|
Who Am I And Why Did I Start This Website?
I grew up when Transformers G1 was a big thing, and for several years it was indeed the biggest, neatest thing to me. In the 80’s, robots were considered cool, and Transformers were positioned at the right time to catch on and become hugely popular.
Before Transformers appeared, there were basically two ideas about robots. The first idea was that they obeyed Isaac Asimov’s rigid laws of robotics. That meant that robots were boring, utilitarian and had no personality. The second idea was that robots were frightening, calculating and cold. Robots were bent on replacing or exterminating humanity because they could do everything better than us and, therefore, we had no logical place or purpose in the world. Hence, the appearance of movies like the original Terminator, which I think were popular because they reflected a common culturally held belief at the time.
As far as I can recall, Transformers stepped outside of these two stereotypes because the Transformers acted just like human beings, and had a lot of faults as well as strengths. The Transformers could also, well, transform, which added in a tremendous cool factor. There was nothing like Transformers that had come before them. Star Wars was the first mass marketed toy in about 1980, so us kids back then weren’t bombarded with all the hype of today. The robots’ transformations, personalities and story line were better than other transforming robots introduced at the same time, particularly the Gobots. Since Transformers occurred before the Power Rangers, we had never seen robots combine together, so when Devastator first formed out of the six Constructicons it blew our minds.
I loved the Transformers, but like with all things, I moved on in life as Transformers eventually faded in popularity. Besides just growing up, my I left Transformers behind because I was disappointed with the 1986 animated movie, and I thought the animation of Seasons three and four was particularly crummy (I seem to remember thinking the animators had an excess of brown, yellow and orange paint and were trying to use it all up on the Transformers animation). In the 80’s, there was no internet, personal computers were just starting to catch on, and there were no computer graphics used in animation like there is today. Everything was hand drawn. The Transformers cartoons, while not perfect, were still very entertaining to watch.
Anyway, I didn’t like the new, futuristic characters that much or the direction the series took. I was particularly turned off by the deaths of a lot of the original characters. Rather, I wish the writers had moved the spotlight onto the adventures of other Autobots rather than killing off the originals, who had survived for millions of years all to be killed on one day, and from some rather minor looking wounds, for robots.
Since those days, I still retain my fond memories of the toy line I loved as a kid. For many years, an Autobot decal sat in my glove compartment. During the summer of 2006 I finally got a magnetic Autobot symbol for my car’s hood. I also replaced the manufacturer’s logo on the trunk with a chrome Autobot symbol and added customized license plate holders as well - definite improvements for a Transformers fan, in my opinion.
So as you can tell, I decided to get back into Transformers. I now have a nice collection, all of the original cartoons, and a bunch of Generation 1 comics. I’m having a great time.
In early 2006, I discovered fan fiction quite by accident. I was surfing the web one day, looking for a photo of Snarl so I could figure out which way to apply the stickers to my World’s Smallest Transformer (WST) dinobot, and for some inexplicable reason the search came up with some fan fiction web sites. I was hooked on the fan fiction from day one, glad to see that there were people out there keeping G1 alive. I enjoyed it so much that I decided it was something I wanted to write as well, for the enjoyment of other people who also loved the original Transformers.
Who are my favorite Transformers?
I’m an Autobot fan all the way. When G1 was big stuff, my very favorite Transformers were Hound and Jazz. So, when I discovered the reissues those were my first purchases, since I never had the originals of those two characters.
Eventually, I liked almost all of the original Autobots - even Ironhide. Each had a distinct personality and a role to play that made the series interesting. The only characters that I never really liked were some of the minibots: Gears, Brawn, Cosmos, Seaspray, Huffer and Powerglide. In my fan fiction, I would like to give all the characters a fair chance to play a part, whether I liked the character or not. I hope I can find a way to make even the uninteresting or unglamorous characters seem more appealing.
One of my favorite Autobots had a special role to play in my life. Not long ago, I was reading through a regular publication from my local professional organization and saw an article that stated that engineers typically identified with either Q from James Bond or Scotty from Star Trek as characters that influenced their decision to go into engineering. Well, I knew this was not the case with me. The “role model” that changed my life and caused me to pursue a career in mechanical engineering was Wheeljack. I think he’s cool, but then again I’m also a mechanical engineer.
|
