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interests / alt.toys.transformers / Meanderings on leaders

SubjectAuthor
* Meanderings on leadersGustavo Wombat
`- Re: Meanderings on leadersZobovor

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Meanderings on leaders

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From: gustavow...@yahoo.com (Gustavo Wombat)
Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers
Subject: Meanderings on leaders
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2022 07:49:14 -0000 (UTC)
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 by: Gustavo Wombat - Fri, 4 Feb 2022 07:49 UTC

Something that has made the various Transformers reboots feel stale to me,
particularly the Neo-G1 reboots, is that the franchise is just stuck in the
character dynamics of the old G1 cartoon -- particularly the Optimus vs.
Megatron relationship.

Optimus Prime is a very reactive leader. Whatever else there is in any
story, it is always driven by reacting to the Decepticon plan du jour, and
the sum total of Optimus' ambitions are stopping the plan du jour. Big
Purple Griffon destroyed? Ok, I guess we're done now, until the next time
there is a crisis, which will likely be tomorrow unless this aired on a
Friday in which case it will be Monday.

Megatron, meanwhile, is always the embodiment of “might makes right” and
has a rapid succession of evil plans that are foiled (usually in a single
episode), and then are never referred to again. Each plan is for a quick
total victory, with no real effort given to gaining a long term strategic
or even tactical advantage.

Megatron tries to force his will on everyone rather than persuading them to
do his bidding.

Part of this is the nature of the G1 show, where everything was episodic
and where after each adventure the status quo needs to be restored, but the
reactive Optimus and the “might makes right” Megatron really doesn’t have
to be part of that structure.

There are a few exceptions where the action is driven by events outside of
Megatron's control ("Atlantis, Arise!"), or where an Autobot deliberately
goes against the orders of Optimus ("The Master Builder"), but even here
Optimus is entirely reactive.

We are seeing two leadership styles play out the same story over and over.

Season 3 mixed it up a bit by replacing Optimus's
middle-aged-entirely-reactive leadership with a teenage power fantasy
having to deal with the realities of leadership, and asking the question no
one asked, namely "What if Megatron was a cackling insane guy who could be
led around by the nose when the Quintessons promise things?"

The Rodimus side of that was honestly a breath of fresh air, and something
the franchise would attempt to recapture in the various reboots. Rodimus
tried to move things along, and was hitting the limits of his abilities and
then shrinking away because of his doubts, and eventually seeming to come
to terms with his role, but then handing it off the next episode when
Optimus returned.

The G1 Optimus and Megatron archetypes are continued in basically every
series that came after, leading to many of the same repetitive stories.

Beast Wars tried to change it a bit, with an Optimus Primal who was younger
and less experienced, along with a Megatron who had many of the mannerisms
of a more scheming and cerebral leader (but really just led through
physical strength and making his underlings fear him). Primal did
sporadically attempt to gain an upper hand -- there were episodes about
establishing perimeters, and infiltrating the Predacon base -- but far more
often the action was driven by the villains.

Megatron was capable of long-term planning, but basically just when no one
was looking. The events in "The Agenda" was set up with a few moments here
and there, but mostly just revealed as a plan that had been put in place
for anytime he was desperate enough to try it.

Beast Machines had the problem of no one understanding the characters or
their motivations, including the writers. Optimus was all over the place,
but the one thing that you can clearly say about Megatron was that he was
attempting to impose his will through force rather than inspiring his
troops in any way. And Cheetor doesn't eat food, period.

I have almost no memory of RID, to be honest. But what I did watch didn't
break the mold.

The Unicron Trilogy was much the same, with this version of Megatron going
so far as to beat his minions into submission. And a forgettable Optimus.

Animated followed course, but used a much younger and much more junior
Optimus and made his reactive nature a character flaw that had consequences
that were discussed in the show. He gained Ratchet's respect over the
course of the show in large part by beginning to grow as a leader who would
actually lead.

The Megatron here started as just a head, and actually needed to use a
little of the skill BW Megatron pretended to have but never demonstrated.

There’s a reason Animated is my favorite show. It tried to take the
character archetypes and do something with them that was new.

