History Franchise / Transformers

** ''WesternAnimation/TransformersTheMovie'': When Kup and Hot Rod are captured by the Quintessons, they're forced to watch Arblus, the LastOfHisKind from the destroyed planet Lithone, get dumped into a pit to be devoured by the Sharkticons. As they listen to his dying screams, a grim Kup tells Hot Rod that's not the way he'd want to go. This inspires the pair to fight the Sharkticons when it's their turn to be dumped into the pit, and they manage to hold out until [[BigDamnHeroes the Dinobots arrive]] and [[CurbStompBattle proceed to massacre the Sharkticons]].

For more information, you might want to consult [[https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Main_Page the Transformers wiki,]] Website/TFWikiDotNet. Its informality is similar to that of TV Tropes.-]

[-If you're looking for the live-action movie series, see ''Film/TransformersFilmSeries''. For the original [[Franchise/TransformersGeneration1 Generation One]] animated film, see ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformersTheMovie''.\\

----

The [[TransformingMecha Robots in Disguise]]. The Battle Chargers. The Triple Changers. The Combiners. The Targetmasters. The Headmasters. The Micromasters. The Power Masters. The Mass Shifters. The Weaponizers. The Friends and Foes of Humanity.

''[[TitleThemeTune TRANSFORMERS! More Than Meets the Eye!]]''

A [[LongRunners long-running]] franchise consisting of dozens of toy lines, many AnimatedSeries and ComicBooks, and a series of live-action movies. Reduced to its simplest terms, ''Transformers'' is the story of an eons-old battle between two factions of a race of sentient shape-shifting robots, usually called the Autobots and Decepticons, whose battles frequently take them to [[EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse Earth]]. Traditionally the Autobots transform into civilian automobiles, while the Decepticons transform into military hardware, though this distinction has grown less obvious over time.

Considering its origins ''as'' a toy line, the franchise is highly MerchandiseDriven, each incarnation serving to pimp a line of transforming toys. The original toy line sold in America came about when Creator/{{Hasbro}} imported several disparate Japanese toy lines, primarily Takara's "Diaclone" from 1980 and "Microchange" lines from the "Microman" toy franchise of 1974-84. The piecemeal origins of the individual toys are largely responsible for the enormous disparity in scale and style of the early toys, as it paired regular road vehicles, large military gear and household items together. When brought in as a single toy line, they were given the ''Transformers'' brand and established the "sapient robot" aspect of the story.

After the original toy line, further incarnations were designed specifically for the mega-hit ''Transformers'' brand, creating a more internally-consistent style, though still with inappropriate [[https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Scale sizes between toys]]. At any given point there might be three distinct toylines for the franchise depending on the companion media of the time, while the broader "[[https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformers:_Generations_(toyline) Generations]]" and "[[https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Masterpiece Masterpiece]]" lines reimagine classic characters with more modern, advanced and sometimes [[CrackIsCheaper pricier]] versions.

* TimeStorm: What happens when you try to change history to too great a degree.

* ''Transformers: One'' (2024): An animated prequel set on Cybertron depicting the origins of the war and starring a younger Optimus Prime and Megatron.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformersTheMovie'' (1986). The film of the series, coming between the second and third seasons of the cartoon. The timeline [[TimeSkip jumped]] to [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture to futuristic 2005]] and Optimus Prime and most of the original Autobots were killed off, passing the torch to a new generation led by Rodimus Prime. The movie featured the voice talents of Judd Nelson, Creator/LeonardNimoy, Robert Stack (Of ''Series/TheUntouchables'', ''Film/{{Airplane}}'' and ''Series/UnsolvedMysteries'' fame) and [[Creator/MontyPython Eric Idle]], as well as the last screen performance of Creator/OrsonWelles (as the [[ApocalypseWow first on-screen appearance]] of Unicron, a Transformer the size of a planet).[[note]]The irony did not go unnoticed.[[/note]]

** ''Scramble City'', an OAV originally released only in Japan, though a version was included on the 25th anniversary DVD of the animated movie in the United States (only the visual portion, though, as Toei refused to license the audio portion, and an English dub is out of the question because half the original cast is deceased). It focused on the mix and match aspect of the combiners, as well as introducing Metroplex, Trypticon and some of the movie characters, as the movie itself wouldn't reach Japanese shores until 1989 (thus causing several characters killed off in the movie to appear alive and well in the Japanese-exclusive G1 cartoons).

