GWC Podcast #169: Transformers Primer, Part II

Podcasts Galactic Watercooler
#41

Okay, now onto the sock discussion.

I am the smartest, wisest person on earth regarding socks.

I have ONLY two colors of socks.
I have white socks—for sports, or for summer when I’m wearing shorts or whatever. All my white socks are identical.

And I have black socks. (Black Docker socks). Black socks for when I’m wearing work clothes, whatever. All my black socks are identical.

Now, here’s the key. Unlike the foolish females in my house, I never, ever never, never ever have the “single sock problem”. In contrast, my wife and kids have about 50/50 chance that an given sock of theirs looses its pair. They have a entire laundry basket of accumulated single socks. Not me, baby, since my socks are all the same I don’t even have to pair em up. I just reach into the drawer and grab two black or two white and I’m good to go.

I am frakin’ brilliant.:smiley:

#42

Regarding Pink:

One day my family was getting ready to go food shopping and my daughters were engaged in conversation. I decided to ease drop. Here is a transcipt:

Rebecca (8): How come boys think that girls don’t like Star Wars?

Elaina (6): Yeah. What do they think we should like pink planets and pink lightsabers and pink spaceships? Bleh!

Rebecca (8): Yeah. Bleh!

I was so proud. tear

#43

In contrast, my girls are firmly convinced that Star Wars is for boys.
Once I nearly set my 6 year old to her room for a time out when she referred to a ‘lightsaber’ as a ‘lifesaver’.:eek:
Fortunately, I stopped myself first and realized that it was I that needed the time out. :o

#44

I don’t know, I may not be that good at evaluating the relative attractiveness of guys to other women and men, but I have a hard time seeing these two as equivalent:

#45

Ah yes… the old comparing of equals trick! However to be fair, ones best against the others worst isn’t a level playing field. Perhaps this is a bit more what Mr. pfunk had in mind. :wink:

These two seem to have more in common. :wink:

#46

Yes, both seem to be blessed with perfect cranial morphology. I always fear that when it comes time for mine to be exposed that it will reveal itself to be misshapen and lumpy…

#47

Yeah “Riply” has a different look than Sig Wev has in GalexyQuest. That’s hollywood. Riply is SW as she looks when she get’s up in the morning… thatgood pic a few posts back and Galexy Quest is when “hollywood” gets a hold of her and works alchemy.

I like Riply. I can’t see in my mind another type character ( i mean her personality) for Riply… I don’t however think that Riply couldn’t have been a hot chick and been just as good a movie. Jessica Lang was still hot back then… and was an actress of quality! I don’t think Riply being plain or “every woman” is what makes her character… I think it’s SW’s ability to act scared as hell in Alien was great. Her ability take charge was great in Aliens ( “get away from her you bitch” was lame thou!)

I am not bashing her, or calling her a troll. I like her as an actress. But she isn’t accepted as hot by anyone other than my grandad who’s been on a dry spell since 1982. She just happens to be the character that was brought up… so there. and… she’s many things of value… but she’s no Megan Fox ( even when she was 27 in Annie Hall).

This discussion reminds me of something I HATE about hollywood. For Alien3 and Reserection, Hollywood was under the assumption that what made Alien good was simply Sigurny Weaver. Like somehow SHE was soly the star that people turned out to see. It took filmmakers almost 14 years to convince Hollywood that Adventure, Horror and Aliens make those movies. SW was just something good to come out of them ( in the first 2 - I won’t pick her apart in the next two here at this time- I blame the writers for that. Watch the Alien 3 double disk for an expalnation of that one). They couldnt see how an Alien movie would work without her. Since they had killed her in 3… they couldn’t figure out how to do 4 without her… (Here’s an Idea… They keep the same story as the one with Wynonna Ryder and they ditch the Human Hybrid stuff that they used to bring Riply back and you have a pretty good Alien movie! ) Hollywood doesn’t get it. How about another ship with Aliens, how about other Colonial marines fighting them… it’s better than makeing the stinker … just to squeze in Weaver! Read a novel or comic you hollywood ass-hat’s

#48

okay, I’m not done with the Podcast, but I have to say that Prime hooking up to Elita-1 is hardly sexual. I guess you can make remote associations, but the physical connection is very much in the navel/stomach area, not the crotch area… not by a long shot.

