***alt.toys.transormers FAQ v3.0***[NEW!!]
Steve R. Stonebraker
From SRST...@CC.OWU.EDU Fri Feb 9 16:42:30 1996
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From: Steve-o / Astos / Transformers FAQ Keeper <SRST...@CC.OWU.EDU>
Subject: ***alt.toys.transformers FAQ v3.0***
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The Awe-Inspiring
Alt.Toys.Transformers FAQ
written by Steve Stonebraker
srst...@cc.owu.edu
bc...@freenet.carleton.ca
Version 3.0
Updated: 2/6/95
== Introduction =======================
This is the FAQ file for the alt.toys.transformers
discussion group. A FAQ is a list of Frequently Asked Questions.
FAQ's are intended to provide quick answers to various questions
which come up frequently on the newsgroup, and in some cases have
had the life totally beaten out of them by repeated discussion.
This makes things easier for the person asking the question, and
also makes things less annoying to the people reading the
newsgroup.
A FAQ is also a useful reference for people who read the
group regularly. It allows them to find answers to questions
they may have without taking the time to post their question and
wait for responses, and also (hopefully) is simply entertaining
to read.
If there is something discussed in the FAQ which you still
have a question about, or have some new ideas to contribute, by
all means do post a message about it. This is merely a reference
guide, and is not supposed to give the impression of having the
last word on any non-factual issue. On some things, however,
additional posts are likely to be met with "Read the FAQ!"
Also, if there is something which you would like to see
included in the FAQ which I have passed over, send me email about
it and best bet is that your suggestion will be in the next
version. Revisions of this FAQ are irregular, meaning that I
normally revise when I have enough new info to make it worth the
effort and have the time to make the changes.
Aside from the FAQ, I also keep up the Transformers
Information Locater, which is basically a quick-reference sheet
for the major topics discussed in the FAQ. I post it every
monday, and it should be around on the web as well.
My own WWW page is now up, although at this point there
isn't much Transformers information there (other than the FAQ and
Info Locater). For now I'm going to go out on a limb and
"endorse" Iggy Drouge's WWW page. He's got basically every text
file I might mention there, so referring you to him now makes
things much simpler. Even if I don't specifically say that he's
got it, it's a good bet that it's there anyway. The URL for his
page is "http://www.canit.se/~optimus/tf.html".
== FAQ Availability ===================
The Transformers FAQ is posted every other monday to a.t.t., and
in time will hopefully be seen on alt.answers and news.answers.
I also have a distribution list for the FAQ, but I only send it
out on the list when there is a new version. Anyone who wishes
to be on this list should email me about it.
The newest version will also always be available through the
means listed below. The FAQ is included on more than the WWW
pages shown here, but to prevent this section from getting
unnecessarily long I have limited this list to my own and Iggy's.
The ftp sites can also be reached by the web, of course. I hope
this isn't taken as an insult by any other WWW maintainers who I
have not mentioned. :)
FTP: vela.acs.oakland.edu /pub/jjhoxsey/
vtucs.cc.vt.edu /filebox/other/transformers
ftp.telebyte.com /misc/transformers
WWW: http://www.owu.edu/~srstoneb
http://www.canit.se/~optimus/tf.html
Email: srst...@cc.owu.edu OR bc...@freenet.carleton.ca
== Terms and Abbreviations ============
There are several terms, abbreviations, and acronyms that I
may be using in this FAQ, and that you may run across in the
newsgroup and elsewhere on the net as well. Here is an
incomplete list of them...
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions, or the list thereof
a.t.t., att - alt.toys.transformers
bot - Autobot
con, decep - Decepticon
G2 - Generation 2, or Transformers: Generation 2
TF - Transformer(s)
TRU - Toys 'R Us, a good TF source
TFTM - Transformers: The Movie
IMHO - In My Humble Opinion.
Megs, Meggy - Megatron, Decepticon leader.
MTMTE - "More Than Meets The Eye", the first three-episode story
RoOP - "Return of Optimus Prime", a two part post-movie story
Op, OP - Optimus Prime, Autobot leader.
OTOH - On The Other Hand.
Quints - Quintessons, aliens introduced in the TF movie who
played a large part in the plot of post-movie eps
spam - posting long, pointless messages, or sending a message to
many newsgroups where it doesn't apply
tech specs - the little cards from TF boxes which showed the
abilities and stats of the TF
TransFan - a Transformers Fan (whoa...)
Shackwave - the Radio Shack Shockwave ripoff, it was grey and
called something like "Astro Man"
*Masters, *M - AM=ActionMaster, HM=HeadMaster, TM=TargetMaster,
PM=PowerMaster, MM=MicroMaster
== Contents ===========================
I. General questions relating to the newsgroup
1. Why don't you guys go and get a life?
2. What's the range of ages for people in this group?
3. What is FIRRIB?
4. What's the TF-MUSH?
5. What's the TF Purity Test?
6. Where do I go to sell old TF's I don't want anymore?
7. I want Jetfire! Someone sell him to me! Whaaahhh!
8. I'd like to buy any old TF's I can find. What are the
best places to look?
9. I have some TF's but I don't know their names... can
anyone help me?
10. Is it okay to post binaries on this group?
11. What should I not ask about on a.t.t.?
II. Getting info and stuff
1. Is there a TF ftp site?
2. Is there a TF WWW page?
3. Where can I get a list of all the TF's that were made?
4. Where can I get a list of all the TF tech specs?
5. Where can I get a list of all the TF fan fiction?
6. Where can I get a list of all the TF cartoon episodes?
7. Where can I get a list of TF quotes?
8. How about a TF encyclopedia or something?
III. General TF questions
1. When did the TF's first come out?
2. Are there any TF conventions?
3. Are there any TF clubs?
4. What's happening with the current TF line?
IV. TF related products
1. Are there any TF video games?
2. Is there a TF role-playing game?
3. What were those TF trading cards like?
4. What TF books are available?
V. Continuity Issues
1. Why doesn't anything agree with anything else?
2. What's the basic origin from the comics?
3. What's the basic origin from the TV show?
4. So where did Unicron come from in the cartoon?
5. Where the heck did the Constructicons come from?
VI. General TF story questions
1. Does Cybertron have an atmosphere?
2. What's up with the female TF's?
3. But WHY do they have them at all?
4. How do TF's reproduce?
5. How did the great war start?
6. Why do they transform? Why not just be big robots?
7. Where does Prime's trailer go when he transforms?
8. Are they immortal?
9. Is there a Transformers history anywhere?
VII. Toys
1. What were the TF's based on?
2. What's the deal with red/yellow Bumblebee/Cliffjumper?
3. Why is Jetfire just like a Robotech Veritech fighter?
4. I've got these weird tiny TF's. What are they?
5. What are those switches on the back of the Jumpstarters'
heads for?
6. How many combiners did they make?
7. How many tapes did they make?
8. Did they ever make a Unicron toy?
9. Why did the last few years of TF toys suck so bad?
10. Why do most of the G2 TF toys suck so bad?
11. What's with Go-Bot Transformers?
12. What are some of the foreign-only TF's like?
VIII. Cartoon
1. What's the deal with Rumble and Frenzy? Which is which?
2. Can Autobots fly or not?
3. Why'd they call Jetfire "Skyfire" and draw him different?
4. How'd they do Soundwave's voice?
5. I heard about a Japanese Transformers cartoon, but it was
totally different from the American one. What's it like?
6. Where can I find episodes of the show on tape?
7. What was "Five Faces of Darkness" about?
8. People have mentioned "Call of the Primitives". What was
that episode about?
9. What happened in "Dark Awakening" and "The Return of
Optimus Prime"?
10. What was "Rebirth"?
11. Is there a list of the voice actors from the show?
IX. Comics
1. Who published it, and when was it in production?
2. Who wrote the comic?
3. Who drew it?
4. What's different between the American and British comics?
5. The whole story arc with Unicron was different in the
comic, so where did Galvatron, Cyclonus, and Scourge come
from in it? And where was Rodimus Prime?
6. What about issue 43, "The Big Broadcast of 2006"?
7. Wasn't Spiderman in one issue? Does that mean the TF's
are in the normal Marvel Universe with the X-Men?
8. What about G.I. Joe?
9. I never got to read the G2 comics... what happened in
them?
X. TF:The Movie
1. What happened in it?
2. Why weren't more characters featured?
3. Where was Snarl?
4. Why did the Insecticons keep showing up and dying?
5. Why would Astrotrain need to "jettison some weight" in
space?
6. Who was turned into Cyclonus by Unicron?
7. Why'd they kill everyone?
8. Didn't they swear in it? (Also, did they edit the video
version?)
9. Who did the voices?
10. What is the universal greeting?
11. Where can I get the movie on tape?
12. Where can I get the movie on laserdisc?
13. Where can I get the movie soundtrack?
XI. Miscellaneous Questions
1. What were those Cybertronian units of time?
2. Unicron vs. the Death Star: who would win?
3. How do you write out the transforming sound?
4. Which TF's died in the movie/comic/tv show?
XII. Revision History and Plans for the Future
XIII. About the Author
XIV. Legalese and Special Thanks
== I. General Questions Relating to the Newsgroup
1. Why don't you guys go and get a life?
Contrary to appearances, many, and indeed most, of the
regular posters to alt.toys.transformers DO lead healthy and
(somewhat) full lives. It is true that we are holding on to
our childhoods, but that's something that most people would
consider to be a good thing. :)
When it comes down to it, the main reason that most of us
read and post to alt.toys.transformers is that we simply
think transforming robots are a pretty cool idea. There's
nothing wrong with adults liking toys. :P Most TransFans
also find a great deal of enjoyment in the background story
and mythos associated with TF's. There are so many
interesting and well-developed characters in the Transformer
universe that many people find it impossible not to get
caught up in the legend.
Many a.t.t readers also read related newsgroups (such as
rec.games. mecha and rec.arts.anime), and you may also want
to check out a few of those groups if you have not already
done so.
2. What's the range of ages for people in this group?
There's no official count of this of course, but when
someone asked in a post, most of the answers ranged between
17 and 25, with a few people on the fringes. Generally,
it's the people who were the right age to appreciate
Transformers when they were really popular, from around 1984
to 89 or 90.
3. What is FIRRIB?
FIRRIB is an acronym for "Frenzy Is Red Rumble Is Blue".
It's a topic that has historically caused quite a stir on
a.t.t. Please do not mention this topic. It's more trouble
than it's worth, and no good will come of its discussion.
FIRRIB/FIBRIR is a matter of dispute because of inconsistent
coloring between the toys and the cartoon show. If you go
by the toys, Rumble is red and black, while Frenzy is two
shades of blue. On the TV show, however, Rumble was
purplish and blue, and Frenzy, who was almost never
featured, was red and black.
To make things even more confusing, sometimes they were both
shown as blue, or both as red. The comic book, near the
beginning, often had inconsistent coloring as well, and in
fact both Frenzy and Rumble sometimes looked sort of
blackish. Also, according to some sources, the new G2 Go-
Bot version of Frenzy is actually purple, perhaps in an
effort to solve the red/blue controversy? ;)
What it really comes down to is whether you consider the
show or the toys to be canon. For most people this depends
on which they saw first. One thing you will learn about
TF's, though, is that there really is no canon.
4. What's the TF-MUSH?
A MUSH is an online game which many people can play at once.
The letters stand for Multi-User Shared Hallucination.
MUSHes are very similar to MUDs, in that people connect to
it and control characters which interact with other players
and the environment. However, while the focus on MUDs is
generally on fighting, MUSHes tend to be much more plot-
oriented and focus on role-playing.
There are currently four Transformer MUSHes. The first one,
generally called TFMUSH or TF1, takes place before the
events of the movie. The second MUSH, known as TF2005, or
TF2K5, takes place very shortly after the movie. The third
MUSH is Cybertronian Wars - The Transformers Saga (CWTS).
It takes place just before the time of the movie. The other
MUSH is Transformers: The Dream (or just the Dream), based
on the cartoon continuity. Each MUSH has its own timeline
and continuity, and need not agree with the others on all
points.
As on other MUSHes, the heart of the TF MUSHes is role-
playing and plot: not fighting. If you are looking for hack
and slash, try a MUD. The experience of playing on a TF
MUSH is a lot like being inside an episode of the cartoon.
There are planned events called "tinyplots" (TP's), but for
the most part the players are the ones who initiate events.
Also, the admin of the various MUSHes wish to point out that
they are not in competition with each other. On the
contrary, many of the admin play all of the MUSHes, and some
even have admin duties on more than one of them.
On all four MUSHes, you may choose either a Featured
Character (FC) or a Non-Featured Character (NFC). FC's are
Transformers that actually existed as toys or in the cartoon
or comic (it may vary from MUSH to MUSH, but on TF2005 for
example you may pick any character from the four issue
"Transformers Universe" comic except for those who clearly
died in the movie). These characters are understandably
limited and in high demand. Before choosing a FC, make sure
that you are choosing one which you will be able to role-
play well. For example, don't choose to play Prowl and then
act like a war-crazed maniac. If you would rather make up
your own Transformer, then that is what NFC's are for (these
are Original Characters, or OC's, on TF2K5). You may choose
your own name, appearance, modes, abilities, and tech specs.
However, there is a limit to the total of all of your tech
specs; this is so there aren't twenty people running around
with all 10's ruining the game for everyone else. There are
other limits placed on NFC's, but to learn more about those
you should ask someone on the MUSH itself or email one of
the Wizards. Players are generally permitted to have at
most one FC and two or three NFCs.
It's best to visit a MUSH before getting a character so that
you can get a feel for the place. Telnet to the MUSH of
your choice, and at the login screen, type "login guest
guest", or "connect guest guest", or whatever it says to
type. You will then be placed into a welcome room, which
will probably have a few people in it talking Out Of
Character (OOC, as opposed to In Character, IC). Type
"help" to get some of the basic commands, and then ask one
of the people in the room to help you out.
If you decide to get a character and start playing on the
MUSHes you might want to get a copy of the MUSH Manual so
that you can get accustomed to the commands, and that way
not be totally lost when you first get on to play. You can
get the manual by anonymous ftp at the site "caisr2.caisr.
cwru.edu" in the directory /pub/mush. The file is called
MUSHMAN or something obvious of that nature.
The current addresses for the MUSHes are:
TFMUSH: rowan.liii.com 1985
TF2K5: rowan.liii.com 5555
CWTS: not currently up :(
Dream: odysseus.uncg.edu 1995
The TFMUSH gods are Chip and Ravage, the plot wizard is
Silverbolt, and the character staff head is Starscream:
Chip: lud...@softfarm.com
Ravage: da...@vt.edu
Silverbolt: sl...@castaway.cc.uwf.edu
Starscream: kend...@io.com
Homepage: http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~erich/tfmush.html
The TF2005 Character Staff head is Vector Sigma, and the god
is Cyclonus:
Vector Sigma: sdw...@mailhost.ecn.uoknor.edu
Cyclonus: sha...@brown.edu
Homepage: http://www.liii.com/~tf2005/TF2005.html
The CWTS Head Director is Metroplex, the demigod is Alpha
Trion, Newbie Staff Head is Ultra Magnus, and the Theme
Staff head is Shockwave:
Metroplex: dav...@oldcolo.com
Alpha-Trion: foe...@itchy.ee.cua.edu
Ultra Magnus: bra...@cwis.unomaha.edu
Shockwave: bent...@oldcolo.com
The Dream's staff is headed by Motormaster, Longwing, and a
few others:
Motormaster: pri...@odysseus.uncg.edu
Longwing: long...@wcnet.org
5. What's the TF Purity Test?
After reading through several "You know you're obsessed with
TF's when..." posts, Diana Calder (az...@freenet.carleton.
ca) put together put together a fan purity test in the style
of the Animaniacs newgroup's purity test which was in the
style of the normal purity test. Basically, it's a long
list of questions, some of which are quite silly, and you
count your number of "yes" answers to get your score. You
can pick it up off of Iggy Drouge's web page, or if you
can't get a hold of it that way, Diana will email it to you.
The current high score is Kendrick's 309. I got 153, but I
think being the FAQ Keeper should earn me large numbers of
bonus points. ;P If you have a particularly impressive
score, let me know and I might list you in later versions of
the FAQ.
6. Where do I go to sell old TF's I don't want anymore?
Simply post an auction message on a.t.t. The group is
relatively low-traffic (around 100-150 new messages a day),
so there won't be a lot of complaints (if any) from auctions
being held. Make up a list of what TF's you want to sell,
give some clue as to their condition, whether they are
originals or Generation 2, etc., etc.. Anything that your
buyers might want to know. There's almost always at least
one auction going on, so you can find a current auction
message and sort of follow its format if you're totally
clueless.
