Back When the Truck Guy Died

One of my earliest Transformers memories is of the death of Optimus Prime from the original silly cartoon movie. (That recollection fuzzes things quite a bit; I had a vague sense that the Matrix was passed among half the Autobot ranks before Ultra Magnus actually got the thing, which from one of the clips I've embedded you can see is not the case even if you know nothing about Transformers. Momentary aside: That probably would have kept people from believing the bit of fanon that the Matrix works for Hot Rod and not for Ultra Magnus because it "imprinted" on Hot Rod. What a silly idea... and yet I've seen it from at least two people who probably had nothing to do with each other. One of them was my older brother, incidentally.)

The memory didn't have a lot of weight for me because it was so fuzzy; in fact, my first big Transformers "thing" was "The Return of Optimus Prime," which is of course sort of the happy fixfic epilogue to the movie's story.

But the scenes between Optimus and Megatron in the movie...



(Bonus screenshot: The most awesome frame of animation from the above sequence!

Bask in it.)

...and his subsequent death scene traumatized the hell out of a generation of kids, and probably cemented Transformers as a major franchise in the minds of a lot of people.



(Bonus screenshot: Dead Optimus Prime!

Stupid anecdote time: I once watched a stupid YouTube video where Optimus Prime sings a lengthy piece of opera before suddenly dying; the "turns his head as he dies" bit appeared in the sequence with a screeching clank sound. I think of that video every time I watch this scene.)

The brutality of the death scene in what had previously been a relatively light-hearted franchise (which was apparently inspired by Hasbro realizing "hey, our products are characters! We could kill them to explain why we're not selling them anymore!" in response to a GIJoe writer wanting to kill off Duke in the GIJoe movie-funny story, the death of Optimus Prime saved Duke's life because Hasbro got scared that killing Duke would trigger another outcry) was unintentional, but one could certainly imagine that they were trying to traumatize children without that context.

That's the only actual explanation I can come up with for the Death of Convoy advertisement.



(Bonus screenshot: Other dead Optimus Prime!

While the advertisement was made for the Japanese market, where brutal character death was much more common in animation, even animation ostensibly aimed at children, this scene is amazingly harsh. Seeing the mangled remains of a beloved character carted off by helicopters like so much meat wreckage, while a crowd chants his name in a way that's meant to sound positive but really comes off as creepy as hell, with a narrator grimly saying "Convoy is dead" [a loose translation of something the commercial's narrator does say; I can follow just enough Japanese to know he said "Convoy" and a word that has to do with death], and having this be the closest thing to an explanation that the audience gets for three or four years** all add up to make this way more horrifying than the movie.)

*The child actor who screams "Convoy!" during that commercial apparently showed up in the YouTube comments for the video, commenting that the ad's director "had me say 'Comvoy' instead. Never knew why." He also was enough of a fan of Transformers that he couldn't sit on his nondisclosure agreement and told a friend about Prime's death way too soon. His friend didn't believe him.

**Japan didn't get the movie until at least 1989, several years after Optimus dropped from Transformers fiction with only this*** as an explanation. (He did kind of show up again, but Japan casually killed him back off when the next season started.) They just kind of dove into the third season of the cartoon with no explanation at all. You think "Five Faces of Darkness" was confusing for the American audience...

***This and a momentary scene from the Headmasters cartoon, which wasn't a good explanation either. Shoulda doublechecked on the wiki sooner...

-Signing off.

Filmation Presents: Bravestarr the Legend (#4)

Enjoy this much-delayed post after the jump. (If you want to refresh your memories, the previous posts are here, here, and here.)

BEST MECHA EVER

And when I say "best" I mean "incredibly silly."


Of course, when I say "incredibly silly," I mean it in the most affectionate and endearing way possible. (They didn't have to make less humanoid mecha for a live action series, they just wanted to. So I rather have to forgive them their foibles.)


It's little wonder that anime gets so weird-look at the kind of stuff today's anime creators grew up with.


I mean, really.

-Signing off.

This Was New A While Ago

If you wander the same regions of the Internet I do, you've probably seen the Space Stallions "trailer."



It's popularly called the '80-est cartoon that does not in fact exist. (It has also been called one of the gayest things ever, and that's not meant in the pejorative sense.)

