Upon Further Review: Wheeljack and Perceptor
I got to thinking the other day, as I was just nodding off one night, what exactly is up with these two? They aren't big super-powerful guys like Omega Supreme or Bruticus or anything. They aren't "kewl" like Bumblebee. They don't have the dynamic personality of someone like Starscream. Yet, in the between pre- and post-movie, it seems like Wheeljack and Perceptor are in at least every other episode. Why is this? In all honesty, I don't really know. And don't get me wrong. I really like both of these characters. I find them interesting. But I have trouble seeing why the kiddies would really relate to these guys.
The purpose these two seem to serve in the, to borrow a phrase from the WWFFs, "I built a device that can [insert wacky idea here]" role. Every faction seems to have this guy. The Decepticons had the Constructicons. In Beast Wars, there was Rhinox and Tarantulus. Beast Machines has technohead folks too, but I'm not using spoiler space, so I'll skip that. The Autobots in the two seasons prior to the movie had no shortage of these guys either. Besides Wheeljack and Perceptor, there was Ratchet, Hoist, Grapple, and First Aid, not to mention the fact that Prime and Alpha Trion have been shown to get their hands dirty as well. These mechanic-type characters are simply important to their causes. Still, Wheeljack and Perceptor especially seem to stand out as fairly major characters in a series with a lot of other options.
Wheeljack seemed to stand out the most of the list of mechanically inclined Autobots before the movie. Of the two guys I'm talking about in this essay, he's the one I understand the writers thinking the kiddies would attach themselves to more so than Perceptor. He's made some pretty cool things over the course of the show. He's made bombs, guns, Negavators, and, of course, the Dinobots. These things could make the kids wonder what he might be up to next. However, there's still the "nerd factor." Other than making some trinkets and some dim-witted Autobots, he's usually just talking in jargon. He doesn't fight that much nor too well. I'd take Ratchet, and his flying dropkick, over Wheeljack in a fight. :) Other than making stuff, he's not that well-known outside of more die-hard fans. People who remember Transformers think of Prime, Megatron, Soundwave, Starscream, Bumblebee, etc. In fact, despite how big a factor Wheeljack plays in so many storylines, hardly anyone I've talked to has remembered him without prompting. And even then he was "the guy with the flashing ears." :) My wife, who watched the show when she was a kid, still asks "who's that?" when he comes on sometimes. :) So why the heck show him so often and so prominently?
Perceptor is an even bigger mystery to me. Wheeljack had the Dinobots, and a little trademark wit, in his corner. Perceptor was a microscope. He had nerd written all over him. In fact, before the movie, he really wasn't *that* much of a major character. He had couple of shining moments, like "Microbots," but for the most part he was a background character. That is until the movie. As most of you know, the movie rarely showed pre-movie characters. In fact, after the battle at Autobot City, not including the Dinobots (who had unfortunately sunk to kiddie-fare from this point on) there were a grand total of 7 pre-movie characters even one line for the rest of the movie. They were all basically ignored to focus on the new toys…er, characters. Except, that is, Perceptor.
Perceptor was a star of the movie. He had a fairly considerable role, and I can't help but wonder why sometimes. He wasn't a new toy. He certainly wasn't one that was featured a lot on the cartoon up to this point. They didn't necessarily need a "smart guy" on the shuttle to find the planet of Junk. The shuttle's computer could have done that. They could have had anybody fixing the shuttle on Junk. And we certainly didn't need to see him jiving to "Dare to be Stupid" (in fact, we didn't need to see any of them do that :). He was there though getting some real characterization, which is one area I point to, besides Hot Rod and Kup, when I say that there was some good characterization in the movie.
In fact, Perceptor is one character that I think wasn't used well until the movie and beyond (another is Astrotrain, but I remembered more of his role in the third season when I first thought this, not mention that was featured more often in the second season :). In the third season, Perceptor started to find his niche. He's no-nonsense scientist in a lot of his appearances. He tells off Wheelie in "Five Faces of Darkness," as well as gently teaching Rodimus about subjective analysis in the same episode. Despite being badly injured, he tried to his last consciousness to help the Autobots in "Forever is a Long Time Coming" figure out the time window. He's not only a scientist though. In the movie, he was a front-line fighter, which I'm sure would have made Brawn proud if he wasn't piloting the shuttle to a safe landing and thus allowing the three dead Autobots within a proper burial :). In FFoD, he was a fighter again. In FiaLTC, he was leading a mission. Overall, he was used very effectively in the third season. But, like Wheeljack, he was a big nerd. They made no secret about that either. His use of big words, aka technobabble, in the movie and the third season basically showed this. And he didn't really create anything neat like Wheeljack did. He wasn't "kewl" like Wheelie was probably supposed to be.
So, again, I must ask "why him?" What about that character made the writers, or Hasbro, say, "I like him. Let's give him some major roles"? Maybe they needed help selling their toys. Wheeljack is a bit of a knuckle-dragging brick and Perceptor is a microscope. But really the only thing I can come up with is the "I built a device..." thing, which both he and Wheeljack had. If anybody else has any ideas, I'd love to here them. Right now, I just shrug and roll with it. For whatever reason, these two are major characters and I'm not going to complain. They're also two of my favorites. The writers did a good job taking two otherwise obscure characters and making likable, and sometimes fun, characters out of them. Somehow, out of characters meant to just have knowledge to forward the plots, we got real "cool" characters.
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