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alt title(s): The Transformers; Transformers Generation One  Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons.
Transformers: Generation 1 (originally aired as simply The Transformers) is the original and some would say best incarnation of Transformers. If you say "Transformers", it's more than likely people will believe that you're talking about this one. It first aired in 1984 as a way to advertise Hasbro’s Transformers toy line, which was made from altering Takara’s Diaclone and Microchange lines through redecos or retools (paint or mild alterations).
The original toys were not intelligent robots but remote controlled mechs used by human pilots. Under the Transformers brand every toy was a sentient robot, and the story was written to accomodate that. Characters were created that eventually became legend and are closely associated with further Transformers continuity lines. Such include Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream, Bumblebee and others who form general character types.
The Transformers cartoonThe show was initially written by Marvel Productions, and later Marvel in collaboration with Sunbow. Animation was done in Japan mostly by Toei Animation and a few lesser known studios. The show concerned the war between two factions of sentient robots - the heroic Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, and the evil Decepticons, led by Megatron. In the three-part opening, the Autobots fled their home planet of Cybertron after the war drained it of much of its energy. The Decepticons followed and, after a short space battle, they crash-landed on Earth, where they lay dormant for four million years. When they were revived, the Transformers took on the appearance of Earth vehicles as a form of disguise. The Decepticons immediately set out to steal all of Earth’s energy and the Autobots, being generally good guys, tried to stop them. Most episodes involved the Decepticons either coming up with a new Evil Scheme to steal Earth’s energy, or coming up with a new Evil Scheme to destroy the Autobots forever. Naturally, they failed every time.Season One And TwoThe first season was broadcast on Saturday mornings, and followed the above formula to a T. When it proved extremely popular, the show was given a weekday afternoon timeslot for the second season . This season still followed established conventions, but also mixed things up occasionally with excursions to alien worlds. A large number of new characters were introduced in this season, with the result that very few episodes featured all the characters. Instead, each episode focused on a few Autobots and Decepticons as a way of giving exposure to all the toys without making the episodes confusing. During this period, many characters had Day In The Limelight episodes; these are often considered to be the best episodes made. When the show proved popular in America, Takara cancelled its plans for a new Diaclone line in favour of importing the American toys and cartoon. The cartoon was rebranded as Fight! Super Robot Life Form Transformer! and made a few changes, most notably changing Shockwave from a very cool, calm and logical robot to an angry, psychotic being. Additionally, one minute of footage was cut from each episode to incorporate the longer opening theme.Transformers: The Movie (1986)See main article: Transformers The Movie. At the end of Season 2, an animated film was made, simply titled The Transformers: The Movie (1986), which was written so that it could be easily split into four 22-minute segments for subsequent TV broadcast. The movie skipped forward to the then far-off year 2005, by which time the Decepticons had conquered Cybertron. The plot concerned the Autobots' struggle to liberate their home planet and later save it from the planet eater, Unicron. The movie introduced several plot elements which would go on to become important to the whole Transformers mythos – Unicron; the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, an artifact carried by the Autobot leader which grants power and great wisdom; and the Quintessons, a race of evil tentacled aliens who originally created the Transformers and were still bitter about being kicked off Cybertron after 11 million years. The movie is infamous for killing off a large number of characters in order to give screen time to new toys. The deaths of Optimus Prime and Starscream in particular caused such consternation among fans that both characters were brought back in season three, after a fashion. And the replaced characters/toys such as Hot Rod and Ultra Magnus are subsequently disliked for being inferior copies of the older characters. Interestingly, both of the aforementioned characters' deaths and revivals established now-time-honored traditions in Transformers fiction—that Starscream has an immortal spark (in G1 and related continuities) or is immortal by some other token (for example, in Animated, where he manages to stay alive because of an Allspark shard lodged in his forehead), and that Optimus Prime is prone to making Heroic Sacrifices from which he will fairly quickly return. The movie would not be released in Japan until 1989, and so an OAV by the name of Scramble City was made to introduce the new characters. When the movie was released, it was edited slightly to take place in 2009 rather than 2005.Seasons Three and OnwardThe third season (rebranded as Fight! Super Robot Life Form Transformer! 