What would Transformers have been like WITHOUT the Movie?

[Shockprowl]

I'm sure it's been discussed before. It must have been... surely...


But what if The Movie, the futuristic new characters, the unnecessary killings for effect... (when we deserve more than that... that clumsy, predictable, guff... just my opinion...)


What would THE TRANSFORMERS have been like?


What could they have done instead...?


Of the... the... The 'Futuristic' thing...?

[Pinwig]

Are you talking about the comic or the cartoon? In the comic the events of the film happened in the future and were only acknowledged in the UK stories anyway, in the grand scheme of things it was Starscream who killed everyone movie style in the underbase saga.

[Shockprowl]

Comic and Cartoon. Cross franchise.


But yes the comic would've carried on more-or-less as is, US-wise anyway.


Cartoon? The Combining teams more, Ultra Magnus...

[Toph]

I don't think Sunbow would be anywhere nearly as fondly remembered without the movie.
The movie makes the frames for the rose colored lenses many people wear when they misremember a 35 year old cartoon.

Also, I think Optimus Prime might have some original lines every so often rather than constantly quoting and requoting himself from the movie.

As for the shape of Season 3, the season 1 characters would still be written off. Likely barely ever mentioned again. Even those who survived the movie barely did more than background cameos.

[The Huff]

Transformers wouldn't have lasted without the Movie - it completely opened things up, kept it fresh and made it stand out amongst all the other franchises that didn't take risks or kill anyone.
I know I'd have lost interest if it were the same thing over and over.

It was certainly the high point for me back in the day.

[Shockprowl]

Interesting points, gentlemen...

[The Doctor]

We know what happened without the Movie. Japan skipped it so we got the Headmasters show etc.

-Ralph

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Apr 22, 2020 9:26:30 GMT The Huff said:

Transformers wouldn't have lasted without the Movie - it completely opened things up, kept it fresh and made it stand out amongst all the other franchises that didn't take risks or kill anyone.
I know I'd have lost interest if it were the same thing over and over.

It was certainly the high point for me back in the day.

Really? More than 'Target: 2006'? I think the Movie was outshone by a comic strip that was supposed to promote - but ended up actually being much better and more interesting than - the film itself. Which was essentially just a well-animated TF rip-off of Star Wars.

'On the Edge of Extinction' was also much better than the Movie.

The Movie is remembered as being special because it was the only TF story to get animated to such a high standard and so has no competition in its field. But there were so many better TF stories, which if they had been the ones animated to that high a standard, would have been so much better.

Martin

[The Huff]

We wouldn't have had Target 2006 without the movie - it is one of the many things that came about because of it. Without the movie, we would have had another season of Megatron's latest insane plan and the cartoon would be remembered in the same way every other 80's cartoon is now.

Also, Age Of Extinction (a much better story, I agree) wouldn't happened without the movie to build it on.

Also, would Deaths Head exist without the movie? Probably not.

The toy line also kept things fresh too - but it's hard to say where that would have gone without the Movies direction. More earth cars and planes? More of the same characters like we get nowadays? Would we have ventured into space?

[Grand Moff Muffin]

I dunno, I think Simon Furman would have found a way to do some good epic stories without the Movie - just so long as Hasbro produced some TF toys that weren't being used in the US strip.

The Movie shouldn't be credited for the time-travel concept or the interesting characters of Ultra Magnus and Galvatron in TFUK - Furman created them to replace the cardboard characters in the film. Just like he created Thunderwing, Bludgeon, etc. from their toys. The Movie just happened to be the foundation that was there to be used to build better stories/characters upon in 1986, but doesn't deserve the credit for those better stories/characters. Furman didn't need it. He could have done his thing on the back of the toys alone, and his own imagination.

Martin

[Grand Moff Muffin]

I suppose what I'm saying is don't credit the Movie for anything that should more fairly be credited to Simon Furman. TFs owes him (as it owes Budiansky) infinitely more than it owes the writers of TF:TM.

