[three characters looking awfully bland] The protagonists:
- Annoying goody two shoes leader who's a paragon of virtue
- Nerdy scientist with no backstory who keeps doing poor puns
- Super bland dude who's an obvious self insert for the writer
- People die because they're "good" and refuse to break the rules
- They win battles through plot armor and the power of friendship
[a cool looking grizzled character smokes a cigar in a spaceship interior, a foot up on the controls, while a spaceship blasts a mega laser outside in space] The super evil antagonist:
- Played by the most charismatic actor available on the market
- Keeps doing the coolest looking things (but you must hate it)
- Has the coolest secret lair and his henchmen love him
- Is named Adolf McMurder and genocides with a smile
- Says an awesome one liner before murdering an orphan
[a nerdy dude in flannel points at a storyboard of the two previous images] The naive screenwriter:
- At least this time he's not writing women, phew
- Has too much trust in his audience's media literacy - About to give the super evil antagonist yet another zingy one liner
- Surely if we show him killing an orphan the audience will hate him
- Right, guys?… Right??…
This is basically how some versions of Transformers go; the motivation given for decepticons is revolting against tyranny they've been slaved under, which basically makes Megatron actually fight for civil rights. This turns autobots into supporters of the opressive rule to keep the inequal status quo. And then you're supposed to root for them as the good guys