Sorry I haven't posted the transcript of the Bob interview - I ran out of time and the dude talks too fast with too many "ummms" "verys" and "reallys". Madhammer did and AWESOME job on about half of it and I did about one paragraph. If anybody has more time than me feel, free to finish it up - you'll become INTERNET famous :)

 

When they were first putting the series together, before the show even had a title it was called "Beast Hunters" back then it was sort of a tentative title, they were talking to every writer and every writing team in town and they wanted our different takes on what we would do with the Transformers. Marty and I at the time were developing Avengers for Fox, uh with whom we had a great relationship cause we had already just done Godzilla and several other shows with them. And we were thinking about different ideas for the Transformers, but we didn't really come up with a take on it, uh and then they called us in for a meeting and they showed us a bible that Marv Wolfman had written, and Marv Wolfman came up with pretty much the foundation for the entire series, and it was an action series. Megatron took over Cybertron and our guys are on the run and they're trying to take the uh, the, they're trying to take the planet back. And the sparks were there and they had all been taken by Megatron. Um, what we were -- the request they made from us was they wanted us to do a series that was spiritual in nature which was a really kind of odd request but basically they said we want you to take this series which is an action series and do something with spiritual themes and at first I'm thinking you can't be serious because they're not going to let us do it. you know um Hasbro really wanted to do it that way, uh mainframe was thoroughly behind it, and fox thought it was a good idea, they thought it was a lot of fun. so I just took it as um an opportunity to see how far I could push it before they told me to pull it back and they never did, I just said this is a chance to do a religious epic for television, this is a chance to do a novel for television in 26 chapters I really thought that pretentiously, and the bigger and grander I thought the more support I was getting from fox, the more support I was getting from Hasbro, and the more mainframe was getting into it, so they just loved it.

 

this is a rather embarrassing thing to admit and it's probably going to be very very hard for trans longtime transformers fans to hear, but Marty and I were hired specifically because we were not longtime transformers fans or professionals, every single writer from the original series, the original transformers, was in fact around and was available to work on the show. they deliberately set out, they intentionally set out to hire people who have a very very fresh take on it. people that had some experience in action/adventure and comedy who could think really really big., but also were sort of novices and outsiders to this universe. so that we could bring a fresh energy to it and a fresh perspective. uh, Marty loves to do homework and he would absolutely, you know, and uh I would have been agreeable to this to watch all you know 500 hours of the previous transformers shows and put it back into the continuity of the original show, but we were actually discouraged from doing that, we were told that um that whereas we would not be prohibited from watching any transformers that we wanted to watch, they would not be they would not they were not encouraging us to go back through the library and watch all of that stuff they wanted a transformers series that would be fresh and original and they figured that the less that we knew about the old continuity, the less that the new series would be tied to it. so they really wanted a fresh take, they really wanted to have a series that anybody coming into this universe for the very first time would be able to tap into and understand. and the way to do that is to have people who are writing it who are likewise new to the universe. um I'm sure that's very very hard for the longtime fans to hear because they are absolutely the most devoted fans I've ever encountered. And you're talking to somebody who's been reading the X-Men for a hell of a long time. um

 

with my understanding and my um you know, given my passions for being a fan of the things I'm a huge fan of,  knowing that there were Transformer fans out there who were equally passionate or more passionate about that universe, I knew I was stepping into a really really big potential bear trap because a lot of the longtime fans would be looking at it saying you know well you know you're doing a whole show that's just basically betraying our whole continuity on our old shows and what we wanted to do was we wanted to let people know that if in fact you were I don't mean I don't mean this in an insulting way, but if you're kind of like a fundamentalist, if you really want this to be a really conservative kind of Transformers series, this is one you're going to have to approach with a grain of salt and a little bit more openness because we're not gonna be following strict canon we're going to try to be faithful in terms of the tone, or faithful in terms of the spirit of the original series, but what we're really trying to do is create something new, fresh and original that hadn't been done before. and to my way of thinking they had never done a religious epic in transformers before, this was going to be a very very very different take on their universe. and I knew going in that a lot of the fans would be kind of left behind by it but I figured the people who are open to it, the people who feel like this isn't the show they grew up with will probably open up enough that they'll be able to accept this series on its own terms. you know, for the fans who didn't like beast machines or beast wars, there are other series since then that I'm hoping are you know closer to what they were looking for, but in the meantime our show was just supposed to be a very very distinct departure and a very very original series.

