TF Beast Hunters episode 11 - Persuasion

[GoktimusPrime]

I felt this episode lagged and dragged. Ratchet is my favourite character on this show because he is a cookie cut out good guy. We all knew his decision before the options were given. Why spend so long showing off all the unrelated Decepticon tech to convince him?

Yeah, liegeprime and I were discussing this earlier today, and one thing he said that I find myself agreeing with is that the stories of this episode and the last one could've been combined into a single episode.

it was funny seeing UM and Shocky fight. The battle of the one fisted bots heheheh.

They should've just settled things with an arm wrestle.

Heh, Also glad to see they couldn't shy away from making Wheeljack a tech geek still, just like the old G1 guy was.

Yes, that was a pleasant surprise. It's also fairly in-character with his previous portrayals too instead of something that just seems completely out of the blue (like say, Animated Bulkhead being a space bridge genius!). We previously heard Wheeljack say that he modified Ultra Magnus' ship to improve its vector thrust, and we know that he was able to repair his own ship. He's not quite the "mad scientist" techno geek that G1 Wheeljack was... he's more like a "Han Solo" style mechanic. I could easily imagine him saying, "I've made a lot of special modifications myself" when referring to his old ship.

Yes, and what is it with identifying the building based on the 'E'!?!? There were 5 hangers there, and the configuration itself should've indicated something was off, not to mention Soundwave and Laserbeak had come from there... you'd think that hyper-advanced robotic beings would have something akin to GPS to confirm! This was lazy story boarding... Fowler goes out of the way to point that that the 'cons now know the location of the base... so how should they solve the problem? Paint out the E!! Wow, this was pathetic... must've been too costly to move (both for the Autobots/humans as well as the producers!).

Heh, it reminds me of what G1 writer David Wise refers to as the "Balonium Factor" which was often engaged in G1.
e.g.
+ camouflage paint that allowed 5 Autobots to look like Stunticons even though their body shapes were entirely different
+ Autobot Pretenders able to fool the Decepticons into thinking that they were actual humans, despite being 15 metres tall!
...et al.

Definitely the best part of the episode for me as well... this is the vintage Megatron that I love and is all too often missing (and I mean in multiple continuities here). Here he is the thinking intelligent Megatron, who is also seductively charismatic. And best of all, morally complex... it wasn't simply the evil want-to-destroy-all bad guy.

...G1 Megatron was pretty much the simple evil want-to-destroy/conquer it all bad guy. :/

Beast Wars Megatron was the more sophisticated villain, but in a different way from TFP Megatron in this ep. BW Megs was basically about divide and conquer -- he set his allies and enemies up against each other; similar to how the TFP Decepticons set up Predaking against the Autobots so that they would benefit no matter who won. Only that BW Megs was much more subtle about.

I find that this is a fairly unique aspect for TFP Megatron as I really can't think of any other Decepticon or Predacon leader who uses open honesty as his weapon of choice. TFP Megatron's M.O. regarding his enemies are either:
1/ If enemy is of no use, exterminate
2/ If enemy is of use, elicit compliance
e.g.
+ When battling Unicron Megatron proposed an alliance. Being a most logical suggestion, Optimus Prime grudgingly agreed.
+ When Optimus Prime reverted to being Orion Pax, Megatron used deception to maintain Orion's state of reversion and exploited his skills as an archivist.
+ Megatron arranged to have the children abducted and brought to Cybertron in order to force the Autobots to surrender their Relics.
+ Was openly honest with Ratchet to persuade him to work for him.
TFP Megatron's good at getting his enemies to give him what he wants and not just with the plain, "Do it or I'll kill you!" threat. It's more like, "Do it because you know it makes sense or have no other choice!"

But I really do like how this episode presented Ratchet with one hell of an ethical dilemma ... "can the ends justify the means?" -- as an altruist, Optimus Prime would never believe that the ends can justify the means. That's why he destroyed the Omega Lock. But as a Utilitarian, Megatron (and the Decepticons) certainly do believe that the ends justify the means; although Utilitarianism also believes that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. TFP doesn't seem to affirm if the Cybertronian population outnumbers that of humans (whereas Sentinel Prime in Dark of the Moon suggests that it does); and/or because the Decepticons view Cybertronians as a higher/superior form of life and therefore logically lower forms of life on Earth are expendable to save their own species/world. As "Philosophy and the Transformers" points out, if humans were to hypothetically discover a remote island inhabited by intelligent ants, and say if there was a way to benefit or save humanity that required harming or destroying the ants' backward civilisation -- we'd probably kill the ants.