Martin

[Pinwig]

Hmm. I understand what you're saying about Furman, 2006 and the characters he developed out of it, all credit to him, but I don't think that means Transformers in general owes him more than writers like Friedman and Dille. In terms of imagination and engaging storylines maybe, but the cartoon crew are just as important to the longevity of the line.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Going back to Shockprowl's original question, and accepting that I may be overly comic-centric, I think we had some hints as to where Furman might have gone if the Movie hadn't come along. I'd point the finger in particular at the seven-part Special Teams saga - from Robot-Buster to Second Generation, which painted the teams as being far more significant than they actually turned out to be in the end. They were to be the original 'Generation 2', the first full generation of TFs born on Earth, as per the instructions left by the Creation Matrix in the mind of a human. They were going to be a big deal. But neither Furman nor Budiansky ended up doing much with them - in Furman's case, because 'Target: 2006' changed his entire focus.

We'd already had 'Return to Cybertron', and the Space Bridge, so the cosmic aspect of things was opening up before the Movie came along. We had already seen TFs die - notably Scrounge, the Decepticons knocked off by Omega Supreme, and all the deactivated Autobots whose lives hung by a thread. We would have got the Wreckers - the Movie had nothing to do with them. And Trypticon.

Maybe we wouldn't have had time-travel without the Movie being set in the future, I'll grant that. (Though there wasn't any time-travel in the Movie.) But instead of Galvatron and co. arriving from the future, Furman might have done something similarly game-changing involving the Space Bridge and Straxus - maybe having Prime and Megatron mass-displaced by new TFs from Cybertron.

I dunno. You can speculate what he might have done by what he did before, and what he went on to do later. It certainly wasn't going to be the same old stories repeated again and again, Movie or no Movie.

(And of course Budiansky ignored the Movie completely - the Headmasters saga and Underbase saga owed nothing at all to it, and in fact suggested that the Movie wasn't part of Marvel TF US at all, by the way he threw Cyclonus and Scourge in as present-day nobodies, and brought in whole new toy ranges in the present day who were nowhere to be seen in the Movie's 2005/6.)

Martin

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Another thought on the Movie's limited influence - TF:TM painted a Galaxy in which all the planets out there - Lithone, Quintesson, Junk - are planets populated by giant transforming robots. Quite a far cry from the much more colourful and diverse Galaxy of the US and UK comics, which contained Nebulos, the Cosmic Carnival, Tyroxia, the Grand Central Space Station, Klo, Hydrus Four and the worlds of the Matrix Quest - making the likes of Junk and Quintesson the exception rather than the rule.

Martin

[Pinwig]

There were loads of planets in the TV series though that weren't robot populated. On that front you can't really compare a 90 minute film with a 332 issue comic run. Even if you just take five faces of darkness.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Apr 22, 2020 19:07:29 GMT Pinwig said:

There were loads of planets in the TV series though that weren't robot populated.

I agree, and that supports my point (which isn't a comic vs cartoon point) - the Movie didn't determine the rest of Transformerdom, either before or after. It's a tale of a possible future that never ended up coming to pass. It didn't give us time-travel, or the Matrix, or an invincible Galvatron, or Death's Head, or Metroplex, or the origin of the Transformers, or the first female Autobot, or the first apparent deaths of the likes of Optimus Prime and Starscream, or the first TF adventure in space - those were all done first elsewhere. It gave us a planet-sized robot with legs too big to walk anywhere, and Wheelie, and Daniel. It just stands out because it's exceptionally well animated, not because it's a high point of TF story-telling.

Martin

[Toph]

Apr 22, 2020 17:57:04 GMT Grand Moff Muffin said:

(And of course Budiansky ignored the Movie completely - the Headmasters saga and Underbase saga owed nothing at all to it, and in fact suggested that the Movie wasn't part of Marvel TF US at all, by the way he threw Cyclonus and Scourge in as present-day nobodies, and brought in whole new toy ranges in the present day who were nowhere to be seen in the Movie's 2005/6.)