Also, in an effort to make the auctions held a little more
consistent, Burt Ward (bea...@cris.com) has written up some
guidelines for determining the conditions of TFs. This way
people can know more specifically what they're getting
without worrying what the seller's definition of "fair
condition" is. To get a copy of these guidelines, email
Burt or check out his WWW page: http://www.cris.com/
~beavis/tf.html
Also, an important point about auctions is that if you are
making bids, _please_ be sure you send email to the person
holding the auction with your bid. Do _NOT_ post bids to
the newsgroup. This annoys other readers and probably won't
get your bid recognized by the auctioneer either.
7. I want Jetfire! Someone sell him to me! Whaaahhh!
In general, posting messages which say "I want x, if you
have x please sell it to me" are not very successful and
aren't always welcome in non-".marketplace" newsgroups.
This is due to the fact that if there's anyone out there
that wants to sell their x, they'll have already posted
saying "I am selling x" and someone will have bought it.
Everyone wants Jetfire. If everyone who wanted Jetfire
posted messages saying so, we'd more than double the traffic
of att overnight. If you want a genuine, real-thing
Jetfire, keep an eye on the auctions and make bids. If
you'd be content with a lookalike Jetfire, read on:
There is a company on the net called Macross Exchange which
sells newer, albeit cheaper, Valkyrie toys. These Valkyries
are not an exact match for Jetfire (they have a different
head, and no Super Valkyrie armor), and are made with less
metal and more plastic of slightly lower quality than in the
original Jetfire, but are still good toys. Other than the
change in material and head, they are identical to the
original Bandai Valkyrie toys, being made from the same
mold. These are often referred to as Korean knockoff
Valkyries because, simply, they're made in Korea and aren't
actually licensed Macross toys. But regardless, they are
pretty nice and are available in four colors: red/white like
Jetfire, green, red, and blue. They sell for $30 US. If
you are interested, send email to "hin...@ix.netcom.com" or
check out the Macross Exchange WWW page, "http://fantoma.
usfca.edu/~khyron/robotech".
On the other hand, I don't mean to imply that all posts of
this sort are useless. Sometimes they can bear fruit. "I
am looking for x" posts are not among the forbidden topics
of the group, so if all your other resources have been
exhausted, by all means feel free to ask for what you want.
8. I'd like to buy any old TF's I can find. What are the best
places to look?
Of course the easiest thing to do is to look through the
auctions being held on att. If no one is selling what
you're looking for, or if you're just in a general buying
mood and aren't trying to find any specific toy, there are a
few options.
Toy shows, and of course BotCon, are good places to look for
old TF's. Many of the Transformers you'll find at toy shows
and conventions will be in their box, possibly unopened, and
also highly priced. They're good places to find toys,
though, and you can even get TF's that were never released
in the US at conventions. (Not familiar with any of the
non-US toys? Check out section VII, 12.)
A frequent goldmine for TransFans is the flea market, and
sometimes even garage sales. Often at flea markets there
will be tables piled with random toys, and often with a
little searching you can find Transformers. Their condition
will vary of course, but you'll be able to buy them cheap.
Even if you're lucky enough to come across some foreign TF's
(which has happened) the dealer will likely have no idea
what they're worth. The important thing to remember at a
flea market is to never let on how much you want something,
even a complete Fortress Maximus. Act cool and slightly
disinterested to get the best price.
Another method which has proven successful for me personally
is to buy Transformer collections from friends who no longer
want them. I purchased a few sackfuls of TFs from a friend
of my roommate and nearly doubled the size of my collection
for under $100. Ask around. See if your friends or their
friends have Transformers sitting around somewhere. If they
aren't particularly attached to them, they'll be happy
enough to get _any_ money for them and you can make a deal
which will work out for the best for both of you.
9. I've got some TF's but I don't know their names... can
anyone help me?
Certainly. Many of the regular att posters (and I'm sure a
lot of the lurkers) can identify your TF's without even
having to look them up. Simply make a post with the subject
"ID this/these TF" or something similar, and you should get
emails or follow-up posts about it before too long. Even if
the toys aren't _real_ TF's, be they ripoffs like Shackwave,
or GoBots, or MASK, or whatever, go ahead and ask; just make
sure you say that they aren't (or might not be) Transformers
so people know what to think about.
10. Is it okay to post binaries on this group?
Well, it's not really forbidden, but doing so is not looked
favorably upon. There are specific areas which were created
for binary posts (the alt.binaries.* hierarchy, go figure)
in order to keep binary posts out of normal newsgroups. The
reason for this is to save computing resources. Also, many
people who use commercial internet providers have to pay,
one way or another, for the Usenet posts they read. Even if
it's as simple as having to download message packets for
reading offline, binary posts are _very_ long and take a lot
of phone time, which can mean bigger long distance bills.
There is also the concern that if a newsgroup gets a lot of
binary posts, some net service providers might stop offering
the group altogether because of all the disk space a group
full of binaries uses up.
Because of this lot of people don't have access to the alt.
binaries.* groups themselves since providers don't want to
use all that space to store them unless they are in very
high demand. For these reasons, if you have a file you'd
like to post, it might be better to just upload it to one of
the FTP sites or send it to a WWW page maintainer and post a
message stating that you have done so.
11. What should I not ask about on a.t.t.?
There are a few main topics that are good to avoid. These
are questions, statements, etc., that have been discussed so
thoroughly, or are so incredibly pointless, that even one
post about them is a waste of bandwidth.
1) Unicron vs. ________. See XI, 2.
2) FIRRIB/FIBRIR. See I, 3.
3) Scenes cut from the movie for video. See X, 8.
4) How to spell Elita-1 / Alita-1. See VI, 2.
== II. Getting Info and Stuff =========
1. Is there a TF ftp site?
Yes, there are several ftp sites devoted to Transformers.
Most of them are actually WWW pages with lots of files
available, but there are three "main" TF ftp sites that have
been around for some time. They tend to echo each other to
some extent, although not always. The sites are:
vela.acs.oakland.edu /pub/jjhoxsey
ftp.telebyte.com /misc/transformers
vtucs.cc.vt.edu /filebox/other/transformers
To contact the people who run these sites, email to the
following addresses: jjho...@saturn.acs.oakland.edu
ehar...@kendaco.telebyte.com
t...@vt.edu
You may use any of these sites through anonymous ftp. When
you connect, you will probably want to get the index file
for the site, which is a text file that lists everything
currently available for ftp. If you don't know how to use
ftp, ask whoever is in charge of your computer system for
help, or email me directly and I'll see if I can clear it up
for you. If you can help it, don't post to the newsgroup
with questions about how to use ftp.
Both sites have subdirectories for text, pictures (both GIF
and JPG format), and sounds. The pictures available include
scans of art from toy boxes, scans of some of the toy
catalogues, screen captures from the movie, and fan art.
2. Is there a TF WWW page?
Yes! There are _tons_ of Transformers Web pages. More of
them keep appearing, and it's difficult for me to keep up
with this list. If you run or know of a Transformers WWW
page that I do not have listed, please email me with the URL
and I'll add it for the next revision of the FAQ.
The first two pages listed are WWW extensions of the FTP
sites at the same locations. All the others are TF related
to varying degrees. Some are devoted TF pages, others have
small picture archives, are the homepages of major att
personalities, or are maintained by Japanese toy
distributors, etc., etc.. Where I have used capital letters
in URL's, it implies that the machine is case-sensitive and
if you try to connect without the caps, you will probably
get an error. And again, if you run a TF-related WWW page,
or have links to a page I have not mentioned, please let me
know and I will add it to the list.
http://www.acs.oakland.edu/links/jjhoxsey/transformers.html
http://www.vt.edu:10021/other/transformers
http://calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~sslui/
http://emerald.feldberg.brandeis.edu/~progrmer/
http://genie.resnet.upenn.edu:8080/~prufrock/gallery.html
http://pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu/~dvandom
http://pages.nyu.edu/~yeebe
http://pages.prodigy.com/Hell/tfwrestle/tfwrestle.html
http://Ravenwing.pc.cc.cmu.edu/np24/jetfire.html
http://studsys.mscs.mu.edu/~pronovic/phil/
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/~u01dlw/
http://www.acy.digex.net/~thenixtr/nick0003.html
http://www.asuaf.alaska.edu/~fxmcs/Transformers-Images.html
http://www.canit.se/~optimus/tf.html
http://www.cris.com/~beavis/tf.html
http://www.cyberspace.org/~suz/beta.html
http://www.ecu.edu/~uggermai/nlc1.htm
http://www.firstnet.net/~dhayden/transformers.html
http://www.il.ft.hse.nl/~karr/Trf/TRANSFOR.html
http://www.liii.com/~tf2005/TF2005.html
http://www.localnet.com/~tcultt/tf.html
http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~crispy/textfiles/voices.txt
http://www.owu.edu/~srstoneb/transformers.html
http://www.prostar.com/~liane.elliot/tf.html
http://www.public.iastate.edu:80/~dvh_tion/
http://www.sky.net/~arkaynen
http://www.slip.net/~kimono/index.html
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~erich/tfmush.html
http://www.tripod.com/~Dirge/tf.html
http://www.umich.edu/~juquanw/TFcards.html
http://www.voicenet.com/~orac
http://www.warwick.ar.uk/~mavai/tf.html
http://www4.ncsu.edu/eos/users/b/bithomas/www/story.html
http://www4.ncsu.edu/eos/users/j/jhpace1/WWW/Files/
Transformer_Chronology
You also might want to check out the page below; it has
several TF sound files (theme songs), a sample of Peter
Cullen's Voltron narration, and a bunch of other cool TV
theme songs from your childhood:
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/kennyp/sounds.html
3. Where can I get a list of all the TF's that were made?
There is an extremely comprehensive toy list which is
actually still being compiled by Robert Jung (a different R.
Jung than the one who wrote ARJ). He can be contacted at
"rj...@netcom.com". This lists all toys from the US,
Europe, and Japan, along with years they were released and
short descriptions.
Also, there is/was a (fairly) complete toy list of a
different format at the TF ftp site. It's mysteriously
found in the "text" directory under the name "toylist.txt".
4. Where can I get a list of all the TF tech specs?
Hex is the keeper of the "Official Unofficial Transformers
Tech Spec Listing". This file is updated regularly, and is
also posted to the newsgroup occasionally, although less
recently because of people complaining of spam. For a copy
of this, you can check the newsgroup, but it's probably
easier to email Hex and ask for a copy or look for it on a
Web page. He has several addresses, but the preferred one
is "tash...@ucunix.san.uc.edu".
More recently, Nick Morency (then...@acy.digex.net) has
completed "The Definitive Tech Spec Reference" which he
started many years ago. When he announced that he was
making a tech spec list, it caused some controversy on att
as Hex had been the established tech spec authority for some
time. Basically, it was a breach of netiquette to post a
claim that his new tech spec list was much better than the
other list available, but it's now been a while and no one
seems to be holding a grudge. His list is in Word Perfect
format, and available on his WWW page, "http://www.acy.
digex.net/~thenixtr/nick0003.html". He plans to port it to
plain text soon.
5. Where can I get a list of all the TF fan fiction?
Currently, Suzanne M. Ferree has taken on the responsibility
of maintaining the fanfic list. This list is posted bi-
monthly to the newsgroup, usually on the 5th and 25th of the
month, but you can also get it from her WWW page (http://
www.cyberspace.org/~suz/beta.html) or by sending her email.
The list is rather large, as a lot of TF fanfic has been
written.
All of the fanfic on the list should be available at the ftp
site if you are interested in reading it (a lot of it is
very good).
Suzanne's email addresses are:
winter/spring: "sfe...@s-cwis.unomaha.edu"
summer: "s...@grex.cyberspace.org"
Suzanne asks that when you post fanfic, if you want it to
get on her list, that you include the word "fanfic" in your
post subject. Like, "FANFIC: Unicron vs. the Death Star".
That makes it easier for her, and for other readers as well.
6. Where can I get a list of all the TF cartoon episodes?
Marek Kozubal (progrmer) has a fairly complete list on his
WWW page (http://emerald.feldberg.brandeis.edu/~progrmer/
transformers/transformers.html). This list has all titles,
and additional info for some. He's working on getting plot
summaries for them.
Aaron Marsh (abm...@vaxb.isc.rit.edu) has an episode list
which is in order, with summaries for most. He posts it to
the group, and will also send it to people over email.
For more thorough reviews, you can read Kendrick's
(kend...@io.com) "Transformers Weekday" reports. TF
Weekday posts are generally several screens long, with
commentary on story, animation, and character development.
They're generally pretty entertaining as well. :) He
normally posts a review every weekday for that day's episode,
although right now TF Weekday is on a hiatus. Kendrick says
that once he gets a complete collection of Japanese episodes,
he'll start reviewing them, as well as reposting or redoing
his Sci-Fi Channel reviews. Depending on how crazy he is, he
might also review the coming Beast Wars series. A collection
of existing reviews is available on Phil Pronovic's WWW page,
at the following URL:
http://studsys.mscs.mu.edu/~pronovic/phil/cmtf/
7. Where can I get a list of TF quotes?
Naomi Novik (The Lady of Shalott, at "sha...@brown.edu")
compiled a list of favorite TF quotes a while ago, and
although it hasn't been updated for a while, she is willing
to email it to people who want it. Just contact her. Also,
if anyone out there has the desire to reorganize and
maintain the quote list, that position is still unfilled and
looking for a volunteer. :)
8. How about a TF encyclopedia or something?
Such a project is currently being undertaken by Stanley Lui
(ss...@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca). It's largely just a
shell right now, but he's trying to put together a TF
Encyclopedia on the WWW. The URL is listed at the end of
this section, and also above with the other TF WWW pages.
Major articles in the encyclopedia will be on specific
characters, events, and places, from all TF fiction
continuities. Currently only the American comic and
cartoons are listed, but Stanley hopes to eventually include
the UK Comic and Japanese cartoon episodes. For each item
listed there will be a history for each continuity. For
example, the "Optimus Prime" article will probably have two
sections, each reading like Op's life history from either
the cartoon or US comic continuity.
There will also eventually be hypertext links within
articles, so that, for example, when the section on the
Matrix mentions Alpha Trion, there will be a direct link to
the article on Alpha so the reader can get more information
on him.
The TF Encyc is provided mainly as a reference tool for
people who need background information for FanFic writing,
and for other TF fans who are just trying to remember the
name of a place or what a certain weapon did.
Anyone who is willing to write articles for the TF Encyc
should contact Stanley to see what articles are currently
blank, or connect to the page directly to see what needs to
be done. All contributions to the TF Encyc will be properly
recognized and acknowledged.
The TF Encyclopedia is located at:
http://calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~sslui/
Also, on a similar note, Aaron Marsh has a painstakingly
compiled list of _every_ TF appearance in the American
comics. It's organized by character, and lists every issue
in which that character appeared. Aaron will send this out
by email. If you're interested contact him at "abm4111@
vaxb.isc.rit.edu".
== III. General TF Questions ==========
1. When did the TF's first come out?
The very first appearance of the Transformers was an
animated TV commercial for the Marvel comic book. This
first appeared in summer of 1984. The first issue of the
comic itself was dated as September 1984. However, at this
point Marvel is dating their comics about 2 months ahead of
when they hit the shelves, so it's likely that issue one was
actually released in July '84. The first batch of toys were
released in fall '84, and the original three episodes of the
show aired at about the same time. The cartoon then went
weekly in early 1985, and daily in fall of that year.
2. Are there any TF conventions?
In 1994, there was an official BotCon held by Jon and Karl
Hartman of Fort Wayne, Indiana, in honor of the TF's 10th
anniversary. Hasbro showed up to help launch their
TF:Generation 2 line. This convention was the first-ever,
and focused mainly on the collectible toy aspect of TF's,
and was a general success with fans. The name of the
convention is derived from the words AutoBOT and DeceptiCON,
placing the obligatory "con" at the end of the name.
For 1995, a.t.t.'s very own Raksha put together a second
BotCon in early August. This convention was fan-organized
and focused more on the fan-related aspects of TF's.
Both BotCons featured dealer tables for toys, comics,
fanzines, and art, as well as tv rooms where fans could
watch the movie, American, and Japanese cartoon episodes on
constant playback. Both BotCons also had a special limited-
edition TF figure available only to convention attenders.
