I forgot there was a file for notes, but it’s a good thing I checked it before going to the next draft. This file contains feedback from the first draft. It also includes hand written brainstorming thoughts that are hard for me to go over in the same level of detail. For this one you really should download the “notes file” if you’re following along to see what’s in there. All the stuff I’m using comes from The Sunbow Marvel Archive and is worth checking out. Since the brainstorming is the typical random thoughts I’ll skim over it and focus on the collected, thought out notes. Plus those I can copy/paste using Adobe’s free Acrobat reader, with some fixing on my part. These are old documents scanned into the computer. The artifacts on the paper sometimes confuse it.
For this first section we’ll be looking at the first feedback from Hasbro, insisting on how the toys should be translated into animated form. Remember, the toys already existed, so even if Hasbro didn’t stick to their guns (no pun intended) with the lore, the toys still have to reflect what they’ve got on the store shelves. For Hasbro the point is to sell the toys. If you think that’s lame, and that this is ONLY a toy commercial, remember that the show has to make the toys look good enough for the kids who want them. Think of the shows that aren’t based on toys but still have them. The toys help fund the show. The Gundam franchise out of Japan is filled with various “mobile suit” designs because model builders really like building those robotic suit mecha. Megatron was based on a toy for a different TV show. I had a Star Trek role play set with fake communicator and a “phaser” that shot little plastic disks I lost decades ago. There’s a reason we’re still fans of this show so many years later, and all of the other Transformers media that came out, even for those of us who didn’t collect the toys.
I wrote out the article first to see what my word count would be like, giving me an idea on where to break this up. Tonight we’ll be taking a look at the first nine pages of the collected notes by the archiver. That’s the first feedback letter from Hasbro (I hope they don’t still use that number or someone just got doxxed) and the first set of brainstorming notes. What will we learn about the toys and how the brainstorming session went?
