Talk:Movie timeline

So, is it the ARG that established Prime as N.B.E.-2? Because the comic has established Bumblebee as N.B.E.-2. Our first continuity glitch in movie continuity? (The two(?) Simmons in Sector 7 may be another, though it could easily be explained with a father-son connection. --ZacWilliam 10:53, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the ARG has established who NBE 2 is, actually. --KilMichaelMcC 16:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

And there's always the chance that they simply assumed Prime's messages were sent by Bumblebee. They never saw Prime, after all. --FFN 17:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Novelization material

Derik, Walky says to cease and desist adding information from the novelizations to the Wiki or he'll get rid of you until the movie comes out. -Rotty 07:22, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Video Games

the Movie, titan and S7 Continutys have their own pages so why not we make a page for the Movie video games continuty?

Well, because there isn't one. The console and hand-held games aren't compatible, and it's not as if the different campaigns lead into each other at all across the movie and ROTF games - like, the Decepticons win and conquer Earth in their 2007 game campaign, and then... things are back to standard at the start of their ROTF campaign. It doesn't work. We'd just be describing individual game stories, and we have their articles for that. - Chris McFeely 05:33, 1 June 2011 (EDT)

DOTM date

Some things (the game to name one) put DOTM three years, rather than two, after ROTF, which would place it in 2012. Given that Sam's finished university, three years would make sense. Should the timeline be changed accordingly? Jalaguy

I have heard this floating around, all right, and was thinking about it. But what other sources are there besides the game? I'm not inclined to give the game any leeway in this particular timeline, as the games rarely "count" in that manner, plus, as I understand it, the game is about the run-up to Shockwave being freed, which if we were trying to count it, would take places shortly before Rising Storm, which is only a year after ROTF. - Chris McFeely 07:54, 29 June 2011 (EDT)

The novelization sets Sam Witwicky's Oval Office visit, which was right after ROTF, as "several years ago." Which is better than "two," at least, because, what, Sam had the shortest Ivy League college term ever? --ItsWalky 07:41, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

Well, his college did get exploded fairly badly in Rising Storm! :) But yeah, I think some kind of change is necessary here... - Chris McFeely 08:05, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

Its name is the Xantium. It brought the second wave of Autobots five years ago—Sideswipe and the rest.{{#if:|{{{quote2}}}}}{{#if:Charlotte MearingTransformers: Dark of the Moon: The Junior Novel p 90|Charlotte Mearing{{#if:Transformers: Dark of the Moon: The Junior Novel p 90|, Transformers: Dark of the Moon: The Junior Novel p 90|}}|}}

-Derik 08:34, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

Devastator

The article frequently uses "Devastator" to refer to what is elsewhere called Brawl. Should this be changed, or is it done purposefully?24.13.125.86 21:15, 17 July 2011 (EDT)

It's done because he was often called "Devastator" in the fiction. --abates 21:22, 17 July 2011 (EDT)

Specifically, the only uses of the name in this timeline are in reference to his early appearance in the Titan comics, which consistently called him "Devastator", and would confusedly note in the letters pages that he was supposed to be a different guy from Brawl (though that didn't really make any sense in context). - Chris McFeely 04:59, 18 July 2011 (EDT)

Ah. Well then, since the Construction Devastator is also covered, in the ROTF portion of the timeline, would it be possible to somehow mark the ones that are Devastator nee Brawl with a cite note or something?192.249.47.165 09:22, 18 July 2011 (EDT)

Cyber Missions

Can they really be subsumed into the main continuity? They seem to have a lot of contradictions and discrepancies (Power Core Combiners interacting with movie characters, Soundwave coming to Earth previously, etc.) Tom Servo the Great 08:46, 13 September 2011 (EDT)

How is Soundwave being on Earth a discrepancy? He comes down during Nefarious, and the Cyber Missions are placed after that. And there's no reason PCC characters can't be from the movie continuity - PCC Salvage is established as being the movie character on his package bio. If anything's place here is tenuous, it's Unite for the Universe, with characters that should be dead (Brakedown) or recovering on Diego Garcia (Brawn) at that point in IDW continuity, as well as oddities like Ravage acting independant of Soundwave, helping Starscream in a coup against Megatron. Jalaguy

