Transformers the Movie 40th Anniversary Tour

LordGigaIce said:

Because it's not relevant. How IDW chose to depict Optimus has little bearing on how it chose to depict Hot Rod/Rodimus.

Click to expand...

I disagree; it's demonstrative of how IDW has even characters like Optimus shown in non-positive light. Hot Rod isn't unique in that regard.

My main objection to the points you raised is I don't see G1 Rodimus knowingly pushing a subordinate into addictive and self-destructive behaviour. That was an IDW original.

Click to expand...

And G1 Optimus would never take it upon himself to annex an entire planet without even consulting the people of the planet he was annexing, nor the governmental body he was annexxing it into. That's also an IDW original.

As I said, IDW was willing to take some swings having characters take actions that didn't necessarily look favorably on them. Which makes sense, it's not a 80's cartoon with a strict pallette of morality with which to paint with.

Undead Scottsman said:

As I said, IDW was willing to take some swings having characters take actions that didn't necessarily look favorably on them. Which makes sense, it's not a 80's cartoon with a strict pallette of morality with which to paint with.

Click to expand...

Never said it was. Hell, I don't even disagree with most of what you're saying.
What I was pointing out was that IDW was not immune from having some fun at Rodimus' expense. It also engaged in some good old fashion Go Bots slander, by having Megatron kill Cy-Kill in the gladiatorial pits in Megatron: Origins. Which, like dunking on Rodimus, was a common thing in the franchise until everyone got tired of the joke.

Does this make IDW bad? No, and I never said it did. It is another notable example in how this franchise has treated Rodimus since 1986, however.

Thing is, I could defend all of this.

G1? Like it or not, kids reacted badly to Optimus dying, and a 180 was exactly what a boardroom full of out of touch execs would do to try and fix the problem from their last out of touch decision.

Energon? "Convoy" has always been less "special" a title in Japan than "Prime" has been in the West. And the Thirteen hadn't really taken off as a concept yet by Energon, much less the idea that they were all Primes. Back then it was generally understood that there was one Prime at a time, and UT Optimus was alive and well when Rodimus showed up. So leaving off the Prime title made sense. Hell, the Planetary Convoys in Cybertron were all denied the "Prime" title in that show, so it's not like Rodimus was a special case.

Animated? Again, the show runners wanted to use Rodimus in the "jerk Prime" slot, and had to shift to Sentinel when Hasbro decided they didn't want Rodimus depicted negatively. Additionally, they likely opted for "Rodimus Minor" because his design in the show was his classic Hot Rod sports car design, not the space camper design associated with Rodimus Prime.

IDW? IDW 1.0 lasted a long time and had a number of different writers, so I'm going to focus on Roberts' version of Rodimus. Roberts is a British nerd who grew up in the 80s, and his MtMtE/LL series wears that on its sleeve, owing a lot to 80s Doctor Who and Red Dwarf. Rodimus in particular comes off a mix between Arnold Rimmer and some of the more cavalier portrayals of the Doctor. All of this is to say that his flawed, self serving nature slots him perfectly into the story Roberts was telling.

EarthSpark? ES made Megatron a good guy, and played with the ideas of characters making uncomfortable choices in the fallout of the War, Megatron being aligned with Optimus being a big example of that itself. Hot Rod throwing in with Liege Maximo and being unhappy with the way things have gone thanks to Optimus' leadership isn't that shocking given the spaces ES was playing in, regarding character alignment.

That being said, I get it. Rodimus got jive forever for how '86/S3 shook out, and if you're a Rodimus fan all the justifications aren't gonna make these seem like less of slights, but also.... again... I think we owe it all to ourselves to just stop drawing lines in the sand. Our enjoyment of this franchise and the characters that connect to us is entirely something within our own agency.
What Hasbro chooses to do or not do ultimately can't make you feel any differently about the stuff you love.

Sabrblade said:

Sounds like someone at Hasbro remembered Optimus saying he wasn't worthy of the Matrix in the movie.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it sounds like a worry over nothing and yet I turn to my blu-ray shelf and staring right back at me is

CoffeeHorse said:

Not just any fandom is going to be able to get a studio to backpedal that hard. The Sonic fandom is something special.

Click to expand...

Sabrblade said:

Yeah, y'all remember the initial reactions to seeing the 2007 movie designs? Hasbro and Paramount stuck to their guns and doubled down on those designs in spite of the backlash.

Click to expand...

