The Energon Pub

Energon wrote:Why Starscream? What is it about him that makes him such an appealling character?

Sabrblade wrote:Before Animated aired, Cybertron Starscream was the closest thing to G1 Starscream yet, minus the stupidity. In Cybertron, he was loyal to Megs at first, but was soon tired of following him and began to plot behind Megs' back. Unlike his G1 self, he kept his treachery a secret from everyone until much later. He sought the power of the Cyber Planet Keys for himself.

First, he imprisoned ALL the Decepticons, minus himself and few others, in a force field in outer space. Then he unleashed an army of unnamed generic-character Decepticons and led a full-scale attack on Earth. Both the Autobots and the military went on the counterattack, but had to retreat. With so many Decepticons under Starscream's command, the Autobots decided to leave Earth to the Speed Planet and take their CPKeys and the Omega Lock with them. Starscream wouldn't have that. He attacked the Autobot Evac, who was carrying the Earth CPKey, and went on a suicide mission to battle ALL the Autobots alone. He took out each of them one-by-one and was nearly killed by Optimus. However, unlike BW Dinobot, Screamer fought dirty. When Prime dropped the Omega Lock and Earth CPKey, both Screamer and Prime went after them. However Starscream was losing power fast and was on the verge of death. But he looked down and saw a light of opportunity. Down below him were the Autobots' human friends. Starscream, knowing Optimus would save them, fired a direct shot at them. Optimus jumped in front of the blast at the last second, saving them, but at a deadly price. Starscream took this chance to grab the Omega Lock and Earth CPKey and escape back to his hideout.

Later, he inserted the Earth Key into the Omega Lock. With three keys now in the Lock, an image of the Grand Black Hole appeared in the sky of all the worlds, revealing itself to everyone. Not only that, but Starscream took the power unleashed by the Lock to increase his size to gigantic proportions. My guess is he was way taller than G1 Metroplex and Trypticon, but not as tall as G1 Fort Max and Scorponok. But anyway, he was enormous and now wore a crown similar to the one worn by his G1 self in the G1 movie. He easily defeated all the Autobots and Decepticons (who had broken free of the force field by this time). But with the sudden arrival of the new Autobot Wing Saber, he was beaten when Prime and Wing Saber merged into Prime's Sonic Wing Mode.

After this failure, Starscream went into hiding only to reveal himself later and stole energy directly from Primus, becoming equal with him in size and power. He was now as large as both Primus and Unicron. He went one-on-one with the deity and was winning easily. But alas, he would not prevail. Primus awoke and fought back, using Cybertron's moons as flail-weapons and defeated Starscream, who disappeared again.

He would reappear later once the last CPKey was found by Landmine, Quickmix, and Coby in the ship on Gigantion. Starscream burst in, took out Quickmix, and went for Landmine, who had the Key. He threw Landmine around for a bit to make him drop the Key. Landmine reached for the key , but was stomped on by Starscream. Landmine told Coby to get back, knowing that the Cobybot would be no match for Starscream. Landmine refused to quit and the Key reacted, making Landmine grow to Starscream's size. Landmine totally pummeled Starscream by throwing him at the ceiling and sending him through it with the power of his Cyber Key's attack. Starscream fell to the depths of the surrounding lake, only to make it out barely alive at the beginning of the next episode with the lines, "I... still... function!"

He would return one final time in the end to have a one-on-one fight with Galvatron. Both were evenly matched, neither one seemed to take more damage than the other, nor would they surrender. Both of them channeled all their power within themselves and came at each other. The reaction was so incredible that time and space itself was rended by the final explosion. Starscream was hurtled into another dimension along with the interferring Sideways and Soundwave, leaving only his crown floating through space, which was taken by Galvatron. Later, his presence would be discovered by the Autobot Wing Saber who told Optimus he was going track him down. Optimus sent him back up. In the end, he was still considered a real threat.

That Starscream (and the Animated one) are the best Starscreams since G1.

ponycorn wrote:Very nice write up Sabrblade. He was all about the force of his own will power. I love also how he ended up, lording over some cool hell dimension with Sideways and Soundwave flanking him. Spooky organ music playing no doubt, like it did in the Galaxy Force version.

Animated Starscream had his moments, like when he said, "So you Autobots want to play dirty huh? Well then you'd better be prepared to go all the way." That was very nice.

ponycorn wrote:All Hail Megatron Starscream I think has a ton of intrigue about him. His loyalty to the empire, whatever he's up to with Bombshell. The moments between him and Megatron and his admittance that he did at one point idolize Megatron. I can't wait to see what's going to come of it, but I hope it isn't formulaic.

ponycorn wrote:I don't know how hot movieverse Starscream is to me. Then again look what they did to my poor Megs, maybe Screamer got off easy on the looks in that one.

I think Starscream was his hottest in the War Within book, and also now in AHM. Nice to look at in most of the 'ation series too. Like when Astrotrain lets him out of the CR chamber and he's all glowy.

SentinelA wrote:I actually didn't care for Armada Starscream. And I don't know movieverse Starscream well enough. I prefer G1 and Animated.

hellkitty wrote:As a charter member of the Starscream Harem, honestly, I've spent way too much time trying to figure this out myself. Yes, in G1, my first exposure, he was a whiner and a backstabber. And a bit of a coward (remember him in "Golden Lagoon" when he's afraid to get in the pool?). But he was also resourceful and ruthless.

All this y'all have sort of already said. So here's what's hopefully 'new': he appealed to me, at least, because I could identify with him. Not to delve into memoir, but I grew up with a really psychotic family situation, and not only were cartoons one of the few things I could count on for stability in my life, but I could identify, totally, with someone being *forced* to be underhanded.

I ended up hearing myself snivel a lot, and have to do some pretty sneaky things just to pretend to be 'normal' to my schoolmates. (I had to lie lie lie to explain why I wasn't allowed to go any place after school or why my parents never showed up at any functions, and oh, how much stuff I had to hide from my parents...! etc). So my read on G1 Starscream was a guy who, just like me, was forced by circumstances to do things that in better situations he (or I) would find morally objectionable, just to get by. Just like Starscream, I thought that if only *I* were in charge, things would be much better (and with about, I might add, the same level of success).

We both hid in sarcasm. I see this in the various Starscreams through the cartoon series. And true cynics are really just brutalized idealists, which explains Cybertron and Armada.

The movie one I just like because he's hot. I mean, hell, two lines of dialogue isn't much to build a relationship on. Okay, and he's just AWESOME to watch destroying things. I do have hope based on the various continuations in comics for him to be another totally snugglable guy (in my obviously skewed terms). My fave Bayformers Starscream moment is from Alliance 1 when he's cutting the signs into his arm.

HK, and did I mention he's *hot*?

MandySeven wrote:

Mazinger Prime wrote: He was the one that thought things through, or actually thought to test out new sources of energy or new weapons, unlike Megatron. Megatron would just go into his "It'll work because I thought of it" mode, and after Starscream would tell him to test it out first, the gizmo would blow up or fail on Megatron when he went to use it in battle because he didn't test it first.


True true yeah, that reminds me of his "scientist" past. Thats appealing too in that its mysterious and makes you wonder what life was like when they were scientists on cybertron. They should totally make a pre G1 story like they did with Star Wars..
i bet its been done before??