Random Rants: Transformers Crack
You know, I have, of late, heard a lot of commentary on how "cracky" the G1 Transformers cartoon was compared with, say, RiD or Armada. And you know, between episodes where the Transformers were toy sized compared with the locals, to mermaids, to random time travel devices sitting out in the open in the middle of Europe, yeah, G1 gets pretty cracky.
This doesn't really bother me, to be honest. For me, it's part of the charm. On the one hand, it's fun to point out the silliness, the contradictions, the out and out absurdity, and laugh at them. And on the other hand: it's a cartoon about giant transforming robots from outer space. Why let the fun get bogged down in too much realism, especially when you're starting with a premise like that?
But there is one bit of crack that never, ever crops in G1, and yet seems an expected, recurrent feature in those other continuities:
In G1, never, ever do you see one of the bad-guy robot characters (and I'm not talking about some basically nice guy who just woke up, didn't know what was going on, and signed up with the bad guys because his buddy was with them without really understanding what they were all about; I'm talking about a bad guy who's been a bad guy for years and years and years before coming to Earth, and had no problems before) go all mushy and SNAD and out and out defection-y over some snot-nosed human kid.
Does not happen. And it does not make sense. These guys have been ruthless killers and war machines on other worlds for years. Why suddenly go sappy because you're confronted with some big-eyed anime brat?
So. In the end, I guess it comes down to this: I know my series is made of silly and crack, and I'm cool with it. Don't delude yourself into thinking yours is so much more logical and realistic and whatnot, though.
(I mean, we're talking about giant transforming alien robots from outer space, for crying out loud!)
This doesn't really bother me, to be honest. For me, it's part of the charm. On the one hand, it's fun to point out the silliness, the contradictions, the out and out absurdity, and laugh at them. And on the other hand: it's a cartoon about giant transforming robots from outer space. Why let the fun get bogged down in too much realism, especially when you're starting with a premise like that?
But there is one bit of crack that never, ever crops in G1, and yet seems an expected, recurrent feature in those other continuities:
In G1, never, ever do you see one of the bad-guy robot characters (and I'm not talking about some basically nice guy who just woke up, didn't know what was going on, and signed up with the bad guys because his buddy was with them without really understanding what they were all about; I'm talking about a bad guy who's been a bad guy for years and years and years before coming to Earth, and had no problems before) go all mushy and SNAD and out and out defection-y over some snot-nosed human kid.
Does not happen. And it does not make sense. These guys have been ruthless killers and war machines on other worlds for years. Why suddenly go sappy because you're confronted with some big-eyed anime brat?
So. In the end, I guess it comes down to this: I know my series is made of silly and crack, and I'm cool with it. Don't delude yourself into thinking yours is so much more logical and realistic and whatnot, though.
(I mean, we're talking about giant transforming alien robots from outer space, for crying out loud!)