More info on Armada plot from Toyfare...

Comics, cartoons, movies and fan stuff.
Post Reply
User avatar
Denyer
Posts: 33033
Joined: Sun Sep 17, 2000 4:00 am
Location: Perfidious Albion
Contact:

More info on Armada plot from Toyfare...

Post by Denyer »

Copied from ATT and Dreamwave:
Big Little 'Bots

"The title 'Armada' refers to ancient Cybertronian legend that tells of a lost Mini-Con Armada that had so great a power that they were banished from Cybertron eons ago," says Hasbro's senior designer and the American Transformer guru Aaron Archer. "Thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago, there were three races on
Cybertron: the Autobots, the Decepticons, and the Mini-Cons. They're kind of like the worker race - while the Autobots and Decepticons fought, they did all the running of Cybertron."
But the Mini-Cons had a special property - when attached to another Transformer, that Transformer became more powerful - and the more Mini-Cons that were joined together, the more exponentially powerful they became. And so the Mini-Cons were dragged into the Autobot-Decepticon wars.
The Megatron of that era, trying to defeat the Autobots once and for all, created an entire spaceship out of Mini-Cons, nearly destroying all of Cybertron. In the aftermath, both Optimus Prime and Megatron decided that the Mini-Cons were too dangerous to use in their war or to leave on Cybertron, so they decided to banish the ship Megatron created into space, and the Mini-Cons fell into legend.
Of course, if history has taught us anything, it's that when Transformers are randomly shot off into the vast reaches of the galaxy, there's only one place they land: Earth. And so the Mini-Cons did, where they crashed,
shut down and were never found by humanity. Until 2010, that is...when they start waking up.
The current Megatron, a descendant of the original, learns that the legendary Mini-Cons are on Earth and are ripe for the taking, and he takes his Decepticons to find them, heedless of the ancient warnings. When the modern Optimus Prime learns of Megatron's plans, he and
his Autobots head to Earth to stop him. "The Mini-Cons are scattered all over the place, because the Mini-Con ship broke up entering the atmosphere," says Archer. "Many of them have no idea about their past."
When the Autobots and Decepticons arrive, they begin frantically looking for them, kicking off an escalating arms race.
Also interesting is a Hasbro statement that each Transformers series is a new and different story... strongly suggesting that G1 references in BW/BM/RiD are present as nods to fans rather than any official attempt to unify continuity.

I like the notion of mini-cons as somewhat semi-aware agents in Armada... possibly even AI rather than fully conscious personalities. ie, their labelling as a faction has more to do with marketing than anything else. It's curious that Bots/Cons are suggested as separate "races" by now rather than factions... of course, this IS Toyfare we're talking about... :rolleyes: ;)
User avatar
Halfshell
Posts: 19167
Joined: Sat Sep 16, 2000 4:00 am
Location: Don't complain to me. I don't care.
Contact:

Post by Halfshell »

"Thousands and thousands of years ago"??

Not really that long when you consider the original scale of things...

So everything's seperate... no real surprise. The references in BW tie it into both cartoon and comic conts... I've long argued that it was set in a seperate lineage halfway between...

it's mythology, people - not canon! ;)
User avatar
Denyer
Posts: 33033
Joined: Sun Sep 17, 2000 4:00 am
Location: Perfidious Albion
Contact:

Yeah...

Post by Denyer »

...and ain't it better this way? Everbody can read things the way they wish... and they even get official approval to do so.

Why limit Armada to G1 continuity? What storylines were left to tell in that, anyway? Mainly events which would explain, detail or make sense of other events... and that would not form the basis of a new series. It would also rely on things being incredibly general for new fans to be able to latch onto it. We've seen this fail with large media properties such as X-Men; things get too complicated and you lose a big percentage of your audience. Partly this is because the average consumer IQ and attention span is not immense.

Tying all of the continuities together AIN'T possible without ignoring bits of each. Which... I've been doing for years... and I think we all naturally did as kids (those of us who collected both the comics and the cartoons from G1.)

Just because some details from G1 are thrown in, doesn't mean that it's the same continuity/universe. Follow any sci-fi show for long enough and invariably, the parallel dimension theory becomes the only way for the plot to go... nope, Hasbro's been pretty good throwing in a few references for the oldskoolers amongst us, but it can't pretend to a coherent unity of mythos: Basically, robots transform. That's all the unity we have... really, it's all we need.

(Post cobbled together from stuff I've just typed elsewhere.)
User avatar
Halfshell
Posts: 19167
Joined: Sat Sep 16, 2000 4:00 am
Location: Don't complain to me. I don't care.
Contact:

Re: Yeah...

Post by Halfshell »

Originally posted by Stuart Denyer
Tying all of the continuities together AIN'T possible without ignoring bits of each.
Heck, trying to tie one continuity into itself is tricky enough, sometimes...

It's like Greek mythology. You have a group of stories, with recurring themes of good versus evil, with recurrent characters.
In different cities, with different story tellers, characters would have different characteristics.
What does it matter if Megatron is a gun, a tank, a T-Rex or a Six Changer? "Megatron" = "Badass evil robot"

And so on...
User avatar
Osku
Protoform
Posts: 2611
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2000 5:00 am
Location: Finland

Ooops!

Post by Osku »

*Checks time of one´s own post.*
Sorry, didn´t notice this and posted similar post in Armada forum (this should be there, shouldn´t it :p).
User avatar
Jetfire
Posts: 6438
Joined: Mon Nov 06, 2000 5:00 am
Location: Hard traveling hero.

Post by Jetfire »

Intresting.


I wonder why the autobots are using them also?
Sounds like they got the powermasters and incorpriated them into G1 history:D

As for continunity.Prehaps all we see are the people at the end of it all telling the storys.Hence its non-linera fix.
Image
User avatar
Alpha Trion
Protoform
Posts: 2675
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2001 5:00 am
Location: Cleveland, OH

Post by Alpha Trion »

I was hoping this series was going to have characters from all the different series and somehow tie them together. Beast Wars and G1 were definitely the same continuity, so the only thing they really had to do was explain how RiD fit in with it all. It wouldn't have been too hard.
User avatar
The Wild One
Posts: 826
Joined: Thu Jan 24, 2002 6:18 pm
Location: Trapped at the anal sphyncter of the world.
Contact:

Post by The Wild One »

Do you really think they are going to make it easy? Huh?
Image
It's time to get wild!!!!!
The Wild One
User avatar
Denyer
Posts: 33033
Joined: Sun Sep 17, 2000 4:00 am
Location: Perfidious Albion
Contact:

Re: Ooops!

Post by Denyer »

Originally posted by Osku
posted similar post in Armada forum (this should be there, shouldn´t it :p).
Yeah... I figure since this is still the Toyfare speculation, it fitted into News as well... when Armada is actually into final production, then I'll start reading the forum! :p ;)
User avatar
Cyclone Prime
Protoform
Posts: 80
Joined: Wed Feb 13, 2002 2:51 am
Location: Iacon, Cybertron

Post by Cyclone Prime »

G1, BW and BM are clearly into one continuity...

About RID, I believe we can put it in there, but it's harder

I have a theory, I should post it somewhere...
"To lead the Autobots and the Decepticons together is my destiny!"
-Cyclone Prime
User avatar
NrKy
Protoform
Posts: 65
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2002 5:00 am
Contact:

Post by NrKy »

yeah, speaking of continuity, damn those japs making that RiD crap, where on earth is that thing meant to fit into the storyline AT ALL!!!!
User avatar
Denyer
Posts: 33033
Joined: Sun Sep 17, 2000 4:00 am
Location: Perfidious Albion
Contact:

You know...

Post by Denyer »

...RiD is a Hasbro product. Car Robots is the Japanese series, and it fits in better with their other non-US continuity.

Besides which, Hasbro have held up their hands and admitted they don't give a flying fuzor about continuity. So who cares about RiD (or indeed BW & BM)?

Answer: The fans. However, there's just no cause for attacking the creation of new TF series for not pandering to us. We aren't 95% of the target demographic.
Post Reply