When I was a kid, my absolute favorite cartoon was Transformers, a show about an alien race of sentient robots who had crash-landed on Earth millions of years ago, and whose systems conveniently came back online just in time to have their recon and scanning drones find a world riddled with machines for them to disguise themselves as. First introduced to the world through the G.I. Joe comic books, these Robots in Disguise were the basis for one of the coolest toy lines I would get my grubby little hands on from 1985 to around 1990, when I turned 8 and found myself more interested in gathering up books that were purportedly too far out of my peers' reading level to be comfortable for most of my friends.
Don't get me wrong, I still snagged Transformers toys until about age 11 at garage sales, regardless of how broken they were. I learned early on about making do with what I could get my hands on, and a little bit about fixing toys. You'd be surprised how many parents just gave up and marked a $20 figure down to 50 cents all because an arm or leg popped off that could be easily reattached. More surprising was how few folks seemed to realize that with a lighter, some glue, and needle nose pliers, you could easily Frankenstein some parts from other toys to fix the ones you actually wanted to preserve or play with.
Anyway, when I was still young, my absolute hero in television or film was Optimus Prime, voiced by Peter Cullen. He was powerful, wise, patient, and always looked out for the little guy. As a cartoon character, he exemplified the ideal that just because you were the big guy in charge, you didn't go around abusing your subordinates or folks who couldn't fight back. He was honest, sturdy, and showed a deference to knowledge.
And all of this contributed to my first heart-wrenching bawling at a film when I watched him die on-screen during the animated film.
That first death was brutal and iconic. It was the first time I'd ever seen a beloved animated character die, and the way the color drained from his body and his head just limply lolled over to one side was both haunting and mesmerizing.
It wasn't until a few years later, going back and collecting the comics, that I came to appreciate how many times they had killed this friggin' guy and brought him back. The lion from Narnia had nothing on ol' Optimus for the death-and-resurrection Jesus metaphor they put the Autobot leader through, mercing him and dragging his ass back from Beyond repeatedly.
Now, when they first killed him off in the animated film, Hasbro was in the midst of a turnover; they needed to introduce a new line of toys, so a LOT of the old crew from the show got killed off or, thanks to Unicron's metamorphosing ability, changed into whole new robots. They figured this would be a great marketing tool, and boy howdy, did it ever backfire.
The new toys didn't move off shelves; kids like me were devastated that they'd butchered our favorite characters, and didn't give a tin shit about new figures. We wanted our classics back, man! It was clear enough that in the last 4-5 episodes of the G1 cartoon, post-film, they resurrected Optimus.
The comics did this much better, and added a touch of insanity to the ol' Mother Trucker- Optimus post-resurrection was kind of brutal.
Kevin Smith could have learned something from this historic fiasco when he decided to take Netflix's money to re-start Masters of the Universe. The show purportedly picks up right where the old one left off, and thanks to the brilliant artistry of the studio that brought us the amazing Castlevania animation, it looked oh so pretty.
But Smith apparently didn't look to history, or he totally forgot the lesson of the Transformers from the 80's. If you're going to kill off the main heroic draw, you cannot replace them with someone so utterly unlikable. Roddimus Prime, anyone? Who in their right mind preferred him to the square-faced Optimus? That's right, NOBODY.
Smith at least had a character to utilize who had prior history in Teela. Hot Rod, before his appearance in the Transformers animated film, had only had a couple of appearances, both with him serving as an outpost functionary in Autobot City, serving under Ultra Magnus. He wasn't even a ranking Autobot, but he ultimately became the leader due to Hasbro wanting to go with a sleeker, sportier design for their Autobot leader toy; Ultra Magnus was too similar to Optimus, per their market research, and owners of Optimus figures would not be likely to upgrade/replace to Ultra Magnus.
In the original Masters of the Universe, Teela had an established character, background, and behavior pattern within the canon. While Smith was free to toy with things as he would (wordplay, always), he neglected one of the very things he'd previously complained about Disney doing with beloved Star Wars characters- altering them almost beyond all recognition to prior fans.
When the Gen 2 Transformers started being written for the comics, none of the original writers returned for the new line. However, they took the core elements of characters and story arcs, and developed from there, introducing small, gradual changes to environment, plot, and characters, making them come across as organic. Ironic, given there's nothing organic about the Cybertronians.
What Smith did with MotU was not so much alteration done with love, as it was sticking a creative bit of plastic explosives into what had come before and hitting the detonator. This by itself isn't a problem for me, believe it or not; the holders of the rights handed creative control to Smith, so he was within his rights to do what he did, per the Primacy of Narrative.
However, and this is a big however, when someone is granted the rights to a previously established lore, they have a couple of simple duties to perform:
1- Be respectful of what has come before. You didn't create this lore, this world, or these characters. You are the storyteller for now, but your role is more caretaker than creator. Don't forget that. Part of being the caretaker is BEING HONEST WITH THE PRIOR FAN BASE.
2- Tell the best story you can with what you've been handed.
That's it. This is not an automatically easy task, not by any stretch. Ask anyone who has dabbled in the creation of fanfiction, and they'll tell you, other fans can be brutal. But Smith has staked his career reputation on not only being a talented storyteller, but on being a mega-nerd with a deep love for old-school pop culture.
He also once famously said, "I was never a big fan of He-Man. Like, I didn't hate it, I just didn't really care."
So why in the hell did Netflix hand over creative control to this guy? Why, when ClownfishTV reported on rumors surrounding the show, rumors they got from a reliable source and turned out to be largely true, did Smith come after them like Starscream would go after Bumblebee, trying to torch the YouTube duo of Kneon and Geeky Sparkles with the aid of pop culture media?
If you don't get the tie-in there, Starscream almost always brought his fellow jet goons to ambush his targets (Thundercracker and Skywarp). I won't drone on speculating about that particular 'why', and instead try to bring this thing to a close by getting to the final point.
Kevin Smith failed to learn the lessons that Hasbro and fans learned from the Transformers debacle back at the end of Gen 1. The first of those lessons is this: if your major hero is going to die, at least make it heroic. Optimus's death in the movie, while awful, didn't hit fans as hard as it could have, mainly because of HOW he died; taking what would prove lethal damage to avoid harming Hot Rod while fighting Megatron. In the end, his final, savage blow nearly killed Megatron, forcing the Decepticon retreat.
The second lesson is this: if you're going to replace the hero, do it with someone who is at least likeable. Kneon and Geeky hit the nail on the head there, because Smith's version of Teela is simply, as the Constructicons dubbed Soundwave, uncharismatic.
And the last lesson that Smith could have learned from the G1 Transformers' end is this: you can't go Scorched Earth to start over. The whole reason Transformers post-film got cancelled was because too much changed, too fast, and kids weren't watching the cartoon OR buying the new toys. With MotU Revelations, too many elements of what the show was before have been scrapped, and without any of the sort of subtlety or care that they deserved.
Feel free to write me off as just another 'toxic fan' if you want, but remember, I say these things not just as an 80's child dripping with nostalgia, but as a storyteller myself. Let me tell you, if I had been offered the opportunity to work on a project like this, not only would I have been as cautious with fan expectations as Smith should have been, but I also would have been psyched to do it for more than a paycheck.
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Welcome to my world. Too many favorite old ships of my past recently have been lifted out of salvage, only to be sunk by bad execution by people who didn't give a shit about the source material. If you're going to redo these things, show some respect to them.