@@nil981 I know right, I had a crush on her when I was a kid... Which is kinda weird cuz she's a robot, but in hindsight might be the reason I dabble in robotics these days lol
Cliffjumper doesn't die all the time; Rodimus Primal did a video on this (the first death of Cliff happened in the SG (Shattered Glass) comics, but the first on-screen death was in TF Prime)
IDW really beefed her up, which I like. They also put her in a lot of power poses that commanded respect meaning the whole pink thing was easy to over look. Its fun to think that a lot of cybertronians have pink bloos
Prime Arcee was my personal favorite, because she had more facets to her personality. While an awesome and fearsome warrior, she genuinely cares about the lives of her friends after she opens up and faces her personal demons.
@@miyako1909 it's kinda not, it's not without flaws, obviously, but it is indeed the best Transformers cartoon series currently by plot and by quality. The Aligned Continuity as a whole is one of the better ones for understanding the main things, and TFP does just that. P.S.: Design-wise, I like both of them because both designs make total sense in their continuities, and as such are equal.
@@miyako1909 how is tfp overrated but g1 isn't? Make that make sense without sounding bias. Both characters are good warriors with caring personalities. Only difference is one is closer to chromia than how arcee typically is but they doesn't make said character bad
12 year old me watching Transformers The Movie: “Oh a girl”. I was in shock after watching half of the cast I loved die traumatic deaths, and Arcee was the piece they thought I wouldn’t be able to handle? Like Megatron executing Ironhide at point blank range was easy for me to process, but not a pink Autobot 🤦🏼. And the same toy company had already sold me Scarlett, Baroness and a host of other toys for my G.I.Joe collection.....
It's also wild because Transformers at that point have already have accents and clear racial coding, and yet introducing a woman seemed like a step too far.
Its not comparable. Megatron executing robots here and there, it was to make room for new toys. Having him execute Ironhide and Ratchet kinda gave you a very good reason to why none of them had a head to begin with. Having Arcee on the playground meant you had a pink robot that turned in to a pink and white vehicle, in other words you werent a transformers fan with a female robot, you were signaling that you were gay/homosexual. In those times the only worse thing to be back then was black. So having that in mind it was kinda wise decision they made, but at least they could have try releasing the other girls instead, those would probably be more accepted on the playground. At least they werent trying to be colored like a My Little Pony
@@zilvertron What about little girls who were into transformers? While I don't condone homophobic bullying kids are little shits so I do see your point.... But little girls were into transformers even back then. They enjoyed action cartoons and G.I. Joe and He-Man (and She-Ra) can all tell you that. I don't think even by the standards of the 80s anyone going to find it weird a little girl wants the female toy. They missed out tbh, an Arcee toy could have sold like hot cakes as the only option for little girls who wanted a girl toy.
@@zilvertron Are you kidding? Even Eddy Murphy -who certainly isn't white, or 'poor and oppressed' made Jokes about gays (and them having AIDS) in Delirious, which was 1983
I love how you still explain things you’ve explained a bunch of times in the past, like in this episode when you mentioned that “The Rebirth” didn’t air in japan. I feel like anyone who’s said that a dozen times in the past would try to start skipping over it, but I really appreciate that you don’t. It undoubtedly makes the series more accessible to new viewers, and it also removes any chance for ambiguity or confusion. It makes it feel really concise and consistent. I’m not the most avid transformers fan outside of g1, but I always love watching these lore videos just because of how well they’re presented and how interesting you make everything seem
Thanks! I always try to make it so that any video can effectively stand alone, so that everything you need to know is explained within it - I try to imagine every episode is someone's first!
@@ChrisMcFeely I like that myself. Not everyone has subscribed or watch all of your videos in production order, so they may watch "The Basics on Arcee" and never see "The Basics on the Headmasters (or Targetmasters)". Should you do a film about Powermaster Optimus Prime, or the Powermasters in general, I suspect the same issue will come up.
Yeah, I just found this channel, and it was this video. I named three of my mouse pups RC because they all looked alike. I was looking up something from the movie to show a friend because he didn't get it, and saw this video. I'll be watching more as I go but it's cool that I don't have to look around videos to get a reference.
Jesus 2020 is just the year of Arcee, as she’s gotten like 4 toys so far this year, that being with Studio Series, Cyberverse, Earthrise, and Masterpiece. I’m not complaining though, she’s one of my favorite characters, more specifically the Prime version though. But still, I’m getting all four
I’m glad he put the image of Cyberverse Arcee up in the video. On Amazon, that specific Cyberverse Arcee is labeled as the Earthrise one, and I just wasn’t believing it.
G1 Arcee: Fantastic! Energon Arcee: Nice character in a terrible series. Animated Arcee: Memorable. (pun intended) Prime Arcee: Epic! IDW Arcee: Why portray her like this? Movie Arcee: Interesting triplet idea. Cyberverse Arcee: Fun and lovable.
@Mr. Al It was still a lame bit of reasoning in the Marvel origin, while IDW's had to be retconned to not be an insult to real life transgender people instead of just making her female. I guess we can partly blame Budiansky for denouncing the possibility of gender for Cybertronians (though from what was shown here I wouldn't be surprised if Hasbro had something to do with that) but the reasons Furman came up with...both times, even after gender had been a Transformer norm by the time IDW took over...are just wrong.
Transformers having or not having gender was a big debate in the community when I first joined alt.toys.transformers. Their thinking was "why would robots have gender" as if that's never happened in science fiction before.
Well they are genderless in the form of what we would view as a male. But they were selling these toys to boys. So what other sex would they represent the character in? This was the 1980s. You cant project today's cultural sensitivities to the cultural norms of 40 years ago.
I think writers just see male as the “default”, and anything else has to be for a reason. It’s such a weird attitude and I’m glad it’s going away, at least in TF fiction.
Jude Watson I feel like they just picked a gender. I mean, there are two human, biological if you will so SJWs don’t come biting my backside, genders. Pick one. Plus, the line was marketed towards boys so it’s pretty obvious why “male” was picked.
by introducing a female transformer, you suddenly gave everyone else gender. sure they sounded and somewhat looked male but that was because it was marketed towards boys but in the end before the episode featuring Elita-1 came about, the transformers could just be seen as genderless. by introducing it, you suddenly need an explanation since the transformers don't breed like organic creatures, they build bodies and give life to them through sparks and/or vector sigma. and not one explanation can blanket the entire franchise since each universe has different origins for their transformers but 2 (or 3 if you're okay with female transformers being the descendents of Solus Prime) that can mostly be used as the explanation, either through primus creation they were built to imitate life or through quintessons, they were built to appeal to other aliens so gender was in the design. it's a slippery slope giving gender to a race of machines that don't procreate traditionally so some kind of explanation is sort of necessary since biological aliens can easily be handwaved
Yes they did lol Its not like she was the only one. And since they were made as consumer products by the Quintessons, they came in both genders to appease clients. So...there ya go
@@Truenofan86 in the first film they were showed dancing. Waybe while ones were fighting others would be performing artistic things, diferent kinds of entertainment.
It's weird how comics felt the need to justify or explain female transformers for such a long time when in the 90s Beast Wars and Beast Machines just added female transformers. As a kid I don't remember any of my friends questioning why Blackacachina or Airrazor were characters in Beast Wars. We just accepted they were characters.
I remember as a kid, I actually did wonder why these alien robots had genders, but I just shrugged my shoulders and went “it be boring to watch if they all just sounded like literal robots, and voice actors were boys or girls”
Here's another cool thing about Arcee. In the Transformers Universe, it's known that the blood of a cybertronian is not red like a humans. The two depictions seen are pink and blue. To cybertronians, those who have a paint job that is pink or blue, depending on the series, they are a supposedly feared individual. Guess which awesome character has these colors in each depiction. In the original design of G1 and other comics like it, Arcee has a pink paint job, which is the color of the cybertronian blood. In Transformers Prime, Arcee has a blue paint job, which is the color of blood in that series. How freaking awesome is that.
Tfp Arcee actually was given a personality and agency. So creepy how in almost every other continuity her body was piloted, experimented on, rewired for data and her roles varying between a babysitter to a mass murderer. Why the writers have to be so weird
I find it strange how in so much of the media they kept having to justify her existence. I remember the g1 episode in which female autobots were revealed and remember thinking "why not?" I was kind of surprised Arcee was the only fembot we saw in the movie and season 3 as a kid. I was like "where's the other ones?" Btw person in the comments here who says tfp arcee is not arcee is wrong. That version of her is just as legit her as any other.
I enjoyed Prime's Arcee the most. All of the characters were brilliantly written, but Arcee always stood out to me as the most relatable: constantly hurt and afraid to let others in, but also intelligent and caring in her own...prickly way XD
It's a much better time for female Transformers now, and I'm loving it. They've become so much more prevalent with deep and diverse personalities, especially in the new IDW comics. Chromia, Nautica, Road Rage, Flamewar, Shadow Striker, and even Lightbright have all been given substantial roles. And it's so refreshing to see them without some hamfisted (or possibly offensive) reason as to how or why. They're just there!
@@clownplayer7265 there's Solus prime of the 13 original. Bit yes, I think it would be nice and refreshing introducing another female prime. Maybe in an after-war plot, like in the Animated continuity, leading a team in a quest.
Flip's sake Furman. Why does he have to be so weird about Arcee. Anyway, when I was a kid the one toy from the movie I wanted after getting Springer was Arcee. I always thought the figure just never got released in the UK. Had no idea there wasn't one until years later.
Because Furman views Transformers as asexual beings, they are really only called male because humans call them that/the lack of proper gender neutral pronouns.
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
Su Blu is a treasure, and I think her performance as Arcee goes a long way in fleshing out that character's femininity, fierceness and caring. Just another example of how the voice performances were so great.
I really wish her Animated incarnation got more speaking time. Blu really made her shine and made us care about her in the Aniverse despite limited appearances, and her voice acting during the (2!) times Arcee chooses to sacrifice herself to keep Omega from getting in the hands of the Decepticons is really damn powerful.
MrStelios0010 they are sentient and have feelings they can feel sad or develop romantic feelings without the need to fuck. Sexual orientation isn’t as important but it can show that transformers aren’t just war machines but actual characters with feelings. Also romance isn’t about sex it’s about having a deep connection to that person. Sex is just a bonus.
Arcee going fucking berserk is a great idea, it's just the reason, why she went mad that really irks me. Some comment said that there isn't supposed to be an origin for female transformers and that they should just exist and I whole heartedly agree.
Crazy to me they went with the Transformers being genderless. Grew up watching a movie called Batteries Not Included. 2 alien space ships one male and the other female. Had baby spaceships, and it made prefect sense.