Attending a BotCon is a major thrill for most TF fans. For
days after the 95 'con, more than half of the message
threads on att had the word "BotCon" in them. A huge
fraction of the people at BotCon were either MUSHers or
att'ers, or both. If you can possibly get to the next
BotCon, it's something you won't regret.
BotCon '96 will be held July 12, 13, and 14 at the Clarion
Resort Rosemont in Chicago. It is being organized by Men-
In-Black Collectibles, and supported by Hasbro and Kenner.
Rooms in the hotel will be $67 a night, with maximum
occupancy of four. Resistered attenders will get Con
exclusive merchandise, and will have to pay $35 per day.
Non-registered attenders will be charged $7 a day or $12 for
the whole weekend. For more information, send email to
"Bar...@emuvax.emich.edu".
3. Are there any TF clubs?
There are two major TF clubs that are still active today.
One of them is TransMasters, which is run by Tony Buchanan
and Mark Tisdale. There is also a UK branch run by Matt
Dallas. For information on this club you can contact any of
them. I personally had better luck with Mark than Tony,
although other people have expressed the opposite
experience.
Mark Tisdale Tony Buchanan Matt Dallas
PO Box 469 1215 S Andrews Rd 221 Wayfield Rd.
Montezuma GA 31063 Yorktown IN 47396 Chatham, Kent
ME5 0HG
Mark Tisdale is now available on the net as well at the
address "tis...@freenet.scri.fsu.edu".
TransMasters UK has a WWW page at the following URL:
http://www.warwick.ar.uk/~mavai/tf.html
Another club called The Survivors is a branch club of
TransMasters. For information contact:
Liane Elliot
6202 34th St. NW
Gig Harbor WA 98335-7205.
tetra...@prostar.com
4. What's happening with the current TF toys?
Sit down before reading this.
After buying out Kenner right before BotCon '95, Hasbro
transferred responsibility for the Transformer line to that
company. The new 1996 TF line is entitled "Beast Wars" and
totally changes the TF theme. There are no longer Autobots
and Decepticons; they are now Maximals and Predacons,
respectively. All of them are animals. The traditional
Autobot and Decepticon sigils have been replaced by new
symbols. Optimus Prime's new name is Optimus Primal, and he
transforms into a bat. Megatron is an alligator-ish
reptile. There is a Maximal whose name is Dinobot.
It is believed by many that this is the reason Hasbro opted
at the last moment to not send any representatives to BotCon
'95, in fear of what the TransFans there might do to them.
It is likely that Hasbro is responsible for these changes,
and stuck Kenner with the line at the last minute, leaving
Kenner with no time to turn out something better.
The change in the line originally caused a lot of anti-MMPR
messages to pop up, but the changes really aren't _that_
much like MMPR. Yes, they are dinosaurs and animals, but
they don't use martial arts and they aren't controlled by
"teenagers with attitudes".
Beast Wars are now available in many areas, and Wal-Mart has
picked them up as well. Not surprisingly, despite the bad
aspects of the line, some of the toys are actually pretty
neat. Check them out in a store near you, and try to
appreciate them.
There will be a new Transformers TV show to accompany the
Beast Wars line. It will be animated with CGI graphics like
the G2 commercials and the movie "Toy Story", starting as
one part of a three-show strip called "ATV" before moving
out on its own as an independent show in the fall.
Presumably, ATV will show one of its three cartoons on each
weekday, although it might be more like the weekly program
from the 80's that at one time or another had shows like
Robotix, Jem, Inhumanoids, Tigersharks, and Bigfoot.
For those interested in contacting Hasbro, their phone
number is 1-800-255-5516.
== IV. TF related products ============
1. Are there any TF video games?
There were 2 different games released for the Commodore 64.
The original, merely called "The Transformers", was a basic
platform game. I recently played this game, and found it to
be extremely difficult. The graphics were neat, but it was
too easy to die by crashing into walls, and I was clueless
as to the point of the game. According to various sources,
however, your mission in this game was to find 4 energon
cubes which were scattered throughout the level and bring
them back to your home base. When you got the energon cubes
back to your base, they would turn into parts of an Autobot
symbol, and the object was to complete that symbol.
The second game was called "The Battle for Cybertron" and,
like the TF books (IV, 4), had an ambiguous setting, as both
Hot Rod _and_ Rodimus Prime were available to control. Your
mission in this game was to stop the Decepticons from taking
over various places on Earth, and to stop them from building
their ultimate weapon. There was a map screen with about 15
different places on it, and you could send about 8 different
Autobots to any of them, depending on where the Decepticons
were attacking. Once your Autobot was there, it would
switch to a first-person view, and you had to move a
crosshair to shoot at the nearly endless Decep jets that
flew onto the screen. You could be hit by their missiles,
and if you got hit too much your screen would "crack up" and
you'd have to bring another bot in. There was also a nearly
impossible part where you had to stop a tyrannosaurs rex
from stepping on the space shuttle.
In addition, the Japanese FamiCom (their equivalent of our
original Nintendo Entertainment System) had a TF game. The
player controlled Ultra Magnus and had to take out droves of
Decepticon jets and tanks in a Metroid-ish platform game
manner.
There was some talk about a Super Nintendo TF game which was
in the works for the TF:G2 line, but that never occured.
The existing SNES game "Vortex" is TF-like, in that you
control a transforming robot, but that's as far as the
similarities go. It's not an especially high-quality game.
The current hope is that Takara will make an Ultra 64 game.
For people interested in playing the above Commodore 64
games, one of them and a C64 emulator to play it with are
available by ftp for most platforms at "arnold.hiof.no" in
/pub/c64/emulator. The other game is available on Iggy
Drouge's WWW page under the name "transformers.lha" in his
tfpics directory, as well as a link to the emulator site in
his readme.html file. The arnold site seems to be a little
moody, so if you have trouble connecting, just try again
some other time.
Lastly, Andrew Southam recently completed some Transformers
themed .WAD files for Doom and Doom 2. He has a sound patch
for both games (mainly digitized movie sounds) and a
graphics patch that changes some of the enemies and the
player graphic in multiplayer games. He's working on making
these more complete. The patches are available on the web
at "http://www.voicenet.com/~orac".
2. Is there a TF role-playing game?
In a manner of speaking, yes. Dave Van Domelen has written
a robot-oriented role-playing system called RoboMACs which
can be easily applied to Transformers. His email address is
"dva...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu". To order a printed
copy of the rules for $11 plus shipping, email your request
to "pl...@io.com".
The game itself is more concerned with role-playing than
rolling dice, and the mechanics of play are simple.
Character creation is trait-based instead of stat-based and
can accommodate anything from normal humans to planet-sized
mecha using a sliding scale. The game uses ten-sided dice,
with 2d10 used for task resolution. While best-suited for
humanoid robot combat, it can easily be extended to other
themes such as paranormal humans and cyborgs. There is
currently no magic system, but a later supplement may fix
that. To be added to a reflector-style mailing list set up
to discuss and playtest RoboMACs, email to "pl...@io.com".
The rules and sample campaign are posted to the list
periodically, along with various updates.
There is also a fan-created TF game similar to Magic: The
Gathering. Details on this game are available at "http://
www.geopages.com/TimesSquare/2021".
3. What were those TF trading cards like?
At the time of the TF's big popularity, Mattel released a
set of Transformers Action Cards. There were 8 cards and a
sticker in each pack. Overall there were 191 cards and 24
stickers. Some cards featured the tech specs and profiles
of TF's on the text side and the picture from that toy's box
on the other, and the other cards had stills from the 1st
and 2nd season of TF cartoons with text describing the
action. There were also two checklists.
There were slight variations on many of the cards. Most of
these variations were differently colored backgrounds on the
profile cards, although there were also some flipped and
miscolored cartoon cards.
There are several people on att attempting to complete their
sets. Two that I know of are Sujay Madyastha and Steve
Nahra, at "suj...@seas.upenn.edu" and "rsn...@vax1.acs.
jmu.edu", respectively. Raksha (jk...@magnus.acs.ohio-
state.edu) is also willing to trade away her doubles and is
interested in finding more color variations that she might
not have. She doesn't have a lot of extras, but you might
want to contact her as well. Posting a message on the group
to the effect that you'd like to sell, trade, or buy cards
will probably get you a response or two.
4. What TF books are available?
There were several different series of TF books printed
during their period of popularity. These included a set of
"Choose Your Own Adventure" type books under the brand name
of "Find Your Fate", several coloring and activity books,
and a few normal storybooks.
There were at least nine Find Your Fate books printed, with
the following titles. If you have more to add to this list,
please let me know: #1 Dinobots Strike Back
#2 Battle Drive
#3 Attack of the Insecticons
#4 Earthquake
#5 ???????????
#6 Decepticon Poison
#7 Autobot Alert!
#8 Project Brain Drain
#9 The Invisibility Factor
As you can see, I am missing the title for book five. If
you have it, tell me what it's called! These books were
part of the "Find Your Fate Junior" series published by
Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, and came out
sometime around 1985-86. The books before #7 feature pre-
movie characters, and #7 and after have the movie
characters, but don't fit into the after-movie setting.
Although Prime is nowhere around, Hot Rod is just Hot Rod,
and Ultra Magnus commands. They feature decent
characterization (on a children's level) of the TF's and
neat pencil illustrations that look a lot like the toys.
I unfortunately don't have my TF coloring books anymore, but
at one point I had three of them. The art was simple, as
would be expected for a coloring book. They followed plots
rather than being just pictures, but the stories were also
simple, even for children. The characters were represented
well, however. For example, Bumblebee was depicted as
looking up to the larger Autobots, Hound missed Cybertron,
and Laserbeak was cowardly.
One att reader found a TF storybook called _Car Show Blow
Up_ at a flea market. This book had a similar time frame as
the later Find Your Fate books, with Ultra Magnus leading
the Autobots and Hot Rod as just a punk. It was published
by Marvel Books and is 24 pages long; 12 of text, and 12 of
art. On the back it advertises other TF book series,
including sticker books, coloring books, activity books, and
hardcover storybooks.
Again, I ask that anyone with more information on any TF
book series, including simple lists of the different titles,
send me the information that they have.
== V. Continuity Issues ===============
1. Why doesn't anything agree with anything else?
As many readers will be aware, there are serious story
discrepancies between the TF cartoon and comic book, and
sometimes even between the cartoon and itself (and more
rarely, the comic and itself). Many fans enjoy finding ways
to explain these discrepancies within the cartoon, to make
everything still fit together, and for the most part they
are successful.
The important thing to remember when comparing the comic
book and cartoon series is that they have NOTHING to do with
each other, except for having mostly the same characters and
a theme of transforming robots from Cybertron. The two
clearly take place along alternate timelines, and IMHO, any
attempt to reconcile the two separate stories is futile.
Not only do totally different events occur in both, but the
origin of Transformer life is completely different as well.
2. What's the basic origin from the comics?
Way way back at the beginning of time, there was a god of
chaos called Unicron. He had an insatiable hunger, and a
hatred of all of existence. As there was no power in the
universe to oppose him, he managed to eat everything that
was, except for one tiny microscopic dot. This dot exploded
(a la Big Bang) into the universe we know today. Unicron
was enraged and immediately began to eat again, but this
time another god named Primus fought him. Their powers were
of equal measure, so they fought for ages, with neither
gaining the upper hand, but as they fought they wreaked
havoc on the universe around them. Primus saw this, and in
a desperate attempt to trick Unicron, he plunged himself
into a metallic asteroid. Thinking that Primus was indeed
up to something, Unicron also dove into a metallic asteroid
so that Primus would not have an advantage. However,
Unicron soon discovered that he was trapped in his asteroid,
as Primus was also trapped within his.
As the millennia passed, Primus realized that he could alter
the shape of his prison, and so began to form his asteroid
into a planet, and the planet into a race of beings which he
hoped would one day be able to stand against Unicron, should
he ever escape from his asteroid. These beings were the
Transformers. The Creation Matrix which allows Transformers
to make more of their kind contains a bit of the essence of
Primus' spirit.
Primus and Unicron possessed a mental link, so Primus knew
that Unicron had also learned to shape his prison. While
Primus had created an army to fight for him, Unicron had
turned his entire asteroid into a giant replica of his old
form. He could change from this form to one which more
resembled the original asteroid as well. So that Unicron
would be unable to find him and his children until enough
time had passed that they would be able to fight against
Unicron, Primus fell into a deep sleep. Thus the
Transformers were created on their planet Cybertron, with
almost no memory of their origin other than myth.
3. What's the basic origin from the TV show?
Millennia ago, the Quintessons were the heads of a huge
galactic corporation. They built the planet of Cybertron as
a huge factory in which to build robotic slaves. There were
two basic models: household and entertainment robots, and
warrior/gladiator robots. Whenever one of their slaves
began to show signs of true intelligence, the Quintessons
had it immediately smelted down to be used as raw materials
for the next line of robots.
Eventually, however, more and more of the robots began to
gain sentience, and they started a revolt against the
Quintessons which ended in the Quints fleeing Cybertron for
their lives, and the Transformers taking the planet over.
It was sometime after this that the first hostilities arose
between Autobot and Deception.
4. So where did Unicron come from in the cartoon?
Unicron's origin was not discussed in the TF Movie, although
that was when he first appeared. His origin was not
revealed until the post-movie ep, "Call of the Primitives".
In the cartoon storyline, Unicron was built by an alien
named Primacron. He built Unicron to destroy worlds and
leave the universe as a blank slate for his use.
Unfortunately, Unicron revolted against his control and
started to eat various planets for his own amusement. In
the TV show, there was no special bond between Unicron and
the Matrix of Leadership as there was between the comic
Unicron and the Creation Matrix. The Matrix of Leadership
just happened to be the most powerful object in the
universe, the only thing which could stop him, and he knew
this. That is why he wanted it destroyed.
5. Where the heck did the Constructicons come from?
This is the ultimate example of the cartoon's tendancy
toward continuity flubs. Through the course of the American
cartoon, the Constructicons are featured in three self-
contradictory origin plots.
Their first appearance was in "Heavy Metal Wars". In this
episode, Megatron says something to the effect of "they were
worth the effort it took to build them here in these caves".
This implies that they were built on Earth by the
Decepticons.
In "The Secret of Omega Supreme" Omega relates a story to
Optimus Prime concerning his old life on Cybertron as a
Guardian robot. He had at one point been friends with the
Constructicons, but when Megatron released a device called
the Robo-Smasher, it caught them and made them become evil.
They then destroyed the city which Omega was sworn to
protect, and he became one of their worst enemies. This
implies that they were on Cybertron long ago, and Megatron
turned them into Decepticons.
While Rodimus Prime journeys through the Matrix in "Five
Faces of Darkness", one of the flashbacks he sees is the
moment of Megatron's "birth". He is seen being put together
by the Constructicons. This implies that they were on
Cybertron long, LONG ago, and built Megatron themselves.
There have been attempts to reconcile this huge mess, but
they were not very convincing.
== VI. General TF Story Questions =====
1. Does Cybertron have an atmosphere?
The general consensus on this is yes, it does. It is
obvious that there is an atmosphere there after Spike
travels to Cybertron and breathes without a space suit, but
some people maintain that it did not have an atmosphere
until the TV episode "The Ultimate Doom". In that episode
(actually a three-part story) Megatron drew Cybertron into
orbit around the Earth. They claim that at that time it
picked up some of Earth's atmosphere. However, there is
more evidence to show that it has always had its own air.
Firstly, there is apparently sound on Cybertron, and you
can't have sound without an atmosphere of some sort.
Secondly, even in the first episode of the show, the
Decepticon "triangle" jets were clearly shaped
aerodynamically, which implies an atmosphere. Thirdly,
according to the TV origin of the TFs, Cybertron was
originally a factory planet run by the Quintessons, who are
(more or less) organic. Therefore, Cybertron must have had
an atmosphere or the Quints would not have been able to
survive there.
2. What's up with the female TF's?
In the episode "The Search for Alpha Trion", a band of
female Autobots was featured on Cybertron. In that episode,
Prime and several other Autobots went to Cybertron to save
the females from Shockwave, who had captured the female
leader, Elita-1. Elita was an obvious love interest for
Optimus Prime. The other female Autobots also seemed to be
paired up with their respective "guys".
Also in this episode, Elita is almost killed, but Alpha
Trion informs Prime that he alone possesses the correct
interface to save her, and so Prime "interfaces" with Elita
and transfers energy though a cable which oddly goes from
the area of his lower torso to the area of hers. :) When
Alpha informs Prime that only his power module will properly
interface with hers, Prime is shocked, stating that "only my
creator could know that".
