Jaw Crusher wrote:ThunderThruster wrote:Jaw Crusher wrote:As for what I'd do for a TF series...either
this or
this.
I really like the second idea, especially the whole orion pax/optimus prime thing!
Y'mean this one?
This idea kinda runs counter to the other idea I had posted in another thread - the previous idea was simply to wipe the slate clean totally, whereas this one takes elements of the TF mythos - particularly from the more recent series - and twists them up a bit.
Cast of characters: A large cast consisting of a few core groups.
Setting: Cybertron, time period not determined in the series, at least not exactly - actually, in Earth chronology it would be sometime in the early 1950s, but since we wouldn't be going to Earth in the series (at least not in this one) that wouldn't be important; the time frame would only be important for the immediate spinoff/follow-up.
Continuity: Brand spankin' new.
Divisions/Groups: None as the series begins. The Great War ended millions of years ago, between the Cybertron colonists who gave their adopted homeworld their name and the deviant Destrons who tried to take it over. Characters whose factions we've known for years would be working together, though tenuously in some cases, at the start of the series until the action really picks up.
Purpose/Story: Robin Hood Meets John Carpenter's The Thing By Way Of Green Lantern. An ancient bio-engineered horror uncovered by Shockwave threatens to escape its confinement and engulf the entire planet, so Megatron and his immediate cronies start weeding out the strongest of Cybertronians to make their getaway and leave the planet to burn. Some Autobots-to-be discover this and set about trying to expose Megatron's deceit, becoming outlaws in the process.
Visual Style: Mainframe-level CGI.
Target Audience: Wide ranging, same as with the DCAU shows.
Episodes: Stories span at least one episode, maybe two now and then.
Special powers: At least one prominent character has a Super Mode
To elaborate further: the protagonist would be the "teenager" Orion Pax (his design would probably best be described as the E-hobby Kup repaint with a blue Hot Rod head); and yes, Optimus Prime would still be a prominent character - and yes, Orion and Optimus are still one and the same - but more on that a bit later.
The backstory would be that Cybertron is actually one of several colony worlds of the Transformer race, and that the Great War has been over for nine million years, ever since the original colonists, the Cybertrons, drove the deviant Destron army off the planet; the Autobot and Decepticon factions as we know them do not yet exist - peace on Cybertron is kept by an elite defense force led by Ultra Magnus, Megatron, Starscream, and Prowl. However, things change when Megatron's scientific advisor Shockwave unearths a spacecraft that crashed on Cybertron four million years prior, and dig out a bizarre bio-mechanical carcass - which promptly infects the dig team and causes them to mutate and fuse into each other to create multi-limbed, multi-faced horrors full of hatred. The Seekers manage to contain the threat - after promptly showing up Ironhide's efforts to destroy the beast - but it gets Megatron to thinking that it could represent a failed retaliation by the Destrons, and if the infection were to spread, Cybertron and its population would be unsalvageable - thus, Megatron begins to initialize a 'survival of the fittest' strategy, to weed out those Transformers that fit certain standards of perfection, to neutralize those who don't and might actually cause a ruckus for it, and catch the next starship out of Iacon before things get out of control and the populace is any wiser.
Unbeknownst to Megatron, however, each of the other colony worlds have had the benefit of having a chosen one to lead them against just such a horror - each one selected via a mysterious cosmic power here known as the Prime Matrix, which not only holds the key to eliminating the virus but also the key to the long-lost origins of the Transformer race. When the Seekers interpret an oncoming vessel as another Destron attack, they promptly disobey Magnus' field orders and shoot it down, mortally wounding its sole occupant, the sage Alpha Trion and causing him to crash along the outskirts of the city-state just as a disgruntled Orion is going for a drive. Orion can't save the dying pilot, but before he goes Alpha transfers the Prime Matrix to Orion, telling the young 'bot that he will be able to access its power and wisdom in times of crisis. Alpha then turns coal-black and crumbles to dust, and Orion realizes he must warn the people of Iacon of the growing danger, knowing full well he'll become a hunted outlaw in the process.
Fortunately, for him, he gains a band of allies that include Jazz, Bumblebee, Ironhide, and Ratchet - all of whom have just been dismissed from their government jobs by Megatron in favor of Megs' own hand-picked talents, which serves to diminish Magnus' power base, even more so when Prowl is left for dead after discovering Megatron's escape plan and quickly replaced by Barricade. With the decadent Iacon falling into the iron grip of Megatron, and any who oppose him getting promptly thrashed, Orion and his merry mechs (Robin Hood reference totally intended) begin sieging the archives where Orion once worked; when Grimlock and his Dynobot team try to close in on the escaping 'bots, Orion is able to tap the Prime Matrix to materialize (a la TF: Energon) a heavily-armed trailer that also sports an additional surprise: a Super Mode which transforms Orion Pax into Optimus Prime, leader of the newly-christened Autobots, taking the long-lost Cybertron slave brand as their insignia and ultimately burning it into the battered Grimlock's chest, a la Zorro, as a message to Megatron.