Martin

You can't say that completely.
Hasbro's entire focus changed forever because of the movie. All following fiction was built on what toys Hasbro produced.

Without the movie the headmaster era toys may never have happened, and what we got may have been completely different.
At the very least, the Floro Dery designed characters wouldn't exist in a form we'd recognize.

The movie and the toys is the first instance where fiction and toys converged and were both made with the other in mind. Which wouldn't happen again until TFA.

That cooperation stopped immediately after the movie, but it still changed the shape of everything to come.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

I'm not sure that's a point in its favour. The toys designed for the Movie were not good.

And they weren't the first TFs to turn into alien or futuristic vehicles.

Martin

[Toph]

What we know:

· Hasbro wanted to sell new toys.
· It was Hasbro who wanted to kill off the '84 characters, the toys that were leaving the shelves. Only Bumblebee and Starscream survived this purge, and remained in production.
· Hasbro had no clue how traumatic this decision was to the kids.
· Most of the new characters (Hotrod, Kup, Blurr, Arcee, Springer, Scourge, Unicron, Cyclonus, Galvatron, Wheelie, Quintessons, Wreck-Gar) were designed for the movie.

What we can extrapolate:
· The '84 characters would be killed off anyway, or ignored from there on out. Hasbro didn't understand how bad a decision the murderspree was when they issued the command. No reason to assume a similar event still wouldn't happen.
· We would still get new leaders as Optimus and Megatron were moved on. Likely Ultra Magnus for the Autobots, as he was marketed as the new leader.
· Toys that were Diaclone holdovers (UM), designed for Diaclone (Metroplex, combiners), or originated outside TF (Minibots, Sky-Lynx) would continue on largely as is.

So in conclusion:
· We would still have new leaders.
· It's doubtful that Marvel US would have used these leaders.
· The murderspree is highly likely to still have happened.
· We know at least three toys would be relatively unaffected.
· There would be a bunch of new characters that we wouldn't recognize.

We do not know with any certainty that the time jump would still have happened. And as '86 would largely consist of toys and characters we currently do not recognize, how effected the toyline would be, going forward. It's plausible that while certain gimmicks may have turned up anyway, the designs for those characters would also be unrecognizable.
But after a time, TF would come back around into a shape we would recognize, as many later trends happened due to outside influence.

In conjecture for the long term-
· We would have seen a resurgence of classic characters later in the line. In what form and whom, who can say?
· Micromasters would have happened.
· Actionmasters would have happened.
· G2 would likely have been almost identical to what we got.
· Western Beast Era would have some effects, but more on the fiction side.
· Japanese Beast Era would have been shaped different, as they relied on Unicron enough that he almost got a toy.
· Car Robots/RiD possibly would have been virtually identical.
· The Unicron Trilogy would be unrecognizable.
· Bayverse would probably be very similar.
· But from here out, with Hasbro's increasing over-reliance on G1 year after year slowly becoming obsession, modern TF would become increasingly unrecognizable to us.
TFA, Aligned, Cyberverse, Generations, Dreamwave, IDW.

[Toph]

Apr 22, 2020 20:06:25 GMT Grand Moff Muffin said:

I'm not sure that's a point in its favour. The toys designed for the Movie were not good.

And they weren't the first TFs to turn into alien or futuristic vehicles.

Martin

None of that is what I meant.

I'm not arguing anything, let alone being in favor of one way or the other. It's that one thing effects the next. The Headmaster era toys did not come out of a vacuum. They were a product of continuing the direction hasbro started when tbey wanted to off the '84 toys.
At least we cannot assume they came about completely independently without being influenced by what hasbro did for '86.
So to assume that the Japanese Headmasters series or the Marvel Headmasters comic would be the same is a complete fallacy. There's just no way to know how much the toys were influenced. And both those stories were built on the toys.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

It's without doubt that the Movie is one chapter of many in the history of TFs, and that each chapter influences the next, like in all history - no argument about that.

