The Energon Pub

Does anyone else feel that the names of characters have just become synonymous with color schemes for a robot toy?

I agree that Starscream and Bumblebee should retain a certain level of character recognition, but I mean, If theres a truck alt mode, if its red, its going to be Prime. Black and purple? Its going to be Motormaster. Or planes for example. Make a plane purple, and you're going to have to name it Skywarp. Accent that same jet with red, orange, and white? You've got yourself a Strafe. See where im going with this?

Blurrz wrote:No, there are so many things going against that. Armada Wheeljack, Prowl throughout the years, Arcee, Jetfire, even the Beast Wars characters evolved in their own toy line. It's not fair to say that Classics/Universe/Generations follows that scheme because they are meant to homage the G1 toys, and the fact that the Movie-verse may follow the scheme you suggest is so us fans are pleased.

this exactly.great post man-couldnt have said it any better.

Nah, many second-line characters are just given random names - for example, look at Payload and Payload. No similarity even in the color scheme.

What about Ratchet and Ironhide? The movie, which kinda made them famous to some, don't have G1 color schemes.

Megatron? G1 had him silver, but he's been so many colors it's hard to keep track.

Jazz is another. The movie had him silver while most associate him with white with blue racing stripes.

Some homages are just color schemes, but it's not the bulk of them. And really .... not even the most successful.

[quote="Blurrz"][color=teal]Armada Wheeljack, Prowl throughout the years, Arcee, Jetfire, even the Beast Wars characters evolved in their own toy line.

Im sorry if I sound misleading, but J was trying to say the names "have become", as an evolutionary process reflected at the present. Beast Wars is going on what, 15 years now? I wouldn't use that as a reference. But I can see your point in Arcee, being that she's now a blue motorcycle in Prime. I would've pegged her for pink, with blue being the Chromia.

It's not just a color scheme - it's also a specific style of alt mode, usually a specific style of transform, and a good bit of the time a specific head style.

I think that keeping the color schemes and the general alt modes the same keeps people familiar with the franchise. If the big red truck in the movie would have been called something else, I would have said "That's not Optimus Prime!"

Part of the reason Transformers is so successful right now is the nostalgia factor. Some of us on this website got back into collecting because of the new representations of our favorite characters from years ago.

I feel that the main characters should keep their alt modes and their color schemes. It gives me some childhood to hold on to.

Strafe is a good example of what you are talking about given that his colours have recently been lent to Universe Cyclonus (who really could not be anyone else) and Movieverse Mindwipe (who looks nothing like an Autobot). But there are plenty of counter-examples as Blurrz et al have mentioned.

Amelie wrote:The best example of a figure being in a totally rad colour sceme would be Energon Starscream, for me. Charcoal and luminous green? Awesome.

I totally like that one too. Then they came out with the G! color scheme. Did not care for it.

Amelie wrote:Not really, stuff is generally in a similar sceme, but doesn't always follow a strict code. Besides, it would confuse the kids (and annoy the fans) if stable characters like Starscream or Bumblebee started appearing in crazy colour scemes like they did in Generation2.

Oh man, I remember back in the early days of G1 when it seemed to be much more likely to find red Bumblebees than yellow ones. Now they just call those Cliffjumper and maybe stick on a new head if you're lucky.

In regards to the OP, this seems to be more the case with repaints than with original runs of a mold, especially in the movie-verse.