From there, the series chronicles Megatron's attempts to capture and destroy Prime and his growing band of allies as the Autobots outmaneuver and outsmart Megs' foot soldiers at every turn, also staying one step ahead of the by-the-book Ultra Magnus as well as Magnus' right hand, Elita-1, who's determined to bring in Optimus Prime yet finds herself increasingly drawn to him. And on top of that, there's still also the pesky little matter of those Destron-mutated Transformers that have managed to escape custody and absorb a maximum of five Transformer carcasses apiece, making them five times as strong, five times as smart, and five times as twisted...
I admit to taking couple of conventions of the TF mythos and trying to spin them in different directions - the increasingly-evil Decepticon characters being worshipped by millions as heroes while the Autobots are hunted down and shot at for their courage and selflessness (as opposed to the 'mirror universe' schtick, or even "Beast Machines" where the planet's practically abandoned); Orion Pax and Optimus Prime being dual identities as opposed to one being permanently 'reformatted' into the other; the Transformers inadvertently creating the Quintessons, instead of the intentional other way around. In addition, there were some aspects of some of the newer TF 'toons I did sort of bring back - Optimus' Super Mode, multiple Transformer planets, Magnus and Optimus being in opposition to each other.
I'd posted it here earlier, but I tried to refine a bit more; I even did some notebook scribbles to this effect
here and
here. I also thought it might be neat to incorporate an element inspired by G1's "War Dawn" and taken to a "Smallville"-level of Orion and Megatron being portrayed as associates, each harboring a secret from the other.
As for the series being set in the '50s in Earth time, the reason for that would be because the immediate spinoff would take place twenty years later in the mid- to late '70s. Basically it'd be a sci-fi homage to every '70s car-chase flick, with dashes of the occasional other '70s blockbuster genre thrown in: Optimus and his team end up heading for the southern United States pursuing the escaped Quints (since Megatron, Starscream and the rest of the Decepticons are presumed dead at the end of the first series - of course, we would know that that's not quite the case...), and end up spending much of their time having to elude Earth authorities, as well as a team of Decepticon clones Megatron specifically had created to deal with Optimus and his merry mechs - Motormaster, Breakdown, Dragstrip, Dead End and Wildrider - so there'd be lots of moments where the police and later the military are chasing the TFs. In addition, it turns out Earth already has a Prime of its own - Rodimus, who's already on Earth with his own team of Springer, Arcee, Blurr and Wreck-Gar - and given how badly the situation is escalating they're not particularly keen on heeding Optimus' orders to be as discreet as possible. And along the way, our five-faced fiends are also wreaking bio-mechanical havoc, creating all sorts of freakish techno-organic monstrosities to terrorize the populace, confront our Autobot heroes and perplex the growing Stunticon ranks (including among others Runabout, Runamuck, and Barricade, who's acting as the Stunticons' inside man among Earth law enforcement) - they seem to have a particular fondness for tentacled reptilian beasties (a la "Alien") and horrific amphibious shark-monsters (Sharkticons a la "Jaws"), indicating that they're hiding out somewhere along the southern coastline of North America.
Here I sort of focused on car and truck 'Cons as opposed to the usual jets and outright implements of destruction, since not only would it be in line with the whole 'car movie' genre the series pays tribute to, it would also provide an additional headache for our heroes as the Earthlings (particularly the authorities) would be even less able to tell which ones are good and which ones are bad. I suppose this was also a sort of response to "Alternators" where Hasbro/Takara apparently couldn't come up with many good excuses for car- and truck-related Decepticons despite having quite a few examples. As for the absence of Megatron, essentially when Megs cloned Optimus' band he copied and disseminated aspects of his own personality into the clones, with Motormaster having the closest to a 'complete' replica of Megatron's mind (hence his role as Stunticon leader), so basically our primary villain is a CLONE of Megatron whose vehicle mode resembles Optimus Prime's (note that I said VEHICLE MODE - I wouldn't let Hasbro get off easy with that Scourge/Nemesis Prime crap again). I also saved the beast modes for the Quints' bio-mechanical pets, though they'd probably be more like the BW Mutants where they transform from one beast-mode to another beast-mode.
Likewise, in setting this on Earth in the '70s, I'd also want to bring in a teenage protagonist as opposed to another grade-schooler - so I'd probably go with Marissa Fairborne as the hot-pants-wearing Army-daughter gearhead who falls in with the Autobots, giving her parents further impetus to hunt these guys down...and yes, her parents are Dashiell Fairborne and Angela Burnett, and that's the names that they'll go by - not a crossover but a nod back to past connections between the two brands, a la "Energon" Snowcat. Likewise, the TFs' holographic proxies would have more prominent roles in this series, enabling the TFs to communicate through them and thus still having the TFs at center stage even when they're not transformed into giant robots...which is good, because between Optimus and his crew, Motormaster and his crew, Rodimus and HIS crew, and the Quints and all their backwoods genetic experiments, there's NOT going to be any shortage of giant-toy death-matches.
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