#spychangers

[askvectorprime]

Dear, Vector Prime.

What kind of Cybertronian is Viron cluster Jazz?

Dear Jazz Justifier,

Jazz is a former Spychanger who became a musician, known for her vivacious personality and her energetic sound, with a style of songwriting that challenges the status quo and appeals to Autobots and Predacons alike. Her rivals are the sensational Decepticon sisters, Soundwave and Space Case, who once challenged her to a musical competition during one of Jazz's performances on Earth.

[raurquiz]

#transfomers #carrobots #robotsindisguise #22thanniversary #cybertron #autobot #fireconvoy #godmagnus #machalert #wildride #sideburn #spychangers #jrx #bravemaximus #destron #decepticon #gigatron #predacon #blackconvoy #scourge #actionfigures @takaratomytoys @Hasbro @SixoTF

[transingthoseformers]

Goddamn y'all are packing into these tunnels like sardines, you're gonna regret that

[yes-i-write-fanfiction]

The meeting room of the Lost Light was cramped-far more than it usually was.

"So, you're saying, Brainstorm, that your device malfunctioning during a dimension jump scrambled our appearances," Ultra Magnus said, narrowing his eyes. The sleeker form of his armor and the lack of nose did little to hide the anger.

Brainstorm nodded awkwardly, his wings twitching. "Yeah. I know you warned me not to, but I had to get the readings."

Megatron groaned. He was all sleek, dark gunmetal-gray-and-red, and a few feet taller than he'd been previously. "Well, at least our voices didn't change much." He narrowed his eyes-an ominous look in this form. "Small comforts, perhaps, but comforts nonetheless."

Rodimus let out a huff. "Speak for yourself," he grumbled, a which French accent coloring his words. "I think the accent's neat, but I wish I could turn it off."

Magnus sighed, bringing a hand up to his faceplate. "Rung, how are you holding up?" He asked the therapist.

From where he was sitting, Rung frowned. The therapist was currently sixty feet tall, inhabiting a massive blue-and-gray form with kibble that looked suspiciously like Cybertron. He squirmed uncomfortably in his too-small seat. 

"I'm fine, Magnus." Despite his voice being significantly deeper than it normally was to an almost absurd level, his speech patters and intonations were the same, at least. "I'm at least capable of size-changing, so I don't break the ship." He shuffled in his seat, grimacing as he tried to fit. "Although, this form is extremely cumbersome."

"Can't you change back?" Tailgate asked from his position next to Cyclonus. "I've seen you periodically flicker between forms when you get emotional, so can't you change back-or change us back?"

"The malfunction locked me to this form," Rung replied, discomfort clear on his face. "And thanks to the Shroud, I'd need to be outside time or in Aurex 802.23 Alpha with the Cyber Planet Keys to fix this."

"Well, look on the bright side, Spectacles!" He chirped, slapping a hand onto Rung's back. "At least you have the biggest cannons on the ship!"

Rung rolled his eyes. (It was seriously impressive how he could do that with no visible pupils.) "Not the time, Whirl," he said. He shifted his luminous pink gaze to Brainstorm. "Brainstorm, Perceptor, do you know how to fix this?" 

"That depends!" Perceptor replied, his attention diverted from his wheels. "Where are we in the Multiverse?"

"Viron 1103.12 Gamma," Rung replied without missing a beat. 

"And what's in this universe that sets it apart from others?"

"The Optimus Prime of this world is a yellow Spychanger, and female." 

Rodimus blinked. "Optimus is female here?!"

Rung made an awkward face and shrugged, making everyone around him jump back to avoid being smacked by his cannons and bits of mini-Cybertron. "It's surprisingly not more common?" 

"Focus!" Megatron snapped, bringing his hands down on the table. "Rung, can you help Perceptor and Brainstorm?" At Rung's nod, Megatron took his hands off the table and stood back. "Good. Brainstorm, Perceptor, Rung, find a way to return us to normal. Until then, work on keeping the peace and familiarizing yourself with our current forms. Dismissed."

Megatron watched the crew slowly disperse and file out of the room (Rung taking the longest to awkwardly maneuver his way out of the door with his height, kibble, and weapons), and slumped down in his chair. He reached up to pinch at his nose in frustration, remembered he didn't have a nose at the moment, and groaned again.

