For several years we have been doing Transformer Fan interviews with different Aussie collectors.
Well as the Big Angry Trev Blog grows, the borders of our great brown land are no longer big enough to contain it! So it’s time to travel across the watery ditch to a country where my girlfriend convinced me to throw myself off a bridge (no not relationship problems, went bungy-jumping). So coming all the way from New Zealand, we have Transformer Collector James, giving us the low down on his favorite hobby.
Name and/or nicknames:
James Nomansson, James Anderson (current legal name, pending change to the former), PSPS, TheAlderbunny, NoGravitasHere
Family?
One sister and her family unit. The rest of my relations are total writeoffs.
Career?
Professional nerd-plastic shill! I sell Lego Bionicle parts and sets. I’m actually the biggest seller for the theme in the Southern Hemisphere!
How would you rate yourself on a C scale, C10 being MISB Mint perfection, to the lowest C1 ‘junker not worth it even for parts’?
I guess no lower than C7? I have a real stick up my ass about quality, but there’s a limit y’know?
Fan/Collector since (year)?
I was a 90s kid, so I grew up with Beast Wars, the Unicron trilogy, and Bayverse. The only one of those that really stuck with me was Bayverse of all things. I don’t count myself as a collector until like, 2020-2021 when I started actively seeking new figures. Blame Transformers: Prime and my friend Koda for that.
Transformers Allegiance, if you had one?
Ex-Decepticon turned Autobot, for sure. I uhh… Wasn’t a great person in the past.
Your Techspec motto if you had one?
What is better – to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?
What existing, official Transformers character best describes you?
Probably Bayverse Jetfire. I’m only 30, but I feel like a cantankerous, eccentric old man.
Which special ability of any Transformers character would you want to have for yourself?
Teleportation, hands down. It’s just awesome, even if it’s limited to just line-of-sight.
What drew you to Transformers, making you become a fan/collector?
Transformers: Prime was my adult gateway drug. I was bored during the pandemic, and started watching TF:P on a whim. I fell in love with Soundwave’s design in particular, and my friend Koda was kind enough to help me navigate the fandom as a complete novice.
Do you think you will collect Transformers until you die?
As long as they keep making stuff I want, absolutely! My tastes are pretty niche, limited almost entirely to live action and TF:P.
Do people outside of the hobby know you collect TFs (like at work/school)?
Yep! Collection pics occasionally leak over into promo posts for PSPS, and my mates all know I’m a sucker for the big shiny robots.
Were your family/parents supportive of collecting toys or did you have to hide your passion from them and friends?
As a kid, yes.
What does your partner think of your hobby?
Well, it’s just me, along with my cat, Floof. He doesn’t seem to mind.
Have you attended any fan-meets, Fairs, Conventions, Special Events?
Nah, not really my shtick.
Any creative endeavours with Transformers (drawing, writing, customising, etc)?
I commission the odd bit of custom work (paint or printed parts), but aside from that, no.
Favourite series/era/year, and why?
It’s a tie between Bayverse and TF:P. Both have some pretty glaring flaws, but it’s easy to love something that’s perfect. Bot designs, and toy engineering, are where my enthusiasm for the hobby lies. The fact that some of these big, shiny Bayverse bots look so good, and are still able to transform, will never cease to amaze me. They just keep getting better too! I made the leap to unlicensed bots pretty early on, and never looked back.
Nope, not my shtick. Wouldn’t have anywhere to put them either, jeez… Space is at a premium here!
Favourite Comic issue/story, and why?
Unknown due to lack of exposure.
Favourite Cartoon episode/story, and why?
TF:P S01E05 – Darkness Rising. Purely for what might be the most savage burn in Transformers history.
Starscream – ‘Surely, Lord, Megatron, the Autobots are… Up to something.’
Megatron (with the most sarcasm ever) – ‘Reeeally, Starscream?’
Favourite Character, and why?
Optimus Prime. Either as space–dad, or grumpy war-crime machine. As an aside, the live action films are kind of a fun wee slide into Nemesis Prime if you squint a bit.
Unknown, not my thing. The concept baffles me a bit, to be honest.
Which Transformers character would you want to exist for real?
Probably TF:P Arcee? Not for sexy reasons haha, I just love 2 wheeled transport. I never enjoyed driving cars, and Arcee’s characterisation in Prime is surprisingly complex. The PTSD element, which she works through as the show progresses, really adds a more mature sorta vibe to her as a character. She’s not just like, the token female y’know?
