The G1 Renaissance or how long it will stay 1984 for? 😜

[Gofigure]

Right off the bat I can't tell you how happy I am with current focus on the G1 period across the line. It seems that the first incarnation of our favourite bots are heavily influencing and featured in the toys, comics, and games within the TF universe for the last few years. I am thrilled and it's such a great time to be a 'Transfan'. The IDW series are incredible reads, the masterpiece line is a child of the 80s wet dream, the main hasbro line is kicking along very nicely too with its focus on 80s combiners and now Titans of old. And let's not start on third party. The sheer volume of geewun releases there is staggering and unrelenting. It's hard not to break the bank
So suffice to say I'm quite satisfied. However I'm turning 40 soon.
So my question is how long have we got? We as in the 80s fans, the old brigade?
I don't want to tempt fate here however it feels like we have it way too good hehe
When does beast wars or armada have its time to shine and captured all the 90s Childs imagination all over again?
Can we just ask hasbro to stay in the 80s? It's awfully comfortable there! 😀

[5FDP]

In my head, it's always 1984

[Zommael]

Speaking as someone who isn't that big a fan of G1, but nonetheless is almost exclusively a Generations collector these days, I have to say it's difficult.

Generation 1, specifically the first two seasons of the cartoon, will always be cemented as the iconic Transformers story in the minds of a vast number of fans. On the other hand, in my opinion there is much more fertile ground to explore in the other parts of the franchise, particularly the later and Japanese exclusive seasons and the comics.

Some fans have shown a clear distaste for when Hasbro try new things with old characters, such as making Optimus, Sky Lynx, or Cyclonus combiners. Terms like "retcon" and "not canon" get thrown around a lot. My question regarding that is what exactly constitutes canon for a work of fiction that's still ongoing in the form of the IDW comics? What is so wrong with changing things up and trying new things?

On the other hand, I feel a lot of frustration when I see HasTak focusing on, essentially, the same old ****. I was massively disappointed when Bruticus was announced as the first wave 2016 combiner since all it does is complete the trifecta of Superion, Devastator, and Bruticus who have been hanging around like a bad smell since Energon, as if those three are the only combiners. I've lost almost all interest in the Masterpiece line for the same reason: I just don't need "definitive" versions of a whole bunch of 80's cars.

As far as the IDW comics are concerned, they draw so widely from Transformers fiction that I don't really regard them as "G1" anymore so much as they're just "the Transformers". Outside of my own headcanon or fanfiction, they're the definitive story of the Transformers.

I don't know if we'll ever get a time when Armada or Beast Wars has the majority of the focus from HasTak for the simple reason that they seem to have figured out that remaking and redesigning old favourites is more profitable. They can do that for other franchises as well such as with the Universe Hot Shot, Generations Armada Starscream, and multiple Generations Beast Wars toys. They do seem to have progressed from a line dominated by 1984 to one that's now sitting comfortably across seasons three and four of the cartoon. Where they go from there is anybody's guess but I wouldn't be surprised to see them delve into more obscure concepts and characters.

G1 isn't and shouldn't be the be-all and end-all of the franchise, but it's hard to say it doesn't dominate - and it's hard to argue that that's not okay when there are still awesome toys like CW Sky Lynx coming out of that. I'm okay with that, even if I do see my interest waning long-term.

[prjkt]

Character wise I think G1 has the widest gamut of bot's to pick from, we've still got most of the -master characters, micromasters and pretenders to go before we've "completed" the NeoG1 lineup with Classics-verse releases.

Having said that, as stated above we have been getting some Armada and Beast Wars love from HasTak over the last couple of years in the Generations/Legends lines, even Animated characters crossing over like LG Slipstream and I don't see that ending any time soon

[GoktimusPrime]

I quite like seeing G1 characters getting Classicsverse or MP "upgrades" because I feel that they are in greater need. We know that late G2 and BW was the major turning point for Transformers toy engineering, transitioning from just being transformable toys to becoming articulated action figures. A lot of the features that we see in Transformers toys today sprang from that period. I have Generations Waspinator, Rhinox and "Fat" Tankor, and as nice as these toys really are, I also find that - in relative terms (e.g. price, size etc.), they are effectively on par with their original namesakes. None of them are really superior in relative terms. But when I take a Classicsverse or MP toy and compare it with its G1 counterpart, then the new toy blows the G1 toy right out of the water. There is no comparison, even in relative terms!

With post Beast Wars toys, I think it depends. As I said, Generations Tankor didn't feel like much of an upgrade to me, but toys like Universe Hot Shot and Combiner Wars Armada Megatron do feel like significant improvements over their original counterparts. Basically, toys like Armada Hot Shot and Megatron were pretty disappointing toys when they came out. Hot Shot soon became the butt of fan jokes, giving birth to the fan expression, "wHy My sH0uLd3rS hURt?" - a reference to so many Armada toys whose were designed to complement gimmicks (thus sacrificing action figure integrity), as opposed to gimmicks that are designed to complement toys (which we see in better toys like Tidal Wave and the Mini-Cons etc.). So when it comes down to post-BW figures, I think it depends. I don't think all of them need upgrades, but some really do (e.g. Armada Scavenger).

Having said that, I wouldn't personally go and buy upgrades of these characters, simply because I was already an adult when they came out. They hold no childhood nostalgia for me. But I think it's still cool that they do it and allow younger fans to enjoy upgraded figures from their childhoods. I bought my Combiner Wars G1 Megatron at the same time that young Handsprime bought his Combiner Wars Armada Megatron. Handsprime grew up with Armadaverse, so Armada Megatron is the Megatron from his childhood just as G1 Megatron is the Megatron from mine. We were sitting next to each other and opening our Megatrons at the same time (and comparing them with each other). While Armada Megatron doesn't hold that special meaning for me, I was happy to see Handsprime delight in opening this toy just as I delighted in opening my G1 CW Megatron.

So yeah, I'm all in favour of seeing HasTak release more upgrades of Transformers from newer post-G1 series. I may not necessarily be personally interested in all of them, but I'm not opposed to them either. And I think the clever thing for Hasbro to do is to try an redeco this moulds to appeal to multiple generations of fans, as they did with G1/Armada Megatron as well as others like Generations Armada Starscream/Jhiaxus (never got 'Screamer, but happily got Jhiaxus). And I'd be willing to support these toys by getting G1 redecos if they make them.

I did mention on the Combiner Wars Speculation thread that Titans Return Fortress Maximus could be redecoed as Grand Maximus and Brave Maximus. A Generations Brave Maximus would be really neat for people who grew up with Car Robot/RiD2001 in their childhood, especially considering that Hasbro never released the original Brave Maximus (because the G1 Fort Max mould fails the contemporary US drop test for kids' toys).

There's no reason why HasTak can't continue to appeal to multiple generations of fans by designing toys with the potential to be redecoed into different characters across generations. After all, isn't that why the line is called "Generations" in the first place?

But as prjkt said, G1 is a massive line, and there's still a lot to go. TR is now giving us some characters from 1987 - namely Headmasters. But what about Targetmasters, Throttlebots, Clones, Punch/Counterpunch, Sixshot etc.? Then there's 1988-93 which has a whole host of characters to be done.

[Bladestorm]

In my head, it's always 1984

Here! Here!

There is something timeless about the G1 characters. As much as the vehicle modes might be dated they bring back fond memories for us kids of the 80's.
Now maybe my kids are weird but the also LOVE the G1 cartoons. My son will watch G1 Transformers all afternoon if you let him (in preference to shows like RID2015). Having access to those characters through things like Combiner Wars allows him to enjoy the characters just as kids back in our day did. So if other kids out there are getting the same opportunity to see the original G1 cartoons and enjoy the classic characters I can see the popularity of the originals continuing on into the future generations.
The G1 storylines were often cringeworthy but there was something addictive and enduring in the characters - well cast voices, a bit of humour, lots of camaraderie and hope with the reality that things don't alway go your way.

To be honest I don't think any other version of the franchise other than perhaps the Bayverse characters have made the same connection in such a broad way with their fans.
Beast Wars was great but I am not sure it has the momentum G1 had. G2 - I have a cousin who grew up with G2 and would longingly love to have a G2 Optimus like he had as a kid but he enjoyed watching G1 reruns so aside from the toy he doesn't connect with any other Transformers media from his era.