Martin

[The Doctor]

TF:TM bombed worldwide with its theatrical release. It's arguable that it did not gain much influence on the line other than the toys produced to tie in with it until many years later when video releases and The Internet influenced later creators on the comics/cartoons/toys.

-Ralph

[Grand Moff Muffin]

It is worth noting that pre-Movie characters kept coming back throughout the G1 and G2 toy lines - Goldbug, Powermaster Prime, Pretender Classics/Legends, Classic Heroes, Action Masters, G2... But apart from one Micromaster in Japan, the Movie characters never returned in the pre-Beast Wars toy range.

Martin

[Toph]

Apr 22, 2020 21:07:05 GMT The Doctor said:

TF:TM bombed worldwide with its theatrical release. It's arguable that it did not gain much influence on the line other than the toys produced to tie in with it until many years later when video releases and The Internet influenced later creators on the comics/cartoons/toys.

-Ralph

Yeah, and those toys are the backbone of the fiction. Hasbro wanted the cartoon and comics to market the toys.

What I'm saying is what hasbro did in 87 was almost absolute certainly directly influenced by what they did in 86. If 86 looked completely different, which it would without the movie, then 87's toys would look very different.

And because they're different, the stories that Budianski, Furman, and the japanese writers would be incredibly different.

Because with the singular, remarkable exception of the movie itself, toys always came first, and fiction always reflected the toys.

For all we know, Hasbro may have leaned into beast vs machines, (how many decepticons were animals, this doesn't seem unlikely), or heroes vs monsters. They could have flipped the script and the majority of autobots were animals instead of the majority of decepticons.
Or maybe they would double down on the combiners.

And the movie did influence the fiction in a major way. Unicron was the end of Marvel's G1. That entire story line which began not long after the underbase happened because of the movie. Optimus seeking reunification with the Decepticons and Scorponok's most memorable parts happened because Unicron was coming. The Matrix Quest arc, Nightbeat, Thunderwing, and a fair few characters wouldn't have gotten the same spotlight. They wouldn't have been used the same way, and possibly would be just as obscure now as their wave mates.

That's to say if they existed at all because they came about directly because of 87, which almost certainly would be completely different without the movie.

Removing the movie is a much bigger butterfly effect than you think.
It changes the toys that follows it, which in turn sculpts the fiction built on those later era toys.

And that parallel timeline is fascinating me.

[Shockprowl]

Fascinating discussion, gentlemen.


It's interesting to me that although the Movie didn't do too well commercially, it still had a profound effect on the franchise.


If the Movie didn't happen, would we have gotten all the 'Masters' lines? Was the Movie and then the 'Masters' a way to further integrate human(pod)s with Transformers? Is that what they were going for? Also, I wonder if the Movie was a attempt to start again from scratch, with a smaller Main Cast.

[The Huff]

Another thing to think of is what if the Movie DID make so much money that there was a new film every 2 years that wiped the existing lines out ready for the new?
TF The Movie 2 (1988) would have the death of Rodimus Prime and Kup, Arcee and Co. would be killed off to make way for Pretenders etc.
Then (1990) these guys would be killed off to make way for ACTION MASTERS the movie!

But I guess that's sort of what happened in the comic and Japanese series anyway.

[Fortmax2020]

I can see how the Movie had big effects on the fiction that followed across different platforms. I'm less convinced of how much it had an impact on the toylines though. Head/Targetmasters were the year after so would've been under design while the Movie was being finished and then wrapped up. If anything the Movie toys were a (possibly deliberate) stepping stone between the complex Diaclone designs to the more toyish later years.

One interesting point though is that we rehlgsrd the 'Masters as generally Cybertronian designs.. but they would also fit a 'future' design too continuing the Movie theme.

