Well, break is over and it’s time to start on the second draft of the attempt to bring the Transformers to CBS Saturday mornings.
For those of you who came in late, after the syndicated miniseries “More Than Meets The Eye”, Hasbro worked to partner with CBS to get a potential wider audience for their TV ad show by bringing it to Saturday mornings. CBS would pay more of the bill, Marvel Productions and Sunbow Productions would still be a partner (as they worked with CBS in the past), and more kids would get the show because they wouldn’t be hunting down local channels to carry it at a time when they weren’t all owned by some national group like they are today.
This pitch also failed. However, it would be made closer to “More Than Meets The Eye”, taking place five years later and ditching the gender swaps…or in Sideswipe’s case ditching him altogether. They also cut out Teletraan-1, because CBS assumed robots already had built in computers that could do everything he did. That’s kind of dumb. You can check out the episode of Transformers: The Basics for more on the history. I’ll also be going over various details as we go on in the next batch of articles going over this new pitch, as well as the final part of this series where I look at an actual scripted episode from the show. If you want to follow along, these documents were all found by The Sunbow Marvel Archive, who posted them to their site. This is what I’ll be working from. Scroll down past the Season 1 section to find them.
I skimmed a bit through the early pages to get an idea of how I’d be breaking this draft down. It not only appear to have some clear divisions, but Jeffrey Scott took the time to set them up like a set of computer reports on the current state of Earth after the miniseries as they would have been done back in 1984. Originally done in February, the Archive has a revised version from March. So would this have been a better take than the first one, and why didn’t it succeed? Over the next few weeks we’ll find out, and that starts now with the revised premise, more in line with the backstory already created by Marvel Comics’ Jim Shooter and Bob Budiansky.
AUTOBOT MASTER COMPUTER- ON LINE
REQUEST DATA ON INITIAL PHASE OF DECEPTICON/AUTOBOT CONFRONTATION.
PROCESSING
Wait, I thought you took Teletraan out of the picture because CBS didn’t think the Autobots would use a master computer for some dumb reason. I know this is just the pitch and the audience of kids aren’t going to be seeing this but that still messes with your own lore. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not a deal breaker or anything like that. Just a disappointment that a guide that’s basically doubling as storytelling is messing up its own story. Kind of takes the fun out of it for us hyper-critical types, you know?
AUTOBOT HISTORICAL ARCHIVES
SUBJECT: EARLY DECEPTICON WARS
TIME FRAME: PRE-TERRAN PERIOD
TRANSLATION: AUTOBOT ELETRO-PULSE TO ENGLISH SCREEN14-8 BILLION LIGHTYEARS FROM EARTH, ON THE OPPOSITE END OF THE GALAXY KNOWN AS THE MILKY WAY, A SOLAR SYSTEM MUCH LIKE THE SOLAR SYSTEM OF SOL SPINS AROUND A DENSE NEUTRON STAR. ONLY ONE OF THE FOURTEEN PLANETS IN THIS SYSTEM, CYBERTRON, WAS INHABITED WITH LIFE. HOWEVER, THERE ARE NO COMPARABLE LIFE-FORMS IN ANY EARTH TEXTS EXCEPT FOR SEVERAL OBSCURE SCIENCE FICTION REFERENCES
I’m going to leave this as the copy/paste from the PDF files keeps it for the most part. Just the distracting stuff will be removed or something that didn’t catch in the copy/paste will be fixed. De-capitalizing everything would defeat the purpose of copy/paste, to be lazy and not write everything outmake sure I get the text right. Also, I’ve occasionally wondered why our solar system in some sci-fi of the period got “Sol” as the name. We call our sun…the Sun. We’re not the Sol System, we’re the Sun System. That’s just me being weird. Cybertron not being the only planet in the system (the comic called it Alpha Centauri but I don’t know if even a galaxy was ever named) is new and now what we ended up with. We did get a couple of moons for a few minutes.
