Trivia / Transformers: Prime

• Acting in the Dark: As revealed for the commentary for the finale movie "Predacons Rising" and an interview Will Friedle had with IGN, the auditions for Bumblebee's voice were like this, with actors being told they were auditioning for Bluestreak and Friedle only learning he was cast as 'Bee when he got the part.
• Acting for Two:
  • With the Vehicon mooks (and later the Insecticons) all being voiced by Steve Blum, Josh Keaton, Kevin Michael Richardson, Daran Norris, and Frank Welker, this is more or less inevitable.
  • In Sick Mind, inside the mind of a comatose Megatron, he has a conversation with Bumblebee, who is at the time also voiced by Frank Welker.
  • Greg Sepelak voices both Rumble and Frenzy in the Unreliable Narratives script reading.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Josh Keaton once again plays a snarky teenager who's often the target of bullies. He's also had previous experience with spiders, except this time he's on the opposite end of the webs and in "Darkness Rising, Part 4" talks about being taught to be responsible.
  • Ratchet becomes a manic Mad Scientist over the kids' science fair projects. It's as funny as it sounds, particularly when Jack's machine starts spasming like a severed limb.
    • Later on, he tests synthetic energon on himself that leaves him with unexpected results.
    • Oh, and the synthetic energon looks suspiciously like another glowing, green liquid that Jeffrey Combs has worked with in the past.
    • And in "Scattered", he hides out in everyone's trash.
  • Will Friedle plays a young, brash, brightly-colored hero with an insect theme. He also inherits his role (as leader) from an older hero who trained him. He's even colored mostly black when it happens. Similarly, his character's the one to kill off the antagonist.
  • This wouldn't be the first time Nolan North's voiced a young hero who idolizes an older, red and blue-clad hero.
  • Ultra Magnus is voiced by Michael Ironside. Yeah, he's not going to keep that hand.
  • Clancy Brown plays the human super villain Silas, who bedevils Optimus Prime. By coincidence or design, this is the second time Clancy has found himself playing a supervillain who is an antagonist to a benevolent super-powered alien primarily clad in the colors red and blue. This goes up to eleven when he goes all Bald of Evil in "The Human Factor."
  • In the Japanese version, Arcee and Jack are played by Shizuka Itō and Jun Fukuyama respectively. They reprise their roles from the Romantic Comedy Harem Anime To Heart 2 in that they once again play a couple with a Big-Sister and Little-Brother relationship.
  • Similarly, Steve Blum in the original version once again plays Shin from Fist of the North Star, in that Starscream is a sadistic warlord who takes pleasure in shoving his hand through the rib-cages of helpless prisoners.
  • Cliffjumper's vehicle mode has bull's horns on the front of the hood. One of the nicknames his original voice actor, Dwayne Johnson, has when performing as The Rock is "the Brahma Bull".
• Actor Leaves, Character Dies: The reason why Breakdown was killed in early season 2 was because Adam Baldwin wanted higher pay.
• Ascended Fan Nickname: In Plus One, Knockout calls Starscream "Screamer," a popular Fan Nickname for the seeker.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: While both Peter Cullen and Frank Welker have portrayed Optimus Prime and Megatron in other productions including video games, this is the first time the two of them have been able to work together portraying their iconic characters in a television series since The Transformers. Both have stated how delighted they were to work together again and how fond they were of each other.
• Breakthrough Hit: Stands with My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic as one of the shows responsible for The Hub's early success.
• Creator Backlash:
  • The show’s crew admitted that Makeshift was too powerful a character to introduce so early in the series and didn’t regret killing him off in his first episode.
  • Writer Steven Melching was unhappy with the adherence to Status Quo Is God, which led to him becoming story editor on the sequel to avert it there (though fans are divided on wether or not Melching succeeded in that goal).
• Creator Killer: The behind the scenes issues resulted in HasLab, the creative branch responsible for maintaining the story of the Aligned continuity shutting down in 2012. The name would be recycled in 2019 as Hasbro's toy crowdfunding site.
• Dawson Casting:
  • Andy Pessoa is a teenage actor playing 12-year-old Raf, and his voice audibly deepened as the show went on.
  • Played straight since the beginning with Jack and Miko. The former is voiced by Josh Keaton (who was in his early 30s) while the latter is voiced by Tania Gunadi (who was in her late 20s).