Pretty much.

The most obvious comparison would be to the Silverhawks intro, which has a lot of imagery in common.



There's also parallels to the Thundercats opening (I'd have embedded that, but apparently that's not allowed anywhere on YouTube-and I checked at least four videos).

Then, of course, there's the fact that the leader plays a keyswordtar (keyboard/sword/guitar, or rather, a sword turned into a keytar) while standing on the head of a spaceship shaped like a horse, which is the main thing that gets a lot of people chortling and pointing to the single craziest thing in it.

-Signing off.

Filmation Presents: Bravestarr The Legend (#3)

This time around, Stampede demonstrates just how deeply violating a cartoon intended for children can really be. Prepare for a surprisingly disturbing experience after the jump.

Filmation Presents: Bravestarr The Legend (#2)

Today, we're going to meet the villains. (Refresh your memory here.)

Filmation Presents: Bravestarr The Legend (#1)

In my time on the Internet, I've seen numerous insults hurled at old cartoons. One of the most frequent things I've read is that Filmation was bad at animation.

Folks, if you think that, you're either ill-informed or full of bull.

Filmation produced a lot of material. When we look at the impressive runs of material they made-hundreds of episodes of He-Man and She-Ra, for instance, enough that the two shows could be shown five days a week for thirteen weeks per season without a single repeat-it becomes clear just how much they could produce... With their single-building studio.

Filmation was a tiny company. That one building (though granted, I don't know what kind of building) housed everything. Filmation had little enough going for it that it had to fall back on something other than money-it had talent.

According to DVD commentary provided by former Filmation staffers, former Filmation animators would later go on to become important members of the '90s-era animation departments at Disney. Whether or not you care for the movies of that era, their animation was beautiful.

And now we come to what this post is about: Bravestarr: The Legend was one of Filmation's later productions, in fact among its very last.

The accompanying Bravestarr series was merely a somewhat above average Filmation show for much of its run, although it had a few fantastic episodes. Bravestarr: The Legend, however, is what I consider Filmation's crown jewel.

Functionally, it's an origin story for the character. Ultimately, you can tell that for its creators, at least, it was a bit more than that. Lou Scheimer, Filmation's producer, came up with the idea, and many of the former Filmation staffers who were called in for commentary for the DVD release called Bravestarr "the best thing [Filmation] ever did." It was probably a particularly personal work for Bob Forward, who seemed to be deeply involved in the character's creation, was one of the movie's writers, and was the physical model upon whom the character was based. (Note, though, that while Forward is ethnically white, Bravestarr is obviously of Native American descent.)

Anyway, without further ado, here I begin an extended analysis and review of Bravestarr: The Legend (after the jump).

Suddenly, Something Insane

The cartoon Blackstar is an odd little predecessor of sorts to the original Filmation He-Man cartoon. By and large, it isn't nearly as iconic, and its animation is strictly inferior (while He-Man is relatively low-budget, it was always very nicely drawn; Blackstar is not as well illustrated).

However, the second episode, "Search for the Star Sword," has this gem of a sequence.

The Overlord, the main villain, is threatening the Trobbits, the obligatory kid appeal characters (who are actually genuinely bothersome, because there's seven of them and I can't remember most of their names or keep track of their personalities).

The Overlord (this is pretty much the nicest image of him from the series) has declared that "nothing can save you now."

Since he's trapped Blackstar, one of the only characters who can fight him effectively, on the other side of a huge rockfall, it would seem that he'll be able to use his sword lasers to blast them.

Then...

Mara, the obligatory friendly sorceress, shows up riding a flying shark, who is actually the shapeshifting member of the cast, Klone.

Needless to say, the Trobbits are saved, and somebody should have won an Internet for this.

-Signing off.

"Place Him in the Deadly Beast Craft and Let Him Fly!"

Watching another episode of the original Voltron, I came across the above gem of a line, and it only accentuated the hilarity of what the Deadly Beast Craft actually looked like:

It's a flipping coffin-shaped spaceship. There is nothing about that which does not make my day.

