The Energon Pub

[Madeus Prime]

I wonder...will this ensure that the future films will have strong female roles in which the characters are not heavily sexualized? Nah.

[Rated X]

Wow she looks good.

[Shuttershock]

And now the films will be lauded as masterpieces of cinema and tentpegs for female representation in the film industry, even if they turn out exactly the same as the other ones.

In all seriousness, I've nothing against new writers, female OR male. I just don't have a lot of hope for the films in general.

[Madeus Prime]

Wow she looks good.

[Shuttershock]

Wow she looks good.

Keep on chugging, X.

[Shockwave7]

Doing another Fugitive, eh? I donno.... the 1993 version pretty much nailed it.

But unless the writers totally reboot the movies and broom everything that Michael Bay ever had to do with any of them, they're still going to be mediocre at best, and most likely sukky. We have intelligence guided by experience that tells us this.

[shockblast2]

I am starting to wonder if this sites writers are not sexists. Why does it matter that they are female? Why would you say ROBOTS who are not biological nor reproduce are female or male? Why does it matter that IDW has a female writing cast on some of their books?

It is like a liberal racist media outlet claiming to not be racists, and yet, every article is pointing out the color of the skin of person featured.

[Convoy]

I just don't have a lot of hope for the films in general.

...there is no hope, no hope, no hope, no hope at all...

[Shuttershock]

I just don't have a lot of hope for the films in general.

...there is no hope, no hope, no hope, no hope at all...

Some men... aren't looking for anything logical, Master Wayne.

Some men... just want to watch the world burn.

...

with bewbs.

[william-james88]

I just don't have a lot of hope for the films in general.

...there is no hope, no hope, no hope, no hope at all...

Some men... aren't looking for anything logical, Master Wayne.

Some men... just want to watch the world burn.

...

with bewbs.

I wish Jon Bailey read that sentence.

[Xephon0930]

We want more Fembots who actually have lines and not one off appearances.

Wingblade seems to be in fan favor at the moment.

[JazZeke]

Writers in Hollywood these days actually have very little power. They have to cater to the demands/requirements of the directors, who decide what they want in their movies beforehand, and then hire writers to string their concepts together... that was more evident than ever in the last Transformers movie.

You base this paragraph on what?

http://www.cracked.com/article_19012_5- ... -suck.html

[Sabrblade]

I'm under no illusion that Bay is the sole problem with these films, knowing full well that the writers and producers are likewise an issue.

Looking at these films, a lot of folks say that if took away Bay's special touches (like the excessive toilet humor or Optimus's viciousness) then they would improve. I'm about to cite an example that completely proves the contrary: The ROTF comic adaptation.

Written by Transformers comic scribe Simon Furman, he made an intent on writing that adaptation with nearly all traces of the film special brand of "humor" excised and removed. He also diminished Optimus's hostility towards the Decepticons, like in the fight against Demolishor he had Optimus express regret in having to use force to stop Demolishor's rampage, and he didn't blast Demolishor in the face, with the Decepticon instead dying from his wounds in the battle, making "The Fallen shall rise again..." being his dying words before death instead of Optimus gunning him in the face.

Even Optimus's death was changed into being "not quite dead yet", giving greater hope for Sam to want to revive him.

On paper, this sounds... at the very least, interesting, at most, promising. It sounds like Furman knew what a lot of fans wouldn't like and made the changes he felt were necessary to make his comic a better-received product, right?

Eeeuuuuuurrrrgghh, well, not really. See, reading that ROTF comic adaptation with all the "bad stuff" taken out just left a still very boring, confusing, lifeless story of uninteresting characters, lacking in anything really substantial or worthwhile.

This reveals that, at its core, ROTF's substance lies not in its story or its characters, but in its special effects (which naturally couldn't be replicated in comic form) and its fetishes for uber violence, sexual innuedos, and being as gross as can be.

Now while this may seem like I'm harping on Bay for the fetish content, my main point is how the story material itself that came from the writers (what little there was since, yes, I'm aware that the writer's stike left Bay to write a lot of it himself, but there was still enough of it written by Orci, Kurtzman, and Kruger) is really no better off with or without Bay's involvement since, at its core, the story they wrote was boring, confusing, and lifeless.

Bay can only do so much with a bad story and, when people say things like "Bay can take a good story and make it bad", ROTF is the end result of the story being dull even before you add Bay to the equation.

[ArmadaPrime]

I am starting to wonder if this sites writers are not sexists. Why does it matter that they are female? Why would you say ROBOTS who are not biological nor reproduce are female or male? Why does it matter that IDW has a female writing cast on some of their books?

It is like a liberal racist media outlet claiming to not be racists, and yet, every article is pointing out the color of the skin of person featured.

Women are incredibly under-represented in both the film and comic (and a great many other) industries. Having female writers not only helps break the mold and make it easier for other women to enter the industry, moving further towards equality in that respect, but also hopefully will result (and very much has done already with IDW) in greater representation of women in films and comics, giving us more diversity and strong female characters who can not only demonstrate that women can be equal to men, but also can serve as role models for female fans of the franchise to look up to and relate to.
(The exact same principle applies to other minorities such as people of colour, as you describe.)

(Also, forgive me but either I'm starting to lose it at last or there's already a news article about this? It may well be that this article has new details/information discovered since the earlier one and I've somehow missed that fact, if so I apologise ^^' )

[Va'al]

There was a mix-up on our part, and the post was reported twice. We apologise.

The conversations have been merged into the existing thread.

[MartianSpyGirl1996]

I am starting to wonder if this sites writers are not sexists. Why does it matter that they are female? Why would you say ROBOTS who are not biological nor reproduce are female or male? Why does it matter that IDW has a female writing cast on some of their books?

It is like a liberal racist media outlet claiming to not be racists, and yet, every article is pointing out the color of the skin of person featured.

Women are incredibly under-represented in both the film and comic (and a great many other) industries. Having female writers not only helps break the mold and make it easier for other women to enter the industry, moving further towards equality in that respect, but also hopefully will result (and very much has done already with IDW) in greater representation of women in films and comics, giving us more diversity and strong female characters who can not only demonstrate that women can be equal to men, but also can serve as role models for female fans of the franchise to look up to and relate to.
(The exact same principle applies to other minorities such as people of colour, as you describe.)

(Also, forgive me but either I'm starting to lose it at last or there's already a news article about this? It may well be that this article has new details/information discovered since the earlier one and I've somehow missed that fact, if so I apologise ^^' )

Ignoring/"being blind to" race and gender does not make a person "above it all" anyway. Acknowledging it to further the story along is exactly that... to further the story. I don't think Shockblast knows what sexism/racism is.
Also, unless all TransFormers look like generic 1950's robots, they have gender. Eliminating fembots because "they don't reproduce" leaves masculine robots, which IS sexist.

[Convoy]

I am starting to wonder if this sites writers are not sexists. Why does it matter that they are female? Why would you say ROBOTS who are not biological nor reproduce are female or male? Why does it matter that IDW has a female writing cast on some of their books?

It is like a liberal racist media outlet claiming to not be racists, and yet, every article is pointing out the color of the skin of person featured.

Women are incredibly under-represented in both the film and comic (and a great many other) industries. Having female writers not only helps break the mold and make it easier for other women to enter the industry, moving further towards equality in that respect, but also hopefully will result (and very much has done already with IDW) in greater representation of women in films and comics, giving us more diversity and strong female characters who can not only demonstrate that women can be equal to men, but also can serve as role models for female fans of the franchise to look up to and relate to.
(The exact same principle applies to other minorities such as people of colour, as you describe.)

(Also, forgive me but either I'm starting to lose it at last or there's already a news article about this? It may well be that this article has new details/information discovered since the earlier one and I've somehow missed that fact, if so I apologise ^^' )

Ignoring/"being blind to" race and gender does not make a person "above it all" anyway. Acknowledging it to further the story along is exactly that... to further the story. I don't think Shockblast knows what sexism/racism is.
Also, unless all TransFormers look like generic 1950's robots, they have gender. Eliminating fembots because "they don't reproduce" leaves masculine robots, which IS sexist.

Not this again.
Imagine The Transformers as an insect hive with a queen bee known as Primus. This may not even 'bee' the best analogy. Maybe like computers with male and female ports would be a better comparison? I don't even think Star Trek's Borg make a good comparison because they're based on biological species. Even Gobots are cyborgs. Maybe Terminator with mama Skynet? (Still designed by sexy humans.)
Sex and gender are not synonyms. Dictionary.com is free, people!
I don't have all the answers. Transformers could very well be their own all new thing still evolving.
Really, it comes down to the writers who felt ignoring the whole issue was the best course of action for decades. They're ROBOTS. Robots In Disguise!
Who knows?
Some things are better off left unexplained.

Fake Edit: We should just have sentient alien machines writing this stuff. They know better than we how it all works.

Real Edit: Robot in Czech basically translates to Slave.

Double Edit: Following that logic and considering vehicles as machines that are manually operated slaves/robots, the humanoid altmodes could actually be considered the disguise.

[Burn]

Writers in Hollywood these days actually have very little power. They have to cater to the demands/requirements of the directors, who decide what they want in their movies beforehand, and then hire writers to string their concepts together... that was more evident than ever in the last Transformers movie.

You base this paragraph on what?

http://www.cracked.com/article_19012_5- ... -suck.html

You say directors, but the only thing I see there is producers (big difference). Or did I miss something?

[Mr_Autobot411]

You say get rid of Bay and hire different writers, wouldn't you want to get rid of the current writer first?

It's always Bay Bay Bay with you "Bayformer haters", but rarely do I encounter someone who acknowledges the writer is more to blame.

the writers did a decent job with the story that wasnt the issue at all, it was bay that destoried their vesion, thats why they went off and did TFP. ive read many articles on how the script was torn apart, writers dont have that kinda power dude, sorry. I lived in hollywood for bit, i had many writer friends, none ever had power, not even the big name guys. Bay himself said he didnt care for TFs before he got the money. If ur director wasnt into what u were into, would u hire him........no me man, i want a guy that would share my vision as a producer etc. Bay basically made a shiny turd, polished it and called it TFs.

[JazZeke]

Writers in Hollywood these days actually have very little power. They have to cater to the demands/requirements of the directors, who decide what they want in their movies beforehand, and then hire writers to string their concepts together... that was more evident than ever in the last Transformers movie.

You base this paragraph on what?

http://www.cracked.com/article_19012_5- ... -suck.html

You say directors, but the only thing I see there is producers (big difference). Or did I miss something?

How about the commentary or wherever it was where Kruger and Bay discussed how they plotted out TFAoE--Bay came up with a bunch of action scenes he wanted to film, and then it was Kruger's job to string them together into something resembling a narrative.

[Burn]

the writers did a decent job with the story that wasnt the issue at all, it was bay that destoried their vesion, thats why they went off and did TFP.

Fact or opinion?

You're also only referring to Orci and Kurtzman, what about Kruger? He's still there.

And I'm sorry, but a writer HAS to have SOME form of responsibility. A Director can't just magic a story out of the air.

How about the commentary or wherever it was where Kruger and Bay discussed how they plotted out TFAoE--Bay came up with a bunch of action scenes he wanted to film, and then it was Kruger's job to string them together into something resembling a narrative.

Never watched/listened to any of the commentary, but I never said a Director didn't have any input, I'm saying if people are going to blame Bay then they should also be blaming the writer as well.

But this is an old debate, people can think whatever the **** they want, I don't really give a **** at the end of the day. I have my opinions and they won't be changing any time soon.

[ArmadaPrime]

There was a mix-up on our part, and the post was reported twice. We apologise.

The conversations have been merged into the existing thread.

No worries man, cheers for cleaning it up so promptly

Ignoring/"being blind to" race and gender does not make a person "above it all" anyway. Acknowledging it to further the story along is exactly that... to further the story. I don't think Shockblast knows what sexism/racism is.

Exactly! The whole idea of "it doesn't matter whether they're male or female" essentially denies the injustices and unfairness that women have faced historically and in many aspects of life still do- again, the same applies in terms of race and any minority for that matter.

Also, unless all TransFormers look like generic 1950's robots, they have gender. Eliminating fembots because "they don't reproduce" leaves masculine robots, which IS sexist.

Sex and gender are not synonyms. Dictionary.com is free, people!

Again, these points have both hit the nail on the head- they might not have biological sexes or reproduce but the majority of transformers have a very clear gender, and almost all of the time that is male, or at least masculine. Fembots are important as they add diversity and better representation to the race, which is not only good for the franchise as a whole but also allows for different personalities and backstories to help move the plots themselves along and expand the universe. (Not that personality aspects should be determined by gender presentation, and actually IDW does a very good job on that, but that's an issue for another time )

Fake Edit: We should just have sentient alien machines writing this stuff. They know better than we how it all works.

That would certainly clear all this sort of stuff up!

[Deadput]

These discussions depress me...



*Sigh* can't wait for the day that people don't have dumb arguments about gender in transformers.



Everything was fine before The comics and shows were pressured to start adding dozens of fembots just because of the loud minority.




Nothing wrong with female Transformers but Hasbro and anyone working on the movies/comics/shows should stop pandering for the never satisfied fandom and just let them do their own thing.






This fandom is part of the reason Transformers are not entertaining to kids anymore due to just being the same thing over and over and over again just so the writers can appeal to some adults who are too old for Transforming robot toys.

[Va'al]

Oh give up.

[DedicatedGhostArt]

These discussions depress me...



*Sigh* can't wait for the day that people don't have dumb arguments about gender in transformers.



Everything was fine before The comics and shows were pressured to start adding dozens of fembots just because of the loud minority.




Nothing wrong with female Transformers but Hasbro and anyone working on the movies/comics/shows should stop pandering for the never satisfied fandom and just let them do their own thing.






This fandom is part of the reason Transformers are not entertaining to kids anymore due to just being the same thing over and over and over again just so the writers can appeal to some adults who are too old for Transforming robot toys.

I agree, it is not only for the older audience, but the younger audience, grow up people.

I am a big fan of Fembots, and a fan of male style transformers, I don't see the issue here. Why do people argue over the dumbest things?