Tuned Agent wrote:I've never understood how uptight fans get about the specific vehicle mode of characters in a franchise that's entire shtick is that it's characters can change forms at a whim, and can easily scan a new alt mode do better disguise themselves in a given environment. Are these characters so shallow that a different car mode or a different color scheme completely changes them, relegating them to just a "name slap"?
I mean, they often are, but that's another subject entirely.
People tend to think of Transformers in similar rules to Marvel/DC comic characters where most of the time it's one big continuity until a reboot with characters almost never changing their looks significantly, Transformers has never really ran on those rules because they end their series within 3 years besides I guess IDW comics before the reboot which ran a really long time. Heck I think part of the decline with Marvel/DC these days is due to how stagnant the characters and writing is.
People use the term name slap like the later characters are even supposed to invoke the original name bearers, I mean look at Rid2001 Scourge the guy who literally has nothing in common with the G1 Boat-Beard man besides the name because he's not supposed to since their just reusing the name for trademark purposes, same goes with Cybertron/Galaxy Force Scourge which has nothing in common with those 2 either, it's just a name.
Not that it's much of a distinction but another difference between Superhero names and Transformer ones is that the former are nicknames/alter-egos while most of the time the Transformer names are their actual names or at least their preferred name if it is indeed a nickname (Like take Bumblebee and that unit designation from the last film)
Tuned Agent wrote:
If anything, I'd rather an alt mode say something about the character it belongs to, like how a luxury sports car like a Porsche makes far, far more sense for a high-society character like G1 Mirage than an F1 race car ever did.
Since Hasbro just used existing toys to repurpose for the original Transformers line I can't fault them entirely on the vehicle mode choice as well as children probably more excited to see exotic/distinct vehicles over boring everyday vehicles.
But man there were a few dumb disguises amongst the original line, Mirage probably takes the cake for the worst disguise among the 1984 Autobots with Wheeljack as a close second due to being a very specific group's racing car.
Because when would one ever see this just driving around on the road especially with a convoy of other vehicles
The reason I put Mirage above Wheeljack as being worst even though they both have the race car problem is due to Mirage's disguise not serving much utility in that mode either due to being a open one seat vehicle which means Mirage needs a human driving him or a sort of holo driver when he's driving around, this also makes Mirage a useless candidate if he was ever in a situation where he needed to drive around more than 1 human, in gist Wheeljack's alt mode could at least be of some use.
I do hope one of Mirage's disguises is something like the F1 but it being his primary vehicle mode is really not a good idea these days, IRL it's also probably a bit of an impractical car to drive around on set.