Incidentally, watching Voltron makes it clear just how far anime dubs have come. These days, they actually have enough information to know what the characters are saying-back then, apparently nobody bothered sending World Event Productions anything like that, and so they just made stuff up. They also clearly have chopped in bits from later episodes at random, which makes me wonder what the heck they're talking about sometimes. (There was apparently even one episode which I believe was from the lesser-known "Vehicle" Voltron where they had it turn out that two virtually identical characters were brothers, and the one from this Voltron had sent a letter to the other.)

And, oh yes, the writers don't bother trying to preserve the fourth wall at all, at least in the episodes I've watched-while they hardly have the characters address the audience, when a character renames the protagonists from "the space explorers" to "the Voltron Force," all of a sudden all the other characters, including the villains with which they have no communications, start calling them that too.

-Signing off.

Voltron Has a Disturbing Image/Violence Warning

And do you know why? (You can find it here, if you're curious. It's the official posting, just so you know.)

It's not because one of the rather odd inhabitants of Planet Doom (who were originally intended in Golion to simply be evil people, but were presented as robots in Voltron) are wearing hilarious clothing.

No, that would be the pit of bones and blood that some vultures dump the protagonists into.

And, oh yes, I'm pretty sure it was being implied that the robeasts ate people. Not that the people dubbing it would admit to that.

(Incidentally, while I'm a fan of Voltron, I never actually managed to watch the actual Golion dub. Thank you, YouTube.)

-Signing off.

Now That's Talent

I recently was looking at videos on YouTube, and came across this clip of Krang talking.



It credited Pat Fraley as Krang's voice actor.

I thought "that doesn't sound right, he did Bravestarr from, well, Bravestarr, didn't he?"



Well, I checked Wikipedia, and he did do both voices. (I do recall that in the special features from the Best of Bravestarr disk that Fraley remarked he usually did villains.)

So yeah, that's pretty amusing.

-Signing off.

That Other Rom Again

I don't know more than a smattering of information about Machine Robo, the Japanese counterpart to the '80s Challenge of the Gobots (sort of), but I do know that for some reason, most clips I find of it crack me up.



Yes, this is an anime martial arts fight between giant robots. With terrible perspective and proportions.

-Signing off.

Japanese Toy Commercials

The first of these commercials is for what we would call Rock Lords, an '80s Gobot tie-in toyline which was a subline of Machine Robo in Japan (hence dudes shouting "MASHEEN ROBO!" at the beginning).



I have to admit, I have always loved the "dishonest" Japanese toy commercials.

Here's another one, whose only special effects seem to be explosions.



I seem to very dimly remember seeing commercials for something like these way back in my childhood. (There were a lot of vaguely similar toys, admittedly.) This commercial, though, makes the toys look a lot better than most US commercials.

My point? Japanese toy commercials are frikkin' awesome.

...What, you were expecting more of a point than that? Sorry.

-Signing off.

Great Moments in DVD Cases (#4)

I've mentioned a He-Man DVD case with respects to its oddity before, but that was for the new series. Here, I'm talking about the original complete DVD collection of the whole '80s series.

(There's an odd case involving these DVDs that I'm not talking about, but it deserves brief mention: Here's a link.)

The old He-Man series came in a massive four-volume set, each of which held six DVDs with seven or eight episodes apiece (with the sixth disk reserved for special features). Such a huge series presented significant logistical problems which would require a fair amount of effort. The solution used was to make an enormous folding case. (A similar solution was used for the Beast Wars Transformers box sets released by Kid Rhino. Anything negative I say about this applies there twofold, because at least these guys had the courtesy to cram the whole mess into a convenient box, while the other was held shut by inertia.)

In and of itself, this actually works reasonably well, but there's a problem. If you handle them with anything less than the utmost care... the disks pop out on the inside, potentially moving around and getting scratched without you even noticing. Even with the Orko Approved stickers (see above), we still had to replace two of our boxed sets.

So there you go: Another great moment in DVD packaging.

-Signing off.

An Appreciation Of A Doctor

Three days before I was born in 1983, my dad had a rather nasty accident at his job.

As a repair foreman in a factory, he was inspecting a portion of a boiler that wasn't working correctly. As he reached out to turn a valve, the pipe it was on exploded without warning, embedding shrapnel in his arm.

Had he attempted to inspect the gauge on the pipe visually, he very probably would have died. As it was, he had a deep, severe wound in his left arm that had severed arteries. (He had the presence of mind to press the wound, and to continue doing so even though others wanted him to take his hand off to look at it.) An injury like that could have cost him his hand.

