TwistedEncore

Wow, I guess that Captain Morgan hit harder than I thought…

Anyways, hey. After a little bit of a break, this week I thought we’d return again to the history of Transformers as we continue to look at the early years of “Generation 1.”

However, the thought has occurred to me that there are probably some of you out there wondering why I love Transformers so much. Who cares, right? Well, I suppose if you really must know, I actually once spent a little time as leader of the Decepticons. True story. It was around when Megatron “died” that one time and hey, no one knew if he was coming back or not, so they had this little election and, straight out of nowhere, I found myself at the head of a robot empire. Really. Hey, where do you think the name “Natron” came from?

I admit I wasn’t really the most qualified for the job, but we gave it a shot. It actually kind of worked for a while. We hung out, we watched movies, we ate Doritos. It was a good time. Too bad it didn’t last… That Starscream guy kept wanting to “do” stuff like conquer planets and junk. Whatever. I ended up leaving, but I’m still on pretty good terms with most of the guys. I’d like to think I was the most likable Decepticon leader they ever had…

But that’s not important anymore. We’re here to talk about the history of the Transformers franchise, not any real Transformers… Which may or may not exist…

Anyways, when last we left, halfway through the original “Generation 1” of Transformers, everything was going pretty well. The Transformers toyline had successfully gotten off the ground, with Hasbro and Takara re-releasing Takara’s old toys and renaming them “Transformers.” And the toys became extremely popular because Hasbro marketed the hell out of them. The Transformers had a Marvel Comics series, their own cartoon, games, clothes… all sorts of merchandise. And all of it to market Transformers to kids as kick-ass alien robots from the planet Cybertron locked in epic civil war. And it was good.

But then in 1986… everything changed.

Or “transformed,” if you will. Ba-zing!

…

…

Okay, I admit, that was really bad… I apologize. Sorry.

But anyway, 1986 was a pivotal year in Transformers history because it really was when everything changed. To understand why, I suppose once again the best place to start is with the toys themselves. After two years of taking Takara’s old toys and re-releasing them as “Transformers,” Hasbro reached a turning point: they had used up all of Takara’s old toy molds. There was nothing else to re-release. Which means that Hasbro was faced with a radical notion… make new Transformers.

So in 1986, Hasbro began making all new molds and releasing brand-new Transformers. And even though the earlier toys changed into a wide variety of forms (cars, planes, guns, boomboxes, dinosaurs, etc.) and had gimmicks like combination or triple-changing, the new ones that came out were all over the place. They just got weirder and weirder as each year went by. Seriously. Transformers began changing into futuristic, alien vehicles, bizarre creatures, even things like buildings and battle stations. And the gimmicks became even more outlandish. There were Transformers that turned into heads for other Transformers (headmasters), Transformers that turned into weapons and armor (targetmasters), Transformers that disguised themselves in monstrous outer shells (pretenders).

There were Transformers that shot sparks, that shot water, that changed colors in water, that turned s#!% into gold, that could dodge bullets, that could leap tall buildings in a single bound, that knew kung fu, that could…

Gahh, ow, ow, ow! I think I just ruptured something. Oh man, that was ridiculous.

Clearly, 1986 was when the Transformers toyline started changing into the completely bizarre, but that actually wasn’t the biggest change to happen. Probably the most important change came in the Transformers cartoon.

In 1986, after two seasons of the Transformers cartoon on television, they came out with a legit, released-in-theatres Transformers movie.

For reals. Looking back, more than even the toyline itself, this was probably the single most important event in “Generation 1” history, because it was simultaneously the greatest and worst thing to happen to the Transformers storyline.

How? Well, from a real-world standpoint, the Transformers movie was meant to be a changing of the guard, a chance to introduce new characters into the story. After all, Hasbro was making new Transformers toys, and they wanted to market them! So they’d want to make cartoon characters to promote them. Makes sense, right?

Buuttttt… in order to introduce the new characters, Hasbro decided they wanted to get rid of the old ones…

Which brings us to the story. After years of scheming (all the way into the far-flung future of 2005. Remember how futuristic that year was?), Megatron and the Decepticons finally lead an all-out assault on the Autobots’ city on Earth, cutting a huge bloody wake of destruction and killing a ton of Autobots. All seems lost… until Optimus Prime arrives to save the day. Optimus shoots his way through a horde of footsoldiers and faces Megatron solo in hand-to-hand combat. This fight is totally and completely BADASS. They just wail on each other and Optimus is almost about to win when Megatron pulls an underhanded trick and fatally wounds Optimus. And while Megatron’s also beaten to hell and the Decepticons are forced to retreat, little kids everywhere had to watch one of the worst moments in childhood movie history:

Optimus Prime dies.

Ho. Ly. Crap. I know Hasbro wanted to rotate out old characters and replace them with new ones, but… seriously? They had to f*cking kill Optimus Prime??? Good lord! Screw the whole “changing of the guard” thing, Hasbro had to have one of the most iconic cartoon heroes in history die on-screen lying in a robot hospital bed.

Wow. Just… wow.

I don’t even know where to go after that. I mean, the movie continues, sure. The tattered remains of the Decepticons come across this godlike planet-Transformer named Unicron, who basically resurrects them all so they can be his slaves and help destroy the universe. What Autobots remain flee Earth with the “Matrix of Leadership,” a shiny talisman that, of course, is the one thing that can destroy Unicron. What luck, right?

The bad guys try to stop them, but ultimately the Autobots destroy Unicron and unite under their new leader, a turbo-revvin’ young punk named Hot Rod, who saves the day and becomes “Rodimus Prime.” The Autobots emerge victorious. Huzzah…

So, yeah, that was the movie. And even after all that craziness, the cartoon still continued for another season on TV. Really. After Optimus dying and half the cast being replaced, the cartoon continued for one more season… but with a dynamic shift in tone. Season 3 moved to a more humorous, lighthearted feel, with more stories set in far-off space and in more absurd scenarios. It was weird. Season 3 had all the characters, both Autobot and Decepticon, exploring the strange new world of the beyond…

I suppose season 3 was… okay. But a definite void could be felt after the freakin’ death of Optimus Prime. Sorry, I still can’t get past that. It was just such a huge moment that the show never really recovered from. What was Transformers without the iconic Optimus Prime? Many fans were outraged after the movie over how banally Optimus died. In fact, so great was the outcry… that the cartoon’s writers brought him back. Season 3 ended with a multi-part story literally resurrecting Optimus Prime from the dead to combat a plague spreading across the galaxy. And the day was saved. Huzzah!

And while bringing Optimus Prime back was awesome, it kind of came too little too late. Aside from one final mini-season, the return of Optimus Prime came at the end of the Transformers cartoon… and with it the end of the “Generation 1” storyline. Japan kept the cartoon going with their own continuing storylines, and the comics continued in a limited capacity, but the end of the cartoon meant the end of an era. While the first half of “Generation 1” was about establishing an image, the second half took that image and pushed it into something new and strange.

By the end of the “G1” run in 1991, Transformers as people knew them were finished. They’d run their course, with the cartoon long over and popularity for the toyline waning. And if the franchise was to continue, something needed to change.

And, soon enough, something would…

But that’s a story for another day.

- Natron out