The release of the first live-action Transformers movie and the accompanying toyline represents the dawn of a new era in the Transformers brand. Released roughly a year after the end of Cybertron, the film breathed new life into the brand and made HasTak tremendous profits. It ushered in a franchise that continues to release films to this day, with a sequel to the 6th film, the Bumblebee movie, on the horizon. The aesthetics and the designs of the transformers marked a radical departure from anything that had been seen before, becoming hugely visually intricate. The toys also featured a remarkable increase in complexity that has largely stayed with the brand subsequently. The Movie toyline is one of the larger lines in the history of the brand, comparable with giants such as Beast Wars or Cybertron. The sheer volume of toys released means that there are many sublines and concepts at work within the line. We will examine many of these, including Automorphing, Real Gear Robots, licenced vehicle modes, and many more. However, some of the more directly youth oriented product, such as the role play toys, Cyber Slammers and Fast Action Battlers, fall outside the scope of our survey. It is important to note that these figures would influence later lines, leading to the fairly common presence of masks and swords on store shelves, as well as lines of simple figures with intensive action gimmicks designed to appeal to younger audiences. Regardless, the Movie line featured an incredible amount of ideas.
Almost all of the unique elements of the Movie figures, including Automorph, the realistic vehicle modes, and the comparatively complex transformation schemes, are a response to or are drawn from the character models designed for the films themselves. In some senses, the starting point for these designs is the concept of the movie as live action. This would intuitively dictate that the concepts and designs employed for the movie should be more realistic, which obviously implies real vehicle modes. This also means that there is no reason that the characters should look like robots from the 80s that people would build. Instead, they should be complex, featuring moving parts everywhere like living creatures would. They should have metal that almost appears organic in its fluidity and shape.(Proctor) The characters should also be somewhat alien in their appearance. This is the first major division in the designs for the Autobots and the Decepticons. For the Autobots, alien means humanoid, but with features that are blockier than our own, which are different enough to be interesting and similar enough to excite sympathy.Autobot characters include the occasional beak like mouth, on Optimus and Jazz, but are mostly similar to people. For the Decepticons, alien means insectoid, deformed and spiky. Barricade has more eyes than a human, Blackout’s head is phenomenally spiky, and Bonecrusher is squished. The proportions of these characters are also less human and more overtly monstrous. Bonecrusher in particular features extremely lanky arms, and highly unconventional feet, with wheels in the middle of them. These design elements telegraph otherness and danger.
A hallmark of the Movie line is the presence of licenced vehicle modes.(Seichi, Transformers) This represents a departure from quite a few years of main branch product. While Classics does have realistically styled vehicles, it was not the focus of the line. (Nevermore) Unicron Trilogy figures tend to be more cybertronian and fictional in nature.(Seichi, Armada) In that sense, movie toys step into a vacuum left by the end of Alternators.(Steve-o) Although many of the realistically styled vehicles are licenced, particularly those produced by General Motors, many of the vehicles are genericized enough to avoid licensing fees. A good example of this is Incinerator, who turns into what is clearly supposed to be an Osprey, but genericized enough to avoid shelling out money to whoever makes those.(FFN, Incinerator)
The detailing of the vehicle modes and the realism of the vehicle modes combine to create complexity. Cars don’t generally have the kind of fluidity that the designers wanted for the robots. As a result the models, and by extension the figures, are required to have two sets of details, one for the car, and an unrelated one for the robot. Since these details have very little in common, there is very little integration of the vehicle mode in the robot mode. This contrasts with lines like the Unicron Trilogy, and toys like Demolishor, whose robot and vehicle forms are inseparably intertwined.(Mendou) One of the most traditional techniques for resolving this contradiction is shellforming, where large parts of the vehicle mode are simply a shell around the robot mode. Bumblebee, Bonecrusher, Brawl, Swindle, Dropkick, Wreckage, Stockade, even arguably Optimus Prime and Blackout, all feature some significant shell elements.(Seichi, Transformers) It is intriguing to note that figures like Incinerator that were exclusive to the toyline, and thus didn’t have to adhere to intricate cg models, still feature shells. This is likely because the designers sought to keep the aesthetic of these figures in line with the larger trends of movie design. Shells tend to add a great deal of complexity to toys, since the shells themselves have to be jointed, and are distinct parts from the robot parts.
