Misconceptions and urban legends about Transformers

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

• Transformers is (only) a cartoon from the Eighties that was brought back into vogue with the 2007 movie.

A misconception usually held by casual fans or nostalgic adults is that Transformers went away some time around 1986 (or 1987, or 1988—pick your year). People who stumbled across a newer incarnation of the Transformers franchise before 2007 commonly assumed that it had only recently popped back up as an attempt to cash in on '80s nostalgia. From 2007 onwards, people who were (obviously) aware of the live-action film series commonly believed that it was the 2007 movie that brought the franchise back from limbo. Neither assumption is correct.

In fact, the Transformers brand has been continuous since 1984 (there was a brief gap between 1990 and 1993 as far as the United States market was concerned, but the brand still continued with new products in other markets). It includes many lines of toys, cartoons and comics that span over three decades, with no sign of stopping, as Hasbro considers it a core brand. Each line has experienced varying degrees of success, rebooting when its target audience gets too old or uninterested in the toyline and fiction.

Some of this misconception is based on the fact that most of the original audience stopped watching and following the franchise long before its initial US cancellation (as it wasn't "cool" to be kiddy once puberty hit). Without any exposure to the market, the toyline and the new cartoons, they simply assume that Transformers has sunk in popularity, quality and/or sales, since it's not what they remember.

It is true that Transformers hit a low point of popularity in the early 1990s, with the cancelation of Generation 1 and the unremarkable sales of Generation 2. But the successor Beast Wars line re-established the brand for a new generation beginning in 1996, and Transformers has been a dominant toy franchise ever since. While it's true that the live-action movies caused a major hike in popularity for the brand, they didn't revive a long-forgotten franchise; rather, they merely turned a steadily successful toy series into a major worldwide multimedia phenomenon.

• Generation 1 obviously has the best toys, cartoons and characters.

Casual fans likewise tend to assume automatically that the original 1980s iteration of Transformers is the best and most successful line to date, with all other successors being unpopular and/or unsuccessful ventures.

While it's hard to measure the overall success of every line in all its aspects, the original line has been surpassed in both quality and sales multiple times over (if not for warm-fuzzy nostalgia-feels in 80s kids). In factors such as realistic alternate forms, durability, articulation, action features, and complexity, various later toylines have all exceeded Generation 1. And while fiction can't be measured objectively, many fans will swear up and down by some of the later incarnations of Transformers.

Arguably, Transformers is in an endless cycle of creating new fans who share new opinions on what is "teh greatest".

• Powermaster Optimus Prime was the first, original Optimus Prime toy.

1984—the original.

1988—the Powermaster version.

This one claims that the Powermaster Optimus Prime toy, originally released in 1988, is the original, first Optimus Prime toy ever released, rather than the earlier, non-Powermaster toy, which is an entirely different mold and was originally available in 1984. This phenomenon is particularly common in eBay auctions, where Powermaster Optimus Prime toys are frequently advertised as "ORIGINAL Optimus Prime".

The reasons for this misconception are obvious: Numerous people arrived late to the party—that is, became fans of the original Transformers line after the real original Optimus Prime toy had vanished off the shelves in 1986 (the cartoon was still shown in reruns on TV). Any of them looking for a toy of the iconic Autobot leader would only find the Powermaster toy on store shelves starting in 1988. Fast-forward to 20 years later, and people who weren't really paying a lot of attention to the brand for the past few years, now looking to sell off their childhood toys, would naturally conclude that the toy they got as a kid was the original Optimus Prime toy.

The phenomenon is even more widespread in countries such as Germany, where the cartoon wasn't officially shown on TV until 1989(!). By that point, the original toy, which had originally been released by Milton Bradley in the European market in 1985, was long gone off the shelves. Thus, the only Optimus Prime toy available to kids who had only just become fans because of the cartoon was the Powermaster version. Admittedly, gray imports of the Mexican version of the original toy by IGA were also available in European stores around this time, and Hasbro themselves would release the original toy again two years later as part of their European-exclusive Classics line of reissues. However, the Powermaster Optimus Prime toy was still a lot more widespread.

• 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime was the Optimus Prime toy available in the 1980s/Alternators are the same toys that were available in the 1980s.

Sadly, this didn't exist until 2003.

This misconception usually comes from people who, upon seeing the 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime toy (which was originally released in 2003/2004), honest-to-god swear it's the toy they had when they were a kid. Similarly, there are also people who believe that the toys from the Alternators line are the same toys they had as kids, when they're most likely confusing them with the original Autobot Cars, which are about half the size.

The reasons for this aren't too hard to guess: People were a lot smaller when they were kids, so obviously the original Transformers toys seemed a lot larger to them. Since these fans didn't repeatedly hold or play with their Transformers while growing up, they weren't constantly adjusting to the toys' size in relation to their own. This resulted in blurred memories of outright gargantuan Transformers toys available in the 1980s. (One might wonder how tall those people would remember Fortress Maximus being.)

When confronted with the original toys—now relatively small because the fans have grown up—these people often reject them, insisting the "original" toys were larger (occasionally even accusing the real original toys of being downsized knockoffs). Showing them the Alternators or 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime, on the other hand, will bring back warm (albeit incorrect) memories.

• "Bumblejumper" is just a yellow Cliffjumper

"Bumblejumper", who later would be known as "Bumper".

In 1984, Hasbro released three different similar-form toys as part of the Minicar assortment: Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, and a third unnamed toy that was not advertised in any capacity, sold only on Cliffjumper cards (at least, no samples on a Bumblebee card have ever surfaced). This third mold was a "leftover" from the Micro Change line, based on a Mazda Familia 1500XG sedan, and was very quickly phased out (resulting in him becoming the first of the "holy grail" super-costly Transformers on the secondary market). The exact nature of how and why this toy got released is still a mystery. Fans took to calling this third mystery mold portmanteau names such as "Bumblejumper", "Cliffbee", and "Bumper"; that last one eventually becoming his official name when he appeared in the ongoing Generation One Volume 1 comic series by Dreamwave Productions.

Adding to the confusion is that both Bumblebee and Cliffjumper were available in two color schemes: their fiction-supported colors (Bee in yellow, Cliff in red) and in reversed colors (Bee in red, Cliff in yellow) up through 1985. And since Cliffjumper and Bumper are both similarly boxy in vehicle form, and Bumper was only available in yellow, and only on Cliffjumper cards for a very short time, and was not in any catalogs and had no name and didn't appear in any cartoons or comics....

Further adding to the mistaken memory pile is Hubcap, a yellow retool of Cliffjumper released in 1986. Fun!

• A super-rare blue variant of Bluestreak was available during Generation 1.

You had this as a kid. The picture, that is. Not the toy.

The very earliest Generation 1 toy catalogs used a photo of a blue-sided Diaclone Fairlady Z to represent Bluestreak; photographs of the same toy were used for Bluestreak's own instruction booklet. The same blue-sided color scheme was also used on his box art; which was in turn shown on every 1984 instruction booklet as a sample tech spec.

All this gave rise to a long-standing myth that a blue Bluestreak toy was sold under the Transformers brand during Generation 1, 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 had 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.

Oddly enough, numerous other Transformers toys from that era were depicted in both catalogues and packaging art with colors they were never released in —Perceptor, Astrotrain, the Constructicons, for example— yet Bluestreak is the only one to be (mis)remembered in this manner, perhaps because his name is Bluestreak, so he had to have been blue, right?

• A show-accurate Skyfire toy was available during Generation 1.

Patience. You just have to wait 22 years.

Due to some legal entanglements, Jetfire was renamed "Skyfire" for the original The Transformers 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 Generation 1 toy by the name of Skyfire. (The Classics Jetfire toy is actually designed as a mix between the original toy and the cartoon character model, and many later toys have aspects of the cartoon model too.)

• 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 due to the way Japanese IP law worked at the time; the first Microchange toys weren't even designed until the early 1980s.

• A Unicron toy was available during Generation 1.

Seriously, aren't you glad your poor parents didn't have to waste like a hundred bucks on this back in '86?

No toys of Unicron were available (or even produced beyond prototype) until 2003. In fact, the mere existence of those prototypes wasn't actually officially confirmed until many years later. The first official Unicron toy to be released came out as part of the Armada line in 2003 and was a brand new mold, not based on an old, unused prototype.

The fictional existence of a Generation 1 Unicron toy is likely based on schoolground one-upmanship: if one kid had a larger toy such as Metroplex or Scorponok, a rival kid would claim to have a Unicron toy in order to appear cooler, but would most likely retire to his bed a sobbing mess, knowing in his heart that one day God would punish him for being a HUGE FIBBER.

What could also have attributed to this misconception was the voice actor for Unicron himself, Orson Welles. He died before the movie's release and the part in the 1986 movie was his last before his death in 1985. He loathed the part and could not even remember his character's name; he was quoted as saying, "I play a big toy who attacks a bunch of smaller toys," mistakenly assuming there was a toy for him.

• The reissue Soundwave toys released by Takara are reverse-engineered from Soundblaster because the original molds are lost.

Both the The Transformers Collection and Encore Soundwave releases have different tape buttons and hinges than the ones found on the vintage Hasbro release. While the vintage Hasbro Soundwave had inset controls and an internal tape deck hinge, the Takara reissues have a large button block that serves as a pivot point for an external tape deck hinge. The supposed reason for this is the mold for the original versions of the buttons and door are lost or worn out, so a new single tape door was made to work with the Soundblaster mold.

In fact, the buttons and hinge used on the reissue Soundwaves were originally a retooled running change variant of Takara's original 1985 release of Soundwave. The further Soundblaster retool was based on the later Japanese version of Soundwave, as were the reissues. Presumably, the original mold in its original condition is lost - but this happened long before Takara retooled Soundwave into Soundblaster.

• A few years ago, a crazy old man claimed he had created the original Transformers toys.

In 2005, the Transformers fandom learned, by way of a newspaper article posted by an internet fan site, of the existence of Henry Orenstein, a former toymaker. Although the main focus of the article was Orenstein's then-current achievements in the field of poker, it also implied that Orenstein had "created" the original Transformers toys, and even featured a photo that depicted a somewhat confused-looking Orenstein holding 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime. Many fans subsequently assumed that this was a deluded old man who believed he had created the concept of Transformers toys, even though the fandom knew full well by this point that the original toys were originally created in Japan. His status as the "creator" of the Transformers toy line was subsequently repeated in several other articles about the man, possibly directly based on its mention in the original 2005 article.

The fact is that Orenstein had worked for Hasbro during the 1980s, and was the person who had convinced George Dunsay, then Hasbro's Vice President of R&D, to acquire the rights to a (more or less) innovative type of Japanese toys, which would eventually become known as the original Transformers toys. Aside from that and the original patent for the rubsigns, which he shares with Dunsay, Orenstein has made no known contribution to the Transformers brand. Obviously, the writer of said newspaper article had only marginal knowledge of the history of the Transformers brand, was told what was most likely nothing more than an anecdote by Orenstein (his biography is full of fascinating episodes, by the way), and subsequently inflated it massively with hyperbole, possibly in an attempt to gain more attention to his article due to the popularity of the brand, even before the 2007 movie. The only question is, where did the photographer get the 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime toy from?

