What makes a Final Fantasy Hero: Part 1.2: Bizarre Origins

I posted this as a joke to friends a long time ago. It was make fun of certain cliches that started to become noticeable with the main characters in the game. One thing I notice is that most of these characters of these mind blowing and strange twists of their origins.

I already did games FF1 to FF13 in the past. I was never into the MMO FF games so be skipping 11 and 14. Since I posted the original articles, I played some of the newer FF games and I be adding the newer games in this entry.
If you want to see, here's the link to my previous articles of the "What makes a Final Fantasy Hero".

Be warned, there are major spoilers in every game I mention throughout the article. So if you haven't played a certain Final Fantasy that you plan to play in the future. Skip the character entry.


From Final Fantasy Type-0 is Class Zero

The world is at war and Rubrum's last line of defense a magical school training child soldiers. Class Zero is a class that was secret to the school itself till they went public at the start of the game.

Ace is normally has the spotlight of the game but really, he gets as much screentime as his classmates. The two new recruits, Machina and Rem get more screentime and character development compared to the others.

So what's their bizarre origin? Well it's not them exactly, it's more of their "Mother".

She was their teacher and mother figure who help trained them till their secret class went public. She help the class to still be able use magic when the Empire used anti-magic field to prevent the entire school to use magic.

In some bonus cutscenes that's only available to view after beating the game, it turns out she's a fal'Cie. She a god-like person whose trying to find the gate to the afterlife and bust it open. She and another fal'Cie who looks like he's in Keyblade armor are competing against one another. He thinks he should wiped out the world's people to bust the gate open. She thinks she should have a small group of powerful warriors to saved the world. This kinda somewhat is tied to FF13 since the villain of that game tried to do the same thing.

World of Final Fantasy has the twins, Lann and Reynn.

They with no memory of their past life, they were sent into the world of Grimoire to collect mirages(basically the FF version of Pokemon) and save the world.

So what was their bizarre origin? Their parents were the peaceful rulers of the world and the twins accidentally caused the world to be in chaos.

They try to lessen their mother's burden of collecting and controlling mirages by opening an extra dimension gate but this caused the game's villain to come out and turn their parents into recurring enemies.

 Final Fantasy 15 has Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum who tried to restore his recently fallen kingdom.

So what was his bizarre origin? Well he's a prophesied dude. The prophesy said someone of the Lucis bloodline will be the one who stopped the endless night and restore light to the world.

By the events on the end of the game, the 4 in the center looked like Noctis and his friends.

(Technically, there other prophesies in the series but the main characters are aware of it and try to become the prophesy. Noctis and the gang were surprised their story was foretold centuries ago near the end of the game.)

Oh and the game's villain is his ancestor's cast off immortal brother who was originally meant to be the founder king but was rejected.

The confusing timeline of Japanese G1 Transformers

The various versions of Transformers does have confusing timelines. I did another article about that.

However there is one timeline that is very confusing. The Japanese G1 cartoon timeline.

While America fans had both the G1 cartoon and Marvel comics growing up, Japan didn't have the comics, they only had the cartoon and only the cartoon. They see it as the main timeline and they didn't think about reboots and alternate universes till way way later on.

Hasbro's business partner in Japan called Takara had dubbed the 1st two seasons of Transformers. They didn't dubbed the movie right away and started dubbing the 3rd season and renamed the show, Transformers 2010. This is one of the differences between American and Japan's versions. The 3rd season took place in 2006 in English speaking countries but in Japan, it's 2010.

They didn't dubbed the 4th season and final season of Transformers. Instead, they had an alternate season 4 called the Headmasters.

It never came out in America and Transformers fans didn't know about this series till the internet got big in the late 90s. I kinda prefer Takara's version of Headmasters over Hasbro's.

Let me rip off my own head to make peace between our two species as you place my sentient head on a bookshelf.

The human-looking aliens take their heads and turned themselves into their transforming heads. How you feel if your own head is a separate person?

Takara's version was that small robots transform into heads to connect to larger bodies to survive harsh environments. That sounds far more better than's Hasbro's. Even their version of Pretenders(Transformers disguised as humans) where they do a Power Rangers morph to turn "humans" instead of being a 25th foot tall Human in bulky armor.

There is an English version of the show but ehh...It was downright laughably bad. It was done by a cheap Hong Kong studio and their dub mostly aired in the English speaking areas in the Pacific.

