Jazz (Movie)
| The name or term "Jazz" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Jazz (disambiguation). |
- Jazz is an Autobot from the Movie continuity family.
First Lieutenant Jazz is one happy-go-lucky Autobot. Good-natured and always able to take things in stride, he provides a decent contrast to the more serious demeanor of Ironhide or Prime himself. He's also a talker, something Ironhide and Prime like to tease him about. He might be the smallest Autobot but he's by no means a coward. His only real complaint is that he always gets stuck fighting the small ones.
Fiction
Ghosts Of Yesterday
Onboard the Ark, Jazz was the first to detect the Ghost 1's presence, and was later badly damaged in a fight with the Decepticons. After being repaired, he and Ratchet fought together against Barricade.
Transformers The Game (console)
- Voice actor: Andrew Kishino
Autobot campaign
Jazz arrived on Earth as part of Optimus Prime's unit, summoned to Earth by Bumblebee. After taking on the form of a Pontiac Solstice, he met up with the other Autobots. His first mission was to distract Sector Seven and law enforcement units, which he did, buying his fellow autobots time to escape.
He would then make his way to Mission City, where he engaged Starscream, Blackout and two Dreadwing drones. Jazz defeated all four of them, but as he celebrated his great victory, Brawl appeared behind him and punctured Jazz's chest with his claw, extinguishing his spark. Ironhide arrived just in time to witness the killing, and fought through a horde of Decepticon units to destroy Brawl.
- (NOTE: Press left, up, down(2), left, up, right, at the New game menu. The screen will flash to confirm the code was entered correctly. Go to the bonus features, then the Generation 1 option to use a G1-homage deco on Jazz. This does not change his appearance in the Decepticon campaign, however.)
Decepticon campaign
Jazz arrived in Mission City with Sam and Mikaela (taking the role of the destroyed Bumblebee), where he was confronted by Barricade. After a brief chase through the city, Jazz engaged Barricade in battle, where he was defeated with ease.
Transformers (2007) film
- Voice actor: Darius McCrary (English), Taitem Kusunoki (Japan)
Jazz was part of Optimus Prime's unit, summoned to Earth by Bumblebee after the latter Autobot came to be in the possession of Sam Witwicky. After his protoform crashed through a baseball stadium, he investigated a nearby car dealership and chose a Pontiac Solstice hardtop as his vehicle mode. Linking up with his fellow Autobots in a deserted alley Jazz greeted Sam and Mikaela Banes as "little bitches," stating that Earth seems to be a cool place to hang out. He casually sat on the hood of another car while Optimus Prime explained to Sam their mission to find the All Spark and how his grandfather's glasses were the key to its location.
Soon after, as Sam looked for his grandfather's glasses, the Autobots attempted to assist by clumsily destroying the yard where they went. When it came to hide from Sam's parents, Jazz had the easiest time blending into the shadows due to his small stature.
When Sam and Mikaela were captured by Sector Seven, the Autobots mounted a rescue that saw Optimus Prime tearing the roof off Agent Simmons' vehicle. When the agents attempted to resist, Jazz used a magnet to relieve the humans of their weapons. After Bumblebee was captured by Sector Seven during the retreat, Jazz expressed his desire to rescue him, but was overruled by Optimus Prime, who didn't believe it possible to accomplish this without harming the humans, and so they should let them go.
The next day, after Optimus used his navigation scanner on Archibald Witwicky's glasses, Jazz again commented that they could not leave Bumblebee to die at the hands of Sector Seven, to become a human experiment. Optimus replied that Bumblebee would die in vain if they did not find the All Spark, and when Ironhide asked if the primitive and cruel humans deserved to be saved, Optimus countered by asking if Transformers were so different in the past. Going on to explain what he saw in the humans, Prime declared that if it came to it, he would sacrifice himself to destroy the All Spark - the humans should not pay for Cybertron's mistakes. Inspired by his words, Jazz and the other Autobots rolled out, filled with determination.
On the way to Hoover Dam, the Autobots encountered Bumblebee leading a column of Sector Seven assault vehicles. Jazz and his fellow Autobots applied brakes and did a hard u-turn to join the formation.
Entering Mission City, the human soldiers tried to call for air support from their own forces, only to be attacked by Starscream disguised as a human F-22 fighter. Jazz, oddly, sat in vehicle mode after the explosion which crippled Bumblebee, destroying his legs. When Devastator began shelling the battle site, Jazz lead the Autobot charge toward the Decepticon, speeding to the tank in vehicle mode, then transformed and hopped on top of the turret to distract the Decepticon from the humans. As Brawl also transformed, Jazz managed to wreck Brawl's left-side rocket launcher pod before being tossed off.
Jazz then attacked Megatron when he appeared on the scene in order to cover the escape of several fleeing humans, but all he got for his trouble was being blasted by the Decepticon's fusion cannon. As Ironhide and Ratchet escorted Sam and the All Spark to safety, Jazz attempted to buy them some time by taking on Megatron by himself but was completely overmatched. The Decepticon leader tossed him through the air, then landed upon him into the crushing grip of his talons. Valiantly, Jazz fought on to the bitter end as Megatron tore him in two, throwing his pieces to the ground before tackling Optimus.