Generation 2

• "Generation 2" means "after The Transformers: The Movie."

This common but explicitly false idea probably stems from the many casual fans who grew up with the original Transformers line but stopped paying much attention around 1986, when the animated The Transformers: The Movie debuted and the Transformers craze began to die down. Many such fans regained some interest in Transformers many years later, particularly with hype surrounding the 2007 live-action movie. Seeing the phrase "Generation 2" batted around in fandom, it might seem natural to assume it refers to the big changeover that happened with the animated film. It certainly didn't help that, early in the life of Dreamwave, Pat Lee shared in this misconception, leading other new arrivals to the fandom to ape his use of the term.

While the original animated movie certainly marked a change from one "generation" of toys to another, along with some new design trends, the phrase "Generation 2" refers to a very specific franchise, marketed from 1992 to 1995—years after the animated film had come and gone. Its relative obscurity probably contributes to the mis-attribution of the term, as Generation 2 marks a low point in popularity for Transformers as a whole.

• The Generation 2 Autobot and Decepticon insignias were originally created by Hasbro UK, whose license for using the original faction insignias owned by Hasbro US had expired.

The first half is maybe true, the second half certainly isn't. Long story short: While the new Autobot and Decepticon faction insignias were popularized by the Generation 2 line, said line didn't start in Europe until 1994, a year later than in the US. Instead, the Transformers brand had continued in Europe even after its cancellation in the United States in 1990 (see the page for the European toyline for more details), and new European-"exclusive" figures were still being released in 1993, many of which were later re-released in rebranded Generation 2 packaging in Europe in 1994, while some of them were also made available (including some color, name and faction changes) under the Generation 2 line in the United States in 1993. It was those designed-for-Europe 1993 pre-Generation 2 figures that had first featured the new Autobot and Decepticon insignias on their packaging, and a popular myth claims that they had become a necessity for the European market due to Hasbro UK and Hasbro US being legally considered distinct entities under international law, and Hasbro UK alternatively didn't want to continue paying their parent company the fee for being allowed to use these symbols, or the license for using them had expired.

The holes in this theory are legion: First of all, considering the trademark for the name "The Transformers" was registered with the UK Patent Office by Hasbro UK back in 1986, shouldn't the same also apply to the faction insignias? Therefore, how could Hasbro US, assuming it was indeed a distinct entity, enforce trademarks it hadn't registered in the UK? Why exactly would the UK Patent Office be enforcing the trademarks of a (supposedly) foreign company that didn't do business in the UK? In fact, why would anyone be enforcing trademark claims against Hasbro UK on behalf of Hasbro US? And why would this affect only the faction insignias? Wouldn't the names "Transformers", "Autobot" and "Decepticon" be equally subject to those alleged licensing fees?

A much more likely explanation is that the faction insignias were changed for the same reason the "Transformers" title logo was changed to a new version (both in the US and Europe) in 1989, along with a major redesign of the toys' packaging, and why there had been another change to the packaging design and "Transformers" title logo for the European releases in 1992: To "refresh" the overall presentation of the brand, making everyhing look "new" and different for marketing reasons. Now whether the new insignias were originally created by Hasbro US for the Generation 2 line and were simply applied to the European 1993 toys first for the sake of consistency, or whether they had indeed been created by Hasbro UK and Hasbro US just liked them so much they decided to adopt them for the Generation 2 line is up for debate.

Beast Wars

• Beast Wars didn't originally have the Transformers branding.

While the early design of Beast Wars toy packaging had the Transformers brand name in a smaller typeface than the main Beast Wars logo, the toy range was always officially titled Beast Wars: Transformers in the United States from day one. Later on, with the release of the Transmetals and Fuzors subranges, the Transformers name was increased in size and prominence on the packaging, eventually reversing the order of the two parts of the title to Transformers: Beast Wars.

In Europe, things were a little less cut-and-dry: Various types of multilingual packaging that saw use in different markets further reduced the prominence (and in some cases, also the visibility) of the Transformers branding, initially relegating it to an entirely different section of the packaging far away from the Beast Wars title. Lastly, when British commercial broadcaster ITV aired the Beast Wars television series on their morning show (GMTV), the Transformers name was edited out of the title sequence entirely.

2001 Robots in Disguise

• The Robots in Disguise toyline was known as "Transformers 2000" in Japan.

As information about the then-new Car Robots toyline began to trickle out of Japan in 2000, early rumors purportedly from Japanese sources indicated that it was officially named "Transformers 2000". It's possible those Japanese sources were also going by early, inaccurate rumors or perhaps a soon-to-be-discarded working title for the line. The idea persisted with many Western fans well after the true name of the show was revealed, encouraged by online import retailers (who were equally misinformed) using the title to promote pre-orders on their sites.

• Robots in Disguise Side Burn was so complex, the toy's designer later apologized.

Basically. Car Robots Speedbreaker was the first Transformers toy designed by Hironori Kobayashi, and it kind of shows. In a later interview, he admitted that the development process was a "painful experience" and an "admonition" to do better in the future.

Alternators

• A yellow version of Alternators Tracks was released to North American stores (but then recalled by Hasbro).

Only in Japan, baby.

When Hasbro (and Takara) originally announced the Alternators version of Tracks in 2004, the toy's vehicle mode's primary color was yellow. This caused the ire of a significant portion of the fandom, which insisted that the toy had to be blue, like its Generation 1 predecessor.

Hasbro eventually confirmed at OTFCC 2004 that the initial idea had been to release the toy in yellow first, and then later as a running change variant in blue, like Takara would ultimately do. However, Hasbro had encountered problems at the test shot stage, where it became evident that some of the toy's innards were shining through the yellow plastic. As a result, plans for a release of the yellow version were scrapped, and it was decided to release the blue version from the get-go.

Rumors started circulating that some stores (usually Walmart) had indeed received a shipment of the toy, but were then asked by Hasbro to send back the entire batch. Naturally, no substantial evidence has ever surfaced to back up these claims. And while toys may occasionally be recalled for safety reasons, it's highly doubtful that "aesthetics" would be enough of a reason to warrant an expensive product recall.

The only "packaged" versions of a yellow Alternators Tracks we ever got to see were internet pranks of the "yellow Binaltech Tracks in photoshopped Hasbro box" variety. Which, of course, didn't help matters at all.

Castrated at the request of Honda.

• Hasbro omitted Alternators Windcharger's gun barrel for safety reasons.

When the first stolen test shots of Alternators Windcharger surfaced in 2004, the toy sported an extraordinarily long gun barrel (which doubled as the vehicle mode's drive shaft). The toy was ultimately released without the barrel, which was not shown or mentioned anywhere on the packaging or in the instructions. Indeed, Windcharger's weapon accessory was officially identified as a "shield" on the back of the packaging (in addition to the actual, ragtop roof shield). Takara, on the other hand, later released their own Binaltech version of the toy (named Overdrive) with the full barrel, prominently shown in the official promotional photos.

The initial fan theory upon seeing the barrel-less toy was that Hasbro had gutted it for safety reasons, under the notion that the long barrel might pose a choking hazard. Even though this was refuted by actual experts on toy safety standards, the rumor still persisted. An official response from Hasbro's customer service department to an e-mail inquiry (published on a fan site's message board) confirmed that the reason for the barrel's omission was "so the accessory would not look like a weapon". Eventually, Hasbro (in the presence of Takara representatives) would confirm the full story at BotCon 2005: It had indeed been Honda, specifically their North American branch, that had asked to remove the gun barrel and all references to "weapons" from the toy, its packaging and included paperwork. Honda's Japanese department, on the other hand, had no such concerns, which is why Takara were able to release the Binaltech version with the barrel intact.

Masterpiece

• Masterpiece Convoy has more diecast parts than 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime/Masterpiece Convoy is made almost entirely out of diecast/20th Anniversary Optimus Prime is made entirely out of plastic.

This misconception was started by now defunct Hong Kong-based online retailer Action-HQ and might have been extrapolated from the Alternators toys, which are made entirely out of plastic (except for the rubber tires) for their Hasbro releases, whereas their Japanese Binaltech counterparts feature a few parts made out of die-cast metal.

In fact, however, the amount of die-cast metal parts versus injection-molded plastic parts is the same between 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime and his Japanese Masterpiece Convoy counterpart. The only differences between the two toys (not counting the packaging) are the shortened smokestacks for Hasbro's 20th Prime and the addition of painted battle damage that is missing from the Takara version.

Transformers Collection

A solicitation of then upcoming Takara reissues? Not really.

• Takara's Transformers Collection had something to do with Dreamwave.

In 2002, Takara launched their series of Generation 1 reissues named Transformers Collection, also commonly referred to as "bookbox reissues" or even "Dreamwave reissues" among fans. The reason for that is simple: The package art, especially for early releases such as Meister or Prowl, was directly taken from the covers of and promotional posters for Dreamwave's first Generation One mini-series drawn by Pat Lee. A common misconception among fans at that time was that Takara was coordinating their reissues with Dreamwave. Some even tried to predict upcoming reissues based on the existing Dreamwave covers. Yet Mirage and Sunstreaker never materialized.

In fact, probably the main reason why Takara recycled Pat's Dreamwave artwork of those characters for the packaging of their reissues was its coincidental availability: The artwork had already been created and paid for, so why commission new art when they could just use what already exists? Furthermore, only about half of the TFC reissues actually sported "Dreamwave" package art, whereas the rest did use newly-commissioned art drawn by Japanese artist Hirofumi Ichikawa, who has never in his life worked for Dreamwave and had been drawing in this style long before Pat Lee rose to his brief "superstar artist" fame.

Prime

• Transformers: Prime was not initially planned to have any toys.

The toy line for Transformers: Prime was very delayed, debuting roughly a year after the associated cartoon had premiered. Previously, at a BotCon 2010 panel about the then-upcoming Prime cartoon, a Hasbro representative had made a statement that they weren't talking about toys just then. Transformers fandom being what it is, a widespread belief developed that Hasbro was never going to make Prime toys at all. As additional information gradually surfaced, this evolved into a rumor that Prime would only have a small number of toys, with some further speculating that they would also be limited to the Deluxe size class (since initially only Deluxes had been seen). The eventual revelation of a full Prime toyline caused the belief to evolve once more, with the new theory being that there wasn't originally going to be a Prime toyline, but Hasbro changed their minds due to demand.