But it didn't. He was rushed to the nearest big hospital, in Toledo, Ohio, where his arm was operated on by a Dr. John Howard. He still suffers from stiffness and a lack of motor control in his left hand, but otherwise he retains full use of his arm. (He also used to charge my siblings and I a nickel to see his scar.) If his hand had been lost, it is very possible that he could have lost his job and had a hard time finding a new one, which would have dramatically affected literally my entire life.

Dr. Howard died in mid-March, a world-famous surgeon known for greatly improving surgical techniques used on battlefields and in emergency rooms, and in numerous diseases of the pancreas. It is very likely that he touched the life of someone you know, though presumably far less directly than in my case. (On another note, it has also been rumored for many years that he inspired aspects of the character Trapper John from M*A*S*H. On a semi-related note, Dr. Howard doesn't seem to have a Wikipedia entry.)

I doubt I could muster the eloquence that he deserves, so I will simply say: While I never met Dr. Howard*, he will be missed.

*Technically, I did, and he was probably one of the first people who was neither family or maternity ward staff to come into physical contact with me, but as I was less than a month old, my memories of it are... less than perfect, shall we say.

-Signing off.

Totally Forgotten Cartoon Profile: Sectaurs

There's a pretty good chance that you've never heard of Sectaurs.

Sectaurs was a toyline that spawned tie-in comics and a cartoon back in the '80s. (There was a lot of that.) I'd never have heard of it, but the local dentist's office for some reason had two copies of the exact same pack-in minicomic in its goodie box, and I grabbed both of them over the years.

So I know, well, more than nothing at all about it.

Here's the intro to the cartoon.



Notice that the scientist performing experiments in the first bit was a rather attractive woman wearing, of all things, a tie? On a distant planet in the far reaches of the universe?

And the main villain grabs his second-in-command and tosses him at his enemies so he can make a getaway.

And now you know almost as much as I know about Sectaurs.

-Signing off.

A Very He-Man Christmas Special

Y'know, I'm not actually real big on the "holiday spirit." I haven't listened to Christmas music outside of pesky commercials in years, my family doesn't have big celebrations anymore, and I hate "A Wonderful Life" to death. (So does my mother.)

But recently, I've been re-watching the complete DVD collection of Filmation's He-Man (I finished last night), and I suddenly thought that it might be entertaining to see if I could find some of the He-Man/She-Ra Christmas special from back in the day.

Guess what? Apparently, a whole bunch of companies put their Christmas specials up on Hulu for the month. I watched this one yesterday; hopefully, I'll remember to catch the Jackie Chan Adventures one.

I had a lot of fun, partly because I'm willing to forgive and ignore a lot of cheesy cartoon foibles, but it's also a rather fascinating piece as part of the wider franchise that it was connected to. It also had some parts that I genuinely found to be good entertainment (as well as some awful bits).

First up-the writing credits go to Bob Forward and Don Heckman. Bob Forward co-wrote several of the best episodes in the series, most notably "The Problem With Power" (an episode so popular that it essentially was retconned into being the He-Man series finale). According to Forward in some DVD commentary, he got his start as a writer because he was doing storyboards for a Fat Albert episode and made some changes to the story without authorization for it, then got in trouble when the writer found out after the episode was finished... and then the episode won an award.

Don Heckman, on the other hand, wrote at least one episode that was so bad that my sister and I don't watch it when we go through the series.

So if it seems kind of schizophrenic, that might be why.

The story starts fairly mundanely for an episode of He-Man-Orko gets into trouble, and they need to rescue him. What's unusual is that the cast of She-Ra is hanging around the Eternian royal palace alongside the He-Man cast, because Adam and Adora are about to celebrate their birthday.

It watches like a huge crossover comic event, except that they're sitting around decorating for a party.

But I think I'll skip over that bit.

Adora turns into She-Ra and goes back to Etheria because in order to rescue Orko, they need a magic crystal that can teleport things, and for some reason, it's underwater in an area with big monsters. She sends her mermaid friend to retrieve the crystal while she distracts-by which I mean "beats the tar out of"-the monster.

