Being a Transformers series, it should be no surprise that Transformers: Prime contains so many nods and references to previous continuities.
- G1:
- The abandoned missile silo the Autobots use for home base has a passing resemblance to Mount St. Hilary, the resting place of the Ark in G1. Right before trying to blow up the space bridge, Ratchet says it's time to "light our darkest hour!" The design of the Decepticon ship hearkens back to the unnamed Decepticon ship from G1, given the name Nemesis in Beast Wars.
- Optimus Prime and Megatron are both voiced by the same actors (Peter Cullen and Frank Welker) who first voiced them in G1. In "Minus One", Frank Welker also reprises the role of Soundwave.
- Optimus's iconic line from the animated movie is spoken in season 1, thrice. The first time is when Optimus confronts Megatron at the Space Bridge. The second is when Bumblebee enters Megatron's mind. The third time when Optimus and Megatron clash at the volcano packs a variation with Megatron finishing the line.
- Whenever Soundwave plays back audio, a subtle but distinct audio modulation is applied, the same used for G1's Soundwave. Soundwave's actual voice is a dual channel consisting of the G1 Soundwave's voice as well as Welker's "Dr. Claw" voice, which is the same voice he uses for Soundwave without the distinctive modulation.
- The naming of the episode "Convoy" is quite deliberate, as Commander Convoy is the name of Optimus Prime in Japan.
- Also, Prime's trailer in said-episode is a perfect replica of G1 Prime's trailer.
- In "Sick Mind", Megatron muses over Optimus Prime's deteriorating health and makes a comment on him "fading to Gunmetal gray" (i.e. losing his coloration upon the moment of death)... the same thing that happened when he died in The Transformers: The Movie, and in many other series, the one sign that a Transformer's spark has been extinguished and they are truly dead.
- In "Shadowzone", while Starscream is being repaired by Knock Out, the latter suggests Starscream take the opportunity to upgrade his somewhat obsolete tech and missing arm with a null-ray. In G1, Starscream's signature weapons were a pair of null-rays.
- In "Partners", Starscream tells Airachnid how (prior to joining the Decepticons) he was Air Commander of a squadron of Energon Seekers. In Generation 1, Starscream's title in the Decepticons was Air Commander, and all jet-model 'Cons were called Seekers.
- In the same episode, Bulkhead mentions the Transformers Satanic Archetype The Fallen.
- In "T.M.I.", Bulkhead also name-drops Perceptor, a G1 Autobot scientist, while doing Cybertronian math.
- In "One Shall Fall", Megatron attacks Bumblebee, critically injuring his passenger. G1 Megatron did the same thing in the second-season opener, "Autobot Spike."
- In "One Shall Rise, Part 1" Megatron presents himself to Unicron at the maw of the volcano as his "Herald", a term used before, mostly in the comics, to describe any Transformer that directly serves Unicron.
- Ratchet's Kung Fu from "Stronger, Faster" is a nod to the G1 episode "Changing Gears" when Ratchet totally Bruce Lee-kicked Thundercracker
◊. - The title is a homage to the Action Masters toys, whose commercial mentions the Transformers becoming "Stronger, faster, more alive." In the Marvel Comics series, the Action Masters were created through the use of Nucleon - a substitute for Energon that could do very bad things (such as ruining their transformation ability, as the Action Masters were non-transforming figures) to the user. (In "Stronger, Faster," the plot is about Ratchet's synthetic Energon proving to be Psycho Serum.)
- Also from "Stronger, Faster", Knock Out's taunting of Ratchet regarding the Synthetic Energon ("What are you going to do, drink it?") is a nod to the G1 episode "Microbots", where the Decepticons drank copious amounts of Energon, becoming drunk in the process.
- In "One Shall Rise, Part 1", Miko mistaking "Unicron" for "Unicorn" is a reference to the infamous Malaysian dub of Transformers: ★Headmasters, where at one point Galvatron declares "THIS IS UNICORN!" in reference to his "Grand Galvatron" plan.
- Also in "One Shall Rise, Part 1", Optimus sums up the Primus/Unicron legend (first introduced in the G1 comics), including the Thirteen Primes.
- In "One Shall Rise, Part 3," it's revealed that the key that Jack received from Optimus wasn't for the ground bridge power supply, but Vector Sigma, the mega-computer that gives sentience to non-sentient objects.
- In "Masters & Students," Starscream declares himself the "Emperor of Destruction" while taking command of the Decepticons, a term that, while rarely brought up in American Transformers series, has often been used by Japanese fiction to refer to 'con leaders.
- In "One Shall Rise, Part 3", Optimus says the Matrix will "light our darkest hour!"