TF:Prime reverted entirely to form, though. It did a better job with it
than G1 did, but that is just a matter of 20 some odd years of changing
standards in children's television and writing.

And somewhere in there the Movies happened, and introduced us to an Optimus
that wants to tear off faces and a Megatron who may or may not have had a
character.

And TF:Prime RID switched the focus to Bumblebee as a Rodimus style leader
with the scope of Optimus Primal. If the show wasn't aimed at much younger
children, it might have been interesting to see how that developed, but
it's a little hard for adults to watch.

No one knows what happened in the Machina show, and Netflix to its credit
tried to break Optimus out of the mold somewhat, although everything
Optimus does is still purely in reaction to Megatron or his own bad
decisions reacting to Megatron that he realizes were a mistake three
minutes after making them.

It's repetitive, and the stories that fit into that structure are limited
and repetitive.

What would Optimus have done in the original cartoon if Megatron were
better at hiding his actions? Nothing, in all likelihood. The Autobots
would have sat around the Ark playing basketball and watching "As The
Kitchen Sinks".

Or what if Megatron's goals were not immediately and objectively harmful?

It wouldn't be Megatron anymore, to be sure, but what if, instead of trying
to take energy by force or enslaving humanity, Megatron just created a
corporation to bring basic Cybertronian technologies to market, and simply
bought energy, which would then be stockpiled and sent back to Cybertron to
create and power a massive War World?

Optimus Prime would do nothing. It's a problem that he is fundamentally
unsuited to handle.

I think the next major adult-friendly Transformers story would be best
served by getting rid of Optimus and Megatron, and finding entirely new
types of leaders. Just shift focus to some other part of the Great War.

The Marvel comics had Rat-Bat, with his penny pinching on energon. There
was also Shockwave who was basically identical to Megatron except
"logical". Really, all of the Decepticon leaders in the Marvel comics were
basically Megatron with a gimmick, and they served as much to be a
momentary foil to Megatron as anything else.

IDW has done some interesting things with Bumblebee and then Starscream
attempting to lead a barely united Cybertron, and fleshed out the character
of Megatron in his post-leader days aboard the Lost Light.

Re: Meanderings on leaders

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Subject: Re: Meanderings on leaders
From: zmf...@aol.com (Zobovor)
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 by: Zobovor - Fri, 4 Feb 2022 15:33 UTC

On Friday, February 4, 2022 at 12:49:15 AM UTC-7, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> Something that has made the various Transformers reboots feel stale to me,
> particularly the Neo-G1 reboots, is that the franchise is just stuck in the
> character dynamics of the old G1 cartoon -- particularly the Optimus vs.
> Megatron relationship.

In some ways, they're stuck trying to balance the established legacy of the characters with trying to create modern storytelling. It's the same problem with, say, the Spider-Man films. Either you're stuck telling his origin story over and over, rebooting with different actors, or you have to mix things up and introduce a whole weird Spiderverse with a hundred Spider-People running around.

> Optimus Prime is a very reactive leader. Whatever else there is in any
> story, it is always driven by reacting to the Decepticon plan du jour, and
> the sum total of Optimus' ambitions are stopping the plan du jour.

Well, part of that is the nature of episodic storytelling, like you said, but part of it is because it's children's television and it's very simplified. We see sometimes that the Autobots had stuff going on that was completely unrelated to the Decepticons (like helping the world citizens to preserve their landmarks with corrostop, or entering a race to raise money for charity) but I think for the most part they had their hands full with the Decepticons.

> Megatron, meanwhile, is always the embodiment of “might makes right” and
> has a rapid succession of evil plans that are foiled (usually in a single
> episode), and then are never referred to again. Each plan is for a quick
> total victory, with no real effort given to gaining a long term strategic
> or even tactical advantage.

Seems like the long-term goal was socking away energon until they were ready to take Cybertron back. Remember the scene in "Desertion of the Dinobots" when Spike and Carly are on Cybertron, looking for cybertonium, and Spike stumbles across a huge cache of energon cubes?
"Where did these come from? I thought the planet was all out of energy!" I think that was a hint that the Decepticon efforts in season two were paying off. And the movie demonstrates that they finally did retake the planet, so it obviously worked.