The Cyber Missions actually fit strangely well, given that John Barber never watched them. I think the only unresolved contradiction would be Frenzy's being active again in them, and the ROTF prequel novel did note he was still alive in Simmons's basement, just dormant, so there's room for future fiction to fill in that gap. I admit I was a bit hesitant about putting Unite for the Universe into the timeline, but as it was the only even remotely-prominent bit of movie comic fiction that had nowhere else to go, I just went with it. "Rising Storm" had already approached death with a non-permanent freeness that left anything of that nature questionable, and it's not like the refugees might not have been tested out in the field to see how they were doing. It's all hand-waving, of course, but as the opening to the article says, it's not like there aren't slight contradictions to be found. - Chris McFeely 11:22, 13 September 2011 (EDT)

Even despite we have no proof Frenzy was involved on nefarious, i like to think those guys (the intative (spelling?)) revived him. jsut we didnt saw him

Oh, OK. Thanks. Tom Servo the Great 11:46, 13 September 2011 (EDT)

Classified

Should we add the classified novels into the timeline? -- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Eagc7 (talk • contribs){{#if:| {{{2}}}|}}.

I should think so. Though, where would they fit? I know they're post-ROTF and pre-DOTM, but I haven't read them (yet), so would anyone here who has read them know how to fit them in? --Sabrblade 12:55, 15 July 2013 (EDT)

I've not read them either, but perhaps after Cyber Missions, since they seem to deal with a bunch of Decepticons off doing their own thing without Megatron? Really, the placement of stuff like these, Unite for the Universe and Cyber Missions is going to inevitably be pretty speculative since John Barber wasn't aware of/trying to include them during his phase as chief continuity pornographer for the movie universe. Jalaguy 13:26, 15 July 2013 (EDT)

Sadly, Barber couldn't have worked these novels in since they came out after he had written Convergence and such. --Sabrblade 14:13, 15 July 2013 (EDT)

The Bumblebee movie

In case you haven't heard, Empire magazine learned from DreamWorks that the Bumblebee movie will be set in the 1980s, invalidating all IDW worked to achieve. We need to move the page, and start from scratch on a new main timeline using information just from the films, as incoherent as they are. Alientraveller (talk) 14:34, 14 June 2017 (EDT)

If it's okay for me to give my two cents, this could all trace back from the Ghosts of Yesterday novel.

1.) Bumblebee was a crew member of the Ark, but the tie-in material is vague on details, making it seem like it took the Ark (including Bumblebee) several decades to reach Mars after the events of Ghosts of Yesterday.

2.) We had previously heard about Sentinel Prime's ship getting sent through a wormhole that sent him through space and time, and ultimately landed him in the far future. So, what if the crew of Ghost 1, from the novel, ended up sometime 30 or so years before 1969 (which the novel began in) after going through their wormhole? The Ghost 1 could have crashed outside of Earth's solar system and came in contact with Optimus' Ark around 1939.

So the most easy retcon they could do, while keeping what the tie-in material established, is that the Ark and Ghost 1 did end up near Earth's solar system before the 1940s. Bumblebee headed to Earth in the middle of WWII, stayed there for sometime and went back to Mars in 2003 to scout or hide himself for whatever reason. It's funky, but this continuity has always been that way. BlindmelonKen (talk) 22:51, 20 June 2017‎

It might just be easier to think that the tie in material only applies for the first three films, while AOE, TLK, and any future films fall in a separate timeline that also includes the first three films but none of the tie in material. All we'd have to do for this timeline is to move any and all post-DOTM film info off of this page and onto a new one that keeps the first three films' events but leaves out all the tie-in material. However, this is not a decision to be taken lightly, and must be made with the utmost care and consideration, so we need not be too hasty in this matter. We should probably just wait and see what we learn from these newer films once more is made known about them. --Sabrblade (talk) 23:06, 20 June 2017 (EDT)

I think if we did wanted to keep it for now, maybe we could assume Ghosts of Yesterday is non-canon or the Ghost 1 ended up 1500-2000 years in the past after going through that wormhole and the Ark landed on Earth around that time. BlindmelonKen (talk) 11:36, 27 June 2017‎

