by Sabrblade » Sat Apr 11, 2020 9:02 pm
- Motto: "Can't do a job halfway. What's worth doing is worth doing well, I say."
- Weapon: Saber Blade
I kind of feel like we have to look at the bigger picture.
Before Beast Wars, "Transformers" meant one thing and one thing only: What we now refer to today as "G1". G2 tried to recapture and spirit and make something new out of it, but failed so hard that the brand almost died.
Beast Wars saved the brand by completely reinventing the wheel, making it so far unlike what G1 was, but which was for the better since that's what the brand needed at the time in the late 90s.
From Beast Machines to Cybertron, the brand was from then on in a constant state of reinvention, redefining itself every 1-2 years so as to keep the creative juices flowing and prevent any line from overstaying their welcome in case any of them didn't do so well. But, at the same time, it also created a sort of identity crisis for the brand since, during this time, "Transformers" was no longer any definite thing anymore, now it was a monster of ever-changed identity. Optimus Prime and Megatron never stayed the same for very long, creating a series of inconsistency across the board for what it meant to be the characters in terms of aesthetics and appearance. And with G1 nostalgia resurfacing during this time, that also competed with the Unicron Trilogy's ever-changing identity for the brand.
Then, come 2007 and the first live action movie is such a smash hit that the movies become the new face of the brand, showing the first signs of a new wave of brand recognition. For the first time since the 80s, "Transformers" finally means something in a specific and obvious meaning. But at the same time, Animated pops up for the 25th anniversary with its unadulterated visual homages to G1 and a few other past series. While the movies continued to make money and placed at the forefront of the brand, Animated fights for its place too, along with some more G1 nostalgia creeping into the comics and Universe toyline following the surprise success of the Classics filler line from 2006.
Finally recognizing that a state of consistency would be beneficial to the brand, Archer's team devises a plan to streamline the brand, creating the Aligned continuity, hewing very closely to the live action movies while also mixing in elements of the then-still-popular Animated and then-still-relevent IDW1 comics, as well as also mixing in stuff from G1 and other past series. However, none of the mainstream licensees really get behind the idea and want to keep doing their own things each, so the Aligned continuity tried but ultimately failed to become the consistent face of the brand that it was intended to be.
Come 2014 and Archer's team is replaced by Warden's team. They keep the Aligned cartoons going somewhat with RID 2015 and the rest of Rescue Bots, but the live action movies finally tank with TLK's box office failure. Thus, a new reinvention is brought about. Warden's team tries again at creating a sense of brand consistency like Archer's team tried with the Aligned media, but unlike that attempt, Warden's team instead opts go for a tactic of "evergreen" designs that lean more into G1 than into the movies. The G1-heavy Bumblebee movie is a reasonable success, Cyberverse is created and slowly (very slowly) wins over fans with its mix of G1/evergreen-based looks and Aligned-based lore plus some actual new ideas that turn out to be pretty cool and fun. And the Generations line evolves into a more consistently G1 line that better reflects what the brand is now, bringing us full circle to Earthrise.
In a way, thanks to the efforts of Warden's team, the Transformers brand has finally achieved what it never did under Archer's team: A sense of consistency and stable brand recognition similar to the likes of Batman, Superman, Star Wars, and Marvel.
"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"Shadowman wrote:This is Sabrblade we're talking about. His ability to store trivial information about TV shows is downright superhuman.
Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'
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