Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forums

*walks in to make a comment about a very short snippet of the new cartoon*
*sees all the bullshit happening*
*walks out*

My only worry about the show in terms of the makeup comes from what they seemed to be pushing in the promo. They were yammering about how they want to use the show 'to redefine what it means to be a family'.

And whenever Hollywood gets excited about using a show to lean on the scale of social norms, I wince. Not because of any weird agendas they might have - but because it means that entertainment is no longer the main focus of that show. It becomes more about pushing the message, whatever it might be.

A Transformers show needs be about making a good story, with believable characters, a cohesive plot, and thrilling action. At it's most basic level, it should be a story about good vs. evil between two warring factions of sentient robots. If the plot and writing of Earthspark instead becomes subsumed in some crusade to 'redefine the family', then the show will be mediocre at best, cheesy and eye-rolling at worst. It remains to be seen.

This video plays in Canada, at least:

Sabrblade wrote:This video plays in Canada, at least:

Works for me as well.

Even though I'm far from the intended target market it does look to have potential.

DeathReviews wrote:A Transformers show needs be about making a good story, with believable characters, a cohesive plot, and thrilling action. At it's most basic level, it should be a story about good vs. evil between two warring factions of sentient robots. If the plot and writing of Earthspark instead becomes subsumed in some crusade to 'redefine the family', then the show will be mediocre at best, cheesy and eye-rolling at worst. It remains to be seen.

I often disagree with you.
But here, it's AMEN, BROTHER!

I sincerely hope that show will be on Prime level and not suffer the Get Woke Go Broke curse.

-Kanrabat- wrote:I sincerely hope that show will be on Prime level and not suffer the Get Woke Go Broke curse.

This tends to happen because people like YOU look too deeply and see things that aren't really there.

Can we return to topic, please? Thanks.

The initial list of main characters showed more humans than bots, hence my concern. Seeing more bots in the promos makes me feel better but only marginally. This once again looks like G1 Redux...I'll wait until the first episode to decide whether this is worth it. I'm still waiting for TransTech...

First-Aid wrote:I'm still waiting for TransTech...

Funny you should mention that.

Sabrblade wrote:

First-Aid wrote:I'm still waiting for TransTech...

Funny you should mention that.

I hate you. You posted this and I got all excited that maybe....MAYBE, against all odds, we were finally going to get something new.

Burn wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:I sincerely hope that show will be on Prime level and not suffer the Get Woke Go Broke curse.

This tends to happen because people like YOU look too deeply and see things that aren't really there.

Money talk, BS walk. Just look at the numbers. Woke shows, comics, games, and movie fail hard while those that put ENTERTAINMENT first instead of the message have success and makes buttload of money.

TlDr; You said it yourself. Yes indeed, if people like ME decide a show lives or die, it mean WE ARE THE MAJORITY. We speak with our wallet. Money. The most powerful voice.

You'll notice once you decide, or will be forced to look outside your ever shrinking bubble.

¯\_( ͡°ヮ ͡°)_/¯

-Kanrabat- wrote:

Burn wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:I sincerely hope that show will be on Prime level and not suffer the Get Woke Go Broke curse.

This tends to happen because people like YOU look too deeply and see things that aren't really there.

Money talk, BS walk. Just look at the numbers. Woke shows, comics, games, and movie fail hard while those that put ENTERTAINMENT first instead of the message have success and makes buttload of money.

TlDr; You said it yourself. Yes indeed, if people like ME decide a show lives or die, it mean WE ARE THE MAJORITY. We speak with our wallet. Money. The most powerful voice.

You'll notice once you decide, or will be forced to look outside your ever shrinking bubble.

¯\_( ͡°ヮ ͡°)_/¯

Do us all a favour and take the tin foil hat off your head and shove it down your throat.

Burn wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:

Burn wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:I sincerely hope that show will be on Prime level and not suffer the Get Woke Go Broke curse.

This tends to happen because people like YOU look too deeply and see things that aren't really there.

Money talk, BS walk. Just look at the numbers. Woke shows, comics, games, and movie fail hard while those that put ENTERTAINMENT first instead of the message have success and makes buttload of money.

TlDr; You said it yourself. Yes indeed, if people like ME decide a show lives or die, it mean WE ARE THE MAJORITY. We speak with our wallet. Money. The most powerful voice.

You'll notice once you decide, or will be forced to look outside your ever shrinking bubble.

¯\_( ͡°ヮ ͡°)_/¯

Do us all a favour and take the tin foil hat off your head and shove it down your throat.

