The
Transformers TV Series - Wikipedia Article
The Transformers (G1) 1984-1987, U.S.Launched
in 1984, the Transformers toyline was promoted through
both a comic book by Marvel Comics and an animated series
produced by Sunbow Productions. Although the comic
outlived the animated series by a number of years, it was
the animated series that truly captured the hearts and
minds of children worldwide more so than any other piece
of Transformers media from its twenty year history. With
the original show's conclusion in 1987, original series
exclusive to Japan were created which ran until 1990, and
the franchise was later reimagined with the CGI Beast
Wars in the late 1990s. The current run of cartoons have
been co-productions between America and Japan.
Transformers: Generation 1
The term "Generation 1," or "G1," is
a retronym, coined after the advent of 1993's
Transformers: Generation 2. Although frequently used to
simply refer to the original 1984-1987 animated series,
the term encompasses all Transformers fiction from 1984
to 1992.
The Transformers
Debuting in 1984, The Transformers began with a three-episode
miniseries (later titled More Than Meets the Eye) that
introduced audiences to Optimus Prime, Megatron and their
armies, as they travelled from the metal world of
Cybertron to Earth in search of new sources of energy.
The final episode ended on an open note, should the
series prove popular enough to continue. And continue it
did - a standard season's worth of 13 more episodes were
commissioned, expanding the Transformers universe and
debuting the Dinobots, Constructicons and Jetfire. With
popularity rising, the second season soon followed in
1985 at a mammoth 49 episodes (in order to bring the
total up to 65, for syndication). Dozens of new
characters were introduced throughout the season,
including the combining teams the Aerialbots, Stunticons,
Combaticons and Protectobots, the Triple Changers and
more new Autobot cars and Decepticon jets, while many new
ideas and concepts began to establish the history of the
cartoon universe.
These 65 episodes were exported to Japan in the same
year, where their airing order was restricted and the
series was broadcast under the title of Fight! Super
Robot Lifeform Transformers. An OVA exclusive to Japan
entitled Scramble City was released which cast focus on
the combining teams and introduced Ultra Magnus,
Metroplex and Trypticon, although it does not perfectly
fit into the continuity of the American series due to its
different origin story for Trypticon (known as Dinosaurer
in the Japanese version).
1986 marked a huge change for The Transformers with the
summer screening of Transformers: The Movie, which jumped
the action forward in time twenty years to the then-future
of 2005 and pitted both the Autobots and Decepticons
against the menace of the giant planet-eating robot,
Unicron. Optimus Prime met his end at Megatron's hands,
and Ultra Magnus briefly replaced him as a leader before
being succeeded by Rodimus Prime, while Megatron himself
was recreated by Unicron as Galvatron. Many more of the
old guard fell in battle as their toys departed store
shelves to make room for a new cast of characters created
for the movie.
1986 also saw the start of the third season of the
animated series, which took its cue from the movie,
picking up precisely where it had left off with Rodimus
in command and the Decepticons in exile with Galvatron
missing. The season opened with a five-part mini-series
entitled Five Faces of Darkness which saw Galvatron
return and brought to prominence the Quintessons, multi-faced
aliens introduced in the movie who were revealed to be
the creators of the Transformer race, and who became a
recurring third factor as the season continued through
its setting of 2006. The addition of Flint Dille as story
editor saw a strong sci-fi aspect infect the season as
the Transformers' battles spanned many alien planets,
while continuity between episode was tighter than ever
before as plot concepts were revisited and expanded to
truly flesh out the show's history. Running to 30
episodes, the third season ended with the two-part Return
of Optimus Prime, bringing the legendary Autobot leader
back to life. Broadcast in Japan once again, the series
was retitled Transformers 2010, advancing its setting to
the eponymous year.
1987 marked the end of the original American series,
mirroring its beginning with a three-part mini-series
entitled The Rebirth. Penned by regular series writer
David Wise (who had previously written several of the
series's mythology-building episodes), this finale story
introduced the Headmasters and Targetmasters, as well as
several other characters. Concluding with the restoration
of Cybertron's Golden Age, the Decepticons stole the
final scene of the series to prove that their threat
still lingered.
