Misconceptions and urban legends about Transformers

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Over the years, many misconceptions and urban legends have sprung up within Transformers fandom, often resulting from such factors as fuzzy childhood memories, inaccurate catalog illustrations, and mistranslations of foreign material.

Toys

Generation 1

  • A now-rare (and thus valuable) blue variant of Bluestreak was available during Generation 1.
The very earliest Generation 1 toy catalogs used a photo of a blue-sided Diaclone Fairlady Z to represent Bluestreak, giving rise to a long-standing myth that a blue Bluestreak toy was sold under the Transformers brand during G1, with some people going so far as to "remember" owning blue Bluestreaks as children, or at least knowing someone else who did. Adding to the confusion, ToyFare magazine has a long history of listing the supposed blue Bluestreak as a "foreign variant" in its monthly price guide.
However, actual samples of a blue-sided Bluestreak in a sealed Transformers box have never appeared, and the collectors who have been at it since the very beginning and amassed insane numbers of rare Transformers have never seen one.
  • A show-accurate Skyfire toy was available during Generation 1.
Due to some legal entanglements, Jetfire was renamed Skyfire for the G1 cartoon, with a character model that bore only a vague resemblance to the toy. Some confused viewers seem to have come away assuming that there had to be a show accurate G1 toy by the name of Skyfire. (The Classics Jetfire toy is actually patterned after the Skyfire character model.)
  • A green variant of Trailbreaker was available in some European countries.
This belief seems to stem from the fact that IGA's Mexican version of Hoist (which, like most Mexican Transformers, was widely available on the European gray market circa 1989) used the same head sculpt as Trailbreaker. But like the Bluestreak, no samples have been found.
  • Some Generation 1 toy molds were in use as long ago as 1974.
Some Microchange-derived toys have the text "©1974 TAKARA" stamped on them, and as a result are occasionally sold on eBay with descriptions such as "original 1974 Ravage". However, the date 1974 refers to the introduction of the original Microman franchise; the first Microchange toys weren't even designed until the early 1980s.

Robots in Disguise

  • The Robots in Disguise toysline was known as "Transfomers 2000" in Japan.
As information about the then-new Car Robots toyline began to trickle out of Japan in 2000, for unclear reasons many Western fans were under the impression that it was officially named "Transformers 2000".

Other

  • Takara's Japanese-market releases are always of intrinsically better quality than their U.S. counterparts. (E.g., they have sweeter exclusives, and are always more show-accurate, have more accessories, and tighter quality control.)
This one depends a bit of the speaker, as it can either be a genuine misconception, a matter of opinion, or at worst can be willful snobbery. But, like any broad generalisation, it does have some basis.
  • "Better quality" can refer to the fact that Japanese versions of individual toys sometimes have clear plastic instead of painted-on windows like Movie Bumblebee, or have vac-metallised parts where the equivalent U.S. release doesn't, like Energon Optimus Prime/Grand Convoy. Or, "better" quality can refer to the fact that Japan is a less litigious society, with different toy safety laws, and Takara can thus give Prime toys old-school long smokestacks, which are now shortened in the litigious U.S. These laws also mean that Masterpiece Megatron is freely available in Japan, but hard to get in the US. (The exact opposite of real handguns, ironically.)
  • "More show-accurate decos" does have some basis, as Takara frequently releases its toys later than Hasbro does stateside, and thus they are better able to reflect discrepancies between late-run changes to a character's coloration in a show (such as with the original Rattrap or Armada's Tidal Wave). The most extreme example of this was Beast Wars Returns, the Japanese release of Beast Machines, which was years later than in the U.S., allowing Takara to correct the egregiously show-inaccurate decos on the original toys.
  • "More accessories" mostly comes from the fact that some of Takara's releases have some extra accessories, but the only cases of this before the recent reissues were Fortress Maximus's two swords, Megatron's sword and bullets (even though the Japanese release lacked the extensions) and clear cases from the various cassettes. Recently, Japanese reissues have included additional accessories from the cartoon (the axe, chain mace Energon cubes and gun-mode Megatron in the TFC reissues of Optimus and Megatron, Insecticons and Starscream, the matrix from New Years Convoy). Some Superlink releases came with redecoed Energon weapons as well,
  • "Sweeter exclusives" is, really, a matter of taste. If endless redecos of G1 toys as completely unprecedented G1 characters, and shelling out half your mortgage for Lucky Draw gold chrome figures, is what floats your boat, then yeah, Japan has better exclusives.
  • "Tighter quality control" is a total myth. Takara products are manufactured under much the same production conditions as Hasbro's (pretty much everything for both markets is made in China), and their standards of quality control are just as likely to let mistakes creep through.

Fiction

Generation 1

The Original Cartoon

  • The original The Transformers series was redubbed anime which originated in Japan, just like Battle of the Planets, Voltron, Robotech and other such shows screened in the '80s.
Although most moderate-to-hardcore fans are well aware that this is a fallacy, there are those more casual fans (or those who have not rewatched the G1 cartoon since childhood) who are under the misconception that The Tranformers was an anime.
Although the original toyline and thus the characters' basic visual designs were taken from Japanese-originated products, the original characters, names, factions and entire story premise of the whole Transformers franchise were developed in the U.S. by Hasbro, Marvel and eventually Sunbow. Although the animation was farmed out, the writing and original voice recording of all four seasons of the original series plus The Movie were entirely done in America.
This misconception probably stems from distant childhood memories of the cartoon, coupled with the later realisation that shows like the aforementioned Robotech were redubbed anime (presuming they didn't know this when they were kids) and, due to Transformers' obvious Japanese influence, have made the assumption that it too was anime. This may also be due to passing exposure to RiD and the Unicron Trilogy shows which, viewed as an adult, are very obviously redubbed anime.

