Zeta vs Sentinel Prime Options

[Magnusblitz]

Given that Animated's Sentinel Prime has pretty much created an entirely new archetype/character using the name from the previous "Sentinel Prime" (Prime's predecessor in older G1 continuities), does it make more sense to just sorta retcon the past Sentinel Prime into Zeta Prime? Especially since 1) we've now got a "Sentinel Major" in G1 in the Wings of Honors universe, and 2) it helps clear up some possible errors in IDW continuity by making their Sentinel and Zeta the same guy (though of course, there's still plenty of time for IDW to revisit the issue and make it clear that they're the same guy or two separate guys). Thoughts? Obviously nothing will go back in time and change the printed page, but for me, at least, when given a lot of universes within the same continuity family, it makes sense to avoid having major characters share the same name as much as possible.

Going off some of the earlier debate here, it would seem to me that the predecessor in G1 should be "Zeta" and the Animated one should be Sentinel. Given that Sentinel Major looks so much like Animated Sentinel, and he's in a similar position (close aide underneath Magnus/Magnum) that he's not the same guy as G1's original Sentinel Prime.

[mignash]

Easy. Sentinel Prime was before Optimus in G1. Zeta Prime was before Optimus in War for Cybertron/Transformers: Prime, which is not G1.

[ShinRa Inc]

Also, Aaron Archer appearently said the full name for the guy in WFC is "Sentinel Zeta Prime" (ie, same guy in Exodus) during the Activision panel.

[Jeysie]

My take, we should forget the Zeta bit that only got created because McCarthy couldn't be bothered to read the previous IDW books, and just use Sentinel Prime.

I also don't see what Animated or WoH has to do with this. Regards Animated, I don't see how Sentinel is any different or more confusing than, you know, Prowl, Ratchet, Blitzwing, Red Alert, Elita-One, etc. And regards WoH, the authors clearly stated that Sentinel Major was meant to be a G1 version of Animated Sentinel--in a continuity where G1 Sentinel Prime doesn't exist anyway--and everyone understands this except the people who like to fanwank together things that were never meant to be together.

So, as far as I'm concerned, Zeta = G1 Sentinel Prime anyway, and from now on the "Zeta" should just be dropped altogether as a one-time fluke/mistake.

[mignash]

From what I can tell, people considering WFC part of G1 is the mistake. It's no more G1 than Animated or RiD.

[Magnusblitz]

Easy. Sentinel Prime was before Optimus in G1. Zeta Prime was before Optimus in War for Cybertron/Transformers: Prime, which is not G1.

How the heck is WfC not G1? It's got all the exact same characters with the same bodies/appearances and such. Sure, it's a new G1, and a separate line, just like Sunbow is different from Marvel comics is different from Dreamwave is different from IDW, but it's still G1.

Hard to say on Prime at the moment, since we've seen absolutely no fiction for it yet.

Also, Aaron Archer appearently said the full name for the guy in WFC is "Sentinel Zeta Prime" (ie, same guy in Exodus) during the Activision panel.

Thanks, I had read the name "Sentinel Zeta Prime" somewhere, but couldn't find anything on it. But that's another reason to think that they're trying to mix the two (Zeta Prime and G1 Sentinel Prime) into one guy.

My take, we should forget the Zeta bit that only got created because McCarthy couldn't be bothered to read the previous IDW books, and just use Sentinel Prime.

I also don't see what Animated or WoH has to do with this. Regards Animated, I don't see how Sentinel is any different or more confusing than, you know, Prowl, Ratchet, Blitzwing, Red Alert, Elita-One, etc. And regards WoH, the authors clearly stated that Sentinel Major was meant to be a G1 version of Animated Sentinel--in a continuity where G1 Sentinel Prime doesn't exist anyway--and everyone understands this except the people who like to fanwank together things that were never meant to be together.

So, as far as I'm concerned, Zeta = G1 Sentinel Prime anyway, and from now on the "Zeta" should just be dropped altogether as a one-time fluke/mistake.

While the McCarthy thing is a bad reason, it happened, and we're now seeing Zeta Prime used elsewhere. I think the only spot we differ is that I think "Zeta Prime" is a perfectly good name and I'm much more for using different names for ease of identification than the same. As for Sentinel Major, it just seems strange since before, G1 Sentinel Prime and Animated Sentinel Prime looked NOTHING alike and shared pretty much NOTHING in common other than name and both being Autobots somewhere in a leadership role - and even then, the leadership roles were entirely different (predecessor commander getting killed to let Optimus take over, vs. second-in-command who takes emergency command). Obviously since WoH takes place in the far past, there's room for him to still become Sentinel Prime and die, or maybe just never even become a Prime (much like Dion doesn't die).

