EarthSpark: When the script is not your strong suit. Part 2.
6. The authors do not understand the consequences of war and racism and cannot work qualitatively with these topics.
Now I'm going to be really emotional for certain reasons, but I'm going to try to bring constructive criticism.
The authors absolutely do not understand and cannot adequately show either the consequences of the war conflict or the problems of racism.
Let's start with what the conditions of the world are in the series. As far as we know, at some point in time, the Cybertronians ended up on Earth and continued their war conflict, which lasted an indefinite amount of time and ended about 15 years ago. As far as we know, humans participated in the conflict on the side of the Autobots, the Decepticons fought against humans as well as against the Autobots, which we learned from the episode "Warzone".
We know that it was a protracted conflict with the death of many people and the destruction of human cities. And we also know that the Decepticons planned the genocide of mankind.
And now a logical question arises. Will most people treat Decepticons or Cybertronians generally well after that? If people were not guilty of the conflict, but suffered greatly from it, why should they just forgive Cybertronians? Why shouldn't people be afraid of Cybertronians after all that has happened? 15 years is a very short time for the wounds inflicted by the war to heal in the minds of the population. For many, a loved one may have died or suffered, perhaps killed by one of the Decepticons. So for what reason should people be against Decepticons being caught, especially if they are still dangerous (but more on that later, when we discuss the depiction of racism).
At the same time, the authors in the narrative are trying to impose the idea that people should treat Cybertronians well, and it is wrong to be afraid of them and be offended at them. The authors show this quite straightforwardly, through the image of the GHOST as evil, exposing Croft and Meridian as unambiguous villains, people in the city as cruel savages and Robbie's friend as malevolent from nowhere.
Although a good plot point could have been built on Robbie's friend, when they would have disagreed about how much their families had suffered from the war. For example, Dot lost her leg, but maybe she has a good pension, maybe she was given a good prosthesis. And Robbie's friend's mother could have died in the war, his father or someone else from his relatives could have suffered more, and his family could not receive any compensation. That's where the ambiguity and a deeper look at the consequences of the war conflict could be. Like, "Yes, Robbie, I'm very glad that Megatron is your mom's best friend, but because of him, my mom is gone!". Maybe it's a cliché, maybe it's too straightforward, but it's better than nothing.
What was shown to us in the series itself? One of the victims is Megatron's best friend (Megatron, the main culprit of all that happened), the other victim is a villain, and we don't see anything else and no one in the environment. Megatron tells us about the consequences in the episode " Warzone". And this episode was made so that we felt sorry for Megatron himself. No, there were a couple more goals — to show that the Terrans are not responsible for the mistakes of the Cybertronians (which is the right idea) and to make a reference to the blue flowers from the IDW comics.
So what does this episode tell us through narrative? Yes, the deaths of both Cybertronians and humans are mentioned, and images of the destruction of human cities are shown. But this is all said in passing, the main emphasis is on the fact that the Cybertronians may have lost the Allspark and the space bridge, which is why they cannot return home. Yes, it is tragic. But who is to blame for this? And are the deaths of people less serious consequences?
Against this background, it is very ironic that the names on the memorial are a meaningless set of letters. Yes, it is clear that it would be difficult to encrypt so many names. But this does not negate the irony.
I just don't understand how it was possible to write the topic of the consequences of the war so badly? Everything can be understood, a children's cartoon, a difficult topic. But if the author can't handle such a topic, the authors shouldn't have chosen it in the first place! The history of all world conflicts and any features of the post-war period is now available. Yes, even now there are several major military conflicts in the real world! Right here and right now! And such an attitude to such a difficult topic, which for many people is an everyday reality, feels like a spit in the face, a spit in the soul. And the authors just took this topic and threw it away for another one, thus saying that this topic is not as important as another one.
And this is the topic of racism. I'm not saying that it's less important, but you can't just replace one with the second one almost in the middle of the season!
