Unless you’ve had your head stuck in the sand for the past month, you will be aware that the Transformers movie by Michael Bay will be in cinemas soon. Transformers holds significance to me, although not as much as Batman or Tenjho Tenge. In the late 1990’s I would never miss an episode of Beast Wars on Cheez TV, and my primary school buddies and I, for a period, would always bring our Transformer toys to school to play with during lunchtime. As of now I’m 18, and I still like the action figure line of these characters.
My favourite character is Optimus Prime. His motto (“Freedom is the right of all sentient beings”) rings strongly of democratic ideals and perhaps even of Buddhist philosophy. The reason why it always gets me a bit perplexed when people talk of the Transformers as “robots” is because the Transformers are actually sentient; the most powerful Transformers are living planets, and the romance between Blackarachnia and Silverbolt in Beast Wars and Beast Machines is also proof of this assertion.
I think the Autobots are more interesting as characters than the Decepticons. This is because the Autobots are the Transformers who are benevolent and choose to protect humanity against the “might makes right” Decepticons. I happen to think that Decepticon leader Megatron is a very boring character and Starscream, his ambitious subordinate, is a lot more badass. In the Beast Wars series, Blackarachnia, as an abused and hateful Predacon, finds Silverbolt’s unconditional love for her alien and surprising. And Dinobot’s honourable, samurai-style sacrifice for the Maximals (although he was originally a Predacon) is without dispute one of the most significant chapters in Transformers history.
I agree with the Optimus Prime motto that all sentient beings secretly yearn for love and liberty. Even though the hate-hardened Blackarachnia struggled with love and could only return Silverbolt’s affection via sardonic and cynical humour, her devotion to him was most evident during the Beast Machines saga, though by this time she had defected from the Predacons to the Maximals. Given the comradeship and nobility of the good guys in the Transformers universe, why wouldn’t you?
My head has been in the sand . . .I had no clue about the transformers movie.
Is Thunder Cats due out next?
It’s a live action movie. It looks good, but I will reserve judgment.
Conversely I don’t know about Thunder Cats. I watched TNMT and it was good enough for my eyes to be glued to the cinema screen for the whole movie.
I have not heard anything about Thunder Cats, they sorta just popped into my mind once you got me thinking about the transformers. . .memories from childhood.