Transformers Animated season 4
Transformers Animated came to an end with its third season, but it wasn't always intended to be that way! Various plans existed for a fourth season that would have continued the story of the series and taken it in a new direction.
Early plans
When originally plotting what the show's fourth season would be about, story editor Marty Isenberg envisioned its action as being split between Cybertron and Earth. The majority of the season would be set on the Transformers' homeworld, but the appearance of new energon deposists on Earth caused by shards of the AllSpark would require the Autobots to continue defending the planet against the energon-starved Decepticons' evil intentions as well. With Megatron's story considered effectively finished after the third season, it was planned for Blackarachnia to serve as the season's major villain, having abandoned her search for a cure for her technorganic condition, and now seeking to transform the rest of the Cybertronian race into organic-machine hyrbids like herself. Megatron, meanwhile, would have been a secondary villain, imprisoned after the events of the season three finale, but now manipulating Sentinel Prime from behind bars, a la Hannibal Lector, as the egotistical Autobot competed with Optimus Prime to become the deceased Ultra Magnus's true successor and ruler of Cybertron.
Other plot threads running throughout the season would have included Prowl's ghost occasionally making contact with the Autobots within within the AllSpark; Omega Supreme struggling to find a place for himself on a Cybertron that saw him only as a weapon; and Arcee beginning Sari's Cybertronian education.
Potential ideas for episodes discussed by Isenberg, Matt Youngberg, and Derrick J. Wyatt, at this early stage included:
| "Trial of Megatron" | |
| A season premiere of potentially two or three episodes in length. Megatron tricks Sentinel Prime into making his trial a big, splashy public affair to create a cover for a new Decepticon plot he has masterminded from prison, which the Autobots only just manage to thwart. | |
| "Mirror Mirror" | |
| While attempting to transwarp back to Earth, Optimus's team are catapulted into a parallel universe where Autobots are evil and Decepticons are good. Based on the BotCon-original Shattered Glass mirror universe concept, this idea was originally conceived for season three, but was dropped when "TransWarped" was expanded to three episodes. | |
| "What a Tangled Web We Weave" | |
| While Blackarachnia builds up her technorganic Predacon army in the present, flashbacks tell the story of how she came to join the Decepticons in the past. | |
| "S.T.E.A.M." | |
| This episode would have revisited one of the earliest ideas Isenberg had for the show, which was included in the series bible even before the production of season one: the anti-robotic vigilante group, Save The Earth And Mankind, who believe Sumdac's robot revotution and the coming of the Autobots to spell the end for humanity, and use steampunk technology to fight them. This adventure was to see them run afoul of the returning Soundwave (accompanied by some new minions), forcing the Autobots to save them. | |
| "Land of the Mini-Cons" | |
| In this Gulliver's Travels pastiche, another transwarp mishap dumps Bumblebee on a planet populated by Mini-Cons, who worship him as a god. | |
| "Total Devastation" | |
| The Constructicons find a way to combine into Devastator, giving them the muscle to ensure their control over Earth's new energon deposits. They come up against competition from Slipstream, who has designs on using the energon to make herself Decepticon leader. The Autobots call on the help of Omega Supreme to settle things. | |
| "Bumble Prime" | |
| A mysterious human villain named the Time Trucker (based on Hasbro employee Steve Drucker) shows Bumblebee a possible future where he leads the Autobots in fighting side-by-side with the Decepticons—led by Galvatron!—against the zombie-like Predacons, created by an AllSpark-powered technorganic virus that the Autobots must stop Blackarachnia unleashing in the present. This episode was another originally proposed for season three. | |
| "It Came From Cybertron" | |
| Previously proposed for both seasons two and three but dropped each time, this goofy adventure would have been about an Autobot coming to Earth with an important message for Optimus Prime. But after scanning a flying saucer as his altenate mode from a B-movie set, he suffers amnesia, and comes to believe he is really an alien invader named Cosmos. | |
| "How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Energon Farm?" | |
| Seeking to escape Optimus and Sentinel's fight for the position of Magnus for a while, Bulkhead returns to the Energon farm on which he was raised, with Jetfire and Jetstorm tagging along, only to find the farm has become a Decepticon target. | |
| "Arachnus Prime" | |
| The Time Trucker gives Optimus Prime the chance to alter the past, and save Elita-1 from ever becoming Blackarachnia. However, the end result is that Optimus becomes a technorganic spider-bot instead, creating a new future where Elita leads the Autobots. | |
| "Predacons Unite" | |
| In the two-part season finale, Blackarachnia's Predacons attack Cybertron, and Sentinel agrees to ally with Megatron to defeat them. But Optimus realises that the Decepticon leader is only playing the Autobots and Predacons off against each other so that he and his forces can conquer the planet. | |
Hasbro steps in
The success of the first live-action movie quickly put a crimp in these plans. To ride the wave of movie popularity, Hasbro insisted that the fourth season would have to maintain a degree of similarity to the film, which meant that Megatron had to be the main villain, and its action had to be predominantly set on Earth. Furthermore, the Autobot team membership had to be changed, removing Bulkhead and adding Jazz and Ironhide, to match the Autobot line-up from the movie. Other Habsro mandates included a larger role for Mini-Cons, and Optimus and Megatron being upgraded into new forms based on toys that were in the process of being designed: Optimus would combine with his trailer into a "Powermaster" form, and Megatron would be rebuilt into a triple-changing body, called "Marauder Megatron."