The reality, as usual, was much less apocalyptic. The statement from the Hasbro Studios panel was never intended to refer to anything except the panel itself—the people in that room weren't going to be discussing toys at that panel. (In fact, Eric Siebenaler expressed excitement about Bulkhead's toy at the very same panel.) As for the delay in the line's launch, put simply, this was for appearance's sake. Hasbro wanted to establish Prime as a strong fictional franchise, rather than merely a glorified toy commercial, and reasonably concluded that launching a toyline immediately would detract from that goal. There was a point when a few Prime toys were planned to be released under the Transformers: Generations banner, but since Generations was at that time exclusively Deluxes, the aforementioned Bulkhead (a Voyager) indicates that this idea had already been abandoned when the rumors started.

In short, this is just a matter of fans jumping to conclusions based on misinterpreted statements.

Europe (all generations)

Oddly enough, Optimus Prime can still be seen in the background.

• Optimus Prime's toy was originally not released in Europe due to a trademark conflict.

When Hasbro subsidiary Milton Bradley launched the Transformers line on the European continent in 1985, many prominent characters were missing, among them Optimus Prime. Bizarrely, Jetfire was branded as the Autobot leader, and depicted as such in a pack-in mini-comic. Furthermore, Dutch publisher Junior Press initially renamed Optimus Prime into "Jetfire" for all his appearances in their translated versions of the Marvel comic. Optimus Prime's toy was eventually released with the second wave of MB-branded Transformers, and the Junior Press comics subsequently referred to him by his correct name.

The reason for Optimus Prime's initial omission from the MB line-up was claimed to be due to a trademark conflict with Swedish kitchen utensil manufacturer "Optimus". Though initially accepted by the fandom, this claim doesn't hold up under scrutiny. A manufacturer of kitchen utensils usually does not operate in the "toys" field, thus making a trademark conflict unlikely to begin with. An editor's note in the Junior Press comic trying to explain the "Optimus"/"Jetfire" name situation claimed that the Transformers were originally two toy lines by different manufacturers in the United States, and MB had only released one of them in the Netherlands, while the "copyright" to the name "Optimus Prime" belonged to the other manufacturer. Which is of course horsehockey. Many years later, this editor's note (including the incorrect use of the term "copyright" rather than "trademark") was cited by a Dutch fan who added his own speculation (without marking it as such), thus spawning the urban myth that was subsequently accepted by the fandom.

A much more likely explanation lies in that French company Joustra released their own version of the Diaclone line in many of the same markets as Milton Bradley's Transformers. The theory suggests that because of Joustra's exclusive contract with Takara, any toys from their Diaclone line-up were initially off-limits for Milton Bradley's Transformers line-up. A related theory suggests that Joustra's parent company, Ceji, got into financial trouble at the time, prompting them to sign a deal with Milton Bradley allowing them to use their existing (but still unsold) Diaclone stock released in Transformers packaging, which could explain why the second wave of MB-branded Transformers matches up almost perfectly with Joustra's Diaclone line-up.

• The Generation 1 Seacon Overbite was released under the name "Jawbreaker" in some European markets.

UK comic exclusive name variant!

In issue 152 of the Marvel UK comics, the first appearance of the Seacons, Overbite is called "Jawbreaker", a name repeated in his appearance in issue 160 and in an "A to Z" profile in "Transformers Annual 1989". In the early days of online fandom, American fans concluded that this must mean that the toy had been released under a different name in Europe—which is not entirely unfounded, as Transformers often got renamed in Canada and Italy, and many European-market toys from the post-US-cancellation line had multiple names, dependent on what country they were released in.

However, European fans claimed the toy was called "Overbite" when released in their respective countries (except for Italy, where GiG actually didn't release the Seacons at all). Furthermore, the letters page in issue #164 of the UK comic features a question by a confused (British) reader about the "Jawbreaker" name, since the UK-release toy was apparently indeed called "Overbite" (resulting in a made-up-on-the-spot explanation from the Marvel staff to reconcile both names). But to add to the confusion a much later letters page in issue #327 in late 1991 instead stated that Jawbreaker was his British name and Overbite his American name. By this time the toy was no longer on sale and the character had long disappeared from the comic. It would appear the letters page in this era was compiled by someone who did not have a full in-depth knowledge of the franchise.

So, why did the story identify the character as "Jawbreaker"? The answer was unknown until 2016, when a couple of early internal model sheets were offered on eBay: Overbite's model sheet has his name crossed out, with "Jawbreaker" written below it. Since the same batch of model sheets also refers to the Sparkabots as "Sparkler Minibots", another naming anomaly for the Marvel UK comics (and some translations thereof), Marvel UK writer Simon Furman may have used these model sheets (or similar reference materials) with the non-final names on them. The Overbite toy's instructions still refer to his weapon as a "Jawbreaker cannon", and his weapon mode for Piranacon is called a "Jawbreaker weapon" in the assembly instructions.

• Some toys were exclusively (or predominantly) available only in the United Kingdom/Netherlands.

During the early days of the Transformers online fandom, most of the active European fans in English-language forums were based in the UK and Netherlands. So when information about non-US toys (or toy variants) was spread, there simply were no fans from Germany or France around to confirm that the toys in question had also been officially available in their respective countries. (Although to be fair, it's quite possible that some toys, such as the Milton Bradley-branded Generation 1 toys, were indeed released in bigger quantities in the Netherlands than in Germany or France.)

As a result, numerous toys like the red Tracks and IGA Mexican-market Transformers (imported under dubious circumstances) got labeled as "Netherlands-only", when they actually saw release in at least a half-dozen countries. Meanwhile, post-US-cancellation Transformers like the Action Master Elites, "Classics" reissues, Turbomasters, Obliterators, etc, were (and sometimes still are) often referred to as "UK exclusives", even though all of them were available in multiple countries, including Canada and Australia!

In reality, there are very few toys actually exclusive to a single European country. The first genuine "UK exclusives" were a set of multi-packs from the 2007 Transformers live action movie toyline, but the toys themselves were identical to the US releases. Meanwhile, other multi-packs or minor variants of toys from the 2007 movie toyline that were available in the UK but not the US were also available in other places, such as Japan, Hong Kong, Australia or other European countries again.

• 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, as mentioned above) used the same head sculpt as Trailbreaker. But like the "Blue" Bluestreak, no samples of an actual green version of the Trailbreaker mold actually sold as "Trailbreaker" have been found.

Takara vs. Hasbro

Cybertron Vector Prime features different color applications dependent on whether it was released in Takara or Hasbro's market.

• Takara (alternatively, Hasbro) are solely responsible for designing, developing and manufacturing (all, or certain specific) Transformers toys.

This was true only for the original Generation 1 toys, and possibly also the Generation 2 toys. Most of the toys from 1984 to 1986 were imported (and, occasionally, slightly altered) versions of already-existing Japanese toys originally designed and released by Takara. Following that, Takara developed new toys both for the Japanese and the Western market, now specifically with Transformers in mind. The primary exceptions are a handful of toys licensed from other Japanese companies (Jetfire, Whirl, and Roadbuster, for example), and the 1986 toys for the animated movie, which were mostly based on designs by Floro Dery.

However, ever since 1988, most "main" line toys released both in Japan and the Western hemisphere (such as the Unicron Trilogy, Alternators, the 2007 Movie line and Universe/Henkei! Henkei!) have been designed and developed in cooperation between Hasbro (or its subsidiary Kenner) and Takara (now TakaraTomy). (For the specifics of this joint venture development process, see the article about toys.)

Still, numerous reasons have led some people to assume incorrectly that all Transformers toy lines were solely developed by only one of the two companies:

• The Western public and mainstream media, naturally, tend to be unaware of the existence of Takara (TakaraTomy these days). It's therefore logical to assume that Hasbro, the company responsible for distributing Transformers toys outside Japan, is also solely responsible for developing and manufacturing the toys. The fact that Hasbro regularly chooses not to mention their Japanese business partner in official press releases and interviews hasn't exactly helped matters, either.
• On the other hand, Western anime fans are used to Japanese companies being solely responsible for designing robot toys, which are then imported and sold by Western companies. For lack of better knowledge, those people then simply assume the same also applies to Transformers toys — namely, that Takara does all the design and engineering work on their own, and Hasbro is merely the Western distributor of those toys. The fact that the back of Hasbro's packaging for Transformers toys sports a small note saying "Manufactured under license from Takara Co., Ltd." (changed to "TOMY Company, Ltd." on more recent toys) is occasionally cited as "proof" that Takara is the sole manufacturer of Transformers toys as well. A long paper trail of evidence to the contrary has not been able to convince those people of the flaws in their conspiracy theory — rather, some of them have even postulated the existence of a so-called "Hasbro PR machine", whose sole purpose is to convince Transformers fans that Hasbro has a larger part in the development of Transformers toys than is actually the case.

That being said, there are indeed a few toys originally developed by either Hasbro or Takara without the other one's involvement, and then later picked up by the other company, but they're fewer than usually assumed: For Takara, those include the new molds for Beast Wars II, Beast Wars Neo and Car Robots, plus various mostly short-lived, collector-aimed, niche market lines (such as the new Robotmasters molds, the Smallest Transforming Transformers, the Hybrid Style toys etc.); for Hasbro, those are mostly either toys originally based on fiction-based franchises that did not originate with Hasbro (such as Animorphs or the Star Wars Transformers and their later successor, Transformers: Crossovers), cross-brand lines within Hasbro where the Transformers toys only make up one part of the overall lineup (such as the Titanium Series and the Robot Heroes figures) and a few very rare "main" line Transformers toys such as the Generation 2 Power Masters and Grimlock, Swoop, Alpha Quintesson, Energon Kicker and High Wire from Energon.

• 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 have tighter quality control.)

