G1 problems

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Who designed this? Come out now!

Frankly speaking, as much as I love Transformers G1 cartoon, one has to admit that its production level was kind of crude according to today’s standard. I don’t mean the quality of artwork, but sometimes there were just apparent design problems.

I’ll talk about the two most obvious problems here: the size problem and the parts problem. These two problems puzzled me and my friends the most when we were children. And I just want to share my feelings with other fans.

1.The size problem.

If you are a fan like me, you probably know what I’m going to talk about. Let’s start with Megatron and Soundwave. In robot form they are both about the same size as Starscream. But when they transform into a gun and a tape recorder, respectively, their size is reduced by orders of magnitude. The screenshots below are from Episode 1 and 2, respectively. Megatron in the gun form can fit into Starscream’s hand, and Soundwave in the recorder form can even fit into a human’s hand! This is puzzling. My friends and I just couldn’t make sense of it.

Size problem — image from Ep01
Size problem — image from Ep02

This problem is noticeable in the first two episodes. In later episodes there are more such examples. Blaster shares a similar problem like Soundwave, while spaceship-type characters usually become much bigger when they transform. For example, Cosmos in the robot form is as big as Blaster, but when he transforms into a flyer saucer, Blaster can sit inside with plenty of room. Astrotrain is as big as Megatron in robot form, but in the space shuttle form he can house an entire army of decepticons!

OK, I know that volume is not a conserved quantity in physics. But still, it’s hard to explain such a huge volume change for a robot made of solid metal (and even liquid metal I might add). And furthermore, a human (young Spike) could carry Soundwave around as a tape recorder, which indicates not only volume change, but also mass change. Mass on the other hand, is a conserved quantity in physics (according to our current knowledge). So probably the only explanation is that these alien robots somehow have a super technology that allows them to change size and mass, kind of like Ant-man. However, this should only happen when they transform.

I can live with this explanation in most cases, except that there is still one paradox. In Transformers the Movie (1986), Devastator was formed inside Astrotrain in space shuttle form:

Size paradox_Movie(1986)

While in Episode 39 “Blaster Blues”, Astrotrain in space shuttle form was grabbed by Omega Supreme in one hand:

Size paradox_Ep39 Blaster Blues

But the size of Omega Supreme and Devastator should be roughly the same, right? Now this is a real paradox. The producers of the TV series or the movie probably didn’t care much about such problems when they made the cartoon. But as a matter of fact, it didn’t really affect the popularity of the show. So maybe their ignoring such problems was understandable.

2.The parts problem.

This problem only apparently exists for specific robots, namely Optimus Prime and Omega Supreme.

We know Optimus transforms into a big truck. But the problems is that, every time he transformed, his body only became the front part of the truck. So where did the container part come form? When Optimus walked around, we didn’t see any sign of the container. But once he started to transform, the container immediately appeared behind him, mysteriously. Let’s see the screenshots from Episode 60:

Optimus transforming 01_Ep60
Optimus transforming 02_Ep60
Optimus transforming 03_Ep60

You see, the container actually flew into the screen from nowhere…

Furthermore, after Hot Rod became Rodimus Prime, he started to have the same problem. But he seldom transformed in the cartoon (compared with Optimus whose transformation was a signature of the show), and therefore the problem was much less noticeable. Still, here is the evidence from Ep89 “Grimlock’s New Brain”:

Rodimus transforming 01
Rodimus transforming 02
Rodimus transforming 03

Again, the container part came into the screen only when he transformed…

For Omega Supreme the problem is probably more serious. Omega Supreme transforms into a rocket base. His arms transform into a rocket and the rest of him transforms into a base. When the rocket is launched into outer space, the base stays on the ground, right? Here is a screenshot from Ep39 “Blaster Blues”:

Rocket launched. The base stays. – Ep39

But when the rocket landed on the moon, somehow the base mysteriously appeared, which allowed Omega to transform back into a complete robot:

Right before landing. No base in sight. – Ep39
Big smoke upon landing. - Ep39
Big smoke upon landing. – Ep39
After landing, the base appeared. – Ep39

The base was nowhere in sight one second before landing. Upon landing there was a big smoke, and when the smoke was gone, the base appeared! It’s like magic… *_*

But it seems that the producers realized this issue and in a later episode (Ep46 “The Secrets of Omega Supreme”) they allowed part of the base to fly with the rocket.

Part of the base flies – Ep46

This still doesn’t solving the entire problem, but I appreciate the effort.

OK, I’m done with the problems. Now I’ve got to say something positive. Although these design problems existed, they didn’t prevent us from loving the show! Why? Because the imagination of the show was so unique and interesting. An alien robot civilization, interesting robot characters, funny robot talks, a little crude but also imaginary plots…these are the main attractions of the show, and we just loved it. Looking from another perspective, the above problems were also part of the fun when we watched the cartoon!

Years later, when I was in college, I had the chance of watching Headmaster series. However, I had become too busy and watching cartoons was no longer a major interest. As a result I only watched several episodes. That’s why I’m not familiar with the characters in Headmaster and later series.

BTW, I don’t really like the Hollywood Transformers movies in the recent years. Personally I think they lost the soul of the Transformers series. There were too many humans in the center stage and too few robots. Those movies didn’t give us a good picture of the Cybertron civilization and didn’t tell a good story of the robots. Even for Optimus, I would say he was mostly portrayed as a fierce warrior in the movies rather than a noble leader (He killed Megatron right after Megatron saved his ass…the original Optimus would never do such a thing). Those movies were in fact still centered around the human world, just like most other “saving the world” movies. That’s why I found them disappointing.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy the image gallery!

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