I think my feeling though is that Animated Sentinel Prime is such a different character from G1 Sentinel Prime that they shouldn't be the same character across the Multiverse - much like G1 Cyclonus and UT Cyclonus are nothing alike. If a guy looking like UT Cyclonus and acting like UT Cyclonus showed up in a G1 story, I don't think it would make much sense to assume he was supposed to be G1 Cyclonus in a new body - instead, he's supposed to be a G1 version of the UT guy.

The fact that Wittenrich said "He's a separate character from the G1 comic Sentinel Prime's character/archetype" makes me think that's a good reason to treat Sentinel Major as a different guy from G1 Sentinel Prime, and give Sentinel Prime a different name... while G1 Sentinel Prime might've only appeared in the G1 comics, they're still part of the overall G1 continuity family that his character kinda takes the name "Sentinel" in every G1 continuity (which WoH is one). But since we've got Sentinel Major taking the name instead, makes sense to take the Zeta Prime direction and run with it.

This post has been edited by Magnusblitz: Jun 27 2010, 10:23 PM

[Jeysie]

While the McCarthy thing is a bad reason, it happened, and we're now seeing Zeta Prime used elsewhere.

We've seen it used elsewhere exactly once, in what apparently is considered a mistake, if Archer's trying to retcon WFC Zeta into being "Sentinel Zeta Prime". There's zero reason to perpetuate the mistake when they're clearly meant to be the same character anyway.

I think my feeling though is that Animated Sentinel Prime is such a different character from G1 Sentinel Prime that they shouldn't be the same character across the Multiverse - much like G1 Cyclonus and UT Cyclonus are nothing alike.[

If a guy looking like UT Cyclonus and acting like UT Cyclonus showed up in a G1 story, I don't think it would make much sense to assume he was supposed to be G1 Cyclonus in a new body - instead, he's supposed to be a G1 version of the UT guy.

Well, yes, that's my point. So I don't get why you're saying...

The fact that Wittenrich said "He's a separate character from the G1 comic Sentinel Prime's character/archetype" makes me think that's a good reason to treat Sentinel Major as a different guy from G1 Sentinel Prime, and give Sentinel Prime a different name...

And this is where you suddenly derail into "makes zero sense" territory. If both Animated Sentinel Prime and Sentinel Major are, as you say, completely different characters from Sentinel Prime, then, uh... why does Sentinel Prime's name need changing at all? Again, this is no different from any of the other Animated characters who share G1 names, and WoH has no relevance to this at all. Take Prowl for instance, who is a very different character than G1 Prowl, yet I don't see anyone having any name mixup issues there.

But since we've got Sentinel Major taking the name instead, makes sense to take the Zeta Prime direction and run with it.

Uh, no. Sentinel Major is not Sentinel Prime, and he no more "took the name" than any of the other characters with "Sentinel" as a prefix, and WoH is a single, obscure continuity that, again, takes place in a setup where Sentinel Prime never existed anyway. So there's zero reason based on that for Sentinel Prime to not exist 100% fine in every other G1 continuity.

[Fenix Twilight]

After I heard Zeta was in WfC I was wondering if Hasbro requested Shane to make Zeta as a name drop before the game came out.

But if Aaron (Angry) Archer says Sentinel and Zeta are the same guy, that just creates some weirdness for me that at some point, say in the IDW universe in Megatron Origins he gets beat by Megatron and after he wants everyone to call him by his middle name (to hide his identity?).

At least it fixes this page, no?

[NovaSaber]

Easy. Sentinel Prime was before Optimus in G1. Zeta Prime was before Optimus in War for Cybertron/Transformers: Prime, which is not G1.

How the heck is WfC not G1? It's got all the exact same characters with the same bodies/appearances and such. Sure, it's a new G1, and a separate line, just like Sunbow is different from Marvel comics is different from Dreamwave is different from IDW, but it's still G1.

Hard to say on Prime at the moment, since we've seen absolutely no fiction for it yet.

Well, every cartoon that's (universally agreed to be) a new continuity is considered a whole new continuity family, I don't see why Prime would be any exception. (And if Prime isn't a new family, it's more likely in the one with the movies than G1.) I especially don't see why it should be G1 when Optimus Prime and Bumblebee look more like their movie counterparts and Bulkhead is in the main cast.

And WfC isn't "all the exact same characters with the same bodies/appearance ". They don't have the same bodies (not even Shockwave, whose G1 form was his Cybertronian form), there are several characters based on characters from non-G1 series, and most importantly, it's the same continuity with Exodus and Prime, so it clearly can't be G1 unless they are.

[DINOBOT SLUDGE]

Sentinel Prime came before Orion. I know. I killed him myself.

[MrBlud]

My completely unfounded speculation is that Shane did invent Zeta Prime of his own accord and someone at Activision was doing research for the game and picked up Zeta Prime from the IDW books and as was said in the panel no one caught this until it was too late.

The whole deal with Nexus Maximus illustrates that Hasbro is extremely protective of the "-Prime" suffix so their saying that Sentinel Prime *is* Zeta Prime seals it for me that Zeta was always a mistake and doesn't actually exist.

[Dezarus]

Personally I don't like making them into the same guy. On one hand Kup specifically says that Megatron killed two Primes before Optimus, meaning it WAS an intentional addition. On the other hand I understand why one might think that it was a goof. IDW has been rife with careless mistakes and I really got the feeling from that panel that the IDW guys basically just phone it in.

I'm totally against "Sentinel Zeta Prime".

This post has been edited by Dezarus: Jun 28 2010, 10:44 AM

[Magnusblitz]

And this is where you suddenly derail into "makes zero sense" territory. If both Animated Sentinel Prime and Sentinel Major are, as you say, completely different characters from Sentinel Prime, then, uh... why does Sentinel Prime's name need changing at all? Again, this is no different from any of the other Animated characters who share G1 names, and WoH has no relevance to this at all. Take Prowl for instance, who is a very different character than G1 Prowl, yet I don't see anyone having any name mixup issues there.

And yet if we did get Animated Prowl in a G1 continuity, it would cause a whole bunch of naming problems. You couldn't even really refer to them as "G1 Prowl" and "Animated Prowl" because technically they'd both be in the G1 story. (I think this is the main reason G1 Cyclonus didn't show up in the "Worlds Collide" story in the Armada comics, even if they weren't named). In general, name reuse can be a bit confusing (when someone says "WHEN ARE WE GETTING A NEW INFERNO TOY" do they mean G1 or BW Inferno?) but fixed with a quick identifier. Not so when you've got two guys in the same universe with the same name.

So yes, while Sentinel Major in WoH isn't going to be a Prime, it's hard to deny that Animated Sentinel Prime hasn't pretty much become the definitive use of the name "Sentinel Prime". And since we've been given the opportunity to use Zeta instead, I just felt it's a fairly simple solution to guys sharing the same name.

Personally I don't like making them into the same guy. One one hand Kup specifically says that Megatron killed two Primes before Optimus, meaning it WAS an intentional addition.

Good point. I do suppose that will be the direction IDW will move in, so that would be a good reason to keep the two as separate names, despite the WfC one apparently sharing both names.

In a way, I suppose that kinda shows how unimportant Sentinel and Zeta are cosmically in G1... one exists in some timelines (Sentinel in most, Zeta only in WfC), both exist in IDW... neither is important just as long as they die so Optimus can take over. Heh.

And WfC isn't "all the exact same characters with the same bodies/appearance ". They don't have the same bodies (not even Shockwave, whose G1 form was his Cybertronian form), there are several characters based on characters from non-G1 series, and most importantly, it's the same continuity with Exodus and Prime, so it clearly can't be G1 unless they are.

The bodies are a lot generally all in the vein of "cybertronian G1 forms" like in the War Within than any other continuity. Jetfire practically looks exactly the same. The only two non-G1 original characters are Demolishor and Slipstream, both of whom are bonus chassis and don't even show up in campaign. The most non-G1 link you've got is Barricade taking a slightly more Movie-inspired color scheme, but he's got the personality of the G1 version.

I haven't read Exodus yet, but by most accounts, even if it's intended to be in continuity with WfC, it's got so many differences it doesn't really mesh. And we haven't seen anything of Prime yet, so it's impossible to say where that will fit in. Maybe the three will eventually be lumped into their own new continuity, but right now, War for Cybertron hews VERY much into the G1 continuity family.

This post has been edited by Magnusblitz: Jun 28 2010, 01:09 AM

[Jeysie]

And yet if we did get Animated Prowl in a G1 continuity, it would cause a whole bunch of naming problems. You couldn't even really refer to them as "G1 Prowl" and "Animated Prowl" because technically they'd both be in the G1 story.

In which case, Animated Prowl would get the new name--being the "import"--not the existing G1 character. By no stretch of logic does it make any sense to say, "Well, we should change the name of the existing G1 character due to a character in a different continuity and a G1 character who has a slightly similar name and is otherwise unrelated (just like the other 'Sentinel prefix' characters that already exist)."

But on the whole, I think MrBlud 100% summed it up for me:

My completely unfounded speculation is that Shane did invent Zeta Prime of his own accord and someone at Activision was doing research for the game and picked up Zeta Prime from the IDW books and as was said in the panel no one caught this until it was too late.

The whole deal with Nexus Maximus illustrates that Hasbro is extremely protective of the "-Prime" suffix so their saying that Sentinel Prime *is* Zeta Prime seals it for me that Zeta was always a mistake and doesn't actually exist.

I also feel this is probably completely what happened. Both McCarthy and Activision made a mistake, and Hasbro is obviously trying to say they're not going to perpetuate it from now on. Zeta's basically an IDW and WFC character and that's it.

[Cabooceratops]

I'd rather Sentinel Prime go to the love-to-hate jerk and Zeta Prime go to that one dude who dies.

Though rather, Zeta Prime can hug off, bring back U-Haul Robot.

[Bobbington]

My completely unfounded speculation is that Shane did invent Zeta Prime of his own accord and someone at Activision was doing research for the game and picked up Zeta Prime from the IDW books and as was said in the panel no one caught this until it was too late

Except Zeta Prime was indeed named Sentinel Prime during early development, as evidenced by the early labeled concept art shown when various website people went to visit High Moon, and was then deliberately changed to Zeta Prime at some point. This was anything but a mistake, it was very intentional.

This instead suggests they did mean to use Sentinel in the first place and something, most likely that they saw another, future use for the Sentinel moniker in the WfC universe, made them change their mind.

This post has been edited by Bobbington: Jun 28 2010, 04:18 AM

[mignash]

Easy. Sentinel Prime was before Optimus in G1. Zeta Prime was before Optimus in War for Cybertron/Transformers: Prime, which is not G1.

How the heck is WfC not G1? It's got all the exact same characters with the same bodies/appearances and such. Sure, it's a new G1, and a separate line, just like Sunbow is different from Marvel comics is different from Dreamwave is different from IDW, but it's still G1.

Because it leads up to TF Prime, not G1. I'm not saying it' lesser, or inferior, it's just the latest continuity and series. It's very G1 inspired, but it's not G1. If there are any differences between the two (Zeta Prime vs. Sentinel Prime) it's NOT a mistake to be argued, it's just how the two are different.

This post has been edited by mignash: Jun 28 2010, 08:50 AM

[MrBlud]

My completely unfounded speculation is that Shane did invent Zeta Prime of his own accord and someone at Activision was doing research for the game and picked up Zeta Prime from the IDW books and as was said in the panel no one caught this until it was too late

Except Zeta Prime was indeed named Sentinel Prime during early development, as evidenced by the early labeled concept art shown when various website people went to visit High Moon, and was then deliberately changed to Zeta Prime at some point. This was anything but a mistake, it was very intentional.

This instead suggests they did mean to use Sentinel in the first place and something, most likely that they saw another, future use for the Sentinel moniker in the WfC universe, made them change their mind.

Or that they were originally correct with Sentinel but then someone saw (according to IDW) Zeta was the Prime before Optimus and they changed it then.

Archer was jumping through verbal hoops with "Sentinel Zeta Prime" to reconcile it so I'm fairly confident Zeta is wrong as far as WfC is concerned.

[Bobbington]

Or that they were originally correct with Sentinel but then someone saw (according to IDW) Zeta was the Prime before Optimus and they changed it then.

Archer was jumping through verbal hoops with "Sentinel Zeta Prime" to reconcile it so I'm fairly confident Zeta is wrong as far as WfC is concerned.

Except everything name-related (everythin IP-related, in fact) goes through Hasbro for certification and approval, in a cycle that takes a few days (the process was once explained by one of the RotF videogame designers). So a Hasbro guy, at the very least, saw and certified that, then later in development someone also certified all the dialogue for the dubs and then the dubs themselves. So it was not only a deliberate decision, it was a decision that was accepted (and possibly even made) by Hasbro's gaming division and they would have had months to notice and correct it if it had been an error.

Aaron Archer was jumping through hoops because he's not actually the one who was dealing with High Moon and Activision (that'd be Jim Eisenstein or someone he works with) so it's entirely probable he doesn't know what the rationale behind WfC Zeta Prime is, but on the other hand he'll rarely answer "I have no idea", especially when his big thing for the convention is unifying the fiction. It's not the first time contradiction emerge within Hasbro itself.

[Walky]

My completely unfounded speculation is that Shane did invent Zeta Prime of his own accord and someone at Activision was doing research for the game and picked up Zeta Prime from the IDW books and as was said in the panel no one caught this until it was too late.

Thing is, Zeta Prime's character model art seen in one of the studio tours was labeled "Sentinel Prime," so there's got to be more to it than that.