The Energon Pub

this has been sitting in my mind for a long time but has anyone considered the g1 cartoon dinobots to be nothing more than guardian drones for the autobots to use (and abuse?)? that would make sense when you consider the ease to which optimus ordered their destruction when they failed to perform satisfactorily during their intial test run and how whenever something needs to be done that's too dangerous for the autobots to do, the dinobots are the ones doing it? how about in heavy metal war when OP lost (thus the bots need to leave the earth), OP never issued the order for the dinobots to withdraw?

if you consider this notion to make some sense, then by extension this applies to the technobots (cartoon) as well because they'll be guardian drones made by another guardian drone.

Others will say: "Hurr durr G1 animation/continuity errors hurr."

I think you're sort of right, but the G1 Dinos usually occupy this swing role, where they're either the cause of problems/bumbling oafs or the saviors of the day/ultimate weapons. I feel that fits into their identies as dinosaurs though, much better than their DW/IDW stylings where they're like supergods, besting all combatants and out thinking everyone else and basically Marty Sueing around.

tl;dr--the Dinobots in G1 are more or less drones that save/ruin everything at any given time.

Optimus Primevil wrote:this has been sitting in my mind for a long time but has anyone considered the g1 cartoon dinobots to be nothing more than guardian drones for the autobots to use (and abuse?)? that would make sense when you consider the ease to which optimus ordered their destruction when they failed to perform satisfactorily during their intial test run and how whenever something needs to be done that's too dangerous for the autobots to do, the dinobots are the ones doing it? how about in heavy metal war when OP lost (thus the bots need to leave the earth), OP never issued the order for the dinobots to withdraw?

if you consider this notion to make some sense, then by extension this applies to the technobots (cartoon) as well because they'll be guardian drones made by another guardian drone.

pawns more than drones maybe

Prime seemed more willing to risk them then his fellow cybertonioan autobots

shamone wrote:Prime seemed more willing to risk them then his fellow cybertonioan autobots

biggest proof would be in the movie. prime could've ordered sunstreaker to open fire on devastator then sic the dinobots on him but he chose to directly sic the dinobots on devastator, unless the autobot shuttles have no onboard weaponry or the bots in the bridge are such bad shots that they'd probably cause friendly fire casualties than land a hit on devastator

I agree with Shamone, they seemed more like pawns. I really was not a fan of how they were treated for most of the series. I also am not a fan of the fact that even though Wheeljack and Ratchet are supposedly so brilliant, and are millions of years advanced in technology, they still had to go and give the Dinobots primitive brains. I don't buy that for one second.
I much rather prefer the Marvel comic versions of the Dinobots, who at least were shown to have brains and speak intelligently (even though Grimlock still tended to use some of his "primitive" cartoon speach, most of his thinking was more intelligent then his cartoon version). Here is a sample of the difference I'm talking about with the Dinobots in the Marvel comics:

Swoop: "We're Dinobots, we stick together, fight together, and die together if necessary! Better that than live with the knowledge that we turned and ran, abandoned a comrade! And believe me, I know I speak for all of us!"

Now that sounds much better then anything from the cartoon! Noble and intelligent...indeed way more fitting for an advanced tehnological being. And they still maintained their bad-ass Dino modes!

They're more like shock troopers than mere pawns or drones when you think about it. Walking juggernauts who can take more punishment than the average bot. The best of the best, mightiest of the mighty, the zenith of sheer brawn and brutality without equal.

They do all the dirty work because they can take it. And, they love it. They relish in the thrilling heat of the battle, longing to tear their fangs into enemy chassis, and strike fear into the hearts of all who oppose them.

If they ever seem like fodder, then they're the most lethal, vicious fodder ever that simply refuses to go down without a fight.

Sabrblade wrote:They're more like shock troopers than mere pawns or drones when you think about it. Walking juggernauts who can take more punishment than the average bot. The best of the best, mightiest of the mighty, the zenith of sheer brawn and brutality without equal.

