Transformers

[Finch]

Foster's is better than anything we had as kids. Everything else can die. Also that kid's much cuter than any of the kids that've been in every single fucking Transformers series besides the Beast stuff. Also not as stupid as Spike Witwicky.

[YellerDog]

Finch is right.

I think I'd rather have a freaky little Muppet-lookin' protagonist than a boring "normal" looking human character in something like this. Transformers is not serious business.

[Fe 26]

Actually, you know, it dawned on me recently that its industry practice today that pretty much every kids show today HAS to have a kid as the main character, and I think that's a lot of the reason most people past their teens seem to hate them. I mean, honestly, who can really stand kids aside from other kids?

Most of our popular toons had older protagonists, action stuff like GI Joe, Transformers, Batman, and X-Men consisted of almost entirely adult/early adult casts; even lighter fare like Rocko's Modern Life and the Smurfs had few characters that seemed to be kids. Now look at the recent incarnations of these; the new Transformers has this stupid 6-year old girl, Batman is a high-schooler in the latest series, ditto for the X-men, the new series by Rocko's creator is about a bunch of kids at camp, and other original stuff is chock-full of grade-school protagonists; Billy & Mandy, Fairly Oddparents, Foster's Home, Avatar, El Tigre, the list goes on and on.

It's vexing. Our generation handled adult protagonists just fine, and one would think that inspiration would give rise to creators that would continue in a similar fashion. I guess it's just something borne of focus group testing, but as Poochy taught us, kids don't know what the hell they really want and should never be trusted to make decisions. Really I think it actually hurts in the long run, as I'm absolutely certain that toys and licensed product of adult characters historically sell much better than items featuring kids. Not many kids would go for a Codename Kids Next Door figure over a Batman or GI Joe one.

I'd dare say that it is a cycle of sorts. Comics started out the same way. They were full of adult characters, with many a dark adult theme. But someone decided that such stories were hard for kids to relate to and as a result we got robin, batgirl and superboy.

I don't know about you, but I'd ten times rather have billy and mandy than a handful of robins.

[Fe 26]

Finch is right.

I think I'd rather have a freaky little Muppet-lookin' protagonist than a boring "normal" looking human character in something like this. Transformers is not serious business.

we don't know much of anything about what the protagonist might be like. At the most, we know they are going to make a new TF cartoon with the same art design as the past 5 hit cartoon shows.

[Bacon McShig]

we don't know much of anything about what the protagonist might be like. At the most, we know they are going to make a new TF cartoon with the same art design as the past 5 hit cartoon shows.

Uh, they showed footage of it at comic-con. The Autobots' main human friend is a bug-eyed 6-year old girl who looks to have a tricycle that turns into a jetpack.

Anyway, as to the argument I made, I like a lot of cartoons today, personally, and agree that many are way better written than what we had. I just found the pattern a little odd, I mean, I can get down with new cartoons skewing younger but I'm not so keen on retrofitting old cartoons that way, when the old approach worked just fine. Having the TF's main human liason be a kindergartener is just plain stupid.

[Chux]

...original stuff is chock-full of grade-school protagonists Avatar...

Aang is totally over 100 years old.

pls try again.

[YellerDog]

Uh, they showed footage of it at comic-con. The Autobots' main human friend is a bug-eyed 6-year old girl who looks to have a tricycle that turns into a jetpack.

She looks like a Teen Titans character, which is appropriate considering the designer from that show is working on this.

[Space Pirate Roberts]

So, some new stuff has started showing up around here. Voyager class Megatron looks a lot better in person than in the pictures I'd seen online, so he got bought. The Robot Replicas on the other hand look absolutely horrible in person. Decent enough sculpts ruined by horrible, lazy paint jobs. Barricade is the only one that looks alright, since his dominant color is black, not "unpainted dull grey plastic standing in for steel."

Oh, and there's some more stupid role-play toys - a PDA that transforms into a crossbow and a cellphone that transforms into a dagger. Where do these even fit into the TFs world, they're not turing into sentient mecha-lifeforms, just weapons.

[FX]

Barricade's head looks too big on the Robot Replica. They are just sitting on shelves here because no one seems to want a transformer that...well...doesn't transform!

The unleashed figures haven't budged an inch (except for the Bumblebee that I purchased).

[JBNagis]

Yeah. I checked the Robot Replica figures. horrid. Whats the point.
Megs looks wierd. BB looks okay but i'd much rather have the Deluxe Figure.
we havnt gotten any new figures in. its annoying. our shelves have been empty for like a month.


JBNagis