We shouldn't really make up fan-theories just to connect condradicting stories. We shouldn't pick and choose from the tie-in material either (saying that some are canon while the rest are not). I'd say it's far easier just to make a seperate page for the tie-in stuff, since it's unlikely that the movie writers are going to consider them canon. They may take inspiration from them, for sure but I doubt they would try not to condradict them.--Primestar3 (talk) 11:43, 27 June 2017 (EDT)

Move to IDW Movie Timeline

I suggest this, since the movies clearly are not gonna fit with it now. I'd even say strip Age of Extinction from here.Escargon (talk) 11:59, 27 June 2017 (EDT)

I sympathize with this, especially with removing the AOE stuff and making this strictly for the first film trilogy and its related media that the post-DOTM films will undoubtedly ignore and/or contradict. Though, there's also a number of non-IDW tie-in material in here as well, like the novels and Cyber Missions and such. Would that affect the "IDW" part of the title? (Also, as an aside, I feel the Classified novels, which aren't in here, can easily slot in as well between Cyber Missions and the pre-DOTM stuff, especially with how they foreshadow to Sentinel Prime's pillars without saying so.) --Sabrblade (talk) 12:06, 27 June 2017 (EDT)

Yes, I think that's about all we can do. - Chris McFeely (talk) 12:19, 27 June 2017 (EDT)

I concur. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 03:39, 1 July 2017 (EDT)

IDW Bumblebee

Can the 2018 IDW prequel Bumblebee be included in the 60s and 80s of this timeline? - RoboWarriorPrime 23 December 2018.

Movie Timeline excluding IDW plotpoints

Hi guys, first of all I am a new TFWiki editor as of just now, but i am a longtime wiki reader and viewer who is obsessed with Transformers and any new pieces of information I can use to feed my knowledge.

So I have spent the last week or so studying the live action films and have come up with most of the timeline excluding the IDW fiction, I believe the IDW plotpoints are out of date as of the AOE and TLK movies, and I am a huge supporter of the shift of IDW plotpoints to their own seperate timeline.

I have used plotpoints pointed out by youtubers who have also studied the films and I have filled in the gaps that they have left out. I have copied all of the film plotpoints from the existing timeline on this wiki as well and done my best to remove anything that is strictly IDW or anything else that was not mentioned in the films, and just built up around them. My timeline study excludes the plotpoints given in Bumblebee, due to the continuity errors, however if anyone feels the need to add Bumblebee plotpoints or subtract anything from my timeline, that is also fine.

I have saved all of my timeline plotpoints in a Google Document, for whoever I need to get in touch with to show and make these edits, I just wanted to let everyone know that I have done my research. Granted there are bound to be things I have missed, but for the most part all important plot points are included.

Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 22:29, 6 June 2020 (EDT)

I have created a seperate sandbox timeline for me to slowly work on, I'll let you all know on my progress.

Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 08:31, 9 June 2020 (EDT)

Excellent work! I've also been working on a IDW-exclusive timeline in my own Sandbox. 223p 11.43, 10 June 2020

I'm all done now. The timeline is ready for whoever needs it. I accidentally named my sandbox one IDW Movie Timeline, just due to copying and pasting bits from both your timeline and the existing one. Bumblebee's events are not included, if anyone thinks they should be included, feel free, but I think it would mess with the timeline more in my opinion. It could possibly do with some pictures, I've done my best to include pictures from other pages in the timeline to fill up the gaps where IDW fiction was placed. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 18:54, 10 June 2020 (EDT)

Movie Timeline excluding AOE & TLK plotpoints

The Movie timeline is the first and main chronology of the live-action movie universe, and it's current version is restricted to Michael Bay's productions only. That's not correct, because the movie timeline that is composed only by his movies is actually the second chronology of the live-action movie universe, since it only began when he forbade IDW Publishing, Del Rey Books, and Little, Brown and Company of publishing any prequel, adaptation or sequel material to AOE and TLK, along with the fact that the new information revealed in these two films, has appeared significantly and fundamentally irreconcilable with the larger timeline the tie-in media established. It was also the home to the original trilogy and their tie-in materials for thirteen years, which is why i think all tie-in plotpoints should return to this timeline and all AOE & TLK plotpoints should be excluded from here and placed in another timeline. As for the timeline where the AOE and TLK plotpoints shall be placed; i'm already working on it, i even have a title for that timeline. It's gonna be called "Bayverse movie timeline". What you guys think? --Cybertron Forever (talk) 13:10, 19 November 2020 (EST)