With these requirements for the season established, the Animated team came up with a revised list of proposed episodes, beginning with:
| "Trial of Megatron, Part 1" | |
| His victory over Megatron had made Optimus Prime the popular choice to replace Sentinel as Cybertron's new, permanent Magnus, but Sentinel isn't afraid to play dirty to stay in power. Meanwhile, Sari begins her Cybertronian education under Arcee, raising new questions about her mysterious origins. | |
| "Trial of Megatron, Part 2" | |
| As Cybertron comes under attack from Strika's Decepticons, Sentinel arranges a public show trial for Megatron, which the cunning Decepticon leader uses to his advantage. | |
| "Trial of Megatron, Part 3" | |
| Megatron launches the city of Kaon from Cybertron and sets course for Earth, with a Powermaster-enhanced Optimus Prime and his new team in hot pursuit. | |
An expanded, three-part version of the original, proposed premiere, this version of the story incorporated Hasbro's demands by adding Powermaster Optimus Prime and Mini-Cons, and saw Megatron relocate Trypticon Prison to Earth to serve as his new base of operations in the season going forward, forcing the Autobots—now joined by Jazz and Ironhide, but sans Bulkhead, who remained on Cybertron to help rebuild in the wake of the disaster Megatron caused—to pursue him back to the planet. These were the only episodes that were developed beyond basic premises; at Hasbro's request, Isenberg wrote a complete "outline" (an act-by-act, scene-by-scene breakdown describing the plot and story beats, action scenes, character arcs and sample dialogue) for all three episodes.
These outlines went unseen until 2019, when Isenberg was invited to UK-based Transformers convention TFNation, and it was arranged to turn the outlines into an exclusive pre-recorded "script-reading" event. Isenberg was able to get the entire regular cast of the cartoon (save for Tara Strong, and guest star Judd Nelson) to reprise their roles, and Eric Siebenaler even created brand new designs for three new characters featured in the episodes—Uplink, Trac-Tor and an Animated version of Obsidian—which were used by the convention organisers to create artwork to accompany the reading. The script-reading was initially strictly exclusive to the convention, but two years later, the feature was livestreamed via YouTube as part of TFNation's 2021 "online convention" (held in place of a regular event due to the COVID-19 pandemic), featuring even more accompanying artwork compared to the original recording. Thanks to these two events, TFWiki has been able to create full article write-ups for each of the three parts, linked above.
| "Turf War" | |
| A reworked version of "Total Devastation," this episode would have seen Dirt Boss and the Constructicons abduct Bulkhead and force him to become part of Devastator, leading to a "turf war" with the Decepticons for control of Detroit's Energon deposits. | |
| "This is Why I Hate Organics" | |
| Rattletrap finds himself on Earth, surrounded by the one thing he fears: organics. He manages to scan an Earth vehicle mode, but he quickly finds himself a target for both Autobots and Decepticons alike. | |
| "Mirror, Mirror" | |
| Reworked from the earlier proposal for a Shattered Glass-themed episode, this take on the concept saw Bulkhead and Sari transported to the mirror universe when attempting to rejoin the other Autobots who had already returned to Earth. | |
| "Gremlins in the Gears" | |
| The Mini-Cons who run Kaon are on the loose and causing all kinds of havoc in Detroit by disassembling all machinery they come across, including the Autobots. To save their friends, Ratchet and Captain Fanzone must team up to stop the renegade Mini-Cons. | |
| "What a Tangled Web We Weave" | |
| Modified from the original propsal for the episode, this version of Blackarachnia's story would have also detailed how she rebuilt Blitzwing into a Triple Changer, planting the seeds for her to do the same to Megatron later in the season. | |
| "S.T.E.A.M." | |
| Essentially unchanged from the original proposal for the episode. | |
| "It Came from Planet Cybertron" | |
| In this version of the three-times-proposed Cosmos episode, the "important message" he was bringing to Optimus Prime apparently warned of a traitor in the Autobot ranks, setting up the events of later episode "Process of Elimination." | |
| "Triple Threat" | |
| Blackarachnia upgrades Megatron into a new triple-changing form, but like Blitzwing before him, the process leaves him with an unstable personality, and he becomes a one-'bot army, blowing away anything and anyone in his path. | |
| "Allspark-alypse Now!" | |
| When Sentinel comes to Earth intending to use the AllSpark to kill Megatron, Prowl's ghost must possess the Cybertronians animated by shards of the AllSpark to warn Optimus about the consequences of Sentinel's plans. | |
| "Process of Elimination" | |