The other episode that had Elita-1 was called "War Dawn", in
which the Arialbots go back in time to the golden age of
Cybertron and meet a robot named Orion Pax. At the end of
the episode, Alpha Trion turns Pax into Optimus Prime, and
turns Pax's girlfriend-bot into Elita-1.
There was also an episode entitled "Enter the Nightbird" in
which a human scientist invented a ninja-like robot with
clear female curves to it, named Nightbird. This robot had
no personality, although it was rather dangerous. Megatron
captured and took control of Nightbird, but in the end she
was recaptured by the Autobots and deactivated.
In TF:The Movie, and in the post-movie eps, there was
another female Autobot named Arcee. She was pink, had a
tiny waist, and transformed into a futuristic convertible.
In the movie, she seemed to be interested (mutually) in Hot
Rod, but in all the post-movie eps, she and Springer were an
obvious item. There was also a female in "Forever is a Long
Time Coming" named Beta.
Arcee was featured in the UK comics, although she was built
specifically for the purpose of improving relations between
TFs and humans and did not represent the existence of either
male or female TFs on Cybertron. In addition, the Japanese
HeadMaster Minerva was characterized as a female both in the
Masterforce cartoon _and_ in her toy incarnation (this toy
was released with a sex change under the name of Nightbeat
in the US). Also, the engine component of the Japanese PM
Darkwing was female, as well as one of the two engines for
the GodMaster Overlord, and possibly a Japanese MicroMaster.
The only female TF toy ever released in the United States
was fan created. Her name is Nightracer, and she was the
BotCon '95 exclusive toy. This toy's tech spec card was
written by the Con's organizer, Raksha.
Incidentally, there is disagreement over how to spell the
name Elita-1. Some people prefer "Alita-1". As with the
other pointless debates on a.t.t., both sides have their
evidence. I would like it to be noted that I have favored
the "E" spelling, simply because I like to have the word
"elite" in her name. If you really want to know more about
this, send email to two of the group leaders: Kendrick
(kend...@io.com) on the E side, and Nick Morency (thenixtr@
acy.digex.net) on the "A" side. Kendrick has his
dissertation on this topic from some time ago still saved,
and if Nick doesn't have his, he'll probably at least
explain his side to you. :)
3. But WHY do they have them at all?
Personally, I think it's a little bit silly to force genders
upon robots. I did like Arcee (the only female TF to really
get any character development in America), and I admit that
to be socially responsible, it was probably important for
Hasbro/Marvel/Sunbow to introduce female characters.
Technically, however, I still think it's silly. :)
All of the non-obviously-female TF's were quite clearly
modeled after males, and I feel that this makes a certain
amount of sense. Since the TFs are all fighting a war, it
follows that they would be built big and strong. When we
look at them we see big, wide frames, and broad shoulders:
characteristics which we identify as "male". Looked at in
this manner, TFs don't really have gender at all, but we
simply identify them as male, because they look more like
males than females from our point of reference.
On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with TF's having
traditionally "female" personality traits, like compassion,
mercy, forgiveness, certain parental instincts, etc.. These
are wonderful traits that would be useful to have in any
society.
4. How do TF's reproduce?
There has been a lot of discussion on this question. There
are several different answers provided by "official"
sources, and there is also a lot of speculation by fans.
In the original comic book series, Transformers could only
reproduce by building new TF bodies and infusing them with
life via the Creation Matrix. In the Generation 2 comics,
an alternative method of "budding" was introduced which is
explained in detail in IX, 9.
In the cartoon, on the other hand, it sometimes seemed
enough to simply build new robots. The Dinobots,
Technobots, and Trypticon are examples of this. When
Starscream built the Combaticons in "Starscream's Brigade",
he actually only built bodies and downloaded the
personalities of Cybertronian criminals which were on file
somewhere into those bodies. However, when the Arialbots
were created they had to be given life by Vector Sigma, a
supercomputer at the heart of cybertron.
5. How did the great war start?
This depends on which story you are following.
In the comics, the war began simply and realistically
because some of the Transformers were power hungry and
hostile. They formed a group called the Decepticons, and
began to make strikes against Cybertron's cities in order to
take it over. Transformers who opposed this formed another
band called the Autobots and fought against the Decepticons.
This idea is explored in more detail in a UK annual text
story called "State Games".
In the cartoon, the war began soon after the Quintessons
were driven from the planet. The warrior robots were in
general more hostile, and wanted to control the planet.
They began to call themselves Decepticons. The household
robots, who called themselves Autobots, tried to resist this
takeover.
6. Why do they transform? Why not just be big robots?
Following the comic book timeline, Primus incorporated the
ability to transform in his children to mimic the shape-
changing method which Unicron used.
On the TV show there are a few slightly conflicting answers
given. In MTMTE Spike asked Trailbreaker about
transformation and gets the following answer: "Disguise!
Besides, it sure beats walking." Another explanation (this
one from FFoD) is that they could _always_ transform, even
at the very beginning when they were robot slaves. This was
to make their functions more versatile. The warriors could
fight as humanoids, but also change form into vehicles of
war and powerful weapons. The household robots could change
into useful tools and transportation vehicles. The other
answer is that transforming was a technological innovation
which the Autobots "discovered" as a secret weapon to use
against the Decepticons, who had superior firepower. It's
that "robots in disguise" thing. This advantage was quickly
turned against them, however, when the Decepticons also
began to use this technology. If anyone knows the sourse
for this last explanation, I'd like to include it here.
7. Where does Prime's trailer go when he transforms?
Although it wasn't ever explained in the TV show, the
generally accepted (or invented, rather) theory among
TransFans is that each Transformer has their own
"compartment" in subspace. The TF can teleport anything to
or from subspace at will for storage purposes. Each
Transformer is "frequency locked" to a certain pocket of
subspace, so there isn't any possibility of a transformer
stealing weapons that were placed into subspace by another
transformer. Subspace storage is the "official" explanation
used on the TF MUSHes.
Subspace can also be applied to size changes which accompany
the mode changes of several Transformers, such as Soundwave
and Megatron. The mass which they lose when shrinking can
be stored in subspace, and drawn out again upon
transformation. Although Megatron can clearly choose
between a normal and giant size when in gun mode, we never
see Soundwave as a 12 foot tall tape deck, or either of them
as a one foot robot. Options of size in various modes
therefore seem predetermined, probably at their time of
creation (or in some TF's cases, the time of their redesign
at the hands of the Ark). Also, a Transformer has never
been shown walking around in any in-between size, so it
would seem that the mass transfer with subspace is all or
nothing.
The subspace theory seems to be consistent with the cartoon,
and is even supported by a scene in "Demon's Swamp", when
Kickback's gun suddenly materializes in his hand in plain
sight for no apparent reason, as well as one of the post-
movie commercial bumpers in which Blurr transforms and his
weapon appears in his head. In the UK comic story "Dinobot
Hunt", Jazz opens a hidden compartment in his hip from which
he removes a small version of his gun that grows to its full
size for use. In this case, although the gun is stored in
the real world, there is still a size change to contend
with, and the subspace theory can explain it.
8. Are they immortal?
Barring injuries and being killed in battle, there is no
reason to believe that, with proper maintenance, a
Transformer could not live indefinitely. So, in short, they
pretty much are.
To confuse matters a bit, though, there was an issue (or
more?) of the UK comic which showed a Rodimus Prime from the
future who was obviously aged; he was frail, bearded, and
generally geezer-like.
9. Is there a Transformers history anywhere?
There is a Transformers Chronology file which was written,
and is available at the (lengthy) WWW at the address below.
This chronology follows the TV show's Quint theory, so you
may or may not like it. :) I think it at least used to be
available on the vela ftp site, but I'm really not sure if
it's still there.
http://www4.ncsu.edu/eos/users/j/jhpace1/WWW/Files/
Transformer_Chronology
== VII. Toys ==========================
1. What were the TF's based on?
All of the original Transformers were re-released and often
recolored versions of older Japanese toys. This is the
reason behind the double copyright date on most TF toys;
they were originally copyrighted when first released in
Japan, and then again in the US when Hasbro released them.
Most of the toys came from one of two lines produced by
Takara: Microman and Diaclone.
The Minibots and the cassettes were part of the Microman
line, which had the distinction of needing few or no
accessories (no missile launchers to lose, no guns to
misplace). Microman had several toy designs, and each mold
came in a wide array of colors, which partially explains the
proliferation of red Bumblebees and yellow Cliffjumpers. On
all the minicars you can locate a "M" in the plastic which
represented the brand name in Japan.
The Diaclone series contained toys which we now recognize as
the Autobot cars and Decepticon jets. They came with little
human figures with magnetic feet which were interchangeable
among all the Diaclone toys. This is the reason behind the
mysterious "seats" found on so many TF's. Optimus Prime was
also a Diaclone toy. The generic Diaclone semi truck was
named Convoy, and several different trailers were available,
including the box container (for OP) and the car-carrier
(Ultra Magnus).
Some of the other toys came from companies other than
Takara. For example, Megatron and Shockwave came from a
line of six different guns called Gun-Robo. The Deluxe
Insecticons were originally Bandai designs, as were the
Predacons. Also made by Bandai was the Jetfire toy, which
was originally a Macross design, and Roadbuster and Whirl
which were from a Japanese Mecha show called "Armored
Trooper Dorvack".
With a few exceptions (such as Jetfire), all of the toy
robots purchased by Hasbro for their Transformers line were
without a background story, cartoon, or comic book. Working
together with some of the people at Takara, Hasbro and
Marvel developed a backstory for the Transformers involving
two factions of warring robots. John Romita, of Spiderman
fame, headed a team of artists who took the toys designs and
altered them drastically for portrayal on television. He is
responsible for the more human-looking Ironhide and Ratchet
that we've become accustomed to, as well as putting actual
faces on all the robots rather than visors and faceplates.
2. What's the deal with red/yellow Bumblebee/Cliffjumper?
They were both originally from the Microman toyline. In
that line, the toys all came in a wide range of colors,
including the ones we know as Bumblebee and Cliffjumper.
When Hasbro bought the rights to the toys, they must have
either bought some backstock which included both colors, or
they made some production mistake and continued to
manufacture them with both colors.
I had both the red and yellow Bumblebees, and called the red
one Hornet, saying he was Bumblebee's long-lost brother. :)
Aside from Bumblebee and Cliffjumper, there was another
similar minibot named "Hubcap" who was released at the same
time as the other minibot recolors (eg. Outback, Swerve,
Tailgate,...). He was, or at least was supposed to be,
yellow. Apparently there was another, fourth, TF in this
"family" which was sometimes mistakenly packaged as both
Bumblebee and Cliffjumper in both colors. Without any real
name, this toy is usually referred to as Bumblejumper.
3. Why is Jetfire just like a Robotech Veritech fighter?
Technically, it's a Macross Valkyrie, as the Robotech show
was a derivative of three separate Anime series: Macross,
Southern Cross, and Mospeada. Hasbro felt that the Autobots
were too short on air power, and their search for a cool
airplane toy came up with Bandai's Valkyrie. To leave a lot
of legal technicalities out, Hasbro and Harmony Gold (who
released Robotech in America), as well as a few other
companies (like FASA, the makers of Battletech) bought the
rights to use that "shape" of robot, and Jetfire was born.
4. I've got these weird tiny TF's. What are they?
Unless they're micromasters, which you could hopefully
indentify, you've got either Minispies or Decoys. Both were
limited-time offers, and were packaged with other TF's.
Minispies came first, and were about an inch long with
simple transformations. They were the first TF's to have
the black rub symbols on them, the point here being that
since they were spies, you had to check which side they were
really on. Later the rub symbols were put on all TF's to
show that they were "real" Transformers and not rip-off
ones.
Transformer decoys were made later, and were nothing but
small rubber statues of various TF's in their robot modes.
The Autobot decoys were red, and the Decepticon ones were
purple.
5. What are those switches on the back of the Jumpstarters'
heads for?
This switch was actually mentioned in the Jumpstarter
instruction books, but as many people never read the
instructions, the switch has caused a lot of confusion for
some people.
For those of you who don't know about Jumpstarters, they
were two Autobots with a very simplistic transformation
(their legs fold up and they turn into something that's
supposed to look like a tank/spaceship kind of thing).
However, the cool thing about them is that they had pull-
back motors inside them, and when you let them go they would
roll for a few feet, and then their spring-loaded legs would
suddenly flip back to their robot mode position, and the
momentum of this flip would cause the TF to jump off the
ground and land standing up in robot mode.
The switch in question is a small triangular piece of
plastic on the back of their heads (marked with an A and a
B) that could be shifted slightly from side to side. The
purpose of the switch is to act as a counterweight during
the jumping part of their transformation. If your
Jumpstarter always falls over to one side when he tries to
transform, then you can move the switch over a bit and he'll
suddenly become coordinated and land on his feet every time.
As a bonus for those of you that wonder: Yes, the pictures
on the tech spec cards for the Jumpstarters were messed up.
Topspin is the pontoon boat, and Twin Twist is the drill
tank. End of story.
6. How many combiners did they make?
The combiner or gestalt Transformers were among the most
popular of the toys. The first combiner was Devastator.
Also, Devastator and Predaking were the only ones made up of
characters who were all approximately the same size (with
the possible exception of Monstructor). For all the others,
the main body of the gestalt (who was also always the team
leader) was significantly larger than the other four.
Predaking was made up of only 5 animals, but because that
team was so well designed (Predaking is IMHO the best of all
the combiners and, incidentally, was made by Bandai) they
were all about the same size.
For information about the origins (according to the TV show
timeline) of some of the combiner teams, contact Dairenn
Lombard (pi...@cyberverse.com). He has a fairly long write
up of the Combaticons' origin prepared, and is interested in
getting the origins of the other teams as well. Also, many
readers may be totally unfamiliar with the Monster
Pretenders (the American version of the 'con DinoForce from
TF: Victory). If you want to see who they were, they were
featured in issue 67 of the US comic (see VIII, 5).
There were also a large number of other combiner teams which
were released in Japan but not in the US. See VII, 12 for a
little more info on them.
Here is a list of the gestalts, in the approximate order
that they were released (note: the word "Piranha" is
misspelled in the name "Piranacon"):
Devastator - 6 Constructicons
- Hook, Long Haul, Bonecrusher, Scavanger,
Mixmaster, Scrapper
Superion - 5 Arialbots
- Silverbolt, Slingshot, Air Raid, Skydive,
Fireflight
- Stunticon counterpart
Menasor - 5 Stunticons
- Motormaster, Dragstrip, Dead End, Breakdown,
Wildrider
- Arialbot counterpart
Defensor - 5 Protectobots
- Hot Spot, First Aid, Groove, Blades, Streetwise
- Combaticon counterpart
Bruticus - 5 Combaticons
- Onslaught, Blast Off, Swindle, Brawl, Vortex
- Protectobot counterpart
Predaking - 5 Predacons
- Razorclaw, Rampage, Tantrum, Divebomb,
Headstrong
- extremely cool
Computron - 5 Technobots
- Scattershot, Strafe, Lightspeed, Nosecone,
Afterburner
- Terrorcon counterpart
Abominus - 5 Terrorcons
- Hun-Gurr, Sinnertwin, Blot, Cutthroat,
Rippersnapper
- Technobot counterpart
Piranacon - 6 Seacons
- Snaptrap, Seawing, Overbite, Nautilator,
Tentakil, Skalor
- Snaptrap is always the body, but the other five
can be interchanged between all four limbs and
used as Piranacon's gun
Monstructor - 6 Monster Pretenders
- Birdbrain, Bristleback, Icepick, Scowl, Slog,
Wildfly
- about the height of Hot Rod and very chunky
7. How many tapes did they make?
Overall, there were six Autobot tapes and ten Decep ones
released in the US. A list of them follows, deceps first:
Buzzsaw - gold condor, came w/ Soundwave
Laserbeak - red condor
Ratbat - purplish bat
Ravage - black panther
Slugfest - green stegosaurus
Overkill - grey/silver tyrannosaur
Beastbox - pinkish ape, combines to form Squalkbox
Squalktalk - green condor, combines to form Squalkbox
Frenzy - blue robot (red in cartoon :P )
Rumble - red robot (blue in cartoon)
Grandslam - red tank, combines to form Slamdance
Raindance - blue plane, combines to form Slamdance
Steeljaw - yellow lion
Ramhorn - rust-colored rhino
Eject - blue robot
Rewind - black robot
8. Did they ever make a Unicron toy?
Not really. There was a prototype made, but it was never
released anywhere. As you would expect, it was pretty
large. Supposedly the photo in the Special Data Book
mentioned below shows Rodimus Prime coming up to slightly
below Unicron's knee. Anyway, here's a letter that was once
printed in Action Figure Digest on the subject:
"Dear AFD,
After reading Don Ferguson's letter in issue #12, I was
surprised to find your information regarding the
Transformers character Unicron was incorrect. A Japanese
book, "Transformers the Movie: Special Data Book"
(distributed by Takara) shows that there were two
prototypes. The first was rather small, while the second was
about the size of Fortress Maximus (about 21.5 inches). The
larger one said ten phrases in Orson Welles' voice.