[Llama God]

It's a very interesting question of how important TFTM actually is to the franchise. As fans we certainly give it a massive importance, but how much impact did it actually have on your average consumer? And, perhaps more importantly, how much impact did it have on toy sales?

Obviously the movie itself came about as a means of continuing to drive toy sales, but it didn't just come into existence on its own - its development went hand-in-hand with a new line of toys (Hot Rod, Cyclonus, etc) and they were clearly created as a means of keeping the line fresh. Which suggests that during 1985 there wasn't as much confidence in being able to sell toys on the core gimmick - vehicles turning into robots - alone, hence perhaps the shift to more exciting, "futuristic" looking vehicles. So given that it's quite possible that a "time jump" in the line would still have happened, and that Headmasters, Pretenders, etc. all would still have happened as Hasbro tried to keep the line fresh and interesting for consumers.

The main difference is whether or not the toyline would have made it as far as, say, Action Masters without the existence of the movie to keep the line going. Certainly the movie's performance in theatres can't be guaranteed to be a factor in this, but the fact that the movie simply existed might have been in sufficient in itself to keep sales going. It's hard to be sure how much of a factor this was though - there was a lot of weird shit on the toy shelves in the '80s, and it's just as likely that there would have still been a place for Transformers on the shelves without the existence of the movie.

In terms of the fandom though it's a really interesting question as to whether the fandom would exist in the shape or form it does today. Certainly the movie is a major keystone of Transformers fiction, and although it's quite true that Furman would have gone on to write stories just as good as Target: 2006 without the movie, the question is whether they would have had the same impact on us without the tie in to the movie, and whether Transformers would have just become another cool toyline that we'd all look back on fondly. After all, the major UK Time Wars storyline had its genesis in the movie, and it's what gave us the notion of Primus, and all the epic-ness that we're used to today. Again, whilst it's not impossible for Furman to have written something else - potentially even something better - the real question is whether or not it would have stuck with us for long had it not all tied into that central keystone of the movie. And without all that, would we be as passionate about Transformers as we are today?

Really, I think the main role that the movie has played for fans is a shared trauma - Skeletor never killed He-Man, Bengali never replaced Lion-O as leader of the Thundercats, none of the other toylines that we would have collected experienced that kind of seismic shake-up. And ultimately, for good or ill, I think that's one of the main contributing factors to the brand's endurance.

But it would still be really nice if characters were allowed to develop past those few remembered catchphrases from the movie, thanks. It's served its purpose now. Time to move on.

[Toph]

If it had been a financial success and gotten the occasional sequel, I don't think there would be any more murdersprees. Hasbro was genuinely unaware of how traumatic that was going to be.
Didn't Hasbro even walk back Duke's death in the Joe movie, because of it?
Like, didn't they change it to a dream or something?

That's another thing. The movie did have an effect on other franchises. It had an effect directly on Joe, as Hasbro took lessons they learned about how to handle fiction, and applied it elsewhere.
And Spaceballs! The grand finale was one giant riff on Unicron. Which in turn allowed them to spoof Planet of the Apes.
Without Unicron, that would have probably just been a straight up Death Ball.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

There's nothing wrong with having an animated film with lots of characters getting shot and dying left, right and centre every few minutes. The problem was that this didn't fit with the established franchise(s). If that's how Transformers had been like from the start, then fans wouldn't have anything to complain about. But the cartoon had two years of stories aimed at a younger audience, with nobody dying despite lots of shooting and serious reversible damage. Meanwhile the comic did have characters dying from the start, but not easily - it took a lot to kill a TF in the comic in a way that could never be repaired - e.g. Smelting Pool, crushing of the brain module, etc. The Movie rules on TF death didn't fit with either comic or cartoon, so fans who didn't like that aspect do have valid cause for criticism.

The Movie seemed to be written for a new audience, and wasn't bothered about the existing fans. Which is fine for those who became fans in 1986 - just not so great for those who loved what TFs were about in 1984-5.

Martin