I suspect in 20 years time the Bay bots may have their renaissance period as the kids of the 2007 films reach their 40's. At that point it will be interesting to see if G1 can sustain itself or finally gets overshadowed by the CGI bots.

[Jetfire in the sky]

I have the simple answer to the thread's question: As long as it is profitable for Has/Tak/Tom

[prjkt]

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the late G1 figures that the US didn't get (Turbomasters, Predators, Lightformers etc) get the Generations treatment (I'm surprised we didn't get those first two groups out of CW moulds, could have made Thunderclash's combined mode the unreleased "Hyperion" character.)

That would be my ideal "era" as those were the toys I had growing up - Thunderclash, Scorch, Falcon, Stalker, Skydive were all figures I had growing up, along with some of the G2 figures like Ransack and Leadfoot, as well as a couple of the Aquaspeeders I just can't remember. I remember having Deftwing too, he was one of my favourites for the longest time.

Would love to see new versions of all of these guys. Although my partner and wallet may not.

[GoktimusPrime]

Bladestorm makes an interesting point. I think that there are several factors which have contributed to making G1 the most popular and endearing Transformers series in this franchise's 3-decade long history, and it includes:

Alpha and Omega

G1 came first. Okay, this does seem incredibly unfair to post-G1 series, but there it is. When something comes first then it sets the benchmark for the entire franchise and there's nothing to really compare it to (other than its competitors like GoBots, and Transformers smashed them out of the ball park). Subsequent series, they invariably end up being compared with G1, as G1 has essentially become the "metric" for Transformers. I know that this can often be unfair, but I also think that one cannot deny this reality. It just seems to be the nature of fans to compare things with original sources. Just look at the Deadpool movie; fans have loved this movie because it's far more faithful to the original source material than Deadpool's previous film appearance. But new and different ideas can be successful, but it has the additional hardship of overcoming comparisons with the original. Beast Wars is a good example of this. When this series first came out, it was met with a lot of skepticism from fans, with many crying foul with comments like "trukk not munky." But Beast Wars rose to the occasion and soon proved its worth on its own merit, but in terms of the quality of toys (which has set the standard for Transformers today) and story-telling in the cartoon (which has never been matched on screen; all TF stories that rival BW can only be found in comic books - BW still reigns supreme as the best Transformers screen story ever written... nothing else comes close).

But the whole "G1 as the baseline" thing is compounded when you consider that many subsequent series have based themselves off G1 rather than trying to do something more original.
+ G1 = Optimus Prime and the Autobots vs Megatron and the Decepticons
+ RiD (2001) = Optimus Prime and the Autobots vs Megatron and the Decepticons
+ Armadaverse = Optimus Prime and the Autobots vs Megatron and the Decepticons
+ Movieverse = Optimus Prime and the Autobots vs Megatron and the Decepticons
+ Animated = Optimus Prime and the Autobots vs Megatron and the Decepticons
+ Prime = Optimus Prime and the Autobots vs Megatron and the Decepticons
+ RiD2015 = Bumblebee and the Autobots vs the Decepticons
^One thing that I do admire about RiD2015 is how they're trying to break away from the same tired old formula of "Optimus Prime and the Autobots vs Megatron and the Decepticons!" I wish that they didn't bring Optimus Prime back, but I'm glad that they've made him subordinate to Bumblebee rather the usurping him. And I'm glad that they didn't just bring Megatron back (in Season 1 at least, I haven't finished watching S2 yet so please no spoilers, thanks). I quite like Steeljaw as the de facto leader of the Earthbound Decepticons; he kinda reminds me of IDW Soundwave, albeit more sinister. I was disappointed that Michael Bay just brought Megatron back (as Galvatron) in AoE... no imagination. If people want new Transformers series to leave the shadow of G1, then that series really needs to stop trying to emulate G1. This is another reason why Beast Wars was so awesome; they weren't trying to be like G1.