Here is a scene of Galvatron "screaming in rage" over the death of Soundwave. 

I never seen the wrong use of words and emotions since Dreamwave's infamous "Dull Surprise" or Energon Ironhide screaming, "Hurry, Get in the Ship".

Here's a collection of the Headmasters laughably bad dubbing.

As bad as Armada and Energon dubs are, it is nothing compared to the Headmasters dub. Armada/Energon were at least done alot more professionally. However you can argue that at least Headmasters dub is enjoyably bad while Energon is a bore to watch on both sides of the Pacific and the English dub makes it more unwatchable than it already is.

After the series of Headmasters. It had several sequels in the late 80s. The central cast from the 1st 3 seasons of Transformers and Headmasters disappear and let other people command the Autobots and Decepticons with their whole new cast of characters.

They were called Masterforce, Victory, and a one episode OVA(or Direct-to-tape), called Zone. After that, there was no more Transformers shows.

Transformers still continued in toys and TV magazines.

One year, they had a storyline told in TV magazines called the Return of Convoy(or Return of Optimus if you want to go by his American name). Optimus comes back from the dead(again). A unknown mysterious space entity called Dark Nova resurrects Megatron and they all battled.

Next year was Operation: Combination where a bunch of combiners duke it out where the Cons is lead by some unseen figure called Scrash. There are fan theories on what he looks like but no official answer at the time. Tho there was retcony stuff that came around in the 21-century media.

Then afterwards, G1 was all over across the globe.

After a long hiatus, Transformers was back in the G2 revival in the mid-90s. While America had the classic show re-edited with ancient CGI transitions, terrible rap commercials, and totally violent 90s comics, Japan didn't have that and told their original story that's a continuation. They did like what they did in the tail end of their G1 days and told their story in TV magazines.

Basically Optimus and Megatron made peace and because buddy buddy and formed the Cybertron Alliance. One day, a bunch of distrustful humans fired on them and Megatron's friend was killed. 

Angry on what happen, Megatron went back to his old ways and the war between Autobots and Decepticons begins anew.

Interesting development there but it's told very briefly though these story pages. It's like reading a brief summery on Wikipedia. Same can be said on the other previous stories told within the magazines.

Then Japan dubbed Beast Wars and well, they made the characters too goofy. Most of the characters were re-written heavily and greatly different than their English counterparts. Megatron went from your average calm and collective Lex Luthor to Jesse Eisenberg's goofy Lex Luthor. Optimus makes banana puns. Rattrap sound like Pikachu. Tigatron was a cheesy samurai stereotype. The female Airazor was now a dude.

Beast Wars in the Western world is seen as both a sequel to the G1 cartoon and not a sequel. It referenced events from both the cartoon and Marvel comics and treated it as an Arthurian legend. However Japan never had those comics, so how they going to explain the Maximals swearing to Primus? Also there were hints on Tartantulas and the Vok having it's origins to the US G2 comics, what where they come from?

Beast Wars Season 1 ended in Japan and Seasons 2 and 3 weren't ready at the time. So Japan made up whole original shows called Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo.

A different crew of Maximals and Predacons(descendants of Autobots and Decepticons) land on a mysterious planet called Gaia an fought over an power source called Angolmois Energy. It's widely believe the Maximals and Predacons come from the same time period as the cast of Beast Wars that's 300 years after the events of G1. Some say they come from a different period that's centuries after the events of Beast Wars/Beast Machines.

Anyways, it turns out that Gaia is Earth in the distant future and humanity abandoned the planet due to how dangerous the Angolmois Energy on the planet is. It turns out Angolmois Energy is the life force of Unicron himself.

Way back in during the events of the Transformers movie(2005), when Rodimus Prime was destroying Unicron with the Matrix...

To most people, they think that's the holy light coming from the mythical Matrix to destroy the dark god. Nope, that's retroactively Unicron's demonic blood pouring out. His blood(Angolmois Energy) was blasted out to the far reaches of time and space which will end up on Earth/Gaia.

Remember the show at the turn of millennium called Robots in Disguise that aired on Fox Kids and that was a complete reboot and had no connections to the other Transformers shows. Guess what, it is retroactively in the same timeline as G1.

Great, I feel like I'm reading fanfics back in the day that tried to make RID part of G1 before fanfic writers stopped due to the coming of the Unicron Trilogy, the live-action movies, and Animated came around with their reboots and they started to become common thing on Transformers.

As far as America is concerned, RID is a reboot. In Japan, it isn't. For one thing, it most of the cast don't exactly share the same names on both sides of the Pacific.

In English speaking countries, both of these cop cars are named Prowl. In Japan, the guy in the 2nd pic is Mach Alert.

In Japan, the original Optimus is called Convoy for some reason. In Robots in Disguise, the leader is called Fire Convoy and he is a different "Convoy" from the original "Convoy". 

English-Megatron/Galvatron

Japan-Gigatron/Devil Gigatron

So even it is a completely different cast, how in the world did this cast of characters manage to avoid the original Optimus and Megatron and their war on Earth during the turn of the millennium?

Well the answer is in an obscured 4-issue manga that took place in the late 90s called, The Battle of the Star Gate.

In it, the Transformers battle on a warp gate in space and a time-traveling Starscream's ghost comes in during the fight and possess the giant machine. It ends with the Transformers blasted by the explosion from the warp gate. All the Transformers were either missing in deep space, or badly damaged. This means the cast of RID2001 can come in on Earth and not bump into any of the members of the original cast.

It wasn't implied in either the English or Japenese verisons of Robot in Disguise(2001) but retroactively, the cast of RID2001 come from the distant future. The evil Predacons time traveled to the year 2000 to steal the transforming citybot, Brave Maximus who is hiding underneath the Earth's crust.

In America he is called Fortress Maximus and can be seen as a rebooted/re-imagined version of the G1 guy but in Japan, he is called Brave Maximus who is a separate but similar dude.

The guy from G1.

Brave Maximus retroactively was sent to ancient Earth to guard the Angolmois Energy. Back then, was simply green water before it retroactively became a part of G1.

You can't blame the obscure manga that retcon a reboot into the G1 timeline. Nope, that came from a later story written years later. Takara just took a look at the obscure story and used it as an excuse to explain how it fits in the timeline. The stories that did the retconning is *sighs*....One of the worst things to happen to Transformers and it's....No I'm not talking about Micheal Bay. He may be the most mainstream hated target but there are far more worse things in the franchise.


Behold, the awfulness known as Transformers: Kiss Players

In the mid-00s, the Unicron Trilogy was over and the 1st ever live-action movie wouldn't be ready for another year. Takara needed a filler set up during this period and they came up with something terrible. The concept is the robots get powered up be getting a kiss from little girls. Technically they are old enough to drive but they are drawn to resemble 10-year olds. It's full of phallic tongues, girl on bot kissing, girls covered in slime, bots look like they are covered in fleshy bits, and the images of naked girls inside the robots when they "fuzed", technically their naughty bits are covered but still.

The author of the series admitted he wrote and draw this, just to make people's jaws drop.

You can see why everyone hates this. Transformers combined with some of the weirdest and creepiest things that came out of Japan. Even Japanese fans despise it and hate this makes them look bad overseas. The worse part, it's canon within the G1 timeline.(Well Japan's G1 timeline but to them, this is the "main" timeline)

This suppose to be the same blond girl that was kissing Optimus 5 years after Kiss Players. I have a hard time imaging that.

The story is that at the end of the animated movie when Galvatron was thrown in space, instead of landing on the planet Thrull as seen in the opening of season 3, his body crashed on Earth and caused the destruction of Tokyo. This ruined the relations between the Transformers and humans and this got all the robots got kicked off the planet. Galvatron's cells were unleash from his body and they fused with animals and objects, creating Megatron look-alikes called Legion as they roam the streets with their phallic tongues

Some of Galvatron's cells fused with some girls that grants them the powers to power up Transformers when they kissed them on the mouth.(Eww)

Rodimus goes back into Hot Rod and Optimus comes back from the dead.

It all ended with Galvatron's cells return to his body and he was sent back to space where he would end up in the planet Thrull as seen in the opening of season 3. Hot Rod becomes Rodimus again and Optimus dies again, all for the sake of continuity.


There was a sequel called Kiss Players Position where three of the girls teamed up with some transforming cassettes.

It's not as downright terrible as it's prequel. It simply has the three girls from the previous series. It has some fanservice on occasion but it's like nothing like it's prequel.

There is a spinoff series called Teletraan 15 Go Go

The series is about the Autobot's supercompter, Teletraan 1's info mysterous got deleted and it sends out a humanoid computer, Teletraan 15 to go out and time travel to other periods to gather data on Transformers.

Like Kiss Players Position, it stars cute girls and has occasional fanservice moments but nowhere near the level of the original Kiss Players.

Anyways, both series crossover and they have time-traveling adventures. One of them had Brave Maximus crashed on the planet Master in the past. This made the resident Fortress to study the design of the giant city bot and come up with his giant city bot and the headmaster technology.


There is a series called Binaltech and it's sequel Alternity. In the show Beast Wars, Ravage from G1 time-travel to prehistoric Earth and died. Well in Binaltech, the Decepticons found his head and used the info to change the timeline. Thanks to a time-traveling Optimus Primal, the story of Binaltech ended up as a split off universe while the "main" timeline continued.

Binaltech's sequel, Alternity had the Transformers evolved and become higher beings that can send their avatars in different universes.

Another problem with Japan is they didn't get the Transformers movie till 1989 and this created plotholes in their originally made sequels.

Wheeljack, how are you alive? You died in the animated movie.

Characters who dead like Wheeljack and Prowl were seen alive in the Japanese exclusive series. Later stories clarify this by saying that those two came from the alternate timeline of Binaltech and travel over to the "main" universe.

There is a manga series called Transformers Legends.

It's Beast Wars re-imagined as cartoonish businessman. Rattrap is a huge BW fan. Rhinox is a G1 purist. Sliverbolt is a new fan through the movies. Tigatron is a creepy pervert who enjoys female transformers and kiss players. Airazor is a crossdresser because they made her into a man in Japan.

It started out as a comical series but soon, visitors from the Japanese G1 timeline visited Legends world and I mean like alot. Legends ended up becoming more about G1 visitors themselves than the comical shenanigans of Legends cast.

The Legends universe were creations of the Zamojin

A one shot race of aliens that we only saw in one episode from the original cartoon's 3rd season.

They were unhappy of the universe, so they send their creation, Windblade to destroy the universe but she had a change of heart.

Unlike most versions of her being a cityspeaker from Cadimus that's seen in all the recent comics, shows, and awful web-series, this version of Windblade is a creation of the obscured alien race.

The story of Legends,  I mean good gosh, it's full of crazy lore, retconning, and focusing on small obscured tidbits.

• Things like the SpringerXArcee ship being sunk.
• Skids being a protector of the multiverse
• Trypticon dying in an lesser known OVA that took place between season 2 and the movie and then get rebuilt in season 3.
• A evil group of humans led by Cobra Commander.
• Obscured evil Optimus clone from Energon's lesser known comic.
• Blitzwing's forgotten history with the Quintessons.
• Greatshot being retconned into a reformed renamed Sixshot.
• Retconning the Quintessons origin story and putting in the god-like being Primus in the mix.
• A completely different Galvatron who is the time-traveling dimensional-hopper from Marvel comics.
• The origins of the lesser known cosmic evil beings and demons of Devil Z(Matrix's dump out evil), Dark Nova(Vok creation), and Majin Zarak(A copy of Scorpionok built by Devil Z). 
• And many more.

*phew* That's lot. You really need a flowchart on this. It keeps referencing every little thing. The Japanese timeline is still going on to this day and there were always something new in toylines or manga, or anything.

So why is this timeline is a complete headache to figure out.

According to Ask Vector Prime that was ran on Facebook a few year back. One asked why the Japanese G1 timeline is confusing, Vector Prime than gave us an answer. When Scorponok destroyed the planet of Cybertron in the show Headmasters, we got this...

There is no one stream that contains all of what is listed, but a vast network of tributaries and distributaries weaving in and out, to forge something approximating a vast, twisting, winding river.

The "source" of the river would be Primax 785.06 Alpha. This seems the foundational reality, though dozens more dip in or split off from there.

