Till All Are One

[Dan]

"Till All Are One". What does it mean? Did it just sound like a cool mystical or philosophical thing to put into the movie without ever expanding on, to give a greater sense of texture to the back-story? Has it been expanded on in media since into some sort of statement of pantheist cosmology based on wells of all sparks and so forth? Could we list it in the coming census under religion? Both serious and frivolous answers welcome.

[DELTAprime]

Marvel in 1986: We need the good guys in this movie to have a catchphrase similar to "May the Force be with you"...

Some poor, under-credited Marvel writer: How about "Till all are one"?

Marvel: It's stupid, but since it's a kids movie, it will do.

[Dan]

Marvel in 1986: We need the good guys in this movie to have a catchphrase similar to "May the Force be with you"...

Some poor, under-credited Marvel writer: How about "Till all are one"?

Marvel: It's stupid, but since it's a kids movie, it will do.

And there I was thinking it was kind of profound.

They could have turned it into something puerile such as linking it to the Enigma Of Combination - a literal way for many to become one. I prefer that it is left ambivalent. If I were to take anything from the phrase then it could simply be that Autobots desire peace even as they must fight.

[Seraphim Prime]

It was probably put in there without too much thought as Delta has said, but there's two main ways I look at it:

- Till all are one - The day when all Transformers are united together - Rodimus' speech at the end of the movie about the end of the Cybertron wars and marching forward to a new age of peace and happiness
- Till all are one - until we see each other again in the matrix - until their sparks / life force meet again in the afterlife - Optimus on his death bed - "Soon I will be one with the Matrix..."

[Dan]

I wonder what the Decepticons think of the phrase.

[griffin]

I think it is interesting to see what others think it could mean within the Transformers universe... even if the original writer(s) didn't have any deeper meaning to it than being a simple catchphrase for the kiddies to remember.
It sounds like such a positive battle cry, but it also sounds like it could be something more ominous if you think it refers to the afterlife.

[GoktimusPrime]

*cough* Beast Wars & Beast Machines *clears throat*

[griffin]

*cough* Beast Wars & Beast Machines *clears throat*

Writers 10 years later trying to associate a deeper meaning to the phrase.... but was it what the original writer in 1986 intended?

[Dan]

It sounds like such a positive battle cry, but it also sounds like it could be something more ominous if you think it refers to the afterlife.

My layperson impression of Buddhism (admittedly mostly gotten as a kid from Monkey) is that Nirvana involves a loss of the self to a transcendent oneness. Then as now that seems daunting to me but is that just because I'm attached to things of this world still? Need it be anything ominous in itself? And - back to toy robots - is it something Autobots ultimately wish to embrace but Decepticons deny? I realize I'm heavily editorializing here.

[Sinnertwin]

Writers 10 years later trying to associate a deeper meaning to the phrase.... but was it what the original writer in 1986 intended?

It was probably something like "make Optimus say something cool when he kicks the bucket... like live long and prosper or whatever them folks over at Star Wars say. Gotta go, meeting in 5"