Transformers: Universe (2003 toyline)
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The original Transformers: Universe toyline, launched in 2003, was a line (almost) entirely made up of redecos (and occasionally retools) of toys from older lines, in order to quickly (as quickly as a massive multinational corporation can, at any rate) capitalize on the success of Armada and the demand for more Transformers product that line created.
And in many ways, it did its job a bit too well. After a considerable flood of products and a huge number of store exclusives, the line was effectively dead after a little over one year. However, it continued in other forms, such as an outlet for rebranded toys to smaller retailers, for nearly three more years, coupled with the occasional delayed release from its original run.
Importantly, Universe really cemented the re-use of years-old molds at retail for Hasbro, and while they would never quite do it as extensively as they had this time, the practice would live on... especially in the second Universe line, launched in 2008, which was mainly all-new toys, but made pretty extensive use of older molds at its larger price points and for its many store exclusives.
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History and overview
[edit]Initial conception and original run
[edit]
The Universe line was intended to run concurrently with and supplement the main kid-aimed Energon line, with $10 "Deluxe" and $20 "Ultra" price points. Due to this more limited range of price points, toys that didn't really stack up to one of these were supplemented with other toys, such as a "Basic" toy and added Mini-Con sold as a Deluxe, or a "Mega" toy with a "Basic" sold as an Ultra class set. In addition, an unusually huge-for-the-time number of store exclusive toys and multi-packs was released as well. Some of those multi-packs were even available at lower prices than the original releases of those molds combined. The OTFCC 2003 and 2004 exclusives were also branded "Universe".
The molds used for the Universe line spanned from as far back as late-era Generation 1 to the most recent lines, with molds from Beast Machines and Armada being particularly common—though initially, the idea was to lean more on Beast Era toys to distinguish the line from Armada.<ref>{{#if: In this case for this Universe segment, we definitely were wanting to stay away from things that were Armada-like. We didn't want to be redundant completely. Again, we had just brought cars back for RID [Robots in Disguise] and now we're doing cars in Armada. It's also an opportunity, if you're going to get more shelf space, to provide a different type of product. So that's why there's a lot of Beast Wars characters in there, Beast Machines, to provide a different look in that little stripe of that now-three-foot area. You want it to call itself out. Maybe you'll get a whole new segment collector, or someone will just like that stuff more, for various reasons. They like beasts, or they like the sophisticated coloring or the story, what- you know, whatever. |"In this case for this Universe segment, we definitely were wanting to stay away from things that were Armada-like. We didn't want to be redundant completely. Again, we had just brought cars back for RID [Robots in Disguise] and now we're doing cars in Armada. It's also an opportunity, if you're going to get more shelf space, to provide a different type of product. So that's why there's a lot of Beast Wars characters in there, Beast Machines, to provide a different look in that little stripe of that now-three-foot area. You want it to call itself out. Maybe you'll get a whole new segment collector, or someone will just like that stuff more, for various reasons. They like beasts, or they like the sophisticated coloring or the story, what- you know, whatever."—|}}{{#if: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=408s |Aaron Archer|Aaron Archer}}{{#if: The Toy Armada |, The Toy Armada|}}{{#if: 22 - The CREATION of Transformers Universe |, "22 - The CREATION of Transformers Universe"|}}{{#if: 2025 |, 2025{{#if: 07 |/{{#switch:{{#len:07}}|1=007|07}}{{#if: 09|/{{#switch:{{#len:09}}|1=009|09}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=408s ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=408s%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=408s%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=408s%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=408s%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref> Some molds that had previously only been available in Japan (such as Big Convoy or the Micromaster Sixcombiner teams) were also made available to Hasbro's target audience for the first time that way. Notably, many of these toys now had... unconventional decos. These were the work of Hasbro designer Brian Parrish, who lead designer Aaron Archer poached from the Star Wars team, and as a result they ended up using much more sophisticated paint applications than were typically seen on Transformers.