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TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Sun Oct 18, 2015 12:30 pmby Sabrblade
This panel was hosted by former Hasbro IP development manager Rik Alvarez, who was one of the people who helped put together the Aligned Continuity's Binder of Revelation. A fan who was in attendance took the following pics of the panel's slideshow:
http://sunnybutte.tumblr.com/post/131367083128/that-explains-a-lot-of-the-mess-that-was
That explains a lot of the mess that was Transformers Prime.
This is at Rik Alvarez’s panel about writing for the Aligned Continuity. He also mentions having less than 24 hours to discuss and edit TFP episode scripts before sending them out for recording. Sounds like a nightmare.
http://sunnybutte.tumblr.com/post/131368170623/and-if-you-were-wondering-why-beast-hunters-was
And if you were wondering why Beast Hunters was such a ridiculous mess…
A few things mentioned in the panel that aren’t on these slides:
- New director wanted personal control over the season and scrapped the original plans for season 3 overnight.
- Weird obsession with awful color schemes. Lots of internal fighting over characterization and details.
- Determined to erase as much of what was originally planned as possible.
- This whole mess cost so much money and did so poorly that it closed HasLab and essentially put off Hasbro from making other major TF investments.
This news explains a LOT about the ever-present inconsistencies of Aligned... but, man, someone sure is bitter.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Sun Oct 18, 2015 2:00 pmby Rodimus Prime
He put the time and effort into it, and according to this info, he had a lot of resistance and conflict to work through. So he has every right to complain. You, on the other hand, had nothing to do with TF:Prime other than being a consumer, so what right do you have to be judgmental of his view on things? If anything, it makes you petty, complaining about how someone else (someone with much more insight than you, at that) views the events that happened behind the scenes.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Sun Oct 18, 2015 2:09 pmby Sabrblade
Yes, how dare these people who regularly write and create TV shows not put ideas from
someone who didn't work on the show into the show. The nerve of those people doing what they do for a living.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Sun Oct 18, 2015 2:20 pmby Rodimus Prime
You totally missed the point.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Sun Oct 18, 2015 2:38 pmby Sabrblade
All I'm saying is that TF: Prime was a decent show with a lot of really good, if not great, points to it, yet this panel feels really needlessly slandering towards it as though any and all problems behind it were the fault of the show makers wanting to be more creative, and with no blame on the party that tried to impose its own wants onto the show when said party didn't even work on the show.
The information given in this panel could have been provided in a more professional manner that felt less mean-spirited and more fair towards all parties involved.
After all, we have heard from the show's side of the story in some of these points, particularly that Beast Hunters was indeed forced upon the show by Hasbro at the 11th hour, which required that the rest of the plans the show had for its third and fourth seasons be wrapped up and rushed within season 2 to free up the third season for Beast Hunters, which we've the results of such in the show being the hasty removal of MECH, the lack of Predacons besides Predaking in the main show (Preds Rising came after the fact, so Slylynx and Darksteel were post-show additions), the lack of the Beast Hunter armor for the seasons 1-2 characters, and an overall return to the Omega Lock story from season 2's finale.
It's clear that there were some problems behind the scenes, yes, and that more than one party was involved in said problems. But this panel feels more like all of the blame is put on Hasbro Studios, as though all other parties are completely innocent, which we know from previous reports to not be the case. It reeks of bitterness that comes off as being unprofessional.
It's understandable that he's unhappy that things didn't go as planned, but this kind of stuff happens all the time in virtually every production ever. It is very rare that things go completely smoothly in a production with few to no problems, so this reads more as him just venting frustration that he ought to have let go of by now. It isn't healthy.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Sun Oct 18, 2015 4:32 pmby Sabrblade
More notes from the panel:* AOE Crosshairs was originally Smokescreen
* "Aligned WAS the future." It was a ten-year plan.
* TFP Smokescreen was made from the model of MMO Prowl (we knew this already, I think)
* Skyquake was originally going to be Skywarp
* There were fights over whether or not to make Trypticon the intelligence awakened in Flying Mind, as well as whether or not Smokescreen would've had his #38. Also, there was going to be a "background reference" to Trypticon being the Nemesis but the writers forgot to add it.
