What are they teaching kids these days?
A conversation from work:
Boy, maybe nine years old, brings the Transformers game to the counter to purchase.
“Who’s your favorite Transformer?” I ask.
His brow furrows in deep thought. “Optimus Prime,” he says at last.
I nod. “I liked Optimus Prime a lot when I was your age, too.”
“He’s not your favorite now?”
“Rodimus Prime, I think.” I pause, take a breath. “He was born to lead the Autobots, didn’t want the responsibility, but everytime he tried to shirk his duties he discovered that he was just as good a leader as Optimus, if not better. I’d have preferred it if Optimus had stayed dead, if his sacrifice to save the Autobots from Megatron had meant something.”
“Rodimus Prime?” the boy asks.
“The Autobot leader after Optimus Prime’s death. He took on the Autobat Matrix of Leadership and defeated Galvatron and Unicron.”
From the expression on his face, it was clear that I might as well have been speaking gibberish.
I love it all the more when a young person hears the original version of a song that’s been remade by the latest flash in the pan pop artist and remarks, “Isn’t it a little too soon to be remaking this?”
Youth IS wasted on the young.
You should see the expression on my face. You goldurned young whippersnappers and your Optimal Rod Primers. (41 isn’t old. Really. I swear.)
Transformers today has only a passing resemblance to the one we knew. When the CGI cartoon came out and rewrote Transformer history, then did a U-turn and tried to consolidate the two histories, I knew there was trouble. We’re on something like a third incarnation now (not counting the Japanese versions) and the names and voice actor for Optimus Prime are about all the shows have in common.