2001 was a year of change for the Transformers brand, both in public and also behind the scenes. What was obvious to fans was the cancellation of the Beast Machines line – leaving some toys unreleased – and the Japanese Car Robots line being imported as Robots in Disguise, which brought back realistic vehicular Transformers, Autobots, Decepticons, and the classic faction symbols which had last been widely used in 1992. Behind the scenes, Hasbro and Takara made a deal to co-produce the next Transformers series, laying the groundwork for what would come to be known as the Unicron trilogy – the fruit of this deal would be seen in 2002.
Beast Machines: Battle for the Spark was the 2001 rebranding of the Beast Machines line. The lineup included a Deluxe Night Slash Cheetor and Strika, a new and more accurate Voyager Blast Punch Optimus Primal, plus Basic class Battle Unicorn, Tank and Cycle Drones and Spy Streak.[/size]
In early 2001 the Beast Machines line reinvented itself, taking the new tagline “Battle for the Spark”. The new toys in this series included action features activated by pressing the spark crystals of the Maximals or Vehicons. Toys in this lineup included a new, more accurate Mega class Optimus Primal and a new Deluxe class Cheetor – the latter only marred by his paint scheme which put him in black rather than show accurate yellow. Toys of the Motorcycle Drones and Tank Drones were also made in the Basic class and were more accurate to the show designs of these characters than the original Thrust and Tankor, respectively. These final waves of toys were excellent, a real improvement over the hit-or-miss accuracy of the early Beast Machines toys, and it is a great pity that the final waves were cut short, for reasons it is believed were related to poor sales. It was an inglorious end to the Beast Era which had saved the Transformers brand from cancellation after Generation 2.
Beast Machines’ cancellation led to a selection of intended releases not seeing the light of day (as a part of Beast Machines, anyway), including a new “Megabolt” Megatron who turned into a gigantic head, based on the appearance of the Grand Mal from the second season of Beast Machines. A Supreme class Optimus Primal was also among the cancelled toys, and rumors abounded that other toys including a larger Obsidian and a Botanica were also scrapped, though no evidence of either has ever come to light.
The biggest casualty from the cancellation of Beast Machines was a planned follow-on, called TransTech. Not much is known of TransTech beyond a series of concept pieces by Draxhall Jump. It is thought that TransTech would have carried on the story of Beast Machines. From the released concepts, the series would have featured futuristic vehicles, but on both sides this time. Known TransTech characters included Optimus Prime, Cheetor and Silverbolt, and Decepticons Megatron, Starscream, Shockwave and Immorticon. Exactly what the plot of this series would have been – and if the characters would have been based on Beast Wars, Generation 1, a new continuity or a mix of all three – has never been confirmed. Some elements of TransTech would be resurrected years later by the Transformers Collectors Club for their comics, but the series itself was never to be.
Facing a gap until the new series being co-produced with Takara was ready, Hasbro brought across the most recent Japanese series, Transformers Car Robots, as a filler series under the name Transformers: Robots in Disguise. The show was the first Japanese Transformers anime to be officially released in the US and received some tweaks to its storytelling and humor to better suit US audiences, but remained very faithful to the original series in the most part. The dub was well-written and threw in some great in-jokes and nods to past series, some of which, such as a throwaway reference to Destrons, were intended for the fans. Due to the tragedy of September 11th, which occurred the day after the series premiered, several episodes were edited to remove scenes involving the destruction of buildings, and three of the episodes were dropped from airing altogether, though they would be included in international airings.
Transformers Robots in Disguise opening credits. Uploaded to Youtube by OptimalOptimus2[/size]
The plot of the show went that the Predacons led by Megatron had come to Earth in search of energy and resources, and generally to enslave and conquer. The Autobots under Optimus Prime were on-planet to oppose these new enemies, hiding in disguise as everyday cars and other vehicles. To further his plans, Megatron kidnapped a human scientist, Dr Onishi. Optimus Prime and the Autobots befriended the Doctor’s son, Koji, and adventures followed. The series was much more light-hearted than Beast Machines to the point of being slapstick at times. The Autobots were portrayed as having lives outside the mission, with Sideburn in particular constantly flirting with red sports cars. On the Predacon side, Megatron was aided by a bumbling trio of Predacons Slapper, Gasskunk and Darkscream, and their equally bungling commander Sky-Byte, who fell squarely into the “ineffectual and sympathetic” end of villainy. Sky-Byte was notable for quoting haiku during battle, which made him stand out among the cast of the show.
