Transformers: Generation 2 (toyline)
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Two years after the original Transformers toy line petered out in the US, Hasbro revamped the series with 1993's Transformers: Generation 2, the first "reboot" of the franchise. With a mix of classic popular characters, vintage toys, all-new gimmick-laden molds, and bodacious 90s color schemes, Hasbro hoped to recapture some of the financial success that had been lost with age and competition.
Generation 2 saw more-or-less simultaneous release in the US and European markets, but Japan would not start the line (or even have any Transformers product at all on shelves, for that matter) until 1995.
Unfortunately, the revamping failed to give the franchise the jumpstart it needed, despite having created several benchmarks that Transformers lines still follow to this day. In a desperate bid to save Transformers from ending for good, Hasbro chose to end the line in its third year, and go in a completely new direction...
Overview
Initially, the line heavily featured re-releases of several "Generation 1" toys (as the pre-Generation 2 series quickly became known to the fandom), with tweaked decos and new accessories, alongside several molds that had been recently released as part of the European-market line. But after that initial year, all-new product quickly outnumbered reworked old product, and the line pushed its design and engineering to levels far beyond the original series.
Generation 2 also sought to follow changing trends in the toy market in a broader sense. It put a much larger focus on keeping "main" characters (particularly Optimus Prime and Megatron) readily available on shelves with a variety of toys at different price points, as most of the successful competing toy lines of the '90s were focused on a core cast of characters, rather than the massive ever-changing casts of the '80s.
Unfortunately, the series debuted to lackluster sales, despite featuring many fan-favorite toys that hadn't been available for years. Some fans blamed color selections, but it seems far more likely that it was simply a case of bad timing combined with too much product "your older brother has in the attic". Even the later new molds didn't help much, nor the little changes made as the line went on, such as removing faction symbols from the toys (supposedly kids didn't quite "get" them at the time, possibly due to the mix of symbols in the early line), or packaging frippery like the "Real Action Pop-Ups 3-D Transformer Trading Card"s that came with larger later toys.
Kids simply weren't into robots that turned into "real" vehicles at the time, it seems, and the "older nostalgic" market (which can rarely sustain a major toy brand at nationwide retail even today) was downright microscopic at the time. Being up against the then-new Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the still-popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (whose overall garish color schemes give lie to the idea that colors are what sank Transformers), and the ever-growing popularity of home video game consoles that sucked kids away from all toys added to the line's woes. The lack of a proper, network-backed "advertainment" cartoon was also a factor, as the repackaged '80s-series episodes branded as "Generation 2" didn't advertise the majority of the actual toyline, and was stuck in syndication hell to boot where Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles got steady network play. Ironic, given a strong advertising cartoon was a major contributor to the success of the original Transformers series over its biggest competitor.
Generation 2 was ended after about two and a half years, with several new products trapped in development limbo. A handful saw release Europe, Australia, and New Zealand (namely the Power Masters), but most of those canceled new molds stayed unreleased for years.
As Hasbro had recently acquired former competitor Kenner, and the Transformers franchise was facing extinction, the decision was made to shift the boys'-toy production to Kenner and take Transformers in a wildly different direction to hopefully revitalize the seemingly-tired concept... Beast Wars.
Hasbro US line
1993
The line started off fairly modest, at least by production standards. A mix of classic products in new decos, sometimes with new accessories, and all-new new molds that had seen developed for release the same year as part of the European "Generation 1" line (which had not actually ended yet), with a large completely new mold in the form of huge tank Megatron. This series started using light-piping for the robot eyes, a minor gimmick that would become a standard in Transformers toys for a good two decades following.
| Mini-Cars | Small Cars | Small Jets | Constructicons |  | ||||
| Color Changers | Cars | Dinobots | Jets | |||||
| Leaders | Watches |
1994
Come the line's second year, designs were getting more ambitious. While redecoes of "Scramble City" style combiners filled out the lower price-point ranks, completely new molds were being worked on with extensive gimmicks.
Two nigh-line-wide changes to how the toys were being produced were made this year, both of which would become standards in Transformers from here on out: enhanced robot mode articulation, and the move away from customer-applied stickers in favor of factory-applied tampographs. Even the re-used "Generation 1" molds for this year lost their sticker sheets.
| Aerialbots | Combaticons | Rotor Force | Laser Rods | |||||
| Heroes | Others
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BotCon 1994 | ||||||
| Stunticons (canceled) | Protectobots (canceled) |
1995
Gone are '80s-toy redecoes, everything this year is a brand-new mold... or a redeco of a brand-new mold introduced this year. In fact, 1995 was the first year that Transformers really got into extensive same-line redecos as a budgetary procedure, as well as using "major" character names on toys of dubious semblance to their namesakes in order to retain Trademark on them. The enhanced articulation of the prior year's Laser Rods got refined further with the Cyberjets' extensive use of ball joints, which would become the standard for Transformers toys up to the present day.
Unfortunately, this was also the final year of Generation 2, and a great many items advertised in toy catalogs ended up unreleased. Some in-package samples have made it out. Despite most of this unreleased product being redecoes of existing molds, their scarcity means that all of them still demand big bucks on the secondary market, especially the few new molds.
| Go-Bots Wave 1 | Go-Bots Wave 2 | Go-Bots Wave 3 | Go-Bots Wave 4 (canceled)
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| Cyberjets Wave 1 | Cyberjets Wave 2 | Laser Cycles Wave 1 | Laser Cycles Wave 2 (canceled) | |||||
| Auto Rollers Wave 1 | Auto Rollers Wave 2 (canceled) | Auto Rollers Wave 3 (canceled) | Leaders
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| BotCon 1995 exclusives | Combat Heroes (canceled) | Other canceled stuff
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Hasbro European line
The whole European Generation 2 situation is a little weird.