OK. I was trying to stay out of this mess I'd inadvertently created but you know what? No. No more.

You don't have to be looking "too deeply" into things to see the way media is going. You just have to have a functioning pair of eyes and NOT be deliberately obtuse. Whether you think it's a good or bad thing, whether you think it's down to "wokeness", a deliberate agenda or (as is my opinion) incompetence coupled with slimy attempts to latch onto "causes" (legitimate or otherwise) in order to make their product be more trendy/immunized against criticism, doesn't matter. It's OBVIOUS that things are changing. And guess what? People are allowed not to like it. For WHATEVER reason.

They might be silly reasons or they might be perfectly valid reasons- as DeathReviews mentioned, the choice to try and place "sending a message" over entertainment value, ESPECIALLY in a children's cartoon, is banal and pointless at absolute best. Personally I wouldn't care if it was a message I fundamentally agreed with- it doesn't belong in children's cartoons. Like I'm not gonna let any children I have play NieR Automata until they're of age, because quite frankly as amazing as that game and the themes within are, it's not suitable for- and TOO COMPLEX FOR- children.

Myself? I don't think this new cartoon is going to be very good, and I'm not going to watch it. I'm not going to boycott it or anything silly like that based on what I know of it, but I'm not gonna watch it and I don't think it's going to be particularly successful. Not even because GWGB, but just because whoever made it has clearly either placed their particular desires above making a widely marketable product, or not really thought about the latter at all. I don't think the people who made these decisions are evil or even stupid (as far as we can ever know with people that work in Western media anyway). But it is a weird and not very clever decision. And whilst I can't speak for anyone else in the thread, that isn't me wearing a "tinfoil hat". That's just a business observation from someone who's consumed a fair amount of media and watched a lot of projects crash and burn from similar moves.

Now, could Kanra have worded that better? Sure. But the basic idea- that shows (especially aimed at kids) that place some kind of social message (REGARDLESS of what that message is) above actually being fun to watch tend to not do very well and quickly fail- is NOT "tinfoil hat" thinking and CERTAINLY not grounds for telling someone to shove their nonexistent tinfoil hat down their throat. There is NO REASON to get that pointlessly hostile, ESPECIALLY over something as inconsequential as not liking a decision made by some corporate showrunner with regards to a Transformers cartoon. Are you personally involved with the production of this series? Is it somehow deeply offensive to you to see people not like the (trite and predictable) direction it's going in? Get off your high horse.

Like I say. I don't care what happens with this cartoon. Maybe it'll be better than I'm expecting. Maybe it'll be much worse. I'm probably going to buy some of the cooler figures, but that's about it. But I (and everyone else) has the right to voice displeasure at an aspect of the show they don't like- in my case the fact it's been made with zero regard for basic marketability, and also the fact the character models look like a Dreamworks animator took DMT with a copy of Maya open. I'm not personally attacking anyone- if people like it, that's fine. If people want to counter-argue, again, that's fine (as long as they're OK with me counter-counter-arguing). What's NOT fine is demonizing people for disagreeing with them and ABSOLUTELY not making aggressive personal attacks on said same people.

And even- EVEN- if you for whatever reason perceived that someone who disagreed with you said something out of order, there's better ways of making it clear to them than telling them to "take off their tinfoil hat and shove it down their throat". Be the better person. BEHAVE LIKE A DECENT HUMAN BEING. Heck, even looking back at my arguments with a certain X-rated user (now mercifully banned), even though I maintain my points were valid, I still have a fair bit of shame over how I conducted myself with him. Heck, Burn, YOU were the one who told me to be the bigger person and not let irrelevant nonsense get under my skin, even if I was right to be annoyed. And what X was saying was FAR worse than what's been said here.

I'll not be so hypocritical as to say all that and then get hostile myself. But that wasn't cool, like, at all.

Burn wrote:Do us all a favour and take the tin foil hat off your head and shove it down your throat.

Real classy, Burn. Real classy.

While DC, Marvel, and other "mainstream" comic books corporations struggle to sell anything, many like YoungRippa59 took matters in his own hands to create a comic that is pure entertainment, no wokeness, no message.

Maybe I just hallucinated the 2 3 millions dollars in preorder sales that happened in less than two weeks?
Yeah, I must be craaaaazy.





Yeah, forget it all. It was just some hallucination.