Saying they changed Sonic's design because of the fandom's dislike of it is underselling just how repulsed everyone was by the manhog. No matter where you turned was people dunking on how hideous their supposed charming wise-cracking marketable mascot was. And that they realized they were sitting on such a rotten egg and course corrected has even led to some people tin foil conspiracy that the original design was never real in the first place because nobody would ok something that ugly and the "change" was just to go "see, we do listen to you people!"

LordGigaIce said:

Never said it was. Hell, I don't even disagree with most of what you're saying.
What I was pointing out was that IDW was not immune from having some fun at Rodimus' expense. It also engaged in some good old fashion Go Bots slander, by having Megatron kill Cy-Kill in the gladiatorial pits in Megatron: Origins. Which, like dunking on Rodimus, was a common thing in the franchise until everyone got tired of the joke.

Does this make IDW bad? No, and I never said it did. It is another notable example in how this franchise has treated Rodimus since 1986, however.

Click to expand...

Okay, firstly I never said you said anything was bad, in fact I'm not sure you ever even expressed an opinion on the quality of IDW for me to even comment on. My point is that using IDW as an example of dumping on Rodimus is ineffective towards your point, because IDW dumped on a lot more than just Rodimus. It fails the "notable" check for me, personally. Your mileage, obviously, may vary.

To me, tt's like bringing up marvel zombies as yet another example of making Spider-Man evil. You're not technically wrong, but most of the cast of that series turned evil. Or like if you took Shattered Glass as yet another time Megatron was a good guy. Again, technically true, but all the Decepticons were good guys in that thing.

That being said, I get it. Rodimus got jive forever for how '86/S3 shook out, and if you're a Rodimus fan all the justifications aren't gonna make these seem like less of slights, but also.... again... I think we owe it all to ourselves to just stop drawing lines in the sand. Our enjoyment of this franchise and the characters that connect to us is entirely something within our own agency.
What Hasbro chooses to do or not do ultimately can't make you feel any differently about the stuff you love.

Click to expand...

I feel like we're missing the forest for the trees here a bit; how Hasbro makes you feel about the stuff you love isn't really the issue, it's how Hasbro chooses to make the new stuff that one would like to enjoy, if not for certain things they find grating. I'm personally of the opinion that there are 50 zillion Transformers continuities, and while it's disappointing when one doesn't land for you, the wheel will come around eventually. (Was not a fan of the Energon Universe most of DWJ's run, for example) That said, having to wait for another spin of the wheel doesn't alleviate said disappointment.

I do think what happened to Rodimus and Optimus is a genuine down point (not the only one of course) of the franchise and has had an unfortunately negative impact on the franchise as a whole, turning Optimus into a messiah-like figure over and over again until they literally turned him into an ACTUAL messiah figure by making him the 13th Prime. Rodimus is more like collateral damage in the long run.

Sabrblade said:

Instead, we get cases like EarthSpark turning him into a traitor.

Click to expand...

Haven't gotten around to finish Earthspark yet.

This is not motivating me to.

LordGigaIce said:

To the point, I don't think they're going to try and lock him away. They're coming out with a new SS '86 Rodimus Prime figure, who will either be a heavy retool of the Kingdom release or an all new mould. Either way, you don't roll out a new $90+ figure for a character you want to memory hole.

Click to expand...

Oh, I forgot about that. How long ago did they say that?

Exatron said:

So yeah, there's a lot of history there that triggers heavy skepticism, but my pitchfork and torches have been stowed for a while now. I'm willing to wait and see what this is before I'll make any conclusions.

Click to expand...

Oh, I'm totally waiting to see. I was just responding to the "So what if they do minimize Rodimus again?" part.

Been there, done that, didn't much like it, don't wanna go back.

LordGigaIce said:

Hell, the Planetary Convoys in Cybertron were all denied the "Prime" title in that show, so it's not like Rodimus was a special case.

Click to expand...

Vector Prime aside, I forgot about that. Fair point.

LordGigaIce said:

Additionally, they likely opted for "Rodimus Minor" because his design in the show was his classic Hot Rod sports car design, not the space camper design associated with Rodimus Prime.

Click to expand...

Eh, I dunno on that one. It's not like they kept Optimus with his trailer, either. They did call him "Rodimus Prime" in the show, it was the toy where it became an issue.

Plus, like I said, even Shockwave got to be a Prime.

And WRT Sonic, there's kind of a give and take on these things. As Blot said, it wasn't just Sonic fans -- everyone hated that design. And apparently Paramount realized that it's going to be hard to get anyone to go see your movie if everyone hates the way the hero looks.

