands. Sam's idea was of course to take the Cube and shove it into Megatron's chest, killing him and destroying the AllSpark. And remember that when Sam had the Cube, Prime wanted Sam to give the Cube to him and push it into his chest, and when Sam instead shoved it into Megatron's chest Prime cried, "No, Sam!" Optimus Prime would sooner sacrifice himself than Megatron. Sam's decision is tactically more logical, but this showed us how TF1 Optimus Prime was more similar to the spirit of G1 Optimus Prime -- compassionate to a fault. Being more ruthless would make him a more effective commander but then he would no longer be Optimus Prime. This is the Optimus Prime that the first movie establishes.

Then in ROTF we see Homicidium Prime. The Autobots are leading NEST in hunting down the Decepticons, similar to how Cemetry Wind were hunting down all Transformers in Age of Extinction. When they found Scavenger and Sideways in Shanghai, they never offered them the chance of surrender. They looked like they were there to hunt them. Scavenger and Sideways immediately fled, and any NEST operatives that Scavenger killed was done so, really, in self defence. At the end of the scene we see a badly wounded and utterly helpless Scavenger. Optimus Prime then acts as judge, jury and executioner and executes Scavenger. They never attempted to capture and imprison these Decepticons - and we know from The Last Knight that the humans are capable of building and maintaining prisons for Cybertronians. Optimus Prime chose to kill Scavenger. And he even said, "Any last words?" before blasting Scavenger's head off -- this is at odds with what we saw in TF1 when Optimus Prime expressed regret over Megatron's fallen body, saying, "You left me no choice, brother."

Optimus Prime was already a veteran of the Cybertronian wars for millions of years, but he wasn't jaded. I find it incredulous to believe that after only 2 years he had a total personality flip just from hunting down Decepticon refugees. Really? Then there was the way that he seemed to relish killing The Fallen ("Give me your face!") -- again, totally at odds with his previous characterisation. And Revenge of the Fallen is a difficult film to defend considering that even Michael Bay has admitted it was rubbish.

DOTM Optimus Prime wasn't a whole lot better, again, the way that he just executed a defeated and helpless Sentinel Prime was in the same spirit was the way he dispatched Scavenger. Another execution of a P.O.W. Even if he felt that Sentinel deserved capital punishment, surely a sense of justice would dictate that Sentinel Prime be made to stand trial first. An international court could help decide Sentinel's fate and also help the humans to understand who was responsible rather than, ya know, allow Cemetery Wind to rise up and have all the Autobots be hunted down. Cos that sucks.

Okay, Optimus Prime becomes jaded in AOE and this actually makes sense considering how the humans that he fought to defend have turned against him and have hunted down and murdered his fellow Autobots. Optimus Prime's journey of rediscovering lost hope is a pretty decent one - the only character arc we see in any of the films. But AOE explains why Optimus Prime is so jaded. He doesn't suddenly decide to abandon the humans for no apparent reason. And even when he decides to care again, the movie does explain why. ROTF and DOTM provides no such explanation. He's just a bloodthirsty murder-bot now because reasons.

Killing all the Decepticons in Chicago or even the Vehicons in Hong Kong was different. Those were active combatants, not defeated POWs. He was fighting to liberate those cities from enemy occupation. When Sentinel Prime was defeated, the threat to Chicago had already passed. There was no longer any need to keep fighting him, let alone killing him. It's a war crime. The execution of Sentinel Prime reminds me of the scene in Saving Private Ryan - at the end of the Omaha Beach Battle - when American forces committing atrocities against defeated Nazi combatants (which is historically accurate). One scene shows American soldiers shooting into trenches to execute everyone inside. But there's this incredibly powerful scene where we see two soldiers in Nazi uniforms approaching two American soldiers with hands in the air surrendering. The Americans don't care about what the soldiers are saying and shooting them in cold blood, with one of them joking that they must have been saying, "Look, I washed for supper" and then laughing. These soldiers aren't even speaking German, they're speaking Czech! They're actually saying something like, "Please don't shoot us, we are Czech! We didn't kill anyone! We are Czech!" (feel free to correct me if my translation is incorrect) Germany had conquered Czechoslovakia in 1939 and many Czech POWs were forcibly conscripted from concentration camps into the Ost Battalion made up of combatants from Eastern European countries and the Soviet Union. And even the Germans in the trenches who had enlisted and chosen to fight for the Nazis were still shot in cold blood. This was deliberately done by Spielberg in order to show the audience that both sides committed atrocities in WWII - which is historically accurate. The difference is that Saving Private Ryan doesn't establish the soldiers committing these atrocities as being morally above that. Tom Hanks' character would be, and thus we don't see him partaking in this needless bloodshed. If Hanks' character had joined in, then it would be at odds with the way that the character was otherwise portrayed in the rest of the film. It would be as if he were two entirely separate characters blended into one... ya know, like M.J. Watson was in the first Raimi Spider-Man film.