> Megatron tries to force his will on everyone rather than persuading them to
> do his bidding.

It happens more often than not, but there are exceptions. His partership with Shawn Berger was based on persuation instead of strong-arming him (there was some trickery involved, of course). I imagine his relationship with Dr. Arkeville began the same way, though of course we didn't see that (but it's hinted that Megatron said something like "help me and I'll let you have the Earth when I'm done with it").

> Beast Wars tried to change it a bit, with an Optimus Primal who was younger
> and less experienced, along with a Megatron who had many of the mannerisms
> of a more scheming and cerebral leader

In Beast Wars, Megatron had more layers. He was trying to live up to his namesake, he was a desperate criminal, and he was trying to rise up from the dominant Maximal oppression on Cybertron. G1 Megatron had the luxury of being evil for its own sake, while there were real stakes for BW Megatron if he was unsuccessful. He's a more compelling character.

> Beast Machines had the problem of no one understanding the characters or
> their motivations, including the writers.

The whole "animals good, machines bad" is like the exact opposite of late G1, where the Decepticons were the animals and the Autobots were the machines. So thematically, it was a confusing message. Beast Machines was all about creating a theme, and then rewriting the characters to conform to that theme.

> I have almost no memory of RID, to be honest. But what I did watch didn't
> break the mold.

The fandom joke was that RiD Megatron just sat in his chair and sent out his lackeys to do all his dirty work. Optimus kind of vacilated depending on whether Neil Kaplan was trying to do his Peter Cullen impression that day or not.

> Animated followed course, but used a much younger and much more junior
> Optimus and made his reactive nature a character flaw that had consequences
> that were discussed in the show.

Given that the Optimus archetype is already so well-established, though, a younger and inexperienced Optimus is unsatisfying to me. It was like Star Trek: Enterprise, a prequel show with inadequate universal translators, inadequate warp drive, inadequate weapons...
> And somewhere in there the Movies happened, and introduced us to an Optimus
> that wants to tear off faces and a Megatron who may or may not have had a
> character.

Yeah, the less said of that the better.
> What would Optimus have done in the original cartoon if Megatron were
> better at hiding his actions? Nothing, in all likelihood. The Autobots
> would have sat around the Ark playing basketball and watching "As The
> Kitchen Sinks".

Every time the Decepticons went underground, the Autobots went on patrol to find out what was going on, but usually turned up nothing. But, if that was standard operating procedure for Megatron, maybe they would have adapted their game plan. Megatron's schemes usually availed themselves, so in some ways it made sense to play the waiting game.

> Or what if Megatron's goals were not immediately and objectively harmful?
> Optimus Prime would do nothing. It's a problem that he is fundamentally
> unsuited to handle.

It's one thing if Megatron was stealing oil, but where's the harm in making energon cubes at, say, a hydroelectric power plant or a solar energy station? That's renewable energy. It's not the same as raping the Earth. It's arguably not hurting anybody.

> The Marvel comics had Rat-Bat, with his penny pinching on energon. There
> was also Shockwave who was basically identical to Megatron except
> "logical". Really, all of the Decepticon leaders in the Marvel comics were
> basically Megatron with a gimmick, and they served as much to be a
> momentary foil to Megatron as anything else.

Hmm, let's see. Scorponok was just Megatron with a flesh creature in his head. Thunderwing was Megatron with a Matrix obsession. Bludgeon was Megatron as a samurai. Yep, it tracks.

To me, the Marvel Comics version of Megatron is kind of interesting because he gets progressively more crazy. Optimus Prime killed himself over a video game, but Megatron killed himself over a truckload of oranges. (I mean, not exactly. But close enough.) That kind of flips the Megatron/Galvatron dynamic on its ear, because in Marvel Comics, Galvatron is the sane one but there are remnants of Megatron that remain. When Galvatron goes crazy in the comics, it's because of the vestigal Megatron parts that are peeking through. It's the complete opposite of the cartoon.

Zob (buying parts for a Turtle Blimp I don't own yet, so that's weird)

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