Also, apropo of nothing.

Rodimus is such a dumb name. I sometimes forget because I've had 40 years to metastasize it, but holy moly.

LordGigaIce said:

Additionally, they likely opted for "Rodimus Minor" because his design in the show was his classic Hot Rod sports car design, not the space camper design associated with Rodimus Prime.

Click to expand...

Official word at the time was that Hasbro felt there were too many toys in the line with "Prime" in their names by the time Rodimus's toy came along, and didn't want to further dilute the "Prime" title in the toyline.

Meanwhile, Animated Rodimus's very first appearance in anything, a character bio written by Derrick J. Wyatt and printed in an issue of the TCC magazine as a sneak peek at the then-forthcoming third season of the cartoon, labeled him as "Rodimus Prime".

Blot said:

Yeah, it sounds like a worry over nothing and yet I turn to my blu-ray shelf and staring right back at me is

Click to expand...

Guess we can blame Livio for that one.

LBD Nytetrayn said:

Vector Prime aside, I forgot about that. Fair point.

Click to expand...

Vector Prime was made an exception by his being created as one of the ancient Thirteen Primes (and also was never a "Convoy" in Japanese either).

Sabrblade said:

Official word at the time was that Hasbro felt there were too many toys in the line with "Prime" in their names by the time Rodimus's toy came along, and didn't want to further dilute the "Prime" title in the toyline.

Click to expand...

Oh yeah...



They can still go %&$# themselves on that one.

Anyway, just wanted to add that whatever they do, I think I hope it's something more tongue-in-cheek like the rest of this whole thing has been, rather than dumping some sort of new lore in.

Something like post-credits, having a CGI (or better still, guy in a costume) Optimus Prime coming out in a spoof of the Captain America PSAs and sitting on a chair and telling everyone that the movie they just watched was a work of fiction, and Optimus is juuuuuuust fine. He just had some other things to do, so that's why they passed the reigns on to Hot Rod so they could tell exciting new stories in the far-off future of 2005.

Adding filters to make the footage look like it's lost from the '80s would be a nice bonus.

I still enjoy my fan theory that Paramount knew they weren't going to finish Sonic on time, so they purposely released a crappy take to make people demand that they delay the film,l... all the while secretly having gotten the design right and continuing to work on it (crunch and all sadly).

What can I say, it's easy to fall for conspiracies when you don't know how anything works. And that's me here.

I doubt it. It was supposed to be a shovelware "in the real world" movie. They know how to make that movie in their sleep. They genuinely stepped in it and got scared into backpedaling.

It will never not be funny.

RELEASE THE UGLY SONIC CUT

In fact, redo the CG in 2 and 3 with Ugly Tails, Ugly Knuckles and Ugly Shadow

At the very least, Disney of all people did give Ugly Sonic himself a second chance and let him see the light of day.

Biggest argument against 'The Ugly Sonic design was just a marketing ploy' theory is like...they are gonna spend all that time and effort (and money, most importantly) doing character designs, creating CGI models, rigging it, animating it, digital composition, etc. just as a way to try and get attention or some 'We need to delay this movie!'

(To say nothing on merchandise and jive that was released using the Ugly Sonic design.)

LBD "Nytetrayn" said:

Vector Prime aside, I forgot about that. Fair point.

Click to expand...

Thing is, at the time I just assumed Vector was one of Optimus' distant predecessors as a Matrix bearer sent in a time travelling mission of great destiny or whatever. I had no idea he was intended to be a member of the Thirteen at the time.

You could make the argument that by letting Rodimus and the GF planetary Convoys be Primes in Energon and Cybertron that Hasbro could have worldbuilt what "Prime" meant in the UT, and could have engaged in some fun worldbuilding... but it also wasn't that type of franchise
Point is, Rodimus wasn't uniquely singled out there. And truth be told, most people at the time treated his toy as a pretty cool update of the Rodimus Prime concept anyway (at least conceptually... practically the SuperLink gimmick kinda hobbled it).

Sabrblade said:

Official word at the time was that Hasbro felt there were too many toys in the line with "Prime" in their names by the time Rodimus's toy came along, and didn't want to further dilute the "Prime" title in the toyline.

Click to expand...

Ah gotcha. I mean... it happens. Universe 2.0 Galvatron got scaled down to a Deluxe because someone in marketing thought they had too many tanky Voyagers on the shelves, even if it severely compromised the figure.