- When Unicron posesses Megatron for the last time, he becomes engulfed in purple flames. Now, we already know that he directly took his name from Megatronus Prime, one of the original thirteen, who later became The Fallen. In various media, The Fallen is always coated in a fiery aura.
- Also whenever Unicron tries to possess Megatron, the lighting and sound effects were exactly like those in The Transformers: The Movie, right down to Megatron clutching his head and falling to his knees in pain.
- In "Operation Bumblebee, Part 1", Bumblebee gets his Transformation Cog stolen by MECH and is left unable to transform. The same thing happened to Trypticon in the G1 cartoon. It even looks sort of the same.
- Ratchet also reiterates to Bumblebee why he has to stay at the base while the rest of the team searches for his T-Cog. They're "Robots In Disguise", after all.
- Megatron tries to use the Forge of Solus Prime to create what Knock Out calls a "Fortress Maximus-grade Nucleon Shock Cannon", and fails in "Operation Bumblebee, Part 2".
- In "Loose Cannons" Wheeljack mentions former Wreckers Impactor, Roadbuster, Rotorstorm, Pyro and Seaspray as fallen comrades. With the exception of Seaspray,note all of them have served as Wreckers in various G1 continuities and have also died in those appearances. Impactor didn't survive his initial appearance in the Marvel comics, Roadbuster perishes in multiple possible UK Marvel comic timelines and the Dreamwave comics, and both Rotorstorm and Pyro were killed in Last Stand of the Wreckers.
- In "Nemesis Prime" Agent Fowler plays an instrumental version of The Touch on his radio.
- The Apex Armor introduced in "Triangulation" is from IDW Publishing's first Transformers continuity, where Sentinel Prime used a set to fight Megatron and was defeated. The term was previously used by Hasbro for their Commemorative Series reissue of Powermaster Optimus Prime, as this version of the toy was based on the Masterforce God Ginrai release, which included a component not previously released by Hasbro (Godbomber, renamed "Apex Bomber") that forms additional armor for Optimus.
- "Toxicity" introduces a high-ranking Insecticon named Hardshell. Hardshell was an alternate name of Bombshell, a prominent Insecticon character in G1.
- Smokescreen's alt-mode is a race car with the number 38 on the side. It even uses the same colors: red, white and blue, just in a different scheme.
- In "The Human Factor", a human is placed in a robot's body in order to preserve him. Something similar happened in the episode "Autobot Spike".
- New Kaon seems identical to Castle Decepticon and Fortress Sinister from The Transformers (Marvel).
- While it's Transformers tradition to re-use character names from previous series (to serve as both an homage and to preserve the trademark to the name), the leader of the Predacons is named Predaking. In G1, Predaking was the name of the combined form of the Predacons, which were merely a combiner group then. (Doubly notable as this is the first use of the name "Predaking" since 1986.)
- While complementing Bumblebee's new "stealth" paintjob, Arcee dryly notes that if she inverted her colors she'd be pink. Pretty much every other version of Arcee ever has been some shade of pink.
- When Wheeljack wants to take out Darkmount Wrecker-style, Ultra Magnus states that he couldn't deal with Wrecker-style before and he won't deal with them now, referencing the infamous line of Ultra Magnus when Hot Rod and Kup are under attacked by Decepticons in the 1986 movie.
- Soundwave's first line, "Soundwave superior. Autobots inferior." is a Call-Back to his line to the Constructicons during The Movie, which like the Ultra Magnus line, had become popular amongst the fanbase.
- Smokescreen, when watching passing vehicles with Jack to decide on an altmode, says he'd consider a concrete truck "if I was a Constructicon".
- In Predacons Rising Megatron finds himself before Unicorn who gives him an upgraded body to act as his herald, homaging the scene in The Movie
- When told about the prehistoric cybertronians called Predacons, Miko suggests calling them Dinobots. Bulkhead quips that they're a totally different thing.
- Beast Wars:
- Energon takes the form of bluish crystals, and artificially seeded on a planet where they grow.
- In Sick Mind Bumblebee enters Megatron's mind for information, and then Megatron ends up in Bumblebee's mind. The same thing happened between Blackarachnia and Tarantulas.
- In "One Shall Fall" Optimus Prime mentions "The Covenant of Primus" AKA the Transformers Bible introduced at the end of Beast Wars.
- The battle between Optimus and Megatron in "One Shall Fall" is very similar to the final episode of Beast Wars. Mountainous terrain, lighting storms, both combatants quoting the Covenant of Primus, and Optimus loses. It also resembles the finale of Beast Wars season 1: Megatron offers a truce to combat an external threat which Optimus accepts, then uses the outcome of Optimus's sacrifice to his own advantage.