Interestingly, there seem to be two more, slightly competing streams that wend their way through the entirety of the reality system; Primax 1206.0 Beta and Primax 807.11 Zeta. It almost seems as if some extra-dimensional being or beings attempted to impose order on a system shattered by MegaZarak's destruction of the stable axis of this reality; perhaps The Source or the Chronarchitect or the Alternity or even the Swarm or an evolved Humanity tried to pick up the broken pieces of these timestreams and haphazardly glue them together.

and

The death of any deity is virtually guaranteed to send shockwaves rippling forwards and backwards through the quantum foam underpinning that reality. Witness the impact on timestreams near what you might refer to as Primax 787.3 Alpha. An omniversal reality was pulled into quantum-string vibrational alignment with their reality, allowing the people of the distant reality of Planet Sandra to make contact. Beings especially attenuated to the lifestream matrices of Vector Sigma, such as Godmessenger and Godmaster, acquire multiple conflicting histories and futures. Other streams that might otherwise be unrelated are pulled into probability vortex left by Cybertron's absence, their string vibrational eigenstates orienting to create one massive unified timeline where before there were many. Dimensional fragments from other clusters were duplicated wholecloth in this OG Reality, with completely different fermion modality, creating entirely new dimensional streams identical but for cosmetic details!

You got all that? Yeah that sounds complex.

The confusing timelines of Transformers.

Index

A. Generation 1
1. G1 show
2. G1 Marvel comic
3. Dreamwave comics
4. IDW comics
5. Beast Wars and Beast Machines
6. Prime Wars Trilogy

B. Robots in Disguise

C. Unicron Trilogy
1. Armada, Energon, Cybertron shows.
2. Dreamwave Armada and Energon.
3. Cybertron

D. Live-Action movies
1. The 5 Micheal Bay movies
2. Bumblebee

E. Animated

F. Aligned
War for Cybertron, Fall of Cybertron, Prime, Robots in Disguise, Rescue Bots, Rescue Bots Academy.

G. Cyberverse

H. Timelines


Transformers been around since the 1980s and there's been multiple versions running around. It does get confusing and some of these versions get confusing on their own. I be focusing on the all the major stuff that came out in America. I might focus on the Japanese exclusive stuff in a later blog article.


A. Generation 1
1. G1 cartoon

 The well most well known one (aside the movies) is the Generation 1(G1) cartoon.

It ran for three seasons with a theatrical animated movie set between seasons 2 and 3. There is a "4th season" which was mainly a 3-part episode.

2. Marvel comics

When was Optimus the same size as Omega Surpreme and Trypticon?

(The later issues wouldn't have weird covers like this 1st issue.)

Transformers comics from the 1980s that ran for 80 issues under Marvel comics. It was originally part of the Marvel universe with Spider-Man, Nick Fury, and the Savage Land from X-Men making appearances in the early issues but later on because a separate universe without making an another reference to the other Marvel characters ever again.

Marvel UK sort of made their "Expanded Universe" of the US comics. They told stories that happen in-between the US issues and later visit future era of the mid-to-late 2000s which was heavily inspired by the 1986 movie. There was an event called the "Time Wars" which led to future era getting rewritten afterwards.

 After that, there 4 or 5 alternate "sequels" to the Marvel G1 comics.

Yeah, this is complicated. This chart was made years before IDW's Regeneration One which is another alternate "sequel" to the Marvel comics.

UK did a few one-shots as the "ending" of Transformers. The G2 comics were the original continuation of the Marvel comics. Classics in the mid 00s was done by Fun Publications that made as a sequel to the US comics that ignore G2 and IDW years later had Regeneration One which is written and drawn by the staff that did the last 25 issues of the original Marvel comics.

3. Dreamwave Comics

Why is everyone posing? Why are Optimus' arms and legs bigger than his torso? Does he have a stretchy neck or something?

(Sadly, this is how most of the comics are normally drawn)

Dreamwave in the early 2000s had the license to run Transfromers comics. They bankrupt themselves very very quickly. Nowdays, people make fun of the art of the series. It is also infamous for it's shady behind the scenes drama with alot employees not getting paid.

4. IDW 2005 comics

Next is the well beloved IDW comics that ran for 13 long years. It does get kinda complicated as you read through the stories. People say Phase 1 was good during it's early years but went downhill in the end. Fans say that Phase 2 is the period when the comics really shined. It came to an end in 2018 and IDW is now starting a whole new universe from scratch.

In 2016, IDW did a crossover event called Revolution and now the Transformers exist with G.I.Joe, Rom, Jem and the Holograms, Action Man, M.A.S.K., and Visionaries. Basically all the Hasbro's properties. So if your a Transformers fan and want see what Skywarp is doing, you may have to now read G.I. Joe comics.