Kristopher Prime Do you want to see a show or movie where everyone calls each other it or them? No, it's alienating (in the bad way). Having clear pronouns makes it easier to listen to the story, even if the characters are obviously genderless. You shouldn't sacrifice understandability for the fear of backlash.
I always liked the idea of female Decepticons. There are only two that are generally recognizable to most fans now. Those being Slipstream (TFA) and Shatter (Bumblebee)
My favorite is Prime Arcee. She is simply someone who I would love to meet. And we are talking about a Giant robot who converts into an awesome motorcycle.
I love what they did with her character in TF: Prime. Though she was a great mother figure to Danial, but she was even better as a super-tough big sister figure to Jack.
Not gonna lie, feeling the need to “justify” female Transformers is just stupid. And how Furman handled Arcee in IDW was pretty painful even without the benefit of hindsight.
Why is a justification stupid? They are robots who do not reproduce using a similar birth as humans. If humans did not reproduce the way they did, we would not have males or females either. So they do need a good reason why transformets have genders at all.
@@PowerRedBullTypology But following that same line of questioning, why do most Transformers then present as male? Or humanoid at all for that matter? Or become distinctly earth-like vehicles, complete with cockpits for humans they'd never know on Cybertron?That's why I feel the need to justify gender especially strange; as if humanoid robots turning into cars and planes was self-explanatory but gender needed an in-universe justification.
Plus furman whole career is based on intrigue and mystery played out over years. Do you guys even remember what nova prime was obsessed with at that time? Ya think furman wasn't gonna address it down the road? Here's a hint being a girl ain't a level 9 threat. It's obvious he had a big arc set up for arcee but it all got tossed thanks to idws woke agenda and mairgead scott n Co with their cancel culture. These are asexual aliens, genders don't just happen to em.
It's a matter of the audience rather than the producers, usually. In a franchise that hasn't previously had "genders", introducing a "female" character becomes a subject for debate. People will question whether there were ulterior motives in including them. I wouldn't bring it up, but that thought might at least cross my mind.
Thing is, at the time they didn't think of them as "beloved characters." They thought of them as "interchangeable product that no one is paying for anymore." It was an eye-opener for them. That's why we got Power Master Prime - "Maybe if we use recognizable names on updated designs, we can make EVEN MORE MONEY!"
@@OtakuUnitedStudio Partly. One of the issues with the 1986 movie was the Transformers was a lot more popular then anyone realised (edit: it was the days before the internet so... No one knew anything except what toys were selling, how was they to know anything like this? The movie was made before they even knew sales figures and they weren't told how succewssful they had been, the movie staff just had that much ignorance). The creators had no idea how popular their show was going to be or had become or Optimus Prima being so... Iconic. They only thought they were moving on a toyline, yes, but they had no idea how kids and adults felt about the show. In th 80s, America changted the laws tying in toys and product branding with kids, this opened the door for many new ideas. To seperate things, gimmicks and all sorts of things came out of the works. Shows were meant to run 1-3 years, then be tossed aside for something new. But. Transformers and othe brands like My Little Pony... Didn't do that. They were so popular kids wanted more. Yes, most of the brands disappeared but no one had a clue what was going to be sold and what wasn't. Take in the late 80s and early 90s, how TMNT was a unheard of comic and a toyline from a company that had never been heard of was made. Overnight, that company that made the toys... Became worth millions. The original Turtles comicbook was a unheard of comics, picked up because the licensing was that cheap. They reworked the formula, made the turtles distinct and put out a show that was basically a spoof. But a spoof... That kinda worked. The original comic had 4 turtles with no distinction and itself was a semi-spoof.But the new medium of animation and the formulas that were applied to the show just hit it off. Looking back now, animation companies have ideas on what works and what doesn't. I myself have no issues with franchised brands because their easier to reconigse and the toys pay for the show. So good shows and good toys = success and stable fandoms centred around things. But you have to consider that shows like the Transformers paved the way for this sort of thing and without it wouldn't be a thing. The 1986 movie was made with ignorance, a means to get rid of old robots and introduce new ideas, concepts and robots. But a the same time, a lot of love went into it and detailing. People admire it now because they appricate it more now then they did them. Yes, kids left the cinema in tears, but people basically said it had some realistic depictions of war and hadn't been afraid to "go there" on displaying certain elements. Things like the reflection of a Decepticon as Optimus Prime hits it and knocks it aside... Are kinda awesome to look at. Its one of those things where you can watch twice and see all the attention to detail going on. As a female, I adored the transformers and it neve occurred to me that I should see only male robots, I just saw robots. But looking back... Even MLP had the issues of there being no male ponies except one line up in the later runs the "Big Brother" ponies. But when you look at MLP:FiM, the G4, some of those male ponies are as iconic and adored as the mane 6 female ponies. Hasbro's fixation on making only male characters for boy toys and female characters for girls' toys, failed to recongise that a lot of shows are loved by both genders. In addition, parents watched the shows too. One of the advantages as well that MLP and Transformers have other newer brands is 3 generations of kids have grown up with them and its proven if a parent or parents enjoyed a show... Their more likely to buy their kids the same brand as they have the older toys or were fond of the older toys.
My headcanon for Transformers gender is based on some fandom interpretations I really liked. So Cybertronians don't have sexes and if left isolated they likely would have never considered the concept of gender. However, they have worked with species whose society is very focused on things like gender. When Optimus and co. came to Earth they knew it was very important that to ally with the humans they be seen as people, not things. (To highlight why pronouns would not be arbitrary, name two pop culture robots addressed as "it" who are recognized as equally sentient to humans.) So along with altering their limbs and faces so they were more humanoid, they also adopted human pronouns. Most defaulted to "he" because they would be working with the military and data showed most were males of the species. Some enjoyed this performance of gender, but most were indifferent. Sure strange fleshie, you can call "he" if it makes you feel better. Transformers being labelled female happened one of two ways. 1) Like the handful of transformers who liked the role of being a "he", some were drawn to the different performative nature of being a "she". So they took traits considered feminine by the humans and accentuated them in their root mode. 2) Some Cybertronians have very feminine voices when speaking Earth languages. So the humans by default assumed they were female. When the transformer realized what was going on they had one of two reactions: a) The humans are treating me a little different than the majority of the other Cybertronians because of this idea of femininity. Gender politics is way too alien an idea for me to even attempt to wrap my head around so I'm just going to change my voice and adopt "he" like the majority of the rest. Less work that way. or b) Fleshies are strange part deux. Call me "she" if it makes you feel better. And that is why so few Transformers identify as female and why most of them have humanoid feminine curves.
I think that Arcee naturally looks that way and no Transformer has a gender. Humans just refer to her as a she. And the other Transformers adopted this way of speaking because that is what the Humans (Who they learned English from studying) referred to her as.
@@Simon_Reid Nice headcanon, but we know that isn’t really true anymore. Too many continuities acknowledge gender, often to cringe levels (remember Blackarachnia’s introduction?). Honestly, I just default to the Aligned Continuity explanation unless otherwise noted: female Transformers exist because Solus Prime was a chick. Solus Prime was a chick because Primus works in mysterious ways. It even explains the incredibly unbalanced gender ratios: only 1 out of the 13 Primes was female. Thus, we get 12:1 gender ratio favoring males.
I love in the TF/G.I.JOE crossover comics how every Joe was surprised to see female Autobots, most notably Scarlett. Like Arcee told her: We girls got to stick together.
It brings joy to see how far shes come, from a generic 2D personality into being a character that serves purpose outside of just "female transformer". Prime still one of my favorite incarnations of her.
3:36-4:08 Not gonna lie, as someone who grew up with female characters being common not just in Transformers, but in stuff like Bionicle, I really find this rather Fanatical Objection to these Fictional Alien characters being “Genderless” obnoxious, considering these same writers seem perfectly fine with Male pronouns
And speak as someone who grew up during generation 1, I didn’t question the existence of female auto bots when they showed up in season 2, they were just there. And I never noticed there wasn’t a toy for them because by the time season 2 finished I had moved on to other toys. Had I still been paying attention her absence would have been more noticeable then her presence
I was most probably due to her _very_ feminine design and unrealistic transformation was impossible to make with toy engineering at the time. Even today she most ends up being a half-shellformer.
I love how writers were so spooked about having to add female characters into their writing. Like, it's not that big of a deal! Just write them like you'd write any character. But, I have to say I also enjoy the explanation of many female transformers (Arcee included) as transgender, as they had no gender to begin with and decided to go with one.
despite both arcee and airachnid are mortal enemies they do have one thing in common they fall to soundwave's "standing there menacingly" while getting tp'ed to nowhere card, refuses to elaborate and leaves.
Hands down Prime is my favorite Arcee....and is just so ridiculous all the drama the franchise did to justify Fembots.....THEY JUST EXIST simple,not justification is need it, let that to fans and fanfiction.....that idea of Arcee been a male first in IDW was stupid in all ways. Glad they dont do that anymore but damn kinda piss off to think they have to go that deep just to add a toy of a female character, that just show how much media have change.....now days looks like most action cartoons main protagonist are female and boys buy those toys no problem. Arcee always will be my favorite of all female transformers pretty much the single reason I not very fondle to Windblade is because she have replace Arcee and quite frankly....she isn't half as interesting as Arcee is, specially Arcee from TFP, she was a true badass, and her story was great and tragic and her relationship with Jack, Optimus, Bulkhead and Cliffjumper was excellent not to mention her rivalry with Arachnid was epic and brutal , Windblade have nothing of that in any incarnation she had in animation, so I hope the next big TF cartoon bring back our Queen Arcee where she belongs.....as a main character not a support.
4:47 Holy crap! I never noticed that about Rattrap!! Arcee is his great aunt?!? ....all this time I thought he was Gear’s descendant. Guess I was wrong.
@@smashley4661 well I remember hearing somewhere that Optimus Prime was her brother, and that is why Rattrap was considered to be a future Autobot leader, but that could be some misinformation I picked up somewhere.
Arcee is my girl! She was so brave in the movie! And she always took care of Daniel and her friends. She tried to save Windcharger. Prime should have passed her the matrix.
I wanted to add that you did an amazing job putting this together, as always. I feel like you are one of the few fans who could answer any and every TF question there is and if you didn't know the answer, you would know where to find it. I love your content. You are awesome.
Hasbro: Let’s introduce a female Transformer. Simon Furman: How can we justify female robots?! That’s not realistic! Me: They’re transforming alien robots! What part of this is “realistic”?! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Well they tried to introduce some realism(or at least create a concise world logic/consistency) into their world and explaining why robots had genders seemed necessary. Edit: additionally explaining why female robot exists also works for why gender exist in a race of robots.
