Okay, so I now know what the hell you guys are talking about.
First of all, it was good to that I could recognize my only childhood memory of the show -- the end of the second episode, where Optimus Prime is rolling down the mountain. I have a clear image of watching that scene with my sister back in our first house in Florida. Suddenly I have this urge to get my Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Pony stuff out again.
Now, at first, I thought the idea of those energon cubes was a little...pathetic. I mean, how the hell do you make these little cubes glow by pouring gasoline or sticking them with electric wires? I also recalled that Megatron went after 'the largest source of energy on Earth' about seven times. And I'm still not sure how a tidal wave can improve dam output. But Megatron was pretty into making lots of waves.
But then I watched Miami Vice and Nightrider this weekend, and it occured to me that I was judging Transformers with my 21st century mind. Miami Vice has such award-winning dialouge like "You've got to be cold to get in there, and you're not even cool. You're red hot." Suddenly, Megatron going after three identical-looking dams didn't seem so bad after all. My older sister is an 80s nut, my kid brother hates it, and I'm pretty much in a middle.
But seriously, there are too many damn robots! Bumblebee is cute. I thought the VW Beetle thing was kind of pansy but it grew on me. But there's two other Autobots about his size and they don't do anything but take up screen time. And the Dinobots? Despite the fact that I loved dinosaurs as a kid, I really don't like these guys. And the Decepticon's countruction robots? Just as bad. I mean...seriously...they just smash stuff. I lost brain cells watching any of there episodes. I want to hurt Grimlock. I'm not quite sure which one he is, but I'm coming at him with a flame torch. No more Dinobots, please.
I hate you.
Oh, and I don't like Megatron turning into a gun. Besides the fact that a tank would be so much cooler (and someone showed me a pic of a Megatron tank, so I guess it's been done), but having Starscream hold his pistol to shoot just has way to many sexual references.
[img]http://www.devin.com/transformers/megatron1.jpeg[/img] The same thing we do every night...try to take over the world!
Now for the good stuff. The robots whose names I can remember -- Megatron, Optimus Prime, Starscream, Bumblebee, Soundwave, etc etc -- I like. I think in general, the bad guys tend to have a little more personality than the good guys, but I also have a villian complex and tend to have a slight bias.
If you are going to rebel against your leader, make your shots count. Don't shoot him, and then miss. Your leader will be pissed. Your leader will probably come after you, and he's going to bring an ass-whippin' with him. Although that did lead to my favorite scene in the whole season. "Plase...Megatron...please..don't shoot me...you wouldn't shoot me."
I can also understand the whole 'Optimus Prime rocks and should be president' stuff. He's pretty damn cool. They didn't make him a perfect prick of a leader and I thought that was pretty impressive for a kids show. (Side note: you can write in who you want for Student Body President at UF. Chuck Norris won the write-in last semester, but I was always impressed how well Optimus Prime did.)
So...now I'm downloading the movie. I read somewhere that it takes place between the second and third seasons, but the second season looked huge and I've got other stuff to do.
Oh, and apparently Hasbro released some 10th anniversary Beast Wars stuff. And while I dislike the old-school dinobots, Dinobot himself was a pretty cool badass.
Need proof he's a badass? He. Ate. His. Own. Clone.
