Given the animation work of the mid 1980s, I would surmise that if they changed the robot and vehicle modes for the same characters between or within episodes of the first season, the series would have folded faster than Superman on laundry day.
I hate how in idw before prime got to earth he was in his cybertroninan robot mode but then when he got to earth(same as megatron), they both changed to g1 type modes even though they had no need to blend in. Also isnt it lucky that every time we see cybertonians arrive on earth, they usually get paired or arrive next to an alt mode that they or teletran can scan and it always has around the same color scheme
you know you would think I would learn my lesson by now lol and saved the info..... I had this debate with two other people on different sites over the last three or four years and each time it took a lot of research to refine the same material It's something I'm really not willing to again particularly not now but I will say this the source comes from the creator interviews of the time and the fact that you can actually find concept vehicles from the earlier 80s and before that that actually matter vehicles such as rabbit is fine and cup and a few of the others Not only that but blurs design doesn't really stray much from other 1980 future looking toy cars from other toy lines yep
I think any producer has to rely on recognition of a cherished character, be it in print or on screen, for the audience to follow the story. They could have gone with changed robot and vehicle modes, but left easily-recognizable features (head/face/torso sculpting, colours) intact, if they wanted to. However, those kinds of changes and the need to keep it simple (for animation costs and avoiding continuity issues *cough colours by Sunbow cough cough) probably forced a compromise. That, and the hope that a young child would have noticed.
Lot of research? A five minute Google search led me to this interview with the Movie Autobots' designer, Floro Dery: Interview with Floro Dery I quote: There are a lot of weird answers in that interview (due to English not being Dery's first language, maybe?) But on that particular topic he seems very clear indeed.
I never had any doubt as to what those were supposed to be not even as a kid, why would the confirmation of the designer be needed for anyway?
Yeah, agreed, but altered prime insisted they were supposed to be future Earth vehicles rather than Cybertronian (which, to be fair, isn't such a far-fetched proposition), which is why I looked it up.
Yes lots of research and that interview doesn't adequately cover the issue and for r one particular reason It's got 20 years of hindsight behind it, that interview was given in the early 2000s so it doesn't answer anything clearly at all The information I'm referring to and would consider a reasonable answer would have to be from the 80s And if you look at any of the bios of the movie characters not a single one of them refers to any of the characters as being cybertronian modes As a matter of fact kup is referred to as being an old-style pick up
Or another explaination I can think off, it could be that the writers didn't put much though into and all they wanted was to sell toys. But even if they thought about it, it would have cost them extra to come up with additional protoform ideas for each Transformer.
I'm not sure he was agreeing with you and that he thinks they are cyberTron modes But either way here is some of what I feel are the obvious inspirations for their vehicle modes Credit to member "Boulder" The Zero Dome concept car was introduced in 1979. Hot Rod is basically this car with a spoiler. View attachment 27742296 Kup really isn't that far off from the concept truck that Nissan was showing off in the mid 70s. He might not even been designed as a pick up truck. The El Camino was still relatively new so he may have been intended as a sports truck/ute. View attachment 27742318 And Rodimus Prime doesn't look that much different than a GMC Bison: View attachment 27742319
Thank you for the compliment and thank you for clarifying sometimes things go over my head here Here's more As posted by and originally by Tripredacus Wreck-Gar!
Even though several characters had different vehicle modes in the first episode? Its more likely the robot modes were kept consistent to keep the characters recognizable to a young audience (possibly not giving them enough credit in the process), but a few extra drawn models in a show that already had, what, more than a dozen character models in most episodes (and plenty of character models that only showed up for one episode), wasn't going to break the bank on its own.