The Transformers: The Movie

  • There exists an "uncut version" of The Transformers: The Movie containing all sorts of non-kid-friendly content.
These stories stem mainly from the fact that many home-video releases of The Transformers: The Movie omit two relatively minor instances of characters using profanity, which during the 1990s resulted in some alt.toys.transformers posters advertising "uncut" VHS copies of the movie for sale, thus either intentionally or unintentionally creating the myth of a really foul-mouthed and ultra-violent alternate version of The Transformers: The Movie. A much stranger rumor, whose origins are unclear, claims that the original theatrical cut of The Transformers: The Movie depicted Optimus Prime crumbling into dust after dying, and that that scene was cut by the distributor in mid-release because children were traumatized by the imagery.
  • The Transformers: The Movie was never released in Japan.
A widespread (but false) assumption among Western fans holds that The Transformers: The Movie is not part of Japanese G1 canon, and that Scramble City was effectively its Japanese replacement. The Transformers: The Movie went unreleased in Japan until August 1989, and the various discrepancies between it and subsequent Japan-only G1 fiction are largely a matter of the Japanese animators and writers being unaware of the precise details of The Transformers: The Movie. [1] [2] [3]
  • The Transformers: The Movie was released in Japan under the title Matrix Forever.
Matrix Forever was actually the title of a 20-minute video created to promote the Japanese release of The Transformers: The Movie, but some Western (and even Japanese) fans have been confused into thinking that The Transformers: The Movie itself was renamed Matrix Forever. [4]

Japanese G1 fiction

  • In Japanese continuity, Megatron and Galvatron are two separate characters.
There a few instances of Japanese fiction that would seem to support this notion, all of which can be attributed to a lack of communication between Hasbro and Takara prior to the release of The Transformers: The Movie. There is also a Transformers: 2010 manga story that depicts Galvatron commanding a legion of automatons created in Megatron's image, which some non-Japanese-speaking fans have interpreted as depicting Galvatron and Megatron co-existing. [5]
  • In Japanese continuity, the Destrons (Decepticons) were invaders from a planet called Destron.
The Autobots were renamed "Cybertrons" in the Japanese translation, resulting in a misconception that the Destrons must hail from somewhere other than the planet Cybertron. However, the Japanese translation also renamed Cybertron "Seibertron" in order to avoid confusion. [6]
  • Metrotitan is a zombie version of Metroplex.
Metrotitan was a Destron redeco of Metroplex from the Zone portion of Japanese G1 continuity. For unclear reasons, many Western TransFans believe that Metrotitan was a "zombified" version of Metroplex, and a stranger variation on this rumor holds that Metrotitan was somehow "regrown" from one of Metroplex's legs. [7]

European G1 fiction

  • Starscream and Shrapnel are a female characters in the French dub of G1.
This rumor is only partly true. The Transformers G1 animated medium used three different dub teams for the French version: one for the TV show's dub broadcasted in Quebec, one for the TV show's dub broadcasted in France and one for the 1986 movie used in both countries. Neither of the TV show's dubs use Starscream as a female as he uses a distinctively male voice [8][9], however the movie's dubbing team used a female voice for Starscream, and at one point Megatron calls Starscream "une imbécile" (articles in French are gender-specific), clearly cementing Starscream's movie status as a female.[10] All the same is also true for Shrapnel, who is even referred to as "Mademoiselle Shrapnel" by Kickback in the movie.
  • The German version of Transformers: The Movie was edited and didn't depict Starscream's death scene.
German TV didn't start airing a dubbed version of the G1 cartoon until 1989. The Transformers: The Movie was aired for the first time on German TV in 1994, with only one repeat. For unknown reasons, a rumor was circulating for several years claiming that Starscream's death was considered too "violent" for German TV standards for children's programs and had therefore been edited out. However, recordings of the TV airing still exist, which don't feature any obvious edits other than Spike's infamous "swear" line. Furthermore, a German DVD edition of the movie released in 2004 that features an entirely different dub also depicts Starscream's death in all its glory.

Beast Wars

  • In Japanese BW continuity, Optimus Primal and Megatron were the same characters as their G1 namesakes.
Although the Japanese dub of the Beast Wars cartoon originally did state that Primal and Megatron were new incarnations of the G1 faction leaders (possibly due to a communications breakdown with Hasbro and/or Mainframe), the translators eventually backed away from that idea. [11] [12]

Robots in Disguise

  • The Japanese Car Robots cartoon was a direct sequel to Beast Wars Neo.
Some fans seem to have concluded, based on the similar animation style and overall tone, that the Car Robots cartoon was meant to pick up where Beast Wars Neo had left off, but all indications are that Car Robots wasn't meant to take place in any pre-existing TF continuity. But now Takara says it's in the G1 continuity. Along with the 2007 movie. Oooookay.[13]

Transformers (2007)

  • Transformers was nearly rated R by the MPAA.
In the spring of 2007, it was reported that Disturbia, a then-upcoming DreamWorks film starring Shia LaBeouf and produced by Steven Spielberg, had received an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America. That film's rating was eventually lowered to PG-13 on appeal, but in the meantime some Transformers fans became confused and believed that it was Transformers that had been rated R, leading to some heated discussion on Transformers message boards.
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