#bashproshops watches

"Don't panic yet. Stay calm 'til we know what's going on. Then we'll panic."

I haven't particularly cared for Optimus and Megatron for a long time but I started to enjoy them a lot more by the end of G1. The thing is you have to a) really watch what they are actually doing and b) forget about all the canon from other continuities and also all the fanon. I am a big fan of the "Orion Pax is a random dock worker" and "Megatron is [for as long as we know him] an annoying ass military dictator dude" origin story, defintely my favourite backstory for them. Some things from the present of the show: Optimus strikes me as very action-oriented? Like, he feels bad about a lot of his decisions and often makes not so great ones (take a look at how he handles the aerialbots...) but the point is that he is always making decisions. He doesn't really wait, he goes "this situation sucks" then immediately "let's do THIS." I found this was an interesting way to look at his character. I don't really get huge dad vibes from Optimus Prime.* G1 Megatron is also a Vibe. He is pretty different from IDW and TFP and the aspects of those Megatrons that fandom likes to lean into. Maybe it's just overexposure but I don't care for those guys. G1 Megatron I can get behind.

Tbh I think it's VERY difficult to do justice to Starscream and the way he behaves/is in G1. Like that is some very special kind of messed up and I almost want to say that you have to have a certain emotional distance from the character to get a similar reproduction. I don't care for Starscream a lot in fandom but I feel a certain amount of hype for G1 Starscream now. He's.... something.

Some episodes were alright and some were like, wow, this is the amount of racism I expect from Tintin.

The lore was really fun. Partly because it's really wack and contradictory, but also because it's soooo different from what came later and especially what happened post-TFP with the introduction of the Aligned continuity, to which IDW1 is more closely related to than G1, and which underpins pretty much ALL TRANSFORMERS MEDIA POST-2010. It's kind of like reading TF Marvel. There's this whole world of transformers being taken in different directions than aligned and I am so here for it.

Looking back there are many characters that are big in G1, like Powerglide, or Ironhide, or the coneheads, who got a lot of episodes and really dropped off in popularity. I mean, who's out there making Powerglide content??? The reverse is also true, and many characters who get almost zero screen time became much more popular now (because obviously other continuities happened). E.g. the combaticons, or even Prowl. I barely remember any episodes with actual Prowl appearances post-season 1. Like he probably literally appears about as often as Bluestreak.