2010 in Japan) was released in 1987. This followed on where the movie left off, and focused on the new characters. In this season, the Autobots had reclaimed Cybertron, while the Decepticons had been exiled to the dead planet of Chaar. It began with a Five Episode Pilot in which the Quintessons manipulated the Decepticons into attacking Cybertron as part of an Evil Scheme to destroy all Transformers, during which several new toys made their screen debuts. They failed, and after that things settled back into the generally episodic format from the first two seasons. While the Decepticons were still a major threat, the Autobots tangled with the Quintessons just as often as their traditional enemies. This season also departed from the previous two by not having any faction restricted to Earth. Instead, the characters' adventures took place all over the galaxy, incorporating many strange alien worlds. At the end of the season, Optimus Prime was resurrected following fan complaints. After this, the American and Japanese continuities diverged. In America, a fourth season began, and pretty much ended, with a three-part episode entitled “The Rebirth”. During these episodes, the action moved to the planet Nebulos and introduced the new Headmaster and Targetmaster toys as partnerships between Transformers and the native Nebulans. However, this season was aborted after the introduction despite some promising new characters and plot details.General FeaturesLike most shows made in the 1980s, Transformers: Generation 1 did not have especially strong continuity, which was at least partly due to the short production time per episode. However, there was a light storyline, with a few episodes building on events from previous ones. This continuity was strongest in season 3, which made the fact that episodes were routinely aired out of order all the more frustrating. In 1992, selected episodes of the cartoon were re-edited and aired as the Generation 2 cartoon (which gave birth to the Generation 1 name). These episodes were pretty much selected due to their featuring characters that were being sold as toys at that point. They were identical to the G1 episodes, save for the fact that instead of the classic "Autobot symbol zooms in and flips over to reveal Decepticon symbol " (or vice-versa), scenes were transitioned between by the "Cybernet Space Cube".
What made the show really special was the incredible quality of the voice acting. The huge number of characters made it difficult to firmly establish a distinct personality for each one. However, each character had a distinct, very fitting voice, which subtly indicated their personalities without needing to devote an entire episode to them. In fact, Peter Cullen’s role as Optimus Prime was so respected that, when it was announced he would be reprising his role in 2007’s live-action Transformers movie, fans immediately stopped complaining and started supporting the film.
Most episodes were produced in a very short space of time, with the result that a large number of animation errors crept in. Characters were often drawn the wrong size, sometimes for effect or by accident. Another constant problem was characters being drawn in the wrong colours, which was very confusing as many of the characters were identical save for different colours (they were often simply repainted toys). This problem was particularly bad in season 3, as some of the episodes were animated by AKOM, a Korean animation company which, while cheaper than Toei, was also considerably sloppier.
Japanese ContinuityIn Japan, after the show ended in America, they continued the story and rebranded into Transformers Headmasters, which was essentially a spinoff. This gave a completely new origin story for the Headmasters. They also continued with Transformers Super God Masterforce, Transformers Victory and Transformers Zone. The most infamous addition to the Japanese continuity is Kiss Players, set between the movie, and Season 3, where Optimus Prime, has been revived by Marissa Faireborn (who looks about 8 even though she's 20) kissing him. It's as bad as it sounds.ComicsAs well as the cartoon, there have been several comics published over the years.MarvelThe first of these was published by Marvel Comics. It is sometimes stated that the comic came before the cartoon; while issue 1 of the comic hit the newsstands quite some time before the first episode of the cartoon aired, the cartoon went into production long before the comic. The comic was initially set in the main Marvel Universe, but soon moved to a separate Alternate Universe along with the GI Joe comic to prevent Executive Meddling from Hasbro interfering with Marvel's own characters. It was initially written by Bob Budiansky; he and his successor, Simon Furman, would end up having more