Evil Eye wrote:They might be silly reasons or they might be perfectly valid reasons- as DeathReviews mentioned, the choice to try and place "sending a message" over entertainment value, ESPECIALLY in a children's cartoon, is banal and pointless at absolute best. Personally I wouldn't care if it was a message I fundamentally agreed with- it doesn't belong in children's cartoons. Like I'm not gonna let any children I have play NieR Automata until they're of age, because quite frankly as amazing as that game and the themes within are, it's not suitable for- and TOO COMPLEX FOR- children

See, I reflexively wanted to take issue with your general disrespect for your own children's intelligence, but then I remembered two things:

(1) You obviously know your children better than I do, and if you think they're too dumb to understand a cartoon with a simple, sappy moral in each episode, then you would know better than anyone else. (And knowing is half the battle!)

(2) The disinclination to waste your time and energy trying to reach someone because you have a general lack of respect for their ability to grasp what you'd be trying to communicate is something I completely sympathize with.

Dr. Caelus wrote:

Evil Eye wrote:They might be silly reasons or they might be perfectly valid reasons- as DeathReviews mentioned, the choice to try and place "sending a message" over entertainment value, ESPECIALLY in a children's cartoon, is banal and pointless at absolute best. Personally I wouldn't care if it was a message I fundamentally agreed with- it doesn't belong in children's cartoons. Like I'm not gonna let any children I have play NieR Automata until they're of age, because quite frankly as amazing as that game and the themes within are, it's not suitable for- and TOO COMPLEX FOR- children

See, I reflexively wanted to take issue with your general disrespect for your own children's intelligence, but then I remembered two things:

(1) You obviously know your children better than I do, and if you think they're too dumb to understand a cartoon with a simple, sappy moral in each episode, then you would know better than anyone else. (And knowing is half the battle!)

(2) The disinclination to waste your time and energy trying to reach someone because you have a general lack of respect for their ability to grasp what you'd be trying to communicate is something I completely sympathize with.

To (mis?)quote Sentinel Prime, "I will ignore the condescending nature of your tone if you heed the gravity of mine".
(1) For one thing, contrary to popular belief, children AREN'T naturally racist (especially not if they aren't exposed to shame-based psychological manipulation by people with an agenda). For another, it's not television's place to teach children how to behave. It's their parents'. If children are judged as needing cartoons to tell them not to be racist, then I'd argue there are problems far beyond the scope of cartoons to solve.

(2)That is a terrible attitude to have, and also completely missing my point- namely, children do NOT need to be preached to by CARTOONS on how to behave. Parents are important for a reason.

Ok, in all seriousness, can we cut with the sh!t? Feel free to ban me or whatever, but Burn you are an admin and I would have expected something to be done about this thread sooner, not your participation in the extension of the mudslinging. The topic is completely off the f*cking tracks and needs to be reigned in. ENOUGH FROM ALL SIDES. I don't give a flying patootie about whether this is "woke" or not, whether there is racism or what not, whether someone is getting weepy because the bad guy happens to be a white dude (like Tomax and Xamot, Zartan, Dr. Archville, Sean Berger, Colonel Klink, and the Dude). I'm more interested in whether this will be on a par with previous TF series or if it's going to be a giant turd and I'd REALLY EFFING APPRECIATE IT if it returned to that topic rather than Great War 2.

I'd like to request somebody with some authority please reign in the children. Time outs all around. Don't make me go on you people.

First-Aid wrote:Ok, in all seriousness, can we cut with the sh!t? Feel free to ban me or whatever, but Burn you are an admin and I would have expected something to be done about this thread sooner, not your participation in the extension of the mudslinging. The topic is completely off the f*cking tracks and needs to be reigned in. ENOUGH FROM ALL SIDES. I don't give a flying patootie about whether this is "woke" or not, whether there is racism or what not, whether someone is getting weepy because the bad guy happens to be a white dude (like Tomax and Xamot, Zartan, Dr. Archville, Sean Berger, Colonel Klink, and the Dude). I'm more interested in whether this will be on a par with previous TF series or if it's going to be a giant turd and I'd REALLY EFFING APPRECIATE IT if it returned to that topic rather than Great War 2.

I'd like to request somebody with some authority please reign in the children. Time outs all around. Don't make me go on you people.

It's times like this that I really wish we had a "Like" button here.

Though, sadly, Burn retired some time ago. He's not on forum staff anymore.

First-Aid wrote:Ok, in all seriousness, can we cut with the sh!t? Feel free to ban me or whatever, but Burn you are an admin and I would have expected something to be done about this thread sooner, not your participation in the extension of the mudslinging.

Burn is no longer part of any staff. His "Forum Admin" title is just a... battle scar.


I simply wish for the show to not fall into the usual woke pitfalls and be entertaining. But for some strange reasons, that's a pretty offensive opinion is seems.