Approx TFs toy collection count (or give a range like 200s, 300s, 2000s etc):
54, and a pile of Scraplets.
Sealed collector or out-of-packaging collector?
FREE THEM! Let them breathe! Out of packaging, for sure. Can’t transform them in a box!
How much do you think you’ve spent on your collecting habit?
Nope, not answering that. That’s the Forbidden Math question hahahaha. I know they’re insured for like $8000NZD though.
Any rare/expensive figures in your collection?
A couple, yeah! The most expensive would be MM01 v2 Bumblebee Movie Optimus Prime, and his upgrade kit. As for the most rare… Possibly the TF:P Vehicon Flyer General?
What interesting Licensed Merchandise items do you have?
None whatsoever!
First Transformers toy?
I think it was Beast Machines Obsidian?
One toy you most want?
Toy that exists? Go! Smokescreen, from TF:P. It’s got much more accurate paint than the other decos, but it’s a total fart to find.
Toy that doesn’t exist? A decent TF:P Knockout, or an MPM/MPM+ scale DOTM Jetwing Prime.
The centrepiece/favourite toy in your collection at the moment (and why)?
God I hate this question.
For the big live action stuff, it’d be MM01 BBM Optimus, or Black Apple Thunder Leader ‘07 Optimus.
For my smaller stuff, probably APC Attack Prime v2? The chrome just makes the figure pop, and he’s absolutely gorgeous in hand. Huge pain in the ass to find in the right paint though.
Favourite toy in your early years of collecting?
TF:P RID Soundwave. I love that weird lanky dude, so much.
Worst toy(s) ever in your opinion?
SS WW2 Hot Rod. That mould and figure are abysmal. It was a stain on my early SS collection. I gave it to a friend who ended up selling it. More power to him, I couldn’t justify asking money for that pile of crap.
Toy(s) that were most disappointing when you got them?
MPM Starscream’s mould. The lack of bicep rotation was a huge disappointment. Thankfully, one of my friends modified his arms.
Thoughts on gimmick and non-convertible Transformers toys?
Not for me personally, with the odd exception. I have some ‘accessory’ figures that don’t transform, like the Scraplets, or Lockdown’s Steeljaws, or Igor. My personal collection ‘rule’ is that if a Transformer doesn’t transform, it’s usually not for me. No hate to people who go in for the Threezero/YoloPark/whatever non-transforming stuff though, each to their own!
Which single TFs toy should every fan own?
TF:P RID Vehicon. Steve is just a funky little dude. Any version of that mould is just an absolute delight to handle.
Which Transformers toy/product would you give as a wedding present?
Probably none? I’d much rather give the happy couple something they can both enjoy at the same time. Transformers are a bit hard to co-op transform.
Do you collect other toys?
God yes. I have a disgustingly expensive collection of Bionicle masks, as well as a bunch of system sets I repurpose for D&D. And some pretty UCS/UCS equivalent space sets, mostly Star Wars. Again, my tastes are very niche, but if I see something I like, it’s coming home.
What is your favourite TF themed post on this website?
Rise of The Beasts is now finishing up in theatres, the 7th instalment in the live-action Transformers Movie franchise and the 8th Transformers movie overall. More than any other part of Transformers, be it the comics or cartoons or toylines, the movies have divided fans. Many Transformers fans have grown up on the live action movies, or were first attracted to Transformers by it hitting the big screen. Others have lamented films with more humans than robots, convoluted and contradictory storylines, unrecognisable classic characters and even coined the term ‘Bayverse’ – a derogatory term to refer to this part of the franchise as more concerned with big explosions than any form of storytelling.
But love them or loathe them, most fans who has seen all the movies has in their head their own personal list of ‘best to worst’, judging the films by their own personal criteria.
Saw this in the cinema, and have watched the Blu Ray a total of twice, both times at the behest of someone else. This is a movie that ran for over 2 ½ hours and may have been better received if they had shaved a lot of that runtime off. Even upon multiple viewings the storyline jumps around too much to coherently follow – first they are hiding out in a junkyard, then they are racing through the streets of London, then they are undersea looking for a tomb and then finally up in the air fighting on broken bits of Cybertron. Throw in a few human storylines, most of which were superfluous, the appearance of Unicron’s horns which were never properly investigated, and Merlin to boot and you had too much going on to properly sit back and enjoy.