And the funny thing is, the authors couldn't even handle the topic of racism and present it correctly.
The authors are obviously trying to present to us here an allusion to racism towards migrants and refugees. Unfortunately, such a narrative cannot work with all the prerequisites that we had in the plot.
Let's start with what racism is. To put it simply, this is a biased attitude towards representatives of other races (nationalities or cultures) based on human fear of the unknown / unlike / strangers, supported by a set of ideological views about cardinal physiological, intellectual, moral differences between races, assuming the superiority of one of them. Within the framework of these views, races are considered practically as different biological species. We know perfectly well that this is not the case and all races are equal in their characteristics and capabilities, since we are one biological species. That is why racism is exclusive and works as a definition only within one species.
And racism doesn't work towards Cybertronians in this series, because, surprise, Cybertronians are a different species. Yes, Thrash, transformers are not people, and people are not transformers. There are obvious differences between the two species. And in this case, they are objective, Cybertronians are physically very different from humans, at least by physical strength.
Therefore, people's fear of Cybertronians is justified. Each of them is a war machine, which, if something happens, a human will not be able to stop, will not be able to escape. And the realization of helplessness causes fear. This is the first reason.
Cybertronians fought on Earth, which led to many casualties, and people remember this. This also causes fear, because every Cybertronian on Earth has shown itself to be a killing and destruction machine.
Because of this, the allusion of refugees and migrants cannot be transferred to transformers. Because they are neither one nor the other in the plot. Let me remind you, every Cybertronian on Earth is either a soldier or working for the faction's army, accidentally stuck on Earth. Each of them participated in the conflict, almost every one of them is a soldier. And when we talk about migrants and refugees, we are talking about the peaceful civilian population, to whom prejudices are transferred, caused by one reason or another, but which are not characteristic of these individuals.
So the fear of transformers is justified, almost every one of them participated in a devastating war for the Earth, most likely almost every Decepticon killed people. And people probably remembered who killed their soldiers, what their names were and what they looked like, because, most likely, during the war there were warnings everywhere about who and what to be afraid of. So why should we be surprised again by people who want to catch runaway Decepticons? Especially when there is the following reason.
Cybertronians do not feel guilty and do not do anything to make Earth their home. They brought destruction here, they are stuck on this planet through their own fault. Maybe they helped people rebuild cities? We don't know. Maybe they shared their technology as payment for what they had done? We don't know. Maybe the Decepticons tried to establish relations with people, but their attempt was rejected? WE DON'T KNOW ANYTHING! All we were shown was a deliberately GHOST-filmed film about how Cybertronians help build a bridge. According to the narrative, it is clear that transformers usually do not do this. And some of them are still dangerous to society. So why should people accept them with open arms in principle? People also have to provide them with energon at their own expense!
Cybertronians are not migrants, because they did not move to Earth of their own free will. Cybertronians are not migrants because there are no civilians among them. Cybertronians are not migrants, because migrants do not come to destroy the place where they are going to live (or do the authors think otherwise?).
I don't even want to describe how dumb the scene was with the underground transformers fights. Just to remind you that in the real world, this is entertainment for very rich people, for obvious reasons. Because they can provide a very big prize, which is what the fighters are fighting for. Tell me, someone, where did common residents of the city get so much money for a prize energon? Where do they even get it, their own underground production in the basement of an old lady? The series tries to touch on serious topics, and then shows THAT. Or do the authors imagine the life of migrants exactly as survival on the run and in underground arenas? But aren't such ideas already racist?)))
7. People are bad again, and the authors lead to the fact that people are the main villains.
Based on the previous point, we have the trope "people are real monsters" here again. Which, under the conditions shown in the series, does not work. But something tells me that the authors are trying to bring the plot and morality to the fact that it is people who will be wrong, that people actually provoked the poor Decepticons to aggression, and in the end they will definitely realize this and apologize. Most likely, they will even kneel down to fully show their remorse.