The Toys

The toys captured our imagination and fascination. While many G1 toys have become outdated by modern standards, they were mostly excellent toys for their time. The first year of Transformers become the highest grossing debut toyline, raking in US$1,400,000 in the US alone (which was a lot of money in 1984!). e.g. MP Soundwave's transformation is almost the same as G1 Soundwave's, but that just goes to show how well made G1 Soundwave was. MP Soundwave didn't deviate much from the original design because it didn't need to! You can't beat perfection. G1 Soundwave was a perfect toy by 1980s standards, and MP Soundwave is a perfect toy by 2010s standards. We know that the G2 toy line didn't fare as well because it failed to capture this same imagination. Early toys were just redecoed G1 toys, and while G2 did give us some really great toys like the Combat Heroes, Laser Rods etc., we did also get some really rubbish figures like the Power Masters etc. Beast Wars was the next line to recapture our imagination, as proven by impressive toy sales, and Car Robot/RiD2001 sold like wildfire with toys flying off shelves months before the show started. And we know that Car Robot went on to inspire Binaltech/Alternators and Masterpiece, so while that series has ended, its legacy lives on. But some of the post-CR/RiD series arguably failed to capture our imaginations at that same level. Armada and Energon saw a lot of gimmick dominated toys (Cybertron was a lot better though ).

The Great Shift
Since 2007 we've seen Hasbro shift towards Transformers based on animation models instead of animation models being based on toys (as was the case with most pre-07 TFs). This was understandable for the live action movie toys, but Hasbro has since applied the same principle with other lines, namely Animated, Prime and the current Robots In Disguise series. The issue that I have with this is that animators and artists don't know how to design toys. They're not engineers. So it's been up to HasTak to "translate" animation models into transformable action figures, and quite frankly, it's a tough job. With most pre-2007 Transformers, HasTak's designers never had to worry about this, they could just focus on making the toys for the sake of being toys, not for the sake of emulating a screen model. There was far more creative freedom; let the animators 'translate' the toys as screen characters. This worked brilliantly in Beast Wars. When I look at all my Animated, Prime and RiD2015 toys, none of them strike me as being particularly excellent. Just good at best, but on the whole, I find these lines to be rather mediocre. There's nothing in these lines that I find on par with figures like G1 Soundwave, Ultra Optimus Primal, Mach Alert etc. where I just think, "That's a really clever toy!" It's not capturing my imagination and fascination at the same level as previous figures.

The Canon

One thing that made G1 stand out was the quality of story telling. Even with the G1 cartoon telling a story at a more superficial level (the Transformers were more caricatures than characters) and camp factor, the show didn't talk down to the audience. This is something which G1 voice actor Michael McConnohie (Tracks, Cosmos) has spoken about in interviews. Kids hate being treated as idiots. Many other toy franchise stories in the 80s had a condescending tone, but not Transformers. Transformers was more than happy to use mature language, which was littered throughout the tech specs, comics, cartoon etc. I learnt a lot of new words through my exposure to Transformers. G1 writers ensured that their characters spoke properly, demonstrating basic standards of language. This is incredibly important when it comes to children's literature too. I remember first watching Transformers on TV and my mum came into the lounge room and tried to convince me and my brother to "turn that rubbish off," but when she heard the characters speaking, she instantly noticed that they were well spoken. She then allowed us to watch Transformers, but told us to be mindful of the way that they spoke in order to pick up new vocabulary and grammar. This is what educators call the "hidden curriculum" in literature. The G1 cartoon occasionally hit on some really heavy themes too. McConnohie once used "The God Gambit" as an example; an episode where there's a planet whose gods resemble Cybertronians, and when the Cybertronians arrive they initially worship them as gods, and the Decepticons happily exploit this. This episode explores how religion can be corrupted as a means of controlling the masses and examines what people are willing to do in the name of religion. The Autobots on the other hand demonstrate religious tolerance - insisting that they're not gods and being appalled at seeing the Decepticons abuse the indigenous people's beliefs.

The G1 comic continuity, of course, was written at a significantly higher level than the cartoon, where the Transformers were actually treated as characters, and many stories were written in ongoing arcs rather than stand alone episodes (although they were plenty of those too). This is something IDW is doing now. And IDW has taken many cues from the Marvel Comics, such as the Wreckers, Decepticon Mayhem Attack Squad, ancient Cybertron being a corrupted republic (although this republic was far more sinister in IDW; in Marvel they were just incredibly arrogant and naive) etc.