No. --Sabrblade (talk) 13:19, 19 November 2020 (EST)

The tie-in media was only produced to fill in plot holes and retcon one or two things. The creators of tie-in media had no part in creating the films and merely wrote up extra fiction to fill in the blanks. The films come first and tie-in media comes second. It's called "tie-in media" for a reason. Regardless of whether Michael Bay directed all 5 films or not, the movies are still what would be listed on this timeline. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 14:44, 19 November 2020 (EST)

I know and understand that. but as i said, the chronological order that includes the comics, novels, ect; is (and always has been) the first and main chronology, but from now on it's not anymore because of what you did! No offense here (since i don't want to offend anyone, and if it did sorry), but the thing is, this timeline was the home to the first three movies' tie-in media for thirteen years and i think that they shouldn't have never been removed from here. I think you should had removed all AOE & TLK plotpoints instead of the tie-in media plotpoints. That would've turn out so much better than make a glorious and awesome timeline composed by the original trilogy and it's tie-in material be "the secondary chronological order" rather than "the first (AKA: "mainstream") chronological order of the movie universe", which is "the correct" way to know it. I hope i didn't offended you or anyone else, well, bye. --Cybertron Forever (talk) 19:15, 19 November 2020 (EST)

No, the main chronology has always been the movies. That's why it's called the Movie Timeline. They are and always have been the primary source of fiction, and anything created for a tie-in is ancillary and is not taken into account by the writers of the films. The timeline laid out in the movies themselves will always take priority, and that's not going to change. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 19:42, 19 November 2020 (EST)

I'm not offended in any way. The idea to split the timelines had already been decided before I made an account on here. It was actually my very first contribution to the wiki too. I just followed along with the split that everyone had decided and added film-only plot points. The films are and always will be the "alpha" canon of the live-action film franchise, afterall it is called the "Live-action film" franchise. All other tie-in media regardless of whether it came first or not will always come second. Your argument is like saying that the Beast Hunters pack-in fiction released with figures from that line before the third season of Prime had aired was the "correct" story before the cartoon went a different route. It just doesn't work that way. Hasbro has and always will allow different partnering companies to write various tie-in stories to sell their products and allow for those creators to make their own unique spin-off timelines, but this doesn't make it any more "correct". The fact is, the films were still going to go whatever route they were going to take regardless of the tie-in fiction that came before it. Also, Hasbro's current direction when it comes to the live-action franchise, is to follow mostly what the films have established, that is why characters like Mirage from DOTM is now going by "Dino", in his latest toys, as that was the name that the film established. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 20:11, 19 November 2020 (EST)

Also another side note, if you look further up on this talk page, User:223p was the one who made the expanded universe timeline on a new page, I simply edited this one to have just the main movie plotpoints while adding in new ones that weren't previously mentioned. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 21:13, 19 November 2020 (EST)

Proposal for page after ROTB (spoilers)

While I'm not sure if we're in a hurry to list information from Bumblebee and ROTB here, since the timeline was pretty straightforward (and vague) in both movies, I had a thought: Memory Alpha italicises events that only happened in Star Trek's Kelvin Timeline on their articles, allowing them to list information from multiple realities on the same pages. I thought it might be similarly helpful to place italics around the information from TLK, as right now, that movie's the outlier in these (already loosely connected) films, given how BB and ROTB explicitly reject its depiction of Unicron, and Bumblebee's history on Earth. That way, we can still list the dates from TLK, while making it clear most of it's not relevant going forward. Does that seem like a reasonable compromise? Alientraveller (talk) 15:44, 11 June 2023 (EDT)