This is the episode that first features Female Transformers, (see part one for the whole story)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fQt7dtpv30

About 7:30 in, you’ll see the scene. It’s not nearly as bad as Sean makes it out to be. And yes, you can find EVERY episode of transformers on Youtube… Seriously. All of them.

#2, No one had an Arcee toy. There was no G1 Arcee toy. The first Arcee toy to be available came along as a Black-Arachnia (Beast Wars character) repaint for BotCon (An annual Transformers convention). There have been several since then. Including one really awesome statue:

#49

Thanks for the heads-up, sircastor.

That’s what I love about these post-BSG casts. Everyone has their own particular niches of geekdom, and now everyone gets their moment in the sun.

#50

That could explain why my cry to have one as a kid went unanswered. :wink:

#51

Yeah. I totally wanted to have an Arcee toy. For a long time I didn’t really understand why they would have a character with no toy-counterpart in a show that was designed to sell Toys.

On my big-list-of-things-I-hope-to-do-sometime-before-I-leave-this-life, somewhere in the middle is to make my own dang G1 Arcee toy (there are actually a lot of toys on this list :slight_smile: ).

Random note about toys: Apparently Hasbro scouts would go over seas to Japanese Toy conventions and pickup anything that looked cool.

Gobots: I’ve never really been into GoBots. One thing I can say about Gobots, they got the combiner situation right. I loved Devastator, but the only way to put him together was to have a dozen parts that fit nowhere comfortably on the constructicons. One of the GoBot combiners (at least) was completely inclusive:

That’s pretty awesome.

After Devastator, Takara changed their approach to combiners. They went with the standardized parts concept that meant that, really, you could put any limb anywhere on the combined robot. Kind of cool. In fact, in Japan this was a major plot point for combiners. If a Decepticon “leg” connected with an Autobot Combiner (Gestalt), it could cause serious problems. This was highlighted in an episode called “Scramble City”, which only ever showed up in Japan, but it also available on the 20th Aniversary Edition of TFTM. It actually takes place between season 2 and The movie.

You can catch it on Youtube (Because of licensing, the audio was not included so some guy did a bunch of voices. The story is a bit mixed up, and there actually is no second part tragically).

More info here: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Scramble_City

I was absolutely shocked when I found this, because I thought I’d seen everything G1 had to offer…

#52

Oh come on nobody would buy Megan Fox as a badass like Ripley. An M41A1 is bigger than she is!

#53

To quote Jon Lovitz… “ACTING!”

Why do we beieve that Weaver is a bad ass? Answer: rom her “acting” like a badass. She isn’t physicaly impressive in any way. She is lanky! Her “badass” look comes from her acting, and her face physicaly looking harsh. It makes her look rough.

I will say this about Riply ( well Riply prime in 1,2, and 3) … she isn’t really a “rambo badass”. She just doesn’t see herself as haveing any othre choice. She is scared to death all thru those first three movies.

In Alien… she fights the replicant. He isn’t a combat model. It’s about like if my mom beat up my dad… we wouldn’t call her Rambo! She literaly lives to the end of the movie because of NOTHING that she has actually done. She makes it to the shuttle because the Alien isn’t after her ( he is sleeping in the shuttle). To beat him she does that “bad ass” move of…pushing a button to beat the Alien. Believeable, cool… but nothing that makes her extrodnary.

In Aliens, she is just knowledgable. THat’s her bad ass ness until the very end. She isn’t baddass at all untill the “mother” complex takes her over at the end of Aliens and she sneaks into a hive and shoots and kills , what for the most part are sleeping Aliens and an imobile Queen with her superior ranged weapons. Everything she does is out of either last ditch effort or absolute neccesity. She isnt Laura Croft. She is a middle of the road working woman that rizes above what she is and makes the game winning play. It’s more like Karate Kid than Tomb Raider. Watch the movie… she doesn’t do anything that takes a gymnist or a hero to do… it just took courage! I would think that most of our moms could have pulled that off if the Aliens had us.

in Alien three… she did nothing badass. She knew about the Aliens. That was it… she was knowledgable. I won’t even call that smart… just knowledgable.