Quirky Characters!
Here's something that is arguably lacking in more recent Transformers series -- individual quirks. This was something that G1 established through its toy continuity, much of which was picked up in other continuities, but just looking at the original toy canon, we can see that while many Transformers had awesome abilities, they also had bizarre quirks. This helped to flesh them out as being interesting characters, and not just, "butt kicking robots!"
e.g.
* Bumblebee; while physically weak, his inconspicuous (i.e. not an attention-drawing sports/race car!) alt mode made him the ideal spy. There's a scene in Captain America Civil War where Cap, Bucky & Falcon are travelling in a VW Beetle to avoid drawing attention to themselves. But at the same time, Bumblebee is also desperate to prove his worth to his fellow Autobots.
* Soundwave; uses his incredible eavesdropping ability to blackmail his fellow Decepticons, who all hate him.
* Mirage and Thundercracker; moral ambiguity.
* Bluestreak; former refugee/asylum seeker whose cheerful exterior masks a tormented past.
* Trailbreaker; riddled with guilt as the most fuel consumptive Autobot.
* Breakdown; paranoid. WHO SAID THAT?!
* Dead End; emo.
* Motormaster; hate-mongering hate ball who is hated by his fellow Stunticons. This causes Menasor to be one big mentally messed up gestalt who finds it hard to think.
* Hook; The Decepticon equivalent of Hannibal Lecter.
* Groove; pacifist (IDW Megatron is currently more like Groove should be!)
* Blades; violent thug and all round adrenaline junkie. Surprisingly Blades and Groove are able to set their differences aside and work together professionally as components of Defensor, as his mind isn't fragmented like Menasor or Devastator's.
* Cosmos; lonely and desperate for companionship.
* Snarl; lonely and that's just the way he likes it. Hates the company of others.
* Shockwave; logic fiend.
...etc etc.

And we know that IDW comics have been feeding off the original source material from the G1 tech specs, Thundercracker being a notable example. IDW also saw the first canonical appearance of Hasbro's (not Takara's) Overlord, as well as the longest canonical appearance that Hubcap's ever had (although in other cases, completely deviating from it; e.g. Swerve, Tailgate etc.).

Not too many post-G1 toy lines have 'seeded' themselves with so much rich story potential via their toy continuity such as their tech specs. One of the brilliant things that Hasbro did with Transformers and G.I. Joe was to get Marvel comic writers to create characterisations for the toys. Larry Hama worked on GI Joe, and Bob Budiansky worked on a lot of the profiles for the Transformers. IMO few post-G1 TF lines have well written tech specs; those that do were Beast Machines and Transformers Cybertron.

Longevity

The original Transformers series (G1) ran for 8.5 consecutive years. When I think about why Beast Wars, despite its awesomeness, hasn't achieved the same level of fan endearment as G1, I think one contributing factor was its significantly shorter lifespan. Beast Wars only ran for 3 years (1996-99) before Hasbro cancelled it, and in the opinion of many fans (myself included), prematurely so. This is why the latter half of Beast Wars S3 feels so rushed, because it was. Writers had to wrap up all of these loose story ends because Hasbro was cancelling the line. But this gave it a relatively shorter span of time to sink into the fandom's psyche.

Subsequent series haven't fared much better. Beast Machines and Car Robot only lasted about a year each, and others have barely lasted beyond 3 years.
* Unicron Trilogy = 2003~06 (well, it started at the tail end of 2002, but most stores didn't get these toys until 03)
* Animated = 2008~09
* Prime = 2011~13
* Robots In Disguise = 2015~16
So Hasbro's now really into constantly rebooting the franchise on a fairly regular basis. The rationale being that it keeps the line fresh, but the downside is that it makes it difficult to build a strong fan base. Also, these lines are often used to fill the gaps between the live action movies, then a new movie comes out and the mainstream kids line gets rebooted. The live action movie franchise started 9 years ago, but bear in mind that these are not consecutive years; there are 2~3 year breaks between each film. Basically, there's not much in the way of long running continuity with post-G1 Transformers series.

