Tag: decepticons

Transformers and names

Attempts to make Megatron into like Magneto or something generally fall flat for me because of his name. Its meant to evoke a nuclear bomb,.

Its not like darker versions Godzilla where he is simultaneously representing the bomb and those harmed by it. You would need to change a lot about the character to pull it off.

Names are like super important to me as a Transformers fan. I judge the American Transformers cartoons (I try to give the translated Japanese ones leeway due to translation, dubs, and nameslaps to hold onto rights) alot by how well the names suit the characters.

Its why attempts to make the Decepticon cause sympathetic fall flat for me outside of animated, where Decepticon was a reclaimed slur (and it still felt they didn’t do enough with that and continued playing them as straight up evil.)

The name Decepticon tells me immediately the Decepticon cause itself in most continuities is similar to something  a “post-morality edgelord” would dream 

Speaking of names,  I’d like to vent about some names in the Aligned continuity:

Smokescreen Prime’s name is terrible because its a meta-gag  about his role and doesn’t fit in universe

“Breakdown” was unfitting for a bruiser type character.

 “Filch” is not a dumb name by G1 standards, and would fit perfectly in the micromaster days

Strongarm, I love you, but your name suits that of a villain and just screams police brutality and union buster.

I miss when names implied a special power.

On the other side, I don’t like names just be in-universe insults unless its adressed. It would hit the same wrong notes as the “negative theme” cutie marks we saw for joke characters in MLP:FIM. 

I remember reading a fic from the viewpoint of the Stunticons upon their creation, and Breakdown was screaming internally as he went through  “why do I have that name. Please let it not be the reason I think it is. That’s cruel”, and he felt so much relief when he reached the parts about his powers.

My unpopular opinion

I may think Transformers die too easily in modern, but I still think humans should be able to theoretically defeat one. (In practice its much harder.)

A single decepticon mind you. And it should require as much good planning as the finale of an old Giant Monster Movie and have to be tailored to individual weaknesses. (the idea of Transformrers having a common weakness to incendinary rounds in that one comic was dumb.)  And neutralized doesn’t mean kill. They’d have to bring them to a special facility in order to destroy the redundant well protected vital systems. And they still might run out of diamond saws halfway through and have to order more. 

The Thunderchild in HG Well’s War of the Worlds showed me that being able to make the enemy bleed but in the end overall achieve nothing can actually better reinfoce feelings of hopelessnes than the antagonist just shrugging things off.

I’d like to see Transformers switch up the non-leaders factions between some series

Like say Scavenger, instead of winding up with the constructicons Bumblebee’s  mandatory large green buddy. (I’d imagine him being built as a decepticon but the autobots took over the base he lived at and he hadn’t been fully indoctrinated so he just walks in the back door and goes to his room like nothing happened. After all the decepticons told him might makes right and didn’t the autobots just prove themselve’s mightier. The only reason the DJD wouldn’t be after him is they went after the guy who was supposed to mentor scavenger instead, writing Scavenger off a a “defect” rather than a defector.)

Or have Misfire as a flight instructor for the flying autobots. (he’s actually a very good flier, even if he sucks at actual combat.)

Most attempts I’ve seen by fans to give the Decepticons a so-called “valid philosophy” falls flat to me because it ends up being what real-life internet edgelords or awful rich people believe. 

Seriously, they call themselves “Decepticons.” That sets off the same warning flags as “Dark Enlightenment.”

I think recent political events, and my formative fanfiction reading years are behind my … issues with sympathetic portrayals of the decepticon leadership.

There was a lot of terrible moral relativism in the fandom in the 2000s and I got sick of it as a young age.

Actually its something I saw in a lot of fandoms at the time, where people would give their dark and edgy ocs a laundry list of monstrous traits and feats and then say “… but they’re not evil, just amoral.”

I’ve lost track of where I was going with this.

And yet despite it all, I’ve still found my sympathies lying with the decepticon grunts in the Bayverse and Prime.

Bayverse because the decepticon cause actually offers hope in that setting, while Optimus seems out to cause the extinction of their race.

Prime because of how awful the double standards towards how the vehions were treated.

I’ll admit big reason I’m against sympathetic portrayals of the Decepticon cause (or at least having the Autobots be responsible for their formation) is how in hindsight a lot of pro-decepticon portrayals in fanfiction in 2000s was either moral relativist bullshit or eerily similar to that Forbes article about “if there are no losers, how can the winners shine?’

I have affection for many decepticon grunts, but this current trend of putting the more popular Decepticons on path of redemption is r

My preferred take would be Autobots and Decepticons being revolutions on separate sides of Cybertron , expanding across the planet until they collide and their philosophical differences are irredeemable.

