Should A TransFormer Transform?

I recently happened to find and watch a video debate uploaded by YouTuber Bobby Skullface as part of his 'Sit Down Saturdays' series, where he posed the titular question to a group of friends gathered at his home. I was more than a little surprised to find that the majority answered in the negative. Not just that, but a large number actually stated that they would actively prefer a more 'accurate' robot mode at the expense of transformation.

Now, I tend to rail against anything TransFormers related that doesn't transform - statues in particular - as utterly pointless, and detrimental to the brand. After all, any non-transforming TransFormers product that Hasbro produce is basically development time, effort and money diverted away from the core of the brand. Licensed stuff does actually make them money, because they're basically being paid by the licensee to permit the sale of a product developed at the licensee's expense... but I still have to wonder why they license so much bizarre crap - again, statues in particular, as they are the very antithesis of TransFormers, being utterly immobile representations of dynamic robots that turn into vehicles.

It's therefore worth noting that I stopped collecting, in my youth, a year or two before Action Masters were a thing and, I don't recall with any certainty, but probably only even found out about their existence when I got online and started looking into TransFormers again as an adult. To me, transformation is the essence of the TransFormers brand... even so, perhaps it's a question worth considering a little more seriously...

First and foremost - and something that wasn't done especially clearly in the debate - we should define our terms. There is, after all, a world of difference between 'a TransFormers-branded product' and 'a TransFormer'.

The former label can cover everything from Kre-O sets to party supplies, books to statues. It's an extended universe of merchandise aimed at 'fans' willing to fill their lives with - pardon my saying so - any old tat as long as it's been slapped with a 'TransFormers™­' label. As far as I'm concerned, everything from the high-quality statues created by Imaginarium, or the oversized, super-detailed action figures produced by ThreeA or Hot Toys, to G1 Action Masters falls under the category of 'TransFormers-branded products'.

The latter title applies to everything from the Cyberverse figures and Construct-Bots (grudgingly) to the Masterpiece figures, with every mainstream toyline and size class in between, as long as the robots actually turn into something.

So, when someone says they would be happy - or happier, even - buying screen-accurate, but non-transforming action figures, I find that very confusing. To me, that is essentially the same as someone saying they'd be happy to collect non-transforming toy cars, jets, helicopters, etc... And those are abundantly available without the TransFormers brand attached. There's no point paying the extra for something like the Hasbro-licensed Jada 1:24 die-cast cars with a poorly sculpted, barely painted representation of the robot on the underside, in place of sculpted vehicle detail, like a proper model car. Those are basically oversized equivalents of the Robot Powered Machines, Hasbro's ill-fated line of Hot Wheels-sized cars from some of the early live action movie toylines, and just as pointless.

Similarly, some years ago, there were Revoltech figures made of G1 Optimus Prime, Hot Rod, Megatron and Starscream, as well as movie Optimus Prime and Bumblebee. We also got Hasbro's own Robot Replicas line of movie action figures alongside the original movie and Revenge of the Fallen, which looked like a dumbed-down version of Revoltech. Some were better than others, but none were in scale, well-painted or even that great in terms of action figures available at the time. Admittedly, neither line offered action figures that were screen-accurate, strictly speaking... But if all a person wants is a toy robot, what is it about TransFormers that makes them uniquely desirable? I opined last year that the logical progression of the Generation 1 rehash that is the Prime Wars Trilogy is to make everything smaller and simpler, or to simply revert to making Action Masters... and most of those involved in Bobby Skullface's debate apparently wouldn't have a problem with that... as long as these action figures looked exactly like the on-screen representation of the characters' robot modes.

In this day and age, could Hasbro actually present a toyline called 'TransFormers' if none of the toys transform? They've almost done it in the past - Action Masters themselves didn't transform due to story-related shenanigans, but their vehicles and parters did, so they barely scraped into the definition of 'a Transformer'.

Under the current setup, Hasbro presents multiple transforming toylines, split across age groups, but it could just as easily produce the contemporary equivalent of Action Masters, if that's what the fans wanted, and if kids were satisfied with that. It would save them an awful lot of development time and money and, really, if a kid is introduced to a toyline called 'TransFormers', based on a TV show or the movies, but isn't aware of the 30+ year history of toys that actually transform between robot and vehicle modes, why would they not be satisfied with a robot-only action figure? Likewise, if someone who has been collecting TransFormers for 30+ years says they'd be happy with a robot-only action figure, why bother delivering anything more?

Everything about the franchise as it stands now evolved from the idea of transforming toys - these 'Robots In Disguise' that appeared on shelves back in the early/mid Eighties, brought together under one new brand name by Hasbro from several separate Takara toylines. While the idea of their alternate modes as disguise has often been diluted or outright ignored in some of the associated fiction (I believe someone in the video makes the point that there are virtually no transformations shown in many of the current comic book series), if you're going to have giant alien robots that don't transform, they may as well be part of their own, independent fictional universe, because they cease to be TransFormers. The idea of G1 animation-accurate action figures is particularly repellent to me, personally, as I think that cartoon looked like crap. It was a cheaply-done advertisement for a toyline, stories frequently seemed to come from the 'unused Saturday morning cartoon plot lucky dip' as they weren't particularly appropriate to the idea of transforming alien robots (WTF episodes like "A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court" or "The Girl Who Loved Powerglide", for example), and frequently either ignored or directly contradicted the toys' character bios for the sake of narrative convenience. Worst of all, the animation models were shit. Oversimplified and inaccurate to the toys they were supposed to be derived from, they did a piss poor job of selling the toys to me. I may be in a minority, but I much prefer the Marvel UK artwork from before the 'character bible' was shipped over from the US - toy-accurate, but believable (in the context of the comics) and dynamic.