This one depends a bit on the speaker, as it can either be a genuine misconception, a matter of opinion, or at worst, willful snobbery. But, like any broad generalization, 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-metallized 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 U.S. for safety reasons. These laws also mean that Masterpiece Megatron is freely available in Japan, but hard to get in the U.S. (the exact opposite of real handguns, ironically). In the various forms of CHUG, Takara releases also consistently boast more paint applications (for example, many Unite Warriors figures had painted hubcaps while their Combiner Wars counterparts went without), something that was ironically reversed in their version of the Prime toyline.
• "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 add a lot of the deco that was added to the characters by Mainframe Entertainment that was not accurate to 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 reissues were Fortress Maximus's two swords, Megatron's sword and bullets (even though the Japanese release lacked the barrel, scope and stock extensions) and clear cases from the various cassettes. Japanese reissues have included additional accessories from the cartoon (the axe, chain mace, Energon cubes and gun mode Megatron in the Transformers Collection reissues of Optimus and Megatron, Insecticons and Starscream, respectively, the Matrix from New Year's Convoy). Some Super Link releases came with redecoed Energon weapons as well. Henkei! Henkei! Hot Rod came with two missile launchers and missiles not included with Universe Hot Shot due to budget constraints, and featured the original tooling for the rear bumper for their inclusion. In contrast, Henkei! Henkei! Lambor was lacking the supercharger engine accessory Universe Sideswipe came with—TakaraTomy officially confirmed that they had deliberately omitted the optional piece of accessory to make the toy more "G1-accurate".
• "Sweeter exclusives" is really a matter of taste. If endless redecos of Generation 1 toys as completely unprecedented Generation 1 characters, buying $40 worth of toys you got a month ago for a single Mini-Con, 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—in fact, according to Hasbro Australia representatives and Hasbro designer Eric Siebenaler, all of the Transformers toys jointly developed between Hasbro and Takara/TakaraTomy are manufactured at factories contracted to the Japanese toy company. This means Takara is (at least indirectly) responsible for whatever quality control problems occur with Hasbro-released toys. Takara's standards of quality control for their domestically-released toys are just as likely to let mistakes creep through. Just ask any buyer of Henkei! Henkei! Thundercracker how well his weapons stay attached to the arms. And let's not even get started on Masterpiece Rodimus Convoy's first production run.
• The fields in which Takara genuinely excels Hasbro are comparably minor: Takara's stock photography generally tends to be more impressive than Hasbro's, without obvious mistransformations and awkward poses, and at the same time looks more representative of the actual toy due to less reliance on blatant digital touch-ups. Likewise, Takara's instructions tend to be more detailed and useful than Hasbro's.

Other

Not literally a waste of packaging material.

• "Repackaged" toys are literally unsold toys sent back to Hasbro, taken out of the old packaging, put into new packaging and then sent back to stores.

Every so often, a Transformers toy line features seemingly identical toys in multiple different packaging versions, such as multi-packs containing toys that were previously available separately. In addition, some toy lines also feature rebranded items, namely toys that were originally released under one line, but are later re-released as part of another line with virtually no changes to the toy itself, only the packaging it is available in. The final stages of the original Universe line took the concept of "rebranding" to a new level, featuring numerous straight re-releases of toys from the since-ended Energon and Cybertron lines, among many others. Since then, it has been repeated with the 2006 Classics line, the 2008 Universe line, the 2010 Transformers line and many others. Because a common fandom term for those releases is "repackages", a popular misconception claims that those toys are literally "repackages": namely, unsold toys sent back to Hasbro, taken out of their old packaging, put into new packaging and then sent back to (different) stores. (The same train of thought also—very rarely—suggests that "repaints", another common fan term for redecos, are literally "repaints", i.e. existing toys painted over in new colors, rather than new production runs from the same toolings using new plastic colors.)

Needless to say, this theory is dubious for various reasons. Generally, old unsold toys are not sent back to Hasbro. They either remain in the store until someone finally decides to buy them, or the store somehow dumps them, such as by selling them off to closeout chains. And even if Hasbro did regularly get sent back huge shipments of unsold toys, they'd be highly unlikely to go through the effort (and additional cost) of literally repackaging them. Hasbro confirmed this in January of 2009, stating that due to the toys being manufactured in Asia, it would be a waste of time and money to repackage them only to sell them at the same price-point. Thus, they are not repackaged old product, but new production runs of previous product. These days, this misconception should be much easier to dispel: Every toy now features a manufacturing date stamp etched into the figure, as well as a product code tampographed onto the figure, thus proving that a figure was manufactured more recently than its superficially identical predecessor.

The similarities are astounding. Especially those that aren't there.

• A new toy that is vaguely reminiscent of an older toy is a retool of said toy.

Hasbro likes to redeco toys a lot (usually to recoup the R&D costs for developing the original mold). They also like to release redecos of toys from older lines in newer lines. In some instances, Hasbro also don't just redeco a toy, they retool it (or create new toolings for new parts that replace parts of the old version of the toy)—sometimes to improve a feature or fix an error, but sometimes also to give the toy new features or gimmicks, or simply to make it different enough from the original version so owners of the original version would be interested in buying the "retool" as well.

Some of those retools are comparably minor (such as Final Battle Jazz from the 2007 Movie line), whereas others can be pretty elaborate. Sometimes the retools are so elaborate that the line between "retool" and "new mold" gets blurred. The most drastic instances in this regard would be K-9 from Beast Wars (based on Wolfang from the same line) and Dark Crumplezone from Cybertron (based on the original Cybertron Crumplezone toy), both of which have most, if not all of their parts entirely retooled. Another borderline case would be the Armada Mini-Cons Mirage and Swindle, which were released around the same time and are based on the same basic design, share a similar body structure and have very similar alternate modes.

However, sometimes fans definitely get too far decrying a new toy a "retool" (or "remold"). Toys that share some superficial design similarities, coupled with similar transformation schemes, are often mistaken for retools even though they're simply that: Similar toys based on the same general design, maybe even directly influenced by the older toy, but nothing more. For more examples, see: retool.

• Hasbro lost the rights to a lot of G1 Transformers names. That is why you see toys named "Autobot Jazz" or "Decepticon Brawl" these days. Takara is more competent than Hasbro and doesn't need to change their toys' names.

That's not quite how name rights —aka trademark— work. There are indeed instances where another company has snatched a trademark, making it unavailable for Hasbro's use. The reason is because trademarks need to be consistently used in commerce (roughly once every year or so), or it could be considered "abandoned", making it open for grabs should another company try to claim it. "Hot Rod" was unavailable to Hasbro because Mattel held several similar trademarks, "Bluestreak" was too similar to Gendron's "Toledo 'Blue Streak'" trademark, and a company named Lanard held the trademark "Shockwave" until a few years ago. This prompted Hasbro to use substitute names for toys based on these characters, such as "Rodimus Major" and "Rodimus" for Hot Rod, "Silverstreak" for Bluestreak and "Shockblast" for Shockwave (Hasbro has since managed to reacquire all three aforemented trademarks).

Meanwhile, the names with prefixes such as "Autobot" or "Decepticon"? Those are usually non-compound single real words from the English language. Hasbro's legal department considers them too "generic" to be easily defensible as trademarks, hence the addition of prefixes such as "Autobot Jazz", "Decepticon Brawl "or "Constructicon Devastator" for better protection. This does not work with names already trademarked by another company–otherwise, Bandai could release a toy named "Gunpla Optimus Prime" tomorrow, and Hasbro couldn't do anything about it.

For a while, it seemed like these trademark quibbles were limited to Hasbro, and Takara was somehow exempt due to a different market situation. However, the Henkei! Henkei! line saw the emergence of quite a few "Cybertron", "Destron" and "Stuntron" prefixes, implying that the trademark situation on the Japanese market was changing, and starting with the Movie line, TakaraTomy (now adopting Hasbro names instead of their established Japanese-market names) began to use "Autobot" and "Decepticon" prefixes. With Revenge of the Fallen and United, TakaraTomy even used prefixes for names Hasbro has been able to use without prefixes.

• Hasbro is responsible for your local store not having the newest toys right now.

Hasbro actually has almost nothing to do with distribution (when Product A arrives in Store B) beyond making sure the manufactured product leaves the factories and shipyards of China at the desired time. Once the items arrive on US shores, they are almost immediately sent from the ships to the distribution centers for the retail chains that ordered them. From there, it's more truck rides to various regional warehouses, which is all controlled by the retailers, not Hasbro. After that, the schedule for taking product from those warehouses and putting it on shelves is dictated by each chain's inventory system.

It's conceivable that Hasbro could take more control of the situation, but that would require chains like Wal-Mart to release the vise-like death grip they have on manufacturers' nuts that lets them dictate how the system works—and they're sooooooo not doing that.

• Hasbro should totally cater to the wishes of older collectors, as they purchase the most Transformers product.

Fans would like to think they've got some sway over the direction of the Transformers brand. After all, they've been buying toys for many years (as opposed to the limited purchasing span of most children), and they buy many more toys than any individual child. And in truth, Hasbro does pay attention to the desires and discussions of its older buyers, even designing certain line segments like Alternators or Classics and its successors with collectors as the primary target audience.

Collectors, however, simply can't compare to the vast numbers of children out there whose parents buy Transformers for them. The bulk of Transformers product is purchased for and/or by young children, and if a company like Hasbro wants to stay in business and keep making money (and by extension, more toys), it must design and market its products accordingly. No accurate figures exist on the collector/children ratio, but estimates mentioned at BotCon panels range from around 10% to 20% of all purchases coming from older collectors—enough to be worth listening to, but not at all the driving force behind the brand. Past toylines have shown that betting too much on sales from adult collectors can be disastrous.

Furthermore, it's not as though the fans speak with a unified voice. More often, for every fan pushing for one particular idea, there's another fan who thinks that same idea is boring or awful.

Fiction

Generation 1

General

• Transformers were meant as a "genderless" race. Arcee and the other female Transformers were added to the brand because feminists complained about the Transformers all being male.

When Bob Budiansky was assigned to work out the character details for the toys, he initially intended some of them to represent female characters, like Ratchet. However, he was not given permission by Hasbro to include females because the company feared it would have a negative impact on the sales of those toys. Budiansky complied, and in later years, would even pen a story for the Marvel comic in which the Transformer race was stated to have no concept of gender.

The cartoon was a different story. Since television requires a bigger investment than comics, but also offers the potential for a much better payoff, it is of interest for a TV network to broadcast material that reaches the highest possible demographic. To this end, very early in its development, writer Jeffrey Scott penned a production bible which included original female Transformer characters as part of an effort to sell the series to TV Network CBS. When it was decided to produce the series for syndication rather than for a network, new story editors Bryce Malek and Dick Robbins dropped this idea, and the series went on to star an exclusively-male cast of robots. However, in late 1984, while working on the early story development for The Transformers: The Movie, writer Ron Friedman argued for the inclusion of a female Autobot in the story, on the basis that he "had a daughter who love[d] this stuff." Friedman won his argument, Arcee was added to the movie, and in 1985, female Autobots were incorporated into the series in advance of the film's release, with the introduction of Elita One and her Female Autobots in the episode "The Search for Alpha Trion."

In other Transformers cartoons, Sari Sumdac and the English dub gender flip of Override have also been added to their respective series because of network demands, whereas Airazor, Strika and Botanica were a request from the writers to Hasbro.

Despite persistent stories, there is no documented instance of feminists demanding the inclusion of female Transformers (and likely, they've got something better to do than complain about another generic boys show like there are hundreds of). There is, however, a comic story called "Prime's Rib!" which presents Arcee's introduction to the Autobot ranks as an attempt by Optimus Prime to appease human feminists. While the story is obviously satire, through hearsay it has become believed by some that it is what actually happened.

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 original Transformers cartoon since childhood) who are under the misconception that The Transformers 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 United States by Hasbro, Marvel and eventually Sunbow. Although the animation was farmed out to Japanese (and later also Korean) studios, the writing and original voice recording of all four seasons of the original series plus The Movie was entirely done in America.

