The Big Picture: Nothing Gold Can Stay - The Most Bizarre Episode of Transformers

[Windcaler]

The most interesting part of this big picture was when Bob pondered how a character with a naturalist and pacifist view would develop in a race of sentiant machine people. Ive had similar thoughts even when I was a kid and ultimately the explanation I came up with was before the war started the characters all had to have some kind of job or calling. Ive always imagined that there are a number of autobots and decepticons that never wanted war. However over thousands of years they've adapted to it, maybe beach comber just never got to that point. As for being a character that enjoys nature well the transformers have always been a species that have visited and interacted with other planets. Its not beyond imagination that one of them would actually enjoy more natural settings (and thats not even touching the more natural settings that are found on cybertron). That's my theory anyway

Ive had similar thoughts about Soundwave being an espionage expert and Jazz being a musician before the war began.

 

[maximara]

SOMEONE ELSE REMEMBERS BEAST MACHINES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everyone remembers the terrible follow-up to the greatness of Beast Wars, we just don't like to talk about it

But beyond that Beasts Machines was horrible.

With all due respect, that is a bunch of slag.

Sure, Beast Machines had it's problems and very much went off the rails in a dozen different ways, but it is unquestionably one of the best Transformers series ever attempted.

While Beast Wars and G1 basically presented a roughly-equal Good vs. Bad series of skirmishes over an ill-defined resource or goal (in basically the same vein of G.I. Joe, He-Man, and so many others), Beast Machines was about a group of flawed underdogs against a sinister omni-present villain over the fate of their world and the philosophy to govern it. They weren't just fighting to fight. Most interesting to me was how the "organic vs. synthetic" dichotomy broke down once it was revealed that (get this): In his zeal, Optimus was just as wrong as Megatron. Not just for one episode, but for the better part of a season. As far as Saturday morning cartoons go, that's earth-shattering. This was a series that dared to suggest that being mind-controlled for months to attack the people you love leaves lasting emotional scars that don't just go away because you get reformatted. A series that dissolved the clear chain of command and allowed its characters and viewers to genuinely doubt that "leader knows best".

Beast Machines was a subversion of a Transformers series. It was continuity-heavy, dark, moody, philosophical, stubbornly anti-militaristic, and (the cardinal sin) the character designs did not translate well to being toys. Sure, it's crazy flawed too, but to me, it was beautiful in all of its flaws.

I agree. Beast Machines really pushed the envelope in regards to the Transformers franchise. Sure it had its flaws but it was taking things into whole directions and got away from the whole autobots vs decepticons formula.

 

[Aramis Night]

Well.....that's dark for G1 Transformers. I thought showing the Zentraedi nuking the earth in Robotech was a dark as 80 cartoons got.

Well The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (the first "generation" of Robotech) was a Japanese cartoon and they allowed things that would have NEVER been showed on a United States made show. IMHO GI Joe came close in the five episode "G.I. Joe: The Revenge of Cobra" (where Duke and Snakeyes are forced to fight via mind control head bands) "Worlds Without End" (where the three skeletal remains of Joes are shown) and "There's No Place Like Springfield" (where Shipwreck is driven to the point of insanity in the effort to extract a formula in his subconscious).

Of all the toy based cartoons I watched in the 1980s Gi Joe seemed to push the envelope the most times.

In fact, what I have read the ending parts of "There's No Place Like Springfield" were so intense they they were cut from all later showings of the episode and even the DVD.

I almost wonder if Transformers was trying to compete with Robotech in terms of pushing the envelope. In the first series of Robotech(Macross) they kill off a lot of the main characters(Roy Fokker, Ben, Claudia, Capt. Gloval) and 50-70% of the earth's population. Shortly after that, the Transformers releases the animated movie and while the show featured violence and battles all the time, it pretty much never actually ended in a main characters death. All this sudden they kill off half of the original Transformers cast in the first few minutes of the movie and then of course the death of Optimus Prime.

I pretty much never watched GIJoe. If a cartoon featured human's I wasn't interested in most cases(I was an odd kid). That being said, I somehow found myself seeing the episode "There's no place like Springfield" and it stuck in my psyche ever since. It was just one of those thing's that you can't unsee.

 

[EscapistCapist]

The most interesting part of this big picture was when Bob pondered how a character with a naturalist and pacifist view would develop in a race of sentiant machine people. Ive had similar thoughts even when I was a kid and ultimately the explanation I came up with was before the war started the characters all had to have some kind of job or calling. Ive always imagined that there are a number of autobots and decepticons that never wanted war. However over thousands of years they've adapted to it, maybe beach comber just never got to that point. As for being a character that enjoys nature well the transformers have always been a species that have visited and interacted with other planets. Its not beyond imagination that one of them would actually enjoy more natural settings (and thats not even touching the more natural settings that are found on cybertron). That's my theory anyway

Ive had similar thoughts about Soundwave being an espionage expert and Jazz being a musician before the war began.