* Silas' last name was originally Sumdac
* Season two would've ended with a revived Cybertron, everyone would've come home, including the Maximals. Season three would've had the Pirates (Thundertron) and a Wild West feel.
* Cosmos would've appeared and had his alt mode from a B movie set (sounds basically like the unused plan in Animated)
* The MMO game would've had "world bosses" which would've required faction team ups to defeat. Thunderwing, the Herald of Unicron from the TFP game, would've been one of these.
* By the end, Prime was costing $1.6 million an episode.
* WFC was originally a G1 prequel
* TFP was going to lead into a massive Avengers style Unit: E crossover to jumpstart the other brands participating. Ratchet and Fowler from TFP; Duke from GI Joe; Synergy from Jem and the Holograms; Princess Lollipop from Candyland; also characters from MASK, Stretch Armstrong, Micronauts, Sectaurs, Primordia (the renamed Inhumanoids) and more.
* Clarification: Unicron/Megatron/Galvatron would've teamed up with Airachnid and combined their legions of Terrorcons for Predacons Rising.
* Rik Alvarez: The books (Exodus, Exiles, Retribution and I think the Covenant too) were terrible and Rik basically rewrote them himself the night before they were published.
* The new design team for season three said "**** you" to the Binder of Revelation, wanted a green Optimus and the beasts.
* The studio didn't want Airachnid because girls. They only agreed to her if she had claws on the side of her alt mode on her toy.
So, wait, he's taking credit for all the books? But those had problems of their own, they weren't that good.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Mon Oct 19, 2015 5:07 amby Va'al
It would explain how bad they are.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Mon Oct 19, 2015 6:09 amby RAR
I can't really makes sense of that comment about Blackarachnia - is that confirmed by anyone else present as what he actually said - as
1) I isn't any of Prime Studio's Business what Hasbro does or did with the toyline they were a minor TV production studio and not the producer paying the bills. so if they disagree "fire someone" It looks like no one wanted to make a decision so the Cartoon was left to do what they wanted even if it effectively annihilated any meaningful tie in with the toyline for many months in the development of both causing a huge frustrating delay in the toys - and then even worse having Beast Hunters the show and Beast Hunters the toys line having almost nothing to do with each other bar a few character models.
2) Is he actually talking about Airachnid having spider-legs in the cartoon rather than the toys having electro-stunners on the toy that the cartoon model doesn't even have stunners in that form.
I can see the cartoon saying they wanted to give her the spider-3rd form but saying they wanted the representation of the character to have claws on the toy is a meaningless statement - I suspect that is flat wrong in some respect either Alverez mis-spoke, misunderstood Prime Studios intentions or it's some miscommunication somewhere.
But wouldn't she have been conceived as a spider in the 1st place with a name like Airachnid, besides from a story perspective wasn't it useful for Arcee to have a Rival - or was the show thinking that would be Starscream ?
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Mon Oct 19, 2015 11:35 amby triKlops
The WFC prequel link has me interested.
Is there any more info to flesh out that statement?
Thanks in advance.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Mon Oct 19, 2015 11:58 amby Sabrblade
triKlops wrote:The WFC prequel link has me interested.
Is there any more info to flesh out that statement?
Thanks in advance.
Where do you see that?
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Mon Oct 19, 2015 3:21 pmby Sabrblade
According to
TFCon's website, the panel's full name was "The rise and fall of the aligned continuity with Rik Alvarez".
Harsh, considering that the continuity is still going with stuff still set in it (RID, Rescue Bots, the RID comics, etc.), even if it might be stuff that the guys who made the Binder didn't plan to be included.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Mon Oct 19, 2015 6:03 pmby triKlops
Sabrblade wrote:triKlops wrote:The WFC prequel link has me interested.
Is there any more info to flesh out that statement?
Thanks in advance.
Where do you see that?
Sabr; this tidbit,* WFC was originally a G1 prequel, has me interested.
