Hasbro US Conference talks about a Cinematic Universe

[MEEEGGGAAATTTRRROOONNN!!!]

No, if IDW were so concerned with having a black leader, the easy fix would have been to set the IDW comic as a sequel to the original story and have, say Hondo Maclean's son, as the new head of M.A.S.K.

After all, Skywatch had been around for 30 years, so it's entirely feasible that the original team could have existed in the 1980s and have been the first attempt by governments to reverse engineer Cybertronian tech.

Had they done that, next to noone would have an issue with the approach.

I was just joking.

But I do agree with you, making cosmetic changes without appropriate backstory is just tokenistic.

[Ploughmans Lunch]

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.

[M-bot]

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.

I suspect the dumping of the potential MASK and ROM movies were more to do with the fact that everyone said “let’s do big universes, like Marvel” and then watched as Warner/DC and Universal’s Dark Universe tried and both abjectly failed in doing so, by filundementally misunderstanding why the MCU worked in the first place.

Black Matt Trakker has nothing at all to do with it, IMO.

[Ralph Wiggum]

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.

I suspect the dumping of the potential MASK and ROM movies were more to do with the fact that everyone said “let’s do big universes, like Marvel” and then watched as Warner/DC and Universal’s Dark Universe tried and both abjectly failed in doing so, by filundementally misunderstanding why the MCU worked in the first place.

Black Matt Trakker has nothing at all to do with it, IMO.

This. Hasbro only care about making money from selling toys and ticket sales. The mediocre reception to the abovementioned attempts to copy Marvel's cinematic universe, as well as The Last Knight's lesser showing at the box office (compared to the other films) has probably made them do a rethink and pull back on the projects.

I bought the recent comic, couldn't give a rats ass if it was a black/white Matt Trakker. I loved MASK as a kid (still got the books and DVDs) and I just found the story dull.

[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".

[bowspearer]

I was just joking.

But I do agree with you, making cosmetic changes without appropriate backstory is just tokenistic.

Careful making statements like that, or certain people here might accuse you of being either a racist or a Nazi

[MEEEGGGAAATTTRRROOONNN!!!]

Careful making statements like that, or certain people here might accuse you of being either a racist or a Nazi

Well i'm Asian, but i'd go Nazi if I could find myself an Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS...

[bowspearer]

Well i'm Asian, but i'd go Nazi if I could find myself an Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS...

Ok I'm filing my reaction to your post under "times I googled something and now I can never unsee it"

[MEEEGGGAAATTTRRROOONNN!!!]

Ok I'm filing my reaction to your post under "times I googled something and now I can never unsee it"

Don't lie! You're downloading the movie as we type!