** Throughout [[Creator/IDWPublishing IDW Publishing's]] ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' comic continuity, it's heavily suggested that Optimus Prime disliked having to become leader of the Autobots. TheChainsOfCommanding weighed heavily on him, and in "The Death of Optimus Prime" he leapt at the chance to give up his name and title to revert to his original name of Orion Pax. Other material suggests that part of this is because he was quite happy simply being Orion Pax: Super Cop, where he felt like he was actually making a change in people's lives. It's not hard to understand why: in ''ComicBook/TransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'', the more Tailgate hears about Orion Pax from people who knew him, the more he thinks Orion was CrazyAwesome [[note]] When Orion Pax appears in a flashback diving down upon a fleeing flier, Tailgate demands to know where Orion came from, only to be told that Orion had a habit of appearing unexpectedly [[TheCavalry just when he's most needed]][[/note]], and has his mind blown when he finally learns Orion became Optimus. As Autobot leader, Optimus pretty much had no choice but to spend much of his time ordering his troops to their deaths, because the sheer scale of the conflict led to AMillionIsAStatistic.

The [[TransformingMecha Robots in Disguise]]. The Battle Changers. The Triple Changers. The Targetmasters. The Headmasters. The Micromasters. The Mass Shifters. The Friends and Foes of Humanity.

* TimeDissonance: Transformers are immortal unless killed, and see time differently. This becomes jarring when a character like ''[[WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime Prime]]'' Smokescreen has been around for millions of years like the others but only matures in the time span of a ''few months'' covered by his tenure on the show.

* ''WesternAnimation/ChallengeOfTheGoBots'' (1984) A SixtyFiveEpisodeCartoon created by Creator/HannaBarbera.

* TakeThat: The comics feature a lot of jabs against the mostly-forgotten competitor to the original ''WesternAnimation/ChallengeOfTheGoBots'', mostly involving Cy-Kill [[TheyKilledKennyAgain getting killed]].

* CoolGuns: Megatron's original altmode was a ''Series/TheManFromUncle'' Walther P38 with stock, barrel extension and scope; the latter became his [[WaveMotionGun Fusion Cannon]].

Of note is that ''Cybertron'' was not intended as a sequel to ''Energon''; the original Japanese ''Transformers: Galaxy Force'' took place in its own universe. Hasbro designer Aaron Archer had intended it to continue the earlier shows, so this is a case of conflicting sources. Interestingly enough, recent material released in Japan seems to have retconned ''Galaxy Force'' into the same universe as ''Armada'' and ''Energon''.

* BigBad: Mostly Megatrons, but the Marvel comics gave Shockwave and other Cybertronians chances to gloat. More recently, Overlord as seen in IDW's ''ComicBook/TheTransformersLastStandOfTheWreckers'' might also qualify.

* CanonDiscontinuity: Every series has a few insane ideas that got ignored, like [[BigBad Unicron]] being the discarded science project of an [[MadScientist alien monkey]]...

** As far as characters go, ''Animated'''s Lockdown, Lugnut, and Bulkhead have crossed over into the IDW, Aligned, and Movie continuities - in particular, Lockdown serves as the BigBad of the fourth film. IDW has recently began featuring a large number of EnsembleDarkhorse Canon Immigrants from ''Beast Wars'', ''Robots in Disguise'', ''Prime'', and ''Animated''.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Mostly on the idealistic side, though the writers have clearly been making an effort to be realistic about it in recent years.

** In more recent years, the idea that Cybertronians shouldn't have gender because they are robots has been more or less ignored, with a slew of new characters being introduced. That Transformers don't have gender has been swept under the rug as the females of Cybertron being ''wiped out'' by a "perfectionist" visionary Galvatron from another universe, and that the links to the Allspark on other planets still regularly produce female sparks. Windblade, who was more or less designed by fan vote, was chosen as female by an overwhelming majority. The club subscription bonus excusive Pyra Magna similarly was voted to by female, as were all six of her components. After that, new female characters, some with toys, have been made to help diversify the cast. They still make up a minority, but not by such a wide margin.

The Ones Who Are More Than Meets the Eye.

* ''VideoGame/TransformersWarForCybertron'' is a video game that dives into the basic history of the Autobot[=/=]Decepticon war and meant to be a stepping stone showing how that war finds its way to Earth. It takes major mythology points from various sources and re-presents them to the audience, setting up the greater franchise (such as why Starscream is TheStarscream and how come [[BondVillainStupidity Megatron doesn't just shoot him]]). It was built from the [[Creator/EpicGames Unreal engine]] and was released on PC, UsefulNotes/XBox360,[[strike:UsefulNotes/{{Wii}}]], UsefulNotes/{{DS}}, and [=PS3=] in July 2010.

* VideoGameAdaptation: Several games have been made for the series from the Famicom Convoy game of NintendoHard instant death to the latest PC and UsefulNotes/XBox360 game.