5.Beast Wars and Beast Machines

Came out in the late 90s with the focus on the transformers transforming into beasts instead of vehicles. While the CGI is a little dated, Beast Wars is one of the most beloved versions of Transformers. Beast Machines is ehh...seen as an inferior sequel but compared to certain versions of Transformers that came out in later years, the hate died down.

Beast Wars and Beast Machines can be seen as sequels both the G1 cartoon and the G1 Marvel comics. The characters are the descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons about 300 years after the Great War. They do treat the events of G1 of either the show or the comics as an Arthurian legend. So it's connected to G1 but I won't say it's a direct continuation.

6. Prime Wars Trilogy

Next is the Machinima's Prime Wars Trilogy and they are down right confusing.

The 1st episode feels like it's the 10th episode in the series and the main characters are in the middle of events without explaining to the viewers. I guess combiners are a separate species from Transformers and they want to wreck havoc or something.

It's seems based on the IDW comics that was happening at the time. It's has a post-war Cybertron. Starscream is a governor of the planet. Megatron is reformed. The planet Caminus made contact with Cybertron. However not everyone reads comics and people were surprised to see Starscream chatty in the same room as Rodimus like nothing ever happen. It's like the web series was aimed towards the hardcore comics readers and no one else, but even they find the web series confusing. Then they referenced events like Optimus coming back from the dead or Megatron was once Galvatron in the past that came out of nowhere and got to pretend it happened somewhere in i't's history.

B. Robots in Disguise

At the turn of the Millennium, we got a stand-alone show called Robots in Disguise(No relation to the 2015 show or the IDW comic). Alot people were upset at the time since this was the 1st true reboot of Transformers. Fans were upset that after all these years of following the G1 timeline(despite the comics and cartoon clashed), we get this alternate world with no connection.

As time went on with all the later versions of Transformers, the hate for this show for simply being a reboot has been forgotten.

But in Japan...well I was tell that in another blog article.

C. Unicron Trilogy

1. Armada and Energon Shows

In the Mid-2000s, with got the Unicron Trilogy which is three separate shows that revolved around Unicron one way or the other. They are called Armada, Energon, and Cybertron. These shows are uhh...Not well received. Some opinions vary on them. Most agree Energon is the worse.

Armada and Energon were from Japan and dubbed into English in a very rush way to the point where the animation was halfway done on the Japanese side of the Pacific and aired months before the Japanese version did.

2. Dreamwave's Armada and Energon

When Dreamwave had the license to make Transformers comics, they did their versions of Armada and Energon. It was better received than the shows(especially Energon) but as Armada show gotten better in the 2nd half, some fans started to prefer the show over the comic.

Unfortunately, Dreamwave went bankrupt and Energon came to abrupt end with it's storyline halfway done. The writer of the series did posted on his blog the summaries of his unpublished issues several years after Dreamwave shut down.

3. Cybertron

The 3rd show of the UT era. Cybertron's English dub was far better received than it's two prequels because it didn't rushed itself and took time put in decent dialogue.

In Japan, Cybertron was a stand-alone show with no connection to the others. The English version tried to somehow make it a sequel to the two others. Somehow, the destruction of Unicron from the previous show created a black hole that will devour the entire universe. Megatron and Starscream are somehow alive and escape Hell somehow. Optimus is completely surprised to see Transformers combined despite seeing it all the time in the two prequels.

And yet, in the English version of the final episode, the human allies from Armada and Energon made an appearance.

There was an explanation from Fun Publications(I get to them later) that release stories told in a bi-monthly magazine that the destruction of Unicron from the ending of Transformers:Energon created a multiversal crisis. This caused universes to merge and rewrite reality itself, thus explaining how Cybertron is a sequel to Armada and Energon. Events of the unpublished Dreamwave comics were referenced in Fun Pub's story, meaning the show and comic universes merged. Also in Japan, they retcon the Japanese version of their show as a sequel to Armada and Energon as well.

D. Live-Action movies

1. The 5 Micheal Bay movies

Then you got the most well known version(aside G1), the live-action movies.