- In "One Shall Rise" Megatron ends a gloating sentence with YEEESSS!
- Ratchet, while in the process of waking up from stasis (essentially Transformer morphine), mentions Fuzors, a type of Transformer from Beast Wars that possessed a beast mode that was a combination of two different animals, and even mentions one by name, Bantor, and also that part of his animal mode was a tiger (and part mandrill) in "Operation Bumblebee, Part 2".
- In Loose Cannons, a giant, blue, grim warrior with a vendetta is immediately engaged in combat by the enemy side's lone wolf who also has a vendetta against him. This is similar to the situation of Depth Charge and Rampage, although Depth Charge's vendetta was against Rampage himself, not someone else, as was in Dreadwing's case.
- Dreadwing is a blue-and-gold Warrior Poet swordsman who has a strict code of honor and abandons Megatron when he understands the latter lacks any morals, only to die tragically. That's pretty close to Dinobot.
- In "Triage", Wheeljack's ship managing to shoot down Laserbeak only to be shot down in return is very reminiscent of the battle between the Darksyde and Axalon that trapped both the Maximals and Predacons on Prehistoric Earth in the first episode of Beast Wars.
- In "Toxicity", Hardshell is knocked into a volcano, but manages to climb out and attack Bulkhead again. This isn't the first time a Decepticon voiced by David Kaye has ended up rising out of a volcano to attack the person who dunked him in it. There's also a moment when G1 Megatron and Beast Wars Megatron finally exchange some lines.
- The crash landing of the Nemesis on a cliff edge in "Armada" is way too similar to that of the Axalon after Megatron had it shot down a second time.
- The second season ends with a Cliffhanger after a Near-Villain Victory. The future of Cybertron is jeopardized, Optimus Prime is mortally wounded and the Autobot base is destroyed.
- When Optimus wants the Autobots to really burn rubber in vehicle mode, he'll order them to shift to "Maximum Overdrive" (even if he's the only one doing it). It seems to be Prime's own take on the line "Maximum Burn" that Optimus Primal would shout whenever he engaged his flight capabilities in Beast Wars. Considering who's saying the line and the context, it's probably an intentional homage.
- Soundwave ejecting Laserbeak from his chest in robot mode is a reference to the Breastforce Decepticons and their Breast Animals from Transformers Victory.
- The actual Predacon concept takes the form of the dragon Predaking in the third season. The third season of Beast Wars has Megatron undergoing a second Transmetal evolution, giving him a dragon beast form.
- Bulkhead actually does a Title Drop in "Project Predacon.
- A handful of episodes in Beast Wars involves Maximals and Predacons fighting for protoforms, Cybertronians yet to choose a disguise. In the episode Armada, Starscream stolen five Protoforms to clone himself. Coincidentally, they are able to transform while Starscream had his T-Cog stolen. He kills the last of the clones and takes its T-Cog when the entire team is eliminated in a failed assassination attempt.
- Dark Energon is not the first known substance of Unicron, that honor would go to the two Japan-only Beast Wars Sequel Series, Beast Wars II, which introduced Angolmois. Although unlike other examples, this was completely coincidental since the writers themselves had little to no knowledge of the Japanese series as stated during Botcon 2011.
- Optimus acquires the Star Saber as passed down to him from Alpha Trion. Megatron then makes an Evil Knockoff of it from pure Dark Energon, for the crafting of which he commits a grave-robbing to graft onto himself the hand of a Prime. This form of Mid-Season Upgrade reflects the upgrades of Optimus Primal and Megatron in Beast Wars Season 3: Optimus received his because he housed Optimus Prime's spark into his body in order to save him in an act of nobility; Megatron replicated the effect by forcibly ripping the spark out of a dormant G1 Megatron's chest just for personal gain.
- Beast Machines:
- The mooks are called Vehicons. Though unlike Beast Machines, they're sentient and all possess sparks, whereas in Beast Machines it was just the Generals who had sparks.
- After being presumed dead, Megatron ends up in a body far weaker than his own. Same thing happened to Beast!Megatron, only more drastically.
- "T.M.I." also name drops "Beast Machines", though in reference to monster trucks.
- The Spark Extractor that Megatron unearths at the beginning of "Operation Bumblebee" was first used by another Megatron as he conquered Cybertron to remove the sparks from captive Transformers and create his Vehicon soldiers, yeeeessss... Prime's version is a little more dangerous, though.
- Optimus' words near the end of "Predacons Rising" greatly mirror the last words spoken by Optimus Primal before becoming one with the Well of All Sparks.
