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Acadmus said:
They changed that story so many times...in the comics, starting with issue #5, it was something called "The Creation Matrix" which was held by Optimus Prime, and the reason Shockwave kept Optimus' head alive separate from his body. I think the cartoon had a couple different story arcs related to different things that gave "life" to Transformers, and the Michael Bay movies of course had the stupid magic box in the first movie and the fairy dust in the second.
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Yeah. A lot of ideas got criss-crossed between different stories and parts of the franchise.

The Matrix started in the cartoon/movie as the symbol of Autobot leadership and a receptacle of all the knowledge of Primes past. It was quite separate from Vector Sigma and the means of giving life to transformers.

When Simon Furman got to the comics, he started cannibalizing elements of the movie/series including the Matrix, which he turned into the Creation Matrix and made it responsible for TF reproduction/creation, as it was a conduit for the power of the Transformers' creator/god, Primus.

The Matrix was also sometimes considered equivalent to an afterlife for Transformers, as it's mentioned in both G1 and Beast Wars that dying Transformers will join/be one with The Matrix.

Later on, Beast Machines (in perhaps the only good thing that series ever contributed) merged all those things together by creating the AllSpark (alternatively called the Well of All Sparks), a combo afterlife and "beforelife" repository for the sparks (souls) of all Transformers who aren't alive. The Matrix is a conduit to it, allowing communication with the deceased to share knowledge (like the tv/movie matrix) and to channel new sparks created by Primus (though not always explicitly stated as being created in that fashion) into bodies to bring new Transformers to life (like the comic matrix)

The Bay Movies and the TF: Animated series confused things by introducing the "Allspark" (note the uncapitalized "s") which basically was the Creation Matrix portrayed in cubey/boxy form. The Matrix, when it appeared, was some sort of vaguely subservient/offshot piece of tech that was related to the Allspark, but not the same thing (and thus not the same as the Creation Matrix)

This is what happens when you have 25+ years of a franchise where there are basic continuity elements but no expectation to rigidly adhere to the same exact lore every time. :laugh:

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Creation_Matrix
 
Guardian17 said:
Is Primus Cybertron or just a spirit?
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depends on the continuity. Sometimes he's actually the planet (or within the planet) and sometimes he's just a standard run-of-the-mill metaphysical god, with all the vagueness that entails, including whether or not he actually exists or is just the focal point of Transformer religion which may or may not be true in the literal sense.

and that depends on whether Primus exists in the continuity at all. Unicron actually features in more continuities than Primus does. Which isn't surprising since the G1 cartoon created Unicron, but not Primus, so a lot of casual fans are familiar with the former, but not the latter. That said even when Primus isn't featured, Unicron still gets something approximating his Primus-linked origin, because his stand-alone G1 cartoon origin was BEYOND stupid and must never be spoken of again. It also somewhat puts the G1 cartoon into a unique situation whereby the Transformers (or sometimes just hte Autobots) aren't "Children of Primus" and have a totally different origin (created as consumer goods by the Quintessons)

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Primus

Primus hasn't popped up as much recently as he did in earlier works because the whole Primus/Unicron story got run into the ground by basically everything produced in the 90s and early 00s. This was even acknowledged by Primus' creator Simon Furman, who was responsible for the heavy philosophical bent of the latter half of the Marvel comics. When he worked for IDW he promised the story would be free of both deities because people were sick of them.
 
Acadmus said:
They changed that story so many times...in the comics, starting with issue #5, it was something called "The Creation Matrix" which was held by Optimus Prime, and the reason Shockwave kept Optimus' head alive separate from his body. I think the cartoon had a couple different story arcs related to different things that gave "life" to Transformers, and the Michael Bay movies of course had the stupid magic box in the first movie and the fairy dust in the second.
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Yep, it was the creation Matrix. Not sure how they spun it after they killed Optimus in the comic book in a much more different fashion than the movie.

Side note. one of my favorite issues of the comic was a stand alone in which Ratchet was the lone Autobot left after Shockwave sneak attacked everyone in the Volcano and he is all doubtful about himself and rummaging through junk yards trying to get together enough parts to get his comrades up and running again.
 
