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Post by Andy Turnbull on Oct 8, 2023 11:10:28 GMT
Just chucking this in here the now, but the Zoom call had us discussing the new Skybound TF book and I'd raised the point of the one big absence in all of TF media was the fact it never really treated it as a war. No character should have been safe if they were on the field of battle.
Death is such an abstract in TF media, and it should have happened more. The Underbase saga was brought up and Martin rightly pointed out the war wouldn't just be fought by lasers and melee weapons, but the real death dealing weapons would be things like computer viruses and EMP weapons.
The only time they had anything in the comic, that came close to that was Scraplets and they treated it like a bit of a joke, but there is an obvious analogue to biological weapons with them.
You could have them back up their personalities so you body is dead and they then get dropped into a new body. Which gives you the opportunity to deal with data integrity and the loss of bits when you copy and copy and copy. Imagine having a more combat hungry Transformer being dropped into a new body so frequently and each time it happens there is less and less of them, until it comes to the point there is no real justifiable reason to restore them.
Martin also pointed out that more could have been done with Scorponok and Optimus in the pretender story in the computer world. While it's not in the text, my reading is there was consequences, when Scorponok is overwhelmed by the data surge and has to bail out quickly, I don't think his full personality came back to the real world. As after this you have a Scorponok more willing to work with Prime in the Underbase saga, to cease fire against Starscream and the alliance. I think he was so diminished that instead of the binary bonding process leading to them becoming one, he was overwhelmed by Zarak.
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Post by Pinwig on Oct 8, 2023 13:22:48 GMT
I'd imagine transformers was no less bound by the general rule of media at the time, the stars always live to fight next week. When that didn't happen, like the end of Blake's 7 or Adric, it was a significant shock and something that only came as a result of actors leaving or a series ending. Aside from Hasbro directives about toy promotion, the fact that media these days sometimes works on shock tactics of killing cast members, like Game of Thrones, you can see that filtering through into other media.
As for a hard SF feel in the original series, when I felt that the most was the opening of the G2 run with mentions of warp gates and the Autobots acting like guerilla fighters. It suddenly felt like things had stepped up a gear and got a bit more visceral.
It's interesting. I'd read fiction that put the transformers into proper SF. We need to get Stephen Baxter on the case.
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Oct 8, 2023 13:37:38 GMT
Burns and I did something in a more hard sf/horror vein for Transformers - humanity not really registering with them as a lifeform in the way we often treat things like insects. Very grim, there would be no understandable communication, a machine culture with it's own language and would likely transmit data through more efficient means.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Oct 8, 2023 14:20:13 GMT
In reality, who lives and dies in war is random chance. In good fiction, it isn't, because the writer has a story to tell and knows which characters they need to keep alive, and which characters to kill off, to tell it.
In 'Game of Thrones', it felt like no character was safe, but only because the viewer/reader was tricked by the writer into thinking characters were being developed to go the full distance, who actually needed to die to serve the plots of the characters who were always going to survive to the final season. Daenerys, Tyrion, Jon, Cersei, Jaime, Arya and the others who made it from season 1 to season 8 were always going to, it was critical to the story that they not be killed off by a wayward arrow, so unlike in real life they were untouchable, it's just the viewer didn't know it. With hindight, the deaths of those who looked like they might be central characters but suddenly got killed off were not realistically random - they were necessary for the plot. They were doomed by the needs of the story, just as the characters who survived were protected.
Writing a Transformers saga where the writer knows from the start who needs to survive throughout in order to tell the story they want to tell, and who needs to die (unexpectedly to the reader) to serve the story, would be good writing. A writer who flips a coin every week to decide who to kill off and who to keep alive has no grand plan and is making it up as they go along. It may be more realistic, but it's not good fiction.
Martin
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Oct 8, 2023 15:01:11 GMT
Oh I agree, and it's why I hate editorially mandated character deaths - see Kup in the Visionaries dross, but there's great mileage in well rounded, established cast members not making it out of a story alive.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Oct 8, 2023 15:43:12 GMT
Everyone here would agree that the original 'Star Wars' is a great film, but it's one best seen first at a young age, before you've seen so many coming-of-age films (from 'The Mask of Zorro' to 'The Transformers: The Movie') where the old mentor dies to allow the young generation to take their place, that you know Obi-Wan will die and Luke and Leia survive. It's one reason the final trilogy comes across as so awful to me - they just keep repeating the old-heroes-die, young-heroes-survive pattern that there's no surprise or suspense. And it's also annoying because in every film I've mentioned in this post, the older character is more charismatic and satisfying to watch on screen than the younger one who survives. The old character's death serves a narrative purpose because the writer wants to write the story of their protegee maturing into their replacement, but it's been done too much. (Hot Rod's character bio even admits he's a rip-off of Prince Hal in Shakespeare's 'Henry IV'.) I love coming across films that are brave enough to take a different path. The live-action 'Alita - Battle Angel' for example, where the story you realise the writer has decided to tell requires the young male love interest to die and the father figure to survive - oh, and the dog has to die for good story reasons too, as in 'John Wick'. The best fictional deaths are ones that shock you at the time, but which you can see the reasons for looking back afterwards having seen the whole story. Martin |
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primenova
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
Posts: 6,001
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Post by primenova on Oct 8, 2023 19:35:15 GMT
We had a slow war undercover with the return to cybertron arc. But it was kept down because it had been going for a while with no way to replace the troops. But Bob did make a big thing when we got new characters in the comic, trying to tie in the matrix. (#21) You would of expected a death in the Bumblebee solo story a few issues before. He wasnt really being used much at the time
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Post by that_bluestreak on Oct 16, 2023 18:12:54 GMT
Martin also pointed out that more could have been done with Scorponok and Optimus in the pretender story in the computer world. While it's not in the text, my reading is there was consequences, when Scorponok is overwhelmed by the data surge and has to bail out quickly, I don't think his full personality came back to the real world. As after this you have a Scorponok more willing to work with Prime in the Underbase saga, to cease fire against Starscream and the alliance. I think he was so diminished that instead of the binary bonding process leading to them becoming one, he was overwhelmed by Zarak. That is a really cool reading. I like it. |
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Oct 16, 2023 18:58:19 GMT
I like to think Ethan had all his copies of Prime removed... but after everyone left found he had a Deception warlord on file...
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Oct 16, 2023 21:07:04 GMT
Martin also pointed out that more could have been done with Scorponok and Optimus in the pretender story in the computer world. While it's not in the text, my reading is there was consequences, when Scorponok is overwhelmed by the data surge and has to bail out quickly, I don't think his full personality came back to the real world. As after this you have a Scorponok more willing to work with Prime in the Underbase saga, to cease fire against Starscream and the alliance. I think he was so diminished that instead of the binary bonding process leading to them becoming one, he was overwhelmed by Zarak. That is a really cool reading. I like it. It does make sense in the context of the Scorponok/Zarak storyline and where they ends up in the comic. |
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Oct 16, 2023 21:09:50 GMT
I like to think Ethan had all his copies of Prime removed... but after everyone left found he had a Deception warlord on file... I don't believe for a minute that Ethan doesn't have copies of Optimus, the Protectobots, Megatron and the Combaticons. If you like it's the nice back door to having Star Convoy, Guard City, Super Megatron and Battle Gaia in a more Marvel setting. I might go digging through my archives and dust off my old computer Prime fic and spruce it up and do a few new chapters. |
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Oct 16, 2023 22:06:55 GMT
Ha. I hadn't twigged to him having the big recycled Battlestars players. Nice spot.
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Oct 16, 2023 22:20:39 GMT
Yeah, it's a notion I had a while ago and had forgotten about until now, time to do something about that methinks...
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Oct 16, 2023 22:51:56 GMT
I am now feeling like I should consider getting round to opening my Selects Super Megatron!
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