#she existed just to shit on optimus prime who's a character that actually matters unlike her

[lord-squiggletits]

So for anyone who doesn't know, in IDW1 Trypticon is actually a really interesting character. Earlier in the timeline, he's basically just an ancient evil monster that gets awakened and used as a fighting force by the Decepticons (covered by the events of Monstrosity and Primacy, although I'm not sure if he made an appearance earlier in terms of the comics' release order).

Later on in the IDW1 comics, Trypticon becomes a character with his own personality and desires as written by Barber in the Dinobot trilogy (not the phase 1 series but Punishment, Salvation, and Redemption). Basically, Trypticon is very aware of the fact that people see him as a violent monster, but he decides to abandon Cybertronian society entirely because he's tired of being used as a vehicle for others' violence. By the end of the trilogy, he actually has a new hotspot inside of him and is nurturing the next generation of protoforms within his own body. He's literally done a 180 from being a source of destruction and death to being a protective, nurturing, life-giving force. And this is interesting because, although Trypticon DID have a personality before Barber wrote him, Barber's take on Trypticon gave the "big scary Decepticon titan" a much more 3D personality that made him a person with his own goals, disinterested in the plots and schemes of others. And that's really cool!

So what ended up happening Trypticon in the finale of IDW1, Unicron?

He gets killed off. In the background. With no one giving a shit about it. Because Barber decided it was more important that, IN THE FINALE OF THE SERIES THAT WAS ENDING IDW1 AND WOULD BE THE LAST ISSUES HE WOULD EVER WRITE, we as the viewers be subjected to a Literally Who OC that no one cares about crying and bitching about how Optimus Prime is a tyrant and a fascist. This entire panel is almost literally shot in a comedic way, like the trope of "person monologuing while something crazy happens behind them that they're completely clueless to."

Trypticon got an interesting characterization that made him more than just a monster, but I guess it was more important to kill him off in the background of a panel so that Miss Literally Nobody can waste an entire page of the LAST SERIES OF THE CONTINUITY being a whining bitch about Optimus, which by the way is what she's been doing literally this whole time since she basically exists just to complain about Optimus.

Oh and by the way, Trypticon was carrying the next generation of protoforms inside of his body, and Cybertron (plus every other colony) got destroyed during the Unicron finale, so I guess an entire fucking generation of new Cybertronians also got slaughtered in this panel. How fun and exciting! I guess putting in that really depressing character death of "man changes his ways and gets to live happily but gets killed off for shock value" was really important to put in the ending of the series to make us readers feel satisfied about our beloved story ending! Oh but not only does he die, he dies IN THE BACKGROUND PRACTICALLY AS A FOOTNOTE so that a different character no one cares about can talk about her feelings, wasting crucial time bitching about how much she doesn't like Optimus while TRYPTICON IS LITERALLY DYING BEHIND HER BUT I GUESS SLIDE IS SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT FOR US TO BE CARING ABOUT.

This is what happens when you're more concerned about huffing your own farts Writing A Theme, Man than you care about creating a satisfying ending that fans will actually enjoy lmao. Who cares about Trypticon and possibly his children that we got attached to as a result of the previous comics dying? This literal nobody who no one cares about needs to have her time in the spotlight monologuing about shit that doesn't matter while everyone around her is fucking dying.

[mardababa]

I don’t normally talk about movies here but I just saw the Last Knight and hoooooo boy I’ve never been this insulted by a Transformers movie before (spoilers ahead but I don’t think anyone really cares)

The ridiculousness of the movie comes down to how nothing meshes together and it’s just so goddamn incoherent all the time. Someone looked at various parts of Transformers lore and decided to toss a bunch of cool things all into a blender without bothering to check if they would even work together in a single movie.

The problem is that there’s no reason the elements couldn’t work together, it’s just awful writing and direction that makes it completely blow up. “Transformers story involving King Arthur, a Quintesson, Nemesis Prime, and anti-Transformers sentiments on Earth” honestly does not sound out of place in the overall picture of Transformers lore (it’s always been a wacky place) but then they managed to fuck it all up anyway.

It makes me sad as hell that I saw a ton of things that were cool ideas on their own that didn’t work out or weren’t properly utilized.

Quintessons here to retake control of their robot slaves? There’s potential for an Enemy Mine plot and IMO Quintessa had a lot of potential as a villain who was alien in mindset and motivation to even the Cybertronians. It would have been pretty cool seeing her in control of BOTH Optimus and Megatron (I did like how his siding her is implied with the red markings rather than being explicitly explained until like 2 seconds later). Then she gets poofed and in two hits and immediately gives up but by the time of the epilogue it’s implied she’s still perfectly fine, what the fuck? You mean the seemingly all powerful Quintesson couldn’t just go “just kidding” and turn around to wipe the floor with Bumblebee?

Earth is actually Unicron? Good god don’t drop this bomb a third into the movie and then not follow up on it. Yes it’s for the next movie but showing us how horrifying this revelation is would have been nice! If I went into this without knowing who Unicron was, I’d be asking by the end of the movie - why the hell do I care that Earth is Unicron? As it stands, I can’t believe that Unicron is now the weakest hook for a sequel ever.

Anti-Transformers sentiments and organizations on Earth? Where to begin with this one? I hate how long we spend on this Transformers vs. humans thing that’s been going on since Dark of the Moon, but it does make sense and it’s not like the Marvel US comics didn’t spend a huge number of issues on it too. It’s just the handling here feels like it’s a cheap way to add some conflict between the human characters who like Transformers and human characters who don’t. And then it doesn’t matter anyway by the end of the movie because once again, the anti-Transformers thing doesn’t stick and they’re all buddy buddy again. There is no weight at all to the Transformers vs. humans conflict.

King Arthur - god you know what? Why don’t they just make a live action movie adaptation of a Decepticons Raider in King Arthur’s Court? Except like, have King Arthur actually appear in it.

Joking aside, the whole deal with the staff and Excalibur (that…that WAS Excalibur right?) makes me think they could have done something where historically the Cybertronians can hand out little pieces of tech that fuses to a fleshling that then allows them to control a Cybertronian or work together with it. Oh wait, isn’t that Nebulos and the Headmasters? King Arthur could’ve been a Headmaster and they blew the potential for that gimmick on a sword that only appears once for the protagonist and disappears again for the rest of the movie.

But what the hell is continuity anyway? Transformers has multiple continuities that can do whatever the hell they want, but even with the occasional error, writers have always been good at keeping internal continuity consistent. They fucked that up here too! Plot points are brought up then rapidly dropped as if they hadn’t existed at all. Don’t get me wrong, there ARE nods to past movies but new things get introduced and then forgotten which makes the entire thing even messier. Also Barricade? Is? Alive? Again? What?

Now if there’s one thing the movies are consistent about though, it’s this: the shit characterization across the board. Bayformer Autobots are STILL unlikeable, and even the (surviving) Decepticons don’t stand out from each other. I watch Transformers for alien robots that are alive and aren’t just mindless killing machines, and there’s not a lick of that here. (I did like that Megatron had a moment with Starscream’s head though.) Optimus Prime is still nothing like Optimus Prime and there’s nothing compelling about Megatron anymore.

It kinda says something that rewatching the heap of shit that was Revenge of the Fallen would be worth your time more than watching this heap of bigger shit.

/angry rant