 

We were approaching the series as a single story that was like a 26 episode -- 26 chapter -- novel for television, and in doing that we had to create characters or work with characters who had a beginning, middle and end. we wanted Optimus to be consistent with the Optimus that we've seen before, but follow him through a story that we hadn't seen him in before. and when we started off with the character, you know he was this sort of , we you know we inherited him as a general. and the fact that he was gonna be you know a spiritual leader in this series because it was a spiritual series, it meant you know he was gonna go from basically being a um very kind of a um a military leader Captain Kirk kind of character to being somebody who had a more philosophical, zen-like approach to you know his view on the world. it made for a very interesting transition and it made the character not completely consistent with what happened before but not inconsistent either.  because what we were told early on was they wanted the character to be flawed, when we first developed the series, we had outlines for the first bunch of episodes, and they felt that Optimus was I forget what the term was but too too perfect or too too he was too strong or something, they wanted to see him more vulnerable they wanted to see him more conflicted. and my feeling was you know what, they defeated Megatron in the beast wars and they got here and Megatron had taken over, so basically Optimus managed to win a war and yet fail, so he caught the bad guy and the bad guy wound up going back to their planet, and taking over the whole damn thing. and absorbing all of the sparks, you think he's not gonna walk around with a ton of guilt about that? This is a guy who's walking around saying I am single-handedly responsible for the downfall of my entire planet and for basically, Satan taking over the whole damn thing. that's gonna weigh heavily on you. he's a man who is driven by guilt. and he is also this is a series about extremism.

 

Um the first thought was that we wanted to have a very very clear theme. And it occurred to us that if we begin with the Transformers being animals and only animals which doesn’t follow the continuity from the original you know from what we inherited from Beast Wars but we were able to you know ok we will explain why we are seeing them at this point but if you see animals versus these killer machines you immediately know what you’re looking at. This is nature versus technology  and people thought ok well the theme of the show is going to be “nature versus technology“, and my feeling was, if we do that, what we’re saying is that technology is bad and nature is good. I don’t know that I necessarily believe that, nature is extremely violent, technology is extremely useful, I don’t think that you can ascribe good or evil to either one. I think that each one has it’s uses.

JEEBUS

wow, I *was* gonna format that and stuff... :tflaugh I dunno how anyone's expected to read that

I'm not sure the "ums" needed to be transcribed.

I have enjoyed every single series, every single comic, every single toy, in it's own way. I am a Transformers fan and I like Transformers. Not just part of it. All of it.

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Now to me this is as extreme as those who stick by the continuity just because it's official.

 

By that logic, if they renamed Gobots and sold it as a Transformers series, you would automatically give it the time of day because you're a Transformers fan, even if you didn't like it the first time around. :eek :P

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What? You can't understand why a Transformers fan would like Transformers? I'm just not the type of fan that sits around whining at everything that comes out. Of course, it helps that I can afford to get most of it, which is what I see as one of the biggest problems for most people. "I can't afford it, so I must hate it." There's no shame in saying "I sure wish I could afford this, because it's cool." People don't do it much though. Besides, your Gobots comment is completely pointless. If they were Gobots, then they wouldn't be Transformers.

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I think he's saying that he doesn't understand why a Transformers fan must like anything with the name "Transformers" on it. It implies a lack of discernment, and makes it seem like all Transformers are equal, which not only elevates poorly conceived/designed TFs but which also degrades the better ones.

 

And I do think that your comment about dislike proceeding from a lack of funds is pretty snobbish. It is possible to simply have the ability to effectively critique things, without money playing a role in that decision. However, "value" is an inherent part of such critiquing, and if someone's asking you to pay $500 for a figure that you feel is worth $50, then the gulf between retail value and actual value (in your opinion) is going to probably be too great to warrant a purchase, unless you're just frivolous with your income.

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Actually, my income has absolutely nothing to do with my  opinion of this. I don't care if you think that's snobbish or not. I've just seen way to many people who complain about stuff that they say "sucks", only to find out later that the real reason they don't like it is because they can't afford it. That's what my comment was referring to. It was a generalized statement.

I'm not sure the "ums" needed to be transcribed.

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like I said, I was gonna clean it up......... I was typing while listening to it

I'm not sure the "ums" needed to be transcribed.

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like I said, I was gonna clean it up......... I was typing while listening to it

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Ooops :redface

 

You can still "clean it up" and post it in a new thread :tfgrin

 

Actually, his whole interview was one super run-on sentence, how did you know where to put periods??? I bit off more than I could chew. Perhaps somebody could just rip the audio and post a link :thumb

Perhaps somebody could just rip the audio and post a link :thumb

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Is that legal?

So, it was doomed from the start.  I, for one, never wanted it to have anything to do with the G1, which is what he seems to think everyonethought. It would have been better as a straight sequel to Beast Wars.  There's so much they could have done back on Cybertron. 

 

If they were set on doing a serious show, a Cybertron Beast Wars would have been great. They could have shown and developed Cybertronian society, culture and politics and made a far more interesting show.

If they were set on doing a serious show, a Cybertron Beast Wars would have been great. They could have shown and developed Cybertronian society, culture and politics and made a far more interesting show.

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Although, one could argue that without the "technorganic" angle, there really was no reason for them to have beast modes on Cybertron.  I'm assuming that Hasbro still wanted beast modes, as they weren't too sure of how well a purely machine-based alt-mode series would sell.