Call of the Primitives and the Primus story weren't written until later on and neither were written by the creators of Transformers: Ths Movie. What did the creators of Transformers: The Movie intend? Quintesson creation? Related to Vector Sigma?

 

I'm not sure they even thought about the question.

 

Yeah, I believe so.

 

Who are "the creators" of the movie?

While I also share the feeling they might not have had a concrete plan at the time the movie was made, the fact that the story editor for the movie was the also story editor for Season 3 makes me think whatever half an unformed idea they may have had when writing the Movie was probably not too far off from what we got in season 3. Just like I think the relation between the Quintessons and the Transformers as shown in Five Faces was probably what was intended but not shown in the Movie.

 

On the dvd bonus features in like 07, Flint Dille basically says "if you want to see the outtakes from the movie its season 3".

 

Basically this.

 

Would that Quintesson relationship to the TFs be in keeping with the early drafts of the movie, which we know had the Quintessons doing some manner of "clean-up work" for Unicron, hunting down those who escaped being eaten?

I'm not sure those can't be reconciled, but they seem ill-suited to have been intended together, IMHO.

 

Early drafts of the movie reportedly also spelled out that the Quints created the Cybertronians, so...

 

He's basically a sentient black hole cribbing off of Galactus' style with the whole planet eating thing.

In truth, he kinda doesn't really have an intended origin. TFTM is more or less one giant copy-paste rewrite of Star Wars episode 4 stuff (Leia and Arcee go to the same hairstylist, the Quints got the idea for the sharkticon pit from Jabba the Hutt's sarlac pit, the Matrix of Leadership's design was inspired by the blast of a thermonuclear bomb and its activation destroys Mr. Death Star impersonator...).

 

Pretty much this.

Much of the same team that was on the movie were also involved with Season 3. So we can pretty much assume that Primacron was either in the back of their minds or just the punchline to a joke that they figured kids wouldn't care about 30 years later. Damn dirty ape!

After all, Flint Dille was pretty known for wiggling in his occasional jokes. Carbombia anyone?

 

The difference between Galactus and Unicron is: Galactus eats with regret, only so that he doesn't die. Unicron eats because it's his destiny.

I always thought Unicron's parting line was a hell of a "waiting for the other shoe to drop" moment. "Call of the Primitives" ties into that, with Unicron and Tornedron being part of Primacron's plan to remake the universe in his image. It would have been a pretty good answer, if there had been more to it and if Primacron hadn't been so disappointingly derpy.

As for the Quintessons, if Primacron created them, then cleaning up after Unicron would have made sense, if it hadn't been dropped altogether.

 

This is interesting: Till All Are One: A Production History of The Transformers: The Movie (1986)

 

Well, whilst Arcee's 'hairdo' is a deliberate nod to Star Wars (and you could argue that Megatron's lightsaber is another), I think it's more a case of both films having a single common source (Joseph Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces), rather than one cribbing from another.

I'm simplifying here, but basically: Campbell wrote that many popular myths and stories follow the same basic idea: a young 'everyman' who goes on a wondrous journey (in search of some force, talisman, boon or elixir), has an older mentor character, gets captured and ends up undergoing some form of transformation, realisation or moment of self-discovery. Sound familiar?

Transformers is no more a rip-off of Star Wars than many other stories that follow the same basic plot, from Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter to ancient myths and even biblical stories.

Obi-Wan is to Luke as Prime is to Hot Rod, but that's not a unique relationship in fiction: think Jaga/Lion-O, Merlin/Arthur, Musafa/Simba and so on. These are classic Jungian archetypes, as old as humanity itself.

I think boiling down the argument into Transformers = Star Wars is a major oversimplification, and paints Star Wars as something unique and original, when in fact it's just as derivative as Transformers is (indeed, George Lucas has admitted in interviews that Campbell's book was a major influence on him).

The main difference between Galactus and Unicron is that Hot Rod and company are able to journey inside Unicron (what Campbell called the 'Belly of the Beast' moment). It's the storytelling equivalent of Frodo in Mordor, Noah/Pinocchio in the Whale, or Rey wandering around inside the Death Star.

 

I love how the lightsaber sound effect is used when Rodimus Prime arises.

 

I don't think it's supposed to be anything that deep. Galactus has openings the Fantastic 4 could use if they really wanted to. I'm just sayin'  

 

"Oooh, Oooh, lets throw in some big HONKEN celestial body eating planet-sized TF in there!! ... Huh? What do you mean origins? BIG HONKEN PLANET MOFO THAT EATS OTHER PLANETS! Need I say MOAR!?!?"