Transformers: The Movie is an interesting footnote in media history. A TV show getting a movie while the series was still on the air and ties in to the TV continuity? That doesn’t happen very often, and I don’t remember an example of one before this. There were movies based on finished shows, some of which continue the TV show rather than being a reboot but there weren’t too many. A toyline getting a movie? This is the first one I can think of. When I saw the above ad on TV I was really looking forward to going, and for various reasons I was never able to. For me personally it was also the first comic adaptation I picked up, although it wasn’t the first ever made. Between this and the novelization for ET The Extra-Terrestrial I started to see the differences between format as well as movie adaptations not always matching the movie 100%. I would learn years later why that happened.
Adaptations are based on the latest available version of the movie script so that they can come out the same time. Enjoy the movie? In the days before home video was cheap this was your only way to see it again between the final screen date and appearing on TV, this also being the first time it was edited into episodes of the show. The He-Man & She-Ra movie was the opposite, episodes of the show re-edited into a theatrical movie to capitalize on Transformers’ success…if you ignore the fact that the movie was not a major success until home video and nostalgia boosted viewership. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I finally got to see it on the big screen during the movie’s anniversary, but by then I had two versions of the movie on home video–a VHS tape I had to get from Canada and a recent DVD release, seen it on television multiple times in both movie and episode editing, and have two different comic adaptations, one from the 80s by Marvel and a redo with the final script by IDW. It didn’t hold the same excitement, but it was still cool to finally do.
The advertisements announced that Transformers: The Movie was “two years in the making”, but what happened during those two years? Chris McFeely of Transformers: The Basics on YouTube has gathered together information dropped over the years and has all we know thus far about the making of this milestone in animation and the Transformers. This includes visualisations of early drafts, which I’ll be reviewing based on what Chris summarizes in the video.
The First Draft
Personally, Rails doesn’t sound like the kind of Transformer you’d see with the Autobots, but then again the design we see in the video may not have been the intended or final design. He just looks too vicious for an Autobot. The only G1 Autobot train we would get is a Tyco train set that transformed into various components. None of them were robots, but the set came with scale robots that couldn’t transform. The first draft missing all the known human allies I’m really not in favor of. At least the movie gave us an adult Spike, even though his son was the human we followed, with both showing up in Japan as far as The Headmasters. Carly made an appearance in season 3. We never learned what happened to Chase and Sparkplug. Even Transformers: Energon managed to get the three main humans from Armada in there somewhere, while Rescue Bots Academy only brought in Cody from the previous shows. Humans rarely make it to the next series even when they don’t change continuities.
Hot Rod appears to have always been intended to accidentally help Megatron in his fight with Prime while trying to stop him from not playing fair. There was a whole fanfic series called “What If Hot Rod Hadn’t Got In The Way”, where he either stayed out of it and simply warned Optimus or fired at the gun from a distance, both of which would have been smarter moves. Also things like splitting team and the Junkions were also ideas from the script that underwent alterations in the final movie.
Not sure how I feel about misogynist Wheeljack, but Arcee being a field medic would be cool. Still, at least he and most of the season 1 Autobots get parts in this version besides a body count. The romantic couplings I’m not sure about but of course I haven’t seen it in action. As for Blurr sounding like Jimmy Stewart…we got the better version. Tankor would later get used in the Beast Machine line and has been Octane’s rename until Hasbro could regain the trademark on Octane’s name.
Interesting that the first draft almost predicts the “sparks” from Beast Wars that has become part of multiversal continuity. Also the idea of decoys would show up years later in the toyline, a series of rubber figurines based on the cartoon model, but all red for the Autobots and purple for the Decepticons, with no paint applications. The only one I picked up was Sunstreaker and not Bumblebee.
Unicron won an eating contest with Galactus.
The Secret Of Cybertron
I wouldn’t mind seeing this script to see if it really is as good as Flint Dille says it is. I know Chris would love to get his hands on it. Maybe someday. As for robot mode Cybertron, we would eventually get that for…Transformers: Cybertron. I have the transforming Cybertron as well as Unicron from the Armada line and the Death Star from the Star Wars crossovers (the latter was a gift back when the 2008 hospital stay happened and is a pain in the skid plate to transform) and Primus is the coolest looking of the three.
The Second Draft (or would this technically be the third?) and re-writes
Replacing “Unicron” or “The Entity” with Ingestor just seems a bit too on the nose before it gets bitten off. I’m glad they didn’t stick with it. The Sweeps being a team name now of course I’m used to but if Starscream’s team can be called Seekers, why couldn’t Scourge have his own team? I do wonder what the difference is in this franchise between names like Seekers, Sweeps, or Wreckers versus the various “-bot” and “-con” names of the G1 groups, though now with the Unicron trilogy giving us Mini-Cons, Omnicons, and Terrorcons, with only the Terrorcons actually tied to the Decepticons, and Mini-Cons making return appearances in one form or another, it’s even more confusing now to keep factions and groups within those factions straight.
Floro Dery not matching the toy designs properly? The heck you say! I’m really glad they didn’t go with Autobot City’s first design. It sounds cool but it also looks a bit wrong for what we had seen of Cybertronian technology, engineering, and architecture by this point in the original series. A dragon Predacon would fit in with what we got in Transformers: Prime where all the dragons were called Predacons, a faction apart from the Decepticons but working with them for awhile. “Predacon” has an interesting history.
I would have preferred Kranix turning into a ship. Lithone could have been one of the Transformers colonies for those escaping the war. Plus I liked his ship mode design and it’s too bad we never got a toy of it.
Here’s a link for the Sunbow Marvel Archive if you want to check it out. It goes to the Transformers section but they have information on a lot of Sunbow and Marvel Productions’ other collaborations. So, would you have preferred one of the earlier drafts or are you satisfied with the movie we got? At least it’s better than most of the live-action Transformers movies.
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