Transformers: Energon & Beyond

[Tycho]

That's good news, JT. I'd heard early concerns here or on another TF site that Mirage wasn't so enthusiastically anticipated.

I always liked the character, but was sort of indifferent about this figure, pending others' reviews.

[JediTricks]

Mirage is a lot of fun and has a great range of motion except for his neck articulation, which is hampered by his weird upper body situation - he can look left and right, but his head is cocked to the side when doing so. EDIT: I take that back, I think he looks fine looking to the side, the head is only cocked forward a little, it just depends on how straight his posture is.

It's an awesome figure and does have some G1 homagery going on, the feet made from the back end and spoiler halves, the curved upper arms made from the sides of the car, the rounded head like the toy while the face is like the cartoon version, the vents on the forearms, the car front end off the back, and vehicle front end as the chest - even a curved area and nose-wings are represented somewhat. But even better, he's his own man rather than just being limited by the G1 figure.

[Dominic Guglieme]

Transformers Escalation #1
-Okay, 1 year, 2 arcs, and a few 1 shots after IDW
took over the franchise, and where are we as we head
into the 3 arc? The franchise is still first gear,
with IDW and Furman delivering bold new takes on old
characters, on the assumption that people know and
care about the characters as a good unto themselves.
In fairness, Furman is giving us an intelligent and
plausible scenario, complete with an edgier Prime, and
a Megatron that is not objectively that bad. But, IDW
does not seem able to take this franchise beyond the
level of place holder. Grade: C


Primus:
This is the 3rd packaging variant of the Primus toy
from the Cybertron line. The first was a standard,
Supreme class toy. The second was the same toy, but
packaged with a PVC Unicron head. This third variant
is a Wal*Mart exclusive (possibly Black Friday
door-buster), with a "sampler" of 4 Minicons from
upcoming sets. After wavering for months on Primus,
I finally settled on getting this one, as the sale
price, and Minicons made this purhcase worthwhile.

Aesthetically, this toy is uneven.
The planet form is characterized by wide swaths of
minimal detail puntuated by oasis of tight molding.
The bulk of Cybertron's population seems to be located
near the poles of the planet, and beleive you me, are
there ever some huge buildings in those cities. In
robot mode, the detailing is more even. As impressive
as the 'bot is, the impact is taken away from a bit by
the large chunks of planet kibble hanging off the
back.
For those who are curious, Iacon is located in the
northern hemisphere (assuming north is the side of the
planet that is displayed away from the table you put
the toy on), in the detailed area that is darker than
the other northern provinces. Note the dome stucture.
Kaon/Polyhex seems to be a lone equatorian city on
the opposite side of the planet. Or, that might be an
impact crater of some kind.

For all of the aesthetic flaws with Primus, the
engineering makes up for it. Besides the mandatory
key-gimmicks (as all Cybertron toys must have), this
toy features an gimmick not used on a Transformer for
nearly 20 years-the need for a smaller piece to
transformer a larger toy. However, unlike the old
Powermaster toys, Primus does not appear to be built
around an excuse for a gimmick, rather than having the
gimmick built in.
Grade: B/C A large, and fairly expensive toy. Too
large to have grat "fiddle-value", but has too many
good points to be discounted.


Minicon Sampler:
Hookay, before anyone points it out: Yes, I know
these Minicons are going to come out as part of
Classics. But, these toys were initially intended to
come out as part of Cybertron, and their being folded
into classics is more a hasty step taken by Hasbro
than any real show of planning. Initially, these
toys were intended to be part of the "v/s packs",
rather than the old "3 pack" format. As these are the
first Minicon toys to be intentionally designed for
that kind of package, there are some notable
differences.
One: Based on what I have seen and read about the
upcoming 3 packs, the new teams have no unifying
mechanical gimmick. None of these toys were entended
to be part of a larger team. (The most obvious
example of this can be seen in early pictures of the
"Clear Skies" team.
Two: There are no molded sigils. The sigils are now
painted on, and are either Autobot, or Decepticon,
sigils.
Not having seem any of the new sets intact, I cannot
say if any of these toys are gang molded. (It usually
takes a round of recolors to determine that anyway.)