| Bumblebee investigates a series of deadly attacks on his old boot camp platoon, who are being picked off by a mysterious assailant. All signs point to either Waspinator or Shockwave... but when they too are attacked, the mystery deepens! Reportedly, the culprit was really Cliffjumper, whose mind had been affected by a computer virus. | |
| "Megatron Must Be Destroyed!" Part 1 | |
| As Megatron's plan to reformat Earth into a new Decepticon homeworld reaches fruition, the Autobots must join forces with Slipstream's Decepticons, Blackarachnia's Predacons, and the Dinobots to defeat Megatron once and for all. | |
| "Megatron Must Be Destroyed!" Part 2 | |
| While Powermaster Optimus Prime and Megatron battle, Sari discovers a deeper connection between herself and someone familiar that may save the Earth and Cybertron. | |
Cancellation and legacy
Ultimately, a combination of factors—not least of all, Hasbro's desire to launch their own network and develop a new show for it—led to Animated season 4 being cancelled, and the planned toys going unmade. In the years since the end of the series, The AllSpark Almanac II (working off a list provided by Marty Isenberg) and issue #71 of the Collectors' Club magazine (working from a list by Derrick J. Wyatt) would reveal the various plans for the season featured in this article, supplemented over time by the creators' interviews and fan-interactions.
However, it's important to state that these episode lists represent only ideas for what would have been in the season. There is no guarantee that they would have all met with Hasbro approval, or that they wouldn't simply have been altered and redrafted by the creators themselves as time went on; even the full-length outlines Isenberg wrote for "Trial of Megatron" would have been subject to alteration during production. Thus, it must be understood that what you see in this article does not necessarily represent exactly what would have been seen on TV, even if the season had gone ahead; in particular, the Collectors' Club magazine article lists fifteen proposed episodes, and Animated seasons were only thirteen episodes in length, meaning two of them would almost certainly never have been made.
Derrick J. Wyatt was especially passionate about Animated, and strove to keep it alive with new artworks and allusions to ideas he had for stories over the years, including pieces in fanzines. But again, it must be stressed that just because Derrick wanted to do an idea, that doesn't mean it would have been done; notably, while he claimed that he always knew exactly what he wanted Sari's true origin to be (alluding to it in the Club article, but never revealing it), in contrast, Isenberg says the team never definitively decided upon an answer. His passion, coupled with his distinctive artstyle being the most definitive aspect of the series, has led to a tendency among fans to treat Wyatt's word as more definitive that it ever truly was, as if he were the ultimate authority and had the final say on the world of Animated, when that simply isn't true. Additionally, several of his works over the years have been misinterpreted by fans as definite plans for the season; for instance, the designs of Inferno and Antagony featured in the AllSpark Almanac were not made for the show, but were invented years later as potential toys ideas for BotCon, which is why they were simply recolors of Waspinator with new heads. This continued BotCon-baiting method of character design created a recurring phenomenon in subsequent years wherein new Animated characters wound up often being retools/recolors of existing ones, when in reality, if they had ever been in the show, they would have had original designs of their own.
Notes
- During a panel at Auto Assembly 2010, Derrick J. Wyatt spoke of an unproduced episode named "Trukk. vs. Munky", in which Blackarachnia would have created Optimus Primal as a technorganic clone of Optimus Prime. This episode was actually proposed for the second season, and did not make it in any official lists of proposed episodes for the fourth season.
- In the same panel, also mentioned his desire to do an David Lynch-inspired episode involving Sector Seven, featuring versions of Seymour Simmons and Metalhawk. Indications are that Wyatt had his idea in mind for a while, but again, it never made it into any official proposed lists.
Gallery
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Page 1 of the original list of season 4 premilinary episode ideas. -
Page 2 of the original list of season 4 premilinary episode ideas. -
Page 3 of the original list of season 4 premilinary episode ideas. -
Marauder Megatron headshot. -
Resin prototype of "Marauder" Megatron toy. -
Ironhide's Earth-mode design; an alternate design from the concept sketch above, but still influenced by the movie version of the character. -
Concept illustrations of Kaon blasting off from Cybertron and settling in Lake Erie. -
Devastator headshot. -
Resin prototype of Hot Shot's toy.
External links
- Animated Season 4: What Could Have Been — Extensive video by Keyan Carlile breaking down everything we know about Season 4, with input from Isenberg and Wyatt's close friend Josh Perez, including fanart conceptualizing each episode.
