A question was recently posed to Hasbro’s UK office asking if the Transformers Prime television series and the Transformers War for Cybertron video game were in a connected continuity. Unfortunately the wrong answer was delivered and that answer has made its way to the fan community. The TRANSFORMERS brand team would like to confirm that Transformers War for Cybertron video game, Transformers Exodus novel, and the Transformers Prime television show are in the same aligned continuity. Hasbro is creating a single continuity to tell the bulk of our TRANSFORMERS stories going forward.I am not sure how the movies tie into this but I suspect they don't, instead providing inspiration for this new Hasbro driven continuity. Transfans will have their own interpretation but below is my summary of the main official Transformers universes created over the last 25 years.
Please look for further details about the continuity plan and new projects over the next year.
TF G1 - 1984 cartoon series, Transformers: The Movie, comics (Marvel, Dreamwave, IDW), Beast Wars, and Beast Machines
TF G2 - Short lived Generation 2 toys
TF UK - TF G1 plus UK comic books (most by Simon Furman)
TF Japan - TF G1 1984 plus the many Japan cartoons that continued after US production stopped like The Headmasters, Super-God Masterforce, Beast Wars Neo, etc
TF RID - Robots in Disguise series
TF Unicron - Transformers: Armada, Energon and Cybertron series
TF MB - Michael Bay films of Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon.
TF G3 - Hasbro supported continuity currently derived of War for Cybertron, W4C Prequel Exodus book, and Transformers: Prime. Inspired by TF G1 and TF MB concepts.
But the problem with this statement is that in War for Cybertron, they had experience with dark energon. In Prime, they heard rumors about dark energon, but Megatron had just discovered it and started using it. This doesn't quite work.
ReplyDeleteWhat about Animated?
ReplyDeleteThe G2 comic is a direct follow up to the G1 US and UK Marvel comics.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that makes Transformers continuity complicated is these universes are continuity families - big individual groups of stories, and in those groups there are stories that can be wildly different from each other, but still exist under one banner of "Generation 1" or the Unicron Trilogy or whatever.
For example, the G1 Marvel comic was the first Transformers fiction to be based on the toys, then came the G1 Sunbow cartoon. Both have stories that are incompatible with each other, but both are still under Generation 1.
The new Transformers Prime continuity family consists of War for Cybertron, the Exodus novel and the Transformers Prime cartoon. The WFC video game is not directly compatible with the Transformers Prime cartoon, but it doesn't need to be.
Well I always considered the G1 comic and the G1 cartoon separate continuities really... though I see what you're saying.
ReplyDeleteYou left out Animated. And Prime is inspired by G1, Bayfilms, AND Animated. Just look at Bulkhead, Megatron, Starscream, and Prime.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Anonymous here. There is definitely a bit of Animated influence.
ReplyDeleteif you play the game and face sound wave he will look different than in the show. he looks more G1'ish
ReplyDeleteHonestly, if it was the writers themselves who'd confirmed that the Cybertron games and the Prime/RID cartoons are part of the same continuity, I'd be forced to believe them, but Hasbro only hold the rights to them. Unless and until the writers of the two cartoons and NOT the supermassive corporation say that the cartoons and the games are part of the same canon, as far as I'm concerned, they should be treated as two separate Transformers universes.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, the only thing the games and cartoons have in common with each other is a few of the non-character designs, the basic concept behind Dark Energon (emphasis on BASIC, considering how they treated Cybertron's destruction as more permanent without the Omega Lock in Prime than Primus treated it in War for Cybertron), and that's it!
I don't hate the cartoons or the games, I actually quite like them both; but what I can't stand is Hasbro choosing to sloppily try and crudely jam these two very-different series' continuity together; it's as stupid and ludicrous as any devoted-enough fan of both Doctor Who and Primeval would find a claim that the two shows have a shared universe to be!