The movie did have some positives going for it. The reemergence of Barricade, Welker finally voicing Megatron, Optimus Prime becoming Nemesis Prime and having a smackdown with Bumblebee, finding out what happened to Cybertron after TF3 etc. Also a few good battle scenes; Crosshairs jumping from the back of a stolen Con flyer, deploying parachutes and blasting enemies will always stick in my head as one of the best visuals of the entire series.
But in the end none of this could make up for a French-sounding Hot Rod, Marky-Mark removing his shirt for no reason, Combiners that seemed to flow together instead of actually transforming and a plotline that left you going ‘huh?’.
If only the movie had been as awesome as the toyline!
I feel part of the reason this movie is so disliked by much of the Fandom is that it seemed such a letdown after the relatively well received first movie, and many feared such a sequel would put an end to the live action Transformer flicks altogether. Bay blamed much of the movies faults on the writers strike. Since another strike is currently occuring lets hope it doesn’t adversely affect next years animated Transformers One movie
This was a movie made for 13 year old boys. Considering its Transformers perhaps that should not be too surprising. The crass humour was dialled up big time and for me (as someone who has avoided even learning about Kiss Players) the most cringeworthy thing to ever happen in all of Transformers was watching Wheelie hump Mikalya’s leg. Devastator having testicles, dogs humping other dogs, a fleshy tongue on the end of a metal tendril trying to lick Sam, a sidekick in his underwear demanding toilet paper, a stoned mother and Jetfire farting a parachute – the childish humour seemed to never end. Add to this… urgh… the Twins, the most racially insensitive thing in Transformers since Carbombiya, and this movie felt like it was written by Beavis & Butthead after they discovered pot.
Like TLK, this movie still had some good points. The introduction of The Matrix, the Original Primes, The Fallen and the Pretender concept were welcome parts of Transformers lore to be included into the live action universe. Soundwave becoming a Communications Satellite was a clever idea and him ejecting Ravage in order to infiltrate an installation was very cool. This is also where Soundwave got his tendrils, a concept carried over into TF3, Prime and RID15. The way Devestator combined was dramatically done, even if he subsequently only smashed bricks and sucked sand. Despite only being a byproduct of the movie, it is also worth noting that ROTF brought us one of the best and most expansive toylines of the live action franchise, indeed Bludgeon who wasn’t even in the movie receiving the best toy he has ever had!
But once again despite all the positives, too many negatives were contained in this film to overlook, and thus Revenge of the Fallen comes second last in the Transformers list of fav movies.
Number #6 – Age of Extinction
Grimlock on the big screen baby!
The previous two movies are widely regarded as the worst of the Transformer flicks so I doubt them coming in at numbers 7 & 8 will raise many eyebrows. Likewise I doubt this movie will cause a lot of contention by not being #1. Age of Extinction had a lot going for it, a new human cast (Shiah LeBouf having taken to wearing a paper bag on his head by this point), new robots whilst still retaining a few fan faves that survived the slaughter of DOTM, an interesting plotline and a cool bad guy. Yes, Lockdown (imported from the Animated universe) made a refreshing change; a bounty hunter not involved in the Autobot/Decepticon conflict who could turn his face into a sniper cannon. The Autobots on the run, hiding out from being hunted down by the government was also a nice change of pace from being teamed up with Lennox and his crew. Throw in a few Dinobots, an evil Fraiser and the old trope of Megatron being reborn as Galvatron and you’ve got a winner right?
Well… sorta. In a franchise that often let its movies run too long in order to fit in as many Michael Bay explosions as possible, this one was the longest coming in at a whopping 165 minutes! Even if you are enjoying yourself, that’s too damn long! By the time Lockdown’s ship was using its gravity weapon to suck up boats and building, simply to dump them down again, your average viewer was exhausted. Like TLK, it may have been better received if it had cut at least half an hour of superfluous material. The Dinobots were very cool, but seemed to be more monsters than Dino’s, whilst Hound had transformed from a nature lover to a rotund, gun-toting drill sergeant. The whole storyline of Tessa Yeager was just fricken creepy! All the skimpy outfits and sexual innuendos attached to a 17 year old girl dating a 20 year old was just…. bleegh! Don’t get me wrong, I like looking at pretty girls on a big screen as much as the next guy, but this just made you feel gross, especially that ‘Romeo & Juliet Law’ thing. The Lucas Flannery character stating ‘There goes a couple of dune bugs’ while he leers at other underage girls paled in comparison and that’s saying something. The other negative for die hard fans was Transformium (not to be confused with the fantastic Transformatorium) – we want to see robots cleverly turn into vehicles and back – turning into a bunch of pixels is just cheating.