DUE TO THE EXTREME GRAVITY OF THIS SYSTEM’S SUN, THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE DID NOT MOVE THROUGH THE CARBON-BASED STAGES OF FLESH AND BLOOD. INSTEAD, THE DENSE MATTER WAS ANIMATED BY A LIFE-FORCE THAT EVOLVED INTO MECHANIZED FORMS BEYOND HUMAN COMPREHENSION.
Evolving robots are not a new origin for the Transformers. Also the Zoids backstory, I think.
I guess that works as an origin. Back in those pre-Quintesson/Primus days we were told that the robots evolved…somehow. Then why would the robots have built-in computers? I don’t know. Robots that evolve without a creator never works for me, so I’m happy regardless of what creator you go with (or if you’re me, you combine both versions and sneak in what alternate ideas you can), and that’s not just because I’m a creationist. The guide also continues to play this game by having a “sequence continued” notes if stuff goes to the next page, which each page marked as “screen (#)”, as if these were actual computer printouts. That’s fun. Pitches aren’t fun enough. You can make them fun while still interesting and professional.
AFTER 2-7 BILLION OF YEARS OF EVOLUTION, LIFE ON CYBERTRON MUTATED INTO FULLY FORMED ROBOTS OF EXTREME ELECTRONIC AND MECHANICAL COMPLEXITY. THEIR NERVOUS
SYSTEMS WERE FORMED NOT OF NEURONS, BUT OF INTEGRATED CIRCUITRY. IT WASN’T BLOOD THAT COURSED THROUGH THEIR METALLIC VEINS, BUT THE HOT PLASMA OF NUCLEAR POWER CELLS. THEIR JOINTS WERE POWERFUL GEARS, THEIR MUSCLES HYDRAULIC PISTONS, THEIR EYES THE MOST SENSITIVE VIDEO CELLS IN ALL THE UNIVERSE.
In the lore I’m working on I ditched any attempt to compare their robotic bodies to organic ones. That also seems silly to me. They’re robots. Play up the differences between robotic and organic lifeforms “biologically” while pointing out their similarities as lifeforms. That makes me feel like robotic lifeforms are a different form of life from us usual meatbags or shapeshifters or whatever forms of life exist. Set them apart from the other forms of life.
CYBERTRON ROBOT EVOLUTION ENDED WITH THE COMPLETE CONTROL OF THEIR PHYSICAL APPEARANCE {I.E. A CYBERTRON ROBOT FORM COULD TRANSFORM FROM ITS MASSIVE, HUMANOID ROBOT STRUCTURE TO A SPECTACULAR MECHANICAL MACHINE OF WAR: JET AIRCRAFT, SUPER CARS, TANKS, HELICOPTERS, ETC.
This makes Hasbro happy, as they rejected the idea of being “energy orbs” that merge with machines. They already had a backstory that was not just used in the other cartoon the same people made, but comics, storybooks, coloring books, and most importantly the toy packaging. You don’t want to cause brand confusion. For example the Care Bears specials have a different style, tone, and art style from the later series and theatrical movies, but the base concept was still the same: small bears representing different emotions helping kids deal with tough situations and battling villains who live to make kids miserable, like the regular teddy bears the toys are based on. Sure, the more recent cartoons have moved away from that and are just “bears living in a magic world” rather than bears helping kids, which seems like a wrong choice, but that was decades later during one the comeback attempts.
LIKE EARTH HUMANS, CYBERTRON ROBOT FORMS COULD THINK AND FEEL. THEY LIVED. THEY DIED. THEY STRUGGLED TO SURVIVE IN A WORLD OF GOOD AND EVIL, OF JOY AND PAIN. BUT ~ITH THEIR GREATER TECHNOLOGY CAME GREATER EVILS, AND CYBERTRON FELL INTO A WARRING STATE WITH WITH TWO GROUPS OF ROBOTS PITTED AGAINST ONE ANOTHER IN MORTAL COMBAT. ONE WAS A MALEVOLENT RACE OF ROBOT WARRIORS KNOWN THROUGHOUT THE SYSTEM AS — THE DECEPTICONS. THE DECEPTICON GOAL WAS TOTAL DOMINATION; THIS WAS IN BITTER OPPOSITION TO THE MORE BENEVOLENT RACE OF ROBOTS KNOWN AS — THE AUTOBOTS.
