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Thread: What G1 characterizations have been improved upon?

  1. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jellico View Post
    For me, Prime was always trying to be dark and edgy. Right from the whole, "look at us, we killed the Rock in the first episode. Edgy!!!!!"

    Animated WAS dark and edgy hiding behind a cute little girl. And it set the roots for a lot of the characters that became cemented in Prime and IDW. Bulkhead and Ratchet are the standout examples. But look at things like Magnus' Hammer. Creepier competent Shockwave. Lockdown. Competent conniving Starscream. Omega living up to his WMD bio. And because it played to the G1 crowd it had a background cast of thousands and had its little influences there too.

    I haven't had the chance to watch Animated, from everything I have read/heard it is a very good show.
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    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.

  3. #23
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    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

  4. #24
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    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.

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    Quote Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime View Post

    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.
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    Quote Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime View Post
    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

  7. #27
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    I said RiD Grimlock (aka Build Hurricane), not RiD2015 Grimlock. I'm not saying that the homage to G1 Ultra Magnus isn't there in God Magnus, but I just don't think that it was really intended to be a direct version of Ultra Magnus. Rather a new character who is inspired by or is intended to be a tribute to Ultra Magnus.

    Don't forget that God Magnus is also a tribute to Godbomber, the Autobot who combines with Ginrai to form God Ginrai. Like Godbomber, God Magnus combines with Fire Convoy to form God Fire Convoy. When they combine, they say 巨大合体ゴッドファイヤーコンボイ ("Super Giant Merge, God Fire Convoy!"). This is similar to the activation command for when Ginrai and Godbomber merge by saying, 神合体ゴッドジンライ (Super God Merge God Ginrai) And of course, Godbomber comes from the series 神マスターフォース (Super God Masterforce). This is why his name is God Magnus, and not "Ultra Magnus" nor "Godbomber." It's a double homage to two characters. And of course, God Magnus' personality is nothing like any Ultra Magnus that's come before or after. This may be subjective but I personally don't see him as an Ultra Magnus.

    One (but not the only) reason why Hasbro probably changed the name from God Magnus to Ultra Magnus was likely because they wanted to avoid using the word "God" in fear of offending conservative religious parents. This is likely why Hasbro's release of reissue Godbomber was called "Apex Armour." Oh my Apex!

  8. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime View Post
    I said RiD Grimlock (aka Build Hurricane), not RiD2015 Grimlock. I'm not saying that the homage to G1 Ultra Magnus isn't there in God Magnus, but I just don't think that it was really intended to be a direct version of Ultra Magnus. Rather a new character who is inspired by or is intended to be a tribute to Ultra Magnus.
    p
    Ok, righto. I don’t think you actually specified which version of RID you were discussing the Grimlock of, but that also means I shouldn’t have made the assumption you were talking about the new one. Grimlock rant retracted and yep you are right - Hasbro was just reusing the name.

  9. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime View Post
    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime View Post
    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime View Post
    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.

  10. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Magnus View Post
    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
    Killing Bonecrusher was a completely different thing because that was in combat. Bonecrusher was an active combatant who was KIA. I'm not saying that Optimus Prime was a pacifist, I'm saying that in the first movie he was a reluctant user of violence, but he would definitely use violence if he had to. Bonecrusher was killing humans on the highway - he was an imminent threat to civilians. Bonecrusher was not an executed prisoner of war.

    Quote Originally Posted by Magnus View Post
    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).
    Then the story ought to explain this to the audience. Leaving the audience to invent excuses is a sign of poor story-telling. And the prisons that the Decepticons had in TLK didn't seem terribly sophisticated. Basically big lockable pits. If they were able to build a spaceship on Earth (the Xantium) then I think they could build some pits.

    Quote Originally Posted by Magnus View Post
    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.
    Sure, but heroes are meant to be above the idea of revenge. In Star Wars this is one defining trait that separates the Jedi from the Sith. The hero is supposed to take the moral high ground, that's what separates him/her from the villain.

    "At last we shall have revenge."
    - Darth Maul (The Phantom Menace)

    Padmé: "To be angry is to be human."
    Anakin: "I'm a Jedi. I know I'm better than this."
    (Attack of the Clones)

    "I shouldn't have done that. It's not the Jedi way."
    - Anakin Skywalker (Revenge of the Sith)

    "Anger... fear... aggression. The dark side of the Force are they."
    - Yoda (The Empire Strikes Back)

    "Give in to your anger."
    "Let the hate flow through you."
    "Good! Your hate has made you more powerful."

    - Palpatine (Return of the Jedi)

    Quote Originally Posted by Magnus View Post
    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.
    But that was still in mid-combat. Even if Sentinel had killed Optimus then, he would've been on higher moral grounds than what Optimus did. Optimus Prime was wounded, but not a defeated opponent. Also, Optimus just said, "Please..." -- I took this as a plea to try to reason with Sentinel. Asking him to stop his plans. But maybe that's just my interpretation... it is only one interrupted word.

    Quote Originally Posted by Magnus View Post
    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.


    Quote Originally Posted by Magnus View Post
    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.
    SENTINEL: "Optimus, all I ever wanted was the survival of our race. You must see why... I had to betray you."
    OPTIMUS: "You didn't betray me. You betrayed yourself."
    SENTINEL: "NO, OPTIMUS!" *boom* "GAH!" *boom* "AAARGH!"

    Sentinel is literally on his hands and knees. He's not fighting. And he screams at Optimus Prime, begging for him to stop. And Optimus says nothing to express any regret over this action later, not like he did when he killed Megatron in TF1 ("You left me no choice, brother."). A quick line like this makes a big difference.

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