• Executive Meddling: Sky Lynx was haphazardly named by Hasbro, much to the bafflement of the character/toy designers. This would continue to be an issue for Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015).
• Flip-Flop of God: The western release makes Rumble blue, while the Japanese release makes him red. And thus "FIRRIB"/"RIRFIB" is preserved for a new generation.
  • The whole thing is lampshaded in the 2013 script reading, when the transfer to new bodies results in the two of them being placed in the ones with the wrong colors. By the end of the whole mess, not even Rumble or Frenzy are sure which of them is which.
  "Frenzy"/"Rumble": This is the kind of thing that can keep people arguing for decacycles!
• Franchise Killer: The myriad of frustrating and costly behind the scenes issues plaguing the show played a large part in Hasbro deciding to abandon the Aligned continuity.
• Hey, It's That Sound!:
  • Both Skyquake's stasis pod and the Energon Harvester activate with the sound of Stargate's zat gun - as do the stun beams fired by the Nemesis.
  • Airachnid's web-shooters make the same sound that Spider-Man's do in The Spectacular Spider-Man.
  • At least three sounds seem to have been lifted directly from Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles: the alarm in the Autobots' base is the same as that on the Valley Forge, Starscream's missiles swoosh like Javelin missiles and when Ratchet's medical probe is brought to unlife by Dark Energon it screams like a warrior Bug.
• In Memoriam:
  • "Partners" was dedicated to the memory of Captain H.L. "Larry" Cullen, the brother of Peter Cullen who died four months before the episode aired. While Captain Cullen was never personally involved with the Transformers franchise, Peter has said he looked to mirror Larry in his performance (specifically the ability to be powerful and commanding but gentle at the same time). In short, the inspiration for Optimus Prime passed away.
  • "Synthesis" was dedicated to the memory of Armen Mirzaian, a storyboard artist for the show who was killed in a car accident about a month before the third season premiered.
• Kids' Meal Toy: The series had two sets of Happy Meal toys from McDonald's in 2012 and 2013.
• Lying Creator:
  • Originally, it was stated Ironhide was going to be on the show, but his characterization ended up being so similar to Animated Bulkhead that they just opted to do Bulkhead instead. However, so the Season 1 set, the reason given was because of Ironhide's death in Dark of the Moon, hinting the reason given earlier was a lie to prevent spoilers (which is not to say both reasons played parts in the decision, and that the first story was given by Animated alumni Derrick J. Wyatt, who was only briefly brought on in the design process).
  • The famous early statement that "when we kill a character, we kill a character" ended up being for naught since both Megatron and Bumblebee are immediately brought back to life after their deaths in the series finale. Optimus Prime's death took a few years to undo, as he didn't properly come back to life until the first season finale of Robots in Disguise.
• No Export for You:
  • So far, at least a good third of the tie-in toyline, including the entire First Edition series, will not be released in the United States... particularly galling since this is where Hasbro's main corporate offices are actually located and the aforementioned First Edition series were released in Canada.
  • So are the Arms Micron versions of the toyline... and the separate Arms Microns. They're Asia-only.
  • And therefore, the same goes for the "Arms Micron Theater" shorts.
  • The third season of the show, Beast Hunters, has fallen into this for Japanese audiences. Instead, it's been replaced with a new OVA series entitled Transformers: Go!!, which takes place sometime after the missing third season itself. Same with the Predacons Rising TV movie.
  • Ironhide, Swerve, Leo Prime, Frenzy, and Wildrider are currently exclusive to Japan. Conversely, Thundertron is exclusive to the States.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Dwayne Johnson is replaced by Billy Brown as Cliffjumper for his appearance in Season 2's "Out of the Past".
  • At the BotCon 2011 script reading of "Shadowzone", Sumalee Montanno and Darran Norris were unavailable; Markie Post (June Darby) and Ernie Hudson (Fowler) filled in for their characters Arcee and Knock Out. Transformers fan Sean Long also won a contest to play Megatron in Frank Welker's stead.
  • If you want to get technical about it, Frank Welker becomes this to Dwayne Johnson and Richard Green once their characters, Cliffjumper and Skyquake, become undead Terrorcons since he voices their growls and roars.
  • In the Hungarian dub, Jack, Airachnid, and Alpha Trion get new voices in season 3, with Ratchet joining them halfway through the season. The first two seasons were otherwise consistent (surprising for a Cartoon Network dub), only Skyquake's voice changed for a brief flashback.
