This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Ununnilium: "Transformers Generation Two is a direct sequel to the original series, connected by a feature film (of sorts — the first four episodes of Generation Two were stitched together and given a theatrical release)" Huh? I was under the impression that the movie was made to be released in theaters, and any TV version would have come after. The highly-paid voice cast and animation values would seem to bear this out.
Bluetooth The Pirate: Little from column A, little from column B. The movie was clearly scripted and edited to allow easy disassembly into 22 minute segments, yet made on a big budget and in a theatrical format (anamorphic widescreen, as I recall). Probably, the four-part beginning episodes were scripted for broadcast, then the producers and suits decided to make it a feature in the early stages of storyboarding or voice casting. I have no way to be sure, but that's whatr I surmise.
Ununnilium: Okay, but the way it's phrased, it sounds like they took four broadcast episodes and cut out the commercials and credits. Needs a bit 'o editing, I think.
Aristocles: It's also worth pointing out that the repeated use of the phrase "Generation 2" is inaccurate in every instance in the article. G2 was actually refers to continuations of the original toyline and the original Marvel comic book. There was no cartoon or accompanying film. The episodes that aired after the movie were still G1. The phrase "Generation 2" didn't even appear until 1992 and the movie was released in 1986.
FortMax: I went and fixed the mixup between G1 season 5 and G2. Season 5 aired in 1988 and had the "Puppetmaster Prime". Aside from the new PM Prime sequences and breaking the movie up into 5 22 minute episodes, the episodes were mostly unchanged. Season 5 also showed the invilved episodes in their original order: The More Than Meets The Eye premire, then the Movie, Five Faces Of Darkness season 3 opener (5 parts), Surprise Party, Dark Awakening, Return of Optimus Prime (2 parter), then Rebirth (3 parter). The Generation 2 cartoon used the "Cyvernet Space Cube" for transitions, and changed a bunch of other stuff. G1 cartoon info
, G2 cartoon info
Licky Lindsay: somebody should probably explain the whole Diaclone/Micro Change thing in here somewhere.
Ununnilium: ...could you? I'm fairly well-versed in Transformers, and I have no idea what that even is. `.`
Scrounge: Elementary, my deat Ununnilium. You see, Transformers began not with new toys, but with designs taken from several Japanese toylines, including Diaclone, Micro-Change (a subsection of Microman), and even one from Macross! Of course, as years went along, the robots in disguise proved to be a smash hit, and as the franchise showed itself capable of standing on its own two feet/four wheels, new designs were lovingly rendered in plastic to continue the war betwen Autobot and Decepticon. I'm not sure this belongs in the article, though, as it's not exactly part of the show itself, and there's plenty of far more dedicated Transformers sites out there.
Ununnilium: Ahhhhh. IMHO, it does belong, at least as a mention.
Scrounge: I'd like to split this page. The different Star Trek ahows have their own pages, so why not Transformers? Beast Wars and Energon, for example, are not at all the same show.
Red Shoe: If you think there's enough to say about each, it's your right, of course, but there are times when we split, and times when we lump. I don't think it really gains us anything, and the line is going to be arbitrary. Do Super God Masterforce and The Headmasters deserve separate entries? Does the Unicron Trilogy deserve one entry or three (or, for that matter, two, since the third one isn't part of the trilogy outside the US?)
For me, the real question is: are people going to come here looking for Beast Wars to the exclusion of the other series, and be confused by the fact that it's lumped under Transformers, or are people going to come here looking for the Transformers and get bumfuzzled by the fact that there's a half-dozen different entries.
I kinda think it's the latter.
Ununnilium: Yet as more information is added, it inches toward the former. So, we split.
Red Shoe: I don't think it's necessary, or even quite right to insist on describing Optimus and Megatron's various incarnations as separate and unrelated characters. They're not (except for Optimus Primal and Beast Wars Megatron); they're the same character in a different continuity. You wouldn't go through an article on Batman and clarify in every instance that the Batman played by Adam West is not the same character as the Batman played by (picks one at random) Val Kilmer.
I kinda sense a bit of the old fannish "Everything after the original series is not the real deal".
KJMackley: Considering the individual series' being split off, I thought it would be good to trim down on this page. I'm always a little worried about descriptions that are vastly longer then their trope examples. I figured this page is good for an overview of the saga, but use the individual pages to give the specific details.
Ununnilium: Hmmmmm. The "G1 comic = perhaps original?" bit sounds much more defensive than I meant it to. ^^; Really, it's supposed to be a more "Interestingly, this is true!" thing than a "Respect the FUR-MAN!!!" thing.
Later: Took out "The Japanese Transformer continuity has no such concept." from the Multiverse example because that's not true. While they do have a tendency to merge continuities, there are still multiple separate ones.
KJMackley: I trimmed down and organized the information on G1 comics because it was a lot of information more suited for and repeated on the actual page. Even now, the comics info is longer then the info on the various cartoon series.
Ununnilium: Yeah, I added a fair amount of that but wasn't sure where to stop. Thanks for cleaning it up some.
berr: I added a cute little "Tech Specs" graphic (familiar from the back of all toys) to serve as a divider. (yes, the "Tech Specs" header is designed to go to the right of the image. I added no-break spaces to the header so that it breaks cleanly instead of wrapping around.)
Every G1 Transformer toy had a "FUNCTION:" (always an Informed Ability) and a designated catch phrase for that character (sometimes bizarre — and never attributed) listed under "Tech specs". The only one people tend to remember is Optimus Prime's character quote.
I originally put it up top, under the main header, but it can also serve as a divider between the general info and series index, so I put it there.
berr: Also, for readability sake I strongly recommend we cut out the "characters common to all formats" that appears above the series index (i.e. the reader has to go thru it before finding the description of what works Transformers appear in)...
and create a Characters page and put that in there... yes? no?
