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Post by grahamthomson on Nov 8, 2010 12:43:34 GMT
What do you think has been the best "premise" of The Transformers storyline?
Some examples:
Marvel Comics: A group of Autobots become stranded on Earth after dealing with a threat to their homeworld and must adapt to Earth, convert its fuel sources and repair their ship to get home. Twist A: The Decepticons foil their efforts. Twist B: When they do get home, Unicron shows up!
Transformers (2007) Film: The source of all Transformers' life is jettisoned into space and ends up on Earth. Everyone comes to Earth to find it! Twist: The Allspark actively sought the Solar Harvester hidden on Earth!
All Hail Megatron: The Decepticons have won their inter-galactic war with the Autobots and freely proceed to specifically destroy Earth.
Armada: The Mini-Cons, a subverted subspecies of Transformer flee Cybertron and crash land on Earth. The Autobots and Decepticons arrive in a mission to collect them all! Twist: The Mini-Cons, when holding hands, have the power to defeat Unicron!
And so on...
What were the best premises of The Transformers, and do give further examples if you can!
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Post by blueshift on Nov 8, 2010 12:48:23 GMT
Hunt For The Decepticons toyline: The cruel sadistic Autobots mercilessly hunt down the cartoonishly innocent buffons known as the Decepticons.
Seriously. Read the bios, its insane.
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Post by Bogatan on Nov 8, 2010 13:27:43 GMT
Extra dimensional Predacons arrive on Earth for no specified reason, Autobots are dispatched. The Robots in Disguise concept is actually played up. Which is probably for the best as all characters suffer from some kind of mental disturbances that over an extended period of time would seriously concern any human allies older than 12 years old.
Special mention has to go to Kenners original take on Beast Wars. Makes me wonder exactly what Hasbro would have come up with if they had kept the creation of G1's backstory in house too.
Andy
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Gav
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Post by Gav on Nov 8, 2010 13:51:03 GMT
Unsurprisingly:
Animated: A group of lovable losers at the bottom rung of the Autobot ladder are responsible for defending Earth against the battle hardened and experienced Decepticons. I also loved the plotline where Autobot High Command didn’t believe the threat existed, I wish that had went on a bit longer.
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Post by grahamthomson on Nov 8, 2010 14:05:42 GMT
Hunt For The Decepticons toyline: The cruel sadistic Autobots mercilessly hunt down the cartoonishly innocent buffons known as the Decepticons. Seriously. Read the bios, its insane. I remember chuckling at the text on the Sea Spray box at how much of a war monger he'd become!
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Post by blueshift on Nov 8, 2010 14:17:00 GMT
I remember chuckling at the text on the Sea Spray box at how much of a war monger he'd become! The Firetrap / Sunspot rivalry is quite amusing too. One is a weapons-obsessed violent psychotic, the other is a simpleminded innocent. FIRETRAP To say that Firetrap is enthusiatic about specialized ammunition is an understatement. He takes every chance he can to try out unusual shells for his cannons. He's especially happpy whenever he can spring strange munitions on an unsuspecting Decepticon target. It's just bad luck for Sunspot that he happened to be flying over right after Firetrap secured some brand-new anti-aircraft ammo. SUNSPOT SUNSPOT has memory problems. Mission objectives, target data and the names of this allies slip from his mind like sand through a sieve. He remembers how to fly most of the time, which is lucky, because he finds a simple joy in being airborne. What's unlucky is that he tends to forget the AUTOBOTS are constantly on the lookout for DECEPTICONS operating on their own, so he often wanders directly into a surprise attack. Man, this probably needs its own thread. And its own ongoing comedy comic!
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primenova
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Post by primenova on Nov 8, 2010 14:23:39 GMT
Beast Wars & Animated start out the same way - with Optimus Primal & Optimus Prime Animated being on the same level. someone just happens to have a shuttle that just happens to be close to Megatron's transwrap ship & just happens to have Starscreams spark on board - to a space bridge builder who just happens to be flying around in Omega Supreme.
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primenova
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Post by primenova on Nov 8, 2010 14:36:01 GMT
The only thing with Animated i don't like too much is -
you have Optimus Prime being one of the down & outs who can't get in the Autobots warriors club the elite guard. Bit name like that. If he had somehow changed to Optimus Prime during the series. But it would have been a major kicking for Megatron - you got beat by someone so low on the bot rankings.
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Post by blueshift on Nov 8, 2010 14:49:54 GMT
The only thing with Animated i don't like too much is - you have Optimus Prime being one of the down & outs who can't get in the Autobots warriors club the elite guard. Bit name like that. If he had somehow changed to Optimus Prime during the series. But it would have been a major kicking for Megatron - you got beat by someone so low on the bot rankings. I think that is definately the idea behind Animated, but yes, the Prime name doesn't really work. However, 'Optimus Prime' as a brand identity seems to be very important to Hasbro to push hard.