According to my friend in Japan, the article says
Hasbro USA did not like the first prototype, thus Takara
produced the larger one (shown above). I'm guessing Hasbro
rejected this one because it would cost too much to
produce."
9. Why did the last few years of TF toys suck so bad?
This isn't universally agreed upon, but most people tend to
think that the TF's decreased in quality in their last few
years of production. First of all, Hasbro switched to
making them out of cheap plastic rather than good plastic
and metal. Second, the *Master themes got out of control.
Every new toy had to have some new gimmick; it wasn't enough
to make cars that turned into robots anymore. Part of the
TF charm was that they LOOKED like toy cars or toy planes or
a real tape player, but also turned into robots. Later toys
no longer looked like real things. They had to be
futuristic cars, or cars that had people who turned into
their head or their gun or their engine. The ActionMasters
also took a lot of flak (and still do), but deserve to be
defended. Yes, they are Transformers that don't transform,
and yes, that is kind of stupid. But on the other hand,
they actually are pretty nice action figures that added a
new dimension to the TF universe.
But anyway, not all of the last TF's were terrible. As with
all toylines, there were good ones and bad ones. While it's
true that the overall quality of the TF line declined in its
last few years, there were still a lot of nice toys. I'm a
personal fan of MicroMasters. Although a lot of Pretenders
were pretty bad looking, a few of them were nice and had
some great characterization thanks to Simon Furman's comic
writing skills. Lastly, the Head/Target/PowerMaster gimmick
was also a fine idea. IMHO, all the *Masters were ok; the
problem was that they became the entire TF line, totally
replacing normal Transformers. If that hadn't happened,
TF's popularity might have lasted a few years longer.
10. Why do most of the G2 TF toys suck so bad?
Again, the new TF's aren't really that bad. There have been
some crappy ones, and most of the G2 re-releases were in
ugly colors, but there were a lot of good toys in the new
line. There is general consensus that the G2 Dreadwing toy
is pretty cool, as well as the Decepticon CyberJets (which
are _extremely_ posable) and the G2 Megatron (the big tank
version). The biggest problem with G2 is the tech spec
cards; basically all of the personality write-ups and mottos
are awful. TF personalities and characterization have
always been a strong point of the line, and now we have
characters with mottos like "Want to race?" It's sad, so in
response a lot of att'ers have taken to rewriting G2 tech
specs to make them bearable for fanfic purposes.
For those who are curious, the reason Megatron is a tank now
rather than a Walther P-38 pistol is probably that it's no
longer PC (or maybe even legal) to sell realistic looking
toy guns.
11. What's with Go-Bot Transformers?
One of the early G2 Autobots belonging to the water-
squirting group was suspiciously named "Gobots". This name
is quite ironic, because during the TF's first run, their
major competitors were Tonka's GoBots. After the G2 Gobots
was released, one of the next major Autobot groups was
announced, and they were called: Go-Bots. These TF's are
the size of Matchbox cars so that you can use them on
Matchbox/Hot Wheels tracks.
Kendrick (kend...@io.com) managed to clear up some of the
commotion on this matter, however. Apparently Hasbro had
bought out Tonka since the last time they went head-to-head
with the transforming robots idea, and in a slightly
unnecessary effort to prevent other companies from reviving
GoBots as a competing line, Hasbro intentionally used the
name in the TF line to assert their ownership of the
concept, and possibly to gloat a bit on their victory.
To prevent confusion on the newsgroup, Tonka GoBots are
usually referred to specifically as Tonka GoBots, and also
by various derogatory names. There are a few readers of the
group (myself included) that not only don't hate Tonka
GoBots, but think they were okay, but we are few. Prepare
to be flamed (as much as anyone on ATT flames) for standing
up for them; Super GoBots excluded. :)
12. What are some of the foreign-only TF's like?
You'll probably get more complete information on this
subject by reading Robert Jung's toy list, but I will
attempt to make a brief summary of the non-US release toy
groups. Be sure to read VIII, 5, the section about TF
Anime, or a lot of this won't make much sense to you. :)
While G1 TF's were still being made in the US, the Japanese
line followed their Masterforce cartoon and contained
different versions of several US HeadMasters. They had
different colors and personalities than the ones Americans
are used to. In Japan, PowerMasters were referred to as
GodMasters. There were also recolored versions of Fort Max
and Scorponok named Grand Maximus and Black Zarak.
To accompany TF:Victory, there were several groups of Japan-
only toys. The main groups here were BrainMasters,
MultiForce, BreastForce (keep your mind out of the gutter;
these toys have chest components which transform into
weapons and animals), and DinoForce. These are all gestalt
teams. At this time, the US was knee-deep in Pretenders,
MicroMasters, and Action Masters, many of which were never
released in Japan.
Afterwards, probably alongside TF:Zone, droves of Micro
Masters were released, almost all as Autobots. Included
among the Micros were several Micro gestalts which were
never seen elsewhere.
In Europe, after the demise of the American G1 line, new
types of ActionMasters were released, including AM Elites,
which went against the AM grain and actually transformed.
Many of the classic TF's were also re-released at this time.
Later on, two missile-launching groups called TurboMasters
and Predators came out, followed by some recolored Japanese
TFs. Once G2 came out, Europe continued to get all the
American toys plus a few of their own exclusives.
The specific foreign TF's you're likely to see people
talking about are: the Trainbots (an Autobot gestalt), the
Decepticon BreastForce, and Overlord (a 'con double
GodMaster from the Masterforce series).
== VIII. Cartoon ======================
1. What's the deal with Rumble and Frenzy? Which is which?
For the answer to this, read "What is FIRRIB?", question 3
in section I, "General Questions Relating to the Newsgroup."
Also refer yourself to I, 11: "What not to ask..."
2. Can Autobots fly or not?
In general, they can't. If you are willing to put the
inconsistencies away as merely that, the basic rule is:
Decepticons can fly, Autobots can't.
However, to go further into those inconsistencies: in the
first few episodes of the show most of the Autobots WERE
shown flying at one point or another. This also happened a
few other times through the run of the show, like "Forever
Is a Long Time Coming" (according to Kendrick's TF Weekday
reviews). Technically, only be Gears with his compressed
air jets, Wheeljack with the solid fuel rockets in his arms,
and Sideswipe with his rocket backpack that should be able
to fly unaided. At one point in "More Than Meets The Eye",
Prime even borrows that rocket backpack from Sideswipe to
attempt to chase the Decepticon ship.
After the first batch of TF's, there were of course
exceptions. A lot of Autobots could CLEARLY fly, like the
Arialbots and Skyfire. It also seemed as if the Dinobots
could all fly, making them another exception.
3. Why'd they call Jetfire "Skyfire" and draw him different?
Bandai, the maker of the original Jetfire toy, is a major
competitor of Takara, the company which designed most of the
Transformers. When the cartoon was being planned, due to
the fact that it was to be shown in Japan as well, Takara
did not want a Bandai design appearing in the cartoon.
However, because Jetfire was such a popular toy, the
decision to modify him for the small screen was made. The
only time that Jetfire has been seen in animation is the
initial TV commercial which advertised both him and
Shockwave. A similar decision was probably behind Marvel's
decision to draw Skyfire and name him Jetfire in the comic
book. The anti-Bandai sentiment also explains the absence
of a few other characters from the cartoon series, such as
the Deluxe Insecticons.
There have been occasional rumors of a limited edition
Skyfire toy, but most a.t.t. readers do not believe them.
4. How'd they do Soundwave's voice?
Thanks to Kendrick for the info on this one; the quoted
statements are his. :)
All of the voices on the show were altered to make them
sound more robotic and less human. The process they used is
called flanging, which means that a stereo recording was
made of the voice actors, and then one channel of the sound
was slightly delayed in a random fashion to produce, as
Kendrick says, the "swooshing" sound in all their voices.
For Soundwave in particular, the voice recording was also
sent through an analog synthesizer to remove "all the
tonality but none of the enunciation or cacophonous sounds."
The removed tones were then replaced artificially by someone
on the voice processing team to produce the cool-sounding
voice we all know and love.
There is a public domain program called "Cool Edit" which
has a flanging feature that can be used to make robot
voices. It is available by ftp at "ftp.ep.se/cool/cool151.
zip" and "oak.oakland.edu/SimTel/win3/sound/cool151.zip".
When performing Soundwave, Frank Welker "simply uses his
deep growling bad guy voice". The same voice can be heard
as Dr. Klaw on "Inspector Gadget". Sometimes the editing
team on the TF show would mess up, and bits of Welker's
unaltered voice ended up in the cartoon. One of these times
was in "Roll For It". When Ravage brings Chip and some
vital info to Soundwave, he says "Excellent, Ravage" in a
Dr. Klaw voice. This also occurred in "Webworld", when
Soundwave reports that Ratbat has found something on a
nearby asteroid. In addition, I've been told that in "Fight
or Flee" Soundwave ended up speaking with Shrapnel's
characteristic repetition of his last word. Confirmation of
this would be appreciated.
5. I heard about a Japanese Transformer cartoon, but it was
totally different than the American one. What's it like?
Most of my information on this subject comes from "Track
Attack" (Pema Galang, at "pema.t.galang-1.@tc.umn.edu"), who
was kind enough to send me nice long emails about it. :)
Extreme thanks go to her for her help in this area.
There were actually several Japanese TF cartoons. The first
series consisted simply of dubbed versions of the american
pre-movie cartoons. Then there was an OVA (on-video
animation, or something like that) called "Scramble City"
which was a sort of bridge between our pre-movie eps and the
movie itself. "Scramble City" introduced many of the TFs
who (for Americans) magically appeared just in time for the
movie.
Following RoOP came "HeadMasters", which included a few of
the movie characters, but focused mainly on the Head and
TargetMaster TF's and their origins. "Rebirth" is basically
ignored by Japanese continuity. Several big TF's die in
this series (including Op and Ultra Magnus), and Cybertron
is destroyed. In this series, all the HeadMasters are
originally from Cybertron (rather than the Cybertron/
Destron division), but left it to find a new world because
of the war. They settle on a place called MasterStar, where
they develop the *Master technologies.
The next series was called "Masterforce" and centered mainly
on the "Junior HeadMasters" and PowerMasters (known as
GodMasters in Japan). This series also included the
Seacons, Pretenders, and a giant Decep GodMaster named
Overlord who most American TF fans will have never heard of.
In this series, the Autobots and Decepticons were robot
races from different planets, known as the Cybertrons and
Destrons, respectively. The main characters were the Junior
HeadMasters, Autobot HeadMasters with children for heads.
They were Go-Shooter, Cab, and Minerva (Siren, Hosehead, and
Nightbeat to Americans). The Decepticons also had a Junior
HeadMaster group. PowerMaster Optimus Prime was also in
this series, but he was called Super Jinrai, and had an
extra second trailer called Godbomber (which was not
included in the American toy) that transformed into a second
exoskeleton and gave him wings.
The name of the next series is "Victory". The Autobots are
led by a BrainMaster (kind of like a PowerMaster) named Star
Sabre. The other BrainMasters are named Blacker, Raster,
and Braver, and combine into Road Caesar. The Deceps have a
new type of binary bonded TF's called BreastMasters (they
have chest components that can transform into weapons or
animals). The leader of these is Deathsaurus, a double
BreastMaster. There is also a team of BreastMasters
(LeoZack, Gaihawk, Hellbat, Killbison, Jaguar, and
Drillhorn) called BreastForce who can combine to form Lio
Kaiser. There is also Multiforce for both sides. The
Deceps' is called DinoForce; they have Dinosaur counterparts
and combine to form DinoKing (they're known as the Monster
Pretenders/Monstructor in the US). The Autobot Multiforce
has six members, and any two can combine to form a different
robot. Altogether they merge to form Land Cross. Also in
Victory, the Masterforce TFs appear occasionally, and OP is
reincarnated as a golden robot named Victory Leo that
transforms into a lion. He can combine with Star Sabre to
form Victory Sabre.
The last Japanese TF animation is called "Zone". This was
another one-shot OVA. Mainly concerned with MicroMasters
(all of whom were portrayed as Autobots, even the ones we
know as 'cons) and Decep gestalts (all of whom are wearing
capes(?)), this show also includes some of the Victory cast.
The story sort of centers on a matrix-like thingy that the
'cons are after.
Following this is a manga series (Japanese anime-style
comics are called manga) titled "BattleStars" which brings
back Prime and Megs in new forms. The accompanying toyline
was called "Return of Convoy", as Convoy is the Japanese
name for OP. As far as story goes, the MicroMaster cities
SkyGarry and Grandus locate Prime's body and reconstruct him
as another MM city called Star Convoy with the ability to
combine with them in the form of a giant city or a large
three part vehicle. Meanwhile, Unicron (known as Dark Star)
returns and relocates Galvatron, who has been missing since
HeadMasters, returning him to his Megatron form. Star
Convoy, SkyGarry, and Grandus (the BattleStars) destroy
Megatron, so Dark Star actually combines himself with Megs
and becomes known as Super Megatron. He attacks, but is
defeated again. BattleStars was never put into animation.
All the Japanese series were done in traditional Anime
style, which means they're very cool. There are no
officially released copies of these cartoons in the US,
although there are a lot of people that have copies of them.
If you ask on the newsgroup, you are likely to get some
responses. You can also check Anime suppliers, and the TF
fan clubs for info. Although I've only seen a few episodes
of Masterforce (in Japanese no less) and a tiny bit of
Victory, there are english versions of most of these shows
around.
For those interested in getting copies of TF Anime, there
are a few people you can contact. Karbunkle (karbunkle1@
aol.com) has got several tapes of Headmasters, four dubbed
Victory episodes, part of Scramble City, several toy
commercials and some of the cut movie footage. He will make
single episode copies, custom tapes, or copies of the whole
set. Also, Jameel al Khafiz (ha...@andrew.cmu.edu) has all
of Masterforce available.
6. Where can I find episodes of the show on tape?
All of the "unnamed" episodes from season 1 were released on
VHS. Also put on tape were the movie, "Five Faces of
Darkness", "The Return of Optimus Prime", and a first season
three pack which included the episode "War Dawn".
Unfortunately, these have all been discontinued. The tapes
that are still in stock in various warehouses can sometimes
be ordered at stores that specialize in movies. You may
want to check video rental places for old TF tapes and ask
if you can buy them, as they most likely aren't rented out
very often (this is how I got my copy of the movie).
The Science Fiction Channel was showing G1 cartoons on weekday
mornings, but they've recently been cycled out in favor of
Tranzor-Z. TF cartoons will return, however, so don't go
yelling at them. They rotate through many, but not all, of
the really good and really bad eps. Unfortunately, because
the allowed advertising time during children's shows has
increased since TF was originally made, SciFi has made small
edits to the episodes they show, sometimes making transitions
bad and eliminating some good scenes. Both "Call of the
Primitives" and "Rebirth" are included in their lineup.
Several fans taped the G2 episodes, and several people have
original G1 episodes on tape as well. At this point my
sellers list has dwindled, but there are still people to get
in touch with: Sarai Feria at "10313...@compuserve.com"
has many episodes with commercials edited out, although some
eps are G2 or SciFi versions. Karbunkle (karbunkle1@aol.
com) will also have all the American episodes in fair
quality before long.
7. What was "Five Faces of Darkness" about?
FFOD is one of the most maligned TF cartoon story arcs. It
was a five-part story which immediately followed the movie,
and attempted to tie up various loose ends such as where
Galvatron went when Rodimus Prime threw him out of Unicron,
and what the deal was with the Quintessons. The animation
for FFOD was pretty crappy. There were a lot of editing
mistakes, and it just in general looks bad.
The basic story revolves around the TF origin (see IV, 3)
and the Quints trying to take back Cybertron. A lot of
elements from the movie turn up, such as the Junkions
repairing fallen Autobots, shuttles separating and blowing
up, the Quints putting people on trial, etc., etc..
8. People have mentioned "Call of the Primitives". What was
that episode about?
