(Following a discussion on yesterday's Skype session, it's been decided to restart this thread, now with a new option!)
As every TF fan and their dog knows, Generation 1 is an umbrella term that covers EVERYTHING from the Transformers franchise before it was rebranded as "Generation 2" around mid-1993. And before then the term "Generation 1" never existed, it only became an immediate fan term after G2 came out (similar to how The Great War was retroactively named "World War I" after the advent of WWII etc.), and Generation 1 was never an official term until 2000. But because Generation 1 covers such a broad area, I find that it's sometimes useful when talking with other fans to have designated periods of G1 - namely Early, Middle and Late G1. So for example, when talking about finishing off the characters for G1 MPs, I think that most fans would like to see Early G1 completed, and indeed the bulk of interest/demand in G1 MPs seems to draw from Early G1. To simply say that one wants "all of G1" done as MPs means that you literally want everyone from Gulf to Big Daddy to Rapido done as MPs. A few people might like this, but I'd say the majority of demand seems to come from the earlier years of Generation 1.
So how to divide G1? Here are three proposed models:
+ The Mathematical Model
+ The Popularity Model
+ The Age of Distinction Model
1: MATHEMATICAL MODEL
Super simple. We take the years of G1 and divide it by 3, and we tack the first few months of 1993 onto Late G1 since it wasn't even a complete year of production before the G2 rebranding anyway. And so it looks like this:
- Early G1 = first 3 years: 1984, 1985, 1986
- Middle G1 = middle 3 years: 1987, 1988, 1989
- Late G1 = final 3 years: 1990, 1991, 1992, plus early 1993 tacked on the end
There's no other reason behind this. It's just nice, cold, unbiased, logical maths.
2: POPULARITY MODEL
As the name implies, this is based on how popular Transformers was during the different stages of G1, and thus is divided like so...
- Early G1 = 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987
This is the "golden age" of Generation 1, when Transformers was everywhere; toys, books, lunchboxes, clothes, stationery, comics etc. and these are also the years when the Sunbow cartoon was in production. We know that by 1987 toy sales had dwindled to the point that Hasbro cancelled the Sunbow cartoon after only 3 episodes of Season Four (The Rebirth). For me, it was also during 1987 that I started seeing fans stop collecting Transformers. <spits drink>
- Middle G1 = 1988, 1989, 1990
The cartoon was gone in the West, but the toys and Marvel Comics were still going along well enough. But we know that by 1990 toy sales had dipped even further (not helped by a global recession). Hasbro and Takara both got desperate, with the former giving us Action Masters and the latter making almost all of their toys Autobots. This year also marked the end of the G1 cartoon in Japan with only 1 episode of Zone released directly to video. This would also be the final year that Transformers toys would be released in the U.S. market.
- Late G1 = 1991, 1992, Early-1993
These are the years where, while Transformers toys were still being produced and sold in stores, Japan no longer had a cartoon to market them. In the West 1991 was the final year of the Marvel US comics, and 1992 would be the final year of the Marvel UK comics. This period was where we really saw Transformers petering out. In the early months of 1993 we did see new toys, but they had no supporting media. These toys would later be absorbed into the rebranded Generation 2 line (hence the fan nickname, "Generation 1.5").
3: AGE OF DISTINCTION MODEL
Similar to the Popularity Model, but it sub-divides the Early G1 years into two eras. Thus it is divided like so:
- Early G1
+ The Golden Age = 1984, 1985
The absolute height of G1 popularity. This includes everything up to the end of the second season of the cartoon.
+ The Silver Age = 1986, 1987
This was when popularity in Transformers was beginning to dwindle, particularly after the release of The Transformers The Movie (Dec '86 for AU). By 1987, slumped toy sales prompted Hasbro to cancel the Sunbow cartoon series. This was the year that I saw people begin to quit Transformers. I never knew anyone who quit Transformers in the Golden Age (84-85).
- Middle G1, The Bronze Age = 1988, 1989, 1990
(See description from the Popularity Model)
- Late G1, The Dark Age = 1991, 1992, Early-1993
(See description from the Popularity Model)
A reminder that this is not a discussion about "When did G1 end?" - because that factually ended around Mid-1993 when Hasbro launched Generation 2 ('cos if I wanted to debate facts, I'd go join the Flat Earth Society d: ). We're only talking about how we want to divide the original G1 period. (: