What do we find enjoyable about Transformers?
I’m sure many of us have grappled with that question at one point or another. That day when you buy a figure and realize you don’t particularly care about it, or when you look at an old figure that once was a favorite and feel nothing in particular. Why do I do this? What keeps me coming back?
The answer for me is that it was, and is, fun, even though I sometimes lose sight of that. Transformers offer me a simple, pure joy in the appreciation of something cool, or beautiful, or technically impressive, and I find that immensely fulfilling. In a way, it’s the best sort of engagement with life.
For a long time, I was at a rough place in my life personally, and it manifested itself in how I engaged with my Transformers. I was obsessed with the idea that aesthetic merit could be reduced to specific features of a toy that we found valuable, and that I could collect all toys that demonstrated a certain level of those characteristics.
However, as I pursued that goal, it became more and more apparent that something was wrong with that conception of Transformers. One of the more obvious flaws was that one of the figures I had used to establish my exacting standards in the first place, Thrilling 30 Springer, no longer met them. Indeed, no toy did or could, because no toy is literally perfect.
I think I’m at a better spot in my life right now, and I think, once again, that’s reflected in my relationship with my transformers. I’ve come to realize that while, in some ways, I was correct about aesthetic worth being derived from specific qualities of a toy that we value, I was also wrong. I was wrong in the sense that there is no such thing as the perfect figure, one that completely has every single quality of aesthetic merit to the maximum degree. This is often because whether or not a figure demonstrates a certain characteristic is a matter of judgement and taste. Is ROTF Leader Optimus a bad figure with an annoying backpack, or is it the best representation of Movie Optimus?
There are many different ways that transformers can be enjoyed, even for a single individual; we all have our own constellation of aesthetic values. I think that we look at aesthetic criteria for a figure, and, if we like it emotionally or because we chose to or whatever, we can overlook the imperfections or even outright flaws. In this essay, I want to talk about a few of the things that make a Transformer beautiful, as a celebration of beauty and joy, and also to give some insight into how I think about these figures.
I think one of the greatest aesthetic virtues a transformer can have is the simple one of being ‘cool’. I always really liked trains, and I thought it was cool how Classics Astrotrain turned into a train and a space shuttle. I think the P-38 Lightning is a dumb plane and I love it to death, and for that reason, 2010 Highbrow is one of my favorite figures. Cool is intentionally pretty vaguely defined here. It’s really anything that can make you go ‘oh, that’s neat’ when you look at a figure, and obviously that’s going to differ from person to person, based on what your other interests and values are.
Another thing that makes Transformers desireable is screen accuracy. Until fairly recently, most of the primary Transformers media has been television or movies. That means that we are attached to most of our favorite characters because of their presentation in these media. It makes sense that toys that more closely correspond to the tv representation of a character would have more aesthetic merit. This is especially true for cases like Arcee or Elita-1, where for years there was nothing approaching a screen accurate toy. Something I personally enjoy is toys that are so screen accurate it looks like they just hopped off the screen. Some notable examples for me are the first Transmetal toys from Beast Wars (sometimes, looking at you Waspinator), Transformers: Animated as a line, and a few specific figures like Studio Series Blackout.
Transformers are, at their core, action figures, so we want them to be able to do actiony things, like having a full range of articulation or being nicely poseable. Sometimes, of course, it is impossible to include a waist joint or some such and still have the figure transform, so I think the standard for articulation in Transformers is somewhat lower than in other action figure hobbies.
For me, the normal range of articulation is ball joints or equivalents at the shoulders and hips,and elbows and knees. In this day and age I would say bicep and thigh swivels are also standard, but I do have a couple figures that I really enjoy who don’t have either one or the other, generally because of cleverness with ball joints at the elbow or knee. Head articulation of some sort is nice and pretty common, but again, I do have a few figures with restricted head articulation and it doesn’t bother me so much. Waist and ankle tilts are gravy in almost all cases, though we’re getting a lot more ankles nowadays.
Kibble generally refers to parts of a Transformer’s alternate mode that are visible in the robot mode, or vice versa. Sometimes, like with G1 Seeker designs, it’s pretty cool to see a robot made out of parts of f-14, especially stuff like the wings. Other times, like with Movie Blackout, the entire alternate mode ends up on the back of the toy and causes sad feelings the world over. Kibble can also significantly restrict articulation and playability, as with Beast Wars Rampage.
I tend not to mind kibble so much if it’s subtle, or used deliberately for a cool effect, like on the seekers. Even somewhat more egregious stuff like POTP Predaking or Movie Dropkick doesn’t bug me that much, although it used to. Honestly, shellforming a la TLK Berzerker doesn’t even bug me that much, although it’s self evidently rough. What does get to me is when a toy stops being a toy because of how kibbly it is, like the aforementioned Movie Blackout. Now, I still own that toy and enjoy it, and others like it, but I don’t find that part of it aesthetically pleasing. Of course, this is not to say that kibble is bad or being overly kibbly disqualifies a toy from being good.
One of my favorite things about Transformers are when the transformation schemes surprise me. TR Kup, Generations WFC Optimus, Studio Series Dropkick, and 2010 Terradive all are some of my favorite figures, entirely because their transformation schemes are so clever and novel. Of course, I’m also a sheer complexity junky, and I go out of my way to collect toys explicitly because they are complex. Examples include RID Sideburn or ROTF Mixmaster. I really enjoy it when the toy I’m holding is technically impressive for one reason or another, be that it used all of its pieces very well in both modes, was astoundingly intricate, or had a specific neat trick or device it employed.