Hmm. I don't think that proves anything, really. I mean, Wheeljack's Cybertronian mode looks like the front car in a monorail train, yet no-one argues Wheeljack's vehicle mode isn't Cybertronian. It's not unheard of for designers to use Earth objects as a basis on which to design alien tech. The phasers in Star Trek The Next Generation look like hand-held DustBuster vacuum cleaners, for example. If you have actual behind-the-scenes info saying these guys are definitely future Earth vehicles as opposed to Cybertronian vechiles then, as I said before, I'm happy to be corrected. But if you're unwilling or unable to show us this supposed evidence, then surely the Dery interview posted above would seem to be the final word, unless someone can prove categorically otherwise? I mean, help me out here, imagine being in my shoes for a second. Who would you believe? The guy who designed the Movie Transformers, albeit interviewed years after the fact, or a person on the internet who says he has concrete evidence from Movie production personnel but who is oddly reticent to post said evidence?
like I said I'm not really trying to prove anything because I just don't have the desire nor the time right now to really start breaking down and doing a lot of that research into something already i made up my mind about along time ago You can take the information I post for what it's worth for you that's cool, but the similarities between those vehicles in the movie characterdesigns go much further than just saying "WJ's cyberTron modes front looks like something familiar too" speaking about Jack's cyber Tron mode, you can see they were going for a true odd design with his, Bb's and Jazzs cyberTron modes, and they are a far cry from the designs of those movie characters again except for maybe blur I think that's a bit of a stretch also but hey everybody has an opinion i'm trying to remember exactly where I learned it so that the search would be shorter, but I can tell you it was in a written form not in some kind of video or so My guess it was one of the very early magazines that contained interview about the movie back in 86 maybe a star log magazine or something of the type It's not so much im not willing but just not really feeling up to it,I haven't been feeling very well And I just can't find anything written after so many years of hindsight is the final word in anything that is debatable as this topic is Like I said you could take my word for what it's worth and if it's worth nothing to you that's fine for me I never thought they were meant to be Cybertron modes Except for blur and maybe Scourge, none of them really look all that alien they all look like Made up fantasy cars obit very wild an odd looking colors ,nothing about them ever struck me as being possibly alien Another thing that convinces me of that is that none of the bios are they ever described as being cyberTron vehicles, if you look at the bios for Topspin and twin twist, they are very clearly specifically state that they are in their cyberTron vehicle modes You got to think that if the movie characters were intended to be Cybertron vehicles then at least one of the bios would have made mention of this
The bios of the Movie guys - yeah, this is interesting. Reportedly, the odd nature of the bios (they seem fuzzier and a lot less 'complete' than other bios of the time) was down to two main reasons: Reason 1: Budiansky's apathy. The Movie characters were created for the movie by the movie's designers and script people, whereas every other Transformer up to that point had been named and fleshed out by Bob Budiansky. Apparently he was a little put-out that he had zero input into the characters (which is also the reason why they only appeared in the US comic fleetingly, as Budiansky attempted to minimise their appearances in favour of his own creations). Reason 2: Lead times. The designs and scripts for the movie were in a constant state of flux (as evidenced by the fact that most of the characters have two different sets of designs and model sheets), and the Tech Specs had to be written far enough in advance so that the toys could be on shelves simultaneously with the movie. It's entirely possible that some of these characters didn't even have vehicle modes (or at least, the designs for the vehicle modes) when Budiansky was writing the bios. So yeah, the movie guys have shonky bios for specific reasons. Read too much into them (or use them to confirm our own preconceived biases), and we're in danger of barking up the wrong tree.
I don't buy it They are hardly what I would call "a lot less complete" , not every pre-movie bio was extremely long, for the most part they seem to match up with the average wording of the other ones And even if you want to argue that they were shorter the marvel universe bios were far more fleshed out and detailed Again if any of the movie characters were intended to be Cybertron vehicles , then you'd think that at least one of the bios would have made mention of it
Out-of-universe, it's the lack of enthuiaism (not sure if I wrote that right) and budget to design different models for every character, in-universally, maybe Teletran 1 choosed the alt modes best suited for their robot mode and it just so happens that Optimus looks perfectly like a robot earth truck, best explanation I can think of. BTW, this is similiar to Sentinel from DOTM having firetruck kibble before even arriving on Earth.
