Transformers elements that should be ignored (all media)

[primenova]

This one is for all types - comics, books, toys, cartoon

Is there anything that you always feel would make the whole story seem better if you ignore something that was shown.

ie Animated - the pilot opens with Ratchet calling the G1 cartoon clip history tapes. This makes more a pain if these are with Ratchet seeming to be the G1 Ratchet (So that would mean he suvived the Movie & Megatron, Starscream both returned & this is set after Beast Machines with everyone forgetting about Optimus Prime & some how a Autobot called Optimus Prime gets dumbed on space bridge cleaning)

IDW Movie comics - the whole start off with Transformers never on Earth then for the later series but they have, then how many times did we see the All Spark getting blasting off following different events?

[Bogatan]

The history tapes are just a bit of fun, but plot wise theres no reason to assume that the video clips are representing the same events in Animated history as they did in the G1 cartoon.

For me its one of the more fundamental parts of quite a lot of the various shows and comics. 4 Million Years. Having Transformers live for millions of years is just not a concept that humans can really grasp. So it's all a bit too meaningless, it also find it jars with how fast events happen in the present day.

Marvel at least sort of handled it with Cybertron largely shutting down for most of that time, but I wish when Furman started the IDW series the millions of years had been changed to tens of thousands.

Since then IDWs timeline only seems to have gotten worse. The war is 4 million years old and so far the vast majority of the characters to have appeared are probably over 3 million years old due to the nature of Cybertronian creation. Plenty of the characters are at least a million or two years older than that and the surviving Ark 1 crew and others are 10 or 12 million years old. Despite Transformers from this period being alive and well (ish) it is largely treated as ancient history, lost to the mist of time, but the human equivalent is pre world war 2. It just doesn't read right to me.

And the period just before this is almost treated like human prehistory, again despite Metroplex and Alpha Trion at least still being around.

The concept of data creep seems to have been introduced in part to address these kind of issues, but it still remains the one major irritant I have reading the current comics.

[primenova]

I think the main plot poitns for the ages in time passing in IDW was mainly just to explain Spotlight Shockwave events at the start - but that was just to get the Dinobots on Earth. The rest of events could be shorter.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

My number one thing to go is size-changing. It seems like a technology mismatch with transformations where everything has to go somewhere and you can see the vehicle in the robot mode. If you have size-changing tech, you might as well just have morphing shape-shifters rather than machines that reconfigure in a logical way.

One good thing about the Bay universe - no size-changing. OK, OK, apart from the Allspark...

Martin

[legios]

That would certainly create some interesting effects if you stuck with alt-modes similar to those already established. Decepticons would be significantly taller than Autobots given the formers tendency to go for aircraft modes - which would help their usually smaller numbers look less of a hindrance if they seemed individually larger and more powerful. Several of the Combiner teams would either be looking for new alt-modes for their members or would simply not be doing any combining, given the large size differential between their members... And there goes one alt-mode on most of the triple changers except Springer really...

Not against the idea at all - after all, there are plenty of transformable mecha franchises where size-changing doesn't happen at all, but applying that rule to Transformers does produce some fascinating effects.

Karl

[Andy Turnbull]

I agree, the mass-shifting/size-changing is definitely an aspect of Transformers that would be fun to get shot of just to see what could be done as a result.

Andy

[primenova]

How would Soundwave & tapes work? Just picking the con's first because we got them first.

[Andy Turnbull]

Exactly as they do at their size.

They'd be infiltration specialists, there would just need to be some extraction operatives to help them get out of particular locations.

I had notes a while ago from talking with Karl about doing a hard sci-fi Transformers series, and one of the things was that there would be a lot of human technology transformed by both sides, Indeed, the whole idea of the Transformers was that they transformed planets into their own image. The Matrix being a signal of sorts that would animate technology and mechanical forms. The idea being the Transformers we encounter were not necessarily the first, just that they were Transformed from whatever they were on their world once upon a time.

Andy

[primenova]

I'd go more along the line has Soundwave in TF/Gijoe series - being bigger & a spaceship rather than tapedeck. So then you don't need to explain 2 inch Transformers running around. But that does loose out on stories where the Autobots are trying to catch a 2 inch long Ravage hiding in air vents.

[dyrl]

I wouldn't ignore anything. All elements, if well done in a story, can be useful.