The Energon Pub

by **ajy101** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 1:35 am

I mean the whole premise of a robot turning into a dinosaur is rather silly, seeing they are supposed to be "robots in disguise". Disguised as what exactly? A robot dinosaur?

And while we're at it, why on earth do the Cybertron modes of the transformers have cockpits for little humans to sit inside. Who are the alt modes supposed to fool anyway?

In Episode 1, it showed Soundwave turning from what looked like a parking meter or public telephone booth into Soundwave. That sorta makes sense in terms of he's "in diguise", though one would question the whole idea of the use of a parking meter/telephone booth on Cybertron anyway. But the rest of the alt forms just don't make sense - what are they supposed to be disguised as, and who are they supposed to fool?

And since they all can fly, what the heck would be the benefit of turning into a car?

Questions for the Transformer Guru out there...

News Credits: 3 · by **Damolisher** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 2:25 am

A) The Dinobots aren't there for disguise. They're there to fight. In any case, it's an advertising line.
B) Diaclone pilots on the toys. They were throwaway models anyway. In any case, Transformers can pilot each other, such as Galvatron did to Cyclonus in the movie.
C) God Knows. It's been asked a ridiculous amount by others, and we've never gotten an answer.
D) Only Decepticons can fly, outside of the pilot episode.

by **Predaprince** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 2:31 am

Damolisher wrote:D) Only Decepticons can fly, outside of the pilot episode.

There is another thread already debating the flight issue.

My belief is that all the Autobots can, technically, fly, but only the ones who can do it well enough actually do it such as the Autobots with flying alt. modes can fly as robot mode as well and also a few Autobots have devices that help them fly in robot mode like Sideswipe's rocket packs.

Other than that, the other Autobots can float around in the air, but it wouldn't really help them against expert fliers like the Seekers and Sweeps and so forth.

News Credits: 3 · by **Damolisher** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 2:43 am

Isn't there an episode in G1 where the Decepticons start flying away with something, and Spike point blank states to the Autobots "Forget it. They can fly and you can't!" ?

by **Predaprince** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 2:48 am

Damolisher wrote:Isn't there an episode in G1 where the Decepticons start flying away with something, and Spike point blank states to the Autobots "Forget it. They can fly and you can't!" ?

Doesn't mean the Autobots can't float and that is what it appeared most of them were doing in MTMTE.

News Credits: 3 · by **Damolisher** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 2:55 am

And that was the pilot episode. They were also meant to be halfway back to Iacon by the time Episode 4 of Season 1 aired, they were still on Earth with no explanation of why they hadn't left, even though they were meant to have been given the resources to piss off back to Cybertron with Spike and Sparkplug.

by **Predaprince** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 3:01 am

Whatever.

You can do what you want. If you want to continue believing what you have, which is that it is due to plot and animation errors, then go ahead. I've come up with my own OPINION that explains the whole entire Autobot flight issue.

News Credits: 2 · by **Justicity** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 4:58 am

I'd always seen Soundwave as transforming into a cybertronian street light, which makes more sense that a phone box or a parking meter...

As for the Dinobots, as Damolisher said, they aren't in disguise, they are the Autobot's brute strength, they don't need disguise.

News Credits: 4 · by **craggy** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 7:39 am

Damolisher wrote:Isn't there an episode in G1 where the Decepticons start flying away with something, and Spike point blank states to the Autobots "Forget it. They can fly and you can't!" ?

Rebirth I think, after Cyclonus and Scourge's guys have wiped the floor with the Autobots and flown off with the key. Of course, the Autobots that he's talking to include Highbrow (a helicopter) and Brainstorm (a plane) so I just put that line down to him being a cranky old man.

by **ajy101** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 1:33 pm

well, I think the 2007 movie made sense, as much as could be made sense, by giving the Transformers a compelling reason to be IN DISGUISE (because humans can gang up and kill them or seriously hurt them), and having the pre-earth alt forms as "protoforms" - which could be anything that we don't need to understand.

All I can say is that the whole excuse that "they are a kids toy" don't fly in the 21st century. Especially now with the sophistication of stories now (80's Schwarzenegger movies anyone?), people won't stand for lame excuses. This is a good thing.

Re: Grimlock - even if he didn't *need* a disguise mode, transforming into an animal is a silly idea - especially an extinct earth animal. Of all the things that would be cool, like a tank, jet fighter or stealth bomber, you choose a relatively immobile animal?

Anyway - my questions were merely rhetorical and for humour, I seriously did not expect any compelling answers to the questions. :grin:

by **Predaprince** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 2:44 pm

ajy101 wrote:
Anyway - my questions were merely rhetorical and for humour, I seriously did not expect any compelling answers to the questions.

Yeah, but it is what we do. We take any questions we can find and answer them as seriously as possible.

by **Tramp** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 3:13 pm

Justicity wrote:I'd always seen Soundwave as transforming into a cybertronian street light, which makes more sense that a phone box or a parking meter...

As for the Dinobots, as Damolisher said, they aren't in disguise, they are the Autobot's brute strength, they don't need disguise.

He wasn't a street-lamp. There were no lights on him. What he was is more like one of those surveylance cameras or communications relays like a radio tower. He wasn't a lamp.

As for why Transformers had cockpits. That was going to be addressed full in the DW Micromasters miniseries before DW went bankrupt. Apparently, the gyst of it is that Earth and its inhabitants were destined to be linked to that of Cybertron, as a result, Primus created the Transformers alternate mode to be compatble with humanoids. Also, Their alternate modes aren't just for disguise. They also serve more mundane functions such as material transport, combat, etc.

by **Loki120** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 6:11 pm

Tramp wrote:As for why Transformers had cockpits. That was going to be addressed full in the DW Micromasters miniseries before DW went bankrupt.

Ummm, there was a Micromaster miniseries, and it was released before DW went bankrupt.
For the life of me I can't remember what it was about though.

News Credits: 3 · by **Damolisher** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 9:00 pm

Micromasters?

by **Loki120** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 8:19 am

Damolisher wrote:Micromasters?

I believe they were in it, yes.
Don't know what they were doing in it, can't remember a thing about the plot...but I do believe one or two were in it.

:grin:

by **Malicron** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 7:20 pm

I’ve wondered about the pre-earth forms myself.

As far as I can tell, Autobots can travel faster on the ground as cars and the Decepticons can fly faster as jets.

As for guys like Preceptor and Soundwave, I have no idea. :???:

by **Tramp** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 7:25 pm

The only version of Soundwave's alternate mode we ever see is from the cartoon, and it's immobile. Don Figueroa did a concept design for War Within he uptimately regected. He never showed Soundwave's alternate mode in the comic itself. Soundwave's cartoon alternate mode on Cybertron looked to be some sort of communications relay tower or something along those lines. It was not, as some claim, a street light.

News Credits: 33 · by **Glyph** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 2:23 am

ajy101 wrote:I mean the whole premise of a robot turning into a dinosaur is rather silly, seeing they are supposed to be "robots in disguise". Disguised as what exactly? A robot dinosaur?

The comic version of the Dinobots had them being activated by the Ark's emergency systems, long before the main forces were revived, to fight Shockwave in the Savage Land (for the sake of argument) where there were still dinosaurs roaming around. In the cartoon version, Wheeljack just got 'inspired' to make robot dinosaurs by looking at some fossils. Take your pick. (In either case, the RL version is that they were imported from the pre-Transformers Diaclone line.)

Also, the altmodes were only used for disguise (from humans more than from each other) after the TFs had crashed on Earth. On Cybertron, they were used for transport and for tactical advantage in combat.

Tramp wrote:Apparently, the gyst of it is that Earth and its inhabitants were destined to be linked to that of Cybertron, as a result, Primus created the Transformers alternate mode to be compatble with humanoids.

I've never heard that before, but if it's true, then it needs to be stacked up in the Big Pile O' Lame Dreamwave Ideas. IMHO, naturally.

Soundwave in MTMTE... I've always assumed he was some kind of communications relay, as befits his personality and function. Whatever it is, it's certainly a great disguise - he got to stand in plain sight right outside Autobot HQ, spying on all their plans, and never be detected!

Autobots flying... Eh, we all know that in real life it was the result of miscommunication and not-quite-finalised decisions at that early point in the cartoon's history (I don't think the early comic ever showed the Autobots flying?). Later episodes established that Autobots generally can't fly, regardless of what a few early episodes showed (in exactly the same way that Transformers can only be given life by Vector Sigma, regardless of what S.O.S. Dinobots showed, etc...). Like all the other mistakes, what you make of it within the continuity - whether you simply write it off or come up with elaborate explanations - is up to you, as long as you remember that your version is necessarily your own 'fanon' version and don't try to push it on anyone else if they prefer a different treatment.

by **ajy101** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 7:56 pm

while we're at it:

How much does G1 Megatron weigh?

:lol:

(think about it).

by **Tramp** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 8:06 pm

Very god question. I don't think that has ever been established. I don't think the weaight of any of the TransFormers has ever been established.

by **ajy101** » Tue Aug 14, 2007 1:52 pm

The issue is about size and mass, not about weight per se.

News Credits: 33 · by **Glyph** » Tue Aug 14, 2007 3:58 pm

And the answer is... Far too much to be picked up by a human, and probably too much for most Transformers.

Hence the 'subspace' / 'mass-shifting' theory, now canonicalised by IDW's G1 series as 'mass-displacement'. But hey, the Master's Tissue Compression Eliminator always had the same problem... as did The Incredible Shrinking Man... and every other sci-fi 'big thing gets smaller and magically weighs less too' device...

by **Tramp** » Tue Aug 14, 2007 4:29 pm

Glyph wrote:And the answer is... Far too much to be picked up by a human, and probably too much for most Transformers.

Hence the 'subspace' / 'mass-shifting' theory, now canonicalised by IDW's G1 series as 'mass-displacement'. But hey, the Master's Tissue Compression Eliminator always had the same problem... as did The Incredible Shrinking Man... and every other sci-fi 'big thing gets smaller and magically weighs less too' device...

And also canonized by DW as Mass conversion. which works on a subatomic level without sending things into "subspace"

News Credits: 2 · by **Shadowman** » Tue Aug 14, 2007 4:30 pm

Tramp wrote:The only version of Soundwave's alternate mode we ever see is from the cartoon, and it's immobile. Don Figueroa did a concept design for War Within he uptimately regected. He never showed Soundwave's alternate mode in the comic itself. Soundwave's cartoon alternate mode on Cybertron looked to be some sort of communications relay tower or something along those lines. It was not, as some claim, a street light.

Look at the street lights outside Iacon in the first episode of G1. Then, compare them to Soundwave's alternate mode. :lol:

by **Tramp** » Tue Aug 14, 2007 4:40 pm

Shadowman wrote:
Tramp wrote:The only version of Soundwave's alternate mode we ever see is from the cartoon, and it's immobile. Don Figueroa did a concept design for War Within he uptimately regected. He never showed Soundwave's alternate mode in the comic itself. Soundwave's cartoon alternate mode on Cybertron looked to be some sort of communications relay tower or something along those lines. It was not, as some claim, a street light.

Look at the street lights outside Iacon in the first episode of G1. Then, compare them to Soundwave's alternate mode.

I have. He is not a street light.