A pretty woman could have done all that too.

Riply is 5 inches taller than Fox, but only about 10 pounds heavier ( in Alien and Aliens) …what makes her that much more more badass? Nothing. A woman at THAT low of weight with that Ht statisticaly ( and based on my expierience training my female soldiers) isn’t any stronger or tougher than a woman Fox’s size.In fact her Ht/wt ratio makes her inferior as a soldier.

If you are judegeing Riply’s mind vs Fox’s looks… that’s crazy, cause the writers could just write that she is as smart as Riply and she would be. If you are saying that her being pretty makes her unbievabale as smart… well that’s an issue that I am not touching. I’ll let you and the ladies of the GWC hash that one out and see how well that goes for ya’ll… better you than me on that one. :wink:

Plus U have to give Fox this… youth equals better shape, as well as (IMO) being a southern girl, tomboy, swim team member from Tennesee means sh can probably break bad a litte harder than a Prep school gal, daughter of TV executiives from Manhattan. My mony would be on Fox. She brings that “you ain’t my man’s baby mama” to the fight that a privlidged New Yorker can’t hang with!

#54

you know…the more i think about it…the more it would have been cool and gutsy to do a role reversal here. But that is what happen when your movie gets too calculated and marketed…it becomes too safe

What did Pike say?..leaping before looking?..when you do the contrary…play it safe…you get a perfectly fun…but somewhat forgettable movie

here is Harry Knowles take…wich quite well encapsulate many of my misgivings

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/33226

#55

What Harry said.

#56

…despite being significantly older than her. :smiley:

Have to agree here. As I was listening to the explanation, I was shocked that it had never occurred to me before. I mean, maybe if the slipper was magic and would ONLY fit one foot, I could see that. But, of course, the prince wouldn’t know that, now would he?

No, the reason that Megan Fox exists is to make those so inclined very happy to see her, and those not so inclined to begin to question why they are not so inclined. :stuck_out_tongue:

#57

Not to mention that Devastator was particularly delicate once assembled. As the joints loosened up from transforming back and forth, it became difficult to angle his legs correctly so he could stand up unassisted. And, at least on mine, one of the arms was especially prone to falling off.

That’s no way to inspire fear and crush Autobots and their puny fleshling pets. :frowning:

One of the GoBot combiners (at least) was completely inclusive:

That’s pretty awesome.

OMGs, I’d forgotten that I used to (still do, probably, somewhere) have this GoBot combiner. I never had the Stunticons, so this was my substitute. IIRC, I even scrounged up some extra Decepticon logo stickers for them. :slight_smile:

#58

That’s awesome! I used to have this as a kid back in France!!! Thanks for briging back these memories, I had totally forgotten about this :slight_smile:

It seems Optimus Prime also has a new job:

//youtu.be/Zl-KT4BPcCg

#59

I definitely agree on Devastator not being the best toy ever. To give Hasbro credit, though, he was the first combiner and the later ones were much better. I also had Superion and he was a far more useable toy once combined. Instead of needing extra parts for the combination the posts and sockets were cleverly built into the individual Transformers.

On the Gobots bit of the 'cast.

Initially, Gobots were released in America by Tonka, using molds licensed from Bandai. Later on, Hasbro bought Tonka but Bandai still owns the molds and original characters so it’s unlikey that the original Gobots will make a return in America since Bandai and Hasbro are direct competitors. However, Hasbro did reuse the Gobot name in a release of simplified Transformers for younger childern called Transformers: Gobots. I don’t think any of the original Gobot names were reused in this short-lived line.

#60

A few months back, my friend drops me a line, says, “I’m out of work for the day. The power went out due to a bad transformer.”

I say, “What, like Megatron attacked the place?”

He said, “You’re the second person who’s said that.”