  • The German dub recast Optimus' voice actor after the first season (Reiner Schöne -> Klaus-Dieter Klebsch).
• Playing Against Type:
  • Gina Torres as Airachnid.
  • Daran Norris as Knock Out.
  • Zig-zagged with Michael Ironside as Ultra Magnus. Ironside is well known for playing contemptuous military commanders in live action and his voice acting roles tend to be along the lines of villains or morally dubious heroes. Thus playing a very straight-laced military officer is unusual.
• Reality Subtext: "Decepticons! I have returned!"
• Recycled Script: In "Armada", Starscream uses a bunch of protoforms to create a gang of clones to assassinate Megatron. Sound familiar? They even use the same number of clones. On the other hand, this Starscream is aware that they share his traitorous nature.
• Refitted for Sequel: Though technically applying more as a Mythology Gag for something that was cancelled before it could make the idea come to life, Transformers: Animated Season 4 would've started with Megatron and his Decepticons ripping Kaon out of Cybertron and plopping it near Detroit, right in the middle of Lake Erie, with the series finale being them trying to cyberform Earth. Similarly, Prime Season 2 ends with an area near Jasper being cyberformed by the Decepticons and named New Kaon, and it isn't destroyed until the end of the Season 3 premiere.
• Rereleased for Free: The entire series with the exception of the Predacons Rising movie is available to watch for free on the official Transformers YouTube channel.
• Sequel First: A strange toy-based variation. Kup's mold was obviously intended to be Ironhide from the get go, but he only got released in the US as Kup. Kup's toy even hit shelves in America before Ironhide's toy did in the Japanese line.
• Short Run in Peru: Canada aired episodes 21 to 23 several weeks before The Hub did, but then stopped until the two stations were roughly in sync in terms of episodes. Singapore, however, aired the three-part season finale several days before North America did.
  • It's happened again as of season three, with the first three episodes airing in Singapore (back to back) a week before the first aired on The Hub (on the standard weekly schedule).
  • And now Predacons Rising has been leaked a full three weeks before the supposed air date on Internet Streaming Sites.
• Spoiled by the Merchandise: Predaking's sentience and ability to transform is supposed to be a plot twist in Season 3, but the toyline had already revealed his bipedal alt-mode.
• Technology Marches On: For the Transformers as well as for us. They have portable teleportation technology in place of travelling in spaceships, which have been turned into floating living space. On the other hand, dealing with their non-sentient programs isn't tough because it is more complex than humans, as it is completely different in its encoding and interface.
  • Our technology has marched on to the point that human parts can serve as a cheap fix for Transformers technology. Miko also takes a lot of photos on her cell-phone.
• Troubled Production. as seen here, the show went through many problems, mostly because of miscommunication with the other branches of the Aligned continuity and a late change in director with a different idea for the third season.
  • Hasbro originally wanted the show to be a follow up to the Transformers: War for Cybertron video game series but the production team didn't want to have to work off other writers' stories. Hasbro lacked creative control over the show so the production team did mostly what they wanted but included token references that tied it into the Aligned continuity. The Binder of Revelation, the $250,000 series bible that Hasbro put together for the show was ignored for almost the entirety of its run.
  • Hasbro wanted IDW to reboot their main Transformers comic and replace it with one based around the show. IDW, heavily invested in their established series, refused and instead just started incorporating characters and designs from Prime and other parts of the Aligned continuity into the existing comic but never gave it its own devoted book to advertise the television series. Similarly, the failure to launch Transformers Universe, the MMO based off of Prime, also ruined a lot of the show's long term potential.
  • The show was constantly going over budget, averaging an estimated $1.6 million an episode over the course of 65 episodes and the 3 part finale movie, and the Hub's viewership was so low it was hard to justify the cost.
  • The original plan for Season 3 was for it to feature the Autobots exploring a restored Cybertron, "Wild West style", and meeting new versions of the Beast Wars Maximals and Predacons. Season 4, had it lasted that long, would center around a Cybertronian pirate invasion. A novel was released to set up the premise and a figure of pirate captain Thundertron was produced. However, during production a new director came in and scrapped the Wild West and pirate storylines at the last minute, demanding the season be centered around beasts instead. There was no time to properly implement the sudden plot change, which is why the Predacons only play a secondary role in Beast Hunters. This angered both Hasbro and the production team as not only did they have to throw out their original plans, by the time Hasbro made a new line of Predacon toys it was too late to put most of them in the show.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Bulkhead was originally planned to be Ironhide, but the creators realized that they were essentially creating a new version of Animated Bulkhead, so they put him in the show instead. However, the featurette of the Season 1 set states that Ironhide's death in Dark of the Moon was what made the crew replace him with Bulkhead.