I personally really like the Solas Prime origin, even though I agree they don't need an explanation, that would explain why _transforming alien android's_ have what we consider female and male. They aren't actually those things, the females and males just "process" differently. Even if I don't give two craps, if I had to sit through an origin, it be the Solas Prime origin.
*Prime Arcee has so much depth and sophisticated character development. Her design is beautiful and hot, her personality is great and that voice.. melts my heart*
Prime Arcee honestly is one of the best versions of her to appear as you said she had genuinely sophisticated depth to her and she had genuine reasons for how she acted and after a whole she learned to work together with others again they did a incredible job with Arcee in transformers prime
I like the suble pink accents she has and the fact that she joke's in one of the episodes if she would invert her colours she would be completly pink. A great nod to the g1 version
Prime Arcee probably got the most character development of anyone in the show... though... to be fair, not many characters actually had good character development in that show.
Simon Furman did not do right by Arcee. The forced transition was more cringeworthy than her being created to appease feminists. I am so glad she had other writers pick up her stories and actually give her character development. And her relationship with Aeleron was just adorable. G1 Arcee was my first exposure to the character, so I have a soft spot for her, but the Prime Arcee was pa major badass. She is my favorite incarnation of the character.
Even as a transgender woman, I sorta MAYBE get what Furman was trying to do with the awful forcibly transitioned take? If you're doing speculative fiction, it's maybe a little bit soft-science-y to assume that every alien out there is going to have two primary sexes, and since the vast majority of transformers had been male-coded at that point, Furman probably got it stubbornly in his head that they were an all male Sontaran-style race, and when he included Arcee he tried for an edgier harder sci-fi take (that was full of unfortunate real life implications). BUT that said: 1) there are already transformers that have clear ethnic and racial parallels to humanity through accents and racial coding, and writers haven't needed to justify that, 2) Furman's "forced transition" take comes off as incredibly petulant and bad faith after his "feminist appeasement" take, as if the guy REALLY couldn't handle women transformers and wrote something edgy and shocking for the sake of it. It's honestly a scar on the IDW continuity, and even the retcon that Arcee willingly went to Jhaxius is (while better) still also rife with bad implications about trans people.
I hate how IDW paired her with Aileron. It came out of nowhere and just pander to a subset of fans. Aileron is a waste of space and forgettable. I really hate the OCs IDW created. Nautica is the only one who is tolerable.
Thanks so much for making this video!! I grew up with Transformers, but I never really got into it consistently until recently. I’ve found that I’m quite partial to Arcee as she seems to be a well-rounded character with various motivations and a heart of gold. She seems like such a champ! Transformers Prime is what got me interested, but I’m growing more fascinated by the series as time goes on!
"This is a female robot." "We'd have to find some way to explain a female robot." "These are all male robots." "Well that's normal, everybody'll get that right away."
Tbh I think by explaining the existence of female transformers is in itself and explanation why both genders exist. Because male and female are one of those things where you can't have the concept of one without the other. Like how you wouldn't know the concept of darkness without the concept of light.
considering they dont have sex to procreate they would not require two genders... adding a "female" robot to the mix just raises too many questions which the G1 writers and designers didnt want to bother answering especially to the target demographic of small boys. though these days Im sure you are teaching your two year old son how to put on a condom.
@@Shiirow It, really doesn't though. Living creatures with wildly varying DNA structures have variable traits to their bodies. The transformers are robots, but are still themselves living beings with a DNA structure, called CNA. Not only that, a main crux of the series is that they can alter their appearance based on what they see on other planets to start with. Their appearance is at all times, based on both a physiological and psychological aspect of themselves. Just say "That's how they wanna look" or "That's how they were formed." and that's the end of it.
@@Bladezeromus No, in fact it reinforces it since I also said "That's how they were formed", which naturally applies to any cybertronian whose initial body type fits with what we see as feminine. Again, it really is not complicated, and most of the complexity is forced upon it by people who actively refuse to humor the possibility that it can just be a thing. Shape-changing robots from another world can be whatever the hell they wanna be.
And died in Egypt, why is everyone exempt from life save most named humans and Bumblebee in the movies? Oh right something needed to explode. Bayverse this is why you got rebooted!
I never got the absurd inconsistency - if most Cybertronians like Optimus or Hot Rod appear and sound male - but are truly genderless - then why can't Arcee appear and sound female, but truly be genderless?
IDW Arcee's retcon is a bit of a strange one. "No no, she WILLINGLY got turned into a vicious monster who then dreamed about killing Jihaxus in a million different ways... why are you looking at us like that's still weird?" The later trans-reveal-attempt of "It was a better fit" works so much more elegantly it's ridiculous.
Not really. She wasn't willingly turned into a "vicious monster," it was an undesired side-effect that resulted from Jhiaxus's lack of aftercare. Sure, Anode and Lug's version of transition was more elegant, but the Arcee retcon had to work within the confines of the hand that had already been dealt.
That honestly sounds like no matter how hard they to 'fix' her, it seems that they accidentally made her worse by making her into a completely confusing garbled mess of a character.
I hate the logic that boys wouldn’t like female TF toys. Maybe it’s just me but I liked having a romantic interests for the male characters. But nothing is as bad as how they tried to make gender nonexistent, going so far as to make her a forced transgender was so bad. Not only was that horrible, but they butchered the character, she wasn’t likable at all, too unstable and vicious, more Con than Bot.
I’ll give Furman pointers for giving us concepts such a Primus and the Wreckers, but considering his rather obnoxious view on Female Transformers, it kinda makes you wonder if he’s got issues
Also, other than Arcee, there’s some characterizations in the IDW Comics I’m really not a fan of, such as Prowl, the original Thirteen, most Beast Wars characters, Unicron and Primus, Humanity and the NAILs’ relationship with the Autobots, stuff regarding Combiner, Head/Target Masters and Minicons, and the invasive crossovers
Although most fans are men, the fans in the two polls, where fans could help determine how the new character should be, always chose a female transformer.
Josiah Nunley yeah the whole thing of the mythology was all a lie thing, the hasbro crossover in order to make it an expanded universe (really they need to focus on the transformers not other series that were struggling), humanity being boring or jerks It all fell apart in the end Hopefully the reboot will learned not to make that mistake
i think that tfp arcee is objectively the best version, but my personal favorite is animated arcee. she gives me a caring grandmotherly vibe and i wish season 4 had aired so i could see more of that
IDW Arcee is honestly one of the all time great Transformers characters. Her development under John Barber gave her arguably the strongest character arc of anyone in IDW.
it was assumed until female transformers came around (from what I understand) that transformers were genderless until that point so introducing that came the idea the character's we were following were male and then it comes down to why since they don't reproduce the traditional way.
The problem is the transformers were never technically male, they Were A-gender with no reproductive systems, neither male nor female. Thats the reason for having to retcon previous lore to include females when there were never males. It's like trying to force gender on earth worms lol
When the Movie came out, my parents were involved in a very ugly divorce, right after my gradfather died. When movie Daniel lost his parents and watched his greatest hero die, it felt very much like what I, nine year old RL Daniel, was experiencing. So Hot Rod, Rodimus, Arcee, Kup, Blur and Springer became my surrogate family just like they did for him. Watching Rodimus struggling with guilt, being thrust in an unfamiliar situation and gaining confidence to become the Prime others saw in him inspired me to try my best as well, even if I fail. I don't know where I'd be without them. I'm really, really looking forward to masterwork Arcee taking her place on my shelf with Hot Rod and Daniel.
I remember Visionaries. I don’t remember any of the lore, but they were armored humanoid animal warriors that had tiny holographic paper on their chests and you’d be able to see different images depending on the reflection of light.
Arcee was a great warrior and one of my many 80s cartoon crushes as a kid; in the same leagues as April O'neil, The Sorcereress, Cheetara and Scarlet! She was one bad little car!
I've always liked the Prime version of Arcee the most. It was nice to see her get some proper development and step into the spotlight. She also kicked SERIOUS tailpipe in that show.
I love Arcee in all her forms. G1 is my favorite but honorable mention goes to the Transformers Prime version. I wanted either her or Hound to win the Power of the Primes fan vote to see what they would have done with their evolved modes.
@@Jeddostotle7 is the artist behind the times or us? Because that look like something that could happen today (i mean the angry mob that can never be pleased)
arcee really is just such an important character man, i just adore her so much. having arcee now a days being portrayed as a lesbian trasn woman is just really so Good and Gets me all kinds of fucked up man, arcee rights.
Wreckers/Beast Machines/BotCon Arcee remains my favorite iteration of her 🤗 Loved her solitary and angry personality without being psychotic like in the IDW comics...
6:51 we all know Michael bay would’ve said yes just so he could have a hot babe to mug for the camera Edit: why’s this so hard for writers to make reasons for? Shockwave literally says “I thought they were extinct”, so there’s gotta be a few left, right?
I like the Cyberverse one the most. She'd probably the most fun incarnation to hang out with. Also love Cyberberverse just having female characters who are just there like Clobber.
Rung is kind of a "Similar Opposite" in that regard in that while we see his alt-mode a fair bit, we never see what it DOES until the end of the IDW comics. Most just classified it as an Ornament. Siege managed to keep the shape of it, but the function it has there as a mind-reading gun is not the same as it is in the comics.
IDW has been my favourite iteration of Arcee, next to G1 Movie Arcee. But if I were to watch Cyberverse, chances are I'd fall in love with her iteration also. And I'm really looking forward to her Earthrise figure. ^^
Yeah, I see where you're coming from. Back then, young boy fans are all like "Ew, no girls! Girls are smelly!" But, the older we lads get, the more we grow to appreciate them. While Arcee's one of those cases in which I can't stand it when there's normally just one girl each team, it's good that she was an addition at all. And I really do appreciate IDW 2005 bringing more female characters into the franchise, including Windblade, and Nautica (one of my favourites). And if I had to pick at-least one favourite incarnation of Arcee - which is very tricky for me - I suppose it'd probably have to between either G1, Prime or Animated (maybe a bit of IDW as well). Though, I do find it quite amusing that, in Cyberverse, she's a keen adventurer who takes selfies. All in all, I definitely appreciate her a great deal. :) Oh, and I totally ship her with Aileron btw. ^w^
It was more like stance of toy companies like Hasbro that boys didn't want toys of female characters when that wasn't true. After all it was boys that bought toys of G.I. Joe female characters like Scarlett and Baroness. So whole stance didn't really hold.
@@Mecha82 I started late when I got into G.I.Joe but I would have loved some female action figures (especially my favourite Lady Jaye) unfortunately I could never find any on the shelves.
