Definitely take this opportunity to mess with her.
Prime Target
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Hoist Goes to Hollywood
A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court
I'm really just here for the free food and open bar.
haha cheers for all the opinions! I think we will just jump in. I don't want to make it feel like watching "homework" before. She has seen a few of the live movies so it won't all be completely foreign. She is obsessed with looking every detail up on IMDB while we watch anything together so if she wants more info she can find it hehe.
Episodes 1 to 65
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Uh, Seasons 3 and 4 are all skippable if you're preparing someone for watching TFTM! And they should be skipped cos like... spoilers!
While there aren't really any plot points to cover and TFTM can act as a standalone film, a lot of the magic in the film probably does come from characters you had already formed a fondness for in the first two seasons and seeing them in action on the big screen.
Generating an acquaintance with the series' characters through a few episodes would almost certainly make the movie more enjoyable and invest them more.
Seeking the Following:
- CW Brawl
- Earthrise Runabout
- Earthrise Thrust
The basic premise of the Transformers is not explained in TFTM.
Who and what are the Transformers?
Who's piloting them?
Are they meant to be living robots?
Are they cyborgs?
What's a Cybertron?
Who are the Autobots and Decepticons and why are they fighting each other?
Why do they transform?
Why do they transform into Earth vehicles on another planet?
What's a Megatron?
Why are there Transformers already on Earth?
Why are the humans cool with them owning their own real estate?
Who's Devasta--- oh... why can those green guys join up? Why don't others do it?
There are dinosaur Transformers?! How?!?
Who's Optimus Prime? Why are people upset that he's dead when there were so many others that were also killed?
Wait... how can robots die?
There was a robot who became a jet and a tank... and a steam locomotive that became a shuttle... how many things can these Transformers transform into? Do they all have unlimited modes?
Does anything else happen in this story other than robots fighting? Why am I supposed to care about them?
...and so on, and so on...
And many of the reviews of TFTM at the time was pretty much like this. A lot of confusion from reviewers who had no idea what was going on.
I've shown TFTM to audiences who known next to nothing about Transformers, such as during a Non-Scripture class.
TBH a lot of kids were pretty bored. Compare this with when I showed a same-age group of kids the Transformers Animated eps, "A Bridge Too Far." Even though these episodes (German dubs w/ English subtitles!*) don't provide a whole heap of exposition either (it assumes that you have been watching previous episodes), there was enough character drive in it to captivate the audience. The kids were emotionally invested in the story and some were even driven to tears when Omega Supreme sacrificed himself.
Sure, a lot of kids in the 80s were upset when Optimus Prime died in TFTM, but that's because we were already familiar with the character from beforehand. Animated Omega Supreme managed to elicit tears from an audience of adolescents who were unfamiliar with the character beforehand. Killing off a character that the audience doesn't care about won't provoke an emotional reaction -- like almost every TF death in Bayformers. TFTM doesn't really elicit much of an emotional response from an audience that doesn't have any knowledge of G1. Animated managed to get a reaction from an audience that had no knowledge of Animated. I literally had to pass around the tissue box!
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*It was an end-of-term German class.