Saturday Night Showcase Special> Transformers’ War History Compilation

I’m going to do something rather different for Saturday Night Showcase on the heals of the Transformers One trailer (which I reviewed) and the upcoming airing of the first war episodes of the original The Transformers in theaters, which I’m hoping is why those episodes aren’t currently on their official Hasbro Pulse YouTube channel at the moment and will be returned after. Otherwise I need to make alternate plans for my previous SNS posting of the original miniseries. I’ll know after the theatrical airings are done in May.

Season one didn’t give us a whole lot about the history of the “Great War” as depicted in the show’s continuity. It had to set up the series and introduce the first few batches of toys characters first. Season two and part of season three is when we finally started learning about the war between Autobots in Decepticons. Tonight I’m going to show you those episodes, but there’s a catch. Some of them were part of a multipart episode. One is a part two of two while another is part three of five, and yet I’ll not show every part because that would be too many videos on one page. The rest are done in one stories, though.

Instead my focus is on the parts of the episode that just go into the history of the war, when it started, how long it went on, and the history of Cybertron prior to the war, with looks at their very origins. You’ll be getting the history the same way we did as kids back in the day, but not necessarily the stories surround it because that’s not the point of tonight’s showcase. Don’t worry, it’s really easy to find this show on many streaming services, though it does mean spoilers for at least one episode that gets the finale posted here. Then again, if you’re even here I’m not sure why you’d be here if you haven’t seen the whole series. Much of this was also covered in the Transformers: The Basics episode on the Great War in various continuities, and I will not be including season three’s segments discussion Transformer history. This is how the viewers learned it in the way we learned it originally. There’s only (insert number here) episode to go through but we learn quite a bit. Let’s begin:

The first episode I remember showing us the history of the war is a mostly misplaced scene in the episode “Desertion Of The Dinobots”, who part ways with the Autobots just as the “Cybertonium” that they’re made of finally starts breaking down after 4,000,000 years on Earth. In part two, the final part, Spike and Carly manage to get to Cybertron to get the metal and are surprisingly joined by Swoop. The Dinobots wanted to see Cybertron, which I guess is like going back to their ancestral homeland seeing as they were first-generation Earth robots when it you think about it. During their hunt for Wheeljack’s old lab and his stash of Cybertonium, the trio find a series of history recordings going over a brief history of the Autobot/Decepticon war.

I’m not sure why they dropped this bit into this episode, but it’s our first look at pre-war Cybertron. Learning that the “Great War” is really a series of smaller wars (or otherwise this was the just the latest and worst of them) was certainly new data.

We’re focused on the Great War, but two episodes about more personal history is important to our next story. I’ll summarize:

• “The Search For Alpha Trion”: In this story we learn that Alpha Trion has a connection to the building of Optimus Prime and Alita-One, which will be further explored in our next entry.
• “The Key To Vector Sigma”: This two-parter introduces Vector Sigma. Before Cybertron was, it was. Vector Sigma’s origins get explored later in this set of videos, but the short version is it’s a sentient computer that brings the Stunticons and the Aerialbots to life, and we learn that Alpha Trion is so old he’s compatible with Vector Sigma, but it requires him to merge with the computer, essentially taking his own life in the process.

“War Dawn” is the next step in the Great War history, but it’s also the rest of the introduction of Optimus Prime. It plays a role in the story as it shows Megatron’s evil and ties together events of the first two stories. Megatron decides to get rid of the Aerialbots in order to reclaim their air superiority in the usual overcomplicated plans Megatron was known for in this continuity–sent the Aerialbots into the past of Cybertron. Luckily most of the Aerialbots still haven’t gotten the idea that the Decepticons are evil since they’re all air buddies. Silverbolt’s the only bright one on the team at the moment. During this trip they meet Orion Pax and his girlfriend, Ariel, and friend Dion. This is not only Optimus’ full and original origin but shows us Cybertron before the war (or the current war as we learned later) and the early days of Megatron’s leadership of the Decepticons in starting the next wave of the War.

So whatever happened to Dion? Many speculated that he was rebuilt into Ironhide or Ultra Magnus because apparently you only get one old friend in your life or something. Hasbro finally decided that he’s dead, an example of the Deceptions killing their enemies. Considering Alpha Trion wasn’t even aware of him like he was Ariel it’s not a surprise. It also establishes that Optimus was fighting for the Autobots, and later became their leader, for 5,000,000 years before he went on the mission that trapped him and his crew on Earth for 4,000,000 years. Dude’s older than Keith Richards!

It wouldn’t be until Season 3 that we’d get our next Great War Lore Dump. In the fourth episode of the five-parter “Five Faces Of Darkness”, Rodimus Prime really wants to know why the Quintessons, who they saw torturing robotic lifeforms in the movie, was now focusing on the Autobots while manipulating the Decepticons. Learning in a previous chapter that he could link to the Autobot Matrix Of Leadership while damaged, he damaged himself to enter the Matrix and learned not only the Quintessons’ ties to their origins but the full history of the Autobot/Decepticon wars.

Our final story is more of an addendum to the Quintesson’ role in Cybertronian history. One reviewer suggested that the Quintessons were tied to the giant tentacles on the surface. Personally, I think he just really wants to see Quintessons on the big screen, which they haven’t done since the movie, not really making an appearance in the franchise until Cyberverse, but just in case I thought I’d add it.

“Forever Is A Long Time Coming” is another time travel story, as the Quintessons attempt to alter the history that cost them Cybertron. This leads a group of Autobots into the days of the rebellion and a robot named A-3 coming to the 2006 period the show was set in. He’s rather important and you’ll see just how old he is. This time it’s not the Aerialbots going on a trip but they do play a role in the story. I wonder if Gigawatt made friends with them?

Outside of narrated segments to pad episode time that collected previous information about the War this is where our voyage into the past ends. Maybe some of the Japanese shows built on this but I wouldn’t have a way to show them anyway. If you know of any I’ve missed, let me know. Otherwise, this is the full history of the Great War as we kids in the 1980s were originally introduced to it. How much of it will play into Transformers One I can’t say at the time of this writing, but we know they’ve even dropped the altered Optimus history that’s been embraced since DreamWave’s The War Within comic and Megatron’s since IDW’s origin comic for the Decepticons. The Marvel comic didn’t use any of this as we never learned Optimus and Megatron’s origins while adding Primus to the origin and making Unicron a deity. You can check out Chris McFeely’s video I posted early this week, not knowing it would tie into the Transformers One trailer launch this week or that I would be doing this special Saturday Night Showcase. Next week we’ll be back to normal.