Are The G1 Transformers Too Stupid To Exist? [Part 1 of 2]

To attempt to get a full week out with all the distractions, I’m going to drop a two part installment of Media Zealot‘s “Too Stupid To Exist” series, pointing out all the flaws in the plans of the villains, and occasionally the heroes. Sometimes you accept stuff for the sake of the story, but that doesn’t mean we can’t analyze those flaws later and see how to avoid them, or at least laugh at how silly it is.

The original Transformers cartoon will always be part of my nostalgia. It’s one of my favorite multiverses as the versatility doesn’t stop with shapeshifting robots. I can’t say I’m a fan of all of it, mind you, even just what I’ve seen. The Skybound comic everyone is drooling over is still too violent for me, and killed off Bumblebee right at the start. The Bayverse and its live-action counterparts rarely care about the robots while focusing on humans that aren’t very interesting. Funny enough, Bumblebee is the exception. EarthSpark I just found boring in the first story and just couldn’t bring myself to watch further episodes. From what I did catch previous shows did the only interesting parts better.

Still, even I made fun of Megatron’s dumb schemes in my Challenge Of The GoBots review because his ideas are kind of odd for a war that was about resource allocation to conquer the universe (it’s an 80s kids show), and we can make fun of him and Galvatron (you debate among yourselves if they’re the same guy or not) for his really dumb ideas. Let’s not forget that the Autobots make their own mistakes, and other factions show up with equally odd plans. Cue the Zealot, who isn’t as fond of the 80s kids show, but still points out that the Decepticons in particular and Cybertron in general lasting 4,000,000 years (give or take a few hours) is kind of silly. Note that there will be a few swears now and then, but it’s not habitual.

Media Zealot himself made a few errors worth pointing out.

• Dude’s name is Sparkplug. Not the show’s fault you heard him wrong.
• The Key To Vector Sigma and the key to Plasma Energy Chamber are two different devices. He’s right to call out Vector Sigma’s endangering Earth and the Aerialbots (minus Silverbolt) admiring the Decepticons, though “War Dawn” sorted out that last problem and led to Optimus Prime coming to pass. The Plasma Energy Chamber did lead to the second Golden Age of Cybertron, ending the US version of the timeline on a high note. Japan ignored it…and let’s just say this would be more than three parts if Zealot included the Japanese spin-off continuity. That had Galvatron wanting to become Unicron.
• The Primitives weren’t controllable by Primacron. In fact, they were key to stopping Tornedron, which is why it targeted them. Turns out the solution was Grimlock finding an off switch. It’s not a good finale to an otherwise decent episode.
• If Starscream had destroyed the Autobots and Decepticons in the medieval past, and who’s say that wasn’t his plan in Beast Wars if he new that was ancient Earth when the Maximals and Predacons didn’t, he would have created a new timeline that never would have led him to the past, caused a time paradox, and potentially doomed the universe. Wasn’t Media Zealot complaining about all the time travel plots earlier in the video?
• Another theory about Galvatron’s mental state, but one I don’t hear often despite being the one I subscribe to, is that Unicron’s destruction affected him. At multiple times during the movie, Unicron is shown to be able to mentally torture Galvatron to get him to do what he wants. If that’s a psychic style link, Unicron blowing up thanks to the power of the Matrix Of Leadership might have sent a huge psychic backlash through Galvatron’s mind. Even though Unicron manages to remain functional, albeit barely as a head, the pain might has shot through and destroyed Galvatron’s cerebral circuitry. Either way he definitely has some damage, given how often his brain casing gives off sparks after one of his rages and going back to somewhat rational afterwards.
• I’m surprised that he didn’t bring up some of Megatron’s dumber schemes, like the giant griffin fortress he used to create a jet jacking plant, made an army of taxi drones, and only mentioned in passing bringing Cybertron into Earth’s orbit with the help of the one time he worked with a human. Dr. Archeville’s mind control chips actually succeeded in turning humans into slaves. Now he just needs to get them on every human on the planet. It’s like the opposite of Cy-Kill controlling all humans with a machine and the Guardians having to use one device at a time just to free their allies. This is why Cy-Kill, for all of his own faults, was better at this than Megatron.

Tomorrow we’ll look at Media Zealot’s second and final video on the G1 Cybertronians and why the Autobots have a few flaws of their own.