Retro Post: Rebuttal to "Armada" News Post
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 7:54PM So, to explain, well before any images came out for the Armada Transformers series, all we had was a name. Shortly after, a post was made on a couple of different sites at the time, claiming to be an explanation for what would be expected in the show. In short, it was too good to be true. So, over on CHS, we didn’t post it because we thought it would be as such. So, to explain why we didn’t post it, I wrote the following story, orgonally posted on the ColdHardSlag website. Enjoy!
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As you may have noticed, CHS has been largely devoid of news about the supposed new series that has been called “Armada”. While I can’t speak for the rest of the site, I will at least give the reasons why I have not reported any of the ‘news’ that is out there.
First, let me say that, in my opinion, CHS has always been about reporting news that is confirmed and reliable. If we speculate, we report it as such. Granted, CHS has no grand connections or inside information from Hasbro. We have, however, built a good repor with some of the people connected to Mainframe. From whom, we have gotten no conformation of any of the information presented about the series. That said, let’s go through some of the information that has been proved about ‘Armada’.
The first report about Armada that I saw was from Transfandom.com, giving a report from ‘The 2005 Message Board’ that outlines the details of a number of characters and events in a new series of the same name. As I read through some of the details, I became quite surprised and disturbed by some of the things that I read. While I won’t completely recreate all of the points made, I will go through some of the more interesting ones and critique them appropriately.
- Optimus Prime, of some sort, is returning, whether it be the RID Prime or the G1 Prime is unknown, since the story does involve taking characters from different “series” and bringing them together. Okay, first point of argument here. Let’s briefly (and realistically) discuss the nature of Hasbro, and what they do. Hasbro is a toy company, a struggling one at that. They are in the business of selling toys. Let me say that one more time “They Sell Toys”. If they fund a series, it is to sell toys, in particular, new toys, or at least toys on the shelf. Now, Hasbro being such that it is, will want to create a series that extenuates the “New” toys that is it sell. I know this may come as a shock to some people, but Transformers isn’t a series that happens to have toys designed around it. “Transformers” is a toy line that usually has some sort of cartoon series as a vehicle for selling more toys. My point in all this? Bring back a bunch of characters for a new line of toys would be quite costly, and honestly not very business savvy.
- The story doesn’t take place before Beast Wars. It doesn’t take place between G1 and Beast Wars. The series itself takes place around this time, in an alternate universe, so to speak (unfortunately, a story can be changed in the stroke of the “delete” key, so this may change as time goes on). If this is the case, why is any of this being stated? Ugh, let’s move on.
- As I stated days before the AllSpark post (shameless self plug, bwahaha), Mainframe is doing the work. Again, who do you think did the CGI for the RID Optimus Prime intro on the toy commercial? Okay, when I read this, I knew this whole mess had a fishy smell to it. Recap of what Mainframe does…Mainframe creates really cool CGI animates series. The upside to this is that the graphics are way, way, way cool. The down side? They take time to build and program and render. Even if this series does include all the characters that are claimed to be involved in the series, there is no way Mainframe could produce the series affordably. Yes, they could do the work, but the time involved would be great and the work, enormous. This translates into expensive; meaning money out of Hasbro’s pocket. This in mind, it doesn’t seem like a smart move for Hasbro. If anything, this series would simply have to be cell animation, just to have the number of characters.
- Guns. Lots of guns. This is just silly, especially considering current events in America
- Key characters. Up in the air at the moment are Cheetor, Rattrap, Prowl (G1/RID), Starscream (the one and only), Shockwave, Hot Rod, Tarantulas, and more. Okay. Let’s make another important point here. Silverbolt was in Beast Wars. Now, it wasn’t the G1 Silverbolt, but low and behold, they had the same name? How can that be? Well, Hasbro reused a name that it already had, and in the process, made a nice reference to the original series, which, you guessed it, helped sell toys. Now, jump ahead to RiD, let’s consider that Hasbro wants to ride this train that is has started with throwing around old names and creating interest (and market share) in its product. Hmm, they might want to keep doing that.
Something else to keep in mind. Even if they do make a new series with the supposed ‘original’ Starscream, what of that character still exists? Well, first, the new series would have new writers and a new story line, so the likely hood that Starscream would be exactly as we remember him, and be loved for the reasons that we did, is unlikely. Also, being an actor, I would like to think that some of that is Characterization, and seeing as Chris Latta is dead, it wouldn’t be “The one and only” since that character is (literally and figuratively) dead.
- New figures galore. Not as many repaints as seen in RID. My problem with this is the term “Galore”. Year to year, there haven’t been Transformers released in the “Galore” range, well, ever. The most may be 20 new figures, that including repaints from Takara, or very basic design changes to create a basically new toy( i.e. combiners).
Now, since all these nuggets of information have been ‘broken’, we have learned that Mainframe has no clue about a new series, and other voice actors (at least our connections) haven’t heard a thing about it. Now, this doesn’t mean that nobody is working on a series, just that it is very, very, very unlikely that Mainframe is creating this series. If that is true, it throws in to doubt this entire, supposedly reliable information about the new ‘series’.
Okay, so what do we know for sure? Well, we know that there are indeed, some form of chase assortments that are currently being listed by Hasbro with some vague name references, including something saying that they are called “Transformers: Armada”… That’s it. That is what we know. That is what is definitely known about Armada. You may have heard this or that, but what proof have you been given? Have you seen pictures of the toys? Have you seen ads from Hasbro? Have you read confirmed letters from reliable and noted sources (ones who confirm their information with connections to Hasbro etc.?). I would doubt that you have.
I don’t know what is going to happen with Armada. I don’t claim to. If you read all this in the hopes that you would learn something new about the series, sorry. I have done little but to burst the bubble of those of you who thought that these bits of information were unquestionable forms of ‘news’. Now, I may be wrong, and all these things may come to pass, but I find it unlikely. If you gain nothing else from this essay, I hope that it is a bit of criticism for the information that you are presented with. Heed the old adage; “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is”