Additionally, a fifth season of sorts was aired in 1988,
serving as a kind of "best of" collection of
the series. The most notable feature of this twenty-episode
run was the new intro and outro segments added to the
episodes, which consisted of Powermaster Optimus Prime (rendered
in a mixture of puppetry and stop motion animation)
relating the events of the episodes to a human boy named
Tommy Kennedy. The opening sequence comprised animation
taken from contemporary toy adverts, and Prime
occasionally referenced new toy characters like
Cloudburst. Apparently never re-run after its original
airing, the series aired More Than Meets the Eye Parts 1-3,
The Ultimate Doom Parts 1-3, Five Faces of Darkness Parts
1-5, Dark Awakening, the out-of-place Surprise Party, The
Return of Optimus Prime Parts 1-2, and most notably,
Transformers: The Movie, split up and aired in five
segments, with Stan Bush's music video for The Touch
included in the final part.
Transformers: The Headmasters
Rather than import The Rebirth as a conclusion, Takara,
the Japanese producers of the Transformers toyline, opted
instead to continue the Generation 1 universe by creating
the full-length 35-episode series, Transformers: The
Headmasters (two additional clips episodes were produced
after the fact for direct-to-video release). Supplanting
The Rebirth's position in Japanese continuity, The
Headmasters occurred one year after The Return of Optimus
Prime, introducing the titular characters to the
Transformers universe in a wildly different way. Whereas
in western fiction, the Headmasters result from the
merging of a Transformer with an organic alien being from
the planet Nebulos, the Headmasters of the Japanese
series are a group of small Cybertronians who departed
the planet millions of years ago and crash landed on the
inhospitable planet Master. To survive its harsh climate,
a select few of the most-highly trained constructed
larger bodies called "Transtectors," to which
they connected as heads.
When a group of rebellious Headmasters led by Lord Zarak
joined with Galvatron's Decepticons in an attack on
Cybertron, the Autobot Headmasters, led by Fortress
returned to their home planet to aid in its defence. The
situation soon went from bad to worse when it was
revealed that Vector Sigma, the mega-computer at the
planet's heart, was destabilizing, and Optimus Prime
again sacrificed his life to save Cybertron. This soon
proved to be only delaying the inevitable, however, when
a bomb attack instigated by Zarak turned Cybertron into a
burnt-out, inhospitable husk. Rodimus Prime departed to
search for a new planet for the Transformers to live on,
leaving Fortress in command, operating from the planet
Athenia. Meanwhile, Zarak replaced Galvatron - who had
vanished in the explosion - as Decepticon leader,
constructing a personal Transtector so that he could
battle Fortress's own giant form, Fortress Maximus, and
redubbing himself Scorponok.
Although populated mainly with new characters, The
Headmasters did continue to feature characters from all
previous seasons, including new versions of Soundwave and
Blaster, rebuilt after a duel that destroyed them both as
Soundblaster and Twincast. Human Daniel Witwicky and his
young Autobot friend Wheelie also played major roles in
the series, serving as the youthful characters for the
audience to identify with. More new characters continued
to pour in when Galvatron returned to leadership and the
Decepticons embarked on a space voyage, ransacking
planets in a chain of stories that introduced the
Horrorcons and Autobot and Decepticon Clones. The return
to Earth was no less momentous, as the Decepticon ninja
six-chainger Sixshot killed Ultra Magnus, and the Autobot
Headmasters finished off Galvatron. When the Decepticons
then returned to Master, refugees from the planet were
caught in a plasma bomb accident that fused them to the
arms of several Autobots and Decepticons, creating the
Targetmasters, and in a final move, Scorponok attempted
the destruction of Earth, only to foiled, thanks in part
to a traitorous Sixshot.
Never professionally released in the United States, The
Headmasters was dubbed into English in Hong Kong for
broadcast on the Malaysian TV channel, RTM 1, and later
the Singapore satellite station, StarTV, where it
attained greater fame, leading it to often be referred to
as the "StarTV dub." The dub is, however,
infamous for its poor quality, full of mistranslations
and incorrect names, clearly the work of a small group of
individuals (literally, less than half-a-dozen actors
fill every role) with little knowledge of the material.