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Post by grahamthomson on Nov 8, 2010 15:40:42 GMT
Poor Sunspot!
I am wondering now if this sub-range shouldn't have had all the Autobots accessorised with pitch-forks!
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Gav
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Post by Gav on Nov 8, 2010 15:51:42 GMT
The only thing with Animated i don't like too much is - you have Optimus Prime being one of the down & outs who can't get in the Autobots warriors club the elite guard. Bit name like that. If he had somehow changed to Optimus Prime during the series. But it would have been a major kicking for Megatron - you got beat by someone so low on the bot rankings. See that's something I actually liked. The fact that Optimus wasn't some battle-hardened, wise and all-knowing leader from the get-go was a breath of fresh air (for me at least). He was training to be in The Elite Guard, but had to take the fall for what happened to Elita-1 - so got bumped down to Space-Bridge maintenance. Still, he was given the rank of Prime as Magnus saw potential in him. Being a 'Prime' in Animated isn't the be-all-and-end-all that we're used to it seems. It's just another rank in the system of government/military. There's no metamorphasis into a bigger, better version of himself -only the use of add-ons/upgrades, but speaking for the character, there's a big leap from the first show to the finale. It was something that I felt really stood apart from most of the existing TF Lore. I know a lot of folks will be quick to disagree, because hey; what do I know?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2010 18:24:00 GMT
All Hail Megatron: The Decepticons have won their inter-galactic war with the Autobots and freely proceed to specifically destroy Earth. I salute you Graham. I never thought AHM had a premise!
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Nov 8, 2010 19:33:42 GMT
I think the best TF premise has to be one in which not only do the Transformers appear alien to us, but we do to them, and they have as hard (and interesting) a time adjusting to life on Earth as we would to life on Cybertron. Not so fussed about Unicron showing up though. I think the Marvel storyline could have been even stronger than it was if Cybertron had never been rediscovered, and all the new TF characters (of which there would be fewer, but perhaps more toys per character) were built on Earth.
Martin
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Gav
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Post by Gav on Nov 8, 2010 19:38:21 GMT
...Cybertron had never been rediscovered, and all the new TF characters (of which there would be fewer, but perhaps more toys per character) were built on Earth. I actually really like that idea. Perhaps those built on Earth being able to acclimatise with greater ease, causing rifts between the Cybertronians... ....hmmmm.
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Post by The Doctor on Nov 8, 2010 19:47:40 GMT
The only true Transformers premise is the Ladybird Books premise.
-Ralph
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Gav
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Post by Gav on Nov 8, 2010 20:45:35 GMT
My favourite premise was that HotRod needed new wheeltrims...
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Post by charlesrocketboy on Nov 8, 2010 21:18:34 GMT
Beast Machines: Their homeworld is overrun by a soulless technological horror, and only by returning to nature can the outgunned heroes save the day! Twist: that's just as bad as the villains, what's needed is balance between the two sides. Hunt For The Decepticons toyline: The cruel sadistic Autobots mercilessly hunt down the cartoonishly innocent buffons known as the Decepticons. Seriously. Read the bios, its insane. Holy crap, it's true!
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Post by jameso on Nov 10, 2010 0:39:43 GMT
I watched the first episodes of Armada again recently and actually though that chasing after the Minicons seemed like a good premise for why the Transformers were on earth. I don't really like much else of it though. I guess you'd have to say the Movieverse has a similar somewhat logical starting point.
I also quite like the Cybertron is now inhospitable angle that IDW and the new War For Cybertron story have.
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Nov 12, 2010 9:01:21 GMT
Like Martin I am fond of the Transformers being portrayed as alien, so the early part of the comic run is the strongest for me, and something I wish had stayed around a little longer.
Although here's a thought. I would have liked Cybertron to have been discovered but, imagine if the inhabitants had evolved and moved past the default biped configuration - something like the machines designed by Geoff Darrow in the first Matrix film. So when they did hit earth, it was like something out a Lovecraft tale.
Andy
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Post by charlesrocketboy on Nov 13, 2010 23:52:48 GMT
It always did bug me that the Ark had been missing for that long and yet Cybertron was still recognisable - it was a decaying tip, but lots of guys they knew were still around, technology was mostly the same, the Transformers hadn't changed that much. It should've been more like G2 from the start, everyone's moved on and Prime & Megatron are seen as ugly embarrassments, or the whole planet was dead, or they'd done what you're suggesting.
Or potentially all three - we saw the war was spreading through the galaxy, the old Cybertron could be dead and a hundred new types of Transformers exist. Like in the Cybertron cartoon, only more so.
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