Wondering if Rik gave more info than that or just a blanket statement.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Mon Oct 19, 2015 6:43 pmby Sabrblade
triKlops wrote:Sabrblade wrote:triKlops wrote:The WFC prequel link has me interested.
Is there any more info to flesh out that statement?
Thanks in advance.
Where do you see that?
Sabr; this tidbit,* WFC was originally a G1 prequel, has me interested.
Wondering if Rik gave more info than that or just a blanket statement.
Oh that. I thought you meant something about a prequel to WFC.
Yeah, that's just a general statement. From previous reports, back when High Moon Studios approached Hasbro about doing a Transformers game, High Moon originally wanted to make a G1-based game that would take place on Cybertron before the war would go to Earth, similar in concept to the War Within comics. But Hasbro had its Aligned plans in the works and permitted High Moon to make a pre-Earth TF game (with a heavy dosage of G1 influence) but for the Aligned continuity instead of another new G1 continuity.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Tue Oct 20, 2015 10:13 amby triKlops
Sabrblade wrote:triKlops wrote:Sabrblade wrote:triKlops wrote:The WFC prequel link has me interested.
Is there any more info to flesh out that statement?
Thanks in advance.
Where do you see that?
Sabr; this tidbit,* WFC was originally a G1 prequel, has me interested.
Wondering if Rik gave more info than that or just a blanket statement.
Oh that. I thought you meant something about a prequel to WFC.
Yeah, that's just a general statement. From previous reports, back when High Moon Studios approached Hasbro about doing a Transformers game, High Moon originally wanted to make a G1-based game that would take place on Cybertron before the war would go to Earth, similar in concept to the War Within comics. But Hasbro had its Aligned plans in the works and permitted High Moon to make a pre-Earth TF game (with a heavy dosage of G1 influence) but for the Aligned continuity instead of another new G1 continuity.
All good man and thanks!
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Tue Oct 20, 2015 6:41 pmby Ironhidensh
They would have had much more success sticking with the G1 continuity, or at least IDW. If the star wars EU taught anything, its that a franchise like Star Wars or Transformers works best as one continuity. Not a whole bunch of little ones. Aligned was doomed from the get go.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Tue Oct 20, 2015 6:44 pmby Sabrblade
Ironhidensh wrote:They would have had much more success sticking with the G1 continuity, or at least IDW.
Not at the time that they were conceiving this, which was back during the Costa era of IDW that most fans hated.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Wed Oct 21, 2015 1:50 pmby Ironhidensh
Sabrblade wrote:Ironhidensh wrote:They would have had much more success sticking with the G1 continuity, or at least IDW.
Not at the time that they were conceiving this, which was back during the Costa era of IDW that most fans hated.
That most fans say they hate
now. They didn't have a problem buying it up at the time.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Wed Oct 21, 2015 2:16 pmby Sabrblade
Ironhidensh wrote:Sabrblade wrote:Ironhidensh wrote:They would have had much more success sticking with the G1 continuity, or at least IDW.
Not at the time that they were conceiving this, which was back during the Costa era of IDW that most fans hated.
That most fans say they hate
now. They didn't have a problem buying it up at the time.
Buying isn't the same thing as enjoying. People kept hoping that it would get better, and for longest time it didn't.
The brilliant stuff that we have now with James Roberts and John Barber didn't begin until after the Costa era ended in late 2011. It was very unpopular time for the IDW comics. 2012 is when the good stuff of today started rolling in.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Thu Oct 22, 2015 4:00 pmby Evil Eye
Interesting. Very interesting. A shame the whole thing went so sour really; I absolutely loved Prime, and by the looks of things we won't be getting anything like it again after the clusterf*ck it caused.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Mon Oct 26, 2015 9:49 amby ScottyP
Ironhidensh wrote:Sabrblade wrote:Ironhidensh wrote:They would have had much more success sticking with the G1 continuity, or at least IDW.
Not at the time that they were conceiving this, which was back during the Costa era of IDW that most fans hated.
That most fans say they hate
now. They didn't have a problem buying it up at the time.
Can only speak for myself, but I stopped buying IDW Transformers books when the Costa ongoing started. LSotW was the last series I picked up until Chaos piqued my interest enough to look into what was going on. Happened to grab Chaos Theory as a new jumping on point and was thoroughly hooked. Anyway.
