Transformers: Age of the Primes toyline discussion 10/27 Update: First look at Megatronus the Fallen

[LordGigaIce]

Or just Hot Rod Prime; Prime can be a title (as it ended up anyway).

In terms of design:
I do want to keep the fiery space Winnebago. Maybe change the front a little bit so it's not still basically Hot Rod under a camper shell.

This can lead to a slightly different robot mode, maybe one where the windshield and roof form more of the chest. I'd be interested to see a take that was distinct enough but still kept the forearm pipes, flames, and spoiler wing somehow.

I loved how the Titanium mould incorporated the camper into his robot mode. I'd love to see that concept played with. Not just doing what the Ti version did but see what else you can do?

I get that they probably wanted a trailer battle station to mimic Optimus. It's not a bad idea, but I'd maybe just make that like... the back half of the camper? And work more of the rest of the camper into his robot mode.

 

[Donocropolis]

Yeah, for all the sins of the Titanium line, their Rodimus Prime was actually pretty ingenious. That same basic transformation scheme on a larger toy not restricted by needing to be made out of metal could be great.

PotP Hot Rod / Rodimus had some similar ideas, but was built around the idea of being a toy of the upgrade process. Strip that down to just being a single robot mode / single vehicle mode toy.

 

[Undead Scottsman]

Really, the biggest issues with Rodimus Prime is

1. Hot Rod is written to be responsible for Optimus getting got
2. He spends almost all of Season 3 being mopey about not being as good as Optimus, and then when he finally reaches some character growth and is able to move past that, they immediately roll it back because it's time to hastily bring Optimus back from the dead.

You fix those two things and I think people would have had a better opinion of him.

 

[Sabrblade]

I feel like the name "Rodimus" is systemic of the fact that the guy was named "Hot Rod", which actually goes back to the "Poochie" analogy.

Think about it. It's the 1980s. Hasbro wants to replace Optimus Prime with a new younger hero that they're sure will appeal to kids of that era. They make him a cool futuristic hot rod car, and what do they call him? Literally just "Hot Rod".

Since I was not born yet when G1 was at its height, I got into Transformers via Beast Wars. So my first exposure to 1980s G1 fiction were the VHS tapes released by Rhino Entertainment in the early 2000s, before they put the whole series out on DVD.

And watching those tapes, when I was first introduced to the character as Hot Rod, my initial reaction to hearing his name was "Hot Rod? They named him Hot Rod?! What is this, the 1960s?!"

The name sounded laughable to me. And so... try-hard. Not in an edgelord sense, but in a corporate sense of old-timer corporate suits desperately trying to appeal to younger generations but by going off of what was cool back when they themselves were the age group they were now trying to attract, and being so out of touch with what the newer generations were into.

We take the name "Hot Rod" for granted nowadays because we're so used to it and it's become iconic by this point. But when approaching the name from the perspective of an outsider, it's not hard to see how and why somebody might snicker at the name for trying to sound cool in a somewhat dated manner. Or find the name a little weird because it's literally what he turns into, in the vein of naming a Chevrolet Transformer "Chevy".

 

[NovaSaber]

Hot Rod's not creative, but, I mean the same movie had Kup (a weird way to abbreviate pickup), Springer (named after the springs in his legs that he literally never uses), and Arcee (named after the abbreviated for radio controlled, for some reason).

 

[Cybersnark]

Someone once joked to me that "Rodimus Prime" sounds like a Transformers porn name and it's like... yeah.

And, once someone explained to Rodimus what porn was, he'd probably be proud of it.

(It's probably like how Dinobot Slag's name turned into a profanity by the BW era.)

 

[Sabrblade]

Hot Rod's not creative, but, I mean the same movie had Kup (a weird way to abbreviate pickup), Springer (named after the springs in his legs that he literally never uses), and Arcee (named after the abbreviated for radio controlled, for some reason).

Which, compared to "Hot Rod", are all still more abstract names than that of the guy literally named after his altmode.

It's along the same lines of thinking that could have led to the previous Autobot leader being named "Big Rig" instead of "Optimus Prime".

Can you imagine if that had been his name all this time? "Rodimus Prime" might have then been "Hot Rig", and the Thirteen Primes would instead be the "Thirteen Rigs".

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I loved how the Titanium mould incorporated the camper into his robot mode. I'd love to see that concept played with. Not just doing what the Ti version did but see what else you can do?

Really all the Titanium transformation is missing is a slider to squish the torso together. And looking at it, I suspect they planned on that at one point but it got budgeted out. Most Titaniums have very simple transformations, so Rodimus might have hit the limit.

 

[Donocropolis]

And, once someone explained to Rodimus what porn was, he'd probably be proud of it.

(It's probably like how Dinobot Slag's name turned into a profanity by the BW era.)

I love the fact that Slag's name is literally a Cybertronian curse word, the equivalent of "F***" (in the "I'm going to F you up" sense, devoid of any sexual connotation). Like, dude is just THAT hardcore.

