Amph The Transformers. More than meets the eye!

Too bad she later came back to the good side.

 

There was a prototype in the works in 1986-87.



But it didn't get a release. Images of this were found on "The Headmasters" laserdisc release, years back in Japan. A second attempt was made but only reached the sketch phase.



It was to be a retool and redeco of Chromedome. That's as far as it got. There was an attempt at making an Action Master figure, but being independently done meant that it would cost too much. It was meant for Botcon 96.



The first official figure was a Botcon 01 release which was part of "Transformers Universe: Featuring The Wreckers" and was a redeco of Transmetal 2 Blackarachnia. Susan Blu lent her voice for a voice chip.



An attempt at making one of the six inch Titanium series only made it to the prototype stage, before the line was cancelled.



Shockwave, Bumblebee and Cliffjumper were also cancelled.

Binaltech Decepticharge was used for Arcee.



There was "Energon" and "Animated", along with the second film. There have been three unofficial figures produced. An official version based on the IDW designs is in the works.

There's two things here.

1. Hasbro was against the idea of female Transformer figures. Initially, Ratchet was supposed to be a female Autobot. However, when Bob Budiansky asked Hasbro about female characters, he was told "This is a boy toy. We don't wanna have, you know, girl robots." This then resulted in Ratchet being a male. When Ron Friedman was writing the first draft of the animated film, he was inspired by his daughter to create Arcee. She was a fan of the show and wanted to see a female. Friedman had to fight to get her in the film, but ultimately won. The female Autobots were introduced in "The Search For Alpha Trion" to set that up, but never showed up again. Arcee, the Paradon Autobots, the slave Autobots in "Forever Is A Long Time" and the female Junkions were the only ones in season three. Takara would push her into a tranditional Japanese female role of secretary and love interest, essentially de-fanging her for "The Headmasters". When "Super God Masterforce" came around, they converted Autobot Headmaster Nightbeat into Cybertron Headmaster Jr., Minerva. Thus making her the first female figure in the franchise. By the time of "Beast Wars", Hasbro's stance started to soften and there have been a number of females throughout subsequent lines.



2. In 1995, Hasbro and 3H produced a female Decepticon using Generation 2 High Beam as the basis and redecoed him into Nightracer. It was a Botcon 95 exclusive.



Though this was a bit of a limited run and there's some shaky legal ground as a fan who organized that year's convention created the name and backstory, but more than likely, Hasbro owns the rights. The character was recently seen in the "Generation 2: Redux" and "Machine Wars" comics at the recent Botcon's.

 

Speaking of DOTM, does anything else think that the gay German guy played by Alan Tudyk wasn't originally written that way, Alan Tudyk just decided to play him that way when he asked Michael Bay if it was okay, and he was all like "Yeah, sure, whatever"? Because it sure seemed like it to me.

 

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=117066]Transformers[/url]: Age of Extinction is the start of a new trilogy says Michael Bay.

This isn't much of a surprise IMO. Wonder who'll direct the others if he doesn't though?

 

TRANSFORMERS VS GI JOE by Tom Scioli.

Artwork will no doubt devide quite a few, but I've read some of his work and it's good old fashioned comic book fun. Look for TF vs Joe comic with very crazy ideas all done in a 60's inspired comic book style. It's replacing Regeneration 1, so by definition it's already better.

 

Cobra La's plants?

 

Think in the preview they're created by Dr. Venom.

 

The problem is that Bay found Megatron boring and that's why it shows in the film. He was going on about Sentinel before the film came out.

I think the idea is that he was supposed to go to Earth eventually, but Bumblebee sending off the All Spark Cube derailed things. The film doesn't quite convey this.

I think something was cut out where he got his ass kicked and was trying to recover when Carly finds him.

 

Is that "Old Snake" guy in G1 cartoon, really Cobra Commander?

 

I thought his screaming "Cobra" before erupting in a coughing fit - plus being voiced by Chris Latta - should've been a dead giveaway.

 

It is him. When Cobra finally fell, the Commander had managed to survive and at some point went into hiding. This was after the events of the late 80's cartoon series where he was returned to a human form. And that isn't the only connection to "G.I. Joe".



Marissa Faireborne was introduced in "Five Faces Of Darkness". A Quintesson creates a hologram of her father in "The Killing Jar."



Her father and mother are better known as Flint and Lady Jaye.



At the start of the 90's, Cobra was finally defeated and Marissa was born prior to then. The Joes had disbanded and moved onto other ventures. By 2001, many of the Autobots still inhabiting Cybertron had relocated to Earth when Megatron lead the final assault that resulted in Iacon falling to the Cons. This is where Hot Rod, Kup, Blurr, Springer and Arcee showed up. Ultra Magnus came to Earth sometime between 1986 and 1989 to help build Metroplex. In 2003, Earth Defense Command was created and Autobot City began construction to help supply the Autobots with enough Energon to lead an assault from two of Cybertron's moons. Marissa was chosen to head up the EDC and man the outpost on Mars in 2005, after the battle of Autobot City.

In "Prime Target", two cameos are featured.



Hector Ramirez, who appeared in "Twenty Questions" appears here.





Oktober Guard 1, aka Daina from "The Invaders" also appears in "Prime Target". The episode was written by Flint Dille and Buzz Dixon, who wrote for both cartoon series.

 

Hector Ramirez also appeared in a couple other Hasbro series, like Inhumaniods and Jem. He was the connecting tissue between all four series, apparently.

 

TFW2005 has a nice little group of articles talking about history of TF by year for the 30th anniversary

Starting with 1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

 

Correct. Hence I posted the screencap with all four shows. All four cartoons were made by Sunbow Productions and Marvel Productions.

 

I made this a while back and find it totally worth sharing.

 

I think DotM is probably the worst of the live action movies, at least to me. Not that any of the first three are great, but just starting from the name, it sounds really stupid. Sadly, I saw it in theaters as I figured, meh, saw the first two so might as well see the last one. Also the novelization had gotten my hopes up a little bit- in the novelization, I think there was a brief moment where Megatron teamed up with Optimus against Sentinel, and that afterwards he just gave up and returned to Cybertron to rebuild, and actually invited Optimus along. Though it was written by Peter David, so that probably helped. After how pathetic Megatron was in DotM, I'm sad he didn't just stay dead after the first movie.

Even with Dinobots, I'm not going to see the fourth one. Less time in my life by now. Though I occasionally glance through the wiki and I'm not sure whether to admire or pity how much effort the IDW comics go through to keep a straight continuity when the movies don't care about continuity, logic or a quality plot at all (as they try to make sense of three different backstories, starting from just Megatron, then adding in the Fallen, then Sentinel too).