This was a movie that had more positives than negatives, yet one cant help think that if Cade was bereft of children this movie would have been shorter and less creepy on the whole.
Number #5 – Dark of the Moon
Optimus, save me from another movie like ROTF!
Okey Dokey, now we are getting to the better stuff! DOTM (in my opinion, remember – these are just my opinions. But because they are mine they are fantastic!) brought Transformers back from the depths that ROTF sent it tumbling into, giving us an action-packed and interesting movie full of battling bots destroying everything in their path. No street fight with a dozen bots, no skirmish out in the desert in Qatar – this flick gave us huge battles where Chicago got ripped to shreds as the Bots and Cons went head to head! This movie had a coherent storyline that seemed to stay on track and kept the plot moving forward at a good pace. It was not frantic enough you lost the plot, nor slow enough you got bored. The humans were at least tolerable (for the most part) though that toilet scene was plain weird and Sam’s mother had gone from amusing to disturbing. Optimus having his trailer, the appearance of The Wreckers, buildings toppling over from some giant driller thingie – all pro’s. With the addition of Laserbeak becoming a pink version of Bee so he could kill some kids Dad and you’ve got yourself a bonifide action movie boys and girls!
Was the movie perfect? Oh my no, hence why it sits at No #5. Sam’s as big a loony as ever, jumping around with a Con-watch attached to his wrist. The Autobots are far more brutal than the Decepticons, examples being the Wreckers ripping an enemy limb from limb and Optimus killing both Megs AND Sentinel at the end of the movie, even as the latter asked for mercy. Shockwave is grossly under-utilized for such a major character, and lets all thank the powers that be that they decided to make Wheeljack named Que instead, because he looked like Einstein got reanimated as a robotic skeleton.
Quibbles aside, this was a pretty good movie and if nothing else, acted like TF:TM by killing off a lot of the old bots so we could enjoy some new ones the next time round.
Number #4 – Transformers
Off to finally see some live-action Transformers!
Now, to clarify, I actually like DOTM more than the 2007 Transformers movie. But credit where credit is due, this is the flick that brought the franchise into the world of live-action movies and was successful enough those movies are still being made 16 years later, so ya gotta give it some props.
Yes, this was the movie that had some sections of the fandom crying ‘Michael Bay raped my childhood’ – and what a stupid platitude that was. You still see social media groups today that have vowed after the first live-action movie to never watch another one, or have deemed anything not purely G1 as an abomination. To these people I say: once you’ve closed yourself off to anything new, then stagnate you will, and so will the franchise you apparently love so much.
For me nothing will ever quite match the magic I felt as I watched Blackout transform for the first time. And as for Optimus transforming from Truck to Robot – I had to put a hand over my mouth and stifle a little sob of joy. It may not have been G1 but here was the Transformers finally done in live-action, and they weren’t f’ing it up!
Oh the Geewunner in me decried a lot of the movies aesthetics. Megatron and Starscream were as ugly as sin, Ironhide and Ratchet were the wrong colours and so on. And that’s when they were actually on screen – for a lot of this movie you sat there wondering ‘When are the robots going to come back?’ For a movie called Transformers, they certainly seemed to take a back seat a lot of the time.
The humans? Well besides taking up too much screen time they weren’t too bad. Sam hadn’t gone insane yet and neither had his mother, her short performances being the comedic highlights of the film. Mikayla was quite a strong character for someone who the male audience was supposed to primarily drool over, and Lennox and his team did their best to not be simple jarheads, actually adding to the plot nicely.
So yes, this movie had a lot of faults, but for bringing Transformers into the mainstream and giving the franchise a gigantic shot in the arm which it still benefits from today, Transformers 2007 comes in at Number #4 for me.
This is the movie that so many die hard fans wish that Transformers 2007 had been. First we are treated to a scene with all the bots battling on Cybertron, and they look like themselves again! No weird colour schemes, no faces and bodies so mashed and distorted that once they move you cant tell what part of a bot you are looking at, all those aesthetic quibbles gone. Cybertron looks like Cybertron again too, its not some Hexagonal mesh covered in bots that are the same colour as its surface and it’s not in bits and pieces flying over the Earth either. It was all so beautiful it could bring a tear to the hardest Geewuners optic sensor.