influence on the overall Transformers mythos than anyone else. During this time, instead of simply telling the artists what to draw, the writers simply gave them a plot outline and let them draw a strip. Budiansky and Furman then took the strip and added Speech Bubbles; this arrangement meant that the artists had much more influence on the story than is common nowadays. In America, the comic was published fortnightly, then weekly, then fortnightly again. It was printed on higher-quality paper than most other comics, and as a result was also more expensive. While it used the same characters, setting, and premise as the cartoon, it told a significantly different set of stories. In particular, while the Transformers in the cartoon were built by Quintessons, in the comic, they were created by the god Primus, a part of canon later cartoon series adopted. In the UK, the comic was published weekly for most of its run, and the American comics were commonly split in two in order to stretch the material. To make up for the dramatically shortened length, the UK comic also featured a secondary, backup strip in black and white, written by Simon Furman. These stories usually fit in with the American continuity, albeit with occasional twisting. After Budiansky suffered Creator Breakdown as a result of trying to keep Hasbro happy, Furman was brought on to write both the US and UK comics. His focus on story arcs and Character Development was considered the high point of the comic's run; however, due to a communications breakdown, the UK comics at this point drifted out of sync with the US publication. It finally ended after 80 issues (in America) or 332 (in Britain) due to declining interest in Transformers, though Marvel would later publish the short-lived Generation 2 comic.DreamwaveIn 2002, a new comic was published by Dreamwave Productions, alongside an adaptation of the Unicron Trilogy (Armada, Energon, and Cybertron); this is the first to officially use the title Generation One. Simon Furman was brought back to write parts of it, as well as several lesser-known writers. It began as a set of mini-series which gave rise to a short-lived ongoing title. Ideas were taken from both the cartoon and the Marvel comic. The main draw of the Dreamwave comic was the highly detailed, manga-influenced artwork of Pat Lee - which, as it turned out, included a lot of Dull Surprise and vaguely sexual poses. However, most of the actual drawing, colouring, and inking was done by uncredited and frequently unpaid guest artists while Lee was buying fast cars and sponsoring his girlfriend's Miss World campaign. Following a series of unethical business practises, scandals, and outright crime, Dreamwave declared bankruptcy, leaving both the G1 and Unicron Trilogy stories unfinished. For better or for worse, this was the first American Transformers comic to be published in Japan.IDWIn 2005, IDW picked up the license, and began by reprinting available stories originally published by Marvel and Dreamwave. They also began publishing a new continuity, alongside stories based on Beast Wars, the live-action films and Animated. In a break with tradition, this series sees the Transformers as recent arrivals on Earth instead of having been in stasis for several million years beforehand. The comic has so far consisted of a series of Limited Series, primarily written by Simon Furman. In this continuity, the disguise aspect of transformation is emphasised for once, as Transformers use it to infiltrate the societies of other planets and manipulate governments to their own ends. Combat is much more cloak-and-dagger than usual, with both sides going to great measures to avoid detection - at least, that's the plan. As well as the limited series, there have been a number of 'Spotlight1 issues, which follow the adventures of a single Transformer. These usually occur elsewhere in space or time, and tie into the main plot in some way. They tell a side story about the expanding Dead Universe, which eventually took over the main story. The most recent installation in the IDW continuity is All Hail Megatron!, a 16-issue maxi-series. The first twelve issues were written by Shane McCarthy and take place on an Earth under Decepticon control. This was an attempt to draw in new fans who were put off by the complexity of Furman's series, though sales have been largely unchanged and fan reaction has not been kind to some of the changes introduced. For example, many 80s characters in this series were given modern altmodes as part of the whole "stealth" aspect, but reverted to 1985 designs for All Hail Megatron. A particularly egregious case is Astrotrain - under Furman's run, one of his altmodes was a modern train, but McCarthy reverted him to the steam train he had used in the cartoon, which was anachronistic in 1985! IDW is launching a new ongoing series set three years after the events of "All Hail Megatron". The series is written by Mike Costa, and features the return of Don Figueroa as artist.ToylineThe toyline was, to say the least, eclectic. Most of the toys were originally from Takara's Diaclone and Microchange lines of transforming