Magnus came up behind him. "They'll fix it," he said reassuringly. "If nothing else, we jump to the universe Rung mentioned and have him fix it"

"I'm more concerned about how many people will get hurt before we do," Megatron replied. "The entire crew was changed-and none of us have the instincts or knowledge that come with our altered frames."

"Rung does have weapons," Ultra Magnus realized, "He accidentally engaged his shoulder cannons when he was trying to get everyone in Swerve's Bar to be quiet." He looked at the door. "And while I trust Rung, I don't trust anyone else with them."

Megatron nodded, turning to face Megazarak. (Why was his shoulder kibble so large?) "Agreed," He said simply. "Until this is fixed, we have to be careful."

(I'm sorry if anyone is OOC: they're all stressed and upset from the transformations. Also, Rung's not able to fix this because of Multiverse Shenaniganery.  List of everyone's appearances:  Megatron: TFA. (I write IDW Megatron with TFA's voice, so it fit.) Rodimus: Bayverse (Accent included.) Ultra Magnus: TFP (including a theoretical TFP Minimus) Cyclonus: TFA Tailgate: Original G1. Ratchet: Bayverse Whirl: Rescue Bots Academy Brainstorm: TFP (Yes, I know there's no canon TFP Brainstorm.) Perceptor: Unicron Trilogy/Armada Rung: Transformers Cybertron Primus (Albeit much, much smaller).

Also, they fixed it in the end. Rung didn't even have to jump into another reality!)

I am laughing at the idea of Rung (now huge) sitting in this tiny chair, shoulders hunched, hands clasped and looking super uncomfortable because his head is still touching the ceiling, even when sitting down.

[earthstellar]

Transformers: Lost Media Post!

So, as with any long-running franchise, there are a few bits of Transformers media lost or presumed lost (might exist but has not been publicly released, is in private ownership, was never included in a final cut or broadcast copy, etc).

The Lost Media Wiki has organised some of this lost media into helpful pages, which I will link and summarise here for anyone interested! :)

The Transformers: The Movie (1986) - Missing Scenes

The movie itself obviously isn't lost, but there are scenes from the film that appeared to be fully animated but not included in the final release of the film that have never been located.

At least one scene was fully storyboarded, suggesting it made it far enough into production to possibly have been animated which may have then gone missing as it was never made available as part of any final cut or subsequent release.

[The screenshot above is taken from the YouTube video of the scene, available on the Lost Media Wiki page; The link in the paragraph above goes to the collection of Sunbow Animation storyboard archives, which includes other missing script-only or storyboarded-only sequences from the film during various stages of development.]

Some scenes/shots shown in trailers for the film were at least animated in part but never included in the final version of the film.

G1 Transformers Missing Japanese Clip Show Episodes: 戦え! 超ロボット生命体 トランスフォーマー

11 unique clip show episodes in total were made for the Japanese release of G1, none of which have ever been found.

The content of the clip shows is unknown, only that they re-used animation and possibly scenes left intact from prior/other episodes (it is unclear how exactly they may have been edited or re-dubbed to make a unique clip show episode), and they have never been included on any Japanese regional DVD, VHS, or other official collections of Transformers Japanese language media.

Transformers Victory: Japanese Language Clip Show Episodes

Although the English dub versions of Transformers Victory by Omni Productions have been made available by Shout! Factory, as with the prior G1 missing clip shows, there are 6 unique Japanese broadcast only clip show episodes of this series which have been lost.

There are an additional 6 Japanese only home video/VHS episodes, five of which have been found on the Pioneer DVD releases, but one of which remains missing.

Found Missing Media: Transformers RID - Spychangers to the Rescue

This one is an example of the types of edits made to many animated shows following 9/11, in which many shows featuring anything involving explosions, city settings, planes, the Twin Towers themselves (or references to any of these things or anything similar) were heavily edited to remove any such content, with the originals never getting re-broadcast or re-released.

(Shows that could not be edited, for example shows that entirely took place in New York where backgrounds would constantly show the Twin Towers etc., were never re-aired in most cases, or only re-aired many years later/released on a direct to DVD basis.)

The reason this episode was re-dubbed is because the original plot involved a generator which would explode if impacted and release gas across the city, which may have resembled or otherwise brought to mind the large dust clouds caused by the collapse of the Twin Towers a little too closely for the broadcasters to feel comfortable leaving the original dialogue about gas and explosions intact.

It was changed in an attempt to lessen the emphasis on explosion and potential harm to the city.

The threat of explosion featured as a major concern in the episode also may have resembled the initial belief that perhaps a bomb had gone off in the Twin Towers, before most people realised it was actually a collision from a plane that caused the first visible damage to the first tower-- It took a moment for people to figure out what was actually happening on 9/11. Initial reports assumed it had been a bomb.

Much of the episode also involves the cast getting caught in traffic in and around the city, which may have resembled or evoked thoughts of the notorious difficulties in evacuating/clearing out roads during the immediate aftermath of 9/11 when everyone was, to put it lightly, fucking panicking.

I remember this all very clearly, but I'm explaining this stuff for those of you who may not have clear memories of the day or for those of you who may be from outside the USA and never saw the initial American news broadcasts which were covering all of this live.

Without this context, the edits made to this episode and why this episode was scrutinised so heavily following 9/11 may not make sense! But I hope it makes a little more sense now.

Any of these "pre-9/11 edit" episodes of pretty much any animated series are hard to find, as almost none of the original episodes are available except on personally owned taped versions, many of which are sadly poor quality owing to VHS recorder tech not being super amazing in general.

Thankfully, AnonyTF over on YouTube had a VHS recording of this episode featuring the originally broadcast English dubbed version, so everyone can enjoy it in it's originally intended state!

The Transformers (2007) - Lost IMAX Edition

The IMAX release of the film had some known alterations, edits, and alternate/new scenes added to it.

However, since Michael Bay has said he will never release these IMAX exclusive scenes or release the IMAX cut on any home media, it is safe to say that they do exist in some form, but will not be made publicly available.

Yet another reason to dislike Michael Bay, but I digress.

Conclusion: Lost Media Can Be Found!

Just because these bits and pieces are missing at the moment, doesn't mean we'll never see them, if they do still exist (or in some cases, if they ever did in the first place).

I get the feeling that with the Japanese language missing media, this might partially be a language barrier issue; It'll be harder for any English speaking only fans to find Japanese language only media, same as with trying to find any foreign language media when you don't necessarily speak that language and therefore might also be missing certain regional resources or other context that would help find it otherwise.

(Not to say there aren't Japanese fans also looking for these episodes-- There almost certainly are! But English speaking only nerds might find themselves struggling to aid in the search.)

Plus, other mecha shows were (and generally have been) more popular than Transformers in terms of Japanese broadcast TV ratings. To be fair, Japan has a very broad selection of mecha shows, all of which are pretty good! And it's not like Transformers isn't popular in Japan, it just isn't as popular as quite a few other mecha genre staples which tend to top the charts in that region.

At the time of airing, G1 Transformers had some hot competition in Japan-- It's very possible that if someone only had a couple blank tapes on hand, they may have simply chosen to record something else that they were a little more interested in. (Remember that it wasn't as easy or as cheap to record stuff back then-- Choices had to be made!)

(TakaraTomy, Hasbro's Japanese partner, seems to be very aware of the persistently strong regional competition; Remember the Transformers x Evangelion crossover they made? It's fucking great. And they knew it would have broader appeal as a crossover to Takara's local Japanese audience/figure collectors than just releasing a plain ol' repaint of Optimus Prime. There aren't many mecha shows/franchises in the west, but there sure as hell are in the Japanese media market, so competition remains pretty tough in that region.)

There may not have been as much interest/incentive for Japanese audiences to record these G1/Victory clip shows at the time of original broadcast for various reasons, or if someone did record it, they may not even realise they're sitting on a valuable piece of lost media!

It's also entirely possible that it's all floating around somewhere, and nobody's realised it yet. The original broadcasting networks might have copies in storage that nobody's had to mess with in years. And so on.

There's all kinds of reasons for media, even popular media or niche appeal media with a strong fanbase, to go missing.

But you never know; Stuff can pop up in personal collections, local media archives, library video storage, defunct websites, in broadcast network/studio storage, and all sorts of places!

So I do hope that one day, we do get to see some of the missing Japanese G1/Victory episodes. :)

And it would be cool to get a hold of any of the original movie scenes as well, if any of them were ever fully animated (or saved anywhere, if they were)!

As for the IMAX edition situation, well, that's just Bay being an asshole. At least we know that version of the film does still exist though, even if it's not available publicly! So hey, maybe one day he'll give up and let it be released in some form. Who knows. lol

---

Anyway, this got way longer than I thought it would be-- Mostly because I had to contextualise 9/11 media edits to explain the whole RID episode situation, but hopefully all of that context is helpful and makes the re-dubbing of that episode make a little more sense.

