The Energon Pub

I still marvel at the over-the-top reactions by some fans who clearly cannot handle change in a toyline where the primary gimmick is ... change.

MaximalNui wrote:

Dr. Caelus wrote:So I'm guessing Nightbird is going to be a triple-changer.

- Beaky helmet.
- Wingy kibble on hips.
- Claw weapon.
- Animal name.

Or the Terrorcons all have a third attack mode? I did notice Battletrap's mace seems to have a hinge (though then again that might just be to attach it), and Nightbird now has those tailgate-blades.

So....the Terrorcons are distinguished by butt attacks?

Sabrblade wrote:

Dr. Caelus wrote:So I'm guessing Nightbird is going to be a triple-changer.

- Beaky helmet.
- Wingy kibble on hips.
- Claw weapon.
- Animal name.

This Nightbird is meant to be the Movieverse version of the original Nightbird.

The original Nightbird doesn't have a beaky helmet, wing-like kibble on her hips, or a claw weapon. Or any alternate mode at all in the original cartoon, since the original Nightbird wasn't even cybertronian.

william-james88 wrote:

Cyber Bishop wrote:Different head on that bus and it is fantastic, calling it wheeljack in it's current look with the glasses is just plain stupid. Bay is a jackass (since he has allegedly had his hands in the design) , They need fresh minds designing them.

Just in case you are referring to what I wrote, we don't know if Bay had a hand in this specific design. We just know that he was involved in this film more than on Bumblebee and that he had a hand in the designs in the Ninja Turtles movie, even though he was just producing that one as well.

Well whoever had their hands on this head design needs to have their heads examined heh.

Heh

Look what they did to poor Nightbird! Not a huge fan of the robot mode to begin with, but look at her bizarre cone head. The only thing I like about it is the vehicle mode and weapons. I hate that stupid glasses nerd face, too, but the rest of that design is fine.

Am I the only one who could totally, like, see this Wheeljack as, like, a Transformers X Crossover as the Mystery Machine?

First-Aid wrote:Am I the only one who could totally, like, see this Wheeljack as, like, a Transformers X Crossover as the Mystery Machine?

You're not alone.

-Kanrabat- wrote:

First-Aid wrote:Am I the only one who could totally, like, see this Wheeljack as, like, a Transformers X Crossover as the Mystery Machine?

You're not alone.

I had thought Party Wagon, but jinkies those are some Velma glasses.

Quantum Surge wrote:Heh

Doesn't make the fact that armada wheeljacks turds look better than this 'wheeljacks' face or that wfc runabouts crotch face looks better, any less true :p

Burn wrote:I still marvel at the over-the-top reactions by some fans who clearly cannot handle change in a toyline where the primary gimmick is ... change.

Change I don't mind, drastic inconsistencies I do. If this was his first prequel/reboot/whatever appearance I'd be fine with it, but it's not. Plus he didn't come alone, yet he's the only one that got a radical makeover. It's change for the sake of change, I'm sure it won't come up in the movie and won't be key to the character or the plot.

Emerje

There is a meltdown going on in the TFW thread over wheeljack, very entertaining stuff

Emerje wrote:

Burn wrote:I still marvel at the over-the-top reactions by some fans who clearly cannot handle change in a toyline where the primary gimmick is ... change.

Change I don't mind, drastic inconsistencies I do. If this was his first prequel/reboot/whatever appearance I'd be fine with it, but it's not. Plus he didn't come alone, yet he's the only one that got a radical makeover. It's change for the sake of change, I'm sure it won't come up in the movie and won't be key to the character or the plot.

Emerje

How can you say it's inconsistant? Have you seen the final cut of the movie?

Regardless, does it lessen your enjoyment of Transformers at all? Has it absolutely ruined Transformers for you as it clearly has for others?

Or is it something that you can just shrug your shoulders and go "meh ... same ****, different movie"? Because that's what I'm doing.

Plus I doubt many collectors will have this guy front and centre, he'll be second line, possibly even third, behind a bunch of others where his crazy little noggin' will barely be noticed and quickly forgotten.

So yeah, the over-the-top reactions are just straight up bat-shit crazy.

william-james88 wrote:There is a meltdown going on in the TFW thread over wheeljack, very entertaining stuff

I ADORE that Wheeljack and those goofy glasses make him unique. I really don't understand the extreme salt so many people feels towards him.

-Kanrabat- wrote:

william-james88 wrote:There is a meltdown going on in the TFW thread over wheeljack, very entertaining stuff

I ADORE that Wheeljack and those goofy glasses make him unique. I really don't understand the extreme salt so many people feels towards him.

I think it's because people assumed he was going to look as he did in the beginning of the Bumblebee movie

I'll admit, a Wheeljack that turns into a van in altmode but still manages to look like Wheeljack in bot mode would have been cool, even if they'd given him the mutton chops/mustache instead of the faceplate.

That said, I only really collect movie bots if they can kind of sit in my generations collection, and not look redundant. Barricade, Shatter, and Dropkick are on the shelf, but I never got Studio Series Blitzwing or Soundwave, despite really liking the designs.

Overcracker wrote:
That makes sense. Maybe these are mainline toys, and we get the Licensed versions in SS.

Its going to get really confusing down the line.

It's already confusing people. Even though I give all that info in every article I write about the line.

What will help is the different packaging once these are in stores. A unified packaging for the mainline will tell fans exactly which are not part of SS.

Burn wrote:Or is it something that you can just shrug your shoulders and go "meh ... same ****, different movie"? Because that's what I'm doing.

And that's what I recommend everyone does. But people are just not having it. There was lots of backlash over that article I wrote about why continuity doesn't matter with these films, and we shouldn't expect it. Many told me I was wrong. I'm just offering a frame of mind to approach these films that will not leave you frustrated. And now many who didn't want to partake in that frame of mind, since they expected a reboot (their own definition of one) or thought "Bayverse" was over, are all having a meltdown. People are seeing that even visual continuity is out the door with these films, or at least could be. Also, people thought Bay's hold on the franchise was a thing of the past and a design like we see on Wheeljack tells them the opposite. So in one fell swop, this design reawakens the biggest fears: It's another live action Bay-type Transformers film, where there is no continuity to be had.

I think one thing that throws me about the direction this fandom has gone is how upset people get over other people being upset.

It used to be you might have heated arguments over which one was Rumble and which one was Frenzy, but now it seems like the people who get the most persistently bent out of shape are the people upset that the disagreement itself exists.

Here, it seems like on any given matter there is always maybe one poster on each side of an argument who is actually seriously invested in their position, and many more people complaining about 'all the people losing their minds' over something or the 'intense backlash from fans'. On Facebook, my feed is always jammed with stuff complaining about how upset people are about a given thing, but I see much less of the people who are actually upset about the thing.

Regardless of anything else, the face on that Wheeljack is absolutely stupid, I actually quite like the design of the body, helmet and even the goggles kinda but the face underneath is a travesty, bloody Daytrader and Mudflap levels of garbage, what even are these lips, I've seen designs I like with notable lips like Crosshairs or Ratchet but this is just wrong.


Ignoring all that, making a character design based off a stereotype is not good, it was bad for the Twins, it was bad for the Wreckers, it was bad for Que, Drift, Hound, etc, this is ignoring if those designs were good or not but rather the very idea of stereotypical invoking designs, it lacks creativity and comes across as potentially insensitive.

Regarding Nightbird, her design looks good, but that has to be a WIP figure right? The vehicle and what little we see of her robot form in the trailer don't have brown like this, the deco looks unfinished.


The thing that baffles me the most about this situation is that every other returning character from Bumblebee invokes their previous design, and for those new to the film like the Maximals, Mirage, Nightbird and even Scourge (from a Rid 2001 view) have relatively homage-like designs, the only exceptions are Battletrap (who's pretty much supposed to be a new character like Blitzwing, Shatter and Dropkick were) and Wheeljack who I doubt is just a nameslap and will probably do Wheeljack-things.

