I was watching the 2010 SDCC panel for TF Prime on Youtube and one of the writers said it takes place 3 years after the movies. So initally, the first 2 movies happened 3 years before Prime and Prime was an alternate path for the first two Bay movies instead of DOTM? Or was the intention just roughly similiar events happening in the past? Is there anything else on this Bayverse backstory (interviews etc)?
That's laughably dumb, the Prime continuity is not in the slightest actually plot related to the films. Whichever writer said it clearly was either A) trying to play up to movie appeal at the time given ROTF had just happened, or B) had no goddamn idea what they were talking about. I'm inclined to believe the latter given what happened with Trypticon.
At 13:45. I highly doubt anyone intended Prime to actually be in continuity with the movies but it seems the initial idea was that the same or similiar events as the movies happened.
Doesn't matter, it's still wrong because Hasbro wants Prime to be in continuity with War For Cybertron, which is most certainly NOT the Bayverse origin. This was known from the beginning of Aligned. This guy is just pulling shit out of his ass and really it kind of proves the Prime writers didn't have a goddamn clue how to write the show.
Huh, interesting. I recall hearing a long time ago that Prime was supposed to be set in the movieverse, and I was actually under that impression for a while (pretty much up until I watched the show, in 2013 probably). Although I was also under the impression for years that WFC was a prequel to the movies. It's hard to tell here whether he's saying it's literally in-continuity to the movies, or if that was just their initial idea. To me it sounds more like that was just their initial idea or pitch. For instance, the original pitch for Pixar's Wall-e was "what if humanity left Earth and someone forgot to turn off the last robot?" And yet that idea doesn't really come into play in the final movie. (No one turned off the other robots, they were intended to keep running and they just broke down eventually.) That idea was just the initial spark, and the essence of that became the final movie. It sounds like a similar case here. Prime was probably envisioned as a sequel to the movies, and placed in a different continuity when they realized their ideas didn't line up with the movieverse. Or when Hasbro decided they wanted a forth movie, which would contradict Prime. Or this could have just been Jeff Kline explaining it in an accessible way to the audience. Prime is definitely set in a movie-esque universe, and a lot of casual viewers could easily think it does take place there.
I've always wondered this too. In the first episode of Prime, they said that the Decepticons attacked Earth three years ago. The first episode aired in 2010, meaning three years ago would have been 2007, which could be a reference to the 2007 movie. But they're obviously in different continuities. Maybe very early on, Prime was intended to be set in the movieverse. When it was changed to fit into the Aligned continuity, the writers kept a few references from when Prime was in the movieverse. And that could be what this guy is referring to? Idk, it's definitely something I've thought about.
This does make sense as I recall Ironhide was going to be in the show, even got far enough into production that they had complete concept art and a fully rendered model for the show. However due to the events of DotM the staff were instructed to replace Ironhide with Bulkhead to avoid confusion with kids. By that point I think they were already planning to make Prime separate from the movies but didn't use Ironhide to avoid confusing kids who saw him die on screen. On a side note, didn't Takara make Animated set in the Movieverse when they dubbed the show?
It was considered, but thankfully it was dropped. Some influence remains, like Bulkhead being called “Ironhide” in Japan.