LBD "Nytetrayn" said:

Oh, I forgot about that. How long ago did they say that?

Click to expand...

Evan mentioned that they're looking into doing a new SS '86 Rodimus figure that would be all new tooling. And yeah, it bares repeating, Rodimus got his first Commander class figure before Optimus.
Optimus' equivalent figure in Commander Rodimus' line was the ER Leader class figure (he got a package refresh in Kingdom). Rodimus got the higher price point and more involved trailer in that line. So I don't think you can blame the current team for downplaying Rodimus.

LBD "Nytetrayn" said:

Plus, like I said, even Shockwave got to be a Prime.

Click to expand...

In fairness, Shockwave masquerading as Longarm Prime was a bigger part of Animated's ongoing story than Rodimus Prime/Minor was.

Still, this touches on something about Animated I never liked... that they made "Prime" a relatively lower and relatively common rank (even Optimus got to be a Prime and he was in charge of a lowly repair crew). Call me a stickler or old fashion or a Geewuner or whatever, but I like the idea of the "Prime" being the Autobot supreme commander.

My alt pitch for Animated is to keep that by putting Optimus Prime in the Ultra Magnus role. A rarely seen presence who everyone talks up and gets to do some cool stuff when he does show up. Meanwhile our main Autobot leader is Hot Rod, who everyone thinks is a screw up and gets put in charge of said lowly repair crew. And the whole show is following Hot Rod learning to be a leader, leading to him becoming Rodimus Prime by the end of the show. You could even swap Ratchet out for Kup for some extra '86 flavouring.

LBD "Nytetrayn" said:

Anyway, just wanted to add that whatever they do, I think I hope it's something more tongue-in-cheek like the rest of this whole thing has been...

Click to expand...

I think that's what's being lost here because...

Princess Viola said:

it's just part of my broader dislike of when franchises come off like they're pandering to the most whiny parts of the fanbase?

Click to expand...

... this isn't really happening here. The announcement trailer for this thing used stock images of crying babies and toddlers when talking about the kids in '86 who were upset that Optimus died. This isn't pandering the "HOW DARE THEY KILL OPTIMUS" crowd, it's taking the piss out of the whole thing.

Undead Scottsman said:

Rodimus is such a dumb name. I sometimes forget because I've had 40 years to metastasize it, but holy moly.

Click to expand...

"Rodimus Prime" is a Cybertronian porn name.

Undead Scottsman said:

To me, tt's like bringing up marvel zombies as yet another example of making Spider-Man evil. You're not technically wrong, but most of the cast of that series turned evil.

Click to expand...

Nah, I don't agree. Marvel Zombies is a side thing. IDW 1.0 was the main comic continuity for thirteen years. And is, in fact, the longest continuous ongoing continuity in Transformers history. I'm not 100% on that, but I'm pretty certain, and if not, it's damn close. So no, I wouldn't compare Marvel Zombies to IDW 1.0.

Undead Scottsman said:

My point is that using IDW as an example of dumping on Rodimus is ineffective towards your point, because IDW dumped on a lot more than just Rodimus.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I'm not really coming around on this one. Rodimus being being a brash, arrogant, self destructive glory seeker whose lack of progress towards meaningful growth and goals is the butt of jokes and who gives himself the "reasons you suck" speech, to Optimus isn't just IDW being IDW.
You're right in that it falls in line with IDW looking at everyone a bit sideways, but it's still in line with the more negative views of Rodimus at the time.

Notably, your example paints Optimus' unilateral annexation of Earth to be a hard choice on his part, one he's unsure of, and only does it as one of a number of bad options. It's "what if your wise robot truck dad from the 80s '86 had to make a really questionable choice?"
He's still Optimus under all the shades of grey, and IDW Rodimus still reflected a lot of negative ideas about Rodimus under all of that too.

Undead Scottsman said:

I do think what happened to Rodimus and Optimus is a genuine down point (not the only one of course) of the franchise and has had an unfortunately negative impact on the franchise as a whole, turning Optimus into a messiah-like figure over and over again until they literally turned him into an ACTUAL messiah figure by making him the 13th Prime. Rodimus is more like collateral damage in the long run.

Click to expand...

Sure, Optimus dying turned him from "fun robot dad" into "robot Jesus" and the whole Thirteenth Prime bs probably stems from all of this at the end of the day...

... but you know what? Maybe it all worked out the best?