She is my favorite bot since the moment i saw her in Transformers Prime series. Im glad she got a basics. Out of all the incarnations of Arcee i prefer the Prime series since i like that version & the color blue.
One of my favorite interpretation happened in the IDW Star Trek Transformers cross over which while being a G1 off shoot still brought in Airrachnid on the Decepticon side and kept the Prime rivalry.
Arcee will always keep her space in my little Heart , be it her kind G1 version , her emotionally distant Prime version or her more spunky Cyberverse version .One of the top headers in my list of reasons why Cybertronians are cute and loveable (Optimus is above her , he is peak Robo Waifu) .
Arcee then: "Stay close to me Daniel!"
Arcee now: "You're a human Jack, can you build me a small intestine?"
That's like different mothering approaches, its great!
Prime arcee is the best incarnation of her.
@@nil981 I know right, I had a crush on her when I was a kid... Which is kinda weird cuz she's a robot, but in hindsight might be the reason I dabble in robotics these days lol
@@comicstrider4851 Well, the original G1 cartoon had humn women fall in love with Autobots.
I always feel like Prime Arcee is more like Chromia with the Arcee name
Dammit, Cliffjumper, stop traumatizing your friends by dying tragically!
Cliffjumper doesn't die all the time; Rodimus Primal did a video on this (the first death of Cliff happened in the SG (Shattered Glass) comics, but the first on-screen death was in TF Prime)
He died literally three times over 35 years. Once in Shattered Glass, once in Prime, and once in Bumblebee.
Fairly certain it’s implied he got digested by Unicron in TF:TM. And probably died to cosmically impowered Starscream in Marvel’s G1 run.
@@coledewey3564 but...daniel saves him alongside jazz they escape out of unicron
That was Bumblebee and Jazz, fairly certain Cliff got consumed. Will check TFwiki to confirm.
Michael Bay: Explaining the existence of female transformers is too hard.
Also Michael Bay: Transformers have genitals just like us.
*The enemy Scrotum*
Bee, stop lubricating on the human.
Dickbot the blender guy. What the hell was going through their heads?
@@Raze_134 money and explosions...
Yep. Damn, I hate Michael Bay...
Arcee was so cool and sharp in Transformers Prime that it's kind of hard to take her seriously in her rounder pink design.
IDW really beefed her up, which I like. They also put her in a lot of power poses that commanded respect meaning the whole pink thing was easy to over look. Its fun to think that a lot of cybertronians have pink bloos
hello there
There was a scene in prime where she commented on bee's color swap and that if she did it she would just look pink.
She was cool in sin of the wreckers
Arcee always took the high ground
It's a bummer Arcee's original G1 toy never got released, but that just spared her from being offlined by the cosmically powered Starscream
THIS STUPID PHRASE NEEDS TO DIE!!!! Or be offlined by a cosmically powered Starscream. 😂
Bruh Arcee getting flicked out of existence would be so goofy bro 💀
Prime Arcee was my personal favorite, because she had more facets to her personality. While an awesome and fearsome warrior, she genuinely cares about the lives of her friends after she opens up and faces her personal demons.
Every member of the Prime crew honestly had a wonderfully fleshed out character. It's one of the reasons the show was so good.
G1 Arcee is the same though. She is caring but still holds her own in battles. TFP is just way overrated.
@miyako1909 she's a fucking nanny with robo tits prime is ten times better
@@miyako1909 it's kinda not, it's not without flaws, obviously, but it is indeed the best Transformers cartoon series currently by plot and by quality. The Aligned Continuity as a whole is one of the better ones for understanding the main things, and TFP does just that.
P.S.: Design-wise, I like both of them because both designs make total sense in their continuities, and as such are equal.
@@miyako1909 how is tfp overrated but g1 isn't? Make that make sense without sounding bias. Both characters are good warriors with caring personalities. Only difference is one is closer to chromia than how arcee typically is but they doesn't make said character bad
Prime Arcee was the one who got me into Transformers lore in the 1st place.
You have good taste
Same.
Me too
Sumalee Montano did a great job of voicing her.
*S A M E*
I'm glad Arcee became a good character in her own right, as opposed to just a love interest or mother figure for another character
Apparently the Japanese didn't get the memo when working on "Transformers: The Headmasters" anime, considering what they did with Arcee.
Transformers Prime had Arcee as a mom character for Jack
@@cjhome3332 I always saw her as more of a "big sister" or even as a *possible* love interest, even if only one sided.
@@TurnAGundam I could see what Prime Arcee and Jack had as semi-romantic, from a certain point of view.
CJ Adams She was an older sister figure.
The "Transformers Prime" version of Arcee is probably the best version of her in my opinion
You're not wrong
I love her moments with Optimus
Agreed. She was badass, strong and a very well written character. 👏🏾
Yep .
Do you mean the one time she wasn't a glorified housewife/babysitter? Yeah.
12 year old me watching Transformers The Movie: “Oh a girl”. I was in shock after watching half of the cast I loved die traumatic deaths, and Arcee was the piece they thought I wouldn’t be able to handle? Like Megatron executing Ironhide at point blank range was easy for me to process, but not a pink Autobot 🤦🏼.
And the same toy company had already sold me Scarlett, Baroness and a host of other toys for my G.I.Joe collection.....
Especially strange since Season 2 had Elita One, Chromia, Firestar, etc. before the movie introduced Arcee.
It's also wild because Transformers at that point have already have accents and clear racial coding, and yet introducing a woman seemed like a step too far.
Its not comparable. Megatron executing robots here and there, it was to make room for new toys. Having him execute Ironhide and Ratchet kinda gave you a very good reason to why none of them had a head to begin with.
Having Arcee on the playground meant you had a pink robot that turned in to a pink and white vehicle, in other words you werent a transformers fan with a female robot, you were signaling that you were gay/homosexual. In those times the only worse thing to be back then was black. So having that in mind it was kinda wise decision they made, but at least they could have try releasing the other girls instead, those would probably be more accepted on the playground. At least they werent trying to be colored like a My Little Pony
@@zilvertron What about little girls who were into transformers? While I don't condone homophobic bullying kids are little shits so I do see your point.... But little girls were into transformers even back then. They enjoyed action cartoons and G.I. Joe and He-Man (and She-Ra) can all tell you that. I don't think even by the standards of the 80s anyone going to find it weird a little girl wants the female toy. They missed out tbh, an Arcee toy could have sold like hot cakes as the only option for little girls who wanted a girl toy.
@@zilvertron
Are you kidding? Even Eddy Murphy -who certainly isn't white, or 'poor and oppressed' made Jokes about gays (and them having AIDS) in Delirious, which was 1983
IDW 2019 Arcee is best mom
“Oh someone made Gauge cry? Well, I guess their free trial of *living has ended* “
Lesson Learned :Never mess with Arcee or her friends.
@@goutamisikdar8588 other Example, Transformers Prime Arcee...
Arcee: so you’ve chosen death
*peace was never an option*
Arcee never talk tome or my son agin
corpes she was talking to *falls*
I love how you still explain things you’ve explained a bunch of times in the past, like in this episode when you mentioned that “The Rebirth” didn’t air in japan. I feel like anyone who’s said that a dozen times in the past would try to start skipping over it, but I really appreciate that you don’t. It undoubtedly makes the series more accessible to new viewers, and it also removes any chance for ambiguity or confusion. It makes it feel really concise and consistent. I’m not the most avid transformers fan outside of g1, but I always love watching these lore videos just because of how well they’re presented and how interesting you make everything seem
Thanks! I always try to make it so that any video can effectively stand alone, so that everything you need to know is explained within it - I try to imagine every episode is someone's first!
@@ChrisMcFeely This very aspect is the reason why I use your videos to get my friends into tranformers. Keep it up
@@ChrisMcFeely I like that myself. Not everyone has subscribed or watch all of your videos in production order, so they may watch "The Basics on Arcee" and never see "The Basics on the Headmasters (or Targetmasters)". Should you do a film about Powermaster Optimus Prime, or the Powermasters in general, I suspect the same issue will come up.
Yeah, I just found this channel, and it was this video. I named three of my mouse pups RC because they all looked alike. I was looking up something from the movie to show a friend because he didn't get it, and saw this video. I'll be watching more as I go but it's cool that I don't have to look around videos to get a reference.
Jesus 2020 is just the year of Arcee, as she’s gotten like 4 toys so far this year, that being with Studio Series, Cyberverse, Earthrise, and Masterpiece. I’m not complaining though, she’s one of my favorite characters, more specifically the Prime version though. But still, I’m getting all four
Don't forget 3rd party figures like Azalea (Arcee but not made by Hasbro)
Make up for the 30 years of neglect?
I’m glad he put the image of Cyberverse Arcee up in the video. On Amazon, that specific Cyberverse Arcee is labeled as the Earthrise one, and I just wasn’t believing it.
Is there a prime version of arcee for the prime series.
Same here. Sad it took so long.
G1 Arcee: Fantastic!
Energon Arcee: Nice character in a terrible series.
Animated Arcee: Memorable. (pun intended)
Prime Arcee: Epic!
IDW Arcee: Why portray her like this?
Movie Arcee: Interesting triplet idea.
Cyberverse Arcee: Fun and lovable.
IDW Arcee is probably the only that's an actually interesting character and not just "pink girl transformer".
@@trippersigs2248 True, true.
@@trippersigs2248 next to Prime Arcee. Tho understandably not as fleshed out.
Prime and Cyberverse versions are my favorites. I hate the IDW version (not to be transphobic, seriously)
Beautiful pun
Things that don't have genders: cars, ships, planes...
Things that are given a female pronoun: cars, ships, planes...
C’mon now, they’re sentient beings!
@@Erik-fn7kj Transformers might be, but stranded vehicles are not.
There are occasional exceptions. The battleship Bismarck was referred to as male by the Germans.
@@UberNoodle Because of the manly tasks it was to perform and being named after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.
Would you like to know that at one point tanks were defined as either a male or female?
I never thought I'd hear Chris McFeely say cringe, but here we are
cringe.
Cringe Worthy, gotta have those two words to describe that.
That was a really cringy way to "justify" Arcee's existence
@Mr. Al It was still a lame bit of reasoning in the Marvel origin, while IDW's had to be retconned to not be an insult to real life transgender people instead of just making her female. I guess we can partly blame Budiansky for denouncing the possibility of gender for Cybertronians (though from what was shown here I wouldn't be surprised if Hasbro had something to do with that) but the reasons Furman came up with...both times, even after gender had been a Transformer norm by the time IDW took over...are just wrong.
Arcee’s background in the Marvel and IDW comics is pretty messy either way
Why do they need to "justify" a female robot? They don't have to explain why the male characters are male.