The show progressed in a fairly episodic nature – the Predacons would launch some devious plot, and Optimus Prime would assemble a team of Autobots with the help of the Autobot AI named Tai. Everything changed with episode 14, an episode titled “The Decepticons”, which reintroduced the world to the world the age-old enemies of the Autobots, the Decepticons. Megatron uncovered six Autobot Protoforms, and infused each of them with energy from his spark, corrupting them into a squad of evil vehicle Transformer commandos, led by an evil twin of Optimus Prime named Scourge. The addition of Scourge and the Decepticons shifted the dynamic of the series and brought in a second villain faction nominally working with Megatron – the fact that the other five Decepticons could merge to form Ruination also meant that the Autobots had a new major threat to square off against. Into the fray came Optimus Prime’s estranged brother, Ultra Magnus, who wanted to claim the Matrix of Leadership Optimus carried for himself – the result of which was Optimus Prime gaining a powerful new combiner form of his own, Omega Prime. For the first time in a US Transformers series, the idea of Optimus Prime not only having a super mode but combining with another robot as a form of “mid-series upgrade” was introduced. It’s a concept that would stick around through the next few Transformers shows.
The conclusion of the series aired in early 2002, and focused around the emergence of the Autobot city, Fortress Maximus, and the struggle of the Autobots, Decepticons, and Scourge to control the giant. Megatron evolved into Galvatron, getting a snazzy new white deco in the process (and setting the trend of Megatron to Galvatron redecos for the next few years). The series concluded with the superpowered Galvatron absorbing the power of Fortress Maximus, and dueling Omega Prime in the Earth’s core itself in a no-holds-barred showdown.
Reaction to the show was mixed. Fans who had been enjoying watching untranslated Japanese footage (via this site!) generally appreciated being able to understand what Sky-Byte was talking about, although some disliked the anime styling and the sheer amount of anime tropes used, including many battles consisting of huge amounts of stock footage for attacks, transformations and combinations. The light-hearted verging on silly approach of the series put some fans off as well, but the show did fairly well among children.
Transformers Robots in Disguise toy releases for 2001, including Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus merged as Omega Prime, the Team Bullet Train / Rail Racer, Build Team / Landfill and Decepticon Commando / Ruination combiners, plus the new Megatron and the sharpest shark in town, Sky Byte. Photo and toys from collection of Tony_Bacala[/size]
The Robots in Disguise toyline stuck largely to the format of the Beast Wars / Beast Machines size classes – no mean feat, given that Takara at the time was much less rigid in their use of size classes. The Spychangers were released in two packs at the Basic price point, with the first assortment redecos of the six existing Generation 2 Spychanger molds. The second wave of Spychangers added two more two packs into the mix and was the first release of some of the Gobot designs which were designed for Generation 2 but were never released after that line was cancelled.
The Deluxe size class was where the real meat of the line was, with not only the majority of the new deluxe class toys released in this size class but also some unreleased Beast Machines toys like Bruticus the Cerberus creeping in to make up numbers. The three Autobot Car Brothers Sideburn, Prowl and X-Brawn were three of the first releases, and were well received, blending Beast era poseability with vehicle designs. Later assortments included one of the two Autobot combiner groups, the Build Team – when these four combined to form Landfill, Wedge, the youthful team leader, would always form the core of the combination, but the other three could interchange so one member would make the arms and the remaining two the legs. It was a fun design that led to some interchangeability with the combination.
Car Robots had also re-released the Flipchangers as a part of the toyline. While the Japanese release only included the two Autobot molds (which at the time had never been released in Japan), for Robots in Disguise, Hasbro bundled the Autobots with the Decepticon flipchanger jets and sold them as two packs at the Deluxe pricepoint. Mulitpacks were seen as a way to get Basic class toys released, evidently, as the Predacon trio of Slapper, Gasskunk and Nightscream were also released as a three pack at the Mega pricepoint, alongside the existing Mega class toy, Sky Byte. Sky Byte was a gem of a release – the Transmetal 2 Cybershark figure was an identical mold, but what Sky Byte did was to redeco the mold in phenomenal detail right down to individual details on the exposed diodes and transistors. Sky Byte stands out as a phenomenal deco, one of the very best ever released.
