Transformers Allegories - Is Transformers propaganda?

[DieSmiling]

I think often times it isn't the writers that inject propaganda into films...but we the watchers who, knowing what's going on in the world...shove our own, often times manipulated views of what's going on in the world into the things we watch.

If we were fighting the Russians right now for whatever reason, a person could easily say "oh well, it's OBVIOUS that it has to do with the Russians blah blah blah blah"

Well said.

 

[ShadowBoxing]

I
Where Transformers was different is that they don't want our food. They don't want to eat us. They don't even want our land, wealth, or property. They don't even want our worship or for us to worship their Gods. They don't even want to rule the world (well ultimately they do... but you can say that about any aggressor--- it doesn't help the conversation).

Megatron was very interested in ruling the Universe, hence one his first lines in the show being "We can get enough energon so we can create the ULTIMATE WEAPON and CONQUOR the UNIVERSE".

They're machines- just like OUR machines but with sentience- and they want resources on this planet that humans *technically* don't need... and they'll destroy our planet in the process.

Aliens come for two reasons, resources or enslavement. And the show took advantage of both or neither when necessary. Megatron wanted power, pure and simple.

Megatron, much like most eighties villains, wanted control of the Universe. And frequently resorted to enslaving humans ("Ultimate Doom", "Megatron's Master Plan"), resource stealing (MTMTE), Weapons ("Fire on the Mountain", "The Immobilizer", "Autobot Run") or even magic ("Sea Change", "The Golden Lagoon", or "A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court") to get it.

On Cybertron their battle meant one thing (cliched fight for supremacy for whatever reason)... once you bring humans and Earth into it, the story changes. IMO... it becomes very much an allegory for how industrializied nations feed off of 3rd world nations

No, the supremacy story never changed. Megatron still wanted cliche' supremacy, and still fought (apparently) the same war that had always been fought. There is a reason the soujourn to Earth is considered part of the Great War.

(this was a big academic movement in the 70's and 80's... it was called Dependency Theory or Dependencia) not to mention the fact that industrialization- machines- are killing our entire planet (or so most scientists believe).

This is really dumb. They were selling toy robots, that's why it was machines killing attacking our planet. Had they been fanciful Unicorns, it would have been fanciful Unicorns attacking our planet.

 

[terry78]

Megatron was very interested in ruling the Universe, hence one his first lines in the show being "We can get enough energon so we can create the ULTIMATE WEAPON and CONQUOR the UNIVERSE".

Aliens come for two reasons, resources or enslavement.

Megatron, much like most eighties villains, wanted control of the Universe. And frequently resorted to enslaving humans ("Ultimate Doom", "Megatron's Master Plan"), resource stealing (MTMTE), Weapons ("Fire on the Mountain", "The Immobilizer", "Autobot Run") or even magic ("Sea Change", "The Golden Lagoon", or "A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court") to get it.

No, the supremacy story never changed. Megatron still wanted cliche' supremacy, and still fought (apparently) the same war that had always been fought. There is a reason the soujourn to Earth is considered part of the Great War.

This is really dumb. They were selling toy robots, that's why it was machines killing attacking our planet. Had they been fanciful Unicorns, it would have been fanciful Unicorns attacking our planet.

Now have Roland Emmerich direct, and it's a sure fire blockbuster.

 

[ShadowBoxing]

It's not a stupid cartoon.

It was aimed at children but it still had many concepts worth revisiting. It had elements from Gulliver's Travels

Where exactly? No episode remotely resembles that book.

Fantastic Planet (check out this movie)

Don't know anything about it.

Artificial Intelligence

Ummm, they were technically A.I. But nothing was ever made of this in the series, ever. They never took it in that direction.

Ghost in the Shell

Transformers predates Ghost in the Shell by five years.

War of the Worlds

You could argue any alien film takes from this as it is the quintessential alien film. In fact it basically started the whole alien genre. However, it doesn't really take from WotW at all. WotW was a story about how pockets of humanity reacted to the onslaught of an alien invasion and then were saved by the bacteria of our planet. Transformer's plot doesn't resemble that in the slightest.

Twilight Zone/Outer Limits

Not really. How so? There never were any endings that had a moralistic or ironic plot twist to them.

Star Wars

First one you've gotten right! Pat yourself on the back. The plot to TFTM (1986) was lifted from Star Wars.

Excalibur (the Matrix)

Not really. I mean you can draw the comparison, but it's not where the Matrix comes from.

Phillip K Dick novels, Greek mythology, Frankenstein

Well "Autobot Spike" was definitely based on Frankenstein, so that's your second correct guess. As for Greek Mythology. Greek Myth essentially informs all fiction, especially hero based fiction in the United States. So that's not really saying much.