THE CYBERTRON WARS CONTINUED FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS UNTIL FINALLY THE DECEPTICON AND AUTOBOT ENERGY SOURCES WERE DRYING UP. THE LEADERS OF THE AUTOBOTS LEFT CYBERTRON IN SEARCH OF ALTERNATIVE SOURCES OF ENERGY, UNAWARE THAT THE DECEPTICONS WERE NOT FAR BEHIND.
Optimus spends too much time sleeping or dead. Usually dead.
So far this is in keeping with the story we know, and knew back then. The sequence ends on the next “screen”, leading to the Autobot ship crashing in a volcano, which is also from the existing lore. Then for some reason this sequence ends and the operator asks for further information. Why did the computer stop here? Coffee break? It causes the next paragraph to be interrupted, unless this was Scott’s way of introducing the next part. However, this is still the history of the war. Why divide here?
AUTOBOT HISTORICAL ARCHIVES
SUBJECT: AUTOBOT/DECEPTICON TERRAN CONFLICT
TIME FRAME: EARTH DECADE – 1980’SFOUR MILLION YEARS PASSED SINCE THE AUTOBOTS AND DECEPTICONS CRASHED INTO THE EARTH VOLCANO- IN THESE FOUR MILLION YEARS THE EARTH HAD CHANGED IN MANY WAYS: DESERTS HAD TAKEN THE PLACE OF LUSH FORESTS, OCEANS HAD COME AND GONE, A RACE OF BEASTS THAT WERE JUST LEARNING TO WALK UPRIGHT WHEN THE CYBERTRON
■■■SEQUENCE CONTINUED ■■■
CRAFT CRASHED INTO ITS FIERY GRAVE HAD YEARS SINCE WALKED ON THE MOON. FINALLY,
AFTER FOUR MILLION YEARS OF SILENCE, THE VOLCANO RUMBLED ONCE AGAIN. IT
SPEWED FORTH LAVA, RELEASING THE THE SHIP IT HAD SWALLOWED SO LONG AGO.IT WAS JUST BEFORE THE DAWN OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY THAT THE DECEPTICONS
EMERGED TO FIND A NEW PLANET EARTH, A PLANET RICH IN THE VERY FUEL SOURCES
THEY SO DESPERATELY NEEDED. A PLANET RICH IN YET ANOTHER VALUABLE RESOURCE.
A RESOURCE THE DECEPTICONS HAD NEVER DREAMED EXISTED. HUMANS– A “PUNY” RACE
OF LIFE-FORMS WHICH THE LEADER OF THE DECEPTICONS SAW AS THE KEY TO HIS
ULTIMATE GOAL. WITH THE GREAT METAL AND FUEL DEPOSITS OF EARTH, ALL THAT WAS
NEEDED WAS A VAST LABOR FORCE TO BUILD AN ARMY OF ROBOTS WITH WHICH TO CONQUER
THE UNIVERSE. THIS LABOR FORCE OF FLESHY CREATURES WAS WAITING TO BE PICKED.
AND THE DECEPTICONS WOULD DO THE PICKING.
That’s a rather mean description of the humans. Are we sure this is the Autobot computer’s data? The next paragraph just tells us the Autobots also woke up before moving to the next sequence of information. This is the really important part as it makes the time jump, almost ignoring the Autobot victory at the end of the miniseries.