I didn't go to this panel but I heard it wasn't a total trainwreck from the folks that did. Would be interesting to hear some other sides of the story, some of this is very informative and makes sense, whereas some of it sounds like a dissatisfied former employee burning bridges.
And the first two Aligned novels weren't
that bad. Kinda messed up looking at what he said about them, would love to hear the author's take on that. Maybe I'll go poke that bear on Twitter if he has an account.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Thu Nov 12, 2015 6:59 pmby Dragonsend
I loved Prime for the most part. It did have its flaws but overall I liked it. Not the third season so much or the movie that followed but I loved the Megatron design until the movie. Would have loved to see a different Season 3 kind of but I still liked it just not as much as the other 2. Just no Galvatron please and no changing the Megatron design. I like the strong gladiator type! Still I loved the series overall. In fact it is one of my favorite to date. So overall I'm glad things went the way they did. I won't nit pick at what I didn't like, what was or wasn't or what could have been. I'm sure I could find something I didn't like in every series. Overall I thought Prime was awesome and am happy with it.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Fri Nov 13, 2015 2:17 amby Counterpunch
I attended this panel. From what I've read in this thread, a lot of what Rick said is being misconstrued.
I felt that the presentation was very fair if even part of what was discussed was true.
I'll contribute more tomorrow as I'm about to go to sleep. For the moment, I'll just say that this did not come off as sour grapes but rather an honest appraisal of what went down behind the scenes.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Fri Nov 13, 2015 3:19 pmby Counterpunch
So, what was revealed at the panel was kind of a matter of fact discussion of the challenges between what TF Prime was meant to be, comic/game tie-ins, how much say the studio had, and a very stark difference between what the creative team was trying to do versus the marketing teams who were hired at the time.
Rik seemed to be boiling it down to, "As someone who was in the midst of all this, there was no centralized leadership and too many people did not share the same goals."
Every kind of odd thing that drew attention during the TF Prime era had some root in a conflict, misunderstanding, or perceived indifference to the established process of Toys first rooted in some common concepts (like Prime being red).
I think when someone is kind of lifting the veil and revealing what happened behind the scenes, it's easy to think that they're doing it maliciously. Listening to the presentation and hearing the disappointment from Rik over how things turned out, I don't think that was the case here. I found the whole thing to be fascinating and it helped to rekindle my interest in TF Prime.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Fri Nov 13, 2015 8:38 pmby Sabrblade
Hey Counterpunch, thanks for the input. It's nice to hear that it was more civil than these other reports made it seem to be.
Since you were at the panel, I've two questions. First, did Rik talk about the Dinobots being put into the Aligned fiction (FOC, the Prime comics, etc.) since previous reports spoke of how they weren't supposed to be a part of this continuity and that High Moon Studios really had to push for their inclusion?
Secondly, I've heard from others who were at this panel that they saw some group in purple shirts recording the entire panel. Would you happen to know which group this was? Myself and others have searched for any videos from this panel but have come up short.
Re: TFCon Charlotte panel: "All That Went Wrong With TF: Prime Behind-the-Scenes"
Posted:
Sat Nov 14, 2015 1:10 amby Counterpunch
Sabrblade wrote:Hey Counterpunch, thanks for the input. It's nice to hear that it was more civil than these other reports made it seem to be.
Since you were at the panel, I've two questions. First, did Rik talk about the Dinobots being put into the Aligned fiction (FOC, the Prime comics, etc.) since previous reports spoke of how they weren't supposed to be a part of this continuity and that High Moon Studios really had to push for their inclusion?
Secondly, I've heard from others who were at this panel that they saw some group in purple shirts recording the entire panel. Would you happen to know which group this was? Myself and others have searched for any videos from this panel but have come up short.
1. No, I really don't remember any talk about the Dinobots in the panel. I remember Grimlock being mentioned as one of their B Tier characters and that the rest of the Dinos were farther down the rankings.
2. TFcon staff were wearing purple shirts if I remember correctly.