Transformers having or not having gender was a big debate in the community when I first joined alt.toys.transformers. Their thinking was "why would robots have gender" as if that's never happened in science fiction before.
Well they are genderless in the form of what we would view as a male. But they were selling these toys to boys. So what other sex would they represent the character in? This was the 1980s.
You cant project today's cultural sensitivities to the cultural norms of 40 years ago.
I think writers just see male as the “default”, and anything else has to be for a reason. It’s such a weird attitude and I’m glad it’s going away, at least in TF fiction.
Jude Watson I feel like they just picked a gender. I mean, there are two human, biological if you will so SJWs don’t come biting my backside, genders. Pick one. Plus, the line was marketed towards boys so it’s pretty obvious why “male” was picked.
by introducing a female transformer, you suddenly gave everyone else gender. sure they sounded and somewhat looked male but that was because it was marketed towards boys but in the end before the episode featuring Elita-1 came about, the transformers could just be seen as genderless. by introducing it, you suddenly need an explanation since the transformers don't breed like organic creatures, they build bodies and give life to them through sparks and/or vector sigma. and not one explanation can blanket the entire franchise since each universe has different origins for their transformers but 2 (or 3 if you're okay with female transformers being the descendents of Solus Prime) that can mostly be used as the explanation, either through primus creation they were built to imitate life or through quintessons, they were built to appeal to other aliens so gender was in the design. it's a slippery slope giving gender to a race of machines that don't procreate traditionally so some kind of explanation is sort of necessary since biological aliens can easily be handwaved
G1 female Transformers: Transformers didn't know the concept of genders.
Female Transformers now: They just exist
Yes they did lol Its not like she was the only one.
And since they were made as consumer products by the Quintessons, they came in both genders to appease clients.
So...there ya go
Dallas Loghry Wait....................……....................……So the Female transformers in G1 cartoon continuity we’re suppossed to be Plesure-Bots ?
Kamil Chrzanowski no, Autobots were menial labor force, so females were probably maids and cooks and what have you.
@@Truenofan86 in the first film they were showed dancing. Waybe while ones were fighting others would be performing artistic things, diferent kinds of entertainment.
All just computer programming.
It's weird how comics felt the need to justify or explain female transformers for such a long time when in the 90s Beast Wars and Beast Machines just added female transformers. As a kid I don't remember any of my friends questioning why Blackacachina or Airrazor were characters in Beast Wars. We just accepted they were characters.
I remember as a kid, I actually did wonder why these alien robots had genders, but I just shrugged my shoulders and went “it be boring to watch if they all just sounded like literal robots, and voice actors were boys or girls”
@@darthsonic4135 I always just assumed they are alien sentient robots let's not think about it too much.
Here's another cool thing about Arcee. In the Transformers Universe, it's known that the blood of a cybertronian is not red like a humans. The two depictions seen are pink and blue. To cybertronians, those who have a paint job that is pink or blue, depending on the series, they are a supposedly feared individual. Guess which awesome character has these colors in each depiction. In the original design of G1 and other comics like it, Arcee has a pink paint job, which is the color of the cybertronian blood. In Transformers Prime, Arcee has a blue paint job, which is the color of blood in that series. How freaking awesome is that.
RodimusPrimal: Makes a video about Arcee
Chris McFeely: Also makes a video about Arcee
Wait a minute, this feels familiar
IRK I thought the same thing
Jung did it again he synchronized
I was also about to comment this!
I actually just watched rodimus primals arcee video
Oh hi Dank Starscream. How does it feel to get kill by Galvatron? It probably suck.
Tfp Arcee actually was given a personality and agency. So creepy how in almost every other continuity her body was piloted, experimented on, rewired for data and her roles varying between a babysitter to a mass murderer. Why the writers have to be so weird
TFP Arcee isn't Arcee. Just some else who was given the same name.
@@miyako1909 she's chromia but she's still an amazing character
I find it strange how in so much of the media they kept having to justify her existence. I remember the g1 episode in which female autobots were revealed and remember thinking "why not?" I was kind of surprised Arcee was the only fembot we saw in the movie and season 3 as a kid. I was like "where's the other ones?" Btw person in the comments here who says tfp arcee is not arcee is wrong. That version of her is just as legit her as any other.
@@toddwood440well they had to give some explanation, these are alien robots afterall,they're not humans,there's no reason for them to have genders
@@miyako1909and nobody cares about Prime Arcee is the Best Arcee, the end.
I enjoyed Prime's Arcee the most. All of the characters were brilliantly written, but Arcee always stood out to me as the most relatable: constantly hurt and afraid to let others in, but also intelligent and caring in her own...prickly way XD
Prime arcee. The chad. Smart, skilled, responsible, caring, badass and exceptionally great fighter.
Virgin movie arcee:No legs,no voicelined and probably died so easily
Cyberverse Arcee is so *_chill ~_*
And 50% *NOT SERIOUS*
Best Arcee imo
My favourite is the trashtalking badass arcee of the prime series...she is bad
@@levisamom5069 agreed. The tfp arcee is a bad ass and serious no selfies no fun she's just cool.
@@strykerp28 cough cough (prime arcee) cough cough
It's a much better time for female Transformers now, and I'm loving it. They've become so much more prevalent with deep and diverse personalities, especially in the new IDW comics. Chromia, Nautica, Road Rage, Flamewar, Shadow Striker, and even Lightbright have all been given substantial roles. And it's so refreshing to see them without some hamfisted (or possibly offensive) reason as to how or why. They're just there!
You know, I kinda wish to see a female Prime.
If we have male primes like Sentinel, Zeta or even Optimus himself, i'd be nice to have a female Prime.
@@clownplayer7265 there's Solus prime of the 13 original. Bit yes, I think it would be nice and refreshing introducing another female prime. Maybe in an after-war plot, like in the Animated continuity, leading a team in a quest.
@@kiriki4558 Yeah, I learned about her when I get into another basics video. But we are on the same boat, we want more female Primes.
I think we should also get a female combiner. Keep in mind not all of the team that forms the combiner has to be female imo.
@@Darthzilla99 you just gonna gloss over Pyra Magna
Flip's sake Furman. Why does he have to be so weird about Arcee.
Anyway, when I was a kid the one toy from the movie I wanted after getting Springer was Arcee. I always thought the figure just never got released in the UK. Had no idea there wasn't one until years later.
Because Furman views Transformers as asexual beings, they are really only called male because humans call them that/the lack of proper gender neutral pronouns.
John Williams that makes sense when you see what Furman wrote as the origin story.
the voices of reman in my had says that Fuman never left the closet, and treats TF as it is because of it when he writes it.
I LIKE YOUR VIDEO BETTER THAN YOUR RIVAL!! HIS NAME IS RODIMUS PRIMAL! ALSO, TOO BAD THAT ARCEE DIDN'T GET A TOY! FOR A VERY LONG TIME!
MY FAVORITE TYPES OF GIANT ROBOTS ARE NO. 1: GUNDAMS, NO. 2: MEGAZORDS, AND NO. 3: TRANSFORMERS! I LOVE GUNDAM A LOT BETTER THAN
POWER RANGERS!! BECAUSE GUNDAM IS DARKER AND COOLER THAN POWER RANGERS! GUNDAM IS MADE FOR TEENAGERS AND ADULTS! I LIKE THE
1978 GUNDAM, DOUBLE ZETA GUNDAM, GUNDAM WING, GUNDAM SEED, GUNDAM DESTINY, AND THE GUNDAM 00 TV SHOWS! I HAVE 11 DIFFERENT TYPES
OF GUNDAM MODEL KITS! ALSO, FUN FACT SOME GUNDAMS WERE NEVER DESTROYED!! USUALLY, GUNDAMS ARE DESTROYED IN BATTLE, THE FINAL
BATTLE, OR IN TIMES OF PEACE! IN GUNDAM WING ENDLESS WALTZ ALL THE GUNDAMS ARE ALL GONE FOR GOOD! BECAUSE THE GUNDAM PILOTS
HAVE ACHIEVED TRUE PEACE! ANYHOW, I SIX REAL GRADE MODELS, FOUR HIGH GRADE, AND ONE MASTER GRADE GUNDAMS MODEL KITS! I BUILT 10
DIFFERENT TYPES OF GUNDAMS! I AM WORKING ON MY REAL GRADE 00 QUANT GUNDAM! BY THE WAY, I'M FROM HAWAII! IN ANY CASE, THE STRIKE
FREEDOM GUNDAM AND THE INFINITE JUSTICE GUNDAM WERE NEVER DESTROYED!! BECAUSE THE GUNDAM SEED DESTINY MOVIE WAS CANCELLED!!
BECAUSE THE FEMALE LEAD SCREENWRITER DIED OF BRAIN CANCER!! ANYHOW, I'LL TELL YOU MY TOP 10 GUNDAMS OF ALL TIME! NO. 1: MY MASTER
GRADE WING ZERO CUSTOM!! NO. 2: MY REAL GRADE STRIKE FREEDOM GUNDAM! NO. 3: R.G FREEDOM GUNDAM. NO. 4: R.G JUSTICE GUNDAM.
NO. 5: MY R.G 00 QUANT GUNDAM. NO. 6: MY H.G 1/144 SCALE DEATHSYCTHE HELL CUSTOM MODEL! NO. 7: 1/144 SCALE HEAVYARMS CUSTOM.
NO. 8: H.G 1/144 NATAKU CUSTOM GUNDAM! NO. 9: H.G 1/144 SANDROCK CUSTOM! NO. 10: MY R.G RX-78 GUNDAM! THE RX-78 GUNDAM IS THE FIRST
GUNDAM EVER MADE! WHICH CAME OUT IN JAPAN ON 1978!! NONETHELESS, HIGH GRADE IS FOR BEGINNERS! MASTER GRADE, REAL GRADE, AND
PERFECT GRADES ARE SUPERIOR THAN THE HIGH GRADES! THE M.G, R.G, AND P.G GUNDAMS HAVE A LOT MORE STICKERS THAN THE H.G MODELS!!
ALSO, NEED TO USE A LOT OF SUPER GLUE ON THE R.G, M.G, AND P.G MODELS! ALSO, I HAVE THE R.G AILE STRIKE GUNDAM TOO! I JUST WANTED IT
FOR MY COLLECTION!! HE IS THE SECOND REAL GRADE GUNDAM TO BE CREATED!! THE FIRST R.G GUNDAM IS THE RX-78 GUNDAM!! MODEL 02
IS THE ZAKU 2!! MODEL 03 IS THE AILE STRIKE GUNDAM!! BY THE WAY, ON 2011 THE REAL GRADE RX-78 GUNDAM WON BEST KIT OF THE YEAR!!