Now, G1's longevity is even longer when you consider the G1 Renaissance, which may have started as early as 1996.
* 1996-99: Beast Wars & Beast Machines. As we know, the Beast Wars cartoon established itself as being in the same continuity family as G1, enhancing G1. Beast Wars also gave us a few characters that were explicitly stated as being the actual G1 characters themselves, such as Grimlock etc. Beast Machines continued from that and even started retroactively introducing new characters into G1, namely Obsidian and Strika.
* 1997: Machine Wars. All of them being new versions of G1 characters.
* 2002-08: exclusive G1 redecoed characters. Ichikawa Hirofumi's work on creating new characters for the eHobby and convention exclusive toys served to further expand G1, giving us characters like Road Rage, Tiger Track, Clampdown etc.
* Binaltech; again, more of Ichikawa's work to further expand G1, and also retroactively explaining things from G1 (e.g. Prowl II etc.).
* Masterpiece. New characters like Exhaust and Loud Pedal continue to expand the G1 universe.
* Classicsverse. While it's mostly upgrade of previous Transformers, Classicsverse has also given us a fair number of new characters too, including Drift, Windblade, Rook, Off Road, Victorion etc.
...in other words, G1 has continued to grow, it arguably has never stopped. One might argue that G1 never died off, but rather, evolved into becoming these "Renaissance" series. Much like dinosaurs evolving into birds.

[BigTransformerTrev]

So my question is how long have we got? We as in the 80s fans, the old brigade?
I don't want to tempt fate here however it feels like we have it way too good hehe
When does beast wars or armada have its time to shine and captured all the 90s Childs imagination all over again?
Can we just ask hasbro to stay in the 80s? It's awfully comfortable there! 😀

Okey doke, I read/skimmed most of the previous posts to if I repeat points that have already been made I apologize in advance But here are a few points I consider:

*The 80's fans - or the GeeWunner generation - is now of an age (and Im in the same boat as you Gofigue) where a lot of us are either:
-Single and have a disposable income to spend on toys that remind us of our youth or...
-Have kids who we want to share our passion with and want to be passionate about the same characters so buy them toys paying homage to them.
Therefore we are buying a lot of the Generations G1'esque toys. It's why I think there hasn't been a 'Generations' cartoon, because they dont need a TV show or movie to sell these characters, they have been firmly implanted in our minds for 30+ years. And chances are a lot of us will continue to buy these character toys, either for ourselves or our kids or both.
*Back then many of us only had 2 to 5 TV stations and of course no internet. There was not the competition for our attention from as many sources as there are now. Even in BW the internet was starting to take shape and you could get cable TV. Instead of being exposed to a few dozen different cartoons to try and flog you toys, in the recent TF incarnations there have been hundreds competing against them. It's much harder to grab a slice of the kids imagination and pockets. So while G1 was a revolutionary big fish in a little pond, BW onwards was just trying to swim as well as they could in a sea of competition.
*A lot of G1 characters have resurfaced in other TF cartoons and toylines. Starscream and Optimus in Armada, Omega Supreme and Scorponok in Energon, Metroplex and Soundwave in Cybertron, Ratchet and Blitzwing in Animated, Wheeljack and Shockwave in TFPrime, Bumblebee and Laserbeak in the movies etc etc. These characters have been repurposed again and again, they have stood the test of time. So they are known to multiple generations who are interested in them and likely to buy toys of them.
*A lot of G1 characters have cropped up in alternate media such as comic books and video games, once again, getting introduced to a new generation.


To be honest I don't see the revival of G1 centric toys ending, if anything it continues to expand. Many of us got excited when Heroes of Cybertron, Alternators and Titanium got released - suddenly characters we hadnt seen toys of for decades were back on the board! And they sold well. So since then we've had the immediately popular MP and CHUG lines appear as well as many mini lines such as Robot Heroes etc as well - these G1 homage toys make money!

As someone who finds it very hard to bypass a G1-homage toy it's a damn expensive time - but a golden age for Cybertronian collectors. And they day G1 homage toys begin to see a decline in sales across the board they will finally make a Generations' cartoon and a few DVD movies and kick it all off again