Also, their freaking name is unsympathetic and embraces ideas of  “realpolitik”. Animated made it a reclaimed slur but that’s not something I’d want as the standard for the franchise

Would Ratbat sell better to public with a different name?

Because I really love Ratbat as a leader. and I sometimes feel the name is the only thing holding him back from being a more used antagonist.

“I don’t need hands when I can just tell you to do things”

“If a projectile costs more than your target will ever make in their entire lifespan, think twice about firing.”

“Wingthings: Attack!”

And keeping special operations Decepticons in coffin-like suspended animation for fuel efficiency purposes.

Ratbat offers the decepticons what’s likely the best path to victory, but  by a method that would change their very way of life to a point they may not find it worth living.

Also I proposed having a character based on BB from the  Beast Wars anime as his bodyguard/mech-suit. A Decepticon who was heavily injured in battle after performing great deeds, all their identity components minus the spark destroyed. For their efforts they are “rewarded being rebuilt as Ratbat’s servant.

dberl:

virovac:

comicgeekscomicgeek:

virovac:

comicgeekscomicgeek:

lord-armitage:

womanwithaknife:

fromacomrade:

me

So I actually wrote my dissertation about this and it’s not just that the Department of Defence (there’s an office in the Pentagon dedicated to liaising with Hollywood productions), but they effectively have a strangle-hold on how Hollywood portrays the US military since the DoD give permission for producers to use military hardware, without that permission the cost of filming sharply goes up and films end up extremely over-budget. So the producers can either drop any critical elements at the DoD’s discretion, or continue with a film which will barely be released at all and will never make its budget back. 

Any American film which involves the military, know that the DoD probably signed off on it, or were directly involved with. Films like American Sniper and Zero Dark Thirty had a heavy government influence, the latter to falsely justify the methods the CIA used in finding and killing Osama bin Laden, which included torture.  

It’s why the military figures are always the heros and there will never be a Hollywood film which is critical of the US military because of this. Just remember, whenever you see the US military in a Hollywood movie, it’s exactly what the Department of Defence want you to see. It’s not being hyperbolic when these types of films are called propaganda. 

While it makes for some cool fight scenes, it’s definitely been something that’s been to the detriment of the narrative in the Transformers movies.  The military should NOT be capable of taking on the Decepticons.  They should be tremendously outclassed.  Because that’s what the Autobots are there for.

The military should not be making your heroes superfluous.

On the other hand, I think the Decepticon’s should be vulnerable to the point of being taken out of fighting condition by human arms; I think the advantage of the autobots is that they can take on the cons out with less collateral damage.

Disagree completely. I think humans should be able to maybe take down say Frenzy or Alice, maybe drones like Ravage or Scorponok.

Anything bigger than that, nothing we have should be able to scratch them (excepting the nuclear option)

But I’m probably a little off the far end of “humanity is useless, we need the Autobots” in that opinion.

There are non-nuclear options which I’m pretty sure could scratch them, but like I said collateral damage. I don’t think anything that a single human can hold in their arms should dent a large decepticon in vehicle mode (where they are most armored). 

Anyway, the bigger problem is the decepticons are smart and won’t give you time to set up a trap, and will be listening in. 

I’m firmly in the “Humans shouldn’t be able to take down Transformers” camp as a general rule.  I mean, part of that I guess comes from growing up watching the G1 cartoon where most transformers seemed virtually indestructible.  Dip them in lava?  Sure, why not?  Re-entering the Earth’s Atmosphere from Orbit?  No problem!  And lets give the Decepticon leader a low-yield nuclear weapon strapped to his arm and have him shoot at everyone every single episode with 0 casualties (until  the movie at least…)

But yeah, watching them get blown up by regular modern army tech just made them seem weak to me, like watching Godzilla getting blasted to death by jet fighters in the 1998 American version.  If you’re doing a big budget sci-fi movie with an otherworldly or supernatural threat, and the threat can be handled by the normal authorities without some special trick (Oh, look!  The Blob is vulnerable to cold!  Maybe these alien marauders who have mastered interstellar travel are vulnerable to a virus I cooked up on my 1996 Mac!) then at the very least you’re seriously lowering the stakes quite a bit.  

I said nothing about blowing them up, but making them unable to walk or move.  Sorta the same tone as how it took two days of nonstop bombardment to kill a kaiju in Pacific Rim. Killing a transformer with human tools should require really powerful cutters and such that aren’t very good to use on a battlefield. All the humans would be able to do is hack apart a wounded Decepticon in a lab they managed to drag away.

I dislike the idea of Transformers, a diverse race, having a single easily exploited weakness by humans.

Also G1 cartoon had Megatron get taken out by spraypaint into an open wound.

image

Basically , my way of thinking humans can only hope to wear a non-flying or grounded single Decepticon cut off from supply lines down slowly. If there’s more than one Decepticon they are pretty much screwed.