Sabrblade wrote:-Kanrabat- wrote:Not even 5 minutes out of 4 seasons.
Seriously?
At that point, yeah, that city is Squirrel City.
Those were just snippits I picked out from memory.
Plus, five minutes would take up half of a whole episode. That's expensive.
Nope, those were the only examples in the entire series. And you'll notice only the
kid actually shows up: one video only has humans as offscreen voiceovers and all the others not even that - just Optimus and Megatron adressing social media networks with no reaction beyond online comments which could just as well be bots.
Honestly, my issue was never with not showing humans; it's with even
bothering setting the series on present-day Earth if they're never going to meaningfully interact with humans. Why couldn't this be an alien planet, or another Cybertronian colony?
Sabrblade wrote:AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Deadput wrote:Transformers has never been at it's best with the absence of humans and never will.
Agree to disagree on that one.
Beast Wars was not absent of humans.
Those were five out of 52 episodes, and they're a lot closer to slightly smarter chimpanzees than actual humans. There's a reason they're called
anthropoids and
protohumans.
Deadput wrote:AllNewSuperRobot wrote:-Kanrabat- wrote:No humans makes sense in the right setting.
But when there's an actual WAR waged by extraterrestrials on Earth soil and not a single human delegation or army show up to intervene, it's there that my suspension of disbelief reach its limits.
For me, with Bayformers, it was the opposite. I grew up with Toho films. Humans are there to scream, run away and/or be ineffective military fodder. That normally ends up doing one of the two former options. Being active participants in an Alien war, which uses technology far more advanced than our own? I don't buy it for a second. Let alone when our technology can
harm a giant alien robot
I on the other hand find it awfully boring when the Transformers couldn't be hurt by human weaponry, sure not like hand guns or anything, but a round from a tank is going to hurt literally anything that isn't at least a Combiner, let alone more brutal means of offensive like airstrikes, etc.
If humans can't hurt them, than that should mean that they couldn't even hurt each other.
Like if the Decepticons could just squash the military in a couple hours than what would ever be the point of them disguising each other and being Deceptive? It makes the story more interesting when the Decepticons actually have a good reason not to go all out.
It ended up being too far in the extreme in the Bay films, but the answer will never be to make them invincible to human stuff, because of the reasons I stated and it gives humans little relevance in the franchise that only works when their around, Transformers has never been at it's best with the absence of humans and never will.
Their Aliens, not gods.
AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Deadput wrote:If humans can't hurt them, than that should mean that they couldn't even hurt each other.
Except their weapons, are as highly advanced as
they are. Human weapons in contrast, are primitive and mostly ballistic based. Ion Cannons, Particle Cannons, Fusion Cannons etc, etc are on another level to bullets, shells and missiles. It amounts to the evolutionary equivalent of medieval archers battling fighter jets.
A part of the fandom tends to forget the Transformers are highly advanced artificial alien life forms. Not Earth-based robots that morph into cars.
Deadput wrote:Like if the Decepticons could just squash the military in a couple hours than what would ever be the point of them disguising each other and being Deceptive? It makes the story more interesting when the Decepticons actually have a good reason not to go all out.
Infiltration. When IDW first started (and was good). It went into specifics on this. Cybertronians being 'Robots in disguise' isn't a method exclusive to Earth. It is a long term strategy employed where ever Transformers land. Because they typically have smaller numbers and fuelling concerns. It is never stated in any fiction to be due to fear.
Being more developed is indeed a massive advantage, but it isn't a guaranteed win. There's actually a lot of examples of lower-tech societies winning against higher-tech ones using guile, knowledge of the terrain and strategy (and playing a bit on the opponent's ego). One example from my country is Viriato winning several times against Roman legions with guerrilla tactics - usually leading them into canyons and valleys to throw massive boulders at them.
Besides, there's another aspect of humans to consider: we
learn and
adapt. Even the Toho films have them developing stuff like Mechagodzilla, The Oxygen Destroyer or the Gotengo. And then you have to consider the Autobots possibly sharing technology and helping humans, or merely humans studying leftovers from the latest battles. It'd be unrealistic for them to start as mere cannon fodder and
stay as mere cannon fodder the whole run. And frankly, static characters that never learn, improve or adapt are just annoying to me, whether they're cannon fodder, comedic relief or Leeroy Jenkins.
Honestly, the first Bay movie actually showed a logical way for humans to gain an edge against Transformers: studying the remains left behind by injured Transformers, finding a weakness (extremely high temperatures that override the self-repairing metal) and exploiting it (using weaponry that can reach that temperature and focusing more on distracting the Decepticons while the Autobots do the actual kills)...too bad every other film completely tossed this aside as they seemed to injure Decepticons with average firearms and
RoTF establishes the Autobots
aren't sharing their combat technology. But still there were a few moments of logic, like in
DoTM where they aimed at vital weakspots like joints and eyes.
Back to the topic at hand, though, does anyone else read the synopsis about "a new generation of Transformers caught between the Autobot/Decepticon war" and think back to the Mini-Cons of
Armada?
Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 8:45 pm