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise
- The second phase of the toyline shares its name, though of course it has always been the franchise's tagline.
- The Sequel Series shares more than its name: the battle will primarily be between vehicle-form Autobots and animal-form 'cons, at least at first.
- Decepticons and Predacons being enemies of the Autobots but not seeing eye to eye, with the Predacons proving a bit less evil in the end was also seen in the 2001 RID before Prime, though how deliberate that is is unclear.
- The live-action films:
- Optimus Prime introduces himself and the Autobots to the human kids in a very similar manner to they way his movie counterpart did, and the ending of the Five-Episode Pilot includes him sending a message to space.Optimus: We are autonomous robotic organisms from the planet Cybertron, also known as Autobots.
- Bumblebee is unable to speak.
- The first episode states that the last known activity on Earth of the Decepticons was about three years prior, roughly the time in Real Life that the first live-action Transformers movie was released.
- Design-wise, Prime Bumblebee is Movie 'Bee in Prime's art style, all the way. Prime Optimus is Movie Optimus without the flame-paint and different shoulders (he's got movie Prime's trademark pop-out cannon and sword, perfectly identical to the movie version.)
- Prime Starscream's chest looks a lot like Movie Starscream's face.
- When Laserbeak is on Soundwave's chest, it looks very much like the face of Movie Frenzy. Putting a Frenzy homage in Soundwave is also a G1 homage, sorta (G1 Frenzy, like G1 Laserbeak, was one of Soundwave's cassette minions.)
- Megatron's jet mode is pretty much Movie Megatron's first alt-mode.
- She hasn't done it in the show yet, but all of Arcee's toys make her capable of being mostly in robot mode but rolling around on one wheel just like the Movie Arcee trio.
- During "Darkness Rising, Part 5", the kids stop Soundwave from accessing the satelite array by cutting the hard-line with axe-the same method used by the soldiers at the Qatar base to stop Blackout from hacking the U.S military database in the first movie.
- It's a stretch, but of the movie Arcee trio, only the blue one is shown to survive the final battle.note Prime Arcee is of course blue.
- In "Out of his Head", Megatron's revival is reminiscent of Optimus's from Revenge of the Fallen.
- Starscream loses an arm in "Shadowzone", much like his movie counterpart.
- In "T.M.I.", Bulkhead is driven crazy after having ancient Cybertronian information projected into his brain and starts drawing symbols on any available surface. The same thing happens to Sam in Revenge of the Fallen.
- Starscream's deeper voice and Igor-ish posture and movement make him reminiscent of movie Starscream more than any other.
- Nemesis Prime's attack on the military base is quite similar to Blackout's attack on the Qatar base in the first film.
- Vogel believes that aliens wish to enslave humanity, which was exactly what the Decepticons planned to do in Dark of the Moon.
- Shockwave's design appears to be a melding of his G1 incarnation mixed with heavy influences from his Dark Of The Moon appearance.
- In "Orion Pax, Part 2", Starscream takes out a flying Vehicon in much the same way his movie counterpart took out fighter jets in the first film.
- Arcee mentioned the time Team Prime first arrived on Earth and describes how Bulkhead ran into a set of power lines. The same thing happened to Ratchet in the first movie.
- In "Predacons Rising", Megatron's corpse is reanimated and files out from the bottom of an ocean, much like in the second film.
- Optimus Prime introduces himself and the Autobots to the human kids in a very similar manner to they way his movie counterpart did, and the ending of the Five-Episode Pilot includes him sending a message to space.
- Transformers: Armada:
- Several eps reuse the Armada Idiosyncratic Episode Naming (vauge one-word titles) to indicate the onset of Cerebus Syndrome.
- An episode is named Armada.
- The Star Saber is a powerful weapon from that series, though it was made of three mini-cons. The Prime Star Saber's hilt even looks kinda like Sonar's hilt mode (but with one piece broken off.), and requires a Prime to harness its true power.
- There's an evil, nonliving Optimus clone named Nemesis Prime.
- In Triangulation, Starscream walks from the middle of an explosion in an Antarctican research base.
- Transformers: Energon:
- The Terrorcons were a sub-faction of Decepticons that were largely mindless drones led by Scorponok that had ties to Unicron. The robot zombies here are named Terrorcons. In Energon, they were created from Unicron's body and eventually revealed (in a Lost Episode that did air in Japan) to be what the inhabitants of Alpha Quintesson's homeworld had looked like. In Prime, they're a bit more directly created from the dead by Unicron (or at least his blood), as dead transformer + Dark Energon = cyberzombie.
