[Animated] The older Animated audience, so tell me this..

electro girl · Post by **electro girl** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 11:25 am

It can be said Animated caters to the older fan like no series before it and some of the uderlying issues such as war are pretty prominent.

So to what extent do you feel these themes are important in Animated? Such as Lugnuts allusions to religious fanatisism, Blackarachnias representation of female emancipation as well as relying on existing preconceptions of femininity and how Ratchets character reflects the publics treatment of war veterens?

Also can you see any more underlying adult themes?

Rurudyne · Post by **Rurudyne** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 1:35 pm

While one may be tempted to see Sentinel Prime as The Tick done in metal (thanks to the voice, color and chin), the fact is that he's the ambitious, weasely, backstabbing coworker to a tee. He's completely unconcerned with justice and is perfectly willing to use a scapegoat as a target for his ire (he was going to drum out Bulkhead simply because he presumed that someone else had done something).

nutype · Post by **nutype** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 6:02 pm

The thing about Black Aracachnia representing female emancipation is that while she is depicted as "liberated" she is a villain, thus equating "emancipated females" with "dangerous villainy". Even the name "Black Arachnia" plays on the Film Noir concept of the "Spider Woman" or the Femme Fatale a negative archetype. Not a good linking.

Elita-One and her Autobots in the original G1 cartoon were more "liberated" than the current re-imagining of the character. In my opinion.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 6:36 pm

nutype wrote:Elita-One and her Autobots in the original G1 cartoon were more "liberated" than the current re-imagining of the character.

WHAT? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR ****ING MIND? YOU'RE TOTALLY WRONG!

In my opinion.

Oh, right. Sorry about that, chief.

Post by **Denyer** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 6:51 pm

Play nice. The humour's easy to take the wrong way in text...

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 6:59 pm

I thought that deliberately making Omega Supreme basically retarded so that he'd be more compliant with being a killing machine was fairly interesting. Not too sure if the Sari 'upgrade' is supposed to be a queasy metaphor for encroaching womanhood, but it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 5:13 am

Denyer wrote:Play nice. The humour's easy to take the wrong way in text...

Oh, come on... that was lifted from BrassEye...

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 8:26 am

Cliffjumper wrote:Oh, come on... that was lifted from BrassEye...

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/a850 ... y.html?rss

I still haven't gotten round to watching The Day Today on DVD yet despite having it for about a year now.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 2:22 pm

The Day Today's a little... uneven. Some of it sways from silly to irritating (Colaterlie Sisters, Sylvester Stuart), but there is some real genius in there. Anyone who hasn't seen it should be forewarned that, contrary to popular belief, it's not actually the Alan Partridge show - the character probably gets a combined 10 minutes across the whole show

secretcode · Post by **secretcode** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 2:29 pm

Terome wrote:I thought that deliberately making Omega Supreme basically retarded so that he'd be more compliant with being a killing machine was fairly interesting. Not too sure if the Sari 'upgrade' is supposed to be a queasy metaphor for encroaching womanhood, but it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

Omega Supreme was great. I'm hoping for more of him in the future, as well as other city bots.

And it could just be me on this one, but did anyone else find Sumdac's "She's a teenager!" line a bit creepy or am I just in the gutter?

Ackula · Post by **Ackula** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 2:38 pm

nutype wrote:Even the name "Black Arachnia" plays on the Film Noir concept of the "Spider Woman" or the Femme Fatale a negative archetype. Not a good linking.

Why isn't it a good linking? Why exactly is a powerful independent woman who uses her abilities and appearance to get what she wants, a negative archetype? I would argue the opposite actually, in my opinion it is a very empowering and positive archetype.

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 2:48 pm

Ackula wrote:Why exactly is a powerful independent woman who uses her abilities and appearance to get what she wants, a negative archetype?

Because she should be in the kitchen!

secretcode · Post by **secretcode** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 4:12 pm

Ackula wrote:Why isn't it a good linking? Why exactly is a powerful independent woman who uses her abilities and appearance to get what she wants, a negative archetype? I would argue the opposite actually, in my opinion it is a very empowering and positive archetype.

It sure beats how the Fembots are usually portrayed.

Detective Barricade · Post by **Detective Barricade** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:40 pm

secretcode wrote:Omega Supreme was great. I'm hoping for more of him in the future, as well as other city bots.

And it could just be me on this one, but did anyone else find Sumdac's "She's a teenager!" line a bit creepy or am I just in the gutter?

I thought the line shows his shock at the fact. After all, last he saw her, she looked about 8 years old.

Jaynz · Post by **Jaynz** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:30 pm

For me, liking the show is easy. The fan-nods are nice and cute when you first catch them.. but, face it, the show is solid action-adventure in the truest sense. It trips the 'fancy' the same way the G1 and Beast Wars did (and even RiD managed sometimes), and the way the BM and the Unicron Trilogy completely failed to do.

wolfbolt86 · Post by **wolfbolt86** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:49 pm

Rurudyne wrote:While one may be tempted to see Sentinel Prime as The Tick done in metal (thanks to the voice, color and chin), the fact is that he's the ambitious, weasely, backstabbing coworker to a tee. He's completely unconcerned with justice and is perfectly willing to use a scapegoat as a target for his ire (he was going to drum out Bulkhead simply because he presumed that someone else had done something).

To be faire though, Bulkhead was the one who droped the building on Sentinel. Even though he didn't have proof, Sentinel might have had a good idea who did it. Also being drumed out wasn't bad for Bulkhead, seeing as how he wanted to work on space bridges.

Savannahtron · Post by **Savannahtron** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:11 am

I've only watched a few of the episodes with my son, and I could be considered in the older audience since I'm 32. Here's my 2 cents.