Other sources of complexity can be found in the design process of the cg models. At least Optimus Prime was first designed with an endoskeleton of sorts, mostly composed of the detailed grebling that would become a movie trademark. Armor was later added to this, and later still was a rough transformation scheme outlined.(Proctor) Since the priority of the robots is to look good as robots first and to have plausible transformations second, they are much more likely to use cheating and obfuscation to achieve a successful transformation. This includes techniques such as having elements of vehicle kibble simply disappear during complex transformation sequences where it won’t be missed, and playing with the proportions of the remaining parts to make them more aesthetically pleasing. For example, the roof of Jazz’s car completely disappears in robot mode.(Gwolf)
While these choices are certainly not invalid, they do create certain problems when it comes to creating toys. The most obvious of these is the question of what should be done with the vehicle pieces that simply disappear. Generally, as with Movie Jazz, the solution is to put these pieces on the character’s back, and occasionally to make them detachable as a weapon or shield.(Gwolf) Movie Bonecrusher is another example. In order to create arms with the correct detailing, Bonecrusher’s vehicle mode is largely composed of panels that fold up to reveal his robot pieces, which sit somewhat awkwardly in robot mode.(Undead Scottsman, Bonecrusher) However, even if vehicle mode pieces did not disappear, the toys would still confront the problem of complexity. Each joint and gram of plastic costs HasTak money, so there is a limit to how complex any toy can be.(Singularity) This is not true for the models, which capitalize fully on their ability to be arbitrarily intricate. It would be impossible for HasTak to recreate the movie models even if they were designed with transformation schemes beforehand, simply because of cost.
That being said, they do take a good crack at it. The movie toys feature a totally unprecedented level of complexity and jointing. Toys like Blackout feature unbelievably detailed transformations that employ novel devices, featuring large portions of the robot composed entirely of thin panels. This toy also includes not one but two involved action gimmicks, the spinning of his blades and the autotransformation in his chest.(King Starscream) This marks a radical departure from the largely blocky Unicron Trilogy toys of the previous half decade.(Seichi, Armada) Bonecrusher’s pelvis is formed by turning itself inside out, and Jazz features an entirely novel joint on the hood of his car, which admittedly meets with limited success.(Undead Scottsman, Bonecrusher;Gwolf) Even seemingly simple and traditional molds like Bumblebee incorporate this complexity. Although his chest is formed by the hood of the car in a very traditional move, the entire thing is spring loaded, and his legs are entirely moving gears.(Servitor)
Another example of complexity is Automorphing. This term was coined by HasTak to describe a range of features, which to some extent recreates the on-screen transformations of characters in plastic.(Undead Scottsman, Automorph) The autotransformation element of Deluxe Movie Bumblebee, whereby a button on his roof is pushed, causing his car hood to flip down and form the chest, simultaneously revealing his head, is an Automorph gimmick. (Servitor) So is Deluxe Movie Dropkick’s head springing out when you lift the roof of his cab.(M Sipher, Dropkick) In subsequent lines like ROTF, automorphing would largely be confined to the motion of a limb causing some small visible spinning elsewhere on the toy.(Deceptitran) While automorphing was near omnipresent in the Movie line and had echoes in the lines immediately subsequent, it was not a gimmick destined to shape the history of the brand.(Undead Scottsman, Automorph) Automorphing had largely disappeared by the time DOTM rolled around.(Bluestreak7) However, some degree of automatic transformation has been present in the brand in one form or another since the Throttlebots in G1.(M Sipher, Throttlebot) Examples include many of the basic Beast Wars figures, or Cruellock in Energon.(Monzo; Autobus Prime) Automorphing did introduce useful terminology for referring to these sorts of gimmicks.
Many Movie toys feature elements from concept art, rather than the final cg models of the film. Blackout has a different head and feet from his final character model, Bonecrusher features remarkably long arms not found in the film, and Arcee was cut from the film altogether, despite having a character model.(King Starscream;Undead Scottsman, Bonecrusher; FFN, Arcee) This is largely a result of models continuing to change after HasTak had to finalize the mold tooling in order to have the toys on shelves at the correct time. These errors are also found on box art, such as Megatron’s using a previous head.(ItsWalky)
All of this conspires to create a unique aesthetic for the movie toys, distinct from that of the film itself. Characters such as Jazz, Optimus Prime and Barricade have toys that feel blockier and more evocative of Unicron Trilogy design sensibilities while at the same time incorporating uniquely Movie elements. These toys also devote a lot of space to their gimmicks, be it Optimus’s guns, Barricade being able to store Frenzy, or Jazz’s automorph. They are somewhat simpler than their cg selves, and, unlike subsequent Generations or contemporary Animated figures, don’t seek to recreate exactly the in fiction appearance of characters. Rather, these toys are content to be toys, and so have much in the way of odd, inaccurate kibble, as on Barricade’s chest and hands, or Starscream’s gatling guns. In essence, these toys look, not like the models stepped off the screen, but like someone designed a child’s toy of them, somewhat akin to the relationship between G1 figures and designs, although in reverse.