Transformers concept came from G.I.Joe, who had a long standing successful relationship with Marvel. The same team was hired and the same concept - two warring factions - was used. Jim Shooter naming them Autobots and Decepticons respectively.

and a precursor for problems we face in the Iraq War (imperialism/endless civil war).

Imperialism - by that logic any cliche'd supervillain who wants to "take over the world/universe" is drawing a parrallel to imperialism. While that claim may be true in some regard, it hardly makes their action a commentary. Villains typical are shown as having delusions of grandeur, and the easiest way to portray such a delusion is to have them want to try to take over the world.

Endless Civil War - Again, fall flat. Most shows in the eighties and today feature some hero/villain conflict. Transformers is an "endless civil war" where nobody dies (save the Movie), very rarely is there a military aspect to the teams, very rarely is their realistic shoot outs and ground/air tactics. It's a very unrealistic portrayal of war, unlike Gundam or Robotech which sent home the message "war is hell". It was your typical "good v evil" story, where neither side has a particularly deep reason for hating one another. Another classic show/comic cliche'.

A perfect introduction for 8 year olds into the world of sci-fi.

No, you're thinking of Star Wars.

If one wants to elevate Transformers they just need to use the iconic characters and extensive canon to explore these elements.

Well the movie did. Beast Wars and Beast Machines certainly elevated the concept, as did IDW, as did Michael Bay. But they elevated a concept which started off in a "stupid toy cartoon". And they elevated that concept through concepts laid down by future franchises - protoforms, sparks, the Allspark, advancing the robot forms, etc.

Pokemon and Hong Kong Phooey are stupid cartoons.

As was Transformers G1, and G.I.Joe, and Ninja Turtles, and many others. Most Transformers are unwatchable by today's audiences. Quiet a few from the third season hold up only because they began to take the series more seriously, writing it like an ongoing story instead of a show that just recycled the same basic plot every episode.

 

[Comicfan]

Just because something is a cartoon it doesn´t make it stupid

 

[CFlash]

I think often times it isn't the writers that inject propaganda into films...but we the watchers who, knowing what's going on in the world...shove our own, often times manipulated views of what's going on in the world into the things we watch.

If we were fighting the Russians right now for whatever reason, a person could easily say "oh well, it's OBVIOUS that it has to do with the Russians blah blah blah blah"

Injecting something and drawing parallels aren't the same thing. There's nothing wrong with drawing parallels and thinking about them.

 

[ShadowBoxing]

Just because something is a cartoon it doesn´t make it stupid

No, but I mentioned both Gundam and Robotech as being exceptional cartoons. As are JLU, The Simpsons (at least at one time), and Beast Machines among others. It's rare though to get a show aimed at children that is also intelligent. Bruce Timm, Bob Forward and Ditillo seem to all take their jobs as toon writers and directors very seriously...but it's still a rare event to see a toon that will be frank about real world matters. Transformers (G1) was not one of those shows.

 

[Comicfan]

No, but I mentioned both Gundam and Robotech as being exceptional cartoons. As are JLU, The Simpsons (at least at one time), and Beast Machines among others. It's rare though to get a show aimed at children that is also intelligent. Bruce Timm, Bob Forward and Ditillo seem to all take their jobs as toon writers and directors very seriously...but it's still a rare event to see a toon that will be frank about real world matters. Transformers (G1) was not one of those shows.

Well, for starters, Gundam and Robotech where not aimed at kids, same with the simpsons...

Transformers was aimed at children.

 

[ShadowBoxing]

Injecting something and drawing parallels aren't the same thing. There's nothing wrong with drawing parallels and thinking about them.

You're fine to draw parrallels from something, but understand for an allegory to truly exist you have to prove it. Transformers is your very typical alien invasion lumped together with a very cliche' good versus evil conflict. I can draw parrallels between a good versus evil conflict and any conflict. I could probably say that Transformers was written as a commentary on me and this bully I knew in grammar school...but it doesn't say a damn thing about the show itself. If the show wanted to be commentary, guess what? It would have been commentary. There are very good reasons it features talking robots, war and power hungry aliens that have nothing to do with "messages" Sunbow was trying to convey. They needed to push a robot toyline and they hired the G.I.Joe people to do it. And it doesn't go any deeper than that.

You want deep, meaningful literature I wouldn't look at Transformers.

 

[ShadowBoxing]

Well, for starters, Gundam and Robotech where not aimed at kids, same with the simpsons...

Transformers was aimed at children.

Robotech had a toyline. They very much wanted it to appeal to younger audiences, hence it's failure to produce a sequel. So yes, it was aimed at Children, they didn't watch it.

As for what I bolded. That's why, largely, it wasn't that intelligent. It wasn't trying to be. It was trying to sell toys to a young generation of Americans, toys that happened to be giant transforming car robots. It wasn't trying to be a commentary which could be appretiated by adults or older viewers.