One of the things I've always loved about Filmation is that as often as not, they have pretty sharp monster designs; this one isn't one of their best, but it's still pretty nice. I'm pretty sure it's essentially one of their dragons with a different head and other dragon features removed, but it's still pretty nice.

The part where the story starts using elements that are interesting is shortly after She-Ra obtains the magic crystal thing. Suddenly, the ground bursts open...

...and these sensor tentacles pop out, followed shortly...

...by this guy.

This giant robot is leader of the "Monstroids," a group of robots who show up without any warning, buildup, or explanation, and start roaming around generally causing all kinds of trouble. (There's a toy they were named after, but there's essentially no resemblance.)

What's really hilarious is that, once they've trapped She-Ra and her flying, talking unicorn in a magic bubble, they boast a bit...

...then they transform and drive off, to aforementioned unicorn saying "They're transforming? What evil robots!"

This would have been contemporary, of course, with the Transformers cartoon of the '80s, which was one of the He-Man and She-Ra series' main competitors for the "primary boys' toy/entertainment" position. That this line may well have been penned by Bob Forward (I'm inclined to think it was), who later worked on Beast Wars, the strongest of the Transformers cartoons, is a very special kind of irony.

Momentarily, She-Ra demonstrates one of the biggest issues with her cartoon: Her sword.

It was once stated by somebody, though I can't recall who, that She-Ra's sword was basically the biggest Deus Ex Machina in the entire series. He-Man's sword occasionally saw such uses, especially in lazily written episodes, but She-Ra's explicitly had Deus Ex Machina powers. All she had to do was shout "Sword to (fill in the blank)" and her sword could turn into the second thing, in this case fire. Yes, she turned her sword into fire.

Once she gets back, she gives the crystal to Man-At-Arms, who uses it to teleport Orko and the spaceship that he got into trouble with back from where they ended up... Earth.

And naturally, because this is a Christmas special, a couple of Earth children come with Orko.

That's right: Orko essentially just kidnapped some kids. The only place I remember Orko doing something potentially worse was when he glued Cringer to the floor so that he could experiment on him (thanks, D.C. and Richard Fontana).

Anyway, the only concern the children have, since Eternians are nice folk and plan on returning them once the magic crystal recharges (why not send them home with Castle Grayskull? There's a suspicious absence here) is that they're going to miss Christmas, so King Randor and Queen Marlena plan to expand the upcoming birthday celebration to include Christmas.

Unfortunately, Horde Prime, the most powerful villain in the He-Man/She-Ra series universe, hates Christmas spirit, so he decides to send the other villains, namely Skeletor and Hordak, to capture the children so that it can be disposed of.

While Skeletor's apparent allegiance to Horde Prime is extremely dubious because he's always fighting the Horde, Hordak especially, I can't help but find his eagerness amusing.

We soon see just what kind of thing Christmas spirit on Eternia spawns:

Music and dancing. (The She-Ra cast member Bow actually composed a song. I couldn't listen to it and had to turn the sound off.)

No wonder Horde Prime wants to get rid of it.

Hordak shows up in a helicopter (never mind that he has trouble reaching Eternia) and kidnaps the children, who are consecutively kidnapped from him by...

...the Monstroids.

Why are they doing this? Because they expect Horde Prime to show up to get the children himself, and they apparently are planning to have a supervillain rumble with him. On Christmas.

Yes, the Monstroids are just that awesome.

He-Man, She-Ra, and some weird little robot people show up to fight the Monstroids, and utterly maul them. In the process, She-Ra once again demonstrates her sword's powers, this time by turning it into some rope. While she does this a few times in the series, it was the first time I saw her do it with this much style.

I admit, I find this a rather cool image, even though it's totally silly.

Then, Skeletor shows up on a souped up Sky Sled.

Normally, there's only space for one person on there, but his is kind of a "stretch" Sky Sled, you might say.

While it would appear at a glance that the only function of this modified Sky Sled is to give the kiddies a place to sit, there's one other thing it can do:

Pop a cannon out its thrust vent.

Unfortunately for Skeletor, he was being followed by Hordak in a much bigger aircraft, and his sneaky cannon didn't do much good. He and the kids (and a robot dog) crash land in some mountains, where the kids promptly collapse.

