Transformers

And these are just your characters from G1!

Transformers is a series of Robot Toys created by Hasbro and Takara Tomy that typically turn into cars and other vehicles. Robots are cool, cars are cool and so they became popular. In 1984 they made some comics and a cartoon show. The comics show created a lot of toy sales and the toys kept the shows and comics popular. Over the years they changed things up to sell more toys and new series were made, some worked quite well (Beast Wars, Prime) others did not (Armada, Energon, Cybertron).

Why does this have no tabletop or role playing game? Only comics, cartoons, anime, and finally video games. So much potential. Seriously, it's a setting about sentient, shapeshifting robots fighting a war that spans motivations from political to racial to theological. How the fuck has nobody realised the money-making potential there?

Oh, there was an attempt to do a "mini-setting" by Fantasy Flight Games as part of their "Horizon" lineup called Mechamorphosis that was basically using the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 ruleset to play what was essentially "Transformers with the serial numbers filed off". But it's so obscure, almost nobody knows it even existed. Despite the success of Hasbro's Star Wars roleplaying game and trading card game, they show no sign of doing up an official tabletop game for Transformers yet.

Main Guys

As the series come and go, a certain bevvy of characters seem to be archetypical to the Transformers. Not helped by the fact that, ever since the flop of Beast Machines, Hasbro seems to only ever stick with recycling Generation One. These are the Transformers who appear in some form or another in every iteration of the setting.

Optimus Prime: Leader of the Autobots, Lawful Good to the computer-core, the Big Red Hero-bot himself. There's always an Optimus leading the Autobots, and he usually turns into some kind of red truck or hauler. His name is the Latin words for "best" and "first", and he really is both. In the original show (and in the Michael Bay movies -- one of the decent things about them -- and Transformers Prime), he was voiced by Peter Cullen, whose awesome deep voice you probably hear in your head whenever you read any of his dialogue. Check it out: "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."

Megatron: If there's an Optimus Prime, there's always a Megatron, the Evil (of some flavor, depending on the series) to his Lawful Good. Megsy remains pretty consistent throughout his appearances, usually varying only in what level of honor he has (which usually depends on his backstory; sometimes he started as a charismatic gladiator turned freedom fighter against the corrupt Cybertronian government -- Angron, anyone? -- but sometimes he's just nuts) and/or how much of a cold-booted psychopath he is. He used to turn into a gun (which could inexplicably shrink down to be small enough to be wielded by another Decepticon), with the barrel giving him a wicked arm cannon in robot mode, but nowadays he usually turns into a tank or a jet. He was first voiced by Frank Welker, whose versatile voice was also used for just about every other Decepticon except for Starscream (and probably at least one role in just about every cartoon ever made), though David Kaye also did a bang-up job in Beast Wars, yeeesss.

Bumblebee: The yellow kid-friendly one, he's usually the main one to interact with the resident token humans. He usually turns into a sports car. Can be surprisingly badass in some adaptations -- his Beast Wars counterpart, Cheetor, went on to basically take Optimus Primal's place as leader of the Maximals in Beast Machines.

Starscream: Megatron's loud-mouthed, whiny, scheming, sneaky, backstabbing second-in-command who always wants to lead the Decepticons, but is neither strong enough to bump Megsy off and take his place, smart enough to trick him to his death, or charismatic enough to persuade others he wouldn't be as bad a boss. Sometimes Megatron himself wonders why he keeps Starscream around, but (when the writers remember) he is actually an extremely competent air commander. He usually turns into the latest and greatest fighter jet (unless he's turning into some Cybertronian future-jet) -- historically an F-15, F-16, or F-22. In the original cartoon, his catchphrase (delivered in the classic 80s-villain screech -- in fact, his first voice actor also voiced the similarly screechy Cobra Commander in G. I. Joe) was probably "Decepticons, RETREEEAT!" Nowadays, though, he's more consistently competent (and given a more menacing voice by Steve Blum in Transformers Prime).

Generation One

The original, the alpha iteration, the place where it all to began. At the time, it was just called "The Transformers", with a cartoon by the same name from 1984-87 and the animated film "The Transformers: The Movie" in 1986. The movie's soundtrack is awesomely 80's, and it features the amazing song "The Touch" when Optimus Prime fights Megatron. The "Generation One" title was applied retroactively after Hasbro released the "Generation 2" line in 1993.