This episode takes place after the movie. In it, Primacron,
in the wake of Unicron's failure, sends out his other
creation, Tornatron. Unicron was a creature of matter, but
Tornatron is a creature of energy. He goes about sucking
stars dry and such, trying to empty the universe for
Primacron. Before Tornatron attacks, Primacron's
"Assistant", calls all the primitive TF's (like the Dinobots
and Predacons) away. The Assistant, which looks
suspiciously like the Matrix of Leadership, sends the
primitives to fight Tornatron. In the end, Grimlock gets
into Primacron's lab and destroys the control device for
Tornatron, saving the universe.
The main reason that people would be talking about "Call of
the Primitives" is that it has about the best TF animation
ever other than the movie itself (excluding the Anime). It
was produced by a different animation studio than most of
the other eps, and it really shows in the artwork. All the
TF's are highly stylized and look practically like
traditional Anime mecha.
9. What happened in "Dark Awakening" and "The Return of Optimus
Prime"?
In "Dark Awakening" we have the familiar scene of the
Autobots detonating three quarters of their shuttle to
escape Decepticon pursuit. Our heroes soon find themselves
drifting near a giant Autobot cemetery barge. Against their
best superstition, they dock with it to make repairs. Once
there, they are surprised to find Optimus Prime walking
around. Eventually, it is revealed that he was revived and
reprogrammed by the Quints in an attempt to capture the
Matrix. But in the end Prime's personality overcomes the
Quint reprogramming and he sacrifices himself to save the
other Autobots.
Or does he? In "The Return of Optimus Prime", a two part
episode, we open with some humans, a man and a woman, who
are testing a new metal alloy by flying a ship made of it
near to a star. They encounter a shuttle with Prime aboard,
flying towards the star. The two humans rescue him, but he
is already dead.
They return Prime's body to Earth, where the woman's father
wishes to melt him down due to a deep-grained hatred of all
Transformers. However, at the last minute he decides to
instead use Prime's body to do all the TF's in. When the
humans' ship was near the star, it picked up the traces of a
fungus of some sort which infects living things and causes
them to hate everyone around them and want to kill and
destroy. The woman's father laces Prime's body with this,
and then calls the Autobots to pick up their leader's body
which he "salvaged". TF after TF becomes infected with the
Hate Plague, which spreads to not just humans, but the
entire galaxy. Sky Lynx manages to fetch a Quint and brings
him back to Prime's body. The Quint agrees to revive
Optimus to help stop the plague which threatens them as
well. Prime then coats himself with the new metal from the
shuttle, making himself impervious to the plague, and is
able to get the Matrix from the infected Rodimus Prime and
uses it to stop the plague.
The art in "Return of Optimus Prime" is high-grade. It
contains many of the animation flubs common to post-movie
eps, and of course the frames-per-second isn't impressive,
but the actual drawings were nicely done. Excluding "Call
of the Primitives", RoOP is IMHO some of the best American
TF animation around, although the story is a little silly.
Jeff Bogumil (nc50...@nccvax.wvnet.edu) mentioned to me
that he seemed to remember a news broadcast stating that a
letter writing campaign in the UK was what brought about
Prime's cartoon resurrection. If anyone else has any input
on that topic, please let me know.
10. What was "Rebirth"?
"Rebirth" was a three-part story, and the last three
episodes of the TF cartoon. It followed RoOP and introduced
Head and TargetMasters. Most att'ers were not very
impressed by it, so don't be upset if you missed it. The
animation is typical of post-movie cartoons (eg. not so
hot), and there are several story elements which were
handled poorly. In fact, the later Japanese continuity
ignored Rebirth completely.
11. Is there a list of voice actors for the show?
The responsibility of maintaining the voice list has been
passed on to Cris Haaser (cri...@owlnet.rice.edu). This
frees up several screens of space in the FAQ, and makes
things easier for me. :) She'll be posting the list once a
month, and will also send it by email request. In addition,
it's posted on her web page at the location "http://www.
owlnet.rice.edu/~crispy/textfiles/voices.txt"
Currently, the voice list has been reduced to only TF-
related credits, but Cris has all the info on other parts
played by TF voice actors that was in the FAQ previously, as
well as all the info which was emailed to me since v2.2. If
you have more voice info that is not on the list, tell her,
not me. :)
Scatman Cruthers, the voice of Jazz, is deceased. Bill Ness
at "bil...@aol.com" came across a biography of Scatman, and
pulled out several sections about the Transformers cartoon
and the impact that working on TF had on Scatman's life and
career. If you would like to read a copy of this, simply
email Bill and ask.
== IX. Comics =========================
1. Who published it, and when was it in production?
_The Transformers_ was first released as a four issue
limited series from Marvel Comics. The first issue is dated
September 1984, and the last time I checked, a good
condition copy cost about $8-10. The limited series was
published bi-monthly, and then at the end of issue 4 it was
announced that the book was to become a monthly, continuing
title. The first issue of the monthly book was dated June
of 1985. _The Transformers_ remained a monthly title until
its cancellation at #80, July 1991.
Contained within the seven year run of the TF comic, there
were several related books released. Marvel published a
four issue TF/G.I. Joe crossover, a four issue Headmasters
limited series (which then merged with the regular TF
comic), a four issue "Transformers Universe" following the
"Marvel Universe" format, and a three issue adaption of the
movie. From independent publishers, there was a "How To
Draw Transformers" book, as well as a short-lived TF in 3-D
comic, which was rudely and with no warning canceled right
at the beginning of a promising multi-issue story.
November 1993 marked the beginning of _Transformers:
Generation 2_. This comic, also by Marvel, ran for 12
issues and was then stopped. Preceding it was a short
introduction/crossover in issues 138-142 of _G.I. Joe_.
TF:G2 was not a limited series, although the writer
intentionally planned the first story arc to last for 12
issues in the case that the book would not be continued, so
that it could end with a sense of closure. Unfortunately,
it was a good thing that such foresight was taken.
Following is a list of all TF titles ever published,
including the publishing company and number of issues
printed:
Transformers Marvel 1-80
Transformers: Generation 2 Marvel 1-12
Transformers: The Movie Marvel 1-3
Transformers Universe Marvel 1-4
Headmasters Marvel 1-4
Transformers vs. GI Joe Marvel 1-4
Transformers in 3-D Blackthorne 1-3
How to Draw Transformers Blackthorne 1-4
UK Transformers Marvel UK 1-332
UK Transformers Annual Marvel UK 1-7
UK Transformers: Generation 2 Fleetway 1-5
UK Transformers: G2 Annual Grandreams 1
Collected Comics Marvel UK 1-19+
Raksha and Martin McVay provided me with more information on
some UK comics: The UK TF Annuals were hardback books with
both comic and text stories, and other features as well.
The first Annual was also released in a paperback version in
1986. The UK "Collected Comics" reprinted the best stories
from earlier issues. There were 19 of these plus a number
of reprint specials which were like CC, but were not
numbered and most were missing the stage-setting intro page
that CC had. CC 1 and 2 were a reprint of US 1-4.
There were also 10 "Transformers Digest" books printed in
the US, each of which reprinted two issues of the comic and
included several TF Universe entries. In addition, there
were a few trade paperbacks (TPB) and one-shots released:
TF vs. G.I.Joe, 1993, new cover by Wildman and Baskerville
TF Universe, 1987, two page intro by Jim Salicrup
TF:G2 Halloween Special Edition, 1993, reprints the Furman/
Senior story "Ghosts" from TF:G2 #2
Transformers Universe Vol. 1, Marvel UK, US Universe 1-4
Transformers: The Movie, Marvel UK, US Movie 1-3
The Complete Works Volume 1, 1986, Marvel UK, two issues, UK
annual style hardback, reprints US 1-8
Plague of the Insecticons, Marvel UK, reprint of story by
that name from UK Annual 1
2. Who wrote the comic?
Excluding about three issues, all the TF comics were written
by either Bob Budinsky or Simon Furman. Budinsky was on the
book until issue 56, at which point Furman, who had been the
writer of the British TF comic for a long time, took over.
At this point the quality of stories took a major upturn.
He stayed on the book until its cancellation, and wrote the
entire run of G2 as well. After Furman showed us how good a
TF comic could be, many people started to resent Budinsky's
predominantly juvenile plots. Budinsky wrote a comic book
about giant robots. Furman wrote an epic adventure rich
with mythical archetypes, religious conflict, and tragic
heroes. It should be clear which was better.
3. Who drew it?
The TF comic did not have just one or two major artists,
although it did change less than many other books. There
were probably a dozen or so people that drew TF over it's 80
issue run, but the main names to notice are Jose Delbo, Andy
Wildman, and Geoff Senior. Jose Delbo is of note because of
the long period of time that he stayed on the book, working
with both writers.
Geoff Senior and Andy Wildman are the two main artists from
the end of the comic's run. Both came over from the British
book with Simon Furman, and both were incredible. Geoff's
art was blocky and low in detail, but his shapes were well-
defined and visually appealing. He also had the ability to
draw pictures which excellently depicted the mass and
inertia of TF bodies in motion. Many of his fight sequences
truly give the impression of giant robots throwing each
other around.
Andy Wildman drew extremely detailed illustrations for the
book. It was Wildman who, IMHO at least, changed TF from a
comic with pictures to a comic with art. He gave the TF's
smooth and extremely human facial features (sometimes even
teeth and eyeballs), which annoyed a lot of readers (these
are robots, after all), but it also allowed the pictures to
much better convey the emotions of the characters. Wildman
had a lot of nice little touches to his art, such as battle
damage on the characters which stayed with them from issue
to issue (Scorponok's broken antenna comes to mind).
The G2 book was drawn mainly by Derek Yaniger and Manny
Galan. The artistic style of this series was MUCH different
than the G1 books. Manny Galan's art to many seemed a poor
imitation of Yaniger's dark, spooky TFs. In the last couple
of issues, as a welcome change, we got Geoff Senior back.
Unfortunately, the book was canceled soon after.
4. What's different between the American and British comics?
The British TF comic followed a different (and much more
interesting) continuity than its American counterpart. The
UK book was weekly rather than monthly, and lasted for
another year or so after the American book was canceled,
making it up to issue 332. Each issue contained about half
a US comic's worth of TF story, and a usually non-TF backup
strip. It reprinted all the US stories, but when not doing
so the Brits were treated to original stories written by
Simon Furman. As a direct consequence of their writer, the
UK stories were full of action, intrigue, mythos, and
extensive character development. They also featured artwork
from greats like Geoff Senior with filled color, rather than
the then-traditional dot coloring that Marvel US used.
The British continuity took most of the movie as cannon and
from that grew several future and time travel epics. Anyone
familiar with Furman's run on the US TF book will realize
the great potential for this type of story when flowing from
Furman's pen.
Getting a hold of UK TF comics is pretty difficult, as most
TF fans are American, and the UK comics are so good that no
one really wants to give them up. If you're interested in
getting some, post a message on the newsgroup and there will
probably be replies from people willing to sell, although
the cost may be high. Kev Briggs (kr...@leicester.ac.uk) has
written and posted a few summaries of some of the UK TF
future epics for the benefit of US fans. If you are
interested in this contact him. As another alternative, the
head of The Survivors, Liane Elliot, has written up a guide
to the UK comics with a list of all issues, and summaries of
many storylines. This file is available from me (srstoneb@
cc.owu.edu) by email request or on my WWW page.
5. The whole story arc with Unicron was different in the comic,
so where did Galvatron, Cyclonus, and Scourge come from in
it? And where was Rodimus Prime?
As far as the US comic is concerned, Cyclonus and Scourge
was just regular, everyday Decepticons who were introduced
during the Headmasters limited series, which took place
parallel to issues 30-36 of the Transformers comic.
However, in Si Furman's UK future, Cyclonus and Scourge were
accidentally thrown back in time where they came to be under
Scorponok's command. They later disappeared from US
continuity due to their travel back to the future in the UK
"Time Wars".
Galvatron was brought to the comic book continuity from
outside that timeline by the comic Unicron. In issue 67,
Unicron sent three of his servants, Hook, Line, and Sinker,
to an alternate dimension (which was SIMILAR to the cartoon
reality, but not the same as it, and was also different from
the normal UK future) where Galvatron had beaten the
Autobots almost completely, and killed Rodimus Prime. Hook,
Line, and Sinker appeared in that reality, took Galvatron,
and brought him back to the comic book's normal reality.
For those of you that asked and wondered, no, this Hook has
nothing to do with the Constructicon of the same name. :)
This all caused understandable confusion for Galvy when he
met the comic's Megatron, who, although he had died several
times, was still Megatron and not Galvatron.
6. What about issue 43, "The Big Broadcast of 2006"?
This issue, as well as the two-part "Man of Iron" story from
issues 33 and 34 take place out of the normal comic
continuity. "Man of Iron" was a short storyline from the UK
Transformers comic. "Big Broadcast" was simply an episode
of the cartoon which was transferred to the comic for some
reason, although in the UK version of this issue, it is
stated to be no more than a story being told by Wreck-Gar
during his captivity at the hands of the Quints.
7. Wasn't Spiderman in one issue? Does that mean the TF's are
in the regular Marvel Universe with the X-Men?
As was once said in response to a letter in Transmissions
(the TF letter column): "Please, please don't mention issue
3." Yes, Spiderman was in issue three of the original
limited series. However, he was ONLY in one issue and that
was the only time any Marvel Universe character appeared in
the book. It can sort of be considered a story flub, and
one that you shouldn't pay much attention to. Spiderman
also showed up in an issue of "Ren and Stimpy", but no one
believes that they're part of the Marvel Universe. :)
Also, the TF comics included the Marvel Universe's "Savage
Land", and Circuit Breaker appeared in issue 3 of the
"Secret Wars II" miniseries/crossover. However, I would
assume that these both go under the same "don't ask"
category as the Spiderman cameo.
8. What about G.I. Joe?
Yes, the TFs are in the same universe as G.I. Joe. There
were two crossovers with G.I. Joe. One was the
"Transformers vs. G.I. Joe" limited series which ran during
TF issues 24-27. The other was a brief crossover which took
place mainly in G.I. Joe in order to introduce the TF:G2
comic.
Interestingly, "TF vs. GIJoe" is the only US comic story
omitted from UK continuity. There, Bumblebee's death and
reconstruction as Goldbug are accomplished by Death's Head
and Wreck-Gar, respectively. However, after leaving out the
original G.I. Joe crossover, the UK comic later created its
own Action Force (Europe's name for the Joes) crossover
entitled "Ancient Relics".
On the cartoon side, TF's and G.I. Joe didn't seem to be in
the same universe, because if they had, they'd certainly
have encountered each other. However, in the post-movie ep
"Only Human", an old and decrepit Cobra Commander turns
Rodimus, Springer, Magnus, and Arcee into humans. No other
G.I. Joe characters show up in the ep, however.
9. I never got to read the G2 comics... what happened in them?
Basically, the G2 comic picked up where G1 #80 left off.
I'm going to leave out a lot of events and give a broad
outline of the main story. Unicron has just been destroyed
and Cybertron has been lost. During the G.I.Joe lead-in,
Megatron falls out of the sky on Earth and is rebuilt by
Cobra into his tank form. Also early on in the story a new
group of Decepticons (a second generation, get it?) shows
up, wreaking havoc on various planets and expanding their
empire. They are led by a 'con named Jhiaxus. Most of the
new Decepticons seem like mindless minions, and they all
have a similar "look" and color scheme.
There is an inevitable first encounter between these new
Decepticons and the Autobots, and Optimus Prime's forces
suffer heavy losses. In an effort to understand who these
new enemies are, Prime takes a trip into the Matrix to learn
what to do from Primus. He doesn't get what he expects,
that being a history lesson. It starts with the birth of
the first Transformer, and then shows him something he had
never seen before: budding.
The way the budding story goes is that in their early days,
TF's reproduced through a process similar to cellular
division. New Transformers sort of grew out of old ones in
a rather painful process. Once Primus felt that the
population of TFs was great enough, he produced a race-wide
memory wipe and erased the knowledge of this process from
all TF minds. At this point the Matrix took over as the
only way of creating new Transformer life. However, Primus'
plan had not worked entirely, and eventually a group of
Transformers rediscovered budding, and used it extensively
to swell their ranks. This is where the droves of blue and
white G2 Decepticons under Jhiaxus' command came from.
Unfortunately, because it does not involve the Matrix (and
hence Primus' life force), budding tends to create less
"pure" Transformers, and after several generations of
budding the other Transformers lost their most basic sense
of morality. In addition, budding is always accompanied by
an energy discharge. At first, this discharge appeared
merely electrical, but in time it became evident that there
was more to it than that. Later budding produced dark
energies which floated off, and amassed into a lifeforce
called the Swarm. Because it had been created from the
Primus-deprived G2 transformers, the Swarm lacked purpose,
and sought the Transformers out, leaving a swath of
destruction and death behind it.