I do agree that Movieverse Wheelie was an improvement.

[Jetfire in the sky]

The issue I have with Bayformers Prime isn't so much that he's different from G1, it's more to do with the inconsistencies and character contradictions. TF1 Optimus Prime only resorted to violence if he had to and took no pleasure from taking lives. Optimus Prime's plan was to stop Megatron, but failing that he would place the Cube into his own chest in order to merge it with his own Spark and destroy it. Ratchet reminded him that this would be suicide, but it was a risk he'd take to prevent the Cube from falling into Decepticon hands. Sam's idea was of course to take the Cube and shove it into Megatron's chest, killing him and destroying the AllSpark. And remember that when Sam had the Cube, Prime wanted Sam to give the Cube to him and push it into his chest, and when Sam instead shoved it into Megatron's chest Prime cried, "No, Sam!" Optimus Prime would sooner sacrifice himself than Megatron. Sam's decision is tactically more logical, but this showed us how TF1 Optimus Prime was more similar to the spirit of G1 Optimus Prime -- compassionate to a fault. Being more ruthless would make him a more effective commander but then he would no longer be Optimus Prime. This is the Optimus Prime that the first movie establishes.

You have exactly explained why I hate the Bay movies except the first one.
Prime is the greatest hero ever and this is how for my child self and adult self believes Prime would act.

[BigTransformerTrev]

Remember that God Magnus (RID Ultra Magnus) was never intended to be a version of Ultra Magnus, any more than RiD Grimlock is a version of Grimlock. Hasbro just reused these names to maintain trademark. I appreciate the God Magnus character too, but I don't see him as an Ultra Magnus.

Course they bloody were!

Ultra Magnus G1: A blue and white car-carrier truck who shared a (cab) mold with Optimus Prime
Ultra Magnus RID(01): A blue and white car-carrier truck who was the the brother of Optimus Prime

Grimlock G1: Turns into a Tyrannosaurus and is leader of the Dinobots, who decides to work with the Autobots
Grimlock RID(15): Turns into a Tyrannosaurus who is a Dinobot and decides to work with the Autobots

What? All of these similarities with their G1 counterparts were just amazing coincidences?

If all they were doing was 'maintaining trademark' then why didn't they name the RID(01) Race Car 'Ultra Magnus' and the RID(01) Car Carrier Truck 'Mirage'?
Or name the red RID(15) car 'Grimlock' and the RID(15) dinosaur 'Sideswipe'?

Course they bloody took into account what namesakes the toys were based on! To think otherwise is ludicrous

That said, there are many examples that would fit your argument. Many times - too many times - they DO randomly use the old names to maintain trademark - like having an Orange Autobot Crane Truck in Armada named 'Smokescreen' for instance. Or a Machine Wars Blue Decepticon Fighter Jet named 'Megatron'.

So I don't discount your argument because in so many cases it would hold true - but I think the two examples you used don't stand up to scrutiny

[Magnus]

Remember that God Magnus (RID Ultra Magnus) was never intended to be a version of Ultra Magnus, any more than RiD Grimlock is a version of Grimlock. Hasbro just reused these names to maintain trademark. I appreciate the God Magnus character too, but I don't see him as an Ultra Magnus.

Ok, fair enough. Trev did point out that there was a method to naming God Magnus Ultra Magnus, though. That said, you're right and name reassignment is by no means new.

Then in ROTF we see Homicidium Prime. The Autobots are leading NEST in hunting down the Decepticons, similar to how Cemetry Wind were hunting down all Transformers in Age of Extinction. When they found Scavenger and Sideways in Shanghai, they never offered them the chance of surrender. They looked like they were there to hunt them. Scavenger and Sideways immediately fled, and any NEST operatives that Scavenger killed was done so, really, in self defence. At the end of the scene we see a badly wounded and utterly helpless Scavenger. Optimus Prime then acts as judge, jury and executioner and executes Scavenger. They never attempted to capture and imprison these Decepticons - and we know from The Last Knight that the humans are capable of building and maintaining prisons for Cybertronians. Optimus Prime chose to kill Scavenger. And he even said, "Any last words?" before blasting Scavenger's head off -- this is at odds with what we saw in TF1 when Optimus Prime expressed regret over Megatron's fallen body, saying, "You left me no choice, brother."

