The Energon Pub

Just a thought:
Can a single unifying continuity truly work for Transformers? Particularly Hasbro's attempts at a new single continuity?
Or...is Transformers best when each new incarnation can invent or reinvent it's own new continuity?

For my part, I was initially of the opinion that a single new and unifying continuity would be a good thing. However, I'm now more of the feeling that a single new continuity for everything may not be the best idea. For one, a single continuity, yet with competing visual aestheitcs per incarnation seems more like a recipe for confusion. The way they look has much to do with the story, yet if there are different looks, yet one story...?? Example...what would be the reason for WFC Soundwave going from having a humanoid robotic body to the distinctly non-humanoid Earth body he'll have in Prime?
Next, I'm thinking now that this notion of uniting everything will have the effect of dragging on and cementing truly inferior ideas, such as Bumblebee's perpetually damaged voice box...because now it's 'continuity.' TF: Animated gave us one of the best and most entertaining character personas for Bee, and I'd hate think we'd not see something akin to that again in favour of the 'official' vocally challenged version being the standard. There are more examples but I think the point has been made.

So, what does everyone think? Seperate Universes per incarnation or the single unifying continuity?

Rodimus the Prime wrote:Just a thought:
Can a single unifying continuity truly work for Transformers? Particularly Hasbro's attempts at a new single continuity?
Or...is Transformers best when each new incarnation can invent or reinvent it's own new continuity?

For my part, I was initially of the opinion that a single new and unifying continuity would be a good thing. However, I'm now more of the feeling that a single new continuity for everything may not be the best idea. For one, a single continuity, yet with competing visual aestheitcs per incarnation seems more like a recipe for confusion. The way they look has much to do with the story, yet if there are different looks, yet one story...?? Example...what would be the reason for WFC Soundwave going from having a humanoid robotic body to the distinctly non-humanoid Earth body he'll have in Prime?
Next, I'm thinking now that this notion of uniting everything will have the effect of dragging on and cementing truly inferior ideas, such as Bumblebee's perpetually damaged voice box...because now it's 'continuity.' TF: Animated gave us one of the best and most entertaining character personas for Bee, and I'd hate think we'd not see something akin to that again in favour of the 'official' vocally challenged version being the standard. There are more examples but I think the point has been made.

So, what does everyone think? Seperate Universes per incarnation or the single unifying continuity?

I think both.

To requote an older post of mine:

* Seperate continuities allow characters to die/defect/grow in appropriately noble ways, adding to their resume as "my favorite characters", but reboots keep dead characters alive for new fans to investigate and older fans to revisit. Locations and artefacts/objectives benefit here, too.


* A clean single continuity? Could work, but sounds risky.


*A single continuity consisting of multiple satellite continuities (with plenty of room for some totally unrelated continuities to come and go) could be fun. The idea is that seperate (toy) lines could interweave with one another with confirmation that they have seperate features but exist in the same calendar. Primes' group could be the nexus group. Others would progress on their own, perhaps meeting any other group and perhaps not (and not always becoming friends).Using unhurried storytelling, they could ultimately all end up learning about Primes' major goal (Unicron? Return to Cybertron?) and decide individually if they care or not.

Potential subthemes for groups:
*The Wreckers.
*Rodimus Primes' army.
*Seekers still scattered throughout the universe.
*General Jetfires army.
*The Junkions under their new chieftain (after Wreck-Gar went off jaunting with the Autobots).
*Ultra Magnus' attempts to build a New Autobot city on various planets (and resulting wars against the neaarest Alien aggresors)...
*Grimlocks' Dinobots.Constantly seeking the perfect Dinobot island.Constantly bored without war in paradise.
*The adventures of the Beast Wars TFs who crashed on a seperate continent to Primal and Megs (they would be neither Maximals nor Predacons-could potentially get conscripted by Tigerhawk to fight in the time war and appear anywhere).
*Overrides' need to get a new army and exploration force assembled once the planet key gate to the speed planet is re-opened.
*Giant Planets' future after its' own key gate is opened.
*Sentinel Prime and the Cybertron Elite Guard remnant fighting on after Cybertron is shut down (Galactic Guerillas?)
*and so on, and so forth.

A single unified continuity? No, it causes far to chaos and confusion with the differing idea's.

Small interlinked series? Sometimes. It can work, as proved by Beast Wars and Beast Machines, Armada and Energon (IMHO Cybertron isn't a follow on). Even the smaller ties such as Animated had relating to the Great War in G1 work well.

I also think a unified continuity would do more harm than good. It would be hard to explain the different versions of characters, even if events could be written to explain the cause for change. I personally tried this with the end of the G2 comics and the beginning of the Armada comics, but the Mini-Cons put too big of a wrench in the works, no pun intended.

Having separate continuities allows people to relive their favorite characters, become fond of new ones, keeps the stories interesting and fresh, and makes Hasbro and Takara more money.

Big old messy can of worms this.

Unified continuity may have worked after Beast Machines but that was the start of the end of any unification possabilities

I wonder how all them Gen 1 centrics feel knowing the last bit of Gen 1 cannon is Beast Machines.

Any way I digress, The alternate universes is a good way of keeping it fresh and for hasbro to churn out the same tired characters again and again and again and again for new generations of kids to buy, play with and the fill up a land fill with whilst the collectors put them in nice shiny cabinetes.

If they did not keep doing so and trying to reinvent the wheel the show would get far to convoluted, and even though as proved in the 80's children can handle and process convoluted and complex( and occasionally quick dark) story lines. The current concencus is that children today are dumb and need to be spoon feed the same stuff in a new format.

They can be Separate earths or universes but I would like transformers comics to crossover these universes more.

A single, new continuity could work (or returning to follow the G1 cartoons untold tales between G1 and BW) if it has everything made well -more serious drawing than animated, the writing staff of BW, plus Furman and Roche. It would be much better than restart everything from scratch every three years.

As for blending in every continuity from before: will never work, if it is one universe, but could work on multiverse level (like in TF: Universe comic)

Considering TF came about and primary goal is to sell toys... I don't think a unified continuity will ever truly work. It has to turn over every couple of years for fresh product/toys.

It would most certainly work, but the problem is that everyone would have to understand that they won't get everything that they want, and they'd also have to realize that since the franchise originated with G1, G1 would end up being the default source, and also that even though 'they're meant for kids,' some of us aren't kids and we still manage to like Transformers.. What I mean is that not everything would be rooted in the movie verse or Animated, and not everything would come right from 1984, and also that since the movie verse is not the genesis of the franchise, not everything would be hyperfaithful to the movie verse. I think a problem with this kind of discussion pops up when people think that such an idea is a feasible way to weed G1 out of the timeline, because we're not supposed to like it anymore becuase it's no longer the 80s.
I love the seperate continuities becuase I get to purposely ignore things I don't like, but a unified one could work basically if it ignores us fans.

I Like to think that these various separate continuities help to keep the Transformers franchise relevant. The diversity of the franchise is one of the main reasons why Transformers has remained so popular for so long. With each new re-incarnation appealing to a new generation of fans.

Plus the constant re-branding ensures that Hasbro/Takara can keep marketing a commercially successful product almost indefinitely.