<ref>{{#if: So Brian Parrish is a good friend of mine. Certainly gets his praises sung in the Star Wars world, and now Rescue Bots world, but yeah he was involved with Universe all the way back here. And so he came from Star Wars and that's why a lot of these have these sophisticated colors—because if you think of the color palette and tonality of Star Wars coloring, on spaceships and stuff, and then look at the Universe segment, you'll you'll start to go, "Oh, okay! That's why these look a little different than the crazy colors Aaron would use." He came from that, you know, blast effects and scorch marks and all that kind of stuff that you see on those vehicles. And he really challenged Takara to change their painting game! Because the things we could get done in our HFE [Hasbro Far East] factory partners, Takara wasn't as interested in trying? Because it's... more inconsistency, you know, when you have a free floating plate? You know, you might have one that goes three centimeters, and you might have one that goes two and a half centimeters. To the Americans, we're like, "Oh, that's a cool burn." To the Japanese, it's like, "That's wildly inconsistent." So they they did not like what we were doing there, but again, it wasn't their problem because they weren't going to put these out in their market. So they just kind of dealt with it. |"So Brian Parrish is a good friend of mine. Certainly gets his praises sung in the Star Wars world, and now Rescue Bots world, but yeah he was involved with Universe all the way back here. And so he came from Star Wars and that's why a lot of these have these sophisticated colors—because if you think of the color palette and tonality of Star Wars coloring, on spaceships and stuff, and then look at the Universe segment, you'll you'll start to go, "Oh, okay! That's why these look a little different than the crazy colors Aaron would use." He came from that, you know, blast effects and scorch marks and all that kind of stuff that you see on those vehicles. And he really challenged Takara to change their painting game! Because the things we could get done in our HFE [Hasbro Far East] factory partners, Takara wasn't as interested in trying? Because it's... more inconsistency, you know, when you have a free floating plate? You know, you might have one that goes three centimeters, and you might have one that goes two and a half centimeters. To the Americans, we're like, "Oh, that's a cool burn." To the Japanese, it's like, "That's wildly inconsistent." So they they did not like what we were doing there, but again, it wasn't their problem because they weren't going to put these out in their market. So they just kind of dealt with it."—|}}{{#if: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=1709s |Aaron Archer|Aaron Archer}}{{#if: The Toy Armada |, The Toy Armada|}}{{#if: 22 - The CREATION of Transformers Universe |, "22 - The CREATION of Transformers Universe"|}}{{#if: 2025 |, 2025{{#if: 07 |/{{#switch:{{#len:07}}|1=007|07}}{{#if: 09|/{{#switch:{{#len:09}}|1=009|09}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=1709s ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=1709s%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=1709s%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=1709s%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=1709s%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref> Early Universe toys had silver "energon surge" paint simulating power flashes, but this was dropped fairly shortly, even if the fantastically gaudy base color choices carried on.
The first wave of toys came with a pack-in CD-ROM featuring related stories and games.
The line was officially only available on the American market, although some toys (the aforementioned Micromasters, in particular) were released in some European countries in Energon and Cybertron packaging, coupled with a few American imports (such as the "Battle in a Box" sets) that were sold by online retailers and specialty stores.
Discontinuation and continuation
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Universe effectively died as a mass retail line when Walmart decided to discontinue the Ultra Class assortment in late 2004 due to low sales. Earlier that year, Walmart had already stocked half a dozen exclusive Universe toys, which had also ended up as shelfwarmers. The Deluxe assortment was cancelled by Hasbro shortly afterwards.
Two more KB Toys exclusive Deluxe toys (in Cybertron-esque packaging) followed in 2005, as well as two more KB Toys exclusive Micromaster waves in 2005 and 2006, respectively. Furthermore, three Ultra two-packs that had already been produced before the Ultra assortment was cancelled eventually ended up as Target exclusives, also in 2006.
Aside from those delayed releases of already planned toys (except for the KB Deluxes), the Universe line continued for nearly four more years (!) following the cancellation of the mass retail assortments, but now only in the form of rebranded toys from more recent lines such as Energon, Cybertron, and Classics, with no redecoes whatsoever. Those toys were mostly available from liquidator stores such as Dollar General, Family Dollar, or Tuesday Morning. Even a new mold, which was available as a Chevrolet online store exclusive in 2008, used the old Universe logo in its instruction sheet.
