|
|
| Line 75: |
Line 75: |
| {{Reflist|2}} | | {{Reflist|2}} |
|
| |
|
| ==Marketing material==
| |
| When the ''War for Cybertron Trilogy'' was first conceived, [[Hasbro]] worked hard to establish a multi-platform storyline for audiences to build upon with both their toys and their imaginations.
| |
|
| |
|
| This continuity is somewhat similar to the cartoon continuity above, however; several elements within both storylines are very different from one another. To put it simply; both pieces of ''War for Cybertron Trilogy'' fiction spawned from the same outline that had been established, and move in their own unique directions.
| |
|
| |
|
| ===''War for Cybertron: Siege''===
| | {{note|This is a note that'll be implemented onto the ''Energon'' cartoon page once I get around to finishing off adjusting the episode summaries at some point in the future.}} |
| {{bigquote|It is the day of reckoning. The Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, make a perilous last stand to hold off the Decepticon conquest of Cybertron. Outnumbered, outgunned, and pushed to the brink of extinction, the battle-weary band of resistance fighters orchestrates a desperate series of counterstrikes on a mission that, if everything somehow goes right, will end with an unthinkable choice: kill their planet in order to save it.|''[[War for Cybertron: Siege]]'' website blurb.}} | |
|
| |
|
| The storyline started out strong with the '''''War for Cybertron: Siege''''' line, which placed all of its fiction during the final days of the war for [[Cybertron (planet)|Cybertron]]. In order to add depth to the characters, each were assigned a unique military [[insignia]], that were made up of smaller chunks, representing the different divisions, units and ranks within the respective faction's miltary. These rankings also severed as a means to show the dark past behind some of the characters that would adapt into the [[Fandom|fan-favourite]] icons that we all know and love.<ref>[https://hasbropulse.com/blogs/unboxed/the-story-behind-the-transformers-wfc-military-insignias-revealed "THE STORY BEHIND THE TRANSFORMERS WFC MILITARY INSIGNIAS: REVEALED"] - on Hasbro Pulse</ref>
| | Several episodes have moments where dialogue in the ''Energon'' version of the cartoon was either poorly translated or made up on the fly without proper translations. To help alleviate some of the confusion and to accurately convey what is ''actually'' happening on-screen contrary to the what the English dub's dialogue says, some of our episode summaries have minor key moments or details from ''Super Link'' inserted into them (with a note at the top of the "Synopsis" section to let you know which ones), to paint a better picture of what's really going on, as some of these missing pieces of dialogue from the English dub are alluded to in future episodes, despite them "never happening". |
| | |
| The main key points of the story relied on both visual storytelling through each toy's [[Package art|box art]] and the "Teletraan-1 Data Files" which were mostly found on the [https://transformers.hasbro.com/en-au/brands/siege ''Siege'' website,] but could also be found on [[Hasbro Pulse]] through occassional blog entries and downloadable desktop wallpapers from both sites. Each Date File listed off the last location a character had been seen or heard from, giving an idea to who were together during the final battle and what role they played in making the ultimate sacrifice—sending the [[AllSpark]] off-world, leaving their planet to ultimately perish.
| |
| | |
| The ''Siege'' story consists of the following media (in no particular order):
| |
| | |
| *The [[Source:Teletraan-1 Data Files|Teletraan-1 Data Files]] on the ''Siege'' website and Hasbro Pulse
| |
| *Character bios on the ''Siege'' website
| |
| *Box art and desktop wallpapers available on the ''Siege'' website and Hasbro Pulse
| |
| *"Autobots vs. Decepticons" stop motion posted to both the website and the Official Transformers YouTube channel
| |
| *[[Cybertronian military insignia/gallery|Military insignia]] found on the back of boxes, in the instructions and on the website
| |
| *Various behind the scenes blog entries on Hasbro Pulse
| |
| *Several Hasbro product descriptions on Amazon, Hasbro Pulse and other online retailers
| |
| | |
| ===''War for Cybertron: Earthrise''===
| |
| {{bigquote|Following the events of SIEGE, the Autobots hurtle deep into the unknown as their pursuit of the Allspark through space turns into a furious race for their own survival. With unforeseen dangers lurking ahead and the Decepticons closing in from behind, the only way out is to find a way through. The crew of the Ark must escape the perils of space as they chase the thin sliver of hope that lies on the edge of the horizon. They will reach their salvation, or they will meet their end.|''[[War for Cybertron: Earthrise]]'' website blurb.}}
| |
| | |
| Contrary to popular belief, the '''''War for Cybertron: Earthrise''''' story mostly revolved around space travel, rather than spending time on [[Earth]]. The storytelling elements found in this line mostly consisted of a map of the universe that was printed on packaging inserts that required the owner to carefully cut out and keep to build the full map. Also included were transparent red decoders that revealed the names of locations on the map pieces and the path that the ''[[Ark (G1)|Ark]]'' and the ''[[Nemesis (G1)|Nemesis]]'' took as they searched for the AllSpark. Carrying on from ''Siege'', Hasbro also released several character bios on the [https://transformers.hasbro.com/en-au/brands/earthrise ''Earthrise'' website.]