He shouts at them to get up for a while, until he finally acquiesces to their complaints and gives them parkas with his magic powers. His attitude seems particularly odd-why is he treating his captives so horribly?-until one realizes: He's walking around in a hood and underwear! He doesn't even realize they're cold!

Eternians are a tough bunch.

Anyway, the little girl wants to get the creepy robot dog, but Skeletor browbeats her into leaving it behind. However...

...the dog gives him a soulful and incredibly creepy look, and the kids keep crying that he'll freeze, so Skeletor goes back and picks him up.

As you can see, Skeletor isn't too pleased with this development.

They then have a hilarious conversation about Christmas, which leads to Skeletor wondering if there are lots of fights on Christmas and whether the presents explode. Dude sounds like he'd be a blast at parties, doesn't he?

They later are attacked by a King Kong sized, ice breath blasting saber toothed polar bear (a similar creature appeared in the series, but much smaller), but Skeletor defends the children from it.

They tell him he's very kind, which ticks him off horribly.

Then Hordak and his army show up and take down Skeletor, and He-Man and She-Ra show up and start fighting Hordak's army.

Then Horde Prime shows up in his space ship and attacks with this... implement.

Sorry about the imagery.

I could have sworn I had a picture of the dog licking Skeletor's face to wake him up, but I guess you'll just have to imagine that bit. (I probably already met my quota of horribly embarrassing pictures of Skeletor with the last one in here.) Skeletor gets up, shouts "I must SAVE the CHILDREN!" and blasts the living daylights out of Horde Prime's ship (I mean, it was really pretty impressive), causing it to crash.

Horde Prime isn't pleased...

...but He-Man and She-Ra run over and throw it back into deep space, which elicits a rather angry tirade from Horde Prime.

I quote, "BLAST! BLAST! BLAST! BLAAAAAAST!" Considering this is a cartoon and that "Blast!" was one of Skeletor's stock angry words, that's kind of like dropping a cluster F-bomb.

Anyway, then everybody is happy that things are better. Except Skeletor.

This image is basically my favorite He-Man/She-Ra related image in the history of ever, by the way.

So why is Skeletor upset? Because the spirit of Christmas has turned him good. Yes, really. For Skeletor, that basically means his life is over, and he stands there with his face in his hands, bemoaning the end of his career of villainy.

The heroes give him hope, however, when they explain the simple facts to him: Christmas only comes once a year. He immediately responds with "Oh, THANK GOODNESS."

The kids are later sent home, where they shock their parents by turning on the flight belts that "Santa" (Prince Adam) gave them. I think "Santa" should have asked his mother (who was originally an astronaut from Earth, in case you didn't know) for slightly more appropriate gifts.

I can't say that this is a shining star from Filmation or anything, but I certainly enjoyed it.

-Signing off.

Greatly Belated Book Review: Wizard World

You ever look at a book and think its title is too generic?

Roger Zelazny's Wizard World, originally published as two novels, Changeling (even more generic!) and Madwand (not actually generic at all) is a book like that.

Further, "Wizard World" isn't actually that appropriate for the work as a whole. Sure, there's magic and junk. And there are plenty of wizards. But that name just doesn't fit.

Changeling is all about two changelings, one from a world like ours and the other from the world that most of the book's action takes place in (the alleged "wizard" world). Madwand is about the one of them originally from the magical world, as he is a "madwand," a wizard who learned magic without training or tutelage, and is thus (since magic is something of an innate talent to him) more skilled and powerful on average than the typical magic user.

But each book is also about something else-wars between primeval forces. (Spoilers ahead; it's rather inevitable.)

In Changeling, the war is between the forces of technology and the forces of magic. In times gone by, there had been one such war in a time now all but forgotten, and it would seem that this war separated the technology and the magic from each other into two worlds (one of which is clearly Earth or a close counterpart of it). Various forces, including the switch of a magically powerful child from the magic world with a technologically inclined child from the technological realm, resulted in technology reasserting itself in the magic world with that child, eventually an adult, as the focal point. (This probably would explain the character's seemingly magical ability to invent devices far beyond the capabilities of the rest of the area, even before he found the ancient storehouse of technology near where he lived.)

In Madwand, the war is between an older, more magical world and the first magic world. What kind of older, more magical world is it?