The first movie was simple to follow but with each sequel, the movie timeline got more and more crazy. Appearly, Earth has a magical cube in Hoover Dam, then the pyramids are design to drain the sun, then the space race was made to explore and cover up a crashed Cybertronian ship on the moon, than the Dinosaurs were killed by a Transformer, then it turns out the Transformers were on Earth during King Arthur's time and later fought Nazis. There also a secret order called the Order of the Witwiccans that worked with Transformers throughout history.

After 5 movies, I have a hard time believing the Order of the Witwiccans were around and all buddy buddy with the bots long before the events 1st movie. You think they help NEST or try to stop Cemetery Wind. Also how can Megatron be planning to get the Allspark, help the Fallen find the Star Harvester, and aid evil humans to help revive Sentinel Prime? Wasn't Megatron frozen for a century in Hoover Dam? So how can he aid evil humans during the space race?

The IDW comics did made a ton of stories that explained in far better detail and patch up a dozen plot holes. For one thing, Soundwave was unaware that Megatron was frozen on Earth while setting up the events of the 3rd film, by the events the 2nd film was happening, he soon learn Megatron was on Earth and quickly rushed to help him.

Sadly, IDW comics only did movie tie-ins up to the 3rd movie and the Post-Shia movies don't have any tie-ins. Most of the stuff shown with the Order of the Witwiccans greatly clashed the already established material from the IDW's expanded movieverse.

2. Bumblebee

The new Bumblebee film did confused people if it was a reboot or a prequel to the other movies. It was original conceived as a prequel but after reshoots, it ended up as a reboot of the film series. There were signs it was going to be a prequel with Megatron missing due to be frozen in Hoover Dam and Bumblebee gaining the form of a 70s Camero that was seen in the beginning of the 07 movie.

There was even a comic book that was a bridge between Last Knight and the BumbleBee spinoff. Bee was fighting Nazis that was seen in The Last Knight and would lead to this 60s spy thriller theme tale but with reshoots showing Bee arriving on Earth for the very 1st time ever in the 1980s, this comic ended up being incompatible with the movie.

E. Animated

In 2007, there was a stand alone show called Transformers:Animated. It ran for 3 seasons and it abruptly got cancelled. While the animation style did set people off at first, it ended up as a well beloved show.

F. Aligned

There is the Aligned continuity. Hasbro didn't want a Transformers show that be around for a few years and then hit the reboot button. They wanted a big grand timeline that will last a long time. It contains the popular video games, War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron. Several TV shows like Transformers: Prime, it's sequel, Robots in Disguise(No connection to the 2001 show or the IDW comic), it's spinoffs, Rescue Bots and Rescue Bots Academy.

It's called Aligned because they took all the lore from G1, Unicron Trilogy, Animated, and the movies and try to combined it into one big piece of lore. Hasbro set up this giant bible called the Binder of Revelation and tried to make every single piece of media in 2010 and beyond be part of their grand timeline.

However this so called grand timeline barely connects with each other. The two video games from High Moon Studios look like a completely different world than what's seen in Transformers:Prime. They look like two separate universes and they only connect only because Hasbro said so. The problem was that creators of Prime tried to be their own thing and Hasbro forced them to be part of the same world as the video games.

Alot mainstream casuals believe War for Cybertron and Fall of Cyberton are prequels to the G1 show and not some CGI show that airs on some extended basic cable channel. The games were designed to cater to the fans of G1 and wasn't originally conceived to set up the events of TF:Prime. There are dozens of people who grew up with the original show and didn't follow all the later versions. So they jumped on to these games without paying attention to the Aligned timeline.

The sequel TV show, Robots in Disguise did confused people because Bumblebee is back on Earth but doesn't contact his human allies or anyone. People wonder if centuries past since then or something. The answer is told in the show Rescue Bots. This show is aimed towards preschools and instead of focusing on a robot civil war, it's a group of robot rescuers helping out.

The preschooler show had cameos from the dark and gritty show, TF:Prime and they help out for an episode or two. After it's third season, a 3-year timeskip happen and now they have cameos from Prime's far more lighthearted sequel. Sadly, there was never an answer why Bumblebee contact his human allies if a mere 3 years have passed.