Optimus dying made the movie memorable. No one had done anything like that in kids media. We're still years off of DC killing Superman as a publicity stunt. The lead hero didn't die. We have people in this thread who have said they've shown the movie to people who have no real connection to Transformers beyond base surface level familiarity, and to this day they're shocked Optimus dies twenty minutes in.

I don't think this movie, or Transformers as a whole, does as well in the public consciousness if Optimus doesn't die. It's just another toy commercial movie at that point.
Also, Rodimus doesn't happen at all, if Optimus doesn't die. Hell, Hot Rod may not happen at all if there's no need for a hero's journey narrative.

I guess the ideal timeline is a world where the movie happens as it happens, but kids don't freak out when Optimus bites the dust. Which was, frankly, impossible. You can't teach a bunch of 5-10 year olds to get attached to a fictional character, kill him in front of them, and expect them not to be upset. That's asking a lot out of children. Too much, frankly.

Now should those children have gotten the hell over it as they got older? Yes.

Undead Scottsman said:

I'm personally of the opinion that there are 50 zillion Transformers continuities, and while it's disappointing when one doesn't land for you, the wheel will come around eventually. (Was not a fan of the Energon Universe most of DWJ's run, for example) That said, having to wait for another spin of the wheel doesn't alleviate said disappointment.

Click to expand...

I guess my view of things is that everything you or I or someone else doesn't like is something someone else loves. There's plenty in this franchise I don't care for, but I'd be a fool to say it has no value. Hell, I love Machine Wars. A lot of people don't.

And that's worth keeping in mind because while personal disappointment any time the wheel turns and it's not to my liking is valid, it doesn't do anyone any good for me to pretend like it brings nothing to the table.

In short, I'm getting older, and I find just chilling and waiting out stuff I don't care for to be preferable to getting upset over it. Something Hasbro does tomorrow that I don't like won't take away the things I do like.

LordGigaIce said:

"Rodimus Prime" is a Cyberyronian porn name.

Click to expand...

Mmmm...Cybery Roni - that sounds delicious !

LBD Nytetrayn said:

Haven't gotten around to finish Earthspark yet.

Click to expand...

Earthspark is a great show, and it is worth finishing.

LordGigaIce said:

In fairness, Shockeave masquerading as Longarm Prime was a bigger part of Animated's ongoing story than Rodimus Prime/Minor was.

Click to expand...

It was also purely a cartoon-only concept as Shockwave's toy was never marketed by Hasbro with the name "Longarm Prime". Its Autobot robot mode was only ever referred to by the box and instructions as "Autobot Longarm".

LordGigaIce said:

Still, this touches on something about Animated I never liked... that they made "Prime" a relatively lower and relatively common rank (even Optimus got to be a Prime and he was in charge of a lowly repair crew).

Click to expand...

I get the feeling this was a compromise decision between the two clashing ideals of the cartoon creators wanting to tell the story of a young and untested Optimus who isn't yet the Autobot Leader, and Hasbro mandating he still be called "Optimus Prime", refusing let him be called such things as "Orion Pax", "Optronix", "Optimus Minor", or just "Optimus".

And if the cartoon creators also wanted to use Rodimus Prime (later Sentinel Prime and Rodimus Prime) as contemporaries of Optimus Prime, they would need a reason for all these Primes running around that also fit with Optimus being the young and untested pre-leader that they wanted him to be, so making the Prime rank similar to a lieutenant instead of a general worked for what they needed it to be.

Sabrblade said:

I get the feeling this was a compromise decision between the two clashing ideals of the cartoon creators wanting to tell the story of a young and untested Optimus who isn't yet the Autobot Leader, and Hasbro mandating he still be called "Optimus Prime", refusing let him be called such things as "Orion Pax", "Optronix", "Optimus Minor", or just "Optimus".

And if the cartoon creators also wanted to use Rodimus Prime (later Sentinel Prime and Rodimus Prime) as contemporaries of Optimus Prime, they would need a reason for all these Primes running around that also fit with Optimus being the young and untested pre-leader that they wanted him to be, so making the Prime rank similar to a lieutenant instead of a general worked for what they needed it to be.

Click to expand...

I liked the way that Animated used "Prime." While non-traditional, it let them do exactly what you described, have a young, inexperienced Optimus while still using the Marketing Department mandated name for him. It absolutely makes sense as a title for a crew chief.

What DIDN'T make sense was having "Magnus" be the title for what is traditionally the "Prime" roll. That means that Ultra Magnus's original name was "Ultra?" That's a terrible name.