On the Japanese front, Takara did not bring forward a new “main line” series, instead once again creating a new transforming robot series known as Web Diver. Takara did not completely abandon the Transformers brand this time round though, instead they catered for the collector portion of their market with more reissues of classic Generation 1 Transformers, following on from their 2000 reissue of the Generation 1 Convoy / Optimus Prime. 2001 also saw the beginning of the E-Hobby and convention exclusive Generation 1 redecos – a series of redecos of the original Transformers toys in alternate color schemes, including black decos, translucent (or crystal) color schemes, and their pre-Transformers Diaclone or Micro Change decos. Notable releases from the 2001 reissue series included a reissue of God Ginrai, and an exclusive black Nucleon Quest Super Convoy variant, Hot Rodimus and a pair of convention exclusive redecos, Crystal Rodimus and Black Rodimus, plus Ultra Magnus, who got redecos in his “Movie Preview” Diaclone colors and a translucent yellow edition, meant to represent the moment that Ultra Magnus held the Matrix in Transformers the Movie.
A selection of releases from the Transformers Super Collection Figure series from 2001-2
Takara also introduced the Super Collection Figure, or SCF, series in 2001. The SCF series were a series of PVC figures depicting characters from across the whole run of the Transformers series. Notably, the SCF series were the first Transformers merchandise released by either Hasbro or Takara to formally refer to the original 1984 – 1992 series as Generation 1, even though it had been a long-accepted term.
Each wave of SCF figures (called “Acts” on the packaging) had a broad theme, ranging from a particular series to a theme, though it was never a hard rule. Each series had six regular releases, and two chase figures. From Act 3 onwards, the figures also included “build-a-figure” parts for larger Transformers characters such as Fortress Maximus, Scorponok or Metroplex. To add to the fun, the six regular releases and the chases were all available in two variants – color and either clear (in Acts 1-3) or Pewter (in Act 4 onwards). As if this was not enough fun, the Acts also came blind-packed.
2001 ultimately may have been an intermediary year between the second and third great eras of the Transformers franchise, the Beast Era and the Unicron Trilogy. However it was an extremely important year, because it brought back and reestablished a lot of classic concepts left at the wayside throughout the Beast Era, including real-world car Transformers, Autobots and Decepticons, and the classic transforming sound effect. These things are all things we take for granted now, but in 2001, they had been absent for half a decade or longer. Another important contribution from Robots in Disguise was the new form of the Transformers logo, which would be used throughout the Unicron Trilogy until the return of the classic “stacked” Transformers logo in 2006.
Superquad7
Agreed! Maybe @Sol Fury can give another one soon!
Back in
Need a update but that ok
Phantformer5533
Thank you for all these links! I definitely needed this in order to make my own list. Glory to transformers!
Vik
Awesome, such a dense history!
Metro Prime
Thanks. I have been doing that since that post. TF Wiki has been answering a lot of questions.
batfan007
You can always read some pages over at TFWIKI to catch up on those years, covers pretty much everthing.
John Does
Awsome looking forward,…
Metro Prime
It took me days to read all of this!
Excellent and informative write up. I'm impressed and it filled in a few blanks for me. I've been collecting since G1 with a few years of breaks until I started a major effort into collecting through the Energon era, the beginning of the Classics line, and intermittently through the years til I saw Titans Return and have been heavily collecting since. This write up has shown me where some of my more eclectic figures have originated.
Is there an update from 2015 to current in the works? I'd love to see what else I've missed.
Excaliberprime
good info here
Abishai100
Gen 1 – Gen 2
I think a good way to think about the immense shift in style and content between TG1 (Transformers Generation 1) and TG2 is to think about how the toys, cartoons, and comics focused more on variability of character significance for various storylines. TG1 offered stories relevant to particular characters, but TG2 offered a more liberal attitude towards who could be a randomized figurehead in a given storyline!
That's why TG2 was the 'gateway' to the modern Transformers era which focuses much more on general concepts and character randomization than did TG1.
That's also why TG1 is the ideal intro for anyone looking to become a Transformers fan. Hey, isn't that why we all love Transformers: The Movie (1986), the real art-piece that began showing us conceptual bridges between TG1 and TG2?
ChromedomeMaster
35 years of transformers, and i have only been apart of it for 10 years
3 Wheeler
I like the Long Haul Pic!!!
Djin
Great read
Blam320
That's really too bad. You're missing out on a lot, and I mean a lot of really good Transformers stuff by only caring about G1.
Rodimus Prime BetterPrime
For years I've wanted the G1 series in a blu-ray release. With this year marking its 35th anniversary, hopefully we'll finally get it. I don't care about anything but G1.