Beast Wars

The first Western-released sequel to G1 (there were two Japanese-only continuations to G1, but they never got released outside of Japan), a CGI show created by Mainframe (also responsible for Reboot and War Planets). Set up as a "loose sequel" to G1, it involves new transformer races called "Maximals" (Autobots) and "Predacons" (Decepticons).

A Predacon terrorist leader styling himself after the original Megatron, including taking his name, hijacks an artifact with a mysterious connection to Megatron the first and goes on the run into deep space with a band of terrorists, planning on restarting the Great War and this time causing a Predacon victory. A Maximal deep-space exploration vessel commanded by Optimus Primal attempts to intercept, and both vessels end up stranded on a mysterious alien world, where an overabundance of raw Energon crystals forces them to adopt the forms of local fauna to preserve themselves. The two forces promptly start trying to wipe each other out and then escape the planet.

Though Hasbro would mostly consign this story to oblivion after Beast Machines, the character of Blackarachnia (sexy spider-bot who changes from evil to good thanks to love) would be re-used in later eras.

Beast Machines

Sequel series to Beast Wars. On returning to Cybertron, our heroes are attacked by armies of transforming drones. It eventually turns out that Megatron broke free of their ship and flew back to Cybertron before them; he infected the entire planet with a cyber-virus that put them all into comas, ripped out their hearts/souls and stashed them in some hidden bunker, and melted down their bodies to rebuild them into mindless robot slaves.

Awesomely grimdark concept, but hampered by two huge flaws. Firstly, a super-annoying green aesop, very clumsily handled. More importantly, major character derailment -- it was made by a different team to Beast Wars, and they weren't even allowed to watch the first series to familiarize themselves with how the Maximals were supposed to behave, so it'd be "more accessible".

Probably why Hasbro only recycles G1 instead of trying to do its own thing with new shows, the way these two shows did. Even though it was their own damn fault because they made this series into what it turned out being.

Energon Trilogy

See the titles mentioned above - Armada, Energon, Cybertron? Yeah, that refers to this lot. Anime reinterpretation of G1, decaying from "poor but watchable" to "completely unwatchable drek". On the plus-side, competent badass Starscream. On the downside, far too much focus on humans and not enough on giant robots trying to kill each other. Kicker, from the later series, is considered one of the worst human sidekicks the Transformers have ever had.

It has been said that, for all the failings of Beast Machines, at least it's better than this trilogy.

Michael Bay Films

The dark force known as Michael Bay bought Transformers back as a series of live-action + CGI movies. Considered the Matt Ward of the Transformers universe, Bay's movies are rage-inducing fails that have far too much focus on annoying human characters and on lowbrow humor. Seriously, in the first movie, we don't get to see an Autobot for, like, 30 minutes, and we have to facepalm our way through an awful gag about Bumblebee basically pissing on a guy.

About the only shallow redeeming qualities it has is that the CGI Transformers look amazing (even if some neckbeards have cracked up over how they're "not accurate" to the G1 character modes), the fight scenes are suitably glorious for giant alien death-machines ripping each other to pieces, and most importantly is it has introduced Transformers to a whole new generation of fans, who can hopefully be shown the good stuff instead of thinking this garbage is the true representative of the setting.

Animated

G1 inspired series with notoriously unusual but smooth animation. This time, Optimus Prime and his crew are lowly space janitors who stumble across a superweapon from the Great War and have to defend it against Megatron, who seeks to use it to restart the war and this time ensure Decepticon victory. This version's Optimus is much younger and less experienced than usual; funnily enough, he was voiced by the actor who voiced Megatron in Beast Wars. Generally noted for having the best human sidekick (who turns out to only be part transformer)

Prime

G1 inspired CGI series that somehow salvages the fairly decent elements of Michael Bay's crapfest movies (e.g. Peter Cullen and Frank Welker reprising their respective roles) and crafts an awesome show out of it. Amazingly gritty and intense, very good.

Biggest major problem is Miko, who is tying with Kicker (from the abovementioned Energon Trilogy) for the title "worst human sidekick in a Transformers show, ever!" Obnoxiously gungho and always charging off into danger, even when told not to, invariably making things worse for the Autobots in the process.

External Links

• TFWiki.net, a wiki dedicated to all things Transformers. They take a pretty laid-back, humorous approach to their material that will be familiar to readers of this wiki (although usually not so profane).