They do all the dirty work because they can take it. And, they love it. They relish in the thrilling heat of the battle, longing to tear their fangs into enemy chassis, and strike fear into the hearts of all who oppose them.

If they ever seem like fodder, then they're the most lethal, vicious fodder ever that simply refuses to go down without a fight.

i think pawns may have been harsh, if anything they are willing pawns, in that they love the battle and will go out fight for the sake of fighting, not for noble ideals. Thats why i am not a fan of animated version as much, they were retarded fighting machines

much preferred the marvel comics. The annual where swoop faced dviebomb was fantastic

actually if you think about it, the cartoon dinobots have more solid reasons to be insubordinate to prime than the comics. near expendable shock troops who are first to do activities too dangerous for the normal troops who then spend most time being cooped up in a closet with little to no room to move your elbows beats a bunch of thugs who do as they (and i mean grimlock's) please.

Starseeker wrote: I also am not a fan of the fact that even though Wheeljack and Ratchet are supposedly so brilliant, and are millions of years advanced in technology, they still had to go and give the Dinobots primitive brains. I don't buy that for one second.

My interpretation was always that they gave them the best brains they could. Wheeljack and Ratchet are smart, but the cartoon (and comic) both imply that it is difficult to give TFs intelligence without the Matrix/Vector Sigma/stealing personalities from Decepticon prison/etc.

I know...Grimlock built the technobots, but his intelligence at the time far outshines Wheeljack and Ratchet. (God how I hate the episode.)

Re: Drones vs. Pawns. I am not sure...I definitely don't consider them drones as they did have free will and, to an extent, personalities. They were certainly treated as pawns during their first couple of appearances, but that seemed to stop (and became more of the dinobots volunteering) around the same time that Grimlock became comedy relief.

I also think Wheeljack and Ratchet did the best slaggin' job they could with what they had. And we've seen drones in G1, so it's not unlikely that's what they thought they were building.

shamone wrote:

Optimus Primevil wrote:this has been sitting in my mind for a long time but has anyone considered the g1 cartoon dinobots to be nothing more than guardian drones for the autobots to use (and abuse?)? that would make sense when you consider the ease to which optimus ordered their destruction when they failed to perform satisfactorily during their intial test run and how whenever something needs to be done that's too dangerous for the autobots to do, the dinobots are the ones doing it? how about in heavy metal war when OP lost (thus the bots need to leave the earth), OP never issued the order for the dinobots to withdraw?

if you consider this notion to make some sense, then by extension this applies to the technobots (cartoon) as well because they'll be guardian drones made by another guardian drone.

pawns more than drones maybe

Prime seemed more willing to risk them then his fellow cybertonioan autobots

I don't agree. The dinobots are extremely strong and durable. That is the reason why they are sent straight into battle headfirst.

F Prime wrote: They were certainly treated as pawns during their first couple of appearances, but that seemed to stop (and became more of the dinobots volunteering) around the same time that Grimlock became comedy relief.

probably because rodimus did not keep them inside the little closet in the ark anymore. if you can recall they're mostly fishing for mechanical fish on cybertron. since they're mostly happy then the dinobots don't have the need to be so violent anymore.

it's either a good or bad thing.

Optimus Primevil wrote:

F Prime wrote: They were certainly treated as pawns during their first couple of appearances, but that seemed to stop (and became more of the dinobots volunteering) around the same time that Grimlock became comedy relief.

probably because rodimus did not keep them inside the little closet in the ark anymore. if you can recall they're mostly fishing for mechanical fish on cybertron. since they're mostly happy then the dinobots don't have the need to be so violent anymore.

it's either a good or bad thing.

yeh they were treated as weaponery or heavy artillery by prime.

almost like as they werent sentient beings

Did not reflect their toy bios. loved fact that swoop was friendly

I don't believe for a minute the Dinobots were ever drones. Drones would have only the simplest of thought processes limited to simple commands and would be produced in mass numbers. I prefer to think of them as the supergods who had simple brain processes. When fighting is all you do you become very effective at it. They were built to be powerhouses because the Autobots kept getting their chassis handed to them on an energon platter. Prime ordered them shut down because their brain processes at first were too simple. (Someone kick Wheeljack for that!)
If we were to look at the comic versions of the Dinobots to be somewhat in connection w/ the original cartoons I would say they were in stasis pods (although they were never mentioned til Beast Wars) and perhaps they were damaged in the crashlanding. Perhaps Wheeljack had to rebuild their brain components and did the lamebrained move of giving them prehistoric brain processes of dinosaurs. As the years moved on he had to keep giving upgrades, patches, bug fixes, and other general improvements to them.

This is of course my theory and $.02 worth.

Optimus Primevil wrote:
probably because rodimus did not keep them inside the little closet in the ark anymore.

The ark was destroyed by that time

if you can recall they're mostly fishing for mechanical fish on cybertron

those fish didnt look mechanical to me.

Blackstreak wrote:I don't believe for a minute the Dinobots were ever drones. Drones would have only the simplest of thought processes limited to simple commands and would be produced in mass numbers. I prefer to think of them as the supergods who had simple brain processes. When fighting is all you do you become very effective at it. They were built to be powerhouses because the Autobots kept getting their chassis handed to them on an energon platter. Prime ordered them shut down because their brain processes at first were too simple. (Someone kick Wheeljack for that!)
If we were to look at the comic versions of the Dinobots to be somewhat in connection w/ the original cartoons I would say they were in stasis pods (although they were never mentioned til Beast Wars) and perhaps they were damaged in the crashlanding. Perhaps Wheeljack had to rebuild their brain components and did the lamebrained move of giving them prehistoric brain processes of dinosaurs. As the years moved on he had to keep giving upgrades, patches, bug fixes, and other general improvements to them.

This is of course my theory and $.02 worth.

now if only wheeljack imagined to upgrade the dinobots altmodes with external weaponry... then again dino-riders would've sued somebody

Optimus Primevil wrote:this has been sitting in my mind for a long time but has anyone considered the g1 cartoon dinobots to be nothing more than guardian drones for the autobots to use (and abuse?)? that would make sense when you consider the ease to which optimus ordered their destruction when they failed to perform satisfactorily during their intial test run and how whenever something needs to be done that's too dangerous for the autobots to do, the dinobots are the ones doing it? how about in heavy metal war when OP lost (thus the bots need to leave the earth), OP never issued the order for the dinobots to withdraw?

if you consider this notion to make some sense, then by extension this applies to the technobots (cartoon) as well because they'll be guardian drones made by another guardian drone.

NO

A guardian guards something. the G-1 Toon dinobots guarded nothing.

A drone is something with no intellligence nor spark.

well they did guard that meteor and they did repelled the constructicons when they tried to destroy teletraan-1.

originally they don't have any intelligence hence the upgrade wheeljack did. fortunately they learned from that mistake when they created the second series of dinobots.

Optimus Primevil wrote:well they did guard that meteor and they did repelled the constructicons when they tried to destroy teletraan-1.

originally they don't have any intelligence hence the upgrade wheeljack did. fortunately they learned from that mistake when they created the second series of dinobots.

I don't think it was ever stated that the Cartoon dinobots had no sparks/souls.

The human body is composed of a soul that works off the brain to process information.

Most assumed the first 3 cartoon dinobots were given standard energy sparks but their brain/computer/whatever inside their beast head had to be extremly small thus the lower intelligence. even though they had a standard spark the computer/brain inside their beast head was smaller thus processed information slower.

Their is no evidence that the cartoon dinobots did or didn't receive sparks. most assumed they did because optimus had the matrix & could dip into the matrix,then grab newer/older sparks out of it & put them into newer bodies.

Anyways,various transformers were built on the earth,like the first 2 city formers & a few combiners. they had to of received their sparks from somewhere. they couldn't have all been sparkless robots.

sometimes one just has to use a imagination & realize that stuff does happen off-screen. it also helps to connects the puzzle pieces to create a whole complete finished puzzle.

Optimus Primevil wrote:well they did guard that meteor and they did repelled the constructicons when they tried to destroy teletraan-1.

All the transformers Jobs were to guard/protect their bases,not just the dinobots. due to the locations of both based being known by both factions.

their were countless scenes when other autobots fought off other decepticons from trying to detroy/harm teletran-1.

deathy wrote:most assumed they did because optimus had the matrix & could dip into the matrix,then grab newer/older sparks out of it & put them into newer bodies.

You may be confusing the cartoon and comic. In the cartoon the matrix didn't give sparks.

F Prime wrote:

deathy wrote:most assumed they did because optimus had the matrix & could dip into the matrix,then grab newer/older sparks out of it & put them into newer bodies.

You may be confusing the cartoon and comic. In the cartoon the matrix didn't give sparks.

..........as far as we know.

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:

F Prime wrote:

deathy wrote:most assumed they did because optimus had the matrix & could dip into the matrix,then grab newer/older sparks out of it & put them into newer bodies.

You may be confusing the cartoon and comic. In the cartoon the matrix didn't give sparks.

..........as far as we know.

Exactly,This most likely would have happened off screen. when you watch a cartoon/show/movie as a viewer your invited to see a small portion of their lives. as viewers we don't see every second that happens in the stuff we watch. their is always down time & stuff not seen until the next episode happens.

Everything we watch as viewers is not like that Jim carey movie called "Truman show" where viewers are allowed to watch the show for 24 hours each day & see every moment that happens.

it's general knowledge that stuff & event do happen off screen when we see cartoon/show/movies. most of the time episodes don't continue off each other the second they end. most of the time when one crew is doing something we'll see that & not see what the other crews are doing.

BACK TO THE G-1 TOON Dinobots brains/spark. Since wheeljack didn't give viewers a science class & let them see the whole dinobots creating process for a few days/weeks/hours non-stop second by second footage. while he stood their poining everything out to viewes step by step. ONE CAN IMAGINE ANYTHING HAPPENED & CONNECT THEIR OWN PIECES to the puzzle.

Technically optimus was never shown to have the matrix in season one & 2 of the G-1 cartoon. most assumed he did because he had it in the 1986 animated movie.

my guess is the matrix didn't exist in the 1984-1985 G-1 cartoon until it was written in the 1986 animated movie.

deathy wrote:

Technically optimus was never shown to have the matrix in season one & 2 of the G-1 cartoon. most assumed he did because he had it in the 1986 animated movie.

Actually most assumed he did because of the dialog in "5 faces of darkness"

the dialog suggest he was given the Matrix by Alpha Trion when he was repaired by him.

my guess is the matrix didn't exist in the 1984-1985 G-1 cartoon until it was written in the 1986 animated movie.

Your guess wouldnt be correct.

As stated, the dialog in "5 faces of darkness" confirms that the matrix existed for millions of years.

from a production standpoint,the idea for the matrix originated in the comics with the creation matrix.

But there were plans to introduce the matrix into the cartoon early in season 2....but those plans were dropped.

And early draft of the episode "Cosmic rust" was even planning on mentioning a date for when the matrix was found.But again, it was dropped in favor of the films production.

I am sure someone will make up another explanation, but why did Op need to get the personalities for Silverbolt et al from Vector Sigma if the matrix would suffice? I know we can't know everything in the lives of the characters from on-screen depictions, but with the lack of evidence to the contrary I am not convinced. (Before this becomes a flame war this is just my opinion, so please try to avoid telling me I am "wrong".)