Optimus Prime was already a veteran of the Cybertronian wars for millions of years, but he wasn't jaded. I find it incredulous to believe that after only 2 years he had a total personality flip just from hunting down Decepticon refugees. Really? Then there was the way that he seemed to relish killing The Fallen ("Give me your face!") -- again, totally at odds with his previous characterisation.

DOTM Optimus Prime wasn't a whole lot better, again, the way that he just executed a defeated and helpless Sentinel Prime was in the same spirit was the way he dispatched Scavenger. Another execution of a P.O.W. Even if he felt that Sentinel deserved capital punishment, surely a sense of justice would dictate that Sentinel Prime be made to stand trial first. An international court could help decide Sentinel's fate and also help the humans to understand who was responsible rather than, ya know, allow Cemetery Wind to rise up and have all the Autobots be hunted down. Cos that sucks.

Like I posted earlier, I suspect that the writers/producers/Michael Bay took note of fans' displeasure that Optimus was easily beaten by Megatron in the first movie and made him more aggressive in the sequels to compensate. Then again, even in the first movie Optimus isn't afraid to fight dirty; he kills Bonecrusher by stabbing him in the neck and decapitating him, and in the novelisation he slams Barricade against a pillar. Perhaps "any last words?" is part of making him more, well, badass.

Realistically, what are NEST and the Autobots meant to do with any Decepticons who survive to be taken prisoner? There was no place they could place or even transport them that would be capable of holding them. The idea of imprisoning Decepticons isn't even a thing until The Last Knight, and by then there are dedicated facilities for their incarceration due to anti-Transformer operations being in place for more than two years (if I remember correctly, it was six years between DotM and AoE).

Yes, "give me your face" was pretty out there, but I suppose Optimus is angry and aggressive because the Fallen represented evil in his eyes; he killed his fellow Primes and wanted to turn on the Harvester at the expense of billions of human lives. Or, again, it could be just another case of making Optimus more badass.

People like to point out that Optimus killed Sentinel without mercy, but they seem to forget that Optimus himself begged for his life after losing his arm, and Sentinel just kicked him and got ready to deliver a killing blow. Also, the context, again, is that Optimus saw his mentor side with the enemy he's spent thousands of years fighting, blackmail him and his Autobots into leaving Earth only to be attacked, and then occupy a city and attack its inhabitants. All this without Optimus even knowing that the plan was to turn Earth's human population into a race of slave labourers. I think he was justifiably angry. Even so, he wasn't proud of killing Sentinel or gloating; he gets back up and throws Megatron's gun away rather than raising his arm triumphantly or cheering.

And Revenge of the Fallen is a difficult film to defend considering that even Michael Bay has admitted it was rubbish.

At the risk of throwing this thread off-topic, people like to throw out the part where Bay seems to admit RotF was 'crap' without the all-important context. He acknowledges that the movie wasn't made under the best of circumstances and the end product suffered as a result, but he never actually says the movie is 'crap'. This is the full quote from Empire:

“We made some mistakes,” admits Bay. “The real fault with [Transformers 2] is that it ran into a mystical world. When I look back at it, that was crap. The writers’ strike was coming hard and fast. It was just terrible to do a movie where you’ve got to have a story in three weeks.”

He's referring to Sam's near-death experience where he sees the other six ancient Primes, not the movie as a whole.

[DELTAprime]

One scene shows American soldiers shooting into trenches to execute everyone inside. But there's this incredibly powerful scene where we see two soldiers in Nazi uniforms approaching two American soldiers with hands in the air surrendering. The Americans don't care about what the soldiers are saying and shooting them in cold blood, with one of them joking that they must have been saying, "Look, I washed for supper" and then laughing. These soldiers aren't even speaking German, they're speaking Czech! They're actually saying something like, "Please don't shoot us, we are Czech! We didn't kill anyone! We are Czech!"

Really, I wish that was subtitled because that has been entirely lost on me for the nearly two decades since the movie came out. I had no idea that they were Czechs, I always just assumed they were regular Nazi soldiers as I failed German hard.

And yeah I hate everything about movie Optimus Prime except for the design of robot and truck. Optimus Prime is Captain America not Red Skull.