Transformers didn't end in most European markets when the US line did, with roughly two years of product released after the franchise (temporarily) closed shop in the US. The normal, un-sublined Transformers series continued in 1993, but shared many new molds with the 1993 US Generation 2 line (albeit in different colors, sometimes as different characters), as well as the new "G2" Autobot and Decepticon faction symbols. Technically, these releases are still "Generation 1".
In 1994, Hasbro UK and Hasbro International followed Hasbro US's lead and changed the branding to the new Generation 2 name, and re-released much of the 1993 product as well as "new" items from the US line. This, mixed with the slow spread of information online at the time, has led many fans to overall consider all of the new-sigil 1993 product to be "Generation 2".
Which is fair enough, but this list will only contain the product released under the actual Generation 2 banner.
1994
The overwhelming bulk of this year's product was made up of repackaged re-releases of 1993 product from both the European and American toylines, the latter being "new" to most European markets, and newly-developed toys released concurrently with the American market.
This year's releases started the trend of the European toys having extremely condensed on-package bios, as some specs only had the figure's name, function and motto. Many quotes were changed from their previous releases as well.
| Sparkabots | Axelerators | Skyscorchers | Rotorbots |  | ||||
| Aquaspeeders | Stormtroopers | Lightformers | Trakkons | |||||
| Illuminators | Heroics | Skyraiders | Dinobots |  | ||||
| Heroes | Obliterators | Leaders |
1995
Come the line's second year, it fell pretty much into line with the US series, with only a single exclusive sub-group.
| Gobots Wave 1 | Gobots Wave 2 | Mini-Jets | Powermasters |  | ||||
| Lasercycles | Auto Rollers | Leader |
Takara G-2 line
Transformers: G-2 was Takara's first foray back into Transformers after ending the line in 1992 with Operation Combination. Available for only the latter half of 1995, G-2 did not include any of the Generation 1 molds (including the later European ones) which were in the American and European lines, only the more poseable toys newly created for the line. Each release came with a pack-in comic.
Virtually none of the toys in G-2 have significant differences from the Hasbro releases outside of packaging. Only the Go-Bots have deco changes. The Cyberjets each came with an extra sticker sheet to customize the toys, but are otherwise identical. While prototypes for "enhanced" Cyberjets with add-on armor have since surfaced, they never made it beyond prototype.
G-2 was not a major financial success for Takara. As a result, the planned spin-off Block Town was canceled, and there was another short Transformers drought in Japan until the introduction of Beast Wars in 1997.
| Cyberjets | Laser Cycles | Laser Rods | Heros |  | ||||
| Aerial Bombing Officer | Supreme Commander |
Exclusives
- Go-Bots
- Three of the Go-Bots were released (with minor changes) late in the year to grocery and convenience stores through Takara's subsidiary Seven. They did not receive ID numbers and were not part of the main G-2 line. They were packaged on cards which were identical to the US versions on the front except for some Japanese language stickers. The backs, however, were re-done for Japanese market.
Massive amounts of concept stuff
In the years since Generation 2 ended, numerous ultimately-unused concepts have come to light, showing what might have been were more molds available, were budgets bigger, et cetera. These range from redecoes of old toys to all-new mold prototypes, and a few real oddities.
- Redecoes
- Orange Sludge, bright green Swoop, and a delightfully tiger-striped version of Grimlock.
- "Sandstorm", a desert-themed redeco of Ramjet.
- "Black death Starscream" art mockups and production color sample.
- Hand-painted samples of a jungle-themed Starscream, blue sky-themed Ramjet, both of whom could be new characters for all we know.
- A green and purple Mirage and a yellow and turquoise Sideswipe.
- Recolored card art of Power Master Ironhide, in yellow and blue, attached to packaging mock-ups bearing the names "Belzone", "Light Speed", and "Pothole".
- Toy prototypes
- A resin prototype of a transforming six-wheeled APC capable of carrying a G.I. Joe figure.
- A kitbashed/hand-painted mock-up of the large Megatron tank mold as a video camcorder.
- Takara had prototypes of the Cyberjet molds with add-on armor pieces on display at a toy convention, but those clearly never happened.
- ???
- The Solarbot, an item mentioned on some late-series card samples but otherwise we know literally nothing about what it was supposed to be.
Post-Generation 2 releases
As time has passed and fandom attitudes have changed, the once-often-poo-pooed Generation 2 line has become a go-to source for a more quirky nostalgia-grab, particularly as a source for redeco color schemes for modern toys, though some do end up as new-character homages.
- Hasbro
| Universe (2003) | Universe (2008) | Revenge of the Fallen | Transformers (2010) |  | ||||
Generations
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Amazon / BigBadToyStore | Combiner Wars (exclusives) | ||||||
| Titans Return | Kre-O
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- Hasbro via Fun Publications
| BotCon 2008 | BotCon 2010
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Transformers Collectors' Club
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BotCon 2011 |  | ||||
| BotCon 2013 | BotCon 2014 | BotCon 2015 | BotCon 2016 |
- TakaraTomy
Beast Wars II
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e-HOBBY | Hybrid Style | Transformers (2010) |  | |||
| Transformers United | Chronicle | United EX
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Masterpiece |
Notes
- A Generation 2 exists within the fictional Unicron Trilogy universe, as a toyline! According to the online Cyber Key Code bio for the Cybertron Decepticon, Shortround, he is an avid toy collector whose prize pieces are Generation 2 Defensor and Menasor. However, it is not specified whether or not these items are actually Transformers toys like their real world counterparts.
- The new-mold Generation 2 toys share some engineering with Takara's other transforming robot toy series from around the same time, the Brave Series. That line also featured in some instances light-piped heads, ball joints, Gatling-style missile launchers, and spinning rotor projectiles.