This dub was seen some DVD releases in the United
Kingdom, and the entire series was released in a dual-language
format in 2005.
Transformers: Super-God Masterforce
The second of the Japanese-exclusive animated series,
1988's Transformers: Super-God Masterforce takes place
some years after The Headmasters, introducing the
Powermasters and Pretenders to Japanese fiction in ways
even more different from their portrayal in the west than
those of the Headmasters before them.
With the departure of the Autobots and Decepticons from
Earth at the end of The Headmasters, a small group of
Autobots remained to guard the planet, having hidden
amongst mankind for thousands of years thanks to their
"Pretender" powers, which allowed them to
shrink down and adopt the forms of human beings. However,
the sudden re-appearance of their formerly-defeated
Decepticon counterparts, now in the service of the
mysterious energy entity Devil Z, means that the Autobots
must drop their disguises and return to battle once more.
But this is only the beginning of the most unusual
Transformer war yet - as the battle escalates, human
beings themselves take sides, and, imbued with the power
of the "Masterforce", merge with Transtectors
sent to Earth by the Autobots in space to become
Transformers themselves as the "Headmaster Juniors."
But the Decepticons have Headmaster Juniors of their own,
and as the conflict rages, events converge on the
creation of the most powerful super-robot lifeforms yet -
the Godmasters!
The Godmasters are the Japanese version of the
Powermasters, with human begins transforming into engines
and combining with Transtectors to transform into robots
capable of wielding "Chokon Power," the primal
energy of life. Most notably, their ranks include Ginrai,
a character based on the Powermaster version of Optimus
Prime, reinvented as a Japanese trucker, and the Japanese-exclusive
character, Decepticon ambassador of destruction Overlord.
Running to 42 episodes, Super-God Masterforce had six
additional clip episodes made after the fact for video
release, one of which, serving as an overview of the
series, was selected to be broadcast as the 43rd and
final episode of the series. The 42 main episodes
received the same dub treatment as The Headmasters, but
the dubbed version of the series was not included on the
DVD release of the series in July 2006.
Transformers: Victory
Taking place in an unspecified amount of time after the
events of Super-God Masterforce (there is a common
misconception that the series takes place in 2025), 1989's
Transformers: Victory is the third Japanese-exclusive
series, the final complete Generation 1 cartoon. Led by
their new Supreme Commander Star Saber, the Autobots
battle the Decepticons under the command of Deszaras for
control of the galaxy's resources.
In contrast to The Headmasters and Super-God Masterforce,
both of which had an over-arcing plot direction, the
majority of Victory is directionless, returning to the
episodic adventure tradition of the original American
series which culminates in the much-threatened attack of
Deszaras's planet-destroying fortress. In another
difference, the characters and toys of Victory are
predominantly unique to Japan, and those that are not are
remoulded in unique, distinguishing ways - the series
debuts the Brainmasters, Brestforce and Multiforce, all
new toys, as well as the Dinoforce, remoulded versions of
the American Monster Pretenders. Micromasters also make
their debut in Victory.
Of the 38 episodes of Victory broadcast, six are clip
episodes containing no new footage, leaving 32 main
episodes, which comprise the DVD collection which will be
released in the United Kingdom in September 2006. Six
further clip episodes were produced for video, taking the
total to 44. Victory also received the "StarTV dub"
treatment - when the three Japanese series were broadcast
on StarTV, it was under the umbrella title of "Transformers
Takara," and all three were branded with Victory's
opening sequence.
Transformers: Zone
Originally intended to be a full-length direct-to-video (OVA)
series, 1990's Transformers: Zone was cancelled after
only one episode, making it the very last Generation 1
animated project. Following on from Victory, the
mysterious three-faced insectoid being, Violenjiger
dispatches the nine "Great Decepticon Generals"
- Devastator, Menasor, Bruticus, Trypticon, Predaking,
Abominus, King Poseidon, Overlord and BlackZarak - to
acquire "Zone Energy," destroying the planet
Feminia to obtain the world's store. Caught in the
destruction of the planet, Star Saber is rescued by Dai
Atlas, who then repels an attack by the Decepticons, and
is appointed the new Autobot commander at the conclusion
of the episode.