In G1 continuity, the Transformers were originally built to labor (autobots) and fight (decepticons) for the Quintessons. Presumably, a pacifist Transformer was built to be a Quintesson yoga instructor or wilderness ranger before the Transformer rebellion.

Anyway, broader picture: Transformers live millions of years, are easily fixed if broken, have virtually infinite ability to modify their bodies to suit their whims, have mastered interstellar travel, and have the physical power to rip an office building apart with their bare hands. It's hard to invent a reason such powerful entities are meeting humans on more or less equal terms - making them resource-starved soldiers fighting a hopeless eternal war is one of the only ways I can think to do it plausibly.

Imagine if the Transformers came to Earth without the baggage of their forever war attached, humans would feel so inadequate! "Wait, you're older than my entire species? *And* you've physically been to more stars than I can see in the night sky? Well uhh...humanity built half of a mountain to look like 4 faces. Oh, also we invented cheese"

 

[mym1nd]

Sure the cartoon was a huge influence but for me the UK comics were a far more important. THey strayed from their US counterparts to create some real political stories and backgrounds (Lord Straxus taking over Megatron's body anyone?).

But this reminded me of me favourite ever Transformer Goldbug.

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Goldbug_(SG)

 

[Darth_Payn]

I laughed so loud at this episode, Bob. Your captions were spot on! The episode you chose proves a show made to sell toys doesn't necessarily have to be stupid (unlike Starscream) and can tell intelligent stories. It makes sense for Autobots to have non-combatant scientists, because before the war, they were explorers of other planets and they value knowledge.

SOMEONE ELSE REMEMBERS BEAST MACHINES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everyone remembers the terrible follow-up to the greatness of Beast Wars, we just don't like to talk about it

That made me laugh. Now Beast Wars, THAT was 100% awesomesauce.

Blitzwing a triple changer with both jet and tank alternate mode's. That scene is cut right after he transformed from jet to tank in mid air for landing.

Ah! I thought it was something like that going on. Just looked so amusing, as if he had loaded himself into the wrong robo-body that day and only realised that after take-off.

"Wait. I'm a tank. Heeeeeeelp!"

Any of you guys remember Transformers Animated, and that show's version of Blitzwing?

 

[SlugLady28]

Huh, out of all the plots that showed up for one episode and was never heard from again, I always considered the episode "The Search For Alpha Trion" to be the strangest. Mostly because Elita and her group was apparently the last defense of Autobot rebels against the Decepticons on Cybertron. And, y'know cause she and Prime were a couple. And Elita's power. And female transformers. And... a hundred other things. And yet you never ever hear from them again.

 

[maximara]

Well.....that's dark for G1 Transformers. I thought showing the Zentraedi nuking the earth in Robotech was a dark as 80 cartoons got.

Well The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (the first "generation" of Robotech) was a Japanese cartoon and they allowed things that would have NEVER been showed on a United States made show. IMHO GI Joe came close in the five episode "G.I. Joe: The Revenge of Cobra" (where Duke and Snakeyes are forced to fight via mind control head bands) "Worlds Without End" (where the three skeletal remains of Joes are shown) and "There's No Place Like Springfield" (where Shipwreck is driven to the point of insanity in the effort to extract a formula in his subconscious).

Of all the toy based cartoons I watched in the 1980s Gi Joe seemed to push the envelope the most times.

In fact, what I have read the ending parts of "There's No Place Like Springfield" were so intense they they were cut from all later showings of the episode and even the DVD.

I almost wonder if Transformers was trying to compete with Robotech in terms of pushing the envelope. In the first series of Robotech(Macross) they kill off a lot of the main characters(Roy Fokker, Ben, Claudia, Capt. Gloval) and 50-70% of the earth's population. Shortly after that, the Transformers releases the animated movie and while the show featured violence and battles all the time, it pretty much never actually ended in a main characters death. All this sudden they kill off half of the original Transformers cast in the first few minutes of the movie and then of course the death of Optimus Prime.

I pretty much never watched GIJoe. If a cartoon featured human's I wasn't interested in most cases(I was an odd kid). That being said, I somehow found myself seeing the episode "There's no place like Springfield" and it stuck in my psyche ever since. It was just one of those thing's that you can't unsee.

Considering the hatched job done to Voltron which had aired the year before to hide all the character death i doubt it. "G.I. Joe: The Revenge of Cobra" was in 1984 a year _before_ Robotech and "Worlds Without End" and "There's No Place Like Springfield" were November and December 1985 less then six months after the first run of Robotech.

Thundarr the Barbarian which ran from 1980-1982 has gruesome fates for many of the wizards: one is apparently destroyed only to turn up later and be turned to stone, one drowns in a tar pit, other blows up on camera, yet another one is trapped in a casino slot machine and so on. One of He-Man first non recurring villains, Negator, apparently blows himself up.

I think that the Transformers was simply following a trend that started before Robotech. If Robotech had any effect I would say it at best accelerated what was already going on.

 

[IRNLawnmower]

"Sir they're covered in a material that makes them impervious to our lasers what do we do?"
"Fire the lasers!"
Bullets are apparently a foreign concept on Cybertron.