| |
| | |
| Eventually, more elements of the story were revealed in the exclusive "Galactic Odyssey Collection" listings on Amazon. Each of the five sets came with a detailed universe map of the five planets the [[Transformer]]s interacted with while searching for fuel and the AllSpark. Story elements that described each of the planet's inhabitants and habitat were also printed on cards included in the sets.
| |
| | |
| To be frank, ''[[War for Cybertron: Earthrise|Earthrise]]'' was released at what can only be described as the worst possible time. As the COVID-19 pandemic hit worldwide in [[2020]], the same amount of effort found in the ''Siege'' storyline, could not be found in ''Earthrise'', likely due to the lack of staff on-hand for health and safety reasons. Also due to the pandemic, worldwide distribution was holted and several countries went into lockdown, resulting in the toyline being cut short, with around half of it only being sold as online exclusives. To top it off, what was being distributed appeared to be supplied in such short number, that most of the line never saw the light of day in some countries and even parts of the [[United States of America|United States]]. Ultimately, the storyline took just as big of a hit as [[To sell toys|the toys it was made to advertise]].
| |
| | |
| The ''Earthrise'' story consists of the following media (in no particular order):
| |
| | |
| *Character bios on the ''Earthrise'' website
| |
| *Box art and desktop wallpapers available on Hasbro Pulse
| |
| *[[Cybertronian military insignia/gallery|Military insignia]] found on the back of boxes, in the instructions and on the ''Earthrise'' website
| |
| *Various behind the scenes blog entries on Hasbro Pulse
| |
| *Several Hasbro product descriptions on Amazon, Hasbro Pulse and other online retailers
| |
| | |
| ===''War for Cybertron: Kingdom''===
| |
| {{bigquote|In the third and final chapter of the War for Cybertron trilogy, the Autobots and Decepticons awaken after crash-landing on pre-Ice Age Earth…They are closer than ever to finding the Allspark. But they are not alone. Transformers beasts, the Maximals and Predacons, have traveled across time to find the Allspark and change the fate of Cybertron. As the power of the beasts is unleashed, Optimus Prime and Megatron fight their greatest battle as the two leaders come face to face with the consequences of their war.|''[[War for Cybertron: Kingdom]]'' website blurb.}}
| |
| | |
| Finish off the trilogy with a bang and celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the original ''[[Beast Wars: Transformers (franchise)|Beast Wars]]'' franchise, the '''''War for Cybertron: Kingdom''''' line took a new spin on both the [[Beast Wars (event)|Beast Wars]] and its famous [[time travel]]ling theme. Waking up from stasis before [[1984]], the [[Autobot]]s and [[Decepticon]]s found themselves caught up in the Beast Wars where the [[Maximal]]s and [[Predacon (BW)|Predacon]]s had been fighting over the AllSpark to right the wrongs the Transformers' battle had brought to their future timeline.
| |
| | |
| ''Kingdom''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s biggest story elements are the collectible "Golden Disk destiny" cards selected at random and included inside the packaging of mainline figures. Each card features four possible destinies for each of the six different character cards. Each of these destiny cards represent readings of alternate futures that had been imprinted onto the [[Golden Disk (Voyager)|Golden Disk]].
| |
| | |
| Another element used was, once again, the [https://transformers.hasbro.com/en-au/brands/kingdom website's] character bios. Releasing in conjunction with the [[Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy (cartoon)|''Kingdom'' cartoon]], the ''Kingdom'' website's bios heavily reflected the characters from the cartoon over the pre-established continuity given with the previous two lines, even going so far as to include characters/toys only released in the ''[[War for Cybertron Trilogy (toyline)|War for Cybertron Trilogy]]'', ''Siege'' and ''Earthrise'' toylines, instead of the ones released in the ''Kingdom'' line itself, such as the [[F.O.S.S.I.L. Technology|Fossilizers]]. Also following on from the theme of possible destinies, the toyline saw the exclusive "Golden Disk Collection" [[subline imprint]], which followed the same suit as the "Galactic Odyssey Collection", placing large chunks of the line's fiction in product descriptions on Amazon.
| |
| | |
| Released around the same time, ''[[The Transformers: The Movie]]'' toys released in the ''[[Studio Series]]'' toyline had also been described by Hasbro as being alternate universe counterparts to the ''War for Cybertron Trilogy'' characters, due to characters like [[Cyclonus (G1)|Cyclonus]] and [[Galvatron (G1)|Galvatron]] being released in one line, while [[Scourge (G1)|Scourge]] and the [[Sweep (G1)|Sweeps]] were in the other. This made for more of an additional [[personal canon]]-type element to the story and playability between the lines.
| |
| | |
| The ''Kingdom'' story consists of the following media (in no particular order):
| |
| | |
| *[[Source:Golden Disk destinies|Golden Disk destiny cards]]
| |
| *Character bios on the ''Kingdom'' website
| |
| *Box art
| |
| *[[Cybertronian military insignia/gallery|Military insignia]] found on the back of boxes and in the instructions of Autobots and Decepticons
| |
| *Several Hasbro product descriptions on Amazon, Hasbro Pulse and other online retailers
| |
| | |
| ===Continuity notes===
| |
| Unlike the original ''[[Beast Wars: Transformers (cartoon)|Beast Wars]]'' cartoon, the time travel elements within the ''War for Cybertron Trilogy'' marketing material fiction don't entirely mesh as well as they could.
| |
| | |
| Though there is a bulk of fiction released in ''Earthrise'' that takes place in space before reaching Earth, there are other elements of the story the depicts their battle on Earth during 1984. This makes placing ''Kingdom'' on a timeline somewhat difficult, as several Autobots and Decepticons are depicted in their Earth vehicle modes over the Cybertronian vehicle modes from ''Siege''. Further, the ''Kingdom'' website blurb has them wake up on pre-historic Earth to participate alongside their descendants in the Beast Wars, which makes one wonder, ''how did they get these modes if Earth vehicles don't exist yet?'' The product descriptions for the ''Earthrise'' Autobot Alliance and all five of the [[Seeker (body-type)|Seeker Elite]] members also suggest they woke up in 1984, which adds to the confusion.
| |
| | |
| There seems to be only two logical explanations:
| |
| | |
| # The first is that the Autobots and Decepticons woke up on pre-historic Earth, fought in the Beast Wars, and then went back into stasis, before waking up again to continue the battle in 1984....''but'' that still leaves the question as to where the Earth vehicle modes came from, which leads into the second theory:
| |
| # It takes place in an alternate timeline. The ''Kingdom'' blurb ''does'' hint at some kind of catastrophy taking place in the distant future where the Maximals and Predacons hail from, which led them to pre-historic Earth in search of the AllSpark to fix whatever happened, so it ''is'' possible that some kind of time vortex-type issue may have played into this.
| |
| | |
| If the second theory is to be the "correct" one, then that would mean the events of ''Kingdom'' never happen in one reality, but happen in another, so one could happily skip the continuity headache ([[Trukk not munky|and the Beast Wars]]) altogether.
| |
| | |
| At the end of the day, the marketing material fiction built around the ''War for Cybertron Trilogy'' is only there to sell the toys it's advertising. A lot of the fiction isn't all that easy to find if you don't know where to look for it either, so the attention to smaller details aren't all that needed for something with very little significance over a cartoon which more people are likely to see.
| |
| | |
| | |
| {{reflist}}
| |
This is where anything I am working on that doesn't require an entire page will go.
References
This is a note that'll be implemented onto the Energon cartoon page once I get around to finishing off adjusting the episode summaries at some point in the future.
Several episodes have moments where dialogue in the Energon version of the cartoon was either poorly translated or made up on the fly without proper translations. To help alleviate some of the confusion and to accurately convey what is actually happening on-screen contrary to the what the English dub's dialogue says, some of our episode summaries have minor key moments or details from Super Link inserted into them (with a note at the top of the "Synopsis" section to let you know which ones), to paint a better picture of what's really going on, as some of these missing pieces of dialogue from the English dub are alluded to in future episodes, despite them "never happening".