The cast of Zone is heavily comprised of Micromasters,
who also made up much of the toyline. Dai Atlas is a
"Powered Master," so named for his motorized
gimmick, as is his combining partner Sonic Bomber - the
toyline also featured another partner for them, Roadfire,
who was not in the episode. The solitary Decepticons in
the toyline were the Race Car Patrol, and Metrotitan, a
redeco of the Autobot city Metroplex, neither of whom
appeared in animated form. They absent parties did go on
to appear, however, in the pages of the Japanese
publication, TV Magazine - this monthly magazine had
always included Transformers manga and "story pages"
(splash page illustrations and prose text) from the
beginning, and although no manga was released for Zone (barring
a single chapter available through mail-away which simply
re-told the episode), its tale was completed through the
story pages.
These story pages were also used to provide supporting
fiction for the remaining two years worth of toylines -
1991's Battlestars: Return of Convoy and 1992's Operation:
Combination.
Transfomers: Generation 2
When the Transformers: Generation 2 toyline fully
launched in 1993, it began with a small collection of
original Generation 1 toys, redecoed in various ways, and
equipped with ostentatious new gimmicks such as
electronic sound boxes and large, firing missile
launchers. Although the toyline itself would grow to
include many brand new figures, and the comic book which
accompanied it was a continuation of Marvel's Generation
1 title, the Generation 2 animated series stuck very
closely to the toyline's opening cascade of "rehashed
G1." Around fifty Generation 1 episodes from seasons
1 to 3 of The Transformers were chosen and, as the show's
narrator proudly proclaimed, "computer-enhanced"
with the "Cyber-Net Space-Cube" - a gimmick
that essentially consisted of inserting new, computer-generated
borders and scene-changes into the existing episodes. CGI
clips from toy commercials served to make up the show's
opening sequence and commercial bumpers, while the
episodes themselves were shown in no particular order.
The G2 series is generally poorly regarded by fans, with
the Cyber-Net Space-Cube derided as intrusive and
unnecessary, and one of the great mistakes of the
franchise.
Beast Era
Beast Wars: Transformers
After the unremarkable performance of the Generation 2
line, Hasbro aimed to completely re-work the Transformers
premise; the result was Beast Wars: Transformers, which
featured robots with familiar names and organic beast
modes. As per the original toy packaging bios and mini-comic,
the intention was originally to have the series be a
direct continuation of the adventures of the "Generation
1" Transformers, but that would soon change with the
advent of the animated series. Produced by Canadian
animation house Mainframe Entertainment, the computer-animated
show was unlike any Transformers cartoons before it, both
visually and in terms of story. With Larry DiTillio and
Bob Forward at the helm as story editors, it was planned
for the show to start afresh, with no ties to anything
that had gone before, but the off-handed reference to the
"Great War" included in the first episode set
the internet fandom ablaze. DiTillio and Forward became
occasional posters on the alt.toys.transformers
newsgroup, and through this back-and-forth interaction
with fans, plus their own research of previous
Transformers fiction, the Beast Wars animated series soon
began to grow, establishing it's place as the future -
and past - of the larger Generation 1 timeline.
Running to 26 episodes, 1996's first season of Beast Wars
began with an unintentional parallel to the original
animated series, introducing the viewers to Maximal
Optimus Primal, Predacon Megatron and their crews as
their ships crashed onto an alien planet, where they
warred over the energon they found there. While mostly a
scattershot affair of episodic stories, the first season
of Beast Wars focused heavily on characterisation,
endowing its cast with consistent, developing
personalities and naturalistic voice acting that brought
the show to life. Additionally, amidst the one-shot
adventures, a plot thread began to grow involving a race
of mysterious aliens who were conducting experiments on
the planet that occasionally intersected with the Beast
Warriors' stories. This eventually culminated in a two-part
conclusion to the season, ending on a cliffhanger that
lead into 1997's 13-episode season. Many of the
characters were upgraded into new "Transmetal"
forms, and the conflict reached a new level with and
exceptionally tightly-plotted story arc that included the
revelation that the planet was Earth, the death of
Dinobot and more alien conflicts. Story elements laid
through the season once again came to a head with a three-part
conclusion that firmly tied Beast Wars to the Generation
1 timeline, featuring guest appearances from Transformers
of that era and displaying that the Beast Warriors came
from their future, and were currently in the prehistoric
past. This link proved key to the third and final season
in 1998, running to another 13 episodes, in which the
Maximals had to defend their past and future against
Megatron's attempts to alter history. Longtime
Transformers comic scribe Simon Furman was brought on
board to script the final episode, which concluded with
the end of the Beast Wars, and the Maximal's departure
for Cybertron.