Toys
[edit]The redeco line (2003 - 2006)
[edit]Retail releases
[edit]- Tiny Tins
An odd exception to the "redeco" rule of the early Universe line, these three Mini-Cons, released individually with additional Tiny Tins, were unchanged from their original releases as part of the Armada Race Mini-Con Team
| Wave 1 (03-2004) |
- Deluxes
| Wave 1 (06-2003) | Wave 2 (08-2003) | Wave 3 (10-2003) | Wave 4 (01-2004) |  | ||||
| Wave 5 (03-2004) | Wave 6 (08-2004) | Wave 7 (10-2004)
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Wave 8 (02-2005) | |||||
| Wave 9 (04-2005) |
- Ultras
An oddity of the Ultra assortment (one that would also manifest in the eventually-concurrently-running Energon toyline) is the ".5" assortments. Basically, the contents of a wave would be revised mid-run, with new product added to the mix, but none of the "tracking" information changed. As far as the stores were concerned, it was all the same stuff.
| Wave 1 (07-2003) | Wave 1.5 (10-2003) | Wave 2 (11-2003) | Wave 2.5 (03-2004) |  | ||||
Wave 3 (08-2004)
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Wave 3.5 (10-2004) |
Exclusives
[edit]Well after the normal retail line ended, Universe continued on as a series of store exclusives.
| Kmart (07-2004) | "Market six" (10-2004)
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Sam's Club | Target |  | ||||
Toys"R"Us
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Walmart
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| MicroMaster Series I (05-2004) | MicroMaster Series II (10-2004)
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MicroMaster Series III (09-2005) | MicroMaster Series IV (09-2006)
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| Deluxes (09-2005) |
| OTFCC 2003 (07-2003) | OTFCC 2004 (07-2004)
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Rebranding and other odds and ends (2005 - 2008)
[edit]At this point, Universe-branded product was almost entirely repackagings of toys released in other lines without changes (aside from the packaging, obviously), put out through "discount" chains in extremely staggered release. And the one truly new toy in the series was one you were highly unlikely to see through normal shopping...
Interestingly, the new packaging omitted any references to combiner toys' combining abilities.
| Spy Changers Wave 1 (02-2005)
Redecoes of Spychangers in new Generation 1-themed colour schemes.
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Spy Changers Wave 2 (08-2006)
Rebranded versions of previous KB Toys exclusive translucent decos.
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Basics Wave 1 (08-2005)
Rebranded Energon Energon Class figures.
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Basics Wave 2 (10-2006)
Rebranded Energon Energon Class figures.
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| Basics Wave 3 (10-2007)
Rebranded Cybertron Scout Class figures.
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Deluxes Wave 1 (10-2005)
Rebranded Energon Combat Class figures.
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Multi-packs
Rebranded Classics two-pack.
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Exclusives
[edit]| Walmart (11-2007)
Rebranded Cybertron Deluxe Class figures.
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Chevrolet Store (10-2008) |  |
Unreleased toys
[edit]A great many more toys were planned for Universe that ultimately never made it out the door. In early 2004, a large number of stolen samples of toys intended for the line appeared on eBay; all of them were later officially revealed by Hasbro one way or another. Many of these toys' decos would be the inspiration for other characters altogether, often through Fun Publications as club and convention exclusives.
- Toxitron — Seemingly set for regular retail release, this was a "toxic"-themed redeco of Generation 2 Super-sized Laser Optimus Prime. It was incredibly popular immediately. Fun Publications investigated the possibility of releasing this toy as a Club exclusive, but was told the tooling was too expensive.
- Jetstorm (?) — An unreleased deco revealed in Hasbro's BotCon 2007 display. No name was assigned for this Ultra Class toy, so we're listing it as Jetstorm.
- A Chinese distributor list leaked to the internet in 2004 contained the names of four more toys listed under the mass-retail Deluxe assortment, namely "Sonar", "Optimus Primal", "Optimus Minor", and "Thrustor". It's unclear whether there were ever any concrete plans behind those names, or whether they were merely placeholders.
- Smokescreen with Jolt VS. Drench with Wind Sheer — Confirmed by Hasbro as an intended third "Battle in a Box" two-pack that would have been available from Target, this set was to include the Armada Deluxe-sized Hot Shot and Wheeljack molds (and their Mini-Cons, of course) redecoed like Generation 1 Smokescreen and Generation 2 Drench (but as a Decepticon like "Euro" Drench), respectively.
- While Smokescreen still hasn't seen a release, a "Drench"-based redeco of the Wheeljack mold was later released—with slight modifications—by the Transformers Collectors' Club as the BotCon 2008 exclusive Shattered Glass Sideswipe toy.
- Spacewarp with Comettor and Space Mini-Con Team — Originally intended for Toys"R"Us, this was a redeco of the Armada Ultra-sized Jetfire, including redecos of his Mini-Con companion Comettor and a new-deco version of the Space Mini-Con Team (Astroscope, Sky Blast, and Payload). As with other Mini-Cons in the Universe line, Comettor and the Space Team would presumably have retained their original toy names and not have been new characters.