This misconception probably stems from distant childhood memories of the cartoon, the fact that shows like the aforementioned Robotech were redubbed anime and the Transformers' obvious Japanese influences. This may also be due to passing exposure to the 2001 Robots in Disguise cartoon and the Unicron Trilogy shows which, viewed as an adult, are very obviously redubbed anime.

This is in part related to the misconception that all Transformers toys are solely designed, developed and manufactured by Takara, and all Hasbro ever does is to put them in new packaging and distribute them in the Western market (see above). Because this is true for other Japanese robot toylines, and therefore it must also apply to Transformers.

However, there's actually a little bit of truth to this misconception; since the G1 cartoon is an animated series made by Japanese studios, one could feasibly call it an anime; as "anime" is only a word to describe any form of animation in Japan, much like the word "cartoon" is here in the West, and not a term for a specific genre.

• Jazz was written out of the series due to the death of his voice actor.

Jazz conspicuously survives the events of The Transformers: The Movie, yet went on to make no speaking appearances in the third season of the cartoon. As his voice actor, Scatman Crothers, passed away of lung cancer in 1986, it is common for fans to assume that the latter caused the former. This isn't hurt by the fact that fellow Autobot and film survivor Cliffjumper also vanished due to issues involving his own voice actor, nor by the fact that one of Jazz's only appearances involved him seemingly being referred to as "Munka Spanka."

However, the dates simply don't match up: Crothers's death happened on November 22, long after the third season had begun airing. In fact, by that point, the only remaining episodes were the two parts of "The Return of Optimus Prime", both of which aired months after the rest of the season. Add in the fact that any dialogue for the episodes would have been recorded months in advance, and the idea that Crothers dying affected the writing process becomes borderline impossible. The more likely answer is that Jazz stopped appearing, like much of the Season 1 and 2 cast, because his toy was no longer on shelves.

• The Headmasters was going to be dubbed into English and shown in America.

In America, "Season 4" consisted of "The Rebirth", a 3-episode mini-series. In Japan, "The Rebirth" was ignored, and a full-fledged series titled The Headmasters continued the story instead. Rumors once swirled in the fandom of an American-led dub of The Headmasters series; the dub was largely finished, goes the story, till the materials were lost in a warehouse fire.

Given the meandering pace of the series (common for Japanese shows but anathema to American sensibilities), the presence of numerous characters who had no toy equivalent on US shelves, the incompatibility with the "Nebulan" head characters, the number of Japanese cultural references, and the very existence of "The Rebirth", this rumor seems unlikely on the surface.

More to the point, no official confirmation or other evidence has ever surfaced to back it up. In all likelihood the rumor was probably a Chinese Whisper from the fact that the laughably-bad English language Omni Productions dub was screened on UK satellite TV during the 1990s.

The Transformers: The Movie

Traumatizing enough as it is, frankly.

• 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. At least one poster claimed to have uncut reels of the original film showing a number of violent scenes, but, unsurprisingly, was unwilling to provide any form of proof. So have ended all claims of uncut footage from the film.

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. Interestingly, the "Death of Optimus Prime" track on the original soundtrack album does contain ten extra seconds of music. At the end, just before the song's final low-octave percussion sequence, there is a very distinct series of notes that appears nowhere else in the song and is not in the onscreen version. However, no other evidence of this "lost" animation sequence exists among the many storyboards, preliminary animations, interviews, varying formats, etc., that have come to light. The myth could be related to the death of Starscream, a few scenes later, where Starscream does indeed crumble to dust after being shot by Galvatron; time and distance could lead fans to confuse the two scenes.

These claims should not be confused with the extra storyboarded scenes and early script revisions which have come to light over the years, which do in fact contain a lot more violence. But no evidence exists that any of these sequences, even those that made it to storyboard, were ever animated. Especially given the expense of producing full animation.

See also: The Transformers: The Movie#Edits.

• Some portions of Unicron's dialogue were recorded by an actor other than Orson Welles.

A common rumor in the Western fandom claimed that Unicron's final lines ("Destiny... you cannot destroy my.. destiny!") were recorded by Leonard Nimoy, based on claims that those lines sounded "different" from the rest of Orson Welles' lines. Compounding the rumor is the fact that Welles died shortly after recording his TF:TM lines (and indeed, one version of the rumor has Welles actually dying before completing his lines). Despite being debunked repeatedly (including by Susan Blu and Wally Burr, both of whom should know), this one still pops up from time to time.

• The Transformers: The Movie/Scatman Crothers coined the term "ginormous", which has since been added to several dictionaries.

In The Transformers: The Movie, Jazz, voiced by Scatman Crothers, described Unicron as "a ginormous, weird-looking planet". The word "ginormous", a portmanteau of "gigantic" and "enormous", was officially added by the Merriam-Webster Online dictionary in 2007.

Some fans believe that Crothers had coined the term, which is incorrect for several reasons. Even putting aside the notion that under this theory, Crothers is assumed to have ad-libbed the line (rather than simply reading it from Ron Friedman's script), the term has actually been around for much longer, being listed in the Oxford English Dictionary as a "British informal" word that has existed since at least the 1940s, and was originally military slang.

• The Transformers: The Movie was never released in Japan.

It is true that The Transformers: The Movie was not released in Japan at the same time it was released in Hasbro's markets, with Japanese fans instead getting the Scramble City: Mobilization OVA prior to the release of the third season of the show (second for Japan). But The Movie ultimately made it to Japanese theaters in August 1989. The various discrepancies between it and subsequent Japan-only Generation 1 fiction (such as who didn't survive the movie) are largely a matter of the Japanese animators and writers being unaware of the precise details of the film. This also led to a similar rumor that Scramble City was an out-and-out replacement for the film, similar to how The Headmasters replaced "The Rebirth." Actually viewing the OVA reveals that it has nothing to do with the events of The Movie, other than that both feature Ultra Magnus and take place between the second and third seasons; at no point does it significantly contradict the film, and pretty much the only third-season change the film explains is where Metroplex came from. There were indeed attempts to summarize what had happened in the movie, including a narration added to "Five Faces of Darkness" and scans in Terebi Magazine, but Scramble City served much more as an advertisement for its subline than a major turning point of the continuity.

• The Transformers: The Movie was released in Japan under the title "Matrix Forever".

"Matrix Forever" is actually the shortened and slightly mistranslated title of a 20-minute video created to promote the Japanese release of The Transformers: The Movie, but some Western fans have been confused into thinking that The Transformers: The Movie itself was renamed "Matrix Forever".

Japanese Generation 1 fiction

• In Japanese continuity, Megatron and Galvatron are two separate characters.

There are a few instances of Japanese fiction (and advertising) 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. All of them were ultimately ignored by the "primary" fiction, namely the (dubbed) third season of the cartoon (named Transformers: 2010 in Japan) and the accompanying manga, which followed the Western story concept of Galvatron being a reformatted Megatron.

The second issue of The Story of Super Robot Lifeforms: The Transformers manga depicts Galvatron commanding a legion of automatons created in Megatron's image, which some non-Japanese-speaking fans misinterpreted as depicting Galvatron and Megatron co-existing. This even extended into The Battlestars, where the appearance of Super Megatron solidified the idea to those fans; after all, surely if he were upgraded from Galvatron, he would be named Super Galvatron, right? One particularly sturdy rumor claimed that he was trying to hunt Galvatron down (possibly conflating him with Gilthor).

• 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 (Decepticons) must hail from somewhere other than the planet Cybertron. However, the Japanese translation also used slightly different spellings for the faction, "Cybertron" (literally: サイバトロン, "Sa-i-ba-to-ro-n"), and the planet, (literally: セイバートロン, "Se-i-baa-to-ro-n"), commonly interpreted as "Seibertron" by Western fans, in order to avoid confusion, even though both words originally started out based on the English name "Cybertron".

This rumor presumably originates from an article a Thomas Wheeler had written for Attic's Collectible Toys and Values Monthly during the hiatus between the G1 and G2 toylines. According to that article, Hasbro chose not to follow this element of the story because of the similarity between the term "Destron" and G.I. Joe's "Destro" character. Of course, seeing as the story originated in America to begin with and was only dubbed into Japanese later on, this doesn't make a lot of sense. In later years, Wheeler wrote toy reviews for Master Collector's website, which occasionally also display a certain lack of knowledge about various toys and the Transformers brand's overall history, so it doesn't seem entirely out of place for him.

• Black Shadow and Blue Bacchus are both members of a "Space Mafia".

Black Shadow of Victory has his function listed as "Space Gangster". An early fan translation of his on-package bio misinterpreted the Japanese word for "gangster" to mean "Mafia", hence the belief that a "Space Mafia" exists in the Japanese Generation 1 universe. This was naturally extended to his partner, Blue Bacchus, whose function is "Space Gunman."

• Metrotitan is a zombie version of Metroplex.

Metrotitan was a Destron redeco of Metroplex from the Zone portion of Japanese Generation 1 continuity. For unclear reasons, Western fans 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.

European Generation 1 fiction

• Starscream and Shrapnel are female characters in the French dub of Generation 1.

This rumor is only partly true. The Transformers cartoon used three different dub teams for the French version: one for the TV show's dub broadcast in Quebec, one for the TV show's dub broadcast in France and one for the 1986 movie used in both countries. Neither of the TV show's dubs depict Starscream as a female as he uses a distinctively male voice; 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. 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 The Transformers: The Movie was edited and didn't depict Starscream's death scene.

German TV didn't air a dubbed version of the original The Transformers 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.

• An Earthforce story was written to promote the non-combining Constructicon toys.

The comic story "Desert Island Risks!" from issue 264 of the Marvel UK G1 comic reveals that the Constructicons have somehow lost their ability to combine into Devastator. As a result, they try to build another Devastator as a new robot.

Some fans mistakenly believe that this is somehow related to a re-release of the Constructicons (now in yellow) that were available in Europe after the Generation 1 toyline had ended in the USA. Those Constructicons omitted the extra parts necessary to form Devastator; and furthermore, Hook and Scavenger (neither of them officially named in this version; all six toys came on multi-purpose cardbacks simply named "Constructicon") were retooled to omit the tabs that were necessary for combining them (and Bonecrusher) when forming Devastator. Since the toys couldn't combine into Devastator anymore, fans believe that the Earthforce comic story was intended to serve as an "explanation" for this.

The problem with this theory, however, is that the yellow "Euro" Constructicon toys were released in 1992; the comic story, however, had already come out in early 1990. If anything, "Desert Island Risks!" was based on the Action Master version of Devastator, which no longer consisted of six individual Constructicons. (Also, the individual Constructicons don't even appear in the story.)

Beast Era

Japanese Beast Wars

• Preface

To give a better idea of how the following misconceptions came about, many of them stem from how little access the Western fandom had to understandable forms of the Japanese Beast Wars media at the time. After all, when the series were first released, the internet was still a relatively "new" thing, where USENET forums were still a major outlet for fan information and websites were... rudimentary. For about two decades since that time, the most that the West had access to were a small number of fan-subtitled episodes of Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo, a fansubbed version of the theatrical feature segment Lio Convoy in Imminent Danger!, a translation of the first Beast Wars II toy catalog, and second-hand accounts from those who had seen the untranslated episodes of either series or had read each's respective manga series. Over time, those who lacked an understanding of the Japanese language would misinterpret much of these series' specifics. The following are a few of the most well known misunderstandings.

Well, that's just Prime.

• In Japanese Beast Wars continuity, Optimus Primal and Megatron were the same characters as their Generation 1 namesakes.

Initially, both Beast Wars Megatron and Optimus Primal were identified in early packaging as new incarnations of Generation 1 Megatron and Optimus Prime, respectively, in the Western release of the toyline. This was most evident in the bios of the Basic class bat Optimus Primal and alligator Megatron toys, the very first toys of the two. But, the Beast Wars cartoon would do away with this by firmly establishing that the two were instead separate individuals from their Generation 1 namesakes.

When Beast Wars was first brought over to Japan, Takara evidently thought that the original notion was still the case: Optimus Primal was renamed "Convoy", the same Japanese name as Optimus Prime, and the Maximal and Predacon factions were given the same Japanese names as those of the Autobot and Decepticon factions—"Cybertron" and "Destron", respectively. Optimus and Megatron's Ultra and Basic class toys were each given Japanese bios loosely based on the English bios of their respective Basic class toys; their Ultra class toy bios even gave them the same functions as their Generation 1 namesakes (Supreme Commander and Emperor of Destruction, respectively) and the one for Optimus even implied that he was the very same Optimus of old. Both of their Basic class toys were even given special redecos with new bios that explicitly claimed the two had previously been a tractor trailer and a Walther P-38, the very altmodes of the Generation 1 Optimus Prime and Megatron.

When the first season of the Beast Wars cartoon began airing in Japan, it was initially ambiguous on the matter, never actually saying one way or the other if Optimus and Megatron were meant to be new characters like their English counterparts, or the same characters as their Generation 1 namesakes. More unhelpful to this confusion was Optimus Primal's later big-screen guest appearance in Lio Convoy in Imminent Danger!, in which the cast of Beast Wars II revered him as a "legendary Supreme Commander", in contrast to his depiction in the American cartoon as merely the captain of a lowly science vessel. Likewise, the Predacon leader Galvatron referred to a "Megatron" as "the greatest and most vicious legendary Transformer in history." But, it was never clarified if this grandiose description was in reference to Generation 1 or Beast Wars Megatron... likely because, at the time, the movie treated the two as the same person, just as it seemed to do for Optimus.

Clarity would finally come in Beast Wars Metals, the Japanese dub of the Beast Wars cartoon's second and third seasons, which had been held back from airing on Japanese television until after both seasons had been completed by Mainframe, and thus did not reach Japanese audiences until after Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo were over. In short, Metals remained consistent with the original English-language version in keeping the Generation 1 and Beast Wars namesakes as separate characters. In the Japanese dub of "The Agenda (Part 2)", Beast Wars Megatron even refers to Generation 1 Megatron as "My ancestor Megatron" when relating the history of the Golden Disk to Ravage.

As for the "legendary" status of Beast Wars Optimus and Megatron in the movie, that was (and still is) merely an aspect of long-running Japanese children's series that have multiple shows (e.g. – Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, etc.), in that the main hero of a previous series is treated with awe and reverence by the cast of the next series in any crossover team-ups. Optimus Primal was the leader of the good guys from the series preceding Beast Wars II, so the cast of that series viewed him with due respect. Later, the cast of Beast Wars Neo did the same for Lio Convoy of Beast Wars II, calling him a "legendary warrior" in Episode 29. Heck, even Big Convoy was called a "legendary warrior" multiple times in Neo, even as early as the first episode. To put it simply, being "legendary" in Japanese Beast Wars fiction is not as special as it sounds.

Incidentally, it would later be confirmed that the Beast Wars II cartoon actually took place eons after the later-made Beast Wars sequel series Beast Machines (see below for more). This meant that Beast Wars Optimus Primal and Megatron actually were figures of the distant past from the Beast Wars II cast's perspective. In hindsight, this legendary status of the two in the movie fits rather well with how, in Beast Machines, Megatron singlehandedly conquered all of Cybertron and "viciously" captured the sparks of its entire population, while Optimus saved the whole planet from Megatron at the cost of his own life. As Japan would not receive that series until 2004—six years after the movie's release—this all proved rather fortuitous in the end.

• Optimus Primal was sent to Planet Gaia in the Beast Wars II movie when he flew into the alien machine at the end of "Other Voices, Part 2".

The Beast Wars II feature film, Beast Wars Special Super Lifeform Transformers, was initially released in Japanese theaters before the second season of the American Beast Wars cartoon first aired in Japan. During the Lio Convoy in Imminent Danger! segment of this film, Optimus Primal made a guest appearance to team up with the cast of Beast Wars II. At the end of the segment, he declares that he must "return to Energoa"; this was the name given to prehistoric Earth in the Japanese dub of the Beast Wars cartoon, before its true identity as Earth was revealed. This meant that he had been transported to Planet Gaia—future Earth—from prehistoric Earth during the time of the Beast Wars.

The final episode of the first season of Beast Wars, "Other Voices, Part 2", ends with Optimus Primal flying up into the Vok's planet-destroying weapon, sacrificing himself to save the planet. Three episodes later, he is restored to life after a difficult resurrection process. Since Primal's appearance in the movie was screened in Japan between the Japanese airings of Seasons 1 and 2 of Beast Wars, some took this release order as a literal chronology for Optimus Primal's Japanese cartoon appearances, thinking that his final moment in "Other Voices, Part 2" was the exact moment he was pulled into the future and brought to Gaia. A statement given in the Beast Wars Theatrical Special Film Book even seemed to confirm this theory.

Some even took his presence in the movie as an explanation for why the Maximal Rhinox had great difficulty locating Primal's spark within "the other side of the Matrix" in "Coming of the Fuzors (Part 2)", as if to mean that it wasn't there at the time. Lio Convoy in Imminent Danger! is even bookended by sequences that recap the events of Primal's death and rebirth in Beast Wars. And most of all, when Optimus is brought to Gaia, he initially appears in a glowing, yellow, ghost-like form, which wasn't the case for the story's main antagonist, Majin Zarak, who had arrived on Gaia through the exact same means as Optimus. He even returns to this glowing, yellow, spectral form upon his departure near the end of the movie.

However, despite the longevity of this theory, the opening narration of the very next part of the movie—the Japanese dub of the Beast Wars season 2 episode "Bad Spark"—actually seems to debunk it by essentially reiterating what was true of Primal's fate in the English version of Beast Wars. In this narration, Rhinox and Rattrap claim that Optimus Primal did indeed die in the transwarp explosion at the end of "Other Voices, Part 2", and that Rhinox had brought his spark back from the dead in "Coming of the Fuzors (Part 2)".

While this apparently renders the Film Book's statement in error, it does seem like there was originally some intention for it to be true, given Primal's arrival and departure in the movie depicting him in his aforementioned ghostly form. But, while a neat idea, it raises too many questions and relies on too many assumptions in order for it to sensibly fit with Primal's onscreen resurrection. And since Rhinox and Rattrap claim otherwise, this would mean that Optimus was brought to the future from a different point during the Beast Wars, before the end of Season 1 due to Primal having his Season 1 body in the movie. Exactly when during Season 1, however, has never been disclosed.

Everything you know is a lie!

• The characters of the Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo cartoons hail from the same time-period as the cast of Beast Wars, at a point set prior to Beast Machines.

It's almost not fair to call this one a misconception: By all appearances, this was the original intent for the Japanese-original Beast Wars shows. Both the first catalog packed in with Beast Wars II toys, and the Beast Wars II manga present Lio Convoy and Galvatron as contemporaries of Beast Wars Optimus Primal and Megatron, and the Beast Wars II cartoon initially gave no reason to doubt this applied to its story. But then, months into its run, the show's thirty-sixth episode stated that humanity hadn't lived on Gaia for "tens of thousands of years." As the Beast Wars cartoon established that its cast hailed from only three centuries after the era of Generation 1 era, when Earth was still populated by humans, this meant that it was impossible for the 'bots of Beast Wars II (and Neo, by extension) to be from the same time period, and that the two Japanese series were, in fact, set long after the home time of the Beast Wars cast. Of course, as it would be nearly twenty years before the series was translated in full, western fans never learned about this at the time and, with only the catalog to go on, continued to assume that its story held true for the cartoon. It was only in the 2006, when TakaraTomy published a massive Generation 1/Beast Era timeline, which adhered to the Beast Wars II cartoon's dating for the series, that English-speaking fans at large first learned of this fact.

Now, to be honest, Beast Wars II probably didn't intentionally deviate from Beast Wars cartoon, but rather, just kinda goofed on the continuity, and history had to roll with it. That said, this did fix a discrepancy: By coincidence, both Beast Wars Neo and Beast Machines (both produced around the same time) had featured the mega-computer Vector Sigma, but depicted it in two very different, very contradictory ways. Beast Wars Neo had presented the computer as the ruler of Cybertron, while Beast Machines depicted it as a long-lost legend, unheard of for years until it was reactivated in the first episode of the series. If Beast Wars Neo was meant to occur before Beast Machines (as was probably the intent), this didn't make any sense, but the timeline shuffle caused by Beast Wars II now helped these two different portrayals fit together.

It did create a new discrepancy, though: In Beast Wars Neo, Cybertron was depicted with its traditional appearance as a metallic planet, when, at the end of Beast Machines, it was converted into a technorganic form. In 2019, a Transformers Legends pack-in comic fixed this last gap in the timeline, explaining how and why Cybertron was turned back into a metallic world eons after its technorganic reformatting.

While these retcons have tidied things up, the fans' original understanding of the timeline has influenced several pieces of American Beast Era media over the years. The Hasbro toy bio for Transmetals 2 Cybershark referred to "a rogue band of Cybertronian space pirates" (an allusion to Beast Wars II's Seacon Space Pirates) as his contemporaries, while the bio for Dinobots Magmatron all but explicitly pegged him as the same Magmatron from Neo, mentioning his "emperor of destruction" title and his involvement in "an interplanetary quest for energy capsules", the latter of which was also placed, by the bio, before the events of Beast Machines. In both the Universe comic series and the prose story "Wreckers: Finale Part II", characters from the two Japanese series appeared on Cybertron as contemporaries of the Beast Machines cast, at points set within a year after the planet's technorganic reformatting. The latter even referred to some of them as "pre-reformatting". IDW Publishing's The Gathering and The Ascending comic series likewise chose to depict the Beast Wars II and Neo casts as contemporaries of the Beast Wars characters (though these series played faster and looser with the timeline, depicting events similar to Beast Wars II and Neo as having happened before the home time-period of the Beast Wars instead of during or after), while the Beast Wars II Predacons Dirge and Max-B made appearances in the Beast Wars prequels "Theft of the Golden Disk" and "Intimidation Game", respectively.