Of course this did not last long and off to Earth they went, but not many of them. Yes, by only having Bumblebee, Shatter and Dropkick on Earth you got to see their characters actually develop, interact with humans, interact with each other – you know, actually act like characters in a movie instead of murderbots.
Charlie Watson remains to this day the most likeable human out of the entire movie franchise. You empathise with her woes and you celebrate her victories. She’s not going nuts, or trying to shag someone, or being overly heroic or sexualised or insane. You hate Tina Lark and laugh when Bumblebee smashes up her car, you root for Memo as he tries to step up to be a hero despite being scared shitless, and manages to show his romantic interest for Charlie without being sleazy.
And how much 80’s nostalgia could they pack in eh! The music, the aesthetics – all spot on. Bumblebee is a Volkswagen Beetle as we always wanted him to be and reprising his role as the sweet best friend of the central human rather than just bashing up Barricade a lot.
There is very little to fault with this movie. Oh sure, Blitzwing looked more like Starscream than the live-action Starscream ever did so the ‘changing bots beyond recognition’ concept from the Bayverse movies hadn’t completely disappeared. It was also confusing to many fans that this was billed as a prequel rather than a reboot, yet it contradicted so much that had come before, such as Bee hitting Earth in 1986 rather than having been around so long he had been battling Nazi’s.
This was a wonderful movie, with a lot of heart and fully deserves it’s place in the Top 3 Transformer movies of all time.
Yes, I have to give it to the latest instalment of the franchise, Rise of the Beasts has been the best live-action movie so far. With far less humans and far more Bots, new factions and – gasp – Unicron himself, we get a fantastic movie with Transformers banding together to save the world itself!
I love Bumblebee, I do. He’s a great character and my son’s favourite. However many of us were suffering from Bumblebee overload. Every movie, every cartoon, every toyline, everything from 2007 onwards he has been front and centre. And sure, it makes sense as he’s the posterbot for the franchise now. But enough was enough, so I was very happy to see Mirage step up to take his place and Bee to be sidelined for much of the adventure.
Was this the Mirage of old. Well, no. In fact when you first see his altmode you think ‘Jazz is back!’ It’s rather odd how much they made his vehicle look like Jazz, though they did give a holographic shout out to his old mode. His invisibility is gone, but his holographic powers from the original tech specs and the Netflicks cartoon are in evidence. For me he was a tad too cheery, a tad too immature and he was able to swap altmodes far too easy – he can have the bulk of a garbage truck but be as small as an exosuit? Transforming seems less special when you make it almost limitless.
Optimus is sounding old and weary. And who can blame him, Cullen is 82 now! The poor old bloke will be on his deathbed and still have a boom hanging over his head so he can voice Prime. One wonders if they cast Prime in the ‘concerned weary leader’ role just to take into account the voice actors age. That said, he still rocks it as he always does and he is respected and loved by beast and bot alike.
Scourge makes a passable bad guy, an amalgamation of his G1 and RID(01) incarnations, being a black truck with his Sweep minions (looking like Frenzy’s cousins). Battletrap is awesome in the battle scenes with those chains of his, it’s only Nightbird that doesn’t add much to the trio. The Maximals Optimus Primal and Airazor get a lot of dialogue and screentime, though fan favourites Cheetor & Rhinox do little indeed. Arcee seems a good mix, looking similar in bot mode to the Bumblebee movie and similar in altmode to her ROTF incarnation. Its just Wheeljack that got fans annoyed, and it turned out there was a lot of noise over a character that barely appeared. And like many fans, I’m remaining hopeful of a Stratosphere action figure.
And perhaps this is why this movie ranks for me as the highest of the live-action movies – I can spend all this time taking about the robot characters. Yes, they were finally characters with dialogue and weren’t one-dimensional killing machines, a precedent set in the Bumblebee movie that was thankfully followed on.
There were a couple of humans too of course, and it was nice to see there wasn’t a romantic/sexual story between them, a refreshing change. They weren’t annoying either. And whilst they got a lot of screen time, perhaps for the first time since the 80’s the robots were truly the stars of a Transformers movie.