I BUY MY MODELS ON AMAZON PRIME OR AT THE RAZORS CONCEPTS STORE!! I PLAN TO RETIRE SOON!! I'M GETTING TIRED OF BUILDING THEM!!
OKAY, GOOD-BYE AND HAVE AN EXCELLENT DAY, EVERYBODY!!
@@johnmatrix7688 wht
Su Blu is a treasure, and I think her performance as Arcee goes a long way in fleshing out that character's femininity, fierceness and caring. Just another example of how the voice performances were so great.
I really wish her Animated incarnation got more speaking time. Blu really made her shine and made us care about her in the Aniverse despite limited appearances, and her voice acting during the (2!) times Arcee chooses to sacrifice herself to keep Omega from getting in the hands of the Decepticons is really damn powerful.
she will always be arcee and stormer to me.
I loved the emotional moments with Arcee in Transformers Prime, especially when it looked like she and Optimus were going to freeze to death together.
Furman: they are all males
Other writers and fans: Then they're all gay, nice.
Furman: NO-
LOL
Furman really shot himself in the foot with that one but it gave us so many ships that needed to sail
Genuine question was Furman not ok with gay transformers?
@MrStelios0010 because they arent "just war machines" they're a species. with lives outside the context of war.
MrStelios0010 they are sentient and have feelings they can feel sad or develop romantic feelings without the need to fuck. Sexual orientation isn’t as important but it can show that transformers aren’t just war machines but actual characters with feelings. Also romance isn’t about sex it’s about having a deep connection to that person. Sex is just a bonus.
I like Arcee...but I absolutely LOVE and adore G1 Arcee!!
Why g1 arcee though?
Arcee going fucking berserk is a great idea, it's just the reason, why she went mad that really irks me. Some comment said that there isn't supposed to be an origin for female transformers and that they should just exist and I whole heartedly agree.
Female transformers are from the planet caminis
That's really dumb. It's not like every chick on earth is from one country.
Aah yes, Prime Acree gave my 14 year old self some strange thoughts and- why am I admitting this?
You aren't the only one...
Don't keep your feelings buried deep man. Let it all out. We have all been there.
They made her actual character in Prime.
Honestly prime arcee was one of if not the best version of her.
Prime Arcee gave some strange thoughts to my 20 year old self...
I really don't know why I adore the original Arcee design, it's so basic yet so lovable.
Crazy to me they went with the Transformers being genderless. Grew up watching a movie called Batteries Not Included. 2 alien space ships one male and the other female. Had baby spaceships, and it made prefect sense.
Kristopher Prime Do you want to see a show or movie where everyone calls each other it or them? No, it's alienating (in the bad way). Having clear pronouns makes it easier to listen to the story, even if the characters are obviously genderless. You shouldn't sacrifice understandability for the fear of backlash.
@Purple Emerald yeh it older. Movie from 198ps
Arcee, Nightbird, and the female Autobots walked so that female Transformers could run.
They actually drove and flew, but your still right
I always liked the idea of female Decepticons. There are only two that are generally recognizable to most fans now. Those being Slipstream (TFA) and Shatter (Bumblebee)
@@wingedbluj1674where is black arachind in this
@@brawmankerlexterminateurde860 I stand corrected, 3
@@wingedbluj1674 Don't forget Night bird in g1 cartoon.
I love how they have made her a mentor in the new idw run and just when you think they have removed her murderous streak.......boom there it is.
They fused all of her past concepts with wierd results, and I actually like it
Please don't tell me she has the same backstory as in the original IDW continuity...
@@ltb1345 that would be **cked up royal
I always thought that was a little edgy. I prefer Cyberverse's take mixed with prime
@@ltb1345 no its touched on she used to be an assassin but none of the trans gender experimentation or being Galvatrons sister etc etc.
My favorite is Prime Arcee. She is simply someone who I would love to meet.
And we are talking about a Giant robot who converts into an awesome motorcycle.
Should’ve been a different name so it could’ve been an additional character.
@@AntiDecepticonCampaignshe could be called Elita One as a reimagination of the original character, I would not mind at all.
I love what they did with her character in TF: Prime. Though she was a great mother figure to Danial, but she was even better as a super-tough big sister figure to Jack.
That moment when people forget the first robot in a movie ever was female.
Talking about Metropolis?
@@batsardcat3285 yessir. Good Ole Maria.
That's far from the first robot in a movie. Maybe a robot in an animated movie
@@sketchasaurrex4087 You know the old movie from the 20's-30's right?
@@Tazirai some of them. I might be thinking of the wrong Metropolis. The one I'm thinking of is an anime with color.
Not gonna lie, feeling the need to “justify” female Transformers is just stupid. And how Furman handled Arcee in IDW was pretty painful even without the benefit of hindsight.
Why is a justification stupid? They are robots who do not reproduce using a similar birth as humans. If humans did not reproduce the way they did, we would not have males or females either. So they do need a good reason why transformets have genders at all.
@@PowerRedBullTypology But following that same line of questioning, why do most Transformers then present as male? Or humanoid at all for that matter? Or become distinctly earth-like vehicles, complete with cockpits for humans they'd never know on Cybertron?That's why I feel the need to justify gender especially strange; as if humanoid robots turning into cars and planes was self-explanatory but gender needed an in-universe justification.
Plus furman whole career is based on intrigue and mystery played out over years.
Do you guys even remember what nova prime was obsessed with at that time? Ya think furman wasn't gonna address it down the road? Here's a hint being a girl ain't a level 9 threat. It's obvious he had a big arc set up for arcee but it all got tossed thanks to idws woke agenda and mairgead scott n Co with their cancel culture.
These are asexual aliens, genders don't just happen to em.
It's a matter of the audience rather than the producers, usually. In a franchise that hasn't previously had "genders", introducing a "female" character becomes a subject for debate. People will question whether there were ulterior motives in including them.
I wouldn't bring it up, but that thought might at least cross my mind.
@@digimonFTW22456 literally none of the other transformers look male they look like robots just robots
Last time I was this early, Hasbro thought it was a good idea to callously murder beloved characters because their toys were discontinued!
Thing is, at the time they didn't think of them as "beloved characters." They thought of them as "interchangeable product that no one is paying for anymore." It was an eye-opener for them. That's why we got Power Master Prime - "Maybe if we use recognizable names on updated designs, we can make EVEN MORE MONEY!"
With the cosmically overpowered star scream
@@OtakuUnitedStudio Partly. One of the issues with the 1986 movie was the Transformers was a lot more popular then anyone realised (edit: it was the days before the internet so... No one knew anything except what toys were selling, how was they to know anything like this? The movie was made before they even knew sales figures and they weren't told how succewssful they had been, the movie staff just had that much ignorance). The creators had no idea how popular their show was going to be or had become or Optimus Prima being so... Iconic.
They only thought they were moving on a toyline, yes, but they had no idea how kids and adults felt about the show.
In th 80s, America changted the laws tying in toys and product branding with kids, this opened the door for many new ideas. To seperate things, gimmicks and all sorts of things came out of the works. Shows were meant to run 1-3 years, then be tossed aside for something new. But. Transformers and othe brands like My Little Pony... Didn't do that. They were so popular kids wanted more. Yes, most of the brands disappeared but no one had a clue what was going to be sold and what wasn't.
Take in the late 80s and early 90s, how TMNT was a unheard of comic and a toyline from a company that had never been heard of was made. Overnight, that company that made the toys... Became worth millions. The original Turtles comicbook was a unheard of comics, picked up because the licensing was that cheap. They reworked the formula, made the turtles distinct and put out a show that was basically a spoof. But a spoof... That kinda worked. The original comic had 4 turtles with no distinction and itself was a semi-spoof.But the new medium of animation and the formulas that were applied to the show just hit it off.
Looking back now, animation companies have ideas on what works and what doesn't. I myself have no issues with franchised brands because their easier to reconigse and the toys pay for the show. So good shows and good toys = success and stable fandoms centred around things. But you have to consider that shows like the Transformers paved the way for this sort of thing and without it wouldn't be a thing.
The 1986 movie was made with ignorance, a means to get rid of old robots and introduce new ideas, concepts and robots. But a the same time, a lot of love went into it and detailing. People admire it now because they appricate it more now then they did them. Yes, kids left the cinema in tears, but people basically said it had some realistic depictions of war and hadn't been afraid to "go there" on displaying certain elements. Things like the reflection of a Decepticon as Optimus Prime hits it and knocks it aside... Are kinda awesome to look at. Its one of those things where you can watch twice and see all the attention to detail going on.
As a female, I adored the transformers and it neve occurred to me that I should see only male robots, I just saw robots. But looking back... Even MLP had the issues of there being no male ponies except one line up in the later runs the "Big Brother" ponies. But when you look at MLP:FiM, the G4, some of those male ponies are as iconic and adored as the mane 6 female ponies. Hasbro's fixation on making only male characters for boy toys and female characters for girls' toys, failed to recongise that a lot of shows are loved by both genders. In addition, parents watched the shows too.
One of the advantages as well that MLP and Transformers have other newer brands is 3 generations of kids have grown up with them and its proven if a parent or parents enjoyed a show... Their more likely to buy their kids the same brand as they have the older toys or were fond of the older toys.
@@AngelEmfrbl yes yes this sounds smart enough to get my like yes yes
My headcanon for Transformers gender is based on some fandom interpretations I really liked. So Cybertronians don't have sexes and if left isolated they likely would have never considered the concept of gender. However, they have worked with species whose society is very focused on things like gender. When Optimus and co. came to Earth they knew it was very important that to ally with the humans they be seen as people, not things. (To highlight why pronouns would not be arbitrary, name two pop culture robots addressed as "it" who are recognized as equally sentient to humans.) So along with altering their limbs and faces so they were more humanoid, they also adopted human pronouns. Most defaulted to "he" because they would be working with the military and data showed most were males of the species. Some enjoyed this performance of gender, but most were indifferent. Sure strange fleshie, you can call "he" if it makes you feel better.
Transformers being labelled female happened one of two ways. 1) Like the handful of transformers who liked the role of being a "he", some were drawn to the different performative nature of being a "she". So they took traits considered feminine by the humans and accentuated them in their root mode. 2) Some Cybertronians have very feminine voices when speaking Earth languages. So the humans by default assumed they were female. When the transformer realized what was going on they had one of two reactions: a) The humans are treating me a little different than the majority of the other Cybertronians because of this idea of femininity. Gender politics is way too alien an idea for me to even attempt to wrap my head around so I'm just going to change my voice and adopt "he" like the majority of the rest. Less work that way. or b) Fleshies are strange part deux. Call me "she" if it makes you feel better.
