Transformers: One - New Animated Prequel coming September 20th, 2024 - New Toy Official Images!
- Thread starter Undead Scottsman
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Sunbow-G1 casts a long shadow, much as Furman does: though the first is probably more over general audiences and the second over the fandom. Certainly a lot of folks in my school-age 'danelaw* thought that the cartoon's relegation to early-Saturday reruns on a US independent channel meant that the brand was over.... finished!
(Couldn't resist that one.)
Even the Transtech (who are better than us) acknowledge Sunbow-G1 as one of the "pillar realities" (one reason why I don't use a stream code with it, we don't have to. We all know it), and unlike Marvel-G1 with its array of splinter timeline sequels or Toei-G1's increasingly esoteric add-ons, the fact that it just left off gave it a certain mystery. Again, general audiences often assume that Mainframe-Beasties was the sequel to Sunbow-G1, but the writers were quite coy about just what G1 to which they were a sequel.
(Had Dreamwave-G1 lasted longer, they likely would have tried to claim the connection, certainly having the benefit of coming out later they could shape their saga to fit. Alas, it is only a possibility....)
*A term from general Fandom-that-was, referring to the social space populated by "mundanes" -- that is, non-fans. Not every non-fan is reactionary about it, of course, but high school is what it is....
(Couldn't resist that one.)
Even the Transtech (who are better than us) acknowledge Sunbow-G1 as one of the "pillar realities" (one reason why I don't use a stream code with it, we don't have to. We all know it), and unlike Marvel-G1 with its array of splinter timeline sequels or Toei-G1's increasingly esoteric add-ons, the fact that it just left off gave it a certain mystery. Again, general audiences often assume that Mainframe-Beasties was the sequel to Sunbow-G1, but the writers were quite coy about just what G1 to which they were a sequel.
(Had Dreamwave-G1 lasted longer, they likely would have tried to claim the connection, certainly having the benefit of coming out later they could shape their saga to fit. Alas, it is only a possibility....)
*A term from general Fandom-that-was, referring to the social space populated by "mundanes" -- that is, non-fans. Not every non-fan is reactionary about it, of course, but high school is what it is....
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It's what they're aspiring to for the casual person that doesn't know any better because they haven't watched a Transformers cartoon since 1989.
The 2004 Furman-penned Ultimate Guide book that positioned Dreamwave G1 as the "definitive" version of Transformers certainly tried to make that claim in lieu of the comics ever getting the chance to do so by themselves:
"The saga has spawned many inconsistencies and divergent storylines, but now, at last, the one true history can be revealed." —Transformers: The Ultimate Guide, Page 8, Generation 1 introductory description
"The Ark and its inhabitants lay deactivated for four million years, buried under a volcano in what would become Northwest United States. Life on the planet evolved around it, disturbed only by a brief alien visitation by a race called the Vok and the commencement of the Beast Wars (see pages 80–81)." —Transformers: The Ultimate Guide, Page 17, "Awakening" section of "The Ark" two-page spread.
I'd wager most non-fans/general audiences know Transformers from the G1 Sunbow show first, the live action movies second, and the G1 Marvel comics a distant third.
Cyberverse, Prime, EarthSpark, the UT, BW, whatever... They're all great but they're not what John A Public thinks of when he hears "Transformers." He very well could, however, think of the Sunbow show. So it's smart for the TF One cast and crew to use that as a point of reference when promoting the new movie.
Cyberverse, Prime, EarthSpark, the UT, BW, whatever... They're all great but they're not what John A Public thinks of when he hears "Transformers." He very well could, however, think of the Sunbow show. So it's smart for the TF One cast and crew to use that as a point of reference when promoting the new movie.
That's... a very unique and not very historical definition of the term "Danelaw."
It's the first I'm hearing of it, honestly, and it sounds a little sad.
Anyway, not surprised to see the marketing skew toward the 80s cartoon. As much as i appreciate every era and iteration of Transformers since, I'd be very surprised if it did anything other than that -- for many reasons, not least of them being of COURSE that's the thing to reference for a 40th anniversary project in the 40th anniversary year.
Anyway, not surprised to see the marketing skew toward the 80s cartoon. As much as i appreciate every era and iteration of Transformers since, I'd be very surprised if it did anything other than that -- for many reasons, not least of them being of COURSE that's the thing to reference for a 40th anniversary project in the 40th anniversary year.
Ah yes, DK's Ultimate Guide was sort of "Aligned before Aligned" in that respect.
We did also have the bookend "future glimpse" story to Dreamwave-G1's character guidebooks, which gave us a slightly different Golden Disk being taken by a certain Predacon....
Unique, yes.
Historical, well, it doesn't have precedence (which is what I assume you mean) compared to the Danelaw derived from the 865 Viking Invasions of England and eventually bundled into Cnut's North Sea Empire, true. All the same, it is rooted in the Gernsback-to-just-before-Roddenberry-era of early-to-mid-20th-century American sci-fi fandom. And some -- readers of Heinlein, Niven, and perhaps "the" Spider Robinson -- will recall it. I myself came across it in the 1991 novel "Fallen Angels", which was one big love letter to fan orgs and fanac of yore. I tried, 25 years ago, to invoke a similar-if-modernized spirit of shared community in my university science fiction club. Ask me sometime how that went.