The Movie line also featured several sub-lines in. The three most relevant of these are Allspark Power, Premium Series, and Real Gear Robots. Allspark Power, a reference to the central mcguffin of the film, featured figures with light blue paint applications and plastic to display a powered up version of an earlier character, for example Bonecrusher.(Undead Scottsman, Bonecrusher) There were also several new molds released, also with light blue paint, such as Stockade, Incinerator, and Landmine.(Wing Saber; FFN, Incinerator; Seichi,Transformers) This marks another entry in the storied tradition of using redecos of molds to represent a character receiving some power boost.(Monzo; Seichi, Armada) Premium Series consisted of extensive, more screen accurate redecos of characters in unique packaging.(Seichi, Transformers) The latter of these lines were added retroactively after the initial success of the toys. (Seichi, Transformers) Taking a page from Armada’s book, the Movie line was padded with redecos of figures from older lines once it was found to be successful.(Seichi, Armada) Many of these were exclusive to various retailers. Molds were heavily drawn from Unicron Trilogy toy lines.(Seichi, Transformers) The basic class assortment of the Movie line was entirely figures that turned into diminutive, approximately 1:1 scale technologies, such as watches, phones, cameras, video game controllers, and so forth, called Real Gear Robots.(Seichi, Transformers) This references a scene in the film where the Allspark is used to bring various cars and individual pieces of machinery to life, and ties in with some of the other role play figures on offer at the time. Many of these figures, such as Spy Shot 6 or High Score 100, are somewhat smaller than the equivalent technology would be in real life.(Terrorcon Blot)
The movie received many tie in video games, comics, novel adaptations, and other media. Artist Ken Christiansen designed several generic drones for the Activision console game, and some of these were made into toys.(Emerje) Dropkick, Longarm, Swindle, Dreadwing, and Payload all received figures.(Emerje) These toys have a distinct aesthetic when compared to other movie figures and designs, although, as we see first here, there is often some discrepancy between how characters appear and are designed in fiction and how they are realized as toys. While all of the Christiansen designs feature commonalities, such as the single, Shockwave-esque eye and a large visible turbine in their chest, some of these were not translated into plastic. Dropkick in particular features neither the turbine nor the eye.(Emerje) These sorts of discrepancies make it difficult to analyze particularly the movie designs from the perspective of toys alone. It is often necessary to discuss the computer designs as well as the figures in order to have a comprehensive survey of all the aesthetic components of a movie.
Christiansen’s characters are visually distinct from other movie characters for several other reasons. Since the drones were designed to be either Autobots or Decepticons, they feature the design hallmarks of neither faction. The panels of vehicle mode kibble don’t have a particular shape, in contrast with the distinctively blocky Autobot and spiky Decepticon panels. The models themselves feature some level of complex mechanical innards, that is to say, mishmashes of pipes, wires, and ambiguous bits of metal. However, in contrast with other movie designs, the Christiansen designs are actually fairly minimal in terms of this sort of mechanical greebling. Whereas designs such as Barricade and Blackout have huge portions of their robot modes, particularly around the legs, that are implied to come from within the vehicle, the majority of the Christiansen characters are recognizable pieces of the alternate mode. This is in no small part due to the fact that some, if not all, of the Christiansen designs were developed with transformation schemes.
The figures reflect these characteristics. Unlike the intricate and almost organic sculpting that recreates the appearance of movie characters in the film itself, the Drone figures are much more evocative of Unicron Trilogy design. Both the drone figures and Unicron Trilogy figures feature blocks of plastic, as a result of highly visible alt mode integration. This is in sharp contrast with the intricate jointing and panels of movie figures such as Blackout. Rather than the organic claws of characters like Bonecrusher and Jazz, or the intricate limbs formed from knots of twisted metal, the drone figures feature more generic robotic limbs, at least those portions of them that are not integrated with the alternate mode. The sculpt of Swindle’s shoulder is functional and subdued, and his thighs are cylinders of grey plastic. However, that is not to say that these figures don’t have intricate sculpting; it is to be found in detailing, rather than integrated into the limbs themselves. Dreadwing’s wings are totally covered in mechanical detailing, as is Dropkick’s front and the inside of Swindle’s doors. This is indicative of an attempt to bring simpler designs more in line with the aesthetic of the onscreen characters. The drones also share much with the broader line. The drone figures do have realistic vehicle modes, and Dropkick and Swindle in particular features a profusion of thin panels and joints that would make any Movie figure proud. Still, these characters remain some of the most unique designs of the line, evoking a different take on realistic transformers that is almost a fusion of the extant movie concepts and Unicron Trilogy designs.
The Movie line reflects the complexity, organic detailing, and realistic vehicle modes of the cg models used in the films. However, the line does much more than reflect the film itself. It includes designs from the tie in video games, redecos designed to take advantage of the line’s popularity, and sublines inspired by peripheral elements of the film. The Movie toyline provided a sweeping overhaul of the Transformers brand, exploring new worlds of visual design and forcing the designers to explore new techniques for toy design and resurrect old ones. Perhaps even more importantly, the line energized the brand to levels unseen since Armada, and injected huge sums of money into HasTak, so much so that they could begin to pursue more experimental projects like Universe (2008). The impact of the line, both in terms of direct stylistic influence and what it enabled, cannot be overstated. Six subsequent toylines and films draw direct inspiration from the aesthetic ideas first expounded here, and every subsequent Generations style line would not exist but for the success of the first Movie toyline. Without a doubt, this line is one of the most pivotal in the history of the brand.
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Transformers Aesthetics 