In the aftermath of Megatron's defeat, Ironhide somberly handed Optimus Prime Jazz's remains as Ratchet reported that he could not save their comrade. Optimus Prime somewhat half-heartedly eulogized him, and quickly moved on. Transformers (2007)
- (NOTE: Despite his quite unambiguous death in the film itself, the packaging for the Target-exclusive Jazz redeco seen below claims he survived this encounter and was repaired by Ratchet, choosing his new colors due to the fact that the silver "scratched too easily.")
Toys
Transformers (2007)
- Autobot Jazz (Deluxe Class, 2007)
- Japanese ID number: MA-04
- Jazz transforms into a silver Pontiac Solstice Custom Hardtop. Included is a blaster weapon that elongates into a sniper rifle, which may also be clipped directly onto his rear spoiler when in vehicle mode. In robot mode, the section featuring this same rear spoiler may be kept folded onto his back or worn on either shoulder as a shield. An interesting undocumented feature is a hinge joint located on the bottom of the rifle can attach to the shield's hinge joint, creating three choice weapon configurations: (a) a mounted long range sniper rifle, (b) an ambidextrous shoulder-mounted canon, or (c) a short range blaster with built-in shield somewhat akin to what has been seen in Jazz's concept art and in the movie itself.
- As with most of the mainline toys, he features a Automorphing gimmick that is activated by pushing the car roof down onto his back and locking it into place. This raises his head and slides his chest panels into proper position for the robot mode. This feature, like the weaponry mentioned above, is not documented at all, so one must be careful to not press the chest and the back at the same time.
- Autobot Jazz (Legends Class, 2007)
- A much smaller version of the character, Legends Jazz features limited articulation and detail, along with a much simpler transformation. A rather glaring side-effect of this simplicity, in a desire to mimic the hood chest of the larger toy, is the addition of a second front bumper on the roof of his alt-mode. Whether this means Jazz also includes a second engine to go with this front bumper or an attempt at compensation for a case of police car envy is unknown. Ironically, the smallest version of Jazz is the biggest Legends toy in the movie line. Even bigger than Optimus. This may make up for the Arcee toy being taller than his Deluxe figure.
- Ion Blast Autobot Jazz (Fast Action Battler, 2007)
- Smaller than his Deluxe toy and less articulated, this one has a missile in place of one hand. Who knew Jazz was a lefty?
- Final Battle Jazz (Deluxe Class, 2007)
- Japanese ID number: MA-14
- An extensive retool of Jazz, modifying his head and most of his legs to give them a broken, battle-scarred appearance. Amusingly, because Hasbro chose to keep his vehicle mode pristine, the rest of his body is undamaged. All the damaged parts have a black and blue deco, representing glowing circuitry and exposed conduits.
- Jazz comes with a brand new spring-loaded weapon (called a Crescent Cannon on the packaging), partially modeled after the actual weapon Jazz appears with in the film. It can fire a transparent blue projectile and, not unlike his original featured weapon, can be mounted in different configurations: (a) Mounted on his right arm with the Crescent Cannon missle launcher (with the crescent up) facing forward a la the film, or (b) mounted on his left arm with the flip-out rifle barrel pointed forwards (with the crescent down).
- Unusual for a regular Deluxe class figure, this version of Jazz is packaged on his card in robot mode, no doubt to highlight the changes to the figure that would not be visible in the vehicle mode.
- This figure also has a minor change to the joint in the forearm. In the first version, the black hinge-joint was able to slide over slightly as part of the original design, while it is now shorter and much more secure.
- In spite of the claim that this is a "final battle" version of Jazz, his torso does not separate easily from his legs.
- Autobot Jazz (Deluxe-sized Target exclusive, 2007)
- An extensive redeco of Deluxe class Jazz, this Target-exclusive is heavily based on Generation 1 Jazz's Martini Racing scheme. He's lacking in Martini sponsorship for all the obvious reasons, replacing them with his own name. Disco Jazz doesn't need to advertise really, but he does.
- This version features the same forearm joint change first seen on Final Battle Jazz.
- Allspark Legends (Legends multi-pack, 2007)
- A Toys "R" Us exclusive, this six-pack of Legends class figures contains unmodified toys of Optimus Prime, Jazz, Bumblebee, Megatron, Starscream and Barricade.
- Autobot Jazz (Robot Replica, 2007)
- Autobot Jazz Vs Bonecrusher (Legends multi-pack, 2007)
- As part of the AllSpark Battles refresh of the Movie toyline, the previously-released Legends class Jazz is repacked in a Versus two pack with an all-new Legends class figure of Bonecrusher.
Titanium Series
- Autobot Jazz (Robot Master, 2007)
Merchandise
Robot Heroes
- Protoform Jazz vs. Decepticon Brawl (2007)
Trivia
- The packaging text for the Deluxe Jazz figure refers to his weapon as a "telescoping sword". As ridiculous as this sounds considering this weapon looks like a firearm and can attach to his spoiler in vehicle mode as such, this very idea actually comes from concept drawings (see image on left) of a sword weapon featured on the same concept art that also had Jazz showcasing the short range blaster/shield thingy both featured in the film and included with his Final Battle retool. So, really... not that ridiculous anymore.
- In an earlier draft of the movie script, Megatron was supposed to "consume" the Sparks of Autobots he killed. A remainder of this can be found in the novelization and the IDW comic adaption of the movie, which both excplicitly state that Megatron tears out Jazz's Spark. In the movie itself, however, Megatron simply appears to kill Jazz by ripping him apart at the waist, even though Frenzy was previously able to survive as a detached head.