 

[NovaSaber]

It's the counterpart to a word that starts with the same letter:
"Eat slag!"
"What's the slag about a truce?"
"You got to be slaggin' me!"
"No slag, Sherlock!" (line that was in a script but never used)

Plus the literal definition referring to a waste product.

The occasional use of "slaggin''" as an adjective is really the only part that's closer to the other word.
(And even that's probably actually because it also overlaps with "frag".)

 

[Donocropolis]

It's the counterpart to a word that starts with the same letter:
"Eat slag!"
"What's the slag about a truce?"
"You got to be slaggin' me!"
"No slag, Sherlock!" (line that was in a script but never used)

Plus the literal definition referring to a waste product.

The occasional use of "slaggin''" as an adjective is really the only part that's closer to the other word.
(And even that's probably actually because it also overlaps with "frag".)

That's true, that may be a better "translation" of the term.

 

[Sabrblade]

And then Animated invented "Oh, for spark's sake!"

 

[Shadewing]

I feel like the name "Rodimus" is systemic of the fact that the guy was named "Hot Rod", which actually goes back to the "Poochie" analogy.

Think about it. It's the 1980s. Hasbro wants to replace Optimus Prime with a new younger hero that they're sure will appeal to kids of that era. They make him a cool futuristic hot rod car, and what do they call him? Literally just "Hot Rod".

Since I was not born yet when G1 was at its height, I got into Transformers via Beast Wars. So my first exposure to 1980s G1 fiction were the VHS tapes released by Rhino Entertainment in the early 2000s, before they put the whole series out on DVD.

And watching those tapes, when I was first introduced to the character as Hot Rod, my initial reaction to hearing his name was "Hot Rod? They named him Hot Rod?! What is this, the 1960s?!"

The name sounded laughable to me. And so... try-hard. Not in an edgelord sense, but in a corporate sense of old-timer corporate suits desperately trying to appeal to younger generations but by going off of what was cool back when they themselves were the age group they were now trying to attract, and being so out of touch with what the newer generations were into.

We take the name "Hot Rod" for granted nowadays because we're so used to it and it's become iconic by this point. But when approaching the name from the perspective of an outsider, it's not hard to see how and why somebody might snicker at the name for trying to sound cool in a somewhat dated manner. Or find the name a little weird because it's literally what he turns into, in the vein of naming a Chevrolet Transformer "Chevy".

Says the person that got into the series with "Cheetor" "Rhinox" "Dinobot" Not even a name just "Dinobot" and "Tarantulas". I mean, that's a glass house you're throwing stones from if you wanna complain about "Hot Rod"

 

[LordGigaIce]

Says the person that got into the series with "Cheetor" "Rhinox" "Dinobot" Not even a name just "Dinobot" and "Tarantulas". I mean, that's a glass house you're throwing stones from if you wanna complain about "Hot Rod"

Beast Wars is one of the stronger written Transformers shows, but those introduction scenes are not examples of that

 

[lastmaximal]

I was saying Boo-urns

I loved the name Hot Rod when I first watched the movie as a kid. Had no familiarity with the hot rod genre of cars beyond the term referring to a car, and somehow never connected it to Rowdy Roddy Piper who'd used the name at the time and that I had heard of. But "Hot Rod" was just the coolest thing and a perfect fit for the coolest car kid me had ever seen.

Even that starry-eyed (or giant yellow flames and chrome pipes -eyed) child, however, was baffled by the name Rodimus Prime.

 

[Sabrblade]

Says the person that got into the series with "Cheetor" "Rhinox" "Dinobot" Not even a name just "Dinobot" and "Tarantulas". I mean, that's a glass house you're throwing stones from if you wanna complain about "Hot Rod"

That argument would be more applicable if their names were instead just "Cheetah", "Rhinoceros", "Velociraptor", and "Spider". Unlike "Hot Rod", those GoBots-sounding Beast Wars names at least modified the base words to sound something like sci-fi robot names instead of just being "the thing the character is".

 

[CoffeeHorse]

It's the counterpart to a word that starts with the same letter:
"Eat slag!"
"What's the slag about a truce?"
"You got to be slaggin' me!"
"No slag, Sherlock!" (line that was in a script but never used)

Plus the literal definition referring to a waste product.

The occasional use of "slaggin''" as an adjective is really the only part that's closer to the other word.
(And even that's probably actually because it also overlaps with "frag".)

I suddenly want to see Transformers do a "Who's on first?" routine sometime.

 

[Undead Scottsman]

Don't forget that Hot Rod has a flame motif going on, so his name has a double meaning.

 

[LordGigaIce]

I always imagined Hot Rod and Tracks were related in some way. Like Tracks is Hot Rod's stuffy old money cousin who thinks it's a poor show to wear your flames in robot mode.

 

[Sabrblade]

I suddenly want to see Transformers do a "Who's on first?" routine sometime.