Although controversial among fans in its early days due
to its complete re-imagining of the Transformers concept,
Beast Wars quickly proved its worth through intelligent
stories and characters and is regarded by many fans as
the singular best Transformers animated series of all
time.
Beast Wars II
Convoy and Lio ConvoyJust as with the Generation 1
timeline, Japan was quick to get in on the act when Beast
Wars took off. The first season of the North American
animated series was imported and dubbed with an increase
in humour, under the title of Beast Wars: Super Lifeform
Transformers, but due to the short length of the second
season, it proved necessary to wait until both it and the
third season were completed before any more could be
broadcast. In order to fill the ensuing gap, 1997 debuted
the Japanese-original cel-animated series, the 43-episode
Beast Wars II (also known as Beast Wars Second or Beast
Wars The Second). The series featured an entirely new
cast of Maximals and Predacons - lead by Lio Convoy and
Galvatron, respectively - fighting on the planet Gaia - a
future Earth, devastated by the power of the energy
source the two factions seek, Angolmois Energy.
Although largely looked down upon for its very light-hearted
approach when compared to the darker North American
series, Beast Wars II proved successful enough to spawn a
theatrical movie, comprised of three "acts".
The first act was a recap of the original Beast Wars
television show up to that point, while the second was
the undubbed, English-language episode, "Bad Spark",
from the show's second season, to serve as a showcase for
the upcoming release of the season in Japan. The third
act was Lio Convoy in Imminent Danger, a new, original
story that saw Optimus Primal pulled forward in time to
team up with Lio Convoy to stop the monstrous Maijin
Zarak.
Beast Wars Neo
Even after the conclusion of Beast Wars II, there was
still some time to go before the North American series
had generated enough episodes to be aired in Japan, and
the 35-episode Beast Wars Neo was produced to fill the
1998 gap. Still cel-animated and ostensibly even more
light-hearted than Beast Wars II, this series introduced
Big Convoy and Magmatron, new Maximal and Predacon
leaders, the former in search of the missing Lio Convoy,
the latter questing for the capsule that Lio Convoy had
sealed the Angolmois Energy into at the conclusion of the
previous series. Beast Wars Neo is particularly notable
for one reason - it features the first return of Unicron
to animated continuity for a decade. In the course of the
series, Angolmois Energy is revealed to be Unicron's life-force,
and the series leads to his attempt to transfer it into
Cybertron, that it may become his new body.
With the end of Beast Wars Neo, the third season of the
North American series had been completed, and it was
subsequently combined with the second season and dubbed
for Japanese release as Beast Wars Metals.
Beast Machines: Transformers
As controversial as Beast Wars started out, it was
nothing compared to the controversy that would result
from the infamous Beast Machines: Transformers. The
series was the only Transformers animated series to be
fully plotted from start to finish by Marty Isenberg and
Robert N. Skir, writers unfamiliar with Transformers lore
who sought to produce the series as, in Skir's words, a
"religious epic novel for television." The
series tackled the heavy philosophical concept of what it
meant to live in an increasingly technological society,
running to 26 episodes over two seasons, though in its
native Canada, the show was aired simply in one long 26-episode
run.
As Beast Machines begins, viewers rejoin Optimus Primal
and his Maximals as they return to Cybertron, amnesiac
and unable to recall how they got there, only to discover
that the planet is now under Megatron's rule, its cities
deserted, its occupants stripped of their sparks. An
encounter with the ancient Cybertronian computer, the
Oracle, sees them reformatted into new technorganic
bodies that blend their mechanical natures with the
organic material they acquired on Earth, and as the story
of the show develops, an organic past to Cybertron is
steadily revealed, as is the story of the Maximal's
missing memories and friends. Influences from the
original Transformers began to creep into the show as
they had with Beast Wars before it, until more oscure
concepts such as the key to Vector Sigma and the Plasma
Energy Chamber played major roles in the series, each one
exemplifying one of the mantras espoused - Primal's
dedication to seeing the organic flourish, and Megatron's
desire for unfeeling, unthinking technological perfection.
