Fair point.
TFNation 2022 (First Draft of TF:TM explained)
- Thread starter MrBlud
- Start date
....Except that 30 seconds later nobody seems to mind or indeed have noticed.
(Just a riff on Cybertron's destruction in the aforementioned first draft TF:TAM script)
Skyfire is also absent, but given his whole Situation, that might have been specifically mandated.
In any case, it'd be more accurate to say there's an odd absence of season 2 Autobots in the movie (perhaps indicating that the writers specifically made an effort to include all the Decepticons they could but were satisfied with the core Autobot cast they already had). It's just Perceptor, Blaster, and Grapple, and out of those three, Grapple's a nonspeaking cameo and Blaster disappears halfway through the movie.
In any case, it'd be more accurate to say there's an odd absence of season 2 Autobots in the movie (perhaps indicating that the writers specifically made an effort to include all the Decepticons they could but were satisfied with the core Autobot cast they already had). It's just Perceptor, Blaster, and Grapple, and out of those three, Grapple's a nonspeaking cameo and Blaster disappears halfway through the movie.
That describes what I was going for with my original comment a ways up: Dirge, Thrust, Ramjet are there. They’re 85.
Interesting thought I had about Grapple, that I forgot to mention: did he make the cut since he was possibly an 84 guy originally? This idea doesn’t hold as much weight as it could since Inferno has a speaking credit, but it is an interesting coincidence.
I actually had the same thought about Grapple. I ultimately don't think it's necessary to explain his presence, given that S2 characters were clearly on the table as an option since Smokescreen and Red Alert had appearances planned, but if nothing else it's a fun bit of trivia.
(Free-associating from there, I wonder if the reason Sunstreaker is in two different places is that one of them was supposed to be Sideswipe?)
(Free-associating from there, I wonder if the reason Sunstreaker is in two different places is that one of them was supposed to be Sideswipe?)
That would make sense for SS, but what about Hound? Unless…Hoist? Trailbreaker maybe? Who else could they mix up like that? Unless you want to assume Hound helped Prime get up to speed and he simply exited the shuttle after SS & Prime.
My head canon used to be that Bluestreak and Huffer died giving Hound and SS cover, long enough for them to get to the space bridge, arrive at Cybertron, hitch a ride to Moon Base 1, and that’s how Prime found out about the attack — that Blaster’s transmission didn’t make it past Earth orbit or something.
Oh the joys of the 90’s and early 2000’s, looking for ways to reconcile a cartoon from your childhood.
This definitely needed some rewrites but there are some things here I like. Unicron is way more interesting here. Here he's a mysterious entity (literally The Entity) that has the Junkions build him a body, then has the Decepticons gather energy for that body (Did the Energon writers know about this?). This is better than the film's origin where he just shows up one day.
This concept of him needing to acquire energy before he can transform and go on his final attack got dropped in the rewrites, but I think we see the ghost of it in the film where he parks next to Cybertron doing nothing for a long time. There was originally a reason he waits so long to attack.
This would have been an absolute clusterhug of a movie, but I think this could be tweaked (and merged with some of the eventual film's better ideas) into a season long arc, or a whole trade's worth of comic issues if they're not ridiculously decompressed.
This concept of him needing to acquire energy before he can transform and go on his final attack got dropped in the rewrites, but I think we see the ghost of it in the film where he parks next to Cybertron doing nothing for a long time. There was originally a reason he waits so long to attack.
This would have been an absolute clusterhug of a movie, but I think this could be tweaked (and merged with some of the eventual film's better ideas) into a season long arc, or a whole trade's worth of comic issues if they're not ridiculously decompressed.
Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but the concept of Unicron being built as a protector could (for future media) be merged with the IDW2005 backstory that the builders had been attacked by a previous Cybertronian expansion from long before the Autobot-Decepticon War.
We probably wouldn't get the "All of History is Shockwave's fault" angle had that been the 1986 film, of course. Time travel shenanigans might work well for grown-up audiences, but this proto-movie is still being marketed to an average age of 10, so "Optimus and Hot Rod don't know how bad Cybertron's history used to be" is likely enough of a complex reveal at that stage.
Although if Rewind and company had met an "Onyx" helping A3 during "Forever is a Long Time Coming"....
I want a Commander Class Rails.
The hero we need.
The hero we need.
It sounds like it was played for comedy where Arcee was extremely competent but it was all when Wheeljack wasn't looking so he would remain oblivious and continue to be a sexist dumbass. So, by the script, it would seem the intention that Wheeljack is in the wrong.
Still glad that stuff never made it into the film, even if it would have given Wheeljack a bigger role.
Still glad that stuff never made it into the film, even if it would have given Wheeljack a bigger role.
I could see the concept working without the sexism. Wheeljack might be a top scientist, but even in the G1 toon his stuff had the rep of possibly backfiring big time. Arcee just so happens to be as good a scientist if not better, so while Wheeljack's not around she would spruce up his inventions to be less accident prone; and Wheeljack just believes that like he's just gotten better at not making things that explode after one use rather then thinking his assitance is secretly fixing all his mistakes.
It removes the "joke", but preserves the concept of Arcee being super competent but Wheeljack being oblivious to it. Which feels much more in-character for Wheeljack to be so blinded by science that he doesn't realize the other things going on around him.
That could work. If I were to give this a less drastic revision than it actually got, my first thought was to drop Wheeljack entirely, but his role might be worth fixing instead of dropping entirely. He does have a job to do here. This script passed the torch from the old cast to the new cast much less abruptly. Wheeljack is part of that. The film really just has the Dinobots. Blaster disappears and Perceptor fades out.
I do find it interesting that Wheeljack is the only 84 character to have significant screen time beyond Prime. Why him? Was the pre-tv show expectation that his character would be very popular? Was it simply a matter of picking a character at random?
Can we invent time travel and go back and ask these questions?
Can we invent time travel and go back and ask these questions?
Maybe it'll make more sense when we can read the script. A summary by definition isn't telling us everything.
I think its very simple, this version of the script calls for an Autobot Scientist. This was written before any of the 85 characters were created, so no Perceptor. So that leaves Wheeljack. As Fnu says we don't know everything, so maybe other characters are still promenant; just don't do anything 'summery' worthy. Wheeljack mostly seems mentioned becuase of his sexism and being paired with Arcee.