#what i'm most disappointed by is starscream being the big bad

[justmenoworries]

Still hyped but ngl that's a bit of a downer.

[merlinfromberlin]

Just came back from finally, finally, finally getting to watch Transformers: One with my roommate.

Overall, it was an absolute blast. :D I had so much fun and am seriously considering going to watch it again next week.

Loved Bee so much, honestly, maybe my favourite blorbo in the movie (which was to be expected).

I can also confirm that I'm still a disgusting Optimus-is-Bee's-dad-truther. Even if that means I have to headcanon him as sounding younger than he did in the movie.

Spoilery-thoughts below the cut for everyone who hasn't seen the movie yet.

However, I have a few not so savory feelings about the double standard regarding Autobots and Decepticons committing acts of violence in the movie. It kind of took me out of the story a few times.

Like, we see Orion (rightfully!) talking down D-16 from killing Starscream. And then, not even five minutes later, Orion rips apart one of Sentinel's soldiers. It's never adressed. It's never condemned. Like. What?

And it's not the only thing, the movie is kinda hypocritical about it:

D-16 trying to kill Starscream (bad)

Orion ripping apart one of Sentinel's soldiers (good, bad-ass)

Orion, D-16, B-127 & Elita-1 fighting back against Sentinel's soldiers (good)

B-127 accidentally - and then not so accidentally - killing Sentinel's soldiers (good, funny)

B-127 destroying the broadcasting office and scaring the reporters (kinda bad, but also funny)

Megatron ripping apart Sentinel (bad)

(That's probably not every scene with violence but it's the ones I remember best)

I don't say that I disagree with the movie regarding it's portrayal of Megatron's violence. Optimus was right to try and stop Megatron both times. I'm also not saying that Sentinel Prime's execution and Starscream's attempted execution are the same as Sentinel's soldiers being killed in battle/self-defence. I'm also not saying that the miners/High Guard/our little troop were wrong to fight back.

However, there is a definite bias in this movie when it comes to framing violence.

I mean, we see both Orion and Megatron tear a guy in half, but only one of those instances is condemned. The other one is glossed over/celebrated as a bad-ass battle move.

Furthermore, violence is only ever framed as something objectable if it's committed against named characters. I don't think that it's random that Autobots only ever fight Sentinel's unnamed, faceless soldiers. Similar to the Vehicons in TFP, they are implied to be clones simply by their identical designs - which, somehow, makes violence against them acceptable.

I'm really disappointed that this movie falls into the popular action movie tropes of "As long as it's the good guys committing violence it's okay and you don't have to worry about it." and "You should only feel empathy for Storm Troopers when we tell you to - aka when we give them a face."

Now, other, more minor things:

I squelad when I first saw Jazz! :D I was so happy for him to be there because I had no clue that he would be in the movie. He's become one of my favourite characters these past few months so I was really, really happy for him to be there. ^^

Cybertron was also absolutely beautiful. The movie, in general, was very very pretty.

I am also a big fan that, this time, most of the Autobots started out as cog-less miners and Iacon's underclass (not all of them - Chromia, for example, would be an exception).

Most of the Autobots being basically middle-caste while a lot of the Decepticons started out as miners and lower-caste bots is one of the few things that irks me about TFP.

Love that the main threat of this movie (trilogy?) are the Quintessons. I literally didn't even know that they existed until I watched Cyberverse in July and I got so excited about seeing them! So glad I managed to avoid having that part spoiled. ^^

Also, so sorry to the guy who spoke B-127, but I got jumpscared every time I heard his voice. Bee behaved so much younger than he sounded. Which probably makes sense considering that he was stuck with only three dolls for company for Primus knows how long.

Won't stop me from headcanoning stuff, though.

Edit: I thought about this some more since yesterday in the evening and I think that was mainly a mixture of headcanons and projection speaking. You can read him as young, you don't have to. Isolation is f'ed up.

[lord-squiggletits]

One of the thing I love about IDW Op is that he's technically an atheist war pope. It's interesting that he didn't believe in religious aspect himself but was willing to use it for the power. Made his character more complex to me. Do you have opinion on this topic?

I have a lot of mixed feelings about it tbh. On one hand, I think being an atheist/agnostic fits IDW Optimus' character well (I've tried to imagine him as religious and just...can't), but on the other hand, I kind of have a problem with the way most media depicts religious people, and it's a bit disappointing that the Matrix has canonically been associated with multiple miracles (reviving OP and Hot Rod from death, creating new sparks, even Primus/Rung being able to make them) but Optimus still calls the Matrix 'nothing but a bauble' at some point like. Really bro? So there is a part of me that is disappointed at the Matrix being treated as a Plot Device rather than a proper, respectable religious thing. On the other hand, that's just not what the story is about, and I can't call a story/character bad because it didn't go in the exact direction I wanted.

TLDR: I think Optimus being agnostic/atheist makes sense for him, but I really dislike the way it was handled in the story because it feels more like it was used as a plot inciting device than some sort of journey of Optimus trying to discover his purpose. Also, the way he interacts with other religious characters had a lot of wasted potential, so I just feel like it wasn't written in a very interesting way? Basically, the writing is such a mixed bag of interesting concepts with mediocre/bad execution that I can barely focus on the in-universe implications and mostly just get mad at Barber's writing.