The clash between these two powers marked the end of the
first season, and served to provide Primal with the
revelation that drove the second - that he had been
wrong, and that the Oracle desired not the domination of
one power over the other, but a balance between the
organic and the technological. The second season of the
show dove headlong into the storyline, with Megatron body-swapping
repeatedly, and the concept of the show allowing for such
left-field creations as an entirely organic Transformer
that changed from beast to beast, and a Maximal who
transformed into a plant. The series concluded with a
drawn-out battle between Primal and Megatron, which
ultimately concluded with their deaths, allowing the
planet-wide reformatting of Cybertron into a technoganic
paradise.
The concept of technorganic Transformers who needed to
concentrate to move between modes and an organic
beginning to Cybertron rankled with many fans at the
time, viewed as flying in the face of much of the
established history of Transformers. Opinions were
violently expressed and many bad feelings over the series
exist to this day, ranging from the way the characters
changed since their Beast Wars days to the ending,
ambitiously and permanently altering the nature of
Cybertron as it had been understood for nearly twenty
years. Beast Machines has certainly earned notoriety, if
nothing else, particularly for Robert Skir's cancelled
convention appearance following death threats issued by
irate fans.
Beast Machines was not exported to Japan for several
years, finally reaching the country in 2004 under the
title of Beast Wars Returns.
Transformers: Robots in Disguise
After the conclusion of Beast Wars Metals, it was
necessary for Takara to once again produce an original
Transformers animated series and toyline, as Beast
Machines had not yet amassed enough episodes to make
importing it viable. To that end, the new cel-animated
series Transformers: Car Robots (occasionally referred to
by the misnomer, Transformers 2000) was produced for
broadcast in Japan for 2000. The series, however,
ultimately proved duly unsuccessful (to the extent that
there was no Transformers animated series broadcast in
Japan in 2001) and following both the conclusion of it
and the second season of Beast Machines, Takara and
Hasbro opted to co-produce the next series for the first
time. With this decision made, Hasbro scrapped their
plans for the Transtech series, and - rather than go a
year without Transformers, as Takara had chosen to do -
opted to import Car Robots for the 2001 year.
Renamed Transformers: Robots in Disguise (regularly
referred to with the acronym of RiD by fans) the series
stands alone, unconnected to any of the previous
continuities as a complete, self-contained universe.
Conceptually, the show united ideas from across the G1
and Beast eras by pitting the vehicular Autobots, led by
Optimus Prime, against the bestial Predacons, led by
Megatron, and through the inclusion of classic concepts
such as Headmaster and combining technology; dubbed into
English by Saban Entertainment, many fan-friendly
references to the previous continiuities were also added.
The first story arc of the series is a series of episodic
adventures introducing the majority of the cast - like
the original animated series, it was very Autobot-heavy,
with most characters being newly designed (bar the
Spychangers, repainted versions of Generation 2 figures,
and Tow-Line and Skid-Z, repainted Machine Wars toys),
while on the Predacon side, only Megatron was a new
mould, with his troops being repaints of Beast Wars
Transmetal 2 toys. The trend continued into the second
story arc, which introduced RiD's version of the
Decepticons - redecos of the G1 Combaticons and G2 "Laser
Optimus Prime" toy - and Optimus Prime's bitter
brother, Ultra Magnus. This led smoothly into the third
and final arc of the show, which saw Magnus and Prime
merge into Omega Prime, and Decepticon leader Scourge
began his plot to wrest the power of the ancient battle
station, Fortress Maximus, away from both Megatron and
the Autobots.
Its airing schedule heavily disrupted by the 9/11
terrorist attacks, Robots in Disguise had to be re-edited
in several ways for content, and several of its episodes
aired out of order, or not at all in America. Although
initially derided by some fans for its especially light-hearted,
joke-filled nature, demand is high for the series to be
released on DVD in North America; although available in
the United Kingdom, it has yet to see a release in
America due to the Walt Disney Company's acquisition of
Saban and its products.