And JLU, BM and Timm cartoons are aimed at children.

 

[CFlash]

Megatron was very interested in ruling the Universe, hence one his first lines in the show being "We can get enough energon so we can create the ULTIMATE WEAPON and CONQUOR the UNIVERSE".

You ignored what I said. You can say the same thing about any aggressor leader. Hitler wanted to rule the world too. So what? Who doesn't? The guy across the hall from me I think wants to also. The *commentary* (in fiction as well as history) is how they go about doing it. The story.

The thing about Transformers that you keep ignoring is that they're machines- hide as OUR machines- and the resource they want is energy. The allegory isn't just there... it's painfully obvious.... and sorta ironic.

Speaking of ironic... I'll take a stab at B_F's Twilight Zone thing that you shot down. But it takes a little thought on your part.
1) They landed 4 million years ago way before "our" machines.
2) 4-7 million years ago is right about the time apes, humans, and monkeys branched off into their own distinct lineages. (This is the missing link period). So the Transformers have been with us, literally, since our birth.
3) 4 millions is just enough time for the resources they set about stealing took to form. Sh** that was alive when they landed is now the oil, coal, whatever that they're trying to get their hands on. That is ironic.

Wouldn't a simpler story have been to just have them come to Earth looking for a box?

On Cybertron their battle meant one thing (cliched fight for supremacy for whatever reason)... once you bring humans and Earth into it, the story changes. IMO... it becomes very much an allegory for how industrializied nations feed off of 3rd world nations

No, the supremacy story never changed. Megatron still wanted cliche' supremacy, and still fought (apparently) the same war that had always been fought. There is a reason the soujourn to Earth is considered part of the Great War.

This is why we can't really converse. You need to take a step back from your Transformers world and think about the world and history.... at least if you want to converse in this thread. I didn't say the story changes for *them* I said it changes for us... as the reader... the allegories take a different shape. Transformers could have easily taken place in space entirely... or in some fantasy land like He-man or Thundercats. It didn't.

That's why, largely, it wasn't that intelligent. It wasn't trying to be. It was trying to sell toys to a young generation of Americans, toys that happened to be giant transforming car robots. It wasn't trying to be a commentary which could be appretiated by adults or older viewers.

That doesn't mean you can't draw parallels and it doesn't mean the times didn't seep into the writing. In fact, a lot of timeless writing wasn't meant to be anything but what it was at the time: pure entertainment and stories to tell kids.

 

[CFlash]

You're fine to draw parrallels from something, but understand for an allegory to truly exist you have to prove it. Transformers is your very typical alien invasion lumped together with a very cliche' good versus evil conflict. I can draw parrallels between a good versus evil conflict and any conflict. I could probably say that Transformers was written as a commentary on me and this bully I knew in grammar school...but it doesn't say a damn thing about the show itself. If the show wanted to be commentary, guess what? It would have been commentary. There are very good reasons it features talking robots, war and power hungry aliens that have nothing to do with "messages" Sunbow was trying to convey. They needed to push a robot toyline and they hired the G.I.Joe people to do it. And it doesn't go any deeper than that.

You want deep, meaningful literature I wouldn't look at Transformers.

Ha. I know my meaningful literature well. As well as its history and time and place. (I was... seems like yesterday... a Political Science major, Literature- mainly philosophical literature- minor). I can break down Beowulf for the BS (and badly written) story that it is. That doesn't mean people don't draw parallels and allegories from it TODAY. Which is why I find Transformers (and kid's toons in general- for the impressions they leave on our children) fascinating.

 

[ShadowBoxing]

You ignored what I said. You can say the same thing about any aggressor leader. Hitler wanted to rule the world too. So what? Who doesn't? The guy across the hall from me I think wants to also. The *commentary* (in fiction as well as history) is how they go about doing it. The story.

They went about doing in 98 different ways. Want to count them with me . 98 different episodes where Megatron/Galvatron went after 98 different things to conquor the galaxy. Energon was this vague substance, made from anything, used for almost anything the writer saw fit. It was a MACGUFFIN PLOT DEVICE!!!!.

The thing about Transformers that you keep ignoring is that they're machines- hide as OUR machines-

They hid as our machines because the toys the show was selling were toys that transformed into our machines. Later they would transform into things that weren't our machines - like Dinosaurs, Cybertronian vehicles and even mythical monsters.

and the resource they want is energy. The allegory isn't just there... it's painfully obvious.... and sorta ironic.

The Decepticons wanted power, plain and simple. Any further reading into that is pure bunk and shows you didn't watch past the first episode. Megatron tried to get it through energon, a golden lagoon that made him invincible, through power sharing with his Decepticons, by stealing a super computer, by stealing military hardware, by stealing a bomb, by erecting a city of steel in New York...and I even gotten to the 30th episode yet.