- The Transformers Collectors' Club later released the toy in a slightly modified version of this deco, sporting a new head sculpt, as Astrotrain. While the Comettor redeco (now named Starcatcher) was included, the Space Team redecos were replaced by redecos of the Cybertron Giant Planet Mini-Con Team as the Sabotage Team, as the Space Team molds had degraded beyond use by that time.
- Leatherhide VS. Blackarachnia / Nightprowler VS. Waspinator — Intended to be Walmart-exclusive "Halloween Horrorcon" two-packs, these toys were mysteries until two years after their appearance on ebay, when an odd checklist update on Hasbro's public Transformers website (which was "fixed" days later) revealed their names and planned outlet. Leatherhide is a redeco of the Beast Wars Mutant Soundwave, pitted against a redeco of the original Blackarachnia toy. Nightprowler is a redeco of the original Beast Wars Cheetor, packed with a redeco of Transmetal Waspinator.
- For BotCon 2015, the Waspinator deco was used on the Thrilling 30 Deluxe Class Waspinator mold as the Waruder "Parasite" drone, which was later repurposed as the Predacon Skywasp. In 2022, Skywasp got a new toy, a Target-exclusive redeco of Kingdom Deluxe Class Waspinator in a Buzzworthy Bumblebee "Beasts Collide" four-pack.
- Piranhaking — Redecos of the Generation 1 Seacons, now named the "Piranhacons", in a Walmart-exclusive Ultra-sized giftset. Even though the aforementioned checklist on Hasbro's public website confirmed them as having been intended for the Universe line, Hasbro themselves stated at OTFCC 2004 that Walmart had asked them to release them under the Energon banner instead. Either way, Walmart later decided to back out of the deal. Instead, the Seacons (now under their original Generation 1 names again) were released via the Transformers Collectors' Club in 2008.
- Menasor — The Machine Wars Ultra-sized Optimus Prime tooling of Generation 1 Thunder Clash was planned for a store exclusive redeco as "Menasor", as "Motormaster" was unavailable as a trademark at the time. This redeco got as far as a prototype and received packaging art before being canceled.<ref>[1]</ref>
- The Allspark fansite also received details about planned
BotConOTFCC 2005 exclusives following the bankruptcy of 3H Productions. As with OTFCC 2003 and 2004, these figures would presumably have been labeled as part of the Universe line. With the exception of Hot Spot/Defensor, who was shown as a prototype, none of the other ideas made it beyond the design stage.
- Brawn and Roadbuster — Energon Basic-sized Strongarm was planned as a redeco and new-head retool pair
- Devcon — Energon Deluxe-sized Slugslinger was intended for a new-head retool as the first toy of the Generation 1 cartoon character, who had previously lost a vote to become a BotCon 2002 toy.
- Megatron — Robots in Disguise Ultra Class Megatron was planned for a new toy of Beast Wars Megatron's Transmetal 2 dragon form, possibly characterized as a "Transmetal 3" upgrade in a post-Beast Machines setting. This Megatron concept was actually revived a decade later and released at BotCon 2016.
- Hot Spot / Defensor — Robots in Disguise Super Class Optimus Prime was intended to be used for a new form of Generation 1 Hot Spot and Defensor, but as one figure with a super mode instead of five figures together as the Combiner. This figure would have retained the small mode Optimus head for Hot Spot mode but received a newly-tooled head as super mode Defensor. To offset the costs of producing such a large toy, there was also a "Midnight Shield Defensor" black redeco planned.
Post-Universe releases
[edit]As, ultimately, a short-lived footnote in the overall Transformers franchise, Universe has not had a huge impact on later nostalgia-driven series. Most of the callbacks to it are more in the form of homage, and mostly to unreleased toys, as noted many times above, but a handful of characters have actually made their way into other lines with new, updated toys.
