The Energon Pub

Despite the show being about 'Robots In Disguise', it's rarely been about that. Granted it would be hard to do, but if that was the case, they ought not to have that as their tag line, no?

In G1, the Autobots were loved by all, and were all well known. In Beast Wars, they had no one to disguise themselves from (apart from maybe Tigertron for all of about five minutes). Beast Machines, well, their beast modes hid them from radar... RiD, I think, was where it was most important, for all the good it did the Predacons... And then in the Unicron trilogy, it did become most important (especially Cybertron, I think).

I'm just wondering how important the rest of yous think it is. Should it be a major part of the plot, something the Transformers should adhere to, or should they just come out and go nuts?

And just assume that the Decepticons regard stealth as highly as might the autobots..

I think the IDW G1 remake made the best use of "robots in disquise". If I remember the first few issues right, the Bots and Cons had been on Earth for a few years without anyone knowing.

I really like the idea of the disguise element, and I think it was a mistake for Furman to blow it so soon in the IDW run. The idea of a secret war being waged on Earth with galactic stakes but nobody's even aware of it just makes it that much cooler, and gives the characters even more challenges (maintaining stealth) to add to the tension in the story. Plus it's always more amusing to see people/innocent bystanders with "WTH!?" expressions on their faces rather than just running away and screaming.

I agree with those that think the "disguise" aspect should have been used more. I secret war between giant alien forces on earth is a GREAT idea! There should be something like the Star Trek "prime directive" where it's strictly taboo to reveal themselves to the indiginous lifeforms...even the Decepticons (I think the secret aspect would serve them equally as well, considering the humans would be nothing more than in the way should they know of their existance...a total nuisance!)....


...now ya got my creativer juices a-flowin'! Fan-fiction-time!

Disguise, is so far, the foremost reason of being a "Transformer". So, yes, it should form a major part of the plot.

Personally, the disguise aspect is THE most important part of Transformers, especially so from a toy point of view. Part of the greatness of G1 was that, these were real-looking toy cars that could convert into robots. Often I would amaze my parents by taking a seemingly inconspicuous toy car and converting it into an action figure.

Personally the '85 movie spoiled things a bit for me. Instead of realistic cars and jets, we now had a load of 'futuristic' designs.

This was a bit of cheat, I thought, as the toy designers did not now have to work to the constraint that they had to look like everyday vehicles.

Look at the G1 Autobot Clones or the Pretenders to see what I mean.

That's why I like the movie line so much. With the exception of Megatron (who seems - perhaps not coincidentally - to be everyone's least favourite toy), all the robots transform into REAL vehicles - and that's all part of the magic.

are you saying i couldn't chuck laserbeak in a zoo and get away with it?!?!

No, silly! Laserbeak is fine because he turns into a kinda-realistic looking micro-cassette tape. What really bugs me is when they turn into silly abstract futuristic stuff. Like the Technobots or the first set of Autobot Headmasters.

It seems to me a lot easier to design a bot that only has to vaguely resemble a car than it is to design one who actually turns into a recognisable car.

That's right. I prefer realistic present-day vehicles.

Secret Wars blew big time for Marvel.

I think the point of it was yeah they were noticed but when the transform they can move about without you knowing who they are.

Every series they're in disguise for all of the first Pilot then everyone knows who they are. Except for the Unicron Trilligy, they stayed in desguise a little longer there.

This is actully the main reason for one of the sugestions I posted a few years back. To have the Transformers transform into humans rather than vehicles. It's hard to keep a desguise when you're a car driveing itself or a giant metal animal.

They should either transform into humans or use Holograms alot more than that lame little bit in G1 where they showed to Hologram only to someone who allready knew they were robots and then never used them again.

It'd allso be more of a desguise eliment if the Transformers could talk through said holograms insted of being talking cars.

Along with the whole being humans thing they should allso use different names when in human form or in vehicle mode talking through holograms. It's going to be really obvious you're not human if you introduce yourself and your name sounds like a car part.

Disguise is definately what its all about. I also prefer realistic vehicles to future ones. Regarding IDW, isn't the conflict still under the radar? You have a secret gov't? agency thrown in the mix, but I don't think the rest of the world is aware.

primezimm wrote:Disguise is definately what its all about. I also prefer realistic vehicles to future ones. Regarding IDW, isn't the conflict still under the radar? You have a secret gov't? agency thrown in the mix, but I don't think the rest of the world is aware.

If I remember rightly, the K-IDW news crew has now captured footage of Sixshot in combat, so I think the world will know fairly quickly (unless TF's electromagnetically wipe all nearby AV equipment or something - I don't know, science isn't my thing). Plus, the military troops in Brasnya witnessed some transforming (though whether that's been suppressed by the military superiors, I don't know).

I agree with JazZeke that Furman may have blown this too early but so many fans (not me) want giant robots fighting that it's hard to script that happening on Earth without someone noticing, unless the Transformers conveniently end up in remote locations all the time. I do think disguise should be an important factor in TF fiction, though. It's partly why I found Infiltration so interesting.

Disguise is worthless to me, in fact it seems like a silly one-trick pony if you ask me. I mean there's the big reveal and then what? I'm not reading or watching these guys for a magic show...

The alternate form for me was all about versatility. Sure Jazz can run fast but when he really needs to book it he has a car mode to transcend any speed limits he previously held. That's what transformers is for me, warriors with two modes to maximize their performance.

Transformers as robots in disguise is comparable to that of Roger Moore playing James Bond as a secret agent. Everyone seemed to know who he was and what his job was, yet that aspect didn't ruin the story line. Clearly the secret part wasn't important...

Beast Wars is the best example of this, they weren't fooling anyone nor were they trying to. The alternate mode was at first a necessity then it became functional, never once was is a disguise.

The robots in disguise part is meaningless to me. Remember Transformers are more than meets the eye, robots in disguise was only lyrics to the theme song...

The alternate form for me was all about versatility. Sure Jazz can run fast but when he really needs to book it he has a car mode to transcend any speed limits he previously held. That's what transformers is for me, warriors with two modes to maximize their performance.

Good point. The mode should definately be an enhancement to the character. Although not all characters had forms that served as enhancements. Some of their abilities had nothing to do with their modes. And it would probably be too limiting if their atributes were based on their alt modes.

Mirage should teach all of them how to turn invisible.

Why should a useful technology like that be selfishly held by only one Autobot?

What?

Auto Bot wrote:Mirage should teach all of them how to turn invisible.

Why should a useful technology like that be selfishly held by only one Autobot?

I see your point but also he is more like a spy so it probably suits him more than the other autobots.

For the sake of winning the war, Mirage should share his talents.

Unless Hasbro don't want the Autobots to win. Yet.