And that is why so few Transformers identify as female and why most of them have humanoid feminine curves.
I love this idea :D
That... is actually genius
I think that Arcee naturally looks that way and no Transformer has a gender. Humans just refer to her as a she. And the other Transformers adopted this way of speaking because that is what the Humans (Who they learned English from studying) referred to her as.
@@Simon_Reid Nice headcanon, but we know that isn’t really true anymore. Too many continuities acknowledge gender, often to cringe levels (remember Blackarachnia’s introduction?).
Honestly, I just default to the Aligned Continuity explanation unless otherwise noted: female Transformers exist because Solus Prime was a chick. Solus Prime was a chick because Primus works in mysterious ways. It even explains the incredibly unbalanced gender ratios: only 1 out of the 13 Primes was female. Thus, we get 12:1 gender ratio favoring males.
I love in the TF/G.I.JOE crossover comics how every Joe was surprised to see female Autobots, most notably Scarlett. Like Arcee told her: We girls got to stick together.
It brings joy to see how far shes come, from a generic 2D personality into being a character that serves purpose outside of just "female transformer". Prime still one of my favorite incarnations of her.
"These Transformers with explicitly masculine personalities, male physicality, and going by male pronouns are clearly genderless!" -Simon Furman
Says the one that's got the licence to kill.
You can't judge the past by today's values. It's a cheap shot, and trivial. They had different sensitivities back then.
A B Nah.
@@twistedgaming9185 Why you replying to me? You want to suck on it or something?
@@itsme-notyou Shame Simon Furman is still weird about writing female transformers then, look up the mobile game Earth Wars that he writes for.
3:36-4:08
Not gonna lie, as someone who grew up with female characters being common not just in Transformers, but in stuff like Bionicle, I really find this rather Fanatical Objection to these Fictional Alien characters being “Genderless” obnoxious, considering these same writers seem perfectly fine with Male pronouns
Plus wouldn't that make them all non-binary?
Wow they predicted the future huh
And speak as someone who grew up during generation 1, I didn’t question the existence of female auto bots when they showed up in season 2, they were just there. And I never noticed there wasn’t a toy for them because by the time season 2 finished I had moved on to other toys. Had I still been paying attention her absence would have been more noticeable then her presence
And if the writers really want a reason then they have solus prime just like how beastformers are descended from onyx
@@christophergovan2136 And why there's more males than females: they're 1/13.
It's kind of a shame that the g1 figure never got released.
Agreed, the closest thing we got was the third party I ⚙️ gear figure
Xerxes the hollow do you think it would’ve been another “Rainbow Dash Cum Jar” considering the fact Porn was so rare back then
The figure didn’t look too stable though but maybe it was
I was most probably due to her _very_ feminine design and unrealistic transformation was impossible to make with toy engineering at the time. Even today she most ends up being a half-shellformer.
The bigger tragedy is the unreleased G1 Unicron.
I love how writers were so spooked about having to add female characters into their writing. Like, it's not that big of a deal! Just write them like you'd write any character. But, I have to say I also enjoy the explanation of many female transformers (Arcee included) as transgender, as they had no gender to begin with and decided to go with one.
despite both arcee and airachnid are mortal enemies they do have one thing in common
they fall to soundwave's "standing there menacingly" while getting tp'ed to nowhere card, refuses to elaborate and leaves.
Hands down Prime is my favorite Arcee....and is just so ridiculous all the drama the franchise did to justify Fembots.....THEY JUST EXIST simple,not justification is need it, let that to fans and fanfiction.....that idea of Arcee been a male first in IDW was stupid in all ways. Glad they dont do that anymore but damn kinda piss off to think they have to go that deep just to add a toy of a female character, that just show how much media have change.....now days looks like most action cartoons main protagonist are female and boys buy those toys no problem. Arcee always will be my favorite of all female transformers pretty much the single reason I not very fondle to Windblade is because she have replace Arcee and quite frankly....she isn't half as interesting as Arcee is, specially Arcee from TFP, she was a true badass, and her story was great and tragic and her relationship with Jack, Optimus, Bulkhead and Cliffjumper was excellent not to mention her rivalry with Arachnid was epic and brutal , Windblade have nothing of that in any incarnation she had in animation, so I hope the next big TF cartoon bring back our Queen Arcee where she belongs.....as a main character not a support.
4:47 Holy crap! I never noticed that about Rattrap!! Arcee is his great aunt?!?
....all this time I thought he was Gear’s descendant. Guess I was wrong.
Now that begs the question, who is Arcee’s sibling that would be Rattrap’s grandparent?
Chromia? They were sisters in the movies and she had a mechfriend/Conjunx Endura/husband/partner in Ironhide.
@@smashley4661 well I remember hearing somewhere that Optimus Prime was her brother, and that is why Rattrap was considered to be a future Autobot leader, but that could be some misinformation I picked up somewhere.
Wasn't Galvatron her twin brother?
Beryl Autumnramble
Only in IDW.
RodemusPrimal: makes Arcee video.
Chris McFeely: also makes Arcee video.
Me: Coincidence, I think not!
Same
Almost as if new toys have been announced...
Fuckin same tho
Those two should do a crossover video
@@jonahg4472 why? Primal had all this info and actually fleshed it out.
Arcee is my girl! She was so brave in the movie! And she always took care of Daniel and her friends. She tried to save Windcharger. Prime should have passed her the matrix.
I wanted to add that you did an amazing job putting this together, as always. I feel like you are one of the few fans who could answer any and every TF question there is and if you didn't know the answer, you would know where to find it. I love your content. You are awesome.
Hasbro: Let’s introduce a female Transformer.
Simon Furman: How can we justify female robots?! That’s not realistic!
Me: They’re transforming alien robots! What part of this is “realistic”?!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Simon Fuhrman was an idiot on his views on female Transformers.
@@ericdunn360 he is not an ultimate writer, people need to understand it already. Good G1 comic doesn't give him a pass on wierd slag.
Eric Dunn and I thought the left was supposed to be open to different views and opinions. Guess not.
Well they tried to introduce some realism(or at least create a concise world logic/consistency) into their world and explaining why robots had genders seemed necessary.
Edit: additionally explaining why female robot exists also works for why gender exist in a race of robots.
I personally really like the Solas Prime origin, even though I agree they don't need an explanation, that would explain why _transforming alien android's_ have what we consider female and male. They aren't actually those things, the females and males just "process" differently. Even if I don't give two craps, if I had to sit through an origin, it be the Solas Prime origin.
*Prime Arcee has so much depth and sophisticated character development. Her design is beautiful and hot, her personality is great and that voice.. melts my heart*
And then hearing her as Nila in Critical Role was just
Such a 180 from Arcee
Prime Arcee honestly is one of the best versions of her to appear as you said she had genuinely sophisticated depth to her and she had genuine reasons for how she acted and after a whole she learned to work together with others again they did a incredible job with Arcee in transformers prime
It's the first robot character I had a crush on 2nd was 2B. And me loving female robots and androids has become common now.
I like the suble pink accents she has and the fact that she joke's in one of the episodes if she would invert her colours she would be completly pink. A great nod to the g1 version
Prime Arcee probably got the most character development of anyone in the show... though... to be fair, not many characters actually had good character development in that show.
Simon Furman did not do right by Arcee. The forced transition was more cringeworthy than her being created to appease feminists. I am so glad she had other writers pick up her stories and actually give her character development. And her relationship with Aeleron was just adorable.
G1 Arcee was my first exposure to the character, so I have a soft spot for her, but the Prime Arcee was pa major badass. She is my favorite incarnation of the character.
Even as a transgender woman, I sorta MAYBE get what Furman was trying to do with the awful forcibly transitioned take? If you're doing speculative fiction, it's maybe a little bit soft-science-y to assume that every alien out there is going to have two primary sexes, and since the vast majority of transformers had been male-coded at that point, Furman probably got it stubbornly in his head that they were an all male Sontaran-style race, and when he included Arcee he tried for an edgier harder sci-fi take (that was full of unfortunate real life implications).
BUT that said: 1) there are already transformers that have clear ethnic and racial parallels to humanity through accents and racial coding, and writers haven't needed to justify that, 2) Furman's "forced transition" take comes off as incredibly petulant and bad faith after his "feminist appeasement" take, as if the guy REALLY couldn't handle women transformers and wrote something edgy and shocking for the sake of it. It's honestly a scar on the IDW continuity, and even the retcon that Arcee willingly went to Jhaxius is (while better) still also rife with bad implications about trans people.
I blame the megatron origin comic
I hate how IDW paired her with Aileron. It came out of nowhere and just pander to a subset of fans. Aileron is a waste of space and forgettable. I really hate the OCs IDW created. Nautica is the only one who is tolerable.
Thanks so much for making this video!! I grew up with Transformers, but I never really got into it consistently until recently. I’ve found that I’m quite partial to Arcee as she seems to be a well-rounded character with various motivations and a heart of gold. She seems like such a champ! Transformers Prime is what got me interested, but I’m growing more fascinated by the series as time goes on!
"This is a female robot."
"We'd have to find some way to explain a female robot."
"These are all male robots."
"Well that's normal, everybody'll get that right away."
Tbh I think by explaining the existence of female transformers is in itself and explanation why both genders exist. Because male and female are one of those things where you can't have the concept of one without the other. Like how you wouldn't know the concept of darkness without the concept of light.
considering they dont have sex to procreate they would not require two genders... adding a "female" robot to the mix just raises too many questions which the G1 writers and designers didnt want to bother answering especially to the target demographic of small boys. though these days Im sure you are teaching your two year old son how to put on a condom.
@@Shiirow It, really doesn't though.
Living creatures with wildly varying DNA structures have variable traits to their bodies. The transformers are robots, but are still themselves living beings with a DNA structure, called CNA.
Not only that, a main crux of the series is that they can alter their appearance based on what they see on other planets to start with. Their appearance is at all times, based on both a physiological and psychological aspect of themselves.
Just say "That's how they wanna look" or "That's how they were formed." and that's the end of it.
@@spinyjustspiny3289
Yeah, but wasn't she also female on Cybertron? Doesn't that kind fuck that whole excuse of yours right up the ass?
@@Bladezeromus No, in fact it reinforces it since I also said "That's how they were formed", which naturally applies to any cybertronian whose initial body type fits with what we see as feminine.
Again, it really is not complicated, and most of the complexity is forced upon it by people who actively refuse to humor the possibility that it can just be a thing.
Shape-changing robots from another world can be whatever the hell they wanna be.
I love how most of the issues with her can be traced back to Simon Furman just making things worse.
Cybververse Arcee became a favorite of mine, sh'es really fun, and is close with Grimlock
Their episode in S2 had me rolling in laughter. They where like 2 little kids.
there was an arcee for barely a second in revenge of the fallen
we know; she was only seen in Shanghai & Egypt
Chris explained that in the video. They had the whole chase scene with Sideswipe.
And died in Egypt, why is everyone exempt from life save most named humans and Bumblebee in the movies? Oh right something needed to explode. Bayverse this is why you got rebooted!
Cyberverse Arcee: *exists*
Me, a fellow sucker for shooting big guns (such as miniguns and rocket launchers): "I like this one"
Its what she deserves
I can’t believe how disrespected Arcee was for so many years!! I’m so glad she’s finally getting the attention she always deserved!!
I never got the absurd inconsistency - if most Cybertronians like Optimus or Hot Rod appear and sound male - but are truly genderless - then why can't Arcee appear and sound female, but truly be genderless?
Simon isn't the smartest man on earth, then it comes to storytelling, simple as that.
@@ls_rus4666 nor the kindest or humble.
Cause it seems that for Simon, female is gender and male is bacteria.
Exactly!
IDW Arcee's retcon is a bit of a strange one. "No no, she WILLINGLY got turned into a vicious monster who then dreamed about killing Jihaxus in a million different ways... why are you looking at us like that's still weird?"
The later trans-reveal-attempt of "It was a better fit" works so much more elegantly it's ridiculous.
Not really. She wasn't willingly turned into a "vicious monster," it was an undesired side-effect that resulted from Jhiaxus's lack of aftercare. Sure, Anode and Lug's version of transition was more elegant, but the Arcee retcon had to work within the confines of the hand that had already been dealt.
You can blame Simon Furman for putting IDW Arcee in a very weird place.
IDW Arcee makes no sense like much of the things in those comics
That honestly sounds like no matter how hard they to 'fix' her, it seems that they accidentally made her worse by making her into a completely confusing garbled mess of a character.
@@TheFlame234 They had to retcon sex change part to justify why Arcee didn't want to be male again.
I hate the logic that boys wouldn’t like female TF toys. Maybe it’s just me but I liked having a romantic interests for the male characters. But nothing is as bad as how they tried to make gender nonexistent, going so far as to make her a forced transgender was so bad. Not only was that horrible, but they butchered the character, she wasn’t likable at all, too unstable and vicious, more Con than Bot.
I couldn't agree more.
I’ll give Furman pointers for giving us concepts such a Primus and the Wreckers, but considering his rather obnoxious view on Female Transformers, it kinda makes you wonder if he’s got issues
Also, other than Arcee, there’s some characterizations in the IDW Comics I’m really not a fan of, such as Prowl, the original Thirteen, most Beast Wars characters, Unicron and Primus, Humanity and the NAILs’ relationship with the Autobots, stuff regarding Combiner, Head/Target Masters and Minicons, and the invasive crossovers
Although most fans are men, the fans in the two polls, where fans could help determine how the new character should be, always chose a female transformer.
Josiah Nunley yeah the whole thing of the mythology was all a lie thing, the hasbro crossover in order to make it an expanded universe (really they need to focus on the transformers not other series that were struggling), humanity being boring or jerks
It all fell apart in the end
Hopefully the reboot will learned not to make that mistake
i think that tfp arcee is objectively the best version, but my personal favorite is animated arcee. she gives me a caring grandmotherly vibe and i wish season 4 had aired so i could see more of that
Great video, Chris. A delight to see the evolution of a childhood character through the years :D
IDW Arcee is honestly one of the all time great Transformers characters. Her development under John Barber gave her arguably the strongest character arc of anyone in IDW.
Probably one of my most favorite designs in the run too. She just radiates a true warrior.
IDW Megatron:"Am I a joke to you?" 🤨
No offense but I really did not like the murderous rage they gave her in the idw universe.
Wait what
@@tayojones9460 It was a good point for her to grow from, though.
So male Transformers- perfectly understandable no explanation needed
Female Transformers- woah, woah guys slow down. That doesn't make any sense!
Chance Gibson male transformers: two biological genders, pick one. It’s a line marketed towards boys. Which one do they pick?
it was assumed until female transformers came around (from what I understand) that transformers were genderless until that point so introducing that came the idea the character's we were following were male and then it comes down to why since they don't reproduce the traditional way.
@@Xeno-The-Wanderer Indeed. Wouldn't have male tranformers without female transformers.
The problem is the transformers were never technically male, they Were A-gender with no reproductive systems, neither male nor female. Thats the reason for having to retcon previous lore to include females when there were never males. It's like trying to force gender on earth worms lol
@Tinyrocket transformers do reproduce tho. But explanation is still acceptable.
My Favorite incarnation of Arcee is the G1, and the Prime blue incarnations! Thanks for this Chris!
When the Movie came out, my parents were involved in a very ugly divorce, right after my gradfather died. When movie Daniel lost his parents and watched his greatest hero die, it felt very much like what I, nine year old RL Daniel, was experiencing. So Hot Rod, Rodimus, Arcee, Kup, Blur and Springer became my surrogate family just like they did for him.
Watching Rodimus struggling with guilt, being thrust in an unfamiliar situation and gaining confidence to become the Prime others saw in him inspired me to try my best as well, even if I fail. I don't know where I'd be without them.
I'm really, really looking forward to masterwork Arcee taking her place on my shelf with Hot Rod and Daniel.
I remember Visionaries. I don’t remember any of the lore, but they were armored humanoid animal warriors that had tiny holographic paper on their chests and you’d be able to see different images depending on the reflection of light.
Arcee was a great warrior and one of my many 80s cartoon crushes as a kid; in the same leagues as April O'neil, The Sorcereress, Cheetara and Scarlet! She was one bad little car!
2:04 them mecha thighs
_Now brother, you keep that piston in your pants!_
you'll explode if you stare at those missiles for too long
The Adeptus Mechanicus wants to know your location.
You don't have good taste
Walter Lopez I'd be mad and gun them down with my heavy bolter..if only they didn't make my heavy bolter
I've always liked the Prime version of Arcee the most. It was nice to see her get some proper development and step into the spotlight. She also kicked SERIOUS tailpipe in that show.
I love Arcee in all her forms. G1 is my favorite but honorable mention goes to the Transformers Prime version. I wanted either her or Hound to win the Power of the Primes fan vote to see what they would have done with their evolved modes.
Arcee is one of my favorite transformers characters, specifically IDW as a fellow trans girl
The video just started and I'm already dreading the part about the original IDW Arcee...
3:58 California, USA. July 15, 1995
The artist was ahead of his time.
Wait what?
sounds more like the writer was really firmly behind the times
@@Jeddostotle7 is the artist behind the times or us? Because that look like something that could happen today (i mean the angry mob that can never be pleased)
That last line felt like a dig at Headmaster Don of Radio Free Cybertron.
arcee really is just such an important character man, i just adore her so much. having arcee now a days being portrayed as a lesbian trasn woman is just really so Good and Gets me all kinds of fucked up man, arcee rights.
That did not end like I thought it would, Good on you
Wreckers/Beast Machines/BotCon Arcee remains my favorite iteration of her 🤗 Loved her solitary and angry personality without being psychotic like in the IDW comics...
6:51 we all know Michael bay would’ve said yes just so he could have a hot babe to mug for the camera
Edit: why’s this so hard for writers to make reasons for? Shockwave literally says “I thought they were extinct”, so there’s gotta be a few left, right?
Um, I just watched Rodimus Primal's video of Arcee.
"Young boys wouldn't want a female transformer"
Oh if they could see things now.
Haha
I like the Cyberverse one the most. She'd probably the most fun incarnation to hang out with.
Also love Cyberberverse just having female characters who are just there like Clobber.
This man keeps on surprising me by putting out basics of more bots when I thought he did all of em!
I forgot to ask last time :
But other than maccadam, who bot got an alternate mode that was only teased like maccadam's ?
Maybe Emirate Xarron? We never see him transform since according to him "the shock of transforming after so long would probably kill me".
Megatron in the MTMTE/Lost Light run, I don't think I've seen him transform even once
Rung is kind of a "Similar Opposite" in that regard in that while we see his alt-mode a fair bit, we never see what it DOES until the end of the IDW comics. Most just classified it as an Ornament. Siege managed to keep the shape of it, but the function it has there as a mind-reading gun is not the same as it is in the comics.
IDW has been my favourite iteration of Arcee, next to G1 Movie Arcee.
But if I were to watch Cyberverse, chances are I'd fall in love with her iteration also.
And I'm really looking forward to her Earthrise figure. ^^
Energon arcee, *_absolute queen_*
Rodimus Primal made a retrospective about Arcee a few hours ago and now you uploaded as well?
Best day ever
Yeah, I see where you're coming from. Back then, young boy fans are all like "Ew, no girls! Girls are smelly!" But, the older we lads get, the more we grow to appreciate them. While Arcee's one of those cases in which I can't stand it when there's normally just one girl each team, it's good that she was an addition at all. And I really do appreciate IDW 2005 bringing more female characters into the franchise, including Windblade, and Nautica (one of my favourites). And if I had to pick at-least one favourite incarnation of Arcee - which is very tricky for me - I suppose it'd probably have to between either G1, Prime or Animated (maybe a bit of IDW as well). Though, I do find it quite amusing that, in Cyberverse, she's a keen adventurer who takes selfies. All in all, I definitely appreciate her a great deal. :) Oh, and I totally ship her with Aileron btw. ^w^
It was more like stance of toy companies like Hasbro that boys didn't want toys of female characters when that wasn't true. After all it was boys that bought toys of G.I. Joe female characters like Scarlett and Baroness. So whole stance didn't really hold.
@@Mecha82 Yeah, that's a very good point. ^^
@Getaway's escape Thank goodness for that, then. ^.^
@@Mecha82 I started late when I got into G.I.Joe but I would have loved some female action figures (especially my favourite Lady Jaye) unfortunately I could never find any on the shelves.
She is my favorite bot since the moment i saw her in Transformers Prime series. Im glad she got a basics.
Out of all the incarnations of Arcee i prefer the Prime series since i like that version & the color blue.
Travis Knight did her justice, I’m hoping she arrived on earth with Optimus and the others and we’ll see her again
She did
My son and I just watched this together... bravo!
One of my favorite interpretation happened in the IDW Star Trek Transformers cross over which while being a G1 off shoot still brought in Airrachnid on the Decepticon side and kept the Prime rivalry.
Arcee will always keep her space in my little Heart , be it her kind G1 version , her emotionally distant Prime version or her more spunky Cyberverse version .One of the top headers in my list of reasons why Cybertronians are cute and loveable (Optimus is above her , he is peak Robo Waifu) .