AllNewSuperRobot wrote:ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:ZeroWolf wrote:You mean how headmasters quickly killed Prime off again just to sell Fortress Maximus as the new Autobot leader
Yes. How it quickly killed him off again in a lame way because he didn't have a toy out anymore. And also how it then invalidated that sacrifice a scant few episodes later by blowing up Cybertron.
The Headmasters is full of stupid.
Think of it this way, Many say how the Takara Series ignored The Rebirth alone. But essentially by killing off Prime immediately, they are undoing Return of Optimus Prime too. Perhaps because the Home Fanbase didn't want him back, following The Movie?
Well see, that's the root of the problem: At the time of The Headmasters, Japan still hadn't
got the movie. The Japanese fanbase was missing that major piece of lore and emotional impact.
AllNewSuperRobot wrote:To look at the Takara Series in a broader sense, other than some early visual cameos in the opening episodes, they largely pushed the new characters throughout. You could dismiss that cynically as "New Toys", but look at the changing cast from one series to the next.
That
is "New Toys", especially with how the Dinobots are treated and the lackluster mutual defeat of Soundwave and
Billy Blaster to bring in their new toys.
But there's a difference between characters falling out of prominence in favor of a new focus cast (this is seen even in Seasons 1-3), and a beloved character who had been brought back with much fanfare and fuss dying in a sacrifice with minimal fanfare - and then that sacrifice being invalidated a scant few episodes later.
And I mean it about The Headmasters being full of stupid. There's that trainwreck of events, there's the execution of the
Power Pack Matrix's renewal, there's the flipflop over whether Rodimus or Fortress is the younger leader, there's the kerfuffle of Scorponok's Japanese names (where, in an obvious clash of someone who wanted to use the "Scorponok" name and someone who wanted to have "Zarak" and "Megazarak" to parallel "Fortress" and "Fortress Maximus", the "Megazarak" got used for the big scorpoion-bot transtector but the guy who formed the head and isn't a scorpion got named "Scorponok"), there's the Autobot Headmasters making no effort to break the Decepticons Headmasters' telepathic grip on the energy satellite before resorting to blowing it up, there's the Autobots' constant bungling in "The Dormant Volcano Mysteriously Erupts" (extra-painful compared to the stellar disaster relief seen in Season 1)... It has a better narrative justification for Headmasters themselves than the US continuities, but the actual show is very painful. (Of course, The Rebirth is a mess too...)
The overall competence of the Masterforce Autobots is a
very pleasant contrast.
AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Unlike Takara,
Pretty sure you mean Hasbro
AllNewSuperRobot wrote:there wasn't really any knee-jerk backpeddling. No documented outcry which lead to former characters returning?
Because Japan hadn't gotten the movie yet. See also Wheeljack running around alive when he shouldn't be.
AllNewSuperRobot wrote:It is strange that for a series that is literally about change,
Okay, I am going to stop you right there. It is a series about metal people (who are largely divided into two warring factions, one imperialist and one anti-imperialist) from space who can
change their physical forms. There is a difference between having
physical change as an essential gimmick, and being
about change in status quo.
AllNewSuperRobot wrote:how many seem resistant to the very concept.
There's a difference between concept and execution. And The Headmasters' execution of the changing of the guard... is about as smooth as sandpaper and as graceful as the Micro Change Magnum Robo in robot mode.
AllNewSuperRobot wrote:ZeroWolf wrote:You mean how headmasters quickly killed Prime off again just to sell Fortress Maximus as the new Autobot leader... Then in Masterforce brought in God Ginrai as bot leader etc etc.
Ginrai was not Prime though. Visually similar, in the way others have since been EG Primal, Lio Convoy, Car Robots Prime etc but it wasn't the same character. Nor intended to be.
No, but his
toy sure was, which put Takara in an awkward position as to what to do with it in the fiction after their having lackadasically killed Optimus back off instead of writing him out nonlethally.
AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I always thought The Return of Optimus Prime should have been the onscreen debut of Powermaster Prime, the only original Prime design I liked, but for whatever reason they didn't make it so.
It's very simple: "The Return of Optimus Prime" was in 1987, and PMOP didn't exist until 1988.
Sentinel_Primal wrote:Speaking of Animated, what are the chances of us getting a Slipstream from ER Starscream? Given her prominence (I assume, haven't watched it yet) in Cyberverse, I think she might make the jump to Generations, but I can't see her getting a retail release until maybe after the third part of WFC. I think it might be kind of fun to see her in SELECTS though
I'd personally rather have her from the SIEGE mold.