Let's wait and see for the first few episodes to roll in. If the show is good and fun, well, good. If the show try to be preachy, it will stick out like a sore thumb with no need to over-analyse anything. In the end, the ratings will be the final judge.

Sabrblade wrote:Though, sadly, Burn retired some time ago. He's not on forum staff anymore.

Cheers

Regardless, that wouldn't exclude me from simply laying down the lay and not expressing my opinion, that was one thing that frustrated me a lot about being Admin, I had to enforce the rules and keep my own opinion to myself.

And I'm absolutely sick to death of people running their mouth off about "political correctness", "social justice" "keyboard warriors" "SJW's" etc etc etc so you'll have to forgive me for taking a stance.

This whole "the main human characters are black so clearly Hasbro is doing the WOKE thing hur hur hur" is blatant BULLSHIT and RACIST and it's time it was called out for that.

Who cares what ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or whatever the human characters are? Why is that even an issue? It's not to me, as long as there's a good story and good characters then that's all you should need.

But no, there are certain members of this website who disguise their blatant racism and at times sexism behind the "GO WOKE GO BROKE" argument because they believe they're the majority and will garner sympathy for it.

That **** needs to be called out.

So I did.

And I will not apologise for doing so either.

I want this topic on track as much as First-Aid does, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let bigots have their say and not be called out on it.

For my part, I'll reserve judgement on the series until I've seen an ep or two. Until then, we can only surmise what it might 'be like' and express our wishes (or worries). No point in being provocative.

I gave the Cyberverse show a look, but the first couple of eps didn't impress me, so I never followed the series in any meaningful way. I may well have missed out on some good episodes because of that, but as the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Hopefully Earthspark will make a good first impression, but they'll have to strike that difficult balance between trying too hard, and not working hard enough.

And it's not like there haven't been lots of TV shows about African American families before. The Jeffersons, Family Matters, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the list goes on. And just those three were all great successes and well-beloved by many people from all walks of life.

Burn wrote:Regardless, that wouldn't exclude me from simply laying down the lay and not expressing my opinion, that was one thing that frustrated me a lot about being Admin, I had to enforce the rules and keep my own opinion to myself.

It takes a toll, and over time you strain more and more to see the benefit of it.

Burn wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Though, sadly, Burn retired some time ago. He's not on forum staff anymore.

Cheers

Regardless, that wouldn't exclude me from simply laying down the lay and not expressing my opinion, that was one thing that frustrated me a lot about being Admin, I had to enforce the rules and keep my own opinion to myself.

And I'm absolutely sick to death of people running their mouth off about "political correctness", "social justice" "keyboard warriors" "SJW's" etc etc etc so you'll have to forgive me for taking a stance.

This whole "the main human characters are black so clearly Hasbro is doing the WOKE thing hur hur hur" is blatant BULLSHIT and RACIST and it's time it was called out for that.

That is a MAJOR oversimplification, and also flat-out wrong. The problem isn't "Black characters in my TF cartoon!" (again- Animated and even, as much as I disliked the pacing and story, Prime did representation SUPER well). The problem is "Every single main human character is black with the sole exception of ONE Filipino character (who is so poorly designed it's hard to tell he is) and the white villain. My biggest gripe (aside from the fact I cannot see this thing selling well, which ultimately doesn't affect me) is if this was the other way around it'd be torn apart as white supremacy or something. An entirely white family (with one token minority) and the only black character being a villain would set off alarm bells, and for good reason. So why should we excuse it when it's the other way around? It's just lazy.

Who cares what ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or whatever the human characters are? Why is that even an issue? It's not to me, as long as there's a good story and good characters then that's all you should need.

Generally I agree. I just think the people behind this have more on their mind than "telling a good story". It might be something as innocent as "I think this will be good representation" and a genuine desire to do "good". I just don't think it works.

But no, there are certain members of this website who disguise their blatant racism and at times sexism behind the "GO WOKE GO BROKE" argument because they believe they're the majority and will garner sympathy for it.

I mean TBF, genuine "woke" politics are rancid; the mindset that gives birth to stuff like bonafide EXTRAORDINARILY racist black supremacist Tariq Nasheed's, uh, unique creative output. I'm not saying Earthspark is falling down that rabbit hole but given the trend towards it in recent years, I can certainly understand paranoia about it.

That **** needs to be called out.

So I did.

And I will not apologise for doing so either.

Then expect to be called out without apologies yourself, because what you said was completely out of line.