Baby Punisher said:
Yep, it was the creation Matrix. Not sure how they spun it after they killed Optimus in the comic book in a much more different fashion than the movie.

Side note. one of my favorite issues of the comic was a stand alone in which Ratchet was the lone Autobot left after Shockwave sneak attacked everyone in the Volcano and he is all doubtful about himself and rummaging through junk yards trying to get together enough parts to get his comrades up and running again.
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It got lost when they shot Optimus' body out into space as part of his funeral rights. Then it was found by a Decepticon named Thunderwing and got corrupted (it was kind of sentient) and got lost again. Eventually Optimus got it back and used it to beat Unicron and then I forget.

It's been a while since I read the series, I can't remember everything that happened. The TF Wiki probably has a good recap though.
 
Don't have the link anymore, but I was reading earlier today that as of Feb 2nd, Hasbro's rights contract with Netflix will expire after the two sides failed to come to terms on a new agreement. When this happens, all of Hasbro's programming available on Netflix will be pulled, with only two exceptions: Transformers Prime and some sort of My Little Pony show (but not the one that everyone goes ape**** over, I think. I dunno, I don't really understand all of that, nor is it relevant to this thread :laugh)

But this does mean that G1 will be yanked off of their content list, and probably means that they will show up on another content provider (the other link likened it to Nickelodeon shows going the same route and moving over to, I think, Amazon)


This is a reason that I still don't fully like streaming providers or other non-physical media distributors for entertainment and why I dislike that those services are in some cases responsible for creators making a decision to not put more niche shows onto DVD/Blu-Ray. Thank god Transformers shows all got the DVD/Blu-Ray treatment and I don't have to worry about losing my ability to watch them any time soon.

EDIT: found the link

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2015/01/15/netflix-ends-hasbro-streaming/21828909/

EDIT 2: And another link I found about Netflix expiries says that TF Prime is in fact getting yanked on Feb 2. So get all your transformers watching fix before then. Although that one doesn't list G1 and several other Hasbro properties. Sooo...... :dunno:
 
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Don't mean to spam, but I was idly looking at the TF wiki to see if anything happened around this date in TF history and decided on a whim to look up my birthday.

I share my birthday with FRANK FREAKING WELKER.

This is a jillion times better than having my birthday shared with Mikko Koivu and Douglas Murray :laugh:
 
The Nemesis said:
Don't mean to spam, but I was idly looking at the TF wiki to see if anything happened around this date in TF history and decided on a whim to look up my birthday.

I share my birthday with FRANK FREAKING WELKER.

This is a jillion times better than having my birthday shared with Mikko Koivu and Douglas Murray :laugh:
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Happy Birthday Nemesis....said with Chris Latta's "Starscream" voice.....;)
 
Guardian17 said:
Happy Birthday Nemesis....said with Chris Latta's "Starscream" voice.....;)
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It's not my birthday 'til March. :laugh:

I was just paging day-by-day through the calendar on the TF wiki and decided to skip ahead to March 12 to see if anything of note happened. And entry #1 on that day was Frank Welker's birthday.

Mostly I was looking for stuff that happened this week in history, but the closest I could find was that Friday will be the 67th or so anniversary of the founding of Toei Animation (they animated the majority of G1 episodes, the movie, and all 3 Japanese sequel series. They also did the best quality work on G1 aside from Call of the Primitives, which people suspect was done by Tokyo Movie Shinsha)
 
Baby Punisher said:
Prime is on Netflix? I may have to fire that bad boy up and finally check it out.
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If the stories are true, you've got 2 weeks to get through 65 episodes. The first season was pretty good, seasons 2 and 3 were kind of up and down though the finale was decent. I dunno if it's on Netflix, but you could also skip the post-finale movie "Predacons Rising". It's alright, not great and outside of fulfilling a bit of standard Transformers canon that largely went unchecked in the series proper there's not much in there that makes you say "man, I'm glad I saw them deal with <insert plot thread>"
 
Saw that and immediately decided that I was buying the new Devastator for my nephew. Totally for my nephew and not for me *whistles*
 
Acadmus said:
Anyone post this yet?
http://kotaku.com/transformers-most-fearsome-combiner-team-finally-gets-i-1685897663

New Devastator, Defensor, Cyclonus, and Ultra Magnus toys coming from Hasbro. $150 price tag for Devastator as the Constructicons will all be larger than the original run ones - article says each figure will be nearly the size of the original combined Devastator, thus combining into a truly MEGA robot.
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Wow, the Devastator and Defensor look awesome.