AUTOBOT DATA ARCHIVES
SUBJECT: EARTH – CURRENT DECEPTICON DOMINATION
TIME FRAME: APROX. 1988THE DECEPTICONS, FAR OUTNUMBERING THE AUTOBOTS, HAVE TAKEN OVER THE GOVERNMENTS AND ECONOMIES OF ALL INDUSTRIALIZED NATIONS. THEY VIRTUALLY CONTROL THE PLANET, MUCH AS THE NAZIS CONTROLLED WESTERN EUROPE IN THE BEGINNING OF WORLD WAR II. USING HUMANS AS THEIR LABOR FORCE, THE DECEPTICONS HAVE TAKEN OVER ALL MAJOR FACTORIES AND MANUFACTURING PLANTS AND ARE OVERSEEING THE CONSTRUCTION
OF VAST ARMIES OF DECEPTICON WARRIOR ROBOTS. DETROIT AUTO MANUFACTURERS HAVE RETOOLED AND ARE MAKING THE HUGE, STEEL DECEPTICON BODIES; SILCON VALLEY FIRMS ARE PRODUCING THE ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS FOR THEIR COMPUTER MINDS! SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AEROSPACE PLANTS ARE CONSTRUCTING THE POWERFUL ROCKET ENGINES, ETC.
I know this isn’t for the kids, but the network and toy company executives, but seeing the “Nazis” brought up in a pitch for a kids show is still weird to my mind. The original pitch borrowed from Invasion Of The Body Snatchers but the new pitch went more towards War Of The Worlds or 1984.
THE PEOPLE OF EARTH ARE OPPRESSED, LIVING IN A VIRTUAL SLAVE SOCIETY. BUT NEGATOR, LEADER OF THE DECEPTICONS, EVIL GENIUS THAT HE IS, HAS ALLOWED THE ECONOMY TO CONTINUE SO THAT THE HUMANS CAN TRADE AMONG THEMSELVES AND THUS MAINTAIN THEIR FOOD AND SHELTER AND BASIC SURVIVAL NEEDS.
Who’s Negator? You remember Negator. The Decepticon commander toy all the kids wanted? Mega…who? See, CBS wasn’t happy with a handgun Transformer in their show (I wonder what they would have done with the Targetmasters…or all the guns everyone was carrying in the original toy run?) and Hasbro didn’t want their toy characters changed, so a new leader was created. We’ll learn more about him when we get to character profiles. Negator thus replaces Megatron. The show would now be a small cast like Beast Wars or Challenge Of The GoBots, except the latter would actually bring other toys outside of the main six (three friendly, three enemy, plus a series of recurring GoBots and the occasional cameo when they could fit one in). I’ll be curious to see how it works the other toys in. The show we got tried to work everybody in, with all the positives and negatives that came with that plan.
FORTUNATELY, THERE ARE AREAS OF THE EARTH THAT REMAIN UNTOUCHED BY THE DECEPTICON TAKEOVER. THESE TERRITORIES, AS IN THE NEUTRAL COUNTRIES OF WW II, ARE ATTEMPTING TO LIVE THEIR LIVES NORMALLY IN A WORLD THAT IS COVERED IN A SHROUD OF ALIEN TERROR.
This plus the earlier mention of the slaves still trading and continuing the economy seems to be the show trying to have it both ways. It could do the slave state stories but also have some of the earlier planned normal life hijinks they also wanted. I’m not sure that works for me. Choose a path, guys. This would be where the 1984 influence begins. The Martians of War Of The Worlds wanted to either wipe out humans or eat us depending on the version you go with.
Besides that, it’s not a terrible idea for the show. It doesn’t quite have the same concept as the miniseries but still uses it to push a story without needing an “origin” episode. Saturday morning only did that if the show ran long enough that they needed the plot. My theory is that the programmers didn’t want to be trapped to a specific order both out of being lazy and wanting to do whatever schedule wide gimmick they may want to do in the rerun period of the season, the part where the weather was nice enough parents were kicking their kids outside. Next time we’ll start looking at the character pro…I mean the personnel files of the Autobots. What was brought back in line…and what did they STILL screw up! I’ll give you a hint.
Seriously, Jeffrey, why do you hate Bumblebee?
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