Transformers is fairly unique in that there are comparatively few totally generic characters. Each toy has a personality associated with it, even if it’s just the bio card that came with it. The brand has been introducing and exploring characters for close to 35 years now, sometimes more well, and sometimes less well, but undeniably, characters are a huge part of why we involve ourselves with the brand.
Waspinator is iconic for his comic relief, as is Skybyte. MTME Megatron is one of the most interesting characters I’ve seen in anything ever. Even characters who get comparatively little screen time, like Astrotrain, have dedicated followings, because transformers often does background characters quite well. I myself own lots of figures I wouldn’t otherwise, simply because I enjoy their characters. To that end, one of the reasons a figure can have aesthetic merit is that it represents a character you like.
Something I personally enjoy in a figure is when I’m shocked to discover that it exists at all. A huge example of this is 2010 Highbrow, who I mentioned earlier. I remember clearly, I was just going down a rabbit hole on the wiki when I suddenly stumbled upon a P-38 Lightning-esque transformer, and my first reaction was disbelief. There was no way HasTak made such an obscure figure. But they did, and it’s awesome. A more recent example is TR Gnaw. I was stunned that they were making a Sharkticon toy again after so long. I had sincerely never expected that to occur, but I was so glad that it had. I simply love discovering a transformer in some corner of some obscure line that turns into some alt mode that nothing else does, or something else that, against all the odds, exists.
As we touched upon briefly in the “It’s just cool” section, something that can make a transformer valuable is that we just think the alt mode is neat. It can be nothing more sophisticated than “I’ve always liked squids” that draws someone to BW Claw Jaw. Honestly, one of the coolest things about transformers for me is the sheer depth of alt modes that has been covered in the history of the brand. Odds are, if you can name something, there’s a TF of it. Specific Japanese bullet trains? You bet. A WW2 style bomber? Absolutely. A wooly mammoth? Yep, and that one’s an Optimus Prime. There’s even a Soundwave that turns into an Ipad, and a Megatron that turns into an alas undersized nike shoe.
We can also value transformers because that specific figure is important to us. My RID Ro-tor is that way for me. My uncle bought it for me, years ago, and it was one of my first transformers. I thought it was just the coolest thing, and I spent hours pretending he was an autobot, because I noticed they didn’t have as many fliers and wanted to fill the gap. Every time I look at that toy, I think of my uncle a little, and I’d never want to be without it. Or, for another example, just recently I bought Armada Astroscope again, because I had the Requiem Blaster as a kid and Astroscope was my favorite, but I lost him. I’m sure everyone who took the time to read this article has some kind of story like that.
Another reason I personally find Transformers interesting is their historical significance. I think Classics Astrotrain is really cool in its own right, but I also just love that he’s one of only 2 deluxe class triple changers. I think it’s really interesting that Generations Brainstorm kind of serves as a proof of concept of the entire TR line, and that versions of Punch/Counterpunch are basically the only backwards triple changers, with two robot modes. G1 Soundwave probably hugely influenced the development of Minicons in Armada, and smaller toy interaction in every subsequent line. I think it’s really neat to have a part of that history in my collection.
Another draw of Transformers, as with any collecting hobby, is finding rare figures. Be it expensive, Japan exclusive boys like Masterforce Browning, Arms Micron Breakdown, Dile and Sauru, the vanishingly rare Lucky Draw figures, members of teams that are tough to find on their own for no reason like RID Rapid Run, exclusives, like Botcon figures or Universal Studios Evac, things that barely saw release like DOTM Deluxe Leadfoot, or even holy grails like the G2 Stunticons, getting a rare figure in your collection is always a treat. I personally don’t go in for that hugely myself, in part because it’s expensive and in part because I don’t super value rarity for its own sake. But I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a little cool to own my Chevy Aveo Swerve because it’s rare, even though I bought it because I think it has a super unique artstyle.
On that theme, an individual TF can also be valuable because it fills a specific hole in your collection. An example of this could be getting TR Blitzwing because you have TR Astrotrain and TR Octone, and he rounds out the trio. Or perhaps you’re only missing a single figure from the entire run of Armada, or you need one last Thundercracker to complete your collection of literally all of them. For me, this tends to be a bit more historically driven, because, I am, if you can’t tell, a nerd. I have my eyes on Transmetal 2 Iguanus, because I don’t own a Beast Wars figure from that year. I’ve thought about buying BW2 Moon, just to have one of the very few new mold BW2 toys.
The final point of aesthetic merit I want to discuss is kind of a restatement of the first. Every transformer has specific things about it you like that are unique to that toy, and don’t make sense to discuss on other figures. For example, Energon Sharkticon has soulful eyes, and I love how his dumb physique makes him look like an old style superhero. I love that he looks like he’s wearing a helmet, and that the little guns on his boat mode actually move around. None of that is universalizable, but it doesn’t make me value the toy any less.
This is, of course, by no means an exhaustive examination of everything that makes a toy aesthetically valuable. As I said earlier, I mean this to be a celebration of some things I find personally meaningful, and to give you some insight into how I evaluate toys. I hope this has gotten you thinking about what you yourself value in a transformer. They really are fun, and even though we can lose sight of that sometimes, it’s always there to welcome us when we come back to it.
Transformers Aesthetics 