It's weird to hear that some put actual weight about the techspecs... I always saw them as nothing more than eye candy for the packaging as so many made no sense at all and none had any sense of "scale" (for lack of a better word) between characters. They were more "whimsical" than anything else as they never made sense.. having a car that would get a 8 for speed while a jet would get a 4, for example, I just never put any importance to them. Not to rain on anyone, I am simply surprised that it appears to be a big deal for some.
I never wondered that, Thundercracker always seemed less intelligent that Skywarp to me. I'm kinda shocked that anyone pays attention to those numbers they more often than not make very little sense anyway.
I think it’s something that was long speculated and pretty much universally accepted as being an error, but this may have been the first time Budiansky flat out confirmed it in an interview with receipts.
Bob put a lot of work in the tech specs. When guys became targetmasters firepower went up. A lot of the speed specs were based on alternate mode or lack. You’re missing out if you haven’t looked at them.
Has anyone converted that image with the official tech specs to a doc format? I cant believe the interview was done at such low resolution! I've wanted to see this for years!
After HotRod had a "10" in strength, I assumed that the tech specs were full of typos. Crushing reality lesson for a kid. A lot of times, adults don't bother to proofread before they send it to press.
Just at a glance, it looks like the product number on the left (as shown on the packaging), followed by names in the same order - including certain characters' original names - Spinout becoming Sunstreaker, Blowpipe(?) into Cliffjumper, etc. Bumblebee (5701), Cliffjumper (5702), Huffer (5703), Windcharger (5704), Brawn (5705), Gears (5706) Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Hound, Mirage, Bluestreak, Prowl, and if memory serves... Jazz, Ironhide, Ratchet, Wheeljack, Trailbreaker in that order. Then Skids, lol. And then stats, obviously. Still, it's nice to finally have a conformation from Robot Master the man himself after all this time.
Sorry about that. It's how Zoom output the recording and it could also be his Webcam. I tried to ensure it was the best quality possible. I can try asking Bob if he can copy that document since we as fans want to see it.
Again, like my example, I've seen firepower for some fairly weak characters match or be higher than Megatron, whose biggest asset is a cannon larger than some figures and considered one of the most powerful weapon. The descriptions of the personalities I get, but the numbers have never been fitting. Even target masters would be about the main character staying the same if not less if they lose their main weapons, and the actual gun/Target master would have a higher firepower but the rest like speed would be extremely poor. And in most cases, nothing is really logical. For speed, no car could/should be above a 4, jets up to 8, spaceship would be the ones that could reach 10. etc.
I just made the mental connection just now that Robot Master looks exactly like Bob Budiansky. Can’t blame him, if I got to work on a Transformers story, I’ll put myself in there too. I just thought that piece of paper he held up was Transformers History.
Megatron has a Firepower of 10, so you haven’t seen a character higher than that. Trypticon also has a Firepower of 10, which certainly seems justified to me. Dude is bring an entire city of firepower to the fight.
It is true. This was discovered during Bob Budiansky's appearance at Iacon One in 2006. Steve Stonebraker has a better photo from that time of the tech specs gridsheet that's being discussed. https://twitter.com/sstoneb/status/1279800243698257926
I figured that too. Mistakes do happen even in production. Look what happened back in Transformers Universe 2003, Inferno & Ratchet Actually ratchet was suppose to be Inferno. & The RID prowl was suppose t o be G1 red alert, But the factory got the mis infomation. I did speak with Frank welker too over the weekend. He did confirm this happened too. That Sunbow for the names wrong on the Rumble & Frenzy. In the TV Show. Frenzy was suppose to be blue. RUmble Red/black. Even mistakes happen in movie production. I think human nature to make mistakes & goof ups.
I had that same opinion when I was a kid, and just scanning over the Specs on whichever random TFs I actually owned. Later, when the internet fandom ramped up, and all that info was available online, I did a deeper dive, and realized that there was actually way MORE consistency than inconsistency. I mean, the overall consistency is what makes the errors obvious. There are some gaffs, and obviously the Specs go right off the rails when the movie characters come in (I suspect Budiansky didn't actually handle the movie cast bios for the most part). I mean, obviously, the quality control was not perfect. There are some gaps. Some can be attributed to fairly obvious errors or mix-ups. Also, given that the scale is an abstract 10-point scale, characters like Combiners and giant guys suddenly throw a lot of the STRENGTH metrics out of wack. There's no explanatory blurb to indicate what SPEED actually measures (though there's actually a lot of consistency in those scores), and FIREPOWER is a bit vague. Does SKILL reflect someone's combat prowess, or their generalized skill in their particular field (or both?). There's still some interpretation required in the absence of more concrete parameters. However, for the first 3 years, those Specs are a lot more interesting canonically than most people realize. See above... that's largely a misconception. Thundercracker on the G1 toon was really little more than a palette-swap of Skywarp. Likewise, Frenzy and Rumble were basically the same guy. That's more a weakness of the original cartoon writing than an actual indication of what was established in the G1 bios / Tech Specs. What has been done with Thundercracker in the comics fiction in recent years is actually much closer to how his original personality was described. It's nice to see writers going back to the well for some of the less popular / well-known characters. z