Literally name him Huffer or Perceptor and it could work better, regardless I still find the face to be horrible and would prefer a redesign of it anyways, even if it was to the extent of slapping a faceplate on.

I'm only actually mad about the face, and not because it doesn't look like Wheeljack but because it's an ugly face, I'm otherwise just confused on the direction that made Wheeljack the only exception to a more traditional design compared to everyone else bar Battletrap who again is clearly intended to be a new character.

This Wheeljack figure is cool in itself but it's not a good sign.

The alt mode is similar to a WV minivan but has NOT that design: this means that probably Volkswagen hasn't allowed Hasbro to use the original shape.

I hope this will not happen with Mirage, as his Porsche Carrera alt mode is awesome ad it should be really annoying if the toy would convert in a different car, as it was for Dino :-/

Deadput wrote:Regardless of anything else, the face on that Wheeljack is absolutely stupid ...

You say stupid, I say hilarious...but the most agravating kind.

If you ask me, I think it's a symptoms of Bay's direct involvement into the design aspect of characters. Coming up with the worse of caricatures is his forte.

Burn wrote:

Emerje wrote:

Burn wrote:I still marvel at the over-the-top reactions by some fans who clearly cannot handle change in a toyline where the primary gimmick is ... change.

Change I don't mind, drastic inconsistencies I do. If this was his first prequel/reboot/whatever appearance I'd be fine with it, but it's not. Plus he didn't come alone, yet he's the only one that got a radical makeover. It's change for the sake of change, I'm sure it won't come up in the movie and won't be key to the character or the plot.

Emerje

How can you say it's inconsistant? Have you seen the final cut of the movie?

I mean it's inconsistent with the canonical previous movie. Sure, he was only in the movie for seconds, but he also had that character bio feature and toy, his design was well established. It feels unlikely that they'll explain the change. If they're just changing things to be more Bay like then whey isn't Arcee just tiny and rolling around on one wheel? Just another form of them being inconsistent. At least when Barricade got his makeover he was still a police car and not a CHIPs bike or something.

Regardless, does it lessen your enjoyment of Transformers at all? Has it absolutely ruined Transformers for you as it clearly has for others?

No, that would be stupid, it just ruined the character for me.

Or is it something that you can just shrug your shoulders and go "meh ... same ****, different movie"? Because that's what I'm doing.

Oh, that's definitely what I'm doing.

Plus I doubt many collectors will have this guy front and centre, he'll be second line, possibly even third, behind a bunch of others where his crazy little noggin' will barely be noticed and quickly forgotten.

Hey, despite all my complaining about the design and calling it Wheeljack I'm still probably going to end up buying it. Not at full price though.

So yeah, the over-the-top reactions are just straight up bat-shit crazy.

Agreed and if that's how I came across then I apologize. I was simply being critical and giving my first honest reaction to the design that I don't find appealing or character appropriate. As for the movie itself, I have a hard time forming a strong opinion based on a single, eight months early teaser trailer and a few figures.

Emerje

What have they done to Wheeljack??? Almost equal to calling him QUE.

I stopped expecting much of anything good from these movies after the first one, Bumblebee actually being good changed that and gave me hope for better movie going forward. So as long as that happens I couldn't care less for the tory designs because I've never like Bay movie formers that much.

Thus I've never expected a live action versions of G1 characters, at least not accurate depictions nd am fine with that because Hasbro actually does make G1 inspired toys. Having them look exactly as they did in G1 wouldn't offer anything new and would likely just end up with two version floating around. And that IMO we don't really need.

And since Hasbro does make G1 versions it means I can still buy those which means I have no use for the Movie toys. It's that simple. Maybe if something pops out as cool or interesting I may pick it up.

william-james88 wrote:There is a meltdown going on in the TFW thread over wheeljack, very entertaining stuff

Add him to the RUINED FOREVER list

Seriously though, I have a hard time "feeling" the Wheeljack character in that design, but maybe once the Mad Scientist trope comes out (including his inventions exploding) things will get easier.