Here's a hint: You might meet this guy walking down the street there.

As it happens (and this is a bit of world-building I really appreciate), if the greater magic of the older world were to spill over into the younger one, the magic there would get much, much stronger. On the other hand, it would be proportionately harder to control. In effect? Only madwands, who are rather rare, would be able to use magic in the new world that resulted.

I'd recommend, if you read this book, that you read the two parts in rapid succession. Changeling is rather depressing; Madwand has a satisfying ending. And with that said, I'd also recommend the book itself heartily if you like fantasy that isn't quite in the traditional mold.

-Signing off.

Rambling Thoughts on Bionicle

I recently learned that Lego will be discontinuing its Bionicle "theme" this year, replacing it with a rather more generic theme called Hero Factory. (Actually, the Hero Factory backstory gives me mild jeebies; it's essentially about a group who builds robotic policemen and teleports them across the entire universe. What.)

This is a shame, because Bionicle's story rocks.



Ahem.

Now, according to what I've read, Greg Farshtey, who is pretty much the main name in Bionicle, will continue cranking out the storyline for an unspecified length of time. So for the time being, anyway, Bionicle is still alive.

Now, why do I like Bionicle?

Well, there's the fact that Bionicle is nearly the only boy's action toyline which dared defy the traditional English-language pun-based naming conventions or "Actionable Man McAction" names (which Hero Factory is using for its robotic [!] characters). Where else will you see names like "Tahu," "Makuta," or "Krekka?" Not in a toyline.

There's the fact that Bionicle has managed, over its mere decade of its own history, to build a mythos and world of impressive and intricate proportions, and it is one of the oddest and most idiosyncratic such I've ever seen. Take the planets that the saga occurs on, which follow the "plane" theory of planets (i.e. the idea of flat planets, yet modified to be spherical-keep in mind that Bionicle physics are magic) in that, when their progenitor was smashed to bits, split into three separate pieces made up of its regions. Or the fact that much of the series actually takes place in what was essentially a pocket universe inside a giant robot.

(Yeah, Bionicle's like that. You get used to it, you go nuts trying, or you give up.)

Then there's the fact that it's essentially about living robots going about their business. Sound familiar?

Really, the parallels between the two series are occasionally uncanny. Mata Nui is very similar to Primus, for instance. Both are presented initially as essentially the central figures in the religions of the beings they are connected to, though for obvious reasons this tended to be toned down in later presentations as they became more regularly used as characters. Mata Nui was apparently "crewed," being a giant robot (despite being a thinking being), and there were discarded plans for one Transformers story where the earliest Transformers were built to crew Primus in a "battle mode." One could also draw parallels between Teridax (formerly known as Makuta, before it was revealed that technically "Makuta" referred to a "species") and the Fallen.

These parallels are something that I find peculiar and entertaining. It's hard to say whether or not it's intentional; I sometimes wonder whether the Fallen's appearance in the second live action Transformers was deliberately intended to look like a Rakshi or similar member of the Bionicle toyline (as seen in the above video) as a subtle jab at the bizarre and irrational complaints by many Transformers fans that movie Megs looked like "a Bionicle." (Maybe a "Bionicle" made of a few hundred thousand pieces... which could be roughly life-sized, actually, and that sounds weirdly cool. Darnit.)

On a final note, there's even one more parallel between Bionicle and Transformers.

In Japan, as Transformers wound down when the '90s rolled around, Takara realized that they needed a new brand for the last few toys they'd designed when they decided to cancel the line. While Transformers returned within just a couple of years, their replacement line, the Yuusha (Brave) Robots series, lasted for the better part of a decade, and were about a somewhat more generic group of heroic space police robots that were otherwise quite similar to Transformers, the genericness coming from the original factions and mythos being purged.

Bionicle is being replaced by a line about a somewhat more generic group of heroic space police robots that are otherwise quite similar to Bionicle characters, the genericness coming from the original factions and mythos being purged.

Hmm... Gotta be coincidence. It's just gotta.

If it's not, I'm looking forward to Bionicle: Generation Tui in 2013.

-Signing off.

Transformers Introductions

Not an introduction to Transformers as a whole, but a whole mess of the series and movie intros, gathered in one place for your viewing pleasure. (It was my sister's suggestion, and it didn't sound like too much work... Though the page will probably eat your bandwidth like popcorn. IT IS ALL HER FAULT.)