Also confusion happen when Grimlock was seen in Robots in Disguise which clashed what's seen of the big dino in Fall of Cybertron

Fall of Cybertron introduced it's Grimlock and he fell down a ravine. However comics came out and revealed he survived his fate. He and the other Dinobots stayed on Cybertron while everyone else left the planet with it low on energy. The comics at the end directly connect with the ending of TF:Prime with Cybertron getting restored and meeting with the cast of TF:Prime.

When RID15 aired with Grimlock on the team, people were confused. Suddenly his personality is different and he's suddenly a former criminal. It be ok if it's a different universe but it's supposed to be part of this big grand timeline. It was told on twitter from the show writers that Grimlock is a common name among Dinobots and they are two separate characters.

Sadly, due to clashing visions and all, the Aligned universe didn't go a planned and the very last remnant of this timeline that's currently airing is a sequel to a preschooler show. I'm not against Rescue Bots or anything but I doubt your average Transformers fan wants to watch something aimed towards preschoolers.

G. Cyberverse

This is the newest show that currently airing, Transformers Cyberverse. Another stand-alone show. 

H. Timelines

Since I mention them, the group known as Fun Publications ran Transformers:Timelines. A collection of stories told through comics, magazines, and text stories. Timelines told various stories in different universes like...

Classics- An alternate continuation of the Marvel G1 comics

Transtech- A highly advanced world where the Great War never happen and a inter-dimensional hub where dimensional travelers end up.

Shattered Glass-The Transformers version of the Mirror Universe where the Heroic Decepticons clashed against the Evil Autobots.

Wings of Honor-A sort of retelling of the G1 cartoon as it tells stories from the early days of the Great War. Later on, it told tales set after season 4 of the the original cartoon, to the tail end of the Great War that would lead to the world of Beast Wars.

Beast Wars Uprising- A dark future where the Great War ended due to lack of power and everyone is kicked off of Earth. The Autobots and the Decepticons treated their descendants, the Maximals and Predacons as 2nd-class citizens and made them fight in gladiator arenas but soon, a rebellion is coming.

And that's there main range of their stuff. There's a ton more out there.


It does gets very complex and confusing. A dozen background characters will suddenly get focus on. They mention the various universes in the multiverse and you have to try to look up Universal streams like Primax 984.17 Alpha for example. They don't go by Earth 1 or Earth 616. Later on, the universes will crossover with Shattered Glass universe invading the Classicsverse and you have good Autobots fighting evil Autobots and the Decepticons of both universes joining.


You may have to get used to see Gobots alot in these stories. Gobots were rival toyline/show of the Transformers that were owned by Tonka in the 80s. In the 90s, Hasbro bought Tonka and now have the rights to use Gobots characters. They did started appearing in Classics and Transtech as they fled from their universe as it gets destroyed(supposedly). Then years later, they were all over the place in TF:Timelines. The world of Beast Wars Uprising has an invasion of Monster Gobots. Shattered Glass in it's last year was focusing on these guys.

The Ask Vector Prime column was a Q&A thing on Facebook and revealing obscured Transformers stuff. At one point, he took a break and other guests ran the page while Vector Prime was gone. We had famous characters like Grimlock, Sky-Byte, Animated Sentinel Prime, Sideways, then we get Cy-Kill from Gobots and suddenly, it wasn't about Transformers anymore. Gobots fans may enjoy all this but not everyone was into it.


You also have multiverisal singularities where the Transformers creator god Primus and his evil brother Unicron exist as one being in the entire multiverse. Then there's the Original Thirteen, Primus' original children made at the dawn of time. None of them have alternate universe counterparts, they only exist as one single being. This will caused multiversal headaches when your trying to wrap your head around the Fallen from the 2nd Micheal Bay movie and see how it connect the Dreamwave comics or how Unicron from Armada same exact guy from the Marvel comics or the G1 cartoon. They undid all this in 2015 in another multiversal crisis where singularities ceased to be and became separate beings in who can exist in different universes. This was due to all the later versions of Transformers try to be their own thing with their own origin stories and they don't need to be restricted by some stuff told in a bi-monthly magazine.

And some are you wondering, how does Primacron connect to a dark god opposite of the creator god of the Transformers? How can Unicron be one person in the multiverse if the original cartoon said he was build by a ancient space monkey. Well Fun Pub said that the scientist Primacron saw into other realities and saw the dark god. He was inspired to make "His" Unicron. So basically, the Unicron in the G1 cartoon is not a muliverisal dark god but a copycat.