Transformers

Kicking it old-school.

Back in the early 1980’s, the toy company Hasbro partnered with Takara Co. to distribute a line of action figures in Europe and North America. These action figures could morph between a robot form and a vehicle or weapon form, giving them even more play options than the standard plastic or metal figurine. Takara had a couple of different lines of these toys, but Hasbro combined them into one single series and gave them a new name, as well as a TV show that served as little more than a collection of half-hour commercials for the figures.

They were the Transformers, and they were the hottest thing on the market.

Hasbro and Takara were rolling in cash, not only from phenomenal toy sales, but from advertising revenue from the television series. Kids went bananas for the latest adventure of the heroic Autobots and their battles against the evil Decepticons. Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Grimlock, Hound, Mirage, Ironhide, Megatron, Soundwave, Starcream, Brawl, and Ramjet were only a handful of characters kids were introduced to over the course of the episodes, though the leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime, and his evil arch-nemesis Megatron were the most important to the majority of the episodes. The shows usually followed a very familiar formula; Decepticons try to do something evil, Autobots try to stop them, one of the younger Autobots or a human ally would learn a lesson, and the Decepticons would be defeated by the end and everyone would return to their headquarters to wait for the next episode. Still, the kids loved it, and Hasbro saw an opportunity to cash in on their appetite for more Transformer action.

Transformers: The Movie promised to rake in the dough. Kids loved the franchise, the animation was pretty cheap, and they even got Leonard Nemoy and Orson Welles to provide their voices (it was also Welles’s last film), so it was guaranteed to be a success. And it was; while it wasn’t a masterpiece by any means, it made obscene amounts of money simply because it was a Transformers movie. It had action, adventure, new faces (A.K.A. more toys to sell), cheesy 80’s rock music…

And it had the death of Optimus Prime.

Fans were outraged. Optimus Prime was essentially the figurehead of the Transformers franchise, at least in the minds of the children (and teens and adults) that the show catered to. He was the leader of the Autobots and champion of freedom for all sentient beings, and he was killed off within the first half hour of the movie and never mentioned again. No one wanted to see him replaced (the movie specifically introduced Hot Rod, a young, rebellious Autobot to replace Optimus as leader), and they made their voices heard. In fact, the death of this supposed icon, who was only a plastic and metal figurine in real life, was so impactful on fans and so outspoken, that Hasbro had the television show write him back in to appease fans.

How could a toy robot featured on a show designed to sell toy robots to kids have such an impact? Perhaps Hasbro’s aggressive marketing had been to blame; maybe they fed their franchise to so many children in such huge quantities that they set themselves up for this failure. Or perhaps Transformers had become something more than a cash cow. Maybe it wasn’t just playtime to kids anymore.

I hesitate to call Transformers a fairy tale. It has some elements, yes, such as the battle between good and evil, lessons in morality, and the ordinary lives of humans intersected with the extraordinary lives of the Transformers, but it was meant as a way to sell toys. That kind of defeats the purpose in my eyes.

That being said, I love Transformers. I have ever since I picked up my first toys and comic books when I was in grade school. I have fallen in love with its many characters and many stories, as have millions of fans across the globe. What stands out to me more than my personal love for the series, however, is the love of the Transformers fans. To this day, grown men and women still play with the toys and watch the new TV shows, and they have ever since Transformers emerged in the 1980’s. They run fan-driven conventions and websites. They love the franchise; its characters, its toys, its games, its books, its movies and TV shows are all a part of their lives.

So I can’t call Transformers a true fairy tale, or to be more technical, a series of fairy tales. What I can call it is a universe driven not just by the company that created it, but by the fans that have endured to this day. It was meant to make money and it still does, but it holds a place in people’s hearts that’s more to them than that. It even touches the hearts of the people that meant to make money off of it; Simon Furman, one of the creators of the original Transformers comics, is still an active writer for the Transformers franchise.



So, I ask you, the students (and professor) of Intro to DMA; what do you think Transformers is? Is it just a cash cow for Hasbro, or has it become something more?