- Megatron also uses an extremely powerful sword using energon.
- Megatron being possessed by Unicron and driven to the place Unicron needed to reach to fully realize his plans.
- Transformers: Cybertron:
- The Cybertron series also had one-word titles.
- The Omega Lock and the four keys needed to activate it exist in both series and they both can restore the planet Cybertron. Armada needed the Lock to seal a black hole.
- The battle in "Alpha/Omega" resembles the final battle between Optimus Prime and Megatron/Galvatron as Optimus wields a large blue sword which belonged to another Prime and Megatron wields a glowing purple blade with a curved edge.
- In Energon, Megatron was possessed by Unicron, and in Cybertron he has Unicron-inspired designs called the "armor of Unicron" that gives him the Transformer version of dark magic. In Predacons Rising, Megs is possessed by Unicron, has some Energon-esque moments while possessed, and also gains some physical Unicron-inspired upgrades which he keeps permanently after Unicron is out of his head for good. And though it happened before his possession, Prime Megatron uses remnants of Unicron (namely, Dark Energon) to perform magic-but-we-won't-call-it-that.
- Transformers: Animated:
- Cliffjumper's head design is almost identical to Animated Bumblebee's design, referencing how they are normally redecoes of each other.
- Bulkhead is very similar in design to his Animated counterpart, as is Ratchet.
- Starscream's speech to the Decepticons at the end of "Darkness Rising" is quite similar to the one Animated Starscream gave near the beginning of that show's pilot (both times being when he assumed that Megatron was dead). The difference being that this time he actually gets to finish it... and doesn't get blown up.
- In a nod to his Animated counterpart's artistic leanings, Bulkhead spends much of "T.M.I." painting the formula for synthetic energon on any surface he can find.
- Starscream's chest may be movie Starscream's face, but the scissors-like positioning of his wings in robot mode is straight-up TFA, as is his strokable chin and his lower body.
- Megatron may have his movie counterpart's jet mode, but his robot mode is pre-Earth TFA Megs (with more spikes.)
- Starscream also clones himself in "Armada" much as Animated Screamer did in Season 2, but none of the clones end up becoming any of the other Seekers and they're all dead by the end of the episode.
- Smokescreen is a member of the Elite Guard, complete with the wings on the sides of his insignia.
- In "Darkest Hour", Megatron borrows his TFA counterpart's catchphrase "Decepticons! Transform and Rise up!".
- Animated Ultra Magnus wields a powerful hammer. In "Project Predacon", Prime Magnus decides to put the depleted Forge of Solus Prime to good use.
- Prime Shockwave's alt-mode is an H-shaped tank, similar to 'Animated'' Shockwave's, except spikier and more alien-looking.
- Soundwave's one line that isn't recorded from someone else is "Soundwave superior, Autobots inferior." Animated Soundwave once said "Autobots inferior, Soundwave superior" (which of course, in turn, homaged G1 Soundwave's "Soundwave superior, Constructicons inferior" when the 'cons argued over who was getting the Klingon Promotion.)
- Elsewhere in the Aligned Universe:
- At one point in "Orion Pax, Pt. 1", Megatron refers back to the "war for Cybertron", and refers to the Transformers as being "in exodus" on Earth. A lot of backstory is taken from Exodus and WFC, in one of the show's few attempts at falling in line with the toy company's statement that is WFC, Exodus, and Prime being set in one continuity.
- There are more references to other works in the Aligned Continuity in "Operation Bumblebee, Part 2" when a Nucleon Shock Cannon is mentioned by Knock Out as Megatron tries and fails to build one with the Forge of Solus Prime, one of the Thirteen Primes, marking the first appearance of one of the Artifacts of the Primes in the show that isn't the Matrix of Leadership.
- More toy-based ones that aren't just the usual Merchandise-Driven nature: Bumblebee's color scheme for season three didn't have a toy at the time, the Beast Hunters Bumblebee figure being a super-spiky but not recolored 'Bee. However, movie Bumblebee has several toys that swap the locations of the yellow and black paint. Also, one of Uni-tron's Dark Energon constructs were similar to the Arms Micron Hades, and his altmode is similar to Gaia Unicron (toys apparently never intended for US release and definitely not used the way the toyline intends, with Hades being normal Megs' mini-con partner a la Transformers: Armada and Gaia Unicron being Unicron's season one stone constructs made more Transformery.)
- A more meta example: "Nemesis Prime" is centered around a robotic duplicate of Optimus Prime, controlled remotely by Silas. The original version of Optimus (named Battle Convoy) from the Japanese Diaclone toy line was in fact a nonliving mech that needed to be piloted by a human.