And speaking of the 80’s, that leads us to…
Number #1 – The Transformers: The Movie
A movie so good I had to recreate it in action-figure form
C’mon, you all knew this was coming. TF:TM remains the high point for many of a franchise nearly 40 years old. Yes it was a glorified toy commercial. Yes it was designed to kill off as many old characters as possible so that Hasbro could flog the new toys. And yes, it sent many children out of the cinema in tears as they watched their beloved Optimus Prime die.
But it did SO MUCH. And it introduced SO MUCH! A slew of what is considered quintessential to Transformers got it’s start here. The Matrix of Leadership, Megatron becoming Galvatron, Junkions, Quintessons, Sharkticons, Optimus dying (to one day be resurrected) and so on. Hot Rod, Kup, Blurr, Arcee, Ultra Magnus, Cyclonus, Scourge – all these iconic characters got their start here. Not to mention Unicron, perhaps the biggest big bad to ever exist in pop fiction ever! Galactus drains the energy from planets, well our bad guy eats planets and swallows moons whole!
Now this isn’t to say the movie isn’t without flaw, there’s plenty. Two Cyclonus’, a miscoloured Rumble, Snarl appearing and disappearing randomly, characters that die showing up later etc. And though I loved it as a kid, the adult in me cringes a bit watching them having a dance off on Junkion. Hasbro was way too brutal with killing off fan favourite characters, though one could argue this is one of the things that makes the movie so memorable – this was a no-holds barred slaugherfest in places which set it apart from many of the other 80’s toy movies.
But damn, there is a reason they are STILL selling toys based directly on this movie 37 years later, its just too good! It had stellar cast of pop culture icons such as Lenoard Nimoy from Star Trek, Eric Idle from Monty Pythons and a song by Weird Al Yankovic, as well as other big name actors such as Orson Wells himself playing Unicron. It even managed to make Daniel and Wheelie not annoying (if only S3 of the cartoon had managed such a feat).
Space battles, motorcycle chases, Dinobots, Constructicons, a bad guy the size of a fricken world – it’s amazing they could fit all this into such a short movie. Throw in a soundtrack which is so 80’s it makes you want to run to the nearest music store to buy an electric guitar to learn such tasty licks, and you’ve got a movie that is still beloved nearly 4 decades later. Yes, The Transformers: The Movie sits at number #1 as the greatest Transformers movie of all time; it had both the touch and the power. Heck in spots it even dared to be stupid! And one suspects will retain its throne for many years to come, until Galvatron gives it a hint at any rate.
So how would you rate the 8 Transformers movies from worst to best? Similar to myself or completely differently? Pop your list in the comments section below!
Living in the bush I don’t get to see other Transformer fans very often. I don’t get to pop over to a mate’s house to see his latest acquisitions. I don’t attend meets, I don’t go to pop culture conventions, hell I don’t even get to visit toy stores. So when it comes to talking to others about a shared hobby I have to rely almost solely on the internet.
But the way a large segment of the fandom has been going in the last few years, I find myself thinking more often than not why I bother.
The default expression of an online Transformers fan
I don’t know when this all started. Maybe it was the live action Transformer movies. Most people seemed to like, or at least tolerate, the first movie in 2007. Those raising very vocal hatred for it being largely groups of GeeWunners who wanted it to look like the 1984 cartoon.
But then Revenge of the Fallen came out and a massive amount of the fandom started bitching, and it seems they have never stopped. It’s been years since a Transformers movie directed by MichaelBay (The Last Knight) has been released, and you still can’t surf a Transformers site without there being negative comments and memes threaded throughout screaming about how people hated them and it ‘raped their childhood’. Now in 2024, it’s the same arguments and complaints about the new Transformers One trailer: “Why isn’t this part of the G1 cartoon universe?! It’s a kick in the teeth to all the fans who carried the franchise for 40 years – Habro owes us!” Fans treating it as a personal insult that an animated movie designed to sell children’s toys isn’t aimed soley at middle-aged men – the sense of entitlement is staggering.
‘I was created not for entertainment, but to piss off fans. Didn’t you know that?’
And it seems this negativity of the fandom has spread from the movies to encompass any and everything Transformers. Be it comics, cartoons, toys – whatever. If it’s toys it’s all nitpicking about release times, non screen accurate figures and online retailers. If it’s the cartoons then it’s that the cartoon isn’t specifically aimed at demographic X – and if it IS aimed at demographic X then demographic Y kicks up a fuss.
