The Energon Pub

I have a question...I have been watching the Beast Wars series again. My question is: Why are the Maximals and Predecons so much smaller in size compared to the G1 Autobots and Decepticons? (I'm referring to the episode where they enter the ark and stand next to G1 Optimus Prime.)

Downsizing. A reduction in size means the Transformers are more energy-efficient. It's the same reason the Micromasters exist (or, at least, why they existed in the Dreamwave comic series).

This was also answered in alignment. The Autobots and Decepticons were low on energy after finally defeating Liege Maximo. They formed a truce (the Pax Cybertronia) and went back to Cybertron to contain the damage.

Cybertron eventually flourished again under the leadership of Ultra Magnus, Prowl and Soundwave.

The BW artists also made the G1 bots bigger to make them seem more epic, greater, holy, ah-inspiring, whatever you want to call it.

UltraPrimal wrote:The BW artists also made the G1 bots bigger to make them seem more epic, greater, holy, ah-inspiring, whatever you want to call it.

A fair point. The Autobots and the Decepticons on the Ark seem much bigger relative to the Maximals and Predacons than they should have been.

And BW Megatron was apparently a very small Tyrannosaurus.

I think they were smaller in order to better blend in with the relative size of earths creatures. But i guess that doesnt explain the size of their ships

Stormwolf wrote:This was also answered in alignment. The Autobots and Decepticons were low on energy after finally defeating Liege Maximo. They formed a truce (the Pax Cybertronia) and went back to Cybertron to contain the damage.

Cybertron eventually flourished again under the leadership of Ultra Magnus, Prowl and Soundwave.

That´s true?

Gobstopper wrote:I think they were smaller in order to better blend in with the relative size of earths creatures. But i guess that doesnt explain the size of their ships

That wouldn't work for BW Megatron, though, as a tyrannosaurus would stand taller than Optimus Prime as a cab.

I think there's mass shifting involved in BW. It's the only way.

I go with the downsizing to conserve energy after the great war theory. It makes sense. Although OPtimal Optimus apparantly fills the handles of the Matrix with two fingers, so his hands are bigger than Hot Rods. And people say there was only 1 animation error in BW

Insurgent wrote:I go with the downsizing to conserve energy after the great war theory. It makes sense. Although OPtimal Optimus apparantly fills the handles of the Matrix with two fingers, so his hands are bigger than Hot Rods. And people say there was only 1 animation error in BW

How's is that necessarily an error? Did you ever see how freaking huge Optimal Optimus' hands were?

Predaprince wrote:

Insurgent wrote:I go with the downsizing to conserve energy after the great war theory. It makes sense. Although OPtimal Optimus apparantly fills the handles of the Matrix with two fingers, so his hands are bigger than Hot Rods. And people say there was only 1 animation error in BW

How's is that necessarily an error? Did you ever see how freaking huge Optimal Optimus' hands were?

Especially when he flattened Waspinator and he fell to his foot. Gives you a good size idea. Plus his head was as big as Optimus Prime's.

Predaprince wrote:

Insurgent wrote:I go with the downsizing to conserve energy after the great war theory. It makes sense. Although OPtimal Optimus apparantly fills the handles of the Matrix with two fingers, so his hands are bigger than Hot Rods. And people say there was only 1 animation error in BW

How's is that necessarily an error? Did you ever see how freaking huge Optimal Optimus' hands were?

Because he still would be smaller than hotrod if G1 was that big. IMO, G1 was oversized.

How's is that necessarily an error? Did you ever see how freaking huge Optimal Optimus' hands were?

Compared to the BW guys, yes, he's massive. That ain't in dispute. But in the movie, Hot Rod has all 4 fingers gripping the matrix and that takes up the same amount of the handle as OPtimal's 2 fingers. So unless someone made an animation mistake on one of them, Op's hands are bigger than HR, which would make no sense as HR is suppossed to be much bigger than Op overall. Since the MAtrix was created and carried by G1, I go for that being the correct size portions.

Plus his head was as big as Optimus Prime's.

Again, I consider this another animation mistake on the part of BW. But thats just my opinion. Although G1 guys were oversized as the BW are supposed to be the size of humans and in G1 (toon) the average human came up to Prime's knee. Which means the BW were smaller in comparison.

Fang Wolf wrote:

Predaprince wrote:

Insurgent wrote:I go with the downsizing to conserve energy after the great war theory. It makes sense. Although OPtimal Optimus apparantly fills the handles of the Matrix with two fingers, so his hands are bigger than Hot Rods. And people say there was only 1 animation error in BW

How's is that necessarily an error? Did you ever see how freaking huge Optimal Optimus' hands were?

Because he still would be smaller than hotrod if G1 was that big. IMO, G1 was oversized.

IMO, BW is over rated. I guess it depends on what you grew up on.

Down_Shift wrote:

Fang Wolf wrote:

Predaprince wrote:

Insurgent wrote:I go with the downsizing to conserve energy after the great war theory. It makes sense. Although OPtimal Optimus apparantly fills the handles of the Matrix with two fingers, so his hands are bigger than Hot Rods. And people say there was only 1 animation error in BW

How's is that necessarily an error? Did you ever see how freaking huge Optimal Optimus' hands were?

Because he still would be smaller than hotrod if G1 was that big. IMO, G1 was oversized.

IMO, BW is over rated. I guess it depends on what you grew up on.

I actualy grew up on both, a mix of G2 toons and BW ^_^ but in all fareness, for a while all I could remember was Starscream's Brigade and Masquirade, but that has nothing to do with the size talks, just the main subject.

IMO, They should not be compared, same toy line, more or less, realy differant ways of portraying them, G1 is not in anyway serious, atleast 'till S3, and BW quite honestly, takes itself too seriously.

As for the sizes:
Matrix-Downsized
G1-Upsized

A 7-8' robot, Megatron, is not the same size as a 20-25' robot's head. I'd assume OpOp is under half the size of G1.

When you talk about scale in Transformers, people's heads start exploding. In pretty much all Transformers media, any attention to what size something should be is totally thrown out the window. A 20ft robot can be 200ft one animation frame later.

#1 rule about size in Transformers: don't think about it. No matter what you do, it ain't gonna make sense, so just nod your head and move on...

E107_Theta wrote:When you talk about scale in Transformers, people's heads start exploding. In pretty much all Transformers media, any attention to what size something should be is totally thrown out the window. A 20ft robot can be 200ft one animation frame later.

#1 rule about size in Transformers: don't think about it. No matter what you do, it ain't gonna make sense, so just nod your head and move on...

Very true, unfortunately.