I suppose I'll throw in a little commentary.

The 1984 intro is the one a lot of people think of. Too bad it's kinda boring. (My sister remarked that it does feel rather like it was thrown together at the last minute, herself.)



I mean, sure, it's got a decent bit or two, but I like the season two intro much better. Better animation, plus the Dinobots, Omega Supreme, etc. Sure, it's a bit ADD, but you have to love some of the little touches they put on it. (My personal favorite is Bonecrusher [or is it Scrapper?] rescuing Blitzwing after Omega Supreme steps on him. Don't blink or you'll miss it.)



TF:TM obviously wasn't a series, but the opening sequence deserves mention-Unicron comes blazing into Transformers, and never leaves it alone again.



Of course, this was probably also partly responsible for G1's spiraling decline. It hasn't seemed to hurt Transformers' overall mutant longevity, though, especially seeing as how Unicron is now an integral part of the overall mythos.

Whether or not season three damaged G1, it definitely represented a drop in overall quality. (In case you don't know, from left to right, that's Rodimus Prime, Springer colored like Kup, and Ultra Magnus with a blue face.)



Then came The Rebirth. They kept bits of the previous one, but one notable thing they did was replace a lot of footage with things from the commercials. When you recycle footage made for commercials, you know you're scraping the bottom of the animation barrel.



When they decided to reheat G1 as "G2" (and let's be honest, it was a reheating at best) they threw in some cheap CG animation and a booming narrator in hopes of distracting the viewers, or maybe just retaining the attention of ADD kids. (In effect, it serves the same purpose as spices did in the ancient world-distracting diners from the taste of rancid meats.)



Then came Beast Wars. It's interesting to note that Beast Wars marked the first time that no original footage was used for a series introduction-instead, they recycled everything from the series itself.



It's also the only time an original song made for the intro that didn't have the word "Transformers" in it.



I won't really go into the variations beyond noting that they reflected the differences in the seasons.



Then came Beast Machines, which kinda ruined the "Beast Era" by ending it. It's also been called "too dark for kids" by a guy who frequently wrote decapitations into stories. The intro used a preexisting song, "Phat Planet," which also featured in a commercial for Guinness. That's right.



It was followed by "Robots in Disguise," which marked the first time a series was imported from Japan, and also the end of any efforts to maintain long-term continuity between all series. (Technically, that was supposed to happen during Beast Machines, but it really didn't.) Except in Japan, where they insist it's in the same continuity as G1. Don't think about it, you'll only get a few dozen headaches. (Also, the series belongs to Disney, so Hasbro likes to pretend it doesn't even exist.)

The intro is squeaky.



The next Transformers series looked like it was another pure import, and many took it to be such when they watched, but it actually wasn't. It's complex. Armada was kind of a mess as a series, and has been described as "Transformers Pokemon," but its reputation was probably undeserved. I wouldn't know-it's just about the only English-language Transformers series I've never seen an episode of.



Then came Energon, whose position as one of the most-referred-to Transformers series in my list of Transformers quotes is not a good thing. As for the introduction, I actually like the song pretty well, though the footage is... kinda dizzying.



Cybertron had issues, too. Takara wanted it to be an all-new series with no continuity with its predecessors, while Hasbro wanted it to be part of what is now known as the Unicron Trilogy. It was the only Transformers series where Primus, the Transformers' creator, used a giant starship as a cannon.

Its intro, sadly, was more or less rap.



Then came the other movie. Since I did one for the first, I might as well stick in one for the second. Whatever you think of the live action franchise, I like the atmosphere they set up here.



Then, there's Transformers Animated. This was the first time in a long time a US-produced cartoon series came out. Like the movie, it proved controversial for fans, mostly due to its rather... loose character designs. It was the first time a series was released in the US since G2 that had original footage used in its opening (it's also the last by virtue of being the last release of a series in the US at the moment).

There was a long-running rumor that the theme for Animated was performed by Weird Al, but this apparently wasn't true. Ah, well.

He did voice Wreck-Gar, though, so that makes up for it.



Don't ask about Revenge of the Fallen-haven't actually seen it yet myself.

-Signing off.