I don't see much of morality issues or lesson's learned presented like the old GI Joe fashion. I see a bunch of knuckle-headed Autobots scrounging around Earth and trying to fight off the Cons whenever they get attacked. The tie-in with G1 stuff is really a compilation of Hasbro protecting trademarks and marketing the characters to younger generations while enticing the collectors to continue purchasing the new toy lines. I was a big fan of Beast Wars, but really fell off the band wagon when Prime kept saying "this ends now" over and over again when he was fighting Megs in Energon.

Armada was an ok toy line, but looking back over the last 10 years of being a collector again, I'd have to say that my favorite toys have been the ones that are good reflections of G1 characters that I like, and the addition of some new characters.

Notice how Bumblebee has become the sort of side character that Hot Shot was? Notice how every series has Optimus Prime, Megatron and Galvatron in it? The side characters come and go, but the roles stay similar or the same. The cast of characters are just standards of what people expect of short, easy to follow plots without much intricacy or morality bordering issues.

As far as women's lip (errr, I mean lib) I don't see much of that in Black Arachnia, and Lugnut's fanaticism and devotion to Megs could be likened to Inferno's "For the Royalty" obsession of Megs as the hive's queen. Not so sure that any religion is involved other than the sanction of Lugnut's devotion to the Decepticon cause.

So my young friend, what are your thoughts? How do you as a young TF fan view these issues? People are influenced by political, social and economic factors. In the case of the TFs, the economic drive is to sell a toy line and the marketing hook means that Hasbro reuses a proven winning strategy: the best ever 30 minute commercial.

Detective Barricade · Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:31 am

I see Blackarachnia as a being who desperately wants to be "normal" again, and will do whatever it takes to accomplish this.

Gouki · Post by **Gouki** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 10:58 am

Detective Barricade wrote:I see Blackarachnia as a being who desperately wants to be "normal" again, and will do whatever it takes to accomplish this.

that's... exactly what she is. The show makes no attempt to hide this and she basically states this all the time.

electro girl · Post by **electro girl** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 2:53 pm

So I'm studying Animated for my media studies coursework and so far I have this on the adult nature of the show.

Unlike in previous series the Decepticons are part of a wider story arc with Detroit’s super villain community taking their place as the weekly narrative disequilibrium. Instead the Decepticons are made to appear more powerful by showing them as an ongoing threat rather than Megatron appearing every week with another plan to ‘’destroy the Autobots once and for all’’ only to fail miserably in humiliation as he did in the 80’s. Instead the story represents the Decepticons as many feel they should be, as vicious and powerful warlords, making them more than capable of dealing with Optimus Primes team of simple maintenance bots, this is often referred to in show, for example when Ratchet give Bumblebee a weapons upgrade and is asked why he’s only done so now, Optimus replies with ‘’Because weapons grade stingers are only seen on military bots.’’

These themes seem to exist for the adult Transformers audience and despite the fact that it is a kids show, adult aspects are seen throughout. The Decepticon called Lugnut has a personality more akin to a religious fundamentalist, constantly shouting ‘’All hail Megatron’’ as well as hoping in blind faith for Megatrons return when he was seemingly ‘’offline’’ (Transformers slang for dead). Could it be coincidences that this villainous, dim and highly destructive character draws parallels with what many see as one of the greatest threats to the west? As the show also airs in Saudi Arabia would that audiences reaction be different? The image of war is never far removed from the show, it is set many years (or ‘stellar cycles’) after the ‘Great war’ when the Autobot Decepticon conflict was at its most hostile. While other characters such as Ultra Magnus and Lockdown witnessed this war the character most affected by it is the oldest of the Autobots on earth, Ratchet the Autobot medic, who is plagued by memories and flashbacks of the conflict. Because of this his character is represented as a grizzled and grumpy war veteran. His character confronts death and moral conflict regularly as well as the possibility of been made obsolete as a healer, this is perhaps a representation of how veterans in the United States are treated by the public as well as a condemnation of war by showing the effects on Ratchet similar to soldiers returning from the current Gulf conflict.

The Decepticon Blackarachnia can also be seen to represent female emancipation through the way the character acts and her back story. In previous series (most notably Beast wars) she is portrayed as the scheming femme fetalle who plots behind her comrades backs to get her own way using her ‘feminine charms’. If she is not plotting then she is been rescued by her love interest, Silverbolt, in a traditional, almost Propian ‘’damsel in distress’’ style. This is also shown in Animated, she began as the promising young Autobot Elita-one (a G1 reference) but was abandoned on an alien world by Optimus Prime and Sentinel Prime causing her to fuse with that planets life to take on the appearance of a ‘techno-organic spider’ (explaining Optimus’ arachnophobia), this abandonment could represent how in a patriarchal society such as Cybertron (while in some series it has been stated that Transformers have no concept of gender, ‘Fembots’ are by far outnumbered by their male counterparts) and our own society, women are (or certainly have been in the past) looked down upon by men. Her character also acts differently around ‘male’ Transformers, she is sharp and snappy around her Decepticon teammates yet scheming and seductive around the Autobots, especially her old friend from Autobot academy, Optimus Prime. Is this her method of staying ahead of the curve in a mans world? Or does it represent a typical male view of women? Some may see it as she is simply using her skills to get what she wants (to be fully robotic again) and so is completely legitimate. On the other hand it can be seen as an extension of the writers preconceptions of women, in fact in order for her to appear as a feminine bot relies on an audiences preconceptions of femininity and what is defined as a female character, after all why would an alien robot display what we see as female characteristics. Of course the Transformers brand has the constant underlying goal of selling toys, as the only female character that has her own toy in the Animated line it would suggest that she is there to appeal to the girls market (along with the human protagonist Sari) as Transformers is predominantly seen as a boys toy.