Weapon
| This article is about weapons. For the issue of Sector 7, see Weapon (issue). |
A weapon is a tool or device intended to cause pain, incapacitation, injury, or death. Transformers of every sort and every allegiance use a wide variety of weapons, both in war and in occasional peacetime pursuits (such as the hunting of turbofoxes).
Examples
Transformer weaponry may be broadly divided into melee weapons, which are hand-held or affixed to the body—such as swords, mace (weapon)s and axes—and used to directly attack an enemy; and ranged weapons, which can attack from afar. Partly to avoid using the crude term "gun", Transformers marketing prefers words like "launcher" (for weapons which fire missiles or other forms of projectiles) and "blaster" or "laser" (for those that fire a beam, ray, or burst of energy, perhaps with the power of your imagination).
Fiction
Toys
Transformers toys are equipped with a polymer arsenal of pantomime destruction, and here again there are several classes of weapons.
Weapons may be a permanently attached feature of either or both modes. Sometimes these are elements of one mode that are not otherwise used in the other except as detail and to simulate a weapon. Hot Rod's triple exhaust pipes, simulating forearm blasters, are a good example. Melee weapons may also be added this way, as when a figure's beast mode claws are left in a position accessible for combat use. Other times, they may be clearly weapons in both modes, such as Armada Megatron's main cannon.
Weapons may also remain hidden in either or both modes, and then deployed at will. This is a major feature of several subgroups of toys, including the Triggerbots and Triggercons.
Robot mode weapons are sometimes made from a part of the alternate mode that has been detached and transformed into the weapon. Dinobot's Cyber-slash tail weapon is an example.
Accessory weapons may also be given. Guns are common, as are missile launchers. Often these attach to the main figure with pegs, though some use other means.
Any of these weapons may be no more than dummies, molded to look like weapons, or they may be functional. This function usually involves launching missiles, but it may instead use electronic lights or sounds.
G1
The earliest Transformers toys were repurposed from pre-existing Japanese toylines Diaclone and Micro Change, and were typically designed to each come with a small pile of detachable launchers, rifles, missiles, and other assorted accessories with which to arm the robot mode. It was unusual for any of these parts to have anywhere to store in vehicle mode; in fact, as Diaclone toys were conceived as piloted mecha, many of them didn't even have a place to store their fists. Similarly, rare examples of vehicle mode accessories (such as Hound's spare tyre, gas canister, and turret, or the Decepticon planes' landing gear) would have nowhere to go in robot mode. A famous early example of weapons designed to integrate into both the robot mode and disguised mode was Soundwave's cassette-player batteries.
1986's "Special Teams" took things a step further, with most of the smaller figures including a small robot-mode pistol and a large vehicle-mode cannon, and with the larger team leaders including a pile of kibble used to make the combined form. Many of the original characters conceived for The Transformers: The Movie were described as having "lasers", no matter how little resemblance the guns' stated properties had to actual real-world lasers.
By 1987, Transformers toys were being designed from scratch for the line, with much less of an emphasis on realistic-looking alternate modes, and 5 mm posts had been more or less standardized. This meant weapons could generally just be piled on top of vehicle modes as extra armament. The Targetmaster gimmick introduced the idea of Transformers that would turn into weapons themselves, to be wielded by other figures.
Often, profile writer Bob Budiansky would supplement the characters' accessories with various in-built weapons based on details of the toy: for instance, Tantrum's bull-mode horns can shoot electricity.
Beast Era
Kenner's Beast Wars toyline marked a shift in the incorporation of weapons into Transformers toys. As the figures turned into realistic-looking animals, weapons were usually integrated as body parts, in fitting with the '90s gross-out leanings of the line. Perhaps the most iconic example was Cheetor's water-squirting quasar rifle, better-known as the "gut gun", as once detached it revealed sculpted detail of intestines!
The Transmetal figures later used robot-mode accessories to complete the toys' "mobility" modes—such as with Tarantulas' wheel-buzzsaw, or Optimus Primal's thruster-gun.
The often-blurred line between "weapon" and "chunk of alternate mode" continued all the way through to the reintroduction of realistic vehicle modes with Robots in Disguise. A toy missing any of its weapons would in all likelihood end up looking like half a car.
Unicron Trilogy
With the closer co-development of Transformers toys beginning with Transformers: Armada, they began to be designed such that, if a kid lost a part, they would still be left with a functional toy. A clear example of this was seen with Sideways, who developed the classic Headmaster gimmick by including not just two swappable Mini-Con heads, but a smaller head they plugged onto. Mini-Con vehicle modes were often chosen such that, when attached to a larger figure, they'd serve as some kind of weapon, in a few cases extending this as far as to incorporate dedicated third modes with this in mind.
Transformers: Energon took this idea of customizability further by using the 5 mm system to allow kids to swap and combine Energon weapons. These rarely formed an integral part of the vehicle modes, but could attach to either mode.
In Transformers: Cybertron, nearly every figure had some kind of in-built spring-loaded deployable weapon, which was activated by inserting a Cyber Key. These keys almost never had anywhere to store away on the toy, but so long as a kid had at least one, they'd be able to activate the features of all the toys they owned.
Alternators
With its focus on detailed scale models of real cars, Transformers: Alternators introduced an unprecedented level of incorporation of weapons into alternate modes: engine blocks and exhaust pipes would unfold into hand-held blasters. In some cases, car manufacturers had mixed feelings on this. Notably, Alternators was also the first line to largely avoid round peg-hole connections for weapons, instead sculpting them with realistic rectangular handgrips, giving the toys posable fingers with which to hold them—though a small peg would still be used to secure the grip against the figure's palm.
Live-action film series
The first two live-action movies generally depicted Transformer weaponry as being integrated into their bodies—a hand would not hold a gun, but instead change into a gun. Toys varied in terms of how they depicted this, but there was generally less of an emphasis on accessory play.
This changed with Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which suddenly gave everyone hand-held weaponry. The toyline tied into this through the MechTech gimmick—again using the 5 mm system—which gave each figure some kind of transforming weapon.
Beginning with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a separate system using 3 mm bars and C-shaped clips began to be favoured, continuing through the Hunt for the Decepticons, Reveal the Shield and Generations lines. The system formed the basis of the accessory play pattern for the Cyberverse subline of smaller figures, which ran through Dark of the Moon and Transformers: Prime.
Animated
With its greater emphasis on character play, Transformers Animated eschewed line-wide gimmicks in favour of giving every toy its own unique feature or weapon, resulting in many memorable designs, such as Prowl's traffic light and shurikens, Grimlock's flaming sword, Oil Slick's chain-barrel, and Bumblebee's stinger (which would go on to be a recurring feature for the character).
Arms Micron
The Power Core Combiners toyline smooshed together the "Targetmaster", "Mini-Con"/"Micron", and "Energon weapon" concepts, by including smaller robots cast in translucent plastic that turned not just into weapons, but also into armor for the larger combiner robots. These figures were released in Japan as "Arms Microns".
While the Transformers: Prime toyline generally took a similar approach to accessories as the Dark of the Moon line that preceded it, Takara's releases swapped out the standard 5 mm accessories for brand-new transforming Arms Microns—small model kits that needed to be snapped together and finished using stickers, to appeal to Japan's customizing-hobbyist demographic amongst children. These Arms Microns were themselves designed to combine using the 5 mm system into highly impractical Combo Weapons.
