I Don't Like Drones in Transformers...

Comments · 169

• DE

  @DeltasLibrary · 2 weeks ago (edited) · pinned

  Some of you are genuinely insulted by my use of the word drone instead of generic.  You know what I mean, and I explained very well in the video that I don’t really like either of these concepts, that doesn’t mean that I hope you die in a car wreck in your family is murdered… Y’all need to calm down… it’s just an opinion on a silly franchise

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• PI

  @pikachurino_2396 · 3 weeks ago

  You're confusing drones with generics, they aren't the same thing, optimus' roller is a drone, seekers are generics

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• GR

  @grandmasterg8572 · 2 weeks ago

  As I kid I always assumed the Vehicons in Transformers Prime were all individual Decepticons they just all looked the same

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• PR

  @ProfessorPuddinghead · 3 weeks ago

  I think there’s a misunderstanding here about drones vs generics. Ultimately generics are a necessity as you said, but I don’t mind them when done right. I get the Cybertron games had the benefit of working with custom character maker parts, but I think that’s how they should be done. Make each look like their own person. Maybe you’ll notice shared parts, but that’ll happen unless you have endless resources. I wish the Cybertron games went further with even more variation and color combos. In a comic, however, you can do that endlessly. Whole armies can be made with entirely unique designs by an artist’s pen. I honestly think it makes the world feel bigger by implying the existence of a whole species and war beyond the characters we get to follow. I think of the group shots in IDW RID, where a vast array of unique nameless characters are shown. Plenty even reappear, creating continuity.<br><br>On the basis of character deaths, I think you’re very off base. Not every death is the same. I think you should only use a named character when you want it to really matter. Slingshot dying was meant to have emotion, so it had to be him. But I think of bluestreak killing one of the coneheads, and that absolutely shouldn’t have been a named character. The emotions were supposed to come from the brutality of the kill followed by consuming his Energon. But anyone who’s a fan of that character isn’t generating emotions from that, just the fact the character is dead. Not only does it entirely remove any future story opportunities with that character, it detracts from the emotions intended to be conveyed.<br><br>So ultimately I think it is context based. It’s a war and characters have to die to show it’s a war, but you have to be careful with named character deaths. A writer needs to analyze what emotions (or lack thereof) they want to generate and how they need to best execute generating those emotions.

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• SO

  @solleehasnolife4780 · 3 weeks ago

  Personally I always thought drones were a sign of how far the decepticons had fallen from their original mission of liberating lower classes and allowing for more freedom of choice. Either by mass producing disposable cybertronians for a single purpose they did not specifically choose. Or by transplanting individual decepticon sparks from their original bodies into vehicon trooper shells.<br><br>While autobots had forced careers, and never specifically built their platform on undoing that system. They at least allowed their soldiers to maintain their original forms, even if it wasn’t as optimal for combat as a vehicon. Even in continuities where they did have troopers, I imagine they were holdovers from before the war that joined the autobots because they typically were led by matrix-wielders.

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• TA

  @Tailgate-k2y · 3 weeks ago

  The way I think of drones in lore is: The Autobots/Decepticons built these guys to be cannon fodder and die, to be generic, mass produced soldiers. That can be their own individuals, but, we hardly ever see that. <br>In the FoC audio logs we do hear some drones talk about the evacuation and how they feel. The veterans especially have personalities and individual thoughts about it.<br>I do personally like the idea of drones/mass produced soldiers. They do remind me of clone troopers. As long as we see at least hints of the drones having their own personalities and not just being unfeeling and thinking drones.

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• RO

  @robozombie5255 · 3 weeks ago

  That&apos;s kinda why I like the decepticon protoforms fom the movies, they aren&apos;t clones, just newborns/had to take the protoform shell to survive atmospheric entry, but if they scanned a vehicle which some did they got an individual design, but some wouldn&apos;t for whatever reason, which could help with filling out enemy ranks, unfortunately they reused a bunch of old models especially in dark of the moon, like Brawl, Long haul, and bonecrusher my head canon they used the CNA (which I know isn&apos;t canon in the bayverse) of specific decepticons that had preferred traits in growing hatchlings to create hybrid clones

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• JO

  @johnwayne387 · 3 weeks ago

  Citing One as an example is funny considering the Trackers exist within that same movie

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• TR

  @truexenith8596 · 2 weeks ago (edited)

  I think the problem is in execution not concept. Transformers media doesn&apos;t treat generics as their own people, so obviously most people aren&apos;t going to feel anything when they die. If Transformers Prime, for example, gave more moments with vehicons interacting with each other and other named characters, we might be inclined to empathize with them more. As it stands now though, Transformers treats generics like Star Wars the Clone Wars treats droids: they&apos;re there to get brutalized and be the butt of jokes while the audience claps like seals.

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• LU

  @luisbase6039 · 3 weeks ago

  Understandable. Have a nice day

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• SP

  @spideyman1146 · 2 weeks ago (edited)

  Not sure how well this would actually fit the topic of the video but I wanna rant about it: While Armada PS2 used Decepticlones which were drones along with Vehicons in Prime, most Autobots and Decepticons you fought in games aren’t drones per say, WFC for example had all the Autobot/Decepticon soldiers look the same because they’re an enemy type, but they all have their own names and identities, than you have the Movie Tie In games that use a bunch of soldiers that look alike, if you’re playing the Decepticon campaign, you can’t just kill 100 Bumblebees and Sideswipes. That’s what the Autobot soldiers are there for, something for the Decepticons to fight against and vice versa for the Autobots, now in a video game, what I would’ve done is go down the Classic Call of Duty Soldier NPC route, you see every soldier in those games usually followed a pattern: they can spawn with the uniform for 1 of the 4 infantry classes and then they would get 1 of 5 different heads so every soldier didn’t look exactly identical to each other. FOC in my opinion should’ve done with this it’s standard infantry like they did with their Shotgunners, for example: every Autobot Infantry Soldier would have two armor sets: Wheeljack fully body and Sidewipes Torso/Bumblebees limbs, then they could have 1 of 2 heads: Slug and WFC Autobot soldier, every set of limbs is randomly generated, combine that with randomly generated colors and every soldiers will look different in one way or another giving the illusion that these are all different characters, it would’ve been a neat way to have some immersion.

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• CA

  @casteddu6740 · 3 weeks ago

  Personally while I don&apos;t have a problem with the presence of characters that just look the same I prefer to depict it as being more like having a uniform, rather than just being clones or mass produced drones.<br>Maybe it&apos;s because I&apos;d like to see an iteration of TF that is more like a conventional war rather than a colour bunch fighting another gang of grey guys. Like I imagine these folks being their own individuals who are however required to use similar skin plates like a real life human soldier would have to wear the same type of camo as the rest of his battalion, and the generic visor thing is just a kind of retractable plate like Optimus&apos; or Bumblebee&apos;s. Sure it wouldn&apos;t solve the &quot;memorable death&quot; issue but the truth is in war the vast majority of people die this way, sadly, and it&apos;s more realistic than a scenario like most tv shows where all battles have zero casualties until one day the writers go &quot;yeah this guy dies&quot;.

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