I think a good compromise would be to divide the timeline into two core sections: pre-Bumblebee and post-Bumblebee, especially given that there isn't overlap timeline-wise at this time and there's a lot of indication from the creatives behind the movies that it's a reboot (keyword: creatives, one producer who's not involved in the writing/directing does not count) but until the studio itself gives final word I think having the timeline started in Bumblebee having its own section would be a good compromise. I think it's silly to just completely omit it and Rise of the Beasts because they don't align with one movie. Jman98 (talk) 11:43, 13 June 2023 (EDT)

I guess that'd be simple, and the specific years both movies are set would mean we avoid repeating the contents ie. 1980s, 1900s etc, although it'd be a shame if we can't show these movies amidst their supposed context between 1986 and 2003. If only we had a tab system like Wookieepedia. Alientraveller (talk) 17:43, 13 June 2023 (EDT)

Why can't Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts be treated as part of a reboot timeline since there's contradictions regarding Unicron's origins i.e. Unicron/Earth in Last Knight and Bumblebee's time on Earth? It would make things a lot easier. --KevinM (talk) 03:39, 11 February 2024 (EST)

The special features on the blu-ray says they put the Maximals in Peru to make it work in the same world as Transformers 1-5. --1levichurch (talk) 08:58, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Also, this site does not exist to Solve Continuity and declare True Canon. The people making these movies keep saying it's blurry, keep doing things to make them """"work"""" together. We absolutely note when things present continuity issues, but if we declared a reboot timeline every time some piece of Transformers media in an ongoing series has some kind of irreconcilable or ridiculous continuity kerfuffle over in-universe details in what is presented as a singular timeline, a good >50% of all ongoing Transformers series would be a string of reboots and pagesplits and blahblahblah and no we're not doing that. --M Sipher (talk) 05:57, 11 February 2024 (EST)

Do you believe they are thinking of ideas to explain why Unicron will eventually be combined with Earth in a future movie, and just waiting until that info comes out to put it on this site? I personally hope they are coming up with ideas to explain that inconsistency since they are so adamant of saying its all one continuity --KevinM (talk) 15:20, 13 February 2024 (EST)

I believe they are pointedly not and will never do that. You should expect to continue to hear contradictory statements from various chefs involved and from final published product. "Continuity" means something different to them than it does to us, as far as they are concerned it probably makes perfect sense already, and we are not going to jump out ahead of them to tell them what they should be doing. Don't expect to ever get resolution on a plot hole from a 2017 movie nobody liked. We archive the official stuff, whether or not it makes sense. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 16:02, 13 February 2024 (EST)

Fair enough. Thank you to everyone who answered my questions --KevinM (talk) 18:53, 13 February 2024 (EST)

M Sipher's response has made me thought about this, and it made realise: we're the Transformers Wiki. We joke about this stuff. Our entries on the G1 Constructicons lean into how hilariously contradictory their origins are in the cartoon. So I think we should make a start on including information from BB and ROTB, while acknowledging (directly or indirectly) none of it makes sense with TLK, especially with TF One coming later this year. What do others think? (I admit my comedy skills are more than a little lacking, so I probably wouldn't attempt it myself.) Alientraveller (talk) 15:31, 15 February 2024 (EST)

Just to point out, in these timeline articles, we utilize the "References" sections and ref links to point out our reasoning for placing certain points on the timeline in specific places, and any continuity screw ups, etc. These timeline articles are also full of extra storytelling "fluff" in order to make contradictory elements fit in a way that's easier for readers to digest, especially if they're coming here just after watching a film to make sense of something that they didn't understand in the film/between films. When I made a couple of major overhauls to this article in the past, I kept coming back to BB's plot points and ultimately decided against adding any of that film's events, because they just didn't fit in in any way that I think people will find digestible. It's not entirely impossible to add those events in, it just seems like more of a chore than it should when it comes to trying to make it easier for the average person to digest.

Anyways, I still personally feel we should wait until a few more films come out before we make any big overhauls again, just in case something new does come along in any future films scheduled for the next couple of years that make it absolutely clear that TLK doesn't exist anymore, since that's the film that is causing the most continuity headaches with BB and ROTB. -- Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 02:22, 26 February 2024 (EST)