The lack of unifying gimmicks is a deterent for me
to pick up the upcoming teams in and of itself. And,
the haphazard nature of this sampler does little to
change my mind.
-Offshoot (motorcycle): This toy offers a very sleek
looking vehicle mode, and a good use of yellow and
black (ala Energon Rapid Run) and a solidly conceived
transform. Unfortunately the execution of that
transform leaves quite a bit to be desired.
Grade: D The robot cannot even stand.
-Strongarm (police car): This toy has one of the best
names I have seen on any Transformer. Think about it.
"Strongarm" as a name for a police car. This is one
of the more ambitious car transforms in from the last
few years. The designers may do well to apply this
design to a larger toy, where it can be done better.
Grade: B An (overly) ambitious) effort.
Knockdown (triceratops): This is the first Minicon
with a beast form. (Some argue that Lazerbeak takes
this prize, but Lazerbeak lacks the hardpoints a
Minicon would have.) A mediocre beast form gives way
to a quirky bot form. Grade: C Not terrible, but has
a few rought points.
Nightscream )F14): Normally, I dislike paintes sigils
on Transformers, especially on Minicons. But, here,
it works. Autobot sigils are painted on both wings.
Much like Strongarm, the transform is ambitious,
especially for the scale of the toy. But, unlike
Strongarm, this toy does not suffer for that scale
(thougt a larger toy with this engineering would be
very nice.
Grade: Best of the lot.

And yes, I agree, the script is awfully weak ("awfully" being the key word), but I've seen amazingly good solutions to problems come out of tweaks to a few key scenes, or a really smart dialogue pass. But that doesn't often help the structural problems and I feel like our waiting half the movie to see the Transformers doesn't pay off enough for me to think it was worth it.

I was thinking about it, and the major theme of this movie should be "More Than Meets The Eye". Obviously, the Transformers have multiple modes. But Spike/Sam has a hero inside him, his girl buddy isn't just a pretty face, Spike's great grandfather didn't lose his mind...etc. It we were to go with that as the theme, they could really strengthen it with one or two powerful speeches about seeing more than what's on the surface. And then, most importantly, get rid of the military-in-the-desert plot point entirely. That can just go. It's so pointless and boring.

Tossing the desert military sections would help, as there is a fair amount of action movie contrivance and stupidity there. But, it would not even come close to yeilding a good movie.

Tycho's R-rated idea is even worse than what we have so far. Besides being utterly sophmoric, it will likely repel more viewers than it brings in.

Chaddy's theme idea works better without the rousing speech.

[Tycho]

I've always been utterly sophmoric though (Seriously, I am. There wasn't offense taken at that). Now, is there some way I can work in a gratuitous Megan Fox nude scene? Perhaps if BumbleBee has vibrating bucket seats?
Or maybe Barricade does - YES, in his cop car mode - it's used as a Decepticon interrogation technique on human females. And the hologram driver would be the ultimate voyeur - he just stares straight ahead, never blinking. Oh my! Michael Bay needs me now!

[Tycho]

Totally changing the subject from jokes about the movie here to: the history laid out in the cartoon show.

A frind of mine on MySpace had all of the shows available for viewing on his webpage and thus I've been watching them as quickly as I can. MySpace has supposedly threatened to delete his page if he doesn't remove copyrighted materials by tomorrow.

So I've tried to watch all of Season 3 and am viewing what he had of Season 4 (the Headmasters era after The Return of Optimus Prime).

So I just watched the original G1 cartoons and they relay the Quintessons created the Transformers. What is true? I thought Primus turned himself into Cybertron - you guys told me that (El Chuxter or JT specifically I think - and trust me I respect you guys as a great source on all things Transformers.) Anyway, as Cybertron, Primus embued mechanical life in his own image to evolve on the planet.

