User talk:Giggidy/Sandbox/Multi-Family Character

"In 2001, that began to change. Robots in Disguise, the English-language dub of a Japanese G1 series, was changed in a number of ways that made it fundamentally incompatible with the lore that had gone before." Objection! Car Robots wasn't part of JG1 until the Kiss Players timeline. I don't know how to word this better, but I feel that it is misleading. --Riptide (talk) 04:42, 30 October 2015 (EDT)

Are you sure? I got the impression it was an ambiguous little side story, one with some nods to the ongoing Beast Wars fiction but one that fit with Japanese conventions like havinga new Convoy. It seems no less compatible with the Japanese g1 continuity then any of the other odd sequels that took place in a slightly ambiguous time frame. --Giggidy (talk) 08:49, 30 October 2015 (EDT)

Yeah, my knowledge is entirely second-hand, and mostly based on what Jim Sorenson says here: http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/116666-spacewarps-log-axiom-nexus-news-on-facebook/page-89#entry2976678 You might want to ask him for input, given that he has more first-hand experience of Car Robots and the Japanese fandom. --Riptide (talk) 10:31, 30 October 2015 (EDT)

I didn't realize. Edited the page accordingly. --Giggidy (talk) 11:32, 30 October 2015 (EDT)

There's a little more to it than it being an "ambiguously-placed series, later clarified as a definitively Japanese G1 series". See the franchise's page for a lot more info about Car Robots's original nature (mostly written by M Sipher). --Sabrblade (talk) 14:34, 31 October 2015 (EDT)

I've read through it and while there certainly is more to the story, I thought I did a good job of accurately summarizing it. It's not really relevant to the article, after all. If anyone has any thoughts on how to make it better, please feel free to edit. --Giggidy (talk) 19:25, 31 October 2015 (EDT)

Well from my understanding it has a lot of ties to the then Japanese Beast era stuff. Energon matrixes for one, but also the Dimensional Patrol aspect from the toy catalog , the idea of the Destrongers as "hyper evolved Destrons" and the Robot Good guys vs Beast bad Guys vibe that was brought over from J Beast; my personal theory is that it was a reverse Galaxy Force deal; the original concept was some J Beast era guys going back and mucking in the past(which fits the similar formulas of both A Beast and J Beast) that was only vaguely used in the show , and then America just edited it as a reboot. That is Car Robots was to Japanese G1 what Beats Wars was to american g1, which is why its year 2000 didnt have any other transformers; basically a g1 Continuity within the family. EDIT: "There were some minor hints that folks may have been traveling back to the present from the BW II/Neo era." yeah thats the stuff I was talking about/Lush City (talk) 12:53, 8 December 2015 (EST)

I'm a little fuzzy on the idea behind this page. Is the point to track essentially-identical characters from different continuity families while keeping them on separate pages, or would we merge the relevant pages due to their essential-identicality? Or would it contain examples of both? That'd seem inconsistent, if so. -Riptide (talk) 19:29, 31 October 2015 (EDT)

In a perfect world we'd start to merge them, I think, size permitting. Currently there are examples of both, and I think it's ok for this page (and the associated category that goes with it) to simply track them. I don't think agreeing that this page is a good idea necessitates merging each and every example, which could be handled case by case like it is right now. --Giggidy (talk) 19:35, 31 October 2015 (EDT)

Hrm. Fair enough. In any case, another thought - G1 and ROTF Lockdown seem more like a multi-family toy than a multi-family character; I wouldn't be opposed to tracking them as the latter, but I would put the Animated guy in there as well, since he has as much or more in common with the G1 guy as the AOE guy does. --Riptide (talk) 19:38, 31 October 2015 (EDT)

I too am a bit wary on this. Multi Family Toys I get as a concept; one toy being re purposed as a character across various stories. But this seem to be a bit of a "merge for the sake of merge" thing based on a subjective barometer. Too use a non Tf example for perspective. DCAU Harley Quinn was pretty much identical to Post Zero Hour Harley Quinn; but that doesn't make them the same character simply by the virtue of the vastly different stories they went through and the different personas of the characters around them.Lush City (talk) 12:53, 8 December 2015 (EST)

Now from a wiki perspective you could perhaps massage the idea saying that ...say "g1" Knockout is as close to 'Aligned' Knockout as any two 'aligned' Knockout were so the merge goes through; which I suppose makes sense but then you start getting fuzzy on guys like Optimus Prime and Megatron and Starscream who are very similar through families by default. You COULD use Multi family toys as a rubric but then its a redundant extension. MFT I can dig because the whole "Fop as bar" and "fop as fop" distinction is a real thing.

You think? He definitely HAS a Multi-Family Toy, but I thought that they'd be close enough for a merge. I can get rid of this example for the proof-of-concept sandbox page though. --Giggidy (talk) 21:01, 31 October 2015 (EDT)

Dunno. My main thought was that G1 Lockdown is closer in terms of characterisation to Animated Lockdown than any appearance of Movie Lockdown, but counting the G1 and Animated guys as the same character would feel... weird. It does amuse me, though, that despite the title quote on this page, there aren't currently any Knock Outs, Sky-Bytes, Lugnuts or Lockdowns listed. --Riptide (talk) 12:12, 2 November 2015 (EST)