The level of detail is miles ahead of the toys we had in the 80's!
 
Brodeur said:
Saw that and immediately decided that I was buying the new Devastator for my nephew. Totally for my nephew and not for me *whistles*
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Before you give it to your nephew, I suggest you take it out of the package and put it through its paces. Y'know, for safety's sake. Right? I mean, it's what a good uncle would do, I think.


Devastator and Cyclonus both look outstanding. Magnus is also pretty good considering how hard it is to get a big, bulky robot out of a vehicle mode that has that much empty space (there's not a lot of mass in his trailer to beef him up).

Defensor looks a lot different than original Defensor, which is surprising considering how good the individual protectobots look. Also there were some changes made. Hot Spot is now Hot Shot (trademark issue, most likely. Hot Shot is established as a TF name so they likely kept up the trademark on it), and they took out Groove to replace him with Rook, some kind of SWAT APC/riot van tactical vehicle. That makes sense though because Groove completely messed up scale since he formed a leg and was a motorcycle, meaning that it was a motorcycle the same size as a full-blown police car. I think the thing that just gets me is the skinny waist and the gorilla arms. Hot Shot/Spot needed more bulk to make the torso thicker, and maybe the arms a little bit smaller.
 
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The Nemesis said:
Before you give it to your nephew, I suggest you take it out of the package and put it through its paces. Y'know, for safety's sake. Right? I mean, it's what a good uncle would do, I think.


Devastator and Cyclonus both look outstanding. Magnus is also pretty good considering how hard it is to get a big, bulky robot out of a vehicle mode that has that much empty space (there's not a lot of mass in his trailer to beef him up).

Defensor looks a lot different than original Defensor, which is surprising considering how good the individual protectobots look. Also there were some changes made. Hot Spot is now Hot Shot (trademark issue, most likely. Hot Shot is established as a TF name so they likely kept up the trademark on it), and they took out Groove to replace him with Rook, some kind of SWAT APC/riot van tactical vehicle. That makes sense though because Groove completely messed up scale since he formed a leg and was a motorcycle, meaning that it was a motorcycle the same size as a full-blown police car. I think the thing that just gets me is the skinny waist and the gorilla arms. Hot Shot/Spot needed more bulk to make the torso thicker, and maybe the arms a little bit smaller.
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If you read carefully, Groove is still there, but he's a smaller robot and forms a kind of breastplate on Defensor rather than a limb.
 
Guardian17 said:
In Canada, thanks to the TV network Teletoon, we have confirmation that Robots In Disguise will be premiering on March 21, 2015!

http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers...sguise-premieres-march-21st-in-canada-182259/
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Teletoon doesn't have an HD channel, at least here out west on Shaw they don't.

Booo.

Also today in TF history, Rob Paulson was born. Of course nobody remembers Paulson for Transformers over everything else he's done in his career.

Tomorrow was a better day :D
 
March 12 in TF History:

Frank Welker was born

The Agenda, parts 2 and 3 (the big 3-part season finale that definitively crosses BW over with G1 and features cameos from a number of big-name G1 characters) premieres in the US

TF: The Movie (the animated one) was released on DVD for the first time in Australia

A very good day indeed.

EDIT: You know what, now I'm gonna watch The Agenda. Well, after watching Code of Hero. Because it's on the same disc and you can't pass up an opportunity to watch one of the best bits of Transformers fiction ever made.


EDIT 2: Huh. Scott McNeil was the replacement voice for Cobra Commander after Chris Latta died. But he found that his imitation of that voice was too hard to maintain without hurting his throat. So he decided to see what would happen if he dropped it a couple of octaves. And thus the voice of Dinobot was born.
 
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"The question that once haunted my being has been answered. The future is not fixed, and my choices are my own. And yet, how ironic... for I now find that I have no choice at all! I am a warrior... let the battle be joined."

:cry:
 
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