My feelings are also complicated by the fact that I don't like Barber's writing at all (it's like 90% dislike and 10% like) because of how bad he is about prioritizing plot over character emotions and stuff. Earlier on in phase 2 it seemed as if Optimus was genuinely curious about his religious role as a Prime and asked the Camiens for guidance on who he should be as Prime (Windblade, Aileron, the Mistress of Flame). In Death of Optimus Prime, OP literally wished he was dead when he woke up. He made a very big deal about how he's Orion now, not Optimus. In Dark Cybertron he had a whole crisis about whether he's Orion or Optimus. Basically, he was set up to have a huge identity crisis (especially since the war is over and leadership of Cybertron fell to Starscream), but any amount of introspection was quickly derailed into PLOT PLOT PLOT OPTIMUS ANNEXES EARTH AND FIGHTS GALVATRON. The story just devolved into bullshit plot on Earth that was just action, action, plot, things happening, with pretty much no room for the characters to stop and breathe and talk and have relationships with each other. I barely felt any emotional investment for most of exRID.

I think the only scenes we got with Optimus actually getting to reflect on this new role of his was 1. when he first met Aileron and asked her and 2. when he's telling Aileron he doesn't believe and then Pyra Magna comes in and gets mad at him.

Speaking of Pyra Magna, the story writing also annoyed me because from the moment she was introduced, Pyra Magna was SUPER self-righteous about how she should be the Prime instead of Optimus and she said that she would try to make Optimus into a better Prime. But then guess what happens? Her and Optimus barely talk and Pyra Magna is basically just there to form Superion and punch people :/ And then later on when Onyx Prime is introduced, all the sudden Pyra Magna goes from having strong opinions about what a True Prime should be and believing she's destined to be the true Prime........ to talking about how she's never trusted Primes and she left the Mistress of Flame for trusting a Prime too quickly??? I know Pyra Magna isn't Optimus, but the reason I'm bringing her up is because she seemed truly religious and opinionated, she SAID she was going to "teach" Optimus things, she seemed like she was set up to be a rival to Optimus, but instead they barely have interactions and the ones they do have early in the series end up being retconned later by Barber's shitty writing that puts plot over consistent character development so. :/ I really expected Pyra Magna and Optimus to have some meaningful interactions, some mix between a rivalry and a mentor/student situation, but instead all she does is shit on him like half the case of exRID/OP and it just made me mad.

(There was also Slide who went from worshipping Optimus to saying that his leadership style is "literally fascism" and monologuing about how Optimus is a conqueror while fighting Unicron and Trypticon is being killed in the background. She's so fucking annoying and comically stupid that I genuinely thought she was going to betray them or do something evil just because she was so unhinged.)

But if you want my actual in-universe opinion on atheist pope Optimus, I do think it's an interesting concept. It shows off Optimus' sense of duty where even though HE doesn't believe, he thinks that what other people think of him his more important. He sees that being a religious figure can help him do what he thinks is right, so he willingly plays that role as a means to a greater end. He's already a "patriot and hero" to the Autobots thanks to his military feats; he's used to being venerated (sometimes to unhealthy degrees) and knows how powerful his influence can be whenever he makes political decisions. I think that he basically saw the Camiens' worship of him as just a new form of the admiration he was already used to receiving. He's spent his whole life commanding armies so simply adopted the colonists into his ranks as well.

(Also, side note, it's so fucking hypocritical for Pyra Magna to call Optimus a piece of shit for "using belief, but not believing" only for her herself to admit a few volumes later that she's never trusted Primes. Why do you wanna be one so badly then if you think Primes are so awful? If it's because you think you could do a better job than past Primes, that literally makes you the same as Optimus, who is also trying to redeem the title of Prime, so you have no right to be punching Optimus in the face lmao. But I also genuinely can't tell if that hypocrisy is supposed to be deliberate or if Barber just did what he usually did and ignored character emotion/motivation/self-reflection in favor of shoving some backstory in for Pyra Magna that tied her to Onyx Prime.)

At least Optimus tried to discourage the blind worship and used the Camiens to do things he had already spent his whole life doing (fighting genocidal colonizers aka Decepticons and protecting organic lives) so I don't really see it as out of line for Optimus. It shows how IDW OP can be a politician as well as a military leader. I think it shows how Optimus can be clever and take advantage of his reputation to achieve his political goals (protecting Earth) and it makes him a more realistic character. Sometimes things that are good aren't done through noble means. Sometimes people do good things by being not very nice.

Also, for what it's worth, I think IDW OP is less manipulative than someone like Starscream, who constantly flaunted his "Chosen One" status while admitting he didn't believe in it (or wavering in his belief) and doing things like creating secret police and trying to kidnap sparklings. Like damn at least Optimus risked his life in the same battles he asked his followers to fight in, he ruined his reputation for the sake of protecting Earth from the Decepticons. Even if the guy is an atheist pope at least he puts his own ass on the line for things he believes in for the sake of protecting people who pretty much hate him lmao. That's why I'm more inclined to view Optimus sympathetically; he's living a lie for political means, but his politics are literally "protect humans and Earth from the bullshit war and destruction Cybertronians forced onto their planet", and the burden of leadership is making him depressed and passively suicidal, and eventually he literally sacrificed himself by jumping into a black hole to save millions/billions of people so like. Let the guy fucking rest lmao.