Even after the release of the Japanese Generation 1/Beast Era timeline, new media set in other continuities have chosen to continue depicting characters from Beast Wars II and Neo (and even Car Robots) existing side-by-side with the Beast Wars cast, with such series as Beast Wars: Uprising and the Transformers Legends comics set in the "Legends World" presenting all of them living together in societies and scenarios unique to those series.

• The characters in Beast Wars II travel forward in time to Future Earth just like how the characters of Beast Wars travel back in time to Prehistoric Earth.

Seemingly an offshoot of the above misconception, this appears to have been born out of a misinterpretation of a scene in the first episode. When the Maximal starship Yukikaze takes off into space, there is a shot where it vanishes in a flash of light and reappears elsewhere within the vicinity of Gaia. Some have mistaken this flash of light to mean that the Yukikaze traveled through transwarp space forward in time to arrive in the future, as if to echo the Axalon's own time-jump to the past in Beast Wars.

This feels like an attempt to hold on to the belief of the Beast Wars II cast originating from the same home-time of the Beast Wars cast, while also aligning with the revelation of Gaia being Earth several tens of millennia after humanity left planet.

In truth, however, what really happens during the scene in question is that the Yukikaze simply travels to Gaia with no time travel involved. The ship's disappearance and reappearance in a flash of light was merely the ship going to warp speed, just like many other spacecraft of science fiction.

• In Beast Wars II, Apache is a drunkard as part of a Native American stereotype.

Apache did indeed get drunk in the first episode of the Beast Wars II cartoon, but only in grief, believing (erroneously) that his earlier actions had caused the death of Lio Convoy (which didn't happen). He did not get drunk again for the duration of the cartoon, nor did he ever do so in the manga. Outside of that, the Native American stereotype "common" to Japanese fictions is a stoic, silent, and often mystical warrior—none of which could be used to accurately describe Apache at all.

Amusingly enough, in the sixth installment of the Beast Wars II manga, Lio Convoy gets drunk for no apparent reason and ends up trashing Apache's room.

Looks can be deceiving.

• In Beast Wars Neo, Unicron was resurrected by possessing the corpse of Galvatron.

This misunderstanding is pretty understandable. In Episode 29, the coveted Angolmois Energy is revealed to be the life energy of Unicron, who is successfully resurrected in the very next episode. Yet, when he makes his debut, he appears in the form of Galvatron, who had seemingly perished in the final episode of Beast Wars II. At first glance, it looks as though Galvatron's corpse had been recovered and used as a vessel to house Unicron's Angolmois Energy, and those who did not understand the Japanese dialogue simply assumed this to be the case.

However, the Japanese dialogue actually states otherwise. Unicron's resurrected form is not Galvatron's physical body, but is actually an energy body made of Angolmois Energy that Unicron has deliberately shaped into resembling the likeness of Galvatron. He takes this form in an initial attempt to trick Magmatron into thinking that he is Galvatron, impersonating the deceased Predacon leader before revealing his true identity. After which , he simply decided to continue using Galvatron's likewise as his energy body's default appearance, even using Galvatron's name when transforming between dragon and robot modes.

Ironically, the misconception of Galvatron's body absorbing the Angolmois Energy as a resurrection vessel is almost exactly what Unicron wanted Magmatron to think, with the difference being that Unicron wanted Magmatron to think that the absorption was for Galvatron's revival instead of Unicron's.

Unicron absorbs the Blentrons for no reasons related Angolmois Energy

• The Blentrons are made of Angolmois Energy, and are later absorbed by Unicron to fully complete his resurrection.

In Episode 33 of Beast Wars Neo, the resurrected Unicron reaches Planet Cybertron in his aim to posses Vector Sigma and turn Cybertron into his new physical body. However, before touching down on the planet, he battles his way through the entire Maximal space fleet, utterly annihilating it and exhausting much of his power in the process. In his weakened state, he is then nearly destroyed in a fight with Big Convoy. His loyal minions, the Blentrons, soon come to Unicron's aid and are promptly absorbed by their master.

Since Angolmois Energy is Unicron's energy, fans who did not understand the Japanese dialogue simply misinterpreted the absorption of the Blentrons as if to say that they too were made up of Angolmois Energy, and that Unicron needed to absorb them to top off the last of his energy needed to complete his resurrection.

In actuality, the three were absorbed because, in that moment, Unicron had been significantly weakened and needed to replenish his health. Otherwise, he would have been destroyed by Big Convoy's Mammoth Dynamite attack, which almost completely dissipated Unicron's energy body.

The series didn't actually give any kind of backstory for the Blentrons. While they were creations of Unicron in the manga, no such origin was given in the show. Regardless, the idea of the three being made out of Angolmois Energy was certainly never stated or even suggested, having been born out of this misinterpretation of Unicron absorbing them to save his own life.

Beast Machines

• A Beast Machines writer said, "Real heroes don't use guns."

Beast Machines was the first (but not the last) Transformers series to explicitly avoid all hand-held projectile weaponry. While the villains still had traditional "blasters" mounted on their bodies, some of the heroes' weapons were more esoteric (such as Blackarachnia's energy-web attack, activated by putting her hands on the ground, or Optimus Primal's gauntlets, powered by absorbing enemy fire). According to story editor Bob Skir, this creative decision was agreed upon between the story editors, Fox Kids, Mainframe Entertainment, and Hasbro, and it is indeed reflected in the toys as well.

Note that many Maximals had weaponry that was functionally no different from a "gun"—compare Botanica's hip-mounted energy cannons, Nightscream's back-mounted sonic blaster, or Optimus Primal's chest-mounted energy disc launcher to Jetstorm's shoulder-mounted ray guns or Strika's wrist-mounted energy... tossing thingies.

On his website, Skir also elaborated on his own position as a writer choosing if or how to portray gun use, including this statement: "Our heroes use their wiles and resourcefulness, plus a few cool weapons. Guns? I've never been a fan of them myself, and do not write heroes who need them." Some fans interpreted Skir as condemning all gun use, even in the real world, no matter the circumstances. This led to the misquote, "Real heroes don't use guns," which remains a notoriously persistent error in the fandom. Skir, responding to the controversy, said on his site that "there are heroes who do need guns (such as the Punisher). Spider-Man doesn't need guns. Neither does the Hulk. And neither do Optimus, Cheetor, Black Arachnia[sic], et al."

Notably, the series immediately following Beast Machines did return to classic hand-held gun use among both heroes and villains. However, the later Animated series once again eschewed guns, probably because of its younger target audience.

Car Robots

• Unlike the English version, Gigatron (Megatron) has multiple personalities, a different one for each of his modes.

This seems to have arisen from how, in the Japanese version, Gigatron's bat and dragon modes each have their own unique-sounding voice and way of speaking. The Gigabat voice is higher-pitched, a bit dim-sounding, and speaks like how older people used to speak during Japan's Edo period, ending most of its dialogue with "deansu" (であんす). For the Gigadragon mode, Gigatron speaks with a much deeper, angrier, and overall more aggressive-sounding voice. Both of these differ from his much calmer and more "normal" sounding voice in robot mode (which he also used in each of his other modes), and are most noticeable in the first episode, in which Gigatron makes heavy use of both his Gigabat and Gigadragon modes.

By contrast, the English Robots in Disguise version gave Megatron one voice for all of his modes, and rewrote his personality to be much more theatrical and ill-tempered. This in turn made his English voice sound like a combination of the two unique Japanese voices, combining the over-the-top aspects of the Gigabat voice with the seething aggression of the Gigadragon voice.

Live-action film series

Transformers (2007)

Look! No 2007 movie!

• The movie series takes place in the Generation 1 timeline in Japan.

This is another one of those instances where one TakaraTomy thing, very early in the life cycle of a new Transformers franchise, will say one thing about said franchise, and then literally everything else ever will say another.

When the live-action movie series was getting started, TakaraTomy went live with their "World of Transformers" website. The website timeline appeared to make the rather bizarre claim that the 2007 live-action movie also somehow took place in the Japanese Generation 1 continuity, between The Transformers: The Movie and Transformers 2010 in the year 2007. However, this was not reflected by the site's accompanying flow-chart, and was established to not be the case by the Kiss Players timeline (which noted that the movie-verse Autobots and Decepticons came from another universe when they appeared in a Beast Wars crossover). And of course, nothing else ever attempted to make the connection.

• 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.

Invisible credit.

• Brawl is named in the credits.

The Decepticon tank, who was named "Devastator" in a subtitle in the movie, ended up being named "Brawl" in Hasbro's toy line. Both Hasbro and the screenwriters, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, have expressly favored the toy's name, referring to the name in the movie as an "error".

Since the character has a "speaking" line in the movie, some fans claim that the voice actor is named in the ending credits, and the character's name is stated as "Brawl" there. In fact, however, there's no credit at all for the character, under either name, as he has no voice actor, his "speaking role" being little more than echo-y electronic gibberish.

One of these is not like the others.

• The Decepticons' hologram is Tom Banachek.

Several Decepticons in the movie are seen using a holographic "pilot"/"driver" based on the same short-haired, mustache-clad human with an intense stare, only wearing different clothes to match their respective alternate modes. Since Tom Banachek, the head of Sector Seven's Advanced Research Division, also sports a mustache, a short-cropped hairstyle and a pretty intense stare, many fans mistakenly believe that the Decepticons' hologram is meant to look like him.

There are two problems with that. One, the Decepticons' hologram, dubbed "Moustache Man" in the credits, is played by real-life United States Air Force Major Brian Reece, whereas Tom Banachek is portrayed by established actor Michael O'Neill.

Two... how would the Decepticons know who Banachek even was to model a hologram after him?

Revenge of the Fallen

• Barricade's return?

A common misconception among fans is that Barricade's Saleen Mustang alternate mode was spotted on the set of Revenge of the Fallen, possibly as part of the alleged "disinformation campaign" director Michael Bay repeatedly insisted he had initiated. In fact, however, a truck transporting three "Barricade" prop vehicles was spotted in Culver City, California, in March 2008, more than two months before principal shooting for Revenge of the Fallen started. There's been no indication that this had any significance other than moving the prop cars... someplace. Barricade would not make his reappearance until the next movie, Dark of the Moon.

Dark of the Moon

• Optimus Prime let the Decepticons take over Chicago.