Alternity
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Timelines / BotCon 2011 | Timelines / BotCon 2015
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Timelines |  | |
| Combiner Wars / BotCon 2016 | Combiner Wars / TFSS 4.0 | Combiner Wars / TFSS 5.0 | Earthrise
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| Legacy | Buzzworthy Bumblebee / Legacy
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Legacy: Evolution | Age of the Primes |
Notes
[edit]- The Grimlock & Swoop/Mega-Dinobot combiner was originally intended for the Universe line, which would have made it the first newly created mold(s) to be initially released as part of the line. However, Hasbro ultimately decided to release it as a two-pack in the Energon line instead. As a consequence, Chevrolet Swerve was the first (and only) new mold to be released under the original Universe banner... in 2008, shortly before the second Universe line was launched. The toy would have used branding from the first live-action movie, but as a one-of-a-kind promotional item commissioned by Chevrolet, Hasbro didn't want to pay the licensing fee—so here it ended up!<ref>{{#if: So this ties in a little bit to movie stuff... but it is kind of separate, and that's why it wasn't in the movie packaging. That would have incurred a bunch more royalties that we didn't need to pay for a promotional item. So, that's why I think it ended up in Universe. So, what that was, was... Chevy was working with Michael Bay—and thus Hasbro—on the movie stuff, at least in early discussions, and somebody in the marketing department thought it would be a great idea to promote their new car that's coming out in Europe with a Transformer toy! And to your point, it went through many iterations as far as how it got released in various markets. But what I can tell you is that item was a exclusive, paid-by-Chevy toy to get made for their needs. And that is why to this day you haven't seen it redecored. Hasbro/Takara doesn't own the tooling for that item. For them to get the volume they wanted, and have the control that they wanted, they wanted to buy the tooling. So that they essentially made a boutique toy for themselves. It started you had to really like... I think buy an Aveo, test-drive and buy an Aveo, then it just kept backing off from there. [...] Yeah. I think they committed to a certain production run, and then it was up to them to distribute it, and all of that. So, you know I think in hindsight we all know that car didn't become a... daily driver epic brand kind of car. [...] So, I can only imagine that the promotion didn't work the way they had initially thought it was going to work. So, I'm sure they had plenty of them. [...] So, for us, that was always the way it was, it was always going to be shipped to them in a bag with instructions, there was never a backer card or nothing. Any of that. That was it was a very unique promotional item. I mean, that's how Hasbro looked at it. It was a promotional tie-in. |"So this ties in a little bit to movie stuff... but it is kind of separate, and that's why it wasn't in the movie packaging. That would have incurred a bunch more royalties that we didn't need to pay for a promotional item. So, that's why I think it ended up in Universe. So, what that was, was... Chevy was working with Michael Bay—and thus Hasbro—on the movie stuff, at least in early discussions, and somebody in the marketing department thought it would be a great idea to promote their new car that's coming out in Europe with a Transformer toy! And to your point, it went through many iterations as far as how it got released in various markets. But what I can tell you is that item was a exclusive, paid-by-Chevy toy to get made for their needs. And that is why to this day you haven't seen it redecored. Hasbro/Takara doesn't own the tooling for that item. For them to get the volume they wanted, and have the control that they wanted, they wanted to buy the tooling. So that they essentially made a boutique toy for themselves. It started you had to really like... I think buy an Aveo, test-drive and buy an Aveo, then it just kept backing off from there. [...] Yeah. I think they committed to a certain production run, and then it was up to them to distribute it, and all of that. So, you know I think in hindsight we all know that car didn't become a... daily driver epic brand kind of car. [...] So, I can only imagine that the promotion didn't work the way they had initially thought it was going to work. So, I'm sure they had plenty of them. [...] So, for us, that was always the way it was, it was always going to be shipped to them in a bag with instructions, there was never a backer card or nothing. Any of that. That was it was a very unique promotional item. I mean, that's how Hasbro looked at it. It was a promotional tie-in."—|}}{{#if: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=2145s |Aaron Archer|Aaron Archer}}{{#if: The Toy Armada |, The Toy Armada|}}{{#if: 22 - The CREATION of Transformers Universe |, "22 - The CREATION of Transformers Universe"|}}{{#if: 2025 |, 2025{{#if: 07 |/{{#switch:{{#len:07}}|1=007|07}}{{#if: 09|/{{#switch:{{#len:09}}|1=009|09}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=2145s ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=2145s%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=2145s%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=2145s%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-MKJDLkNc&t=2145s%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref>
- On their official Transformers website, Hasbro listed several combo-packs of Armada Mini-Con teams (Adventure Team/Sea Team, Road Wrecker Team/Night Attack Team, Race Team/Space Team) under "Universe". The actual toys, however, which were available from Toys"R"Us and Wal-Mart stores and were unchanged from their Armada releases other than the packaging, came on Energon rather than Universe cards.
See also
[edit]- Transformers: Expanded Universe—a short-lived BotCon 2002 exclusive toyline whose characters appear in the Universe comic.