When it’s about the comics people seem to get the most vocal of all (at least in years where a new movie hasn’t been released). Pre the reboot at IDW it was all about the writers having an agenda and virtue signalling and what have you. Now it’s about crossovers. The amount of hatred on the internet about the My Little Ponycrossover coming up has been frankly disgusting. Anyone who isn’t hating on the idea getting accused of being a homosexual or engaging in bestiality. Grown men – grown men – talking about how they despise My Little Pony. Why any grown man without a daughter has watched enough episodes to form such a strong opinion on a cartoon aimed at little girls is beyond me – but they must have watched it because they all seem to be experts on it and hate it. Even one of the artists that did one of the front covers for the upcoming crossover comics has received enough abuse to comment about it publicly. People abusing someone for doing their job and daring to draw a fictional horse on the same page as a fictional robot – way to make the fandom look good fellas.
‘You are destroying my franchise and deserve to die…. apparently’
Now bear in mind I don’t have a problem with people who have a genuine complaint. If you’ve bought a figure that snapped the moment you tried to transform it, despite you being gentle and following the instructions precisely, then damn right you are valid in being pissed off about it. Complain away and you will find a sympathetic ear in me. You got ripped off by an ebay seller and your TR Trypticon turns out to be a pack of beach towels – yell to high heaven! Preach brother! And if you didn’t like a comic or cartoon or movie or toy, then I’ll happily read your opinion if you keep it civil, logical, factual and state your opinion once.
Like Insecticons, angry posts like to clone themselves over and over and over
But it’s the constant bitching I can’t hack anymore. The people who didn’t like a movie and then years later are still writing post after post about how they hated it. People talking about how much a toy or movie sucks before they have even been released yet, like their opinion on something they have yet to personally experience makes it fact. People acting like so-called experts when they know little more than someone who has just entered a toyshop for the first time.
And the bitching about nothing! Sexuality in Transformers? Seriously? That is what brings people to boiling point? People lost their shit when the first wrist-rest mouse padswere released, like the manufactures had made booby pads based on their mothers instead of fictional shape-shifting alien robots. People scream abuse at each other over whether it is valid for Transformers to feel romantic affection for each other since they don’t breed. Is such a thing really worth calling a stranger a ‘f**king c**t’ over?
‘Why does our love cause you such hate?’
So it’s sad to say I’m feeling pretty done right now. I’m sick of clicking on a link or a FB post or a thread on a fansite to find out about some of the latest Transformer news and being confronted with a wall of vitriolic shit. I’m sick of saying I like something and having a dozen people call me an idiot or a faggot or worse for daring to have an opinion different to theirs. Sick of clicking to see if a toy is available only to see the people that got their toys and the people that didn’t, who ordered from the same online retailer, tearing each other a new one.
I know this kind of behaviour is not solely related to the Transformers fandom, it certainly happened in the Ghostbusters fandom with Frozen Empire. Some days it seems it’s the whole internet in general. Maybe I’m too old for the digital world. Whenever I converse online I try to think about, if I said this to a bloke in the pub, would it earn me a punch in the face? Because that was the reality I grew up with, with no internet and texting being easily accessible until I was in my 20’s. When you said something to someone you were saying it to their face. But now we have people who have done nearly all of their socialization their whole lives online, and have grown up in a world where you can say whatever hateful shit you like to someone because chances are that person is on the other side of the planet and you will never have to face consequences for your actions. Yes, the internet is getting too angry for even Big Angry Trev.
‘Can’t we all just peace out?’
Now people who live in GlassGas houses shouldn’t throw Cyberstones, and there are undoubtedly people out there that I have gotten into heated online arguments with over the years over very silly issues. So I am guilty too. But I pride myself that each year I get into less online fights, get into less pointless arguments and get better at cyber-walking away. I’m not perfect but I’m getting better. And maybe that it a goal we could all aim for – to improve our skill of walking away from the keyboard or smartphone when the blood begins to boil, and go play with our Technobots for a while.
So when I go home tonight, I won’t be surfing the big Transformer sites. I’m going to try my best to practice what I’m preaching and be a chilled out fan. I’m going to open up a bunch of new figures I just got and play with them with my son, as a reminder to myself that this hobby should be positive, should be fun, and in the end is about plastic toy robots.
Hey! If you are a positive person who loves talking about all the things they LIKE about Transformers? Why not restore my faith and write something happy in the comments below!