Anyway, though I read the book after high school, the idea that I was basically residing in a strange land populated by those who simply could not understand why I liked the things I did, even as they had their own Socially Accepted fan cultures (e.g. sportsball) resonated with me, made me think "Yes, that explains what I went through."
(I hope that things really did change. Folks coming of age after The Year of the Matrix or Lord of the Rings sweeping the Oscars may not have to deal with what I did circa 1990. Of course, intra-fan cliques and bullying can be a more pernicious problem. And that's a thing I know about as well. But it's also another story.)
All that being said, today I could only find one online glossary acknowledging the term, and it had some dodgy claims about other fannish terminology. (I have never heard or read the term "Warsie" being used to describe a fan of events of a galaxy far far away. But then I refer to myself as a "Sad Bastard" when talking about same, so....)
My grad work was focused on Medieval northern European history, so you'll forgive me if I saw "Danelaw" and defaulted to the historical definition.
Kind of an interesting take tbh.
"I don't like that my fandom in science fiction properties was dismissed. Anyway sportsball am I right?"
Like... there's a lot to be said about how sports creates shared culture. I actually had a whole write-up on that and how "sport" as a concept has a long record of being a cultural unifier, but it was getting away from the broad point.
I guess I find the one you're making an odd one. And I fully recognize that this paradoxically makes me the odd one, because in high school I sort of entertained both and never got much flack for it.
I was on my high school's hockey team (in Canada!) as a goalie and I had an Autobot sticker on the back of my mask. No one cared.
And yes. It's true that with my friends I may have been hesitant to talk about what we'd call "nerd" stuff I also had RiD Prime and Armada Starscream on my bookshelf in hs and it didn't impact my social standing any
CS Lewis summed this up.
When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
The desire to seem very grown up, to be taken seriously, and a belief that one must retire all that made them children is a very adolescent idea, and adolescents are still children. Going through that phase is actually fairly natural and allows the person to leave adolescence a more well rounded person.
It's when they leave their teenage years and re-embrace the things they love, coupled with the intense searching for identity those teenage years provide, that they get a sense of who they are.
The downside of this is when you have a group of teenagers who have collectively decided that the things they once enjoyed are now lame and for kids that those that maintain a love for those things are at risk for social strife- bullying.
I experienced this first hand, being mocked for my love of Pokemon into middle school. Me deciding to take hockey seriously in high school was as much a survival tactic as it was a love for the game, because being on the hockey team gave me social standing that could weather having Transformers on display in my room.
Now all of this might seem messed up- and it is. Human adolescence isn't- and never has been- easy.
It's part of life. Source? I teach high school.
And while things have gotten better- increasing acceptance of LGBTQ+ peoples and the mainstreaming of nerd culture in the last twenty years- the pressures of hs are still there. Just in different forms. And always will be there.
I'm not trying to say that what you experienced wasn't bad, I'm sure it was. Just that high school and the years associated with it are never really easy, not for anyone. Even for those sportsball fans who seemed to enjoy social currency your nerdy self didn't enjoy.
But this as a Danelaw? That's an interesting use of the term.
I guess I'm resistant to it because it paints the residents of the Danelaw as outsiders when in actuality the Viking settlements in Britain eventually get absorbed into the wider English and Scottish cultures, becoming one of the founding elements of those national identities, but this is me thinking way too much about it because now I'm instinctively recalling the smell of book dust and old documents
But yeah... tl;dr version? Human adolescent development is about finding oneself and it always does so in the messiest way possible
If you wanted to suggest that more people know Transformers from the live action movie than the Sunbow show I wouldn't argue, but I'd still say the Sunbow version remains the most well known animated form of the franchise, which still makes it a useful touchstone when discussing a new animated movie
Brave Commander Optimus Prime officially revealed:
]https://tformers.com/daily-prime-tr...icial-reveal-from-takara-tomy/53308/news.html
Again, leader sized based on the Prime Changer design with more bells and whistles, including a swappable face gimmick. But I can't get over how small his eyes look in "prime mode". Like he's been staring at the Matrix all day...
Expect an import this fall, just like the Leader sized Optimus Primal we got last year.
]https://tformers.com/daily-prime-tr...icial-reveal-from-takara-tomy/53308/news.html
Again, leader sized based on the Prime Changer design with more bells and whistles, including a swappable face gimmick. But I can't get over how small his eyes look in "prime mode". Like he's been staring at the Matrix all day...
Expect an import this fall, just like the Leader sized Optimus Primal we got last year.
This is Brave cultural appropriation
TakaraTomy will be hearing from Dagwon's lawyers.This is Brave cultural appropriation
Which would be the first time cultural appropriation has ever been described as "brave".This is Brave cultural appropriation
Proper nouns are a hell of a thing
Could've been worse. Could have been another joke about the Pixar movie.