Is a Generations Astrotrain Voyager toy needed? I think so..

[Onslaught Six]

Prime is that "all-encompassing" new universe, though! Just the Bay movies and (most of) IDW's output isn't part of it.

[Gomess]

All-encompassing except for

Yeeeeup

And come on, do you seriously think the Prime continuity is going to last another decade? Hasbro luv reboots

It is interesting, I think, to consider that they were happy to leave what we retroactively call "G1" as just one big "Transformers" universe for ten years (yeah, I include G2 too). It was just... "Transformers," no subtitle, no branching path system. I wonder if that'd even work in the current economic climate. Evidently it's not.

I just find all the many simultaneous continuities confusing and, frankly, a shame. Like... can't we aim a bit higher than this multiversal crap? I bet it turns off a fair number of casual fans who might really get into it otherwise.

[Onslaught Six]

The films and IDW's comics were around first! I'd feel shitty if my awesome IDW universe got shit on for Prime.

Also, I was never intimidated by TF's huge universe. I'm never intimidated by that. I'm excited by it, because it means there's a lot of material for me to quickly devour. That's why TF attracted me in the first place--its lore has thousands of characters who have appeared in a huge number of things. You won't find TF's sense of scale and scope in He-Man, or Thundercats, or even GI Joe.

[Gomess]

Yeah, I know, and it's great if you have that kinda mind. Personally I do love that the franchise is massive enough for me to say "I like *this* series and all the characters and concepts that contains," but I'm thinking of the wider audience.

Also my relatively recent desire for a truly unified singular series with long-term goals and a full deconstruction/reconstruction of the whole TF "concept".

So bored of alien wars, man.

[Onslaught Six]

I hate to harp on you again, but read god damn motherfucking MTMTE! I only keep doing so because you go, "I want this thing!" and it just makes me want to go, "It already exists, and you won't fucking read it!"

[BWprowl]

Throw a recommendation for RID in there as well, they both work together with the 'unified, long-term universe' concept G is talking about. With both of them deconstructing the nature of the faction-based conflict to different degrees.

I freely admit that I think Gomess would prefer MTMTE to RID, even if that's not how my opinion sways (even if I think MTMTE has been Getting Better. I just want actual 'adventures' in space, man! Not dudes standing around on a spaceship yakking about in-jokes!).

[Gomess]

Y'all have gotta remember that "no alien wars" isn't the ONLY thing I'm looking for to revitalise my interest in TF fiction. Bear in mind how much I'm turned off by space adventures in general. But if old characters are used in new ways it miiiight be enough to make me overlook space adventures?

Oh, and if there's Earth adventures they need to not have two boys and a girl with zero character following the robots around

Picky, picky!

[Onslaught Six]

TF have been exiled from Earth from the current comics. They just spent the last two years working with Soldier Boy Spike Witwicky, and that ended pretty badly for them.

Just trust me. You want to read this.

[JediTricks]

Tigs is just excited about the idea of a TF series with no Optimus Prime or Megatron. And who can blame him??

Please be aware I acknowledge the fact that such a series wouldn't be a Wise Investment for Hasbro as they currently are. But I'm also not much of a fan of Hasbro as they currently are!

They're in a difficult position. The decisions that were made on the content of the Bay movies have apparently made it near-impossible to construct the rest of the franchise within that same universe, resulting in another mish-mash of simultaneous continuities just when I thought we were seeing a concise, franchise-wide reboot that'd be sticking around for the long-term.

And with such long-term singular universes, you eventually get allowed to kill off Optimus Prime and Megatron. ...And then you lose all your fans and money and have to start over. I get it, Hasbro, business r hard

The reality is that Transformers COULD survive without Optimus and Megs so long as they were in some way guest stars - whether flashbacks or just mostly offscreen - but Hasbro needs passionate vision to drive a show without those core characters, and for some reason there has only been one instance of passionate vision (Animated, obviously) in the last decade since Beast Machines left the air. It's like a chinese fingertrap, in order for Hasbro to get a better show with new characters to turn into profitable toys, they have to get rid of the executives whose jobs it is to ensure that the brand keeps going the way it is - they need to lose faith in the brand enough to trust it to someone outside the current structure.

Some of the core ideas behind TF Cybertron could work for a show like this with a real vision driving them - lost colonies each with their own styles and their own heroes and villains and civilians and needs and leaders and factions beyond Autobot & Decepticon - would certainly allow for Optimus and Megatron to either play second banana or not appear at all, although like Beast Wars the more G1 cred you attach through mythos, the stronger your fanbase will hold up.

Killing Megs and Optimus is a dangerous game though, Optimus is now as visually recognizable to pop culture as Superman or Mickey Mouse, that's a huge shortcut to gaining an audience and a main character.

Prime is that "all-encompassing" new universe, though! Just the Bay movies and (most of) IDW's output isn't part of it.

Not really, it's terribly inconsistent to allow artistic freedom, and the show is also canceled.

All-encompassing except for

Yeeeeup

And come on, do you seriously think the Prime continuity is going to last another decade? Hasbro luv reboots

It is interesting, I think, to consider that they were happy to leave what we retroactively call "G1" as just one big "Transformers" universe for ten years (yeah, I include G2 too). It was just... "Transformers," no subtitle, no branching path system. I wonder if that'd even work in the current economic climate. Evidently it's not.

I just find all the many simultaneous continuities confusing and, frankly, a shame. Like... can't we aim a bit higher than this multiversal crap? I bet it turns off a fair number of casual fans who might really get into it otherwise.

Anybody that far on the outside I don't think would even know that G1 is still going, they would know the toys and movies and tv shows and video games, but the comics are not a big thing for "outsiders" right now, and anybody drawn into the brand from comics is probably enough of a comics guy to handle multiverses.

"Aim higher"? I think this is ultimately a big question, can this brand aim higher, and should it? It wasn't born with a noble intention to tell a story, it didn't set out to inform or create or anything so noble, it was created to sell toys when the market had turned away from cowboys and military, it just so happened to find exactly the right creative people to turn it into something more, but the foundation of the brand is still "sell toys, mostly to children", not "be important" (except to serve the original point). So any mistakes along the way are unimportant if they don't get in the way of selling toys to children.

[Shockwave]

Rescue Bots. That is all.