I'm coming at this debate wholly from the point of view of someone who believes the TV shows, movies and comics should be representative of the toys, not the other way round. It's only been in recent years that Hasbro have commissioned TV shows without planning to produce an accompanying toyline (TF Prime, for example, was intended to go no further than the First Edition toys, and I suspect there were originally no plans for any TF Animated toys, hence the outlandish art style). I've always felt this is a bad move, and evidence of exceptionally poor judgement on Hasbro's part, unless the ultimate plan is simply to stop making toys altogether.

Consider the time and effort that's gone into the Masterpiece line. The Autobot cars from MP-12  onward are not much bigger than their G1 equivalent, but the transformation is vastly more intricate, and the robots feature far more articulation than their G1 ancestors. The appearance of all the robot modes have jumped back and forth between being based on the G1 animation models, but upgraded with a certain degree of fidelity to the toy (such as MP Soundwave), to making significant changes to the robot mode to ensure accurate representation of the vehicle (like the original MP Starscream), to straight animation accuracy, with the most recent releases, like Sunstreaker, tending toward the latter. This has turned me off the Masterpiece line almost entirely. Sideswipe and Prowl/Bluestreak were great, looking more like upgraded G1 toys, but Sunstreaker's robot mode has almost no detail and the head sculpt looks awful to me - in robot mode, Sunstreaker doesn't even look like he's come from the same line as Sideswipe or Prowl/Bluestreak (though he fits right in with Smokescreen). If Takara Tomy were to release an MP-39+ using the toy-accurate shin parts and head sculpt from MP-42 Cordon, I'd be very tempted to get both Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. Similarly, the 'plus' versions of MP-29 Shockwave and MP-36 Megatron are of far more interest to me due to their toy accuracy - the latter particularly, because it seems to feature chrome and a G1 toy-accurate faceplate previously only available with the knockoffs, or as a separate upgrade kit. That kind of thing is exactly what I want to see in a line calling itself 'Masterpiece'. To add another little bit of perspective to the Masterpiece side of things, while I've been fairly impressed with what I've seen of the Masterpiece figures from Beast Wars so far, I really wanted Optimus Primal and Cheetor to either be furry, or to have the original toys' sculpted, fur-like textures - the featureless plastic with painted fur patterns just doesn't do it for me.

I don't argue that there's no place for the majority of TransFormers-branded products... After all, if a kid wants to have a TransFormers-themed birthday party, why not have balloons, plates, napkins, etc. featuring images of the characters from their preferred continuity? Nor do I argue that there's no place for TransFormers statues. If a collector wants a static figurine with a high-quality paint job, created from an original which was painstakingly and lovingly sculpted by hand, to sit on a shelf and be admired, I would not presume to deny them... I'd just wonder what it is about TransFormers that attracts them to the franchise if it's not the fact that the toys transform. If Hasbro/Takara Tomy were to split the Masterpiece line into transforming and non-transforming figures, that'd be perfectly acceptable to me... but I'd still see the non-transforming line as redundant, and feel that to focus on the non-transforming figures would be a terrible move.

I absolutely see the point of ThreeA's gorgeous movie figures, Starscream in particular. As good as the transforming toys are (such as the RotF Leader class figure, or the Voyager class figure from the Studio Series) they'll never be perfectly accurate to the movie's CGI because they also need to turn into something recognisable as an F-22 Raptor, and that just cannot be accomplished within the constraints the toylines have in terms of size and parts counts. ThreeA's figure fulfils the CGI accuracy - and does so beautifully - by sacrificing the jet mode entirely. This means that it's an action figure, though, not a TransFormer. It's a high-grade action figure, certainly, but still just an action figure. Thing is, if I'm expected to shell out £400-£500 for TransFormers-branded merchandise, transformation would be the least and most obvious of my expectations. Your mileage may vary, of course, but I'd rather have a flawed vehicle mode than no vehicle mode.

Also, there's a guy I follow on DeviantArt, Klejpull, who specialises in making highly articulated replicas of the robots, styled usually after the artwork in the IDW comics, and I think his work is fantastic... but still not something I'd consider adding to my collection, if any of them were made for sale. For the sake of comparison, another DeviantArtist, BadLamprey, makes awesome custom TransFormers, many of which I'd love to own.

I'll admit that I display the vast majority of my collection in robot mode (that which is on display - some is in storage)... but the joy in that comes from knowing that I could pick any one of them out of their cabinets at any time and not just adjust their pose, but actually change them into a different form. It comes from knowing that each and every one of the toys in my collection is a feat of engineering beyond any simply action figure.

Ultimately, and as much as we may like to complain about their shortcomings, it's the transforming toylines that are keeping TransFormers going as a brand. If it doesn't transform, it's not really a TransFormer, just a representation of a TransFormer's robot mode or its vehicle mode. Similarly, a high-spec action figure designed to look like a G1 cartoon animation model isn't a TransFormer and, to my mind, such a thing would be as detrimental to the TransFormers brand as some of the superfluous electronic features or mechanical gimmicks the toylines have featured over the years. The core gimmick of being 'Robots In Disguise' has been the driving force behind the toyline's innovation. If Hasbro/Takara Tomy stopped making transforming toys based on the TransFormers TV shows, there would be no reason to continue the TransFormers brand.

Thus, while all TransFormers are TransFormers-branded products, not all TransFormers-branded products are TransFormers... That's fine, and all... I very rarely actually fork out good money for TransFormers-branded products other than the toys (though I'm often given random stuff as gifts - most recently, my girlfriend bought me a TFRID2015 chocolate cookie-making kit). For me, personally, a TransFormer absolutely must transform.