And all of this in general gives a very strange message. Basically, everyone who didn't like transformers is shown to be bad people, and two even died a pretty terrible and painful death. And only those who like Cybertronians are shown to be good people.
It feels like the show is trying to send a message — accept transformers or die. And this is some kind of very painful message, because it literally says: "You either forgive these guys who have killed a lot of people, are stuck here and some of them continue to cause harm, or you are a terrible person and die altogether".
I would like to say that everything is fine here, and I will say it. Meridian is a really stand-out character, an ambiguous villain with understandable motivation, not just evil because evil. But there are also strange moments in his development.
The strange thing is that the authors never gave him a name. Like, what's the idea? One person suggested an interesting theory (I will not mention the nickname in case a person does not want to be associated with what I am writing here) that the authors wanted to show that anyone who lives with hatred and a desire for revenge can be a Mandroid. This is interesting, but it is unlikely that the authors have put such a deep thought into it. Moreover, he has too many characteristic features and moments of backstory that cannot serve as points of connection with the viewer.
It is also strange that the audience was not clearly shown his background. How exactly did he lose his arm, how was he saved by Arachnamechs, why does he have such an attitude towards Croft, how is he connected with Alex. We don't know anything for sure, if I'm not mistaken, we've never been shown any of his flashbacks. And since he's dead, there's no one to tell his story, so we won't know anything about him anymore.
The prerequisites for a connection with Alex were not developed. In the early episodes, Meridian reacted quite emotionally to Alex, but when they met... nothing? They could have been friends or at least colleagues, it would have added depth to the characters, but this is another case of forgotten premises.
We were hinted that something had happened to him, he himself said that Arachnamechs had changed him in some way so that he would survive, and partly he was also technoorganic (?), but this information did not lead to anything.
No less strange is that the authors decided to go all the way with the idea of "you become what you hate." The problem is that Meridian has never become anything like a transformer. Yes, he replaced his hands at first, but then mutated into something else, but obviously organic or at least technoorganic. His final form is either a technical part, or just a shell that doesn't even transform. So Thrash's phrase in the finale doesn't make sense, because Meridian didn't become what he hates, he became something else. The authors could have changed their original plan and pointed out how much he lost himself, became unrecognizably unlike a human in him because of all this revenge, but they did not.
And, if we return to the argument with Thrash, transformers are really not people, so here the authors confuse the viewer, because the viewer must agree with Thrash. But how can you agree with him if he calls two different species by the same name? Or is it a feature of the English language? I don't understand.
Actually, that's enough. I believe that Meridian was right in principle that he wanted to rid the Earth of the cybertronians, since at that time they had done nothing good to the planet and humans. That's it, I declare the #DrMeridianWasRight movement.
It turned out to be very strange with Croft. We absolutely don't know her motivation, why she doesn't like Cybertronians, what happened in her past to get her to the point of wanting to take over Cybertron. Maybe she lost someone in the war, or was she affected by this war? Does she want revenge or is she just ambitious? No, she's just an evil blonde (or gray-haired) woman.
And the choice of death is strange. This is very cruel for a character who has done almost nothing in front of the viewers. It's okay if she tortured the Decepticons, but they just sit in the cells, and what the GHOST did to the Decepticons during the Hashtag infiltration into the base in the episode "Hashtag: Oops" was not explained at all.
What is the backstory of her and Meridian? Why do they treat each other like that? Again, we don't know anything.
And that would be fine for a simpler show, but this cartoon has already shown that it's going to work out the characters and give them some motivation, but not in her case. Or did the authors think that it was enough for the audience that her name was Karen? I don't know. Someone said that she didn't need motivation because she was just evil and there wasn't always a reason to hate. But this is not the case, and any psychologist will tell you (including me) that there are always reasons for hatred, even subconscious and erratic ones, but they are there. There is no groundless hatred, in this case there may be an erratic reason that we do not know and will probably never know anymore.
