o.supreme wrote:AcademyofDrX wrote:You've never seen the movie that introduces the character behind the $600 toy you just bought? I mean, my love for it is colored by nostalgia, but even with the caveats from being an '80s feature-length toy commercial, it still has some entertainment value.
Everyone has the right to their own opinions of course, but yeah it does seem odd to throw down $600 on a toy from a film you've never seen, and not even trying to when it is arguably the best animated Transformers piece of media period.
To.me that would be like saying you are a Star Wars fan and getting Haslabs sail barge, but you've never seen Return of the Jedi, and don't intend to....Of course it is ultimately your decision... just different is all...
This is gonna be kinda rambly as I try to get multiple disparate thoughts out, but...
My not having seen the 86 movie but still getting unicron is a combination of several factors, but the largest is that for my entire life I have been in this brand for the toys first, and any ancillary media a distant second. My earliest cohesive transformers memory is burning envy directed at the kid who brought in their energon shockblast to kindergarten show and tell, but the handful of scattered minicons and spy changers i've rediscovered over the years attest that I was involved in the brand before that, albeit barely. I had transformers come in at a slow, steady trickle over the course of a decade, where they had to compete with bionicles, legos, and dinosaurs for precious few birthday and christmas present slots, but they were adored even when I wasn't old enough to be gentle, and even more so now once I was. Money got tight with the 2008 recession, and dotm starscream was my last transformer for several years. Around when titans return came out, I got my first job at toys 'r us, and after a few impulse buys it was like a floodgate opened. I had my
own money. I could by my
own transformers. Moving on to a better paying job when toys went under sealed the deal. The appeal had always been with the transformation for me, having a puzzle box that happened to also be a fully functioning action figure at the same time.
In regards to not having seen 86, a lot of that comes down to age and accessibility. 86 had celebrated its 10 year anniversary before I was even conceived. When the 2007 film came out, TF:TM was still over twice my age. I have vague memories of seeing unicron trilogy content, but I was young enough to not internalize what little I saw. It wasn't until 2007, with the advent of the live action movies and animated that I had reliable access to current transformers media. I watched and enjoyed the live action movies, animated and prime when my schedule would allow, but I was watching it because of the toys I owned, not buying toys to match the show. By the time I was old enough to have access to the knowledge that there were transformers and transformers media from before the unicron trilogy, it had aged to the point to where it was no longer something you could see casually, but something you needed to take the time to track down, and I had neither the resources nor inclination to do so. Even though I could probably track it down on one streaming service or another, my opinion of the movie and of G1 as a whole have been tarnished by the efforts of its most enthusiastic "advocates".
Despite being a lifelong transformers fan, there are times where interacting with the fandom feels like being an outsider. Even though the most egregious of "Geewun" sentiments are rare, there's still this atmosphere of elitism, or perhaps entitlement amongst enfranchised fans. There's this pervasive feeling born from a thousand different petty gripes, each one on its own dismissible, but coming together to paint a broad pattern, that the further something deviates from G1, the worse it is, and that by extension anything that isn't G1 is inherently lesser. 'Cyclonus is the wrong shade of purple,''What is with Kup's headsculpt,''He looks like a flying dorito,''Baynus,''TRUKK NOT MUNKY.' It's hard not to feel ostracized when the things you enjoy are criticized for not conforming to a pedestal that was already showing its age when one was in kindergarten. There's also this sentiment that occasionally shows up where anything that has an acceptable older alternative in their collection is denigrated as unnecessary, even, or perhaps especially if it isn't readily available to newer fans. When the selects shattered glass two pack was teased with "some of you might not of heard of this", the response upon reveal was 'who the heck hasn't heard of SG?' 'we already got these,' 'I was expecting an obscure G1 character,' when the only way to acquire SG figs firsthand was to already be an adult in the mid 2000's with enough money to attend conventions, and the only way to otherwise know they exist is to stumble across them on TFwiki like I did. It all combines into an atmosphere of negativity, where the overwhelming sentiment feels like '
I don't want this, therefore it's bad,' 'it's not good enough for
me,' '
My opinions are the only ones that matter.'
This brings us back to G1, and TF:TM. I have not seen either of them. I have seen about ~5 minutes worth of disconnected 5-10 second clips used in promotional material, though I have had the entirety of the movie's plot spoiled through fandom osmosis. I have no emotional context, no nostalgia when I see footage of it. The only emotional connection I have to G1 is through the alienating entitlement of its fanbase. I am emotionally mature enough to recognize that I would be going into it with a massive chip on my shoulder. Were I to take the time to watch it, I would be going into it not with the perspective of 'what happens next,' eager to enjoy what others have before me, I would be going into it from the pessimistic viewpoint of 'what is so special about this to justify people being such entitled asshats about it?' leaving me primed to see it only for its flaws. Given that it is an 80's cartoonimercial series whose animation and writing both show their age, that is in no way fair to it, and I recognize that.
This finally brings us back to Unicron, and why I am as has been said, "throwing down $600 on a toy from a film I've never seen". The sail barge example is flawed, because Star Wars was always a movie before it was a toyline, and the toys only exist because the movie did. Transformers has, from the very beginning, been a toyline first, especially for me. It's not about the movie, because it was never about the movie, not really. The movie was about the toys, and the toys were what I was about. This $600 monstrosity is one of the capstones of the brand, being the largest first party toy ever, an achievement that is likely never to be taken from it. It will be the single largest toy I have ever owned, regardless of brand, and is everything I have ever loved about the brand scaled up larger than it ever has been. Combined with the once in a lifetime nature of its release, I refused to miss out on the chance.
In short, I got it because I wanted it, and I didn't need a commercial to convince me first.