robot toys. Diaclone was a series of vehicles that transformed into Humongous Mecha, to be piloted by the Diaclone action figures. When Diaclone was converted into Transformers, the story involved sentient robots, and the pilot figures were not sold outside Japan. This meant that a lot of early Transformers toys had mysterious cockpits which drove many young boys (and some girls) to madness as they tried to figure out the purpose of these. (An epic retcon planned for Beast Wars, the eventual sequel to G1, was that these cockpits were the locations of the Cybertronians' "sparks", their equivalent to souls, which would be shown as tiny glowing humanoid figures in the cockpits. Hasbro, the toy company, scrapped this idea due to fears that children would think that the sparks were people and that the robots were just regular, piloted mecha.) The Microchange line was a line of robots which transformed into 1:1 scale household items and guns. They had far greater articulation than the Diaclone toys. When Microchange was combined with Diaclone to create Transformers, the result was guns the same size as trucks and bigger than tanks, who were supposed to transform in order to disguise themselves. The cartoon got around this potential Plot Hole by showing characters clearly changing size as they transformed, which ended up being a minor plot point in a few episodes. However, this usually just raised more questions than it answered. As well as Diaclone and Microchange, quite a few other, completely unrelated transforming robot toys were brought into the Transformers line by Hasbro. For example, Jetfire is easily recognisable as a Valkyrie from Macross. This served to make the toys even more eclectic. As part of Hasbro and Takara's distribution agreement, toys not originally made by Takara could only receive limited screentime to avoid advertising rival products. After the movie, HasTak started producing the first toys designed specifically for the Transformers line, such as Rodimus Prime and Galvatron. Plenty more of Takara's toys would be adapted into Transformers, but from then on, the majority of new toys would be designed as Transformers from the beginning. In 1987, the Headmaster and Targetmaster toys were introduced. These were the first gimmicks originally designed for the Transformers brand. Headmasters consisted of two robots, a small robot that transformed into a head and a larger, headless robot that transformed into a vehicle. These had to combine to form the complete robot. Targetmasters were small robots that transformed into guns; each gun could be used by most Transformers, but was generally associated with one particular full-sized one. In 1988, the Powermasters (known as Godmasters in Japan) and Pretenders were introduced. Pretenders were simple but well-articulated Transformers who came with an outer humanoid or monstrous plastic shell for disguise. Powermasters, like Headmasters, comprised two robots. The small robot transformed into the engine of the bigger one, which could not transform without its smaller partner. A few of the American toys were missing from the Japanese Transformers Masterforce line, which in turn had its own group of exclusive toys. The 1989 line introduced increasingly complex Pretenders, as well as the very small Micromasters, who were primarily sold in teams. Few American toys from this year were sold in Japan, which got its own mostly eclusive Transformers Victory line. The European release also got the Motorvators, redecos of the Japanese Brainmasters which were not released in America. This was another two-robot gimmick; in this case, the smaller robot fits into a compartment in the bigger robots chest, and when the compartment is closed, a face concealed inside the smaller robot is pushed up into the larger robot's head. In 1990, the Action Masters were introduced; since these didn't transform at all, the line did fairly poorly. (Yes, Transformers that didn't transform.) The Japan-exclusive Transformers Zone line introduced Transformers with motors, but also did fairly poorly. New Transformers would not be seen for two years, with the appearance of the Transformers Generation 2 comic, though G1 toys have continued to be re-released right up to the present day.CommercialsYes, the show and comic themselves were basically commercials. But there were also much, much shorter, animated commercials that aired, usually with original animation, showing the next cool toy. The Generation 1 commercials are fondly remembered, although the Generation 2 commercials are mostly remembered for their (early) (bad) CGI and raps. Example:His Gatling gun
A three-in-one villain
That's chillin'!
A note on the title: Both the cartoon and comic were originally just called The Transformers. However, when the Transformers: Generation 2 comic was published, fans began using Generation 1 or G1 to refer specifically to the original cartoon and comic as opposed to Transformers as a whole. After a while, Hasbro and Takara started using the term themselves, making it official.
This series provides examples of:
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