Burn wrote:The girl I work with has a brother called Nathaniel but his nickname is Spud, and that's how he introduces himself. So why is it wrong for Spike and Sparkplug to introduce themselves using their nicknames?
Fighting back my terrible feeling that this will become some inflammatory statement in interpretation, I must say that I think hating on "Spike" and "Sparkplug" is just some anti-GeeWun sentiment. As you said Burn, people in real life introduce themselves by their nicknames, or introduce others by said nicknames, so having nicknames is not some unrealistic notion that people would not be called by their full given name at all times. We use nicknames here on Seibertron to identify ourselves, as I'm not entirely certain your parents names you Burn, and I can say with authority that mine did not name me Dagon. If Sam in the movieverse had some nickname I'm sure it would be perfectly acceptible, and I really am not trying to offend here, but I think it's just peeing on the past because some people don't share your view of the present.
As for human sidekicks, this issue is something that's overanalyzed in my opinion, and that's why we still talk about it. We need human-esque characters to relate to since we comprehend the things we understand. But, since TFs are essentially human characters in terms of personality, I find it hard to believe that people can't relate to them. Like we can't understand wanting power or being afraid or wanting people to get along in peace? There aren't any humans in The Lion King, but no one seems to express inabilities to relate to Simba or Pumbaa or anyone in that movie. And if the humans are only there for commerialism, why has it taken 26 years for Hasbro to start selling poorly painted human figures in the Human Alliance line? I can't count the *-masters in that equation, because while I know of Masterforce, I know the *-masters through the US continuity, so for me they are Nebulons who merge and not people who drive robo-bodies.
IF we needed human figures to relate to the TFs, then why didn't the toy line reflect Microman or whichever was the JApanese series with the little pilots? Then we'd have human characters to relate to. TFs would just be vehicles that changed instead of independant characters. Why, or better yet HOW, can Beast Wars even be kind of popular, since it had no human characters for the auidence to relate to? The proto-humans don't really count, because a person, if they cannot relate to a human-styled and human-emotional robot, cannot be expected to relate to Cro-magnon man.
Again, not meant to offend, but this arguement, only popularized after the 07 movie, reeks of trying to justify what some people see as being poorly written human roles as being integral to the locomotion of a story that should be focusing on the robots by people who like the human characters. I am heartfeltedly sorry if that comes across badly, but I don't apologize for the opinion. Human characters from 1984 to 2010 have been dull and lame, and we've always complained about them...'member Kicker, or Carlos? It only seems to be up for serious discussion in light of the on-going movie appeasement process.
I figured this out in 1984!
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