I want this topic on track as much as First-Aid does, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let bigots have their say and not be called out on it.

And here we go. "If I have a tantrum and harass people, it's because they're bigots and are evil and I'm right." Believe me when I say this: I have fallen into similar versions of this trap SO many times it isn't funny. But it doesn't get anyone anywhere. Let's assume the people you're arguing with are ACTUALLY bigots and not just regular people who hold a point contrary to yours: Do you think "calling them out" like that is going to change their or anyone else's minds? Because it's not. It's just going to cement their opinions on you, and possibly turn people against you- either neutral onlookers or even people on your side.

A "bigot" is someone who holds strong and often uninformed opinions, will not accept any kind of challenge to their worldview and will decry anyone that doesn't conform to their world view as somehow lesser or wrong. Which is, ironically, exactly the behaviour a lot of people accusing others of racism are exhibiting. They don't consider for one MOMENT they might be wrong, that they have the wrong end of the stick, that the other person might have a perfectly valid reason for their stance. In my case, my stance against "wokeness" (because honestly I can't think of a better term off the top of my head, much as I hate the phrase) is that it's usually got nothing to do with making things better for, well, anyone and is usually motivated by at best petty spite and at worst someone with an ulterior motive for the sole purpose of fostering division.

Also, regardless of politics, most "woke" products are usually pretty terrible, putting either their message before the story or the consistent members of their creative crew before any actual quality or talent (see: High Guardian Spice, teased for YEARS, mostly with its supposedly diverse creators- including infamous man-hater and general lunatic Kate Leth- and finally crapped out a not very good end product featuring wonky storytelling, terrible direction and animation that would make even the draft phase of a fan animation look like Macross: Do You Remember Love). Either that or they let their worldview deform the core message or themes of a work. For example, Robocop couldn't be remade today because one of the main points was that the police department were one of the few genuine forces for good in Detroit, but limited in their effectiveness by underfunding, the criminals they faced having access to overwhelming resources, and OCP's blatant corruption (which exacerbated the former problems and created even more)- in the age of ACAB, can you imagine the stink that would kick up with certain small but vocal groups?

Truth be told, Evil Eye and Kranrabbit aren't too different than I was at 19 or 20 years old.

I was very liberal (relative to other white, central Missouri boys), and I thought that meant that anything left of my position (what would be called 'woke' now) was excessive, going too far. I was also smart, or at least people told me I was, so I thought I was more knowledgeable about the world and better able to understand the issues in it than the average person. I thought I was more logical and pragmatic, better able to set aside emotions and political contrivances than others, to focus on what was 'really' fair and reasonable (to me, a midwestern American white boy). At that age, I sneered at "socially significant" media content, which - in retrospect - is probably not too much different from complaining about political correctness and 'wokeness'. A generational divide, at best.

Now, I could say that I changed because I got out into the wider world and met new people, with different points of view, that were actually capable of discussing their points of view competently and persuasively. I could say that I changed because I had to change how I lived, the role I played in life, and that forced me to question a lot of my assumptions about how I'd seen the world. I could say that I changed because I got interested enough in those changes to actively seek out an education relevant to them, and that I learned a LOT more then.

I could say all of that, and all of that would be true, but it would also be true to say that I changed because my dumbass white privilege got called out more than once on this website, and paired with those other things, I eventually realized how absolutely horribly CRINGY I was.

So, in appreciation for the role that people on this website played in my own growth as a person, I pay it forward. You won't learn anything until you want to learn it, but when you do, you'll remember threads like this, and you'll learn that lesson a whole lot better, because your future self is eventually going to be really embarrassed by your present self. That's probably a fate we all share, though, so no real shame in that.

People wouldn't have the need to make "woke" products if clowns who put down the existence of media using other skin colors were not expressing that horrendous type of mindset.

They will continue to be made the way they are until everybody is equally accepted without others questioning when it's "somebodies turn" to be represented.

I full well bet none of you would of said nothing if it was a white family I truly bet because people who say stuff like you absolutely never question it, not once, not ever.

Why the hell should you not be able to relate to somebody because of their different skin color just because the group they represent is a small minority of people? Shouldn't that stuff be more important than the bloody children's cartoon itself? How the hell will those groups of people ever become more accepted if they aren't given chances huh? The amount of people in a group should not even be a god damn factor, would you still have the same mindset in this case if it was about a trans person?

Regardless bigoted opinions are bigoted opinions and I'm with Burn on this, bigots deserve to be called out to stop the spread of this toxic mindset, intentional or not it's still a pretty damn horrible way of thinking.