Given the comparatively darker tone—and a decidedly more ruthless interpretation of Optimus Prime—of the first five live-action films when compared to the majority of the Transformers franchise, one common criticism of Dark of the Moon was Prime's apparent complacency in the face of the Decepticon attack on Chicago after the destruction of the Xantium—sometimes interpreted by some fans and critics as him "teaching Earth a lesson" after humanity unanimously agrees to exile Prime's Autobots in the hopes of appeasing Sentinel Prime and Megatron. This reading of the film seems to misinterpret Prime's line of "now your leaders will understand" and "we needed them to believe that we had gone" as Prime having engineered the entire crisis for his own political gain; the second line assuredly refers to the Decepticons, as Optimus and company faking their deaths allowed the heroes to sneak to Chicago and catch Megatron's forces by surprise. Even without the script, Cape Canaveral and Chicago are very far apart; if we assume that the Autobots hightailed it to Chicago seconds after splashing down in the Atlantic, it would still take them about eighteen hours to get there, a time discrepancy that more or less matches up with the way events play out onscreen.

Bumblebee

• Bumblebee is a reboot, and is separate from the rest of the "Bayverse".

Bumblebee was initially conceived as a straight prequel to the Transformers films, chronologically falling between the World War II flashback sequences seen in The Last Knight and the 2007 Transformers film. However, the movie was hastily retooled relatively late into production, tweaking the film's opening to show Bumblebee arriving on Earth in the 1980s, and, as a result, became more-or-less irreconcilable with both the information given by the The Last Knight and the various prequel comics that had gone before. Likely due to a combination of wishful thinking and resentment of the Bay films, members of the fandom and various mainstream nerd sites quickly jumped on the idea that Bumblebee was now a "reboot" of the film series as a whole, similar to the Marvel Cinematic Universe's interpretation of Spider-Man vs. his prior two cinematic outings—though both Hasbro and Paramount Pictures have been fairly mum on just how Bumblebee and the five prior Bay films will fit together moving forward: the closest we've gotten to a conclusive answer is that the film represents the start of a "new storytelling universe," which is... a pretty ambiguous statement, to say the least. Other fiction, such as the Sector 7 Adventures: The Battle at Half Dome comic included with the home media release of the film, has continued to tie the events of Bumblebee to the rest of the live-action film series, suggesting Hasbro is at least maintaining its prequel status for now.

This vaguery has only continued in the lead-up to Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, with the only official statement being their desire to avoid the "timeline" of the first five films. This is almost certainly meant to refer to the timeframe of the preceding films' events, with Rise of the Beasts being yet another prequel story set before the 2007 film, rather than any kind of alternate timeline. Either way, for the moment, we're no closer to a definitive answer.

Animated

• The Japanese dub of Transformers Animated presents it as a prequel to the live-action movies.

This appears to have some basis: back in March 2010, the then-recent edition of TV Magazine published some early pre-release information about the Japanese dub of the Animated cartoon. Among the details announced was the name-change of Bulkhead to "Ironhide", and changing his character to be closer in personality to Ironhide from the live-action movies. The article allegedly also claimed that because Optimus Prime was not Supreme Commander of the Autobots in Animated, the cartoon would be "set chronologically before the live action movies".

In actuality, however, not much of this has been reflected in the dub itself: aside from the aforementioned renaming of Bulkhead into "Ironhide", there's nothing in the Japanese dub that ties the Animated cartoon any closer to the live-action movies than its American counterpart.

It is worth noting that TakaraTomy chose to use the movie-style branding for Animated products, rendering the "Transformers Animated" logo in the gray steel look used for the movies.

Aligned

• The High Moon Studios games are part of G1.

We really did look very closely at Generation 1 stuff and tried to capture what for us was the essence of the characters.Sean Miller, Director Character and Animation, Gameinformer interview

With its designs aiming at a video gamer audience who grew up with Generation 1, the development team for War for Cybertron took a great deal of inspiration from the original cartoon for such things as characters and the design aesthetic for Cybertron. A commercial even depicted Shockwave ordering Soundwave to play a song made famous by the original animated movie. Furthermore, War for Cybertron toys were sold as part of the Generations toyline that featured Generation 1-styled characters. These factors led many to believe the game was actually part of Generation 1.

To be fair, there was and is virtually no information available to the average fan that War for Cybertron is not part of Generation 1. Hasbro has essentially been folding War for Cybertron into their modern continuity, and have been informing dedicated fans of this fact through question and answer sessions. The War for Cybertron comic adaptation and online timeline actually are adaptations from Transformers: Exodus, which is the basis for the new modern continuity fiction.

Canonically, both WfC and its sequel Fall of Cybertron are in the Aligned continuity, but beyond suggestions and mandatory changes from Hasbro, High Moon Studios doesn't seem to care about Hasbro's declarations of canon. In the art book for the sequel to WfC, The Art of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, the only influences of the concept art and designs mentioned are G1 related. Dreamwave, the original cartoon, and other concepts and ideas from Generation 1 are cited, but the fact that Cliffjumper's head is based off of Prime Cliffjumper's is not mentioned, nor are the modifications to Optimus Prime's gun, Megatron's new body, Tox-En, or the other assorted influences from Prime.

High Moon Studios has often described the games as prequels to the G1 cartoon. More savvy fans would recognize that the game is generally irreconcilable with the cartoon (or any other Generation 1 continuity for that matter): the circumstances of Optimus Prime's rise to power would contradict "War Dawn", and Optimus's predecessor does not possess the Matrix, unlike his cartoon counterpart. The Autobots left Cybertron because the Core shut down, not because energy sources were depleted, and characters like Jetfire, Breakdown, Cyclonus, the Aerialbots, and Trypticon wouldn't be on Cybertron or even exist. Additionally, the game draws inspiration from other continuities, including characters not from Generation 1 like Slipstream and Demolishor. The game does share a lot of similarities with Dreamwave's War Within series (where Jetfire and Trypticon are present), but it cannot take place in that continuity either.

Companies

Marvel Comics

• John Romita designed the Generation 1 character models.

The rumor here comes about through a misreading of the credits to The Transformers Universe. Legendary Marvel Comics artist John Romita, Sr. was listed as "Art Director", leading readers to assume that he was in charge of designing or developing the various character models used in the series (and reprinted in said comic). However, Romita was actually the Art Director for Marvel Comics as a whole at the time. The majority of the character models were in fact done by Floro Dery, who went uncredited.

TakaraTomy

• Takara was taken over by Tomy.

In 2005, it was announced that Takara, longtime Japanese manufacturer/distributor of Transformers toys, and former competitor Tomy would merge into a new company, named TakaraTomy, as of March 1, 2006. Some fans misinterpreted the media coverage, believing that Takara had been bought out by rival Tomy. This was not helped by official press releases declaring Tomy the "surviving company", Tomy having the majority of shares, and the merged company simply going by the name "Tomy" outside Japan.

The name issue is easily explained, as it was done for purely pragmatic reasons. "Tomy" is an internationally established brand, since the company already had divisions in many other countries prior to the merger, and distributed their toys under their own name there. Takara, meanwhile, had mostly abandoned ventures into international markets years ago, and had its products distributed through other companies (such as Hasbro) instead. Therefore, the merged company decided to use the better-known name for its international business, while it would continue as "TakaraTomy" within Japan itself.

Now, as for the specifics of the merger... Although the merger ratio was set at 0.356 of a Tomy share for each Takara share (including a split of Tomy's stock), and the companies announced a layoff of 15% of their combined workforce mostly on the Takara side, the term "merger" (as compared to "take-over") was prominently used in all the official announcements by the two companies, and twisting tiny details into a de facto "takeover" of Takara by Tomy is effectively splitting hairs.

• e-Hobby is owned by Takara (TakaraTomy).

The e-HOBBY shop is owned by Part One, Ltd. Although the company has had close ties with Takara for decades, the online store also sells toys by other companies, primarily TakaraTomy's rival Bandai.

The online store directly owned by TakaraTomy, meanwhile, is TakaraTomy Mall (formerly Toy Hobby Market).

IDW Publishing

• Hasbro pays IDW to publish comics for them, and profit directly from the comics selling well.

Presumably stemming from the fact that most Transformers cartoons are commissioned by Hasbro in order to advertise their toys, a lot of fans are under the impression that Hasbro pays IDW Publishing and other licensees to produce Transformers comics for them. This is the exact opposite of how licensed comics work; IDW pays Hasbro for the privilege of publishing Transformers comics, and IDW keeps all the profits outside of that licensing fee. As such, Hasbro doesn't have any particular investment in the comics selling well, other than their indirect effects on toy sales and potential negative press caused by "failing" comics; all that matters to Hasbro is that they sell well enough that IDW keep paying for the license.

• The Hasbro Universe was pushed on IDW by Hasbro.

While Hasbro is mostly hands-off with IDW's comics, one of the terms of the license is that IDW needs to work with Hasbro to do occasional promotion for new and upcoming toys; this most obviously took place with events such as Dark Cybertron, Combiner Wars and Titans Return — and, if we're being honest, has resulted in some of the less popular arcs from "phase 2" of IDW. As such, when IDW announced that they were bringing several other Hasbro-owned franchises into their acclaimed Transformers universe, a lot of fans assumed that this was the result of another Hasbro mandate, especially given their stated desire to have a "Transformers Cinematic Universe." It also bore a startling resemblance to the shuttered plans to use the Aligned continuity family to launch a shared universe, even sharing the name of Unit:E. However, the creative teams involved were open from the start about the decision being an internal one that IDW had to ask Hasbro for permission to do.

Reportedly, the decision stemmed from IDW obtaining multiple additional Hasbro licenses, and Chris Ryall and Christos Gage suggesting that G.I. Joe appear in their ROM comic; this led to John Barber bringing up Andrew Griffith's suggestion that IDW's G.I. Joe universe could fit "between" big Transformers events, which led to all of them suggesting to Cullen Bunn that the Earth that the Micronauts visited be the ROM/Transformers/G.I. Joe one... and, well, it all spiralled from there. Hasbro were apparently very on board with the idea, but it was far from something that they pushed onto unwilling creators.

• The Hasbro Universe comics are responsible for the ending of the 2005 IDW continuity.

Given that IDW announced that they were concluding their main continuity less than two years after the VERY controversial Hasbro Universe was first announced, a lot of fans were under the impression that the shared universe, and the relaunch of The Transformers and More than Meets the Eye into Optimus Prime and Lost Light, were responsible for tanking sales to the point that IDW decided that it would be more profitable to reboot.

However, the reason that those titles were relaunched in the first place is that their sales were on an unsustainable downwards spiral; and, other than a brief sales spike for the first issues of the relaunched series, the relaunch did pretty much nothing to the sales trends, which continued to decrease at the same level as they had from around the 51st issues to the relaunch. While the Hasbro Universe titles generally didn't sell great, they didn't affect the sales of the ongoing Transformers series.

• Chris Ryall was kicked out of IDW because he conspired to break Hasbro mandates.

He really wasn't, guys. In fact, he was outright surprised by the idea that this was a rumor going around.

External links

• Ten popular but incorrect rumors about Japanese Transformers, retrieved November 16, 2012 (archived)