  • According to a featurette of the Season 1 set, Lugnut was considered to be join the Decepticon ranks, but was ruled out because the makers felt they had too many aircraft on the 'Con's side and he was replaced with Breakdown.
  • Smokescreen was going to be the sixth Autobot at the beginning of the show and he would then get killed by Megatron during the season finale. He was replaced by Cliffjumper and his death was moved to the first episode.
  • Part of the reason Season 2 has so many storylines is that the writers realized that standalone episodes would be hard to maintain due to the very abundant continuity, so they rushed through the storyline ideas that they had. It makes one wonder what could have happened had they gone through the three years as planned.
  • Seaspray was going to appear in season 3, having survived his run-in with Dreadwing. He would have had a personality similar to Quint from Jaws.
  • Grimlock was also planned to appear in the series. It's likely, had he made an appearance in the series, that he would have borrowed from his Fall of Cybertron design or been redesigned. The Dinobots collectively are actually referenced by Bulkhead and Miko in Project Predacon, so take that as you will.
  • Michael Bell, who voiced many G1 characters including Prowl, Sideswipe, and Swoop, auditioned for Ratchet and Fowler.
  • Skyrazor was originally planned to be "Stormrazor".
  • The Beast Hunters guidebook originally identified Vertebreak as "Scourge", and showed him with a remolded beast-mode head. Ultimately, this was dropped, and when Hasbro released said guide book on their facebook page, the name was replaced with Vertebreak's and the artwork reflected his status as a redeco of Lazerback.
  • The whole Beast Hunters line was imposed at the last minute (see Troubled Production above), forcing the team to scrap their original plans for season 3 (apparently involving Maximals and Predacons and a "wild-west"-style exploration of the reborn Cybertron). Season 4, had it lasted that long, would have involved an invasion of Cybertron by pirates, explaining the presence of Thundertron and his team of Star Seekers in the tie in novels (and Thundertron's toy in the Prime toyline).
  • Fowler's Unit:E was supposed to start a Massive Multiplayer Crossover between many Hasbro franchises, most of them obscure ^{For example} M.A.S.K., Micronauts, Centurions, Primordia, Jem, GIJoe, Stretch Armstrong, CandyLand..., as seen in the comic that came out at NYCC 2011. (IDW Publishing has recently announced the launch of their own Shared Universe called Revolution, using their Transformers and G.I. Joe titles as the foundation.)
    • Rik Alvarez would also reveal that Ratchet staying on Earth in “Deadlock” was going to be the gateway to the spin-off with Ratchet remaining in a central role.
  • Breakdown was originally going to have a redemption plot that focused on him defecting to the Autobots (hence his unusually sympathetic characterization). However, they needed to cut a voice actor for budget purposes, so they killed off Breakdown, leading Knockout to take on the defector role later in the third season.
  • Unicron was going to enlist the help of Airachnid and her Insecticons during Predacons Rising, but they were cut out in the final film.
  • According to leaked production notes, Skyquake was originally going to be Skywarp. With this in mind, it's possible that Dreadwing was originally going to be Thundercracker, especially given that he shares Thundercracker's traditional blue color scheme and Noble Demon traits.
  • According to Mairghread Scott, there was a cut line in "Stronger, Faster" during Ratchet's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Optimus about his supposed lack of action against Megatron, which would've implied Elita-One died during the war (ex. "Where's Elita now?"). This would've resulted in Optimus punching him. This was cut due to the writers not wanting Optimus to lose his cool and that this piece of backstory would've been irrelevant.
  • Starscream, Bulkhead and Wheeljack originally looked completely different.
• Word of Saint Paul:
  • Steve Blum imagines that Fowler and June hooked up after the show, with Fowler giving Jack a “this doesn’t make me your dad” speech.
  • Showerunner Jeff Kline stated in a post-series interview that he imagines Jack and Miko getting married at some point in the future, with Jack being a motorcycle racer and Miko being a successful artist.

---