You've heard it yourself, for aliens to come to earth you need either two plots at play - enslavement or resources. Transformers went with either, sometimes both. Megatron wanted power, not fuel, not oil, not air fresheners. He wanted power. The power to rule the galaxy and wipe the Autobots off the face of the map.

Speaking of ironic... I'll take a stab at B_F's Twilight Zone thing that you shot down. But it takes a little thought on your part.
1) They landed 4 million years ago way before "our" machines.
2) 4-7 million years ago is right about the time apes, humans, and monkeys branched off into their own distinct lineages. (This is the missing link period). So the Transformers have been with us, literally, since our birth.
3) 4 millions is just enough time for the resources they set about stealing took to form. Sh** that was alive when they landed is now the oil, coal, whatever that they're trying to get their hands on. That is ironic.

Reading WAAAAAYYYYY too much into the 4 million year thing. 4 million years was non descript and they didn't do anything with that time scale. Things picked up just the same as if they had crashed yesterday. Remember Shockwave was still at his post, Cybertron still existed, the world for the Transformers had NOT changed. Were they have to infused it with Sci Fi Twilight elements Cybertron would've changed, would've been made some vastly different place than what they had left. But it wasn't. In fact that's largely why the 4 million year gap was rewritten as "the Great shutdown" so they could explain away how an advanced technological society didn't move anywhere in 4 million years.

Wouldn't a simpler story have been to just have them come to Earth looking for a box?

Actually they went with an even simplier story. "Autobots leave for no reason, Decepticons follow for vaguer reason, they somehow crash on earth without explaining how they got that far"

This is why we can't really converse. You need to take a step back from your Transformers world and think about the world and history.... at least if you want to converse in this thread. I didn't say the story changes for *them* I said it changes for us... as the reader... the allegories take a different shape. Transformers could have easily taken place in space entirely... or in some fantasy land like He-man or Thundercats. It didn't.

Because like most shows using aliens it needed a way to appeal on a human level. Thundercats and Masters are fairly human in appearance. Transformers are full blown robots. To make a human connection, logically it must take place on Earth.

That doesn't mean you can't draw parallels and it doesn't mean the times didn't seep into the writing. In fact, a lot of timeless writing wasn't meant to be anything but what it was at the time: pure entertainment and stories to tell kids.

Perhaps. But understand Transformers wasn't written by a writing genius like CS Lewis, it was written by a toy company looking to sell a product. And that's what we got.

 

[Immortalfire]

My god, can't we let a movie be just a movie? Why does someone have think they've found some hidden agenda?

 

[CFlash]

Perhaps. But understand Transformers wasn't written by a writing genius like CS Lewis, it was written by a toy company looking to sell a product. And that's what we got.

Funny you cite C.S. Lewis considering he spent most of his career finding allegories (and otherwise injecting BS as you would say) into (crap by today's standards) literature from the middle ages by studying the life & times they were written in. Not to mention he also devoted a good deal of time injecting BS into Christianity and the Bible and trying to rationalize stuff that is normally considered irrational and purely faith-based.

Maybe this dissecting and understanding is what made him the "genius" writer that you think he is. Perhaps you should try it sometime.

 

[roach]

My god, can't we let a movie be just a movie? Why does someone have think they've found some hidden agenda?

So you dont want us discussing this...I think I found a hidden agenda
(it's all jokes)

 

[Timstuff]

Transformers was a good movie. And let's leave it at that.

 

[roach]

Transformers was a good movie. And let's leave it at that.

because some people like to see the meaning in the littlest things.

 

[ShadowBoxing]

My god, can't we let a movie be just a movie? Why does someone have think they've found some hidden agenda?

Because often times people can't take just being entertained. They feel like the must have some well thought out reason for liking things. And often times, ridiculously enough, we try to justify what we liked as children through rationales we use as adults.

 

[DareDemon]

Pokemon and... are stupid cartoons.

Son of a...!

 

[Boiiinng]

edit...not worth it.

 

[Timstuff]

If you're so obsessed with politics that you can't even watch a movie without comparing it to politics, you seriously need a life. There's more to life than who your president is.

 

[UltimateJustin]

If you're so obsessed with politics that you can't even watch a movie without comparing it to politics, you seriously need a life. There's more to life than who your president is.

Like boobs.

 

[CFlash]

Because often times people can't take just being entertained. They feel like the must have some well thought out reason for liking things. And often times, ridiculously enough, we try to justify what we liked as children through rationales we use as adults.

An unexamined life is not worth living. -Socrates

 

[ShadowBoxing]

An unexamined life is not worth living. -Socrates

He debated questions of justice, politics and religion -- not Transformers cartoons (I should know I read every last one of his dialogues six times over for my senior essay) -- if Socrates was weighing in on this discussion he'd tell you to spot wasting your time watching a cartoon that glorified material possession. Don't be so dense.