When the Swarm finally reached Earth, where the Autobots,
the Decepticons, and the G2 'cons were in the middle of a
full-scale war, Prime allowed himself to be devoured. When
the containment vessel of the Creation Matrix was breached,
the Matrix energy spewed out and filled the emptiness in the
Swarm's soul. Having found purpose and happiness, the Swarm
reconstructed Prime, returned him to Earth, and flew off
into the proverbial sunset.
The last issue of TF:G2 ended with a cliffhanger ending in
which the Liege Maximo, a sort of ultimate evil force from
the UK comics, made some menacing statements, said that
Jhiaxus' forces had been under his command, and implied that
the war was far from over.
== X. The Movie =======================
1. What happened in it?
The basic plot of the movie goes as follows:
It is the year 2005, and the Decepticons have fully
conquered Cybertron. The Autobots have bases on Cybertron's
two moons, as well as "Autobot City" on Earth (which is NOT
Metroplex or Fortress Maximus). The movie opens with
Unicron, a giant planet, eating the world of Lithone and
killing all but one of its inhabitants.
To counter a coming Autobot offensive, the Decepticons
attack Autobot City, and a huge battle occurs which ends
with the defeat of both Optimus Prime and Megatron. Prime
passes the Autobot Matrix of Leadership on to Ultra Magnus.
Megatron is revived by Unicron and turned into Galvatron,
and Unicron sends him to destroy the Matrix.
Galvatron goes to Autobot city to kill Magnus and get the
Matrix, but the Autobots escape and are split up. The
Dinobots, Kup, and Hot Rod crash on Quintessa. Kup and Hot
Rod are captured and put on trial, but the Dinobots and
their new found friend Wheelie rescue them. The Deceps
follow Magnus and co. to the planet of Junk. Galvatron
attacks and takes the matrix, and then the Autobots fight
with the Junkions and Wreck-Gar. Soon Hot Rod and the Dinos
show up, placate the Junkions, and everyone goes off to
fight Unicron, who has spent his time eating Cybertron's two
moons and the Autobots on them while everyone else was
running around.
The Autobots attack Unicron, who is eating Cybertron, and
after most of them are swallowed by him, Daniel rescues his
dad Spike and the other Autobots who were eaten, and Hot Rod
gets the Matrix back from Galvatron and uses it, turning
into Rodimus Prime and destroying Unicron.
2. Why weren't more characters featured?
The movie took about two years to make, so when the movie
was written, they only had the first set or two of TF
characters to work with, which didn't include most of the
big gestalts like Superion and Menasor. So, Devastator was
the only gestalt in existence when the movie was written,
which explains Kup's fear of him when he first forms. :)
3. Where was Snarl?
Snarl was mysteriously absent from all the Dinobot scenes in
the movie. There is only one place where he shows up: for
about one second during Galvatron's attack on Autobot city,
you see Snarl with the other Dino's, but afterwards he's
gone again.
4. Why did the Insecticons keep showing up and dying?
As was shown in a few pre-movie episodes of the cartoon, the
Insecticons had the ability to make almost unlimited clones
of themselves. It is therefore likely that the insecticons
thrown out of the shuttle and turned into Sweeps were only
clones, thus allowing Shrapnel to harass Daniel on Junkion
later in the movie, and for the Insecticons to show up more
in later cartoon eps. Also, when Kup and Hotrod run over
the Insecticons on their way into Autobot City, we must
assume that their wounds weren't fatal, for we know they
were the _real_ Insecticons because they called Shrapnel by
name when eating the door.
5. Why would Astrotrain need to "jettison some weight" in space?
While it's true that there is no "weight" in space, there is
mass. The more mass on board, the more fuel is required to
accelerate and decelerate. It is possible that Astrotrain
didn't have enough fuel to (a) accelerate enough to get to
Cybertron within a reasonable amount of time, or (b)
decelerate enough once they get to Cybertron to actually
stop and land there. Once the extra scrap metal was thrown
overboard, however, there was little enough mass on board
for him to get home quickly and land.
6. Who was turned into Cyclonus by Unicron?
Due to the fact that this scene is shown without color, it's
very hard to tell for sure which jet became what. Most
people would like to think that Skywarp became Cyclonus, as
he was generally a very cool but underused character and it
would seem only fitting for Unicron to turn him into a major
leaguer. However, sadly, it was in fact Bombshell (or worse
yet, probably just a Bombshell clone) that was turned into
Cyclonus, a change which makes little or no intuitive sense.
Also at the hands of Unicron, Thundercracker becomes
Scourge, Skywarp is a lowly Sweep, Shrapnel and Kickback
become Sweeps, and of course, Megatron becomes Galvatron.
7. Why'd they kill everyone?
The movie was intended to introduce a new batch of
characters, which it did, and to make "room" for them it's
understandable that they might need to take other people out
of the way. Also, the deaths of so many major characters
added to the drama of the movie. Someone suggested that the
deaths of many original Autobots was intended to make the
Deceps seem more evil than they could be shown on a daily
"kid" cartoon.
8. Didn't they swear in it? (Also, did they edit the video
version?)
There were two cases of swearing in the theatrical release,
and there was exactly one edit from the theater to video
versions. In the scene in which Bumblebee and Spike are
sucked into Unicron, in the theater version Spike said "Oh
shit, what are we gonna do now?" This was edited for video
to just "What are we gonna do now?" with a silent space just
long enough for "shit" to fit in. The other scene was on
Junkion, where Magnus tries to open the Matrix to save the
Autobots from the Decepticon attack. In both versions, he
says "Open! Damnit, open!"
There have been claims of several other edits as well,
although the main sample of TF fans on att has not supported
them. One of the ideas that pops up more frequently is
alternate versions of Prime's death. At one time there were
two or three people claiming that when Prime died in the
theater, his body turned to dust and blew away, but that
this was changed for video where the scene ends with Daniel
crying on Prime's hand. However, many people distinctly
remember the scene ending with a fade-out of Daniel and the
hand in the theater as well (it's much more dramatic, IMHO).
It's possible that memories of Starscream crumbling at his
death are getting mixed up with Prime's death scene.
The other main edit-claim relates to Magnus' death at the
hands of the Sweeps on Junkion. Some people seem to
remember Magnus being quartered (the Sweeps attach tractor
beams to his limbs and fly off in different directions,
tearing him apart). This IS the way it happens in the comic
book version of the movie, and so possibly was in the
original script. In the video version he simply gets
perforated by several laser blasts. Like Prime's death,
most people remember it happening in the theater the way it
does on the video.
Other possible edits include changing the order of some
scenes and removing other footage altogether (anything from
one-second shots of things to entire short scenes). All in
all, it has been claimed that some 20 minutes of footage are
missing from the video version, but I stress again that most
readers of att disagree, and it is still the "official"
position of the group that "oh shit" was the only change.
As with all movies, there was footage prepared and filmed
that never made it through the final cut before the initial
theatrical release. Some of these clips can be seen on a
tape called "Transformers: HERO" which was available at
BotCon. They include more fighting scenes and extended
transformations for Autobot City and Unicron. Nowhere on
this tape does Optimus crumble to dust. It is conceivable
that this footage does exist, was cut before the film's
release, and for some reason is not among the other cut
scenes, but it seems extremely unlikely.
Making a post that there were other edits will not earn you
any respect on a.t.t. Basically, every time someone claims
that a scene has been altered, it is followed up by 10 to 15
posts from other readers saying "No, you're remembering it
wrong." To put it simply: if there were other edits besides
"oh shit", you probably wouldn't be the only one to remember
it. In fact, at least one person will have already
remembered it, told us, and we would have all said "ohhh
yeah!" and changed the FAQ to indicate our epiphany.
Clearly, this has not happened.
9. Who did the voices?
The starring roles include:
Eric Idle -- Wreck-Gar
Frank Welker -- Megatron
John Moschitta (the Micro Machine guy) -- Blurr
Judd Nelson -- Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime
Leonard Nimoy -- Galvatron
Lionel Stander -- Kup
Neil Ross -- Springer
Orson Welles -- Unicron
Peter Cullen -- Optimus Prime
Robert Stack -- Ultra Magnus
Susan Blu -- Arcee
Victor Caroli -- narrator (as always)
As many people know, Orson Welles passed away before work on
the movie was completed, and although he had recorded most
of his lines, some areas near the end of the movie were left
unfinished. If you listen carefully, you will hear two
distinct voices for Unicron. The previous FAQ writer
decided to settle this once and for all and sampled some
clips with an audio digitizer and sped them up. The other
voice was none other than Leonard Nimoy.
10. What is the universal greeting?
Spelling on this varies, but following the lead of the comic
adaption: "bah weep graaagnah wheep, ni ni bong".
11. Where can I get the movie on tape?
As with the soundtrack, there are several so-so ways to try
finding the movie, and one sure fire bet. The movie is
currently on a "moratorium", which is a sort of video-
industry limbo where movies go and hope to be printed again,
although no one really knows if they ever will.
One reasonably reliable way to find it is to look in long-
established video rental places in your town, and see if
they have it. Newer rental places probably won't have it,
but stores that were around when it came out on tape almost
certainly do, unless they've already sold it to some other
TransFan. :) There's a good chance that they don't rent it
out very often and you could buy it cheap. Also, some
people have been able to order it from Blockbuster Video.
Look for it under the "Animation" section or even the
"Children's" section.
The movie is a production of Marvel/Sunbow, and was
distributed by DEG. The original video release was done by
FHE. There was another release of the movie in 1991 which
was recorded in SLP (6-hour) mode, probably to save on
material costs (less tape would be needed in slow mode).
This version was released by Live Home Video and Avid Home
Entertainment.
To make the search simple, however, just call 1-800-99-SCI-
FI. This is the number for Super Collector, a small company
which has a copy of the Japanese laserdisc (X, 12, below)
and will transfer it onto VHS for sale. These high-quality
copies sell for $19.95. They also sell the soundtrack on
CD, but for the same price as the movie, so you're better
off buying that from CD Connection (see X 13, below).
The Super Collector operator I spoke with wasn't sure if
this includes the Star Wars-like scrolling story and the
tanka lettering for character appearnces, but if it's really
a copy of the laserdisc, it seems likely. I you have
ordered a tape from Super Collector, do let me know whether
these are in it.
12. Where can I get the movie on laserdisc?
Doug Vander Hoek (dvh_...@iastate.edu) provided me with
almost all of the following information:
The disc is only available as in import from Japan. It is
put out by HillCrane. It is cat #: HCL-7001. The disc says
it is made and distributed by SOHBI KIKAKU Corporation. The
digital tracks have the English dialogue version, and the
analog tracks have the Japanese dialogue version. "Oh shit"
is not in the english dialogue, although it may be on the
Japanese track. Suggested retail is 6000 yen ($60-75). The
laserdisc is CLV. It is NOT letterboxed. The opening
credits are presented differently than the VHS/film version
as well as having a Star Wars-like scrolling intro. It has
been out of print since 1990, and was recently due for a
re-release, but was canceled due to lack of interest. The
movie's trailer is also on the disc. The first time each
character appears, their name (in Japanese tanka) appears
briefly at the bottom of the screen. There is a rumor that
it will be re-released soon, as well as the first season of
cartoons on LD (once again, only in Japan).
13. Where can I get the movie soundtrack?
It's not extremely hard to find. It was released by Scotti
Bros. Records, and isn't still in production, but _is_ still
available. You can have some music stores order it on tape
or CD, although a lot of major distributors don't carry it.
If you have trouble finding it anyway, or want to save the
trouble of looking, you can get it over the net for as good
a price as you'll find anywhere else from CD Connection.
Telnet to "cdconnection.com" or try their WWW page, which is
at (big surprise) "http://www.cdconnection.com". It costs
about 10-12 US dollars on CD.
The soundtrack has several good songs on it, including the
two Stan Bush tunes "The Touch" and "Dare". The (excellent)
score was written by Vince DiCola. Stan Bush came out with
another album in 1992 called "Every Beat of My Heart", and
can be contacted through his friend John Vel Squez at
"fz...@aol.com" or "fz...@west.net".
Ku Klux Flintsone (umki...@cc.umanitoba.ca) has mentioned
the possibility of an alternate soundtrack cover from Canada
which lists the group Spectre General as "Kick Axe", a
Canadian band. Apparently Kick Axe had some sort of legal
problems in the US, and it's possible they assumed the name
Spectre General for work done in the States.
== XI. Miscellaneous Questions ========
1. What were those Cybertronian units of time?
Issues 17 and 18 of the comic book focused on events on
Cybertron, mainly with Blaster's efforts to free a neutral
scientist named Spanner from Decepticon captivity. In
number 17, two units of Cybertronian time measure were
introduced, and occasionally popped up in dialogue in later
issues. Also, in issue 60 Thunderwing mentions another unit
of time. The conversions are as follows:
1 Breem = 8.3 Earth minutes
1 Vorn = 83 Earth years
1 Orn = 1 Cybertronian lunar day = ??? in Earth time
2. Unicron vs. the Death Star: who would win?
Hitler.
Seriously, though, this is a perfect example of a question
that has been beaten into the ground. Someone asked this
sometime during the '94 school year and the discussion went
on and on as more new people jumped in expressing their
opinions, which were, invariably, opinions that others had
already expressed. It degraded into the kind of discussion
you might see in a religious debate area where one person
says "no, don't you see? it's this way!" and the next person
says "no, you're wrong! it's THIS way!" and then someone
else agrees with the first person, and then the second,
etc., etc..
The problem is that this is a fairly common first question
for people to post because they think (rightfully so) that
it's an interesting question to muse over for a little bit.
Unfortunately, we've been put through this all about three
times now and it's worn awfully thin. IOW, most of the att
regulars will be extremely annoyed with you if you post this
question, or even something similar (Unicron vs. Galactus,
Unicron vs. the Zentradi war fleet, Unicron vs. Vger,
Unicron vs. M.Bison).
To actually answer the question... The side that favored
Unicron gave rationale such as his superior speed and
mobility, and the toughness of his hide (if an exploding
moon didn't scratch him, what good will the Planet Destroyer
beam from the DS do?). They also noted that since the
Matrix was the only thing that could destroy him, what hope
could the DS possibly have? The Death Star side said that
the DS actually had superior mobility because of its
hyperdrive, and that the Planet Destroyer could basically
blow up anything in the universe, even planets with tough
metal hides. The size question came up over and over again,
comparing Uni's size in the comic to Cybertron in the comic,
Uni in the movie to Cybertron in the cartoon, Uni's head to
Uni's body to Cybertron in "The Ultimate Doom", and every
other comparison that can possibly be made, in the hopes of
figuring out which one was bigger. In the end, there was no
consensus, just a bunch of people yelling at each other.
If you are a troll, this is an excellent way to throw the
group into an uproar. :)
3. How do you write out the transforming sound?
When this question came up, our resident technobabble god,
Kendrick, had his own special take on it:
"The Transform sound begins as an 8 hz pulse repeated five
times for .7 seconds each repeat whose pitch can be
represented by the absolute value of a declining sine wave,
with each zero-to-zero arc of the wave representing one of
five cycles of the repetition. The actual value of the sine
wave can be modified by factor N which is multiplied into
the X value but divided into the Y value, which means that
although the actual pitch is largely indefinite, in analog
terms when the transform pitch is higher the length of each
pulse is shorter, and conversely when the pitch is lower the
length of each pulse is longer."
More traditional attempts were as follows:
RA Jung: "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh"
Kirt Israel: "CHHH-CHH-Chh-chhu-chu"
Iggy Drouge: "chreechroochroochroo"
4. Which TF's died in the movie/comic/tv show?
A fairly comprehensive "Transformers Book of the Dead" was
written by Liane Elliot (tetra...@prostar.com), listing
TF deaths in several different continuities, complete with
the circumstances of each death. This is available from me
by email request, or on her homepage at "http://www.prostar.
com/~liane.elliot/tf.html".
However, for you impatient types, here's a brief list of the
movie deaths in approximate order, sans causes. Keep in
mind that the Insecticons might have just been clones:
Brawn, Prowl, Ratchet, Ironhide, Wheeljack, Windcharger,
Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bombshell, Shrapnel, Kickback,
Skywarp, Thundercracker, Starscream
5. What movie was it that had those TF cartoons in it?
"The Professional" is a movie about a hit man that takes in
a little girl whose family has been killed by mobsters. At
several times throughout the movie, the girl is shown
watching TV, and she is always watching Transformers
cartoons. If anyone can tell me what (or which) episodes
they showed clips from, I'd love to know. :)
== XII. Revision History and Plans for the Future
There was (and still may be) an earlier version or two of
the FAQ floating around, but after someone started a message
thread in late 1994 entitled "TF FAQ sucks!", I thought it might
be time for someone to actually take the initiative and write up
a new one. I didn't keep good track of revision dates at first,
but I plan to keep all the old versions from here on out. Hence,
there are no dates for the first few revisions.
v1.0 - everything new
v2.0 - more complete MUSH info
- quote list info
- info on RoboMACs, a TF-compatible rpg system
- now have complete and correct info on Japanese TF cartoon
- added more voice actor info
- list of gestalt components and list of tapes
- discussion of comic writing/art staff
- explanation of Soundwave's voice in the cartoon
- editing, grammar correction, etc.
v2.1 - transforming sound spelling
- misc. little changes
v2.2 - email address changes for a few people
- tiny revisions to voice list and Japanese cartoon section
- two or three new WWW pages listed
v3.0 - completed 2/6/96
- explanation of the switches on Jumpstarter's heads
- additional TF Movie laserdisc info
- email address corrections, WWW page additions, etc.
- rearranged order of some sections
- added an "About the Author" section for my own ego
- "can I post binaries here?" answered
- TF:The Dream added to MUSH list
- voice list responsibility transferred to Cris Haaser
- brief list of TF deaths in the movie
- list of starring voice roles in the movie
- figured out what the heck budding is!
- got info on foreign toys
- added a list of what not to post about (!)
Coming changes and possible additions:
- brief info about Telnet clients for the MUSHes
- list of toy variations (eg. metal-footed Hot Rod)
== XIII. About the Author =============
As mentioned at the top of this document, my name is Steve
Stonebraker. At the time of this version's completion, I am
a 19 year old sophomore majoring in astronomy and physics at
Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio. My birthday is
the first of April. I am currently in the process of
putting together my own WWW page, but feel free to stop by
and check out my progress. Eventually, I hope to have a
fully HTML-ized version of the FAQ there.
Aside from Transformers, I also am also interested in
computers, video games, dinosaurs, comic books, and Magic:
The Gathering. I am single and looking. ;) I listen to a
wide variety of music, including everything from Vivaldi to
the Lords of Acid. :) Some books that I think everyone on
Earth should read are _Dinotopia_ by James Gurney, _City_ by
Clifford Simak, and _Childhood's End_ by Arthur C. Clarke.
I can often be found under the name Astos (the dark elf from
the original Final Fantasy, and my favorite D&D character)
on Foothills or Resort, two EW-Too based Talkers at "toybox.
infomagic.com 2010" and "evans.denver.colorado.edu 2323"
respectively.
== XIV. Legalese and Special Thanks ===
Initial thanks go to the previous FAQ author, who posted
under the name "Max Sterling". To my knowledge he no longer
exists on the net, but I thought it only proper to thank him
anyway. Although this FAQ is my own work, parts of his FAQ
(questions, answers, ideas) have been included in this one,
and without some sort of previous reference I'm sure my job
would have been a lot harder.
Many sincere thanks go to (in alphabetical order):
Aaron Marsh (abm...@vaxb.isc.rit.edu)
Acroyear (acro...@bgbbs.com)
Adam Calderon (hi...@lmtonline.com)
Andrew Southam (or...@voicenet.com)
Ben Thomas (bith...@eos.ncsu.edu)
Ben Yee (ye...@is2.nyu.edu)
Burt Ward (bea...@cris.com)
Chris Burris (bur...@lib.wfunet.wfu.edu)
Chris Meadows (chm...@nic.smsu.edu)
C.J. Stankiewicz (cjs6...@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu)
Dairenn Lombard (pi...@hondo.cyberverse.com)
Daniel P. Foerst (dde...@iglou.iglou.com)
Darren Murphy (jd...@uow.edu.au)
Dave Van Domelen (dva...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
David Filip (grim...@u.washington.edu)
David Mackay (david....@almac.co.uk)
Doug Muth (dm...@oasis.ot.com)
Doug Vanderhoek (dvh_...@iastate.edu)
Eric Harding (erh...@kendaco.telebyte.com)
Eric Holmes (er...@aisb.ed.ac.uk)
Galvatron (jm...@columbia.edu)
Greg Pallenik (gpa...@bgnet.bgsu.edu)
Hex (tash...@ucunix.san.uc.edu)
Iggy Drougge (opt...@canit.se)
Ivy Bohnlein (bohn...@acmelabs.uhc.asu.edu)
Jameel al Khafiz (ha...@andrew.cmu.edu)
James Mohr (jpm...@primenet.com)
Jason Palmira (lpr...@aol.com)
Jason Winter (win...@uslink.net)
Jeff Bogumil (nc50...@nccvax.wvnet.edu)
Jeremy Pace (jhp...@eos.ncsu.edu)
Jim Hoxsey (jjho...@oakland.edu)
John Kierstead (jkier...@aol.com)
John Szymanski (szym...@ccmac.canisius.edu)
Kendrick (kend...@io.com)
Kev Briggs (kr...@leicester.ac.uk)
Kirt Israel (kis...@diamond.tufts.edu)
Ku Klux Flintstone (umki...@cc.umanitoba.ca)
Liane Elliot (tetra...@prostar.com)
Lou Calabrese (lo...@delphi.com)
M Sipher (msi...@nando.net)
Marek Kozubal (prog...@max.tiac.net)
Martin McVay (ma...@csv.warwick.ac.uk)
Matt Arndt (ar...@lclark.edu)
Matthew French (mnf8...@marauder.millersv.edu)
Matthew Karpowich (hype...@kuentos.guam.net)
Mike Toole (sla...@student.umass.edu)
Naomi Novik (sha...@brown.edu)
Pema Galang (pema.t....@tc.umn.edu)
Peter Looyenga
Phil Zeman/Pronovic (2ei5z...@vmsa.csd.mu.edu)
Raksha (jk...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
Robert Jung (rj...@netcom.com)
Robert Powers (repo...@artsci.wustl.edu)
Rodney Lambs (rla...@gl.umbc.edu)
Roger Wilcox (rog...@cisco.com)
Stanley Lui (ss...@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca)
Starzeke (star...@aol.com)
Steve Nahra (rsn...@vax1.acs.jmu.edu)
Suzanne Ferree (ev...@cleveland.freenet.edu)
Troy Ledgerwood (troyl...@aol.com)
Victor Desjardins (vde...@magmacom.com)
Zachary Adams (zqa...@tamu.edu)
All the wonderful staff members of the MUSHes :)
and all the readers of att!
The Transformers, Autobots, Decepticons, Optimus Prime,
Megatron, and most of the other names and things are all
registered trademarks of either Hasbro, Marvel, Takara, or
someone. This FAQ is simply a reference for Transformers
fans and is not intended to infringe upon any legal rights
to the names or ideas.
This FAQ, however, is my property. Anyone may distribute it
to anyplace they like, in print or in electronic form,
provided that I retain all credit of authorship, that the
contents are not altered, and that no fee is charged except
to make up cost of duplication.
--
--Steve
-- Steve Stonebraker -- http://www.owu.edu/~srstoneb --
-- alt.toys.transformers FAQ Keeper --
H. Jameel al Khafiz
pretty sure that he and Buster (Dreadwind in Japan) were brothers.
----
H. Jameel al Khafiz "Yeah, well, wish in one hand, crap in the other,
Physicist-At-Large and see what one piles up first!"
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/usr/ha09/home --Mike, "MST3K"
Steve R. Stonebraker
"H. Jameel al Khafiz" (spec...@CMU.EDU) writes:
> Hmm. I don't think that Hydra (Darkwing in Japan) was female. I'm
> pretty sure that he and Buster (Dreadwind in Japan) were brothers.
I do specifically say that it's Darkwing's binary-bonded partner, and not
Darkwing... I don't even remember who told me this anymore, but anyone
who feels like they know, please speak up. :)
H. Jameel al Khafiz
> "H. Jameel al Khafiz" (spec...@CMU.EDU) writes:
> > Hmm. I don't think that Hydra (Darkwing in Japan) was female. I'm
> > pretty sure that he and Buster (Dreadwind in Japan) were brothers.
>
> I do specifically say that it's Darkwing's binary-bonded partner, and not
> Darkwing... I don't even remember who told me this anymore, but anyone
> who feels like they know, please speak up. :)
>
Masterforce, remember? I meant the binary-bonded partner. I'm pretty
sure they're both male.
msipher
On Sun, 11 Feb 1996, H. Jameel al Khafiz wrote:
> Hmm. I don't think that Hydra (Darkwing in Japan) was female. I'm
> pretty sure that he and Buster (Dreadwind in Japan) were brothers.
No, I'm convinced Hydra is female. Even though I don't have my
Masterforce eps yet, I do have the "Hero" compilation... and I went
through the Masterforce opening sequence in slo-mo in order to get a good
look at Hydra's picture. Definately a female's face...
M "THAT IS *NOT* ALTERNATIVE ROCK!" Sipher
H. Jameel al Khafiz
I paid closer attention. Oh, and the title of episode 8 of Masterforce
is "The Super-Warriors, the Godmaster Brothers." It's the introduction
of Buster and Hydra. Hydra's male.
Eric T Pronko
> > Hmm. I don't think that Hydra (Darkwing in Japan) was female. I'm
> > pretty sure that he and Buster (Dreadwind in Japan) were brothers.
>
> No, I'm convinced Hydra is female. Even though I don't have my
> Masterforce eps yet, I do have the "Hero" compilation... and I went
> through the Masterforce opening sequence in slo-mo in order to get a good
> look at Hydra's picture. Definately a female's face...
You can't rely on the face. Was Lancer from Robotech a female? No,
Hydra is male, there was something from the series (which I have
watched) that made it definite that he was male. I forget what
now...umm, Jameel has my Masterforce tapes, yeah.
/ Eric e...@ANDREW.CMU.EDU \
| Gargunkle, mild warper of reality |
\ http://phoebe.dws.acs.cmu.edu/~e/ /
Gyumaoh
both referred to as males and brothers, and they both have male voices.
msipher
On 14 Feb 1996, Mr M J McVay wrote:
> >"H. Jameel al Khafiz" (spec...@CMU.EDU) writes:
> >> Hmm. I don't think that Hydra (Darkwing in Japan) was female. I'm
> >> pretty sure that he and Buster (Dreadwind in Japan) were brothers.
> >
> >I do specifically say that it's Darkwing's binary-bonded partner, and not
> >Darkwing... I don't even remember who told me this anymore, but anyone
> >who feels like they know, please speak up. :)
That would be me.
> In Masterforce the Powermaster robots are inanimate until the last episode.
Just lumps o' metal given the names of the humans who piloted them... I'm
assuming they kept those names when they "broke free" (those that lived,
anyhoo.)
> One of the PM jets' humans could be interpreted as looking female, though
> Japanese animation does allow for males who look like that as well. (There
> aren't any 'obvious' female features, if you know what I mean. Anyway,
> in the English-dubbed version they are repeatedly referred to as brothers,
> and in the English translation the _humans_ are called Darkwing and Dreadwind.
No, Hydra is definately, absolutely female. She IS Buster's sibling,
however. It looks like most of the GodMasters came not only with tech
specs, but little "bio cards" that give info on the actual humans, sans
robot bodies. I have the bio cards for Buster and Hydra, and what little
I've translated says that Hydra is the 20-yr-old sister to 17-yr-old Buster.
From America.
So they go by their American names in the dubbed versions? So Minerva is
called Nightbeat? (Oh yike.) What about Metalhawk and Overlord? Grand
Maximus and Black Zarak?
> Sorry to post this more complete reply after my other one, but for some
> reason the article quoted above only came in today.
Welcome to the land of the delayed post! The FAQ only showed up on my
server Monday!
M "The Universe Is Made Mostly Of Fabio!" Sipher
Mr M J McVay
msipher <msi...@nando.net> writes:
>
>On 14 Feb 1996, Mr M J McVay wrote:
>> One of the PM jets' humans could be interpreted as looking female, though
>> Japanese animation does allow for males who look like that as well. (There
>> aren't any 'obvious' female features, if you know what I mean. Anyway,
>> in the English-dubbed version they are repeatedly referred to as brothers,
>> and in the English translation the _humans_ are called Darkwing and
>> Dreadwind.
>
>No, Hydra is definately, absolutely female. She IS Buster's sibling,
>however. It looks like most of the GodMasters came not only with tech
>specs, but little "bio cards" that give info on the actual humans, sans
>robot bodies. I have the bio cards for Buster and Hydra, and what little
>I've translated says that Hydra is the 20-yr-old sister to 17-yr-old Buster.
>From America.
Aha! then why does it say on the opening credits of the Japanese version, in
English text, that they are from Germany? (I'm talking about the credits from
the first half of the series.)
>So they go by their American names in the dubbed versions? So Minerva is
>called Nightbeat? (Oh yike.) What about Metalhawk and Overlord? Grand
>Maximus and Black Zarak?
Yes, the girl Minerva is called Nightbeat. But that's nothing compared to the
kids whose parents named them Fangry, Horri-Bull and ** Hosehead **.
Metalhawk is called Hawk. Overlord's partners are Giga (male) and Mega
(female). GM is called Fortress Maximus and Black Zarak is called Scorponok.
The energy ball Devil-Z is just called 'Zee' in the English-dubbed version.
Martin McVay
ma...@csv.warwick.ac.uk
http://www.warwick.ac.uk/~mavai/tf.html - TRANSMASTERS UK HOMEPAGE
Mr M J McVay
msipher <msi...@nando.net> writes:
>On 14 Feb 1996, Mr M J McVay wrote:
>No, Hydra is definately, absolutely female. She IS Buster's sibling,
>however. It looks like most of the GodMasters came not only with tech
>specs, but little "bio cards" that give info on the actual humans, sans
>robot bodies. I have the bio cards for Buster and Hydra, and what little
>I've translated says that Hydra is the 20-yr-old sister to 17-yr-old Buster.
>From America.
Damn, I keep forgeting to put what I mean to in my posts. :-\ In the English
dubbed version both have male voices, and call each other 'brother', and
are referred to by the narrator as, for example, 'the angry Darkwing and _his_
brother Dreadwind'. Could be a MAJOR dubbing error, but...
For the first half of the series the opening credits had the bios of the
humans Ginrai, Lightfoot, Buster and Hydra (in English text but using the
Japanese names). This was here before the dubbing. It gives their ages and
nationalities as well as saying they are Godmasters. Ginrai is Japanese,
Lightfoot is English and Buster & Hydra are both from East Germany.
(Lightfoot is Getaway's name in Japan by the way.)
>So they go by their American names in the dubbed versions? So Minerva is
>called Nightbeat? (Oh yike.) What about Metalhawk and Overlord? Grand
>Maximus and Black Zarak?
Also, Godmasters are called Powermasters. When the humans lock into place
they shout 'Head On,' like Headmasters (instead of 'God On' as in the
Japanese version). Worst of all, the human Ginrai is called Optimus Prime.
I don't even notice it now, but when I first saw it with these kids called
'Hosehead' etc. running around shouting 'Mr. Optimus Prime' I couldn't
believe my ears.
Overlord the robot is called Overlord.
Raksha
msipher <msi...@nando.net> wrote:
>Oh yeah. Overlord got released in the UK too, didn't he? Real late in the
>game, right? I guess Mega and Giga keep the names...
No, actually the Powermaster figures that came with the UK Overlord were just
refered to as "Energon Mini-Figures" or something similar -- they were never
given names, or even called Powermasters. I got the UK Overlord some time
before I knew about the Japanese episodes, so at the time I figured he was just
a new leader-type toy in Europe and these "energon mini-figures" were just a
dumb gimmicky way of re-naming the Powermaster process. I wasn't terribly
bothered about not being told who or what they were -- they seemed to be played
off as not even being sentient -- but then, the Nebulans never struck me as
having a lot of personality either....
The same year as Overlord, Road Caesar's three parts were released under
the names Flame, Lightspeed, and Gripper -- these are Brainmasters in Victory,
of course, but the UK toys didn't come with any combining pieces, and have
different colors. If I'm remembering the tech specs right, the small
"brainmaster" figures were also called energon mini-figures. Collectively the
three of them were labeled "Motorvators."
--Raksha
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Web Page: http://www.geopages.com/TheTropics/1139
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