Then the Quintessons came and enslaved them? Or the Quintessons were originally from Cyberton and build egg heads to store their personalities before they could control robots? Then the robot rebellion and the evolution of the workforce into Transformers? Do I have it?

When and on what episode is that stuff revealed - especially the Primus story?

I didn't see any of that.

[El Chuxter]

The cartoons, Marvel comics, Dreamwave comics, and IDW comics are four totally separate continuities, Tycho.

In the cartoon, the Transformers were created by the Quintessons. The Autobots were workers, and the Decepticons were gladiators. Eventually they rose up and defeated the Quintessons. (Some notes in Marvel's TF Universe guidebook, which were based on early info from the movie script, hint strongly that the Quintessons were emissaries of Unicron. If so, the Transformers were indirectly created by Unicron.) Primus is never mentioned in this continuity.

In the Marvel comics, Unicron was a dark god who destroyed a previous universe. He wasn't thorough, though, and some remaining pieces collided, causing the Big Bang and forming our universe. Unicron awoke and began destroying again. The sentient core of the universe created a guardian, Primus (similar to the Phoenix Force in the mainstream Marvel Universe, but definitely not the Phoenix as seen in X3). Their battle was inconclusive and, to save the rest of existence, Primus trapped them both in planets. Over millennia, Unicron manipulated his prison to become the giant planet. Primus created the Transformers, mimicking Unicron's ability to change form, as a last line of defense. Only two things can stop Unicron: a truly unified force of all the Transformers, or the Matrix, which is Primus' life-force. (And this version never mentions the Quintessons. Well, not exactly. The British comics' timestream contains elements of the American 'toon and comic, and there were some crossovers, but it's too confusing to get into now.)

In that timeline, the Matrix was feared to be lost. Long story short, Prime was killed in a videogame and died in the real world (don't ask. not a high point of the series), no one knew the Matrix was a physical object, they sent it into space with his body, and it was tainted by evil. Prime surrendered to the Decepticons when he learned Unicron had found Primus' hiding place, but the alliance never quite worked (thanks to guys like Grimlock, Starscream, Shockwave, and Galvatron, who this Unicron had pulled from an alternate future and who decided to throw his lot in with the Transformers). When all looked bleakest, Thunderwing showed up, possessed by the evil Matrix. Prime was able to return it to good, flew into Unicron's maw, and destroyed him, killing himself in the process. (Don't worry. He got better in less than six months.)

Dreamwave tried to mesh a lot of elements of both timelines, but it ended up being a mess and fizzled out long before the company went under. It's implied Primus created the Transformers, and Cybertron once was conquered by the Quintessons (after it was sold out by Megatron, of all Transformers), and, just before the company folded, I think there was a shot of Unicron somehow realizing Primus still existed.

IDW is very slowly revealing elements about these big robots, but the series is still young. It's totally separate, with only the names, personalities, and general appearances of the Transformers being the same as earlier incarnations. But Simon Furman, who wrote the later Marvel issues and most of the Dreamwave stuff that didn't suck tremendously (read: The War Within series), is writing the main series, so I have a feeling the name Primus will show up sometime.

[figrin bran]

"a collection of broken continuities" were JT's words i believe

[Ji'dai]

Has the Soundwave that transforms into the boombox like the vintage version come and gone? Was that one a TRU exclusive?

[Tycho]

Not to ignore Ji'Dai's question (I can't answer it though - see his post above) - my thanks to El Chuxter for that detailed information!!!

Chux: what continuity do you prefer? Are the cartoons considered by the largest majority to be "cannon?" (If you can consider anything cannon?)

Is Michael Bay rebooting continuity? Any word on what he supposes the Transformers' origin is?

[darthvyn]

i think i can say for certain that chux regards the original marvel comics as the predominant "canon" in his transformers world.