Unicron Trilogy
Transformers: Armada
Transformers Armada was the first co-production of a
series between Hasbro and Takara to create a line for
simultaneous release in both countries. The show was
written and animated in Japan, though it was created with
global sensibilities rather than the more anime-specific
tendencies that one would expect in a show of such
origins. However, a result of an unreasonable schedule
set by Cartoon Network, the series was rushed out of
production, resulting in an American version that often
contain unfinished, mistake-riddled animation and a
transliterated script that frequently disagreed with the
action onscreen and got character names wrong. The
Japanese version, meanwhile, was released slightly later,
and hence contained all the completed animation.
Armada begins a new universe of continutiy for
Transformers, taking major elements of Generation 1, and
remolding them into a new image, such as the appearance
and purpose of Unicron and the purpose and look of the
Autobot Matrix of Leadership. The series focuses on Mini-Cons
(Microns in the Japanese version), a new faction of small
Transformers with special powers, added to this series as
the larger Transformers pursue them to Earth and begin
their quest to find them. If the Decepticons could get
the most Mini-Cons, they would up their power and be
unstoppable. If the Autobots could find them all, they
could prevent the Decepticons from using the Mini-cons as
tools of war and liberating them. The Mini-cons later
played a large part in the defeat of Unicron.
A companion comic/manga was included with the Japanese
DVD releases of the series titled Linkage. This comic
told the side story of a group of Mini-cons whose
adventures happened in the background of the events of
the TV series. A better understanding of the Mini-cons is
contained in this comic and has been translated into
English.
Transformers: Energon
Note: Released in Japan as Transformers: Super Link (2004),
released in U.S. as Transformers: Energon (2004-2005). As
with Armada, Energon too was a co-production, but in this
case, more of the production was left to the Japanese.
Set roughly 10 years after the events of Micron Legend/Armada,
Super Link/Energon focuses on the quest for the energy-rich
mineral, Energon (hence the U.S. title), and the
toyline's new gimmick, that of combination, a power
possessed by the Autobots that allowed pairs to fuse
together to create one new, powerful robot, in a process
called Powerlinking (previously introduced in Armada as
the act of combination), or in Japanese, "Superlinking,"
(hence the Japanese title). This series includes
characters designed and/or named as homages to the G1
universe, such as Laserwave/Shockblast, Megazarak/Scorponok,
Rodimus, Wheeljack/Downshift and Command Jaguar/Ravage.
Autobots and Decepticons use items called Energon stars
to power themselves up, which seems to be related to
Energon Cubes in Generation One also.
Peace has existed between the Cybertrons/Autobots and
Destrons/Decepticons since the death of Megatron and
disappearance of Unicron. However, a creature named Alpha
Quintesson (See Quintesson) has designs to reactivate
Unicron, though his reasons were pure. In the process,
Megatron was revived and intended to use Unicron to take
over the Universe.
Transformers: Cybertron
Note: Released in Japan as Transformers: Galaxy Force (2005).
Transformers: Cybertron opens a new stage of the saga
across the galaxy. A black hole which appears at the end
of an intense battle now threatens to destroy the
universe. Now, the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime (Galaxy
Convoy in Galaxy Force), are in a race against the
Decepticons, led by Megatron (Master Megatron in Galaxy
Force), to find the Cyber Planet Keys (Planet Forces in
Galaxy Force), mysterious ancient powers that can be used
to either save the galaxy or to conquer it. On their
journeys, the Transformers interact with the inhabitants
of various planets, one being Earth.
Transformers: Heroes
Not much is known except it will air on Cartoon Network
in Fall 2007 and takes place in where earth is
cohabitated by humans and robots. Also, veteran voice
actors from Beast Wars will do the voices. Recently,
information on which Transformers will be in the show was
announced. Optimus Prime (who will be a fire truck),
Megatron, Bumblebee, Ultra Magnus, Prowl, and Starscream
are being auditioned. It also should be noted that
Optimus Prime will be younger than the other Autobots.
This is the first time since Generation 1 with Rodimus
Prime that a younger Autobot has served as leader [citation
needed].
External links
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Transformers_TV_series"
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