If you read through all of this, thank you as always!!! :) <3

If there are any Japanese TF fans out there reading this, I'd love to hear from you, if you might have any thoughts on the Japanese missing media! :)

I have very little experience with any Japanese Transformers material out there (primarily due to language barrier and lack of access to Japanese releases, in my case), so it would be lovely to speak with fans who have a much better idea of Transformers Japanese media in general.

[aviatrix-ash]

Been meaning to finish a better full body design for a TFA Splendid (convoy) Prime. Started to base much of her design on TFA Fire Prime, but Ultra Magnus' proportions fit this stronk butch firefighter gal much better (especially as I was using her SpyChanger figure for reference). She turns into a Cybertronian version of an ARFF firetruck and lives with her girlfriend Red Alert. :)

[asknarashikari]

Continuation from the last ask.

After Houou got his life back to normal and has been informed about what has in the last 6 months, the Autobots send more Autobots/Maximals/Decepticons/Predacons to protect the Gotchard Cast because plot Houou doesn't have anybody and also to protect the Mini-cons from getting into the villains hands. Houou is assigned Big Convoy, the One-Man Army Maximal, Silverbolt, the chivalrous Eagle Wolf Fuzor, Knock Out, the gay snobbish Decepticon medic who cares a lot about his paint job, and Sky-Byte, the Shark Decepticon poet, scholar, and brilliant and cultured military general desperate for approval. In addition to Houou, the other Gotchard Cast members get one more Autobot/Maximal and Decepticon/Predacon except Houtaro who only gets one more Decepticon/Predacon due to Soundblaster being his assigned Autobot. Houtaro is assigned Ransack, a tough-talking and straightforward warrior grasshopper Decepticon. Rinne is assigned the all female Autobot team, Torchbearers that combine to form Victorion, that consist of Pyra Magna, the thoughtful fire truck leader, Jumpstream, the loyal supercar, Dust Up, the active sports car, Stormclash, the violent helicopter, Skyburst, the merciful helicopter, and Rust Dust, the upbeat motorcycle, and the Decepticon combiner Megatronia, who consists of Megaempress and all 4 of her female guards. Spanner is assigned Scuba, the loner and skilled squid Maximal, and BW Dead End, the ideal ammonite Predacon soldier. Lachesis is assigned the Autobot combiner Elita-Infin1te, comprised of Elita-1, Moonracer, Firestar, Lancer, and Jazz, the expert Autobot who admires Earth's culture, along with the Predacon Combiner God Neptune comprised of Halfshell, the greedy-yet-generous tortoise leader, Scylla, the lovesick squid of pristine beauty, Coelagon, the wise coelacanth, Terrormander, the youthful manta ray slacker, and Sea Phantom, the tough shark with limbs who favours surprise attacks. Renge and Sabimaru are assigned the Autobot combiner of the Build Team, Landfill, compromised of Wedge the bulldozer, Heavy Load the dump truck, construction Grimlock the excavator, and Hightower the crane truck, along with Scourge, the ruthless and cunning Decepticon/Predacon warrior who looks like Optimus Prime. Also helping this group are the Spychangers, Cybertronians that specialize in espionage, Guard City, the Autobot Combiner, and Brave Maximus, the new base of operations for all of the Cybertronians assigned to the Gotchard Cast and can turn into a space ship for transport needs.

What are the Riders reaction to seeing all of these newly assigned Cybertronians going to Gotchard Cast to protect them and the Mini-cons from the hands of evil villains like Megatron or anyone else.

[liaswritesrobots]

[siphersaysstuff]

MATCHBOTS!

So for August's Patreon-backed @tfwiki picture update, I thought I'd follow up on the Generation 2 vibe from last month (and with the release of the G2-heavy Toxitron Collection) and (almost) complete the run of Go-Bot mold toys! Introduced in 1995, these little 1:64-scale bots were made to be compatible with Matchbox and Hot Wheels tracks and playsets, and this mold-set would be redecoed a LOT over the following decade. Motormouth above, for example, first caem with transparent robot bits, but the second-wave release was entirely opaque.

Fellow second-waver OPTIMUS PRIME is mostly just an opaque version of wave 1's clear-red Firecracker, but with some extra blue paint on the helmet to make him Optimussier.

Wave 3 was all classic G1 bots in strange new decos. Say hi to BUMBLEBEE, FRENZY, IRONHIDE and MIRAGE (the decos were probably picked before the names were).

Wave 3 SOUNDWAVE is infamous for his bright deco. But what's with that Takara version, with Wave-2 opaque Gearhead's robot parts? Well, that's because the Takara release was gang-molded with...

...the Takara-release MEGATRON and OPTIMUS PRIME, the only three Go-Bots released in Japan. Basically, all 6 Go-Bots are cast from the same set of molds, so if you change one plastic color on any of the 6, you're changing the color for several others in the set. As demonstrated here...

See the pattern? Bear in mind that the rightmost bots have green and gold paint on their car panels, the underlying plastic is black.

These molds would be re-used as the "Spychangers" for 2000's Takara series Car Robots, which got imported as Robots in Disguise in 2001, and I'm not going into all of THOSE here. But there's a lot (the top row on the above pic is just the start!), and I'm focusing on the new pics, so moving on...

Late in the 2003 Universe line, a new batch of G1 characters in Spychanger form were released as KB Toys exclusives, using a set of molds originally planned for G2 but ultimately not released until RiD, like SILVERSTREAK on the left, and new molds made specifically for RiD, like OPTIMUS PRIME here.

The very last release of a Go-Bot/Spychanger style mold came in late 2007, when Takara offered a free "OPTIMUS PRIME FIGURE" with the preorder of the 2007 Transformers movie on DVD/HD-DVD through Paramount Pictures Japan. This little sucker is extensively painted, let me tell you.

And with this, I've taken wiki pics of 76 out of the 88 "finished" Go-Bots/Spychanger toys! Only 12 rare/unreleased items left! Whoadang! ALSO… I've now made over 2500 toy pics for the wiki, many of which are multi-toy pics! Jambalaya, that's a lotta bots!

If you like what I do here and want to get me to a total of 3000 pics faster, I do have a Patreon! You can help get more and more pics out every month, and even pick a theme!

Check it out at patreon dot com slash gregstfwikipics!

[allsoundwavesarebeautiful]

overall, i liked Car Robots. Sky-Byte was definitely the highlight, but i also liked Optimus and Ultra Magnus. Gigatron had his moments but he didn't really do a lot. Scourge was interesting until he got brainwashed. the comedy hit pretty often for me; i laughed more at this one than i think i have any Transformers so far. it just put me in a good mood...so much so i'm tempted to turn right around and start the dub. i have a feeling that hammy early-2000's voice acting and weird changes might delight more than frustrate me in this case.

that said, i simply don't mind animation shortcuts and flat characterization. those were the show's two main flaws imo. what animation was there was not exactly bad, but they reuse a lot of shots and that severely brings down the pace especially when binging. the characters aren't bad, but a lot of them are little more than concept sketches, like most of the Decepticons and the Spychangers. everyone has a little moment here or there, but there are only really a couple "arcs": Sky-Byte becoming an unintentional (unwilling) good guy, and Ultra Magnus softening towards the Autobots. i don't count Scourge's betrayal because that felt more like a plot twist than an arc. it sorta came out of nowhere and was resolved quickly.

the final few episodes felt slapdash, the rules surrounding Fortress Maximus confused me, most of Kelly's scenes were aggravating (in large part because Side Burn's whole gimmick really super grated on me) several sections of the plot felt underbaked and honestly not a whole lot happens. but there were interesting ideas, a lot of fun, and Sky-Byte is the goodest shark ever, which is good enough for me

[dangus-doo]

I draw a pen doodle every day until I forget

Day 173: Spychangers Optimus Prime (Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2001))

I wanted to draw Optimus Prime today, so I picked one I hardly ever think about, RID 01 Optimus! I love the design of his super mode, and I love the spychanger toy for exclusively using the super mode as the toy’s robot mode. I wish the Cybertron Legends figure did that somehow…

He can hold his cannon under his arm like this, and it reminds me of how Armada Megatron Underslung his fusion cannon. So I drew it!

I would love to get my hands on the yellow version of this figure, so I can have the definitive female Optimus prime to add to my prime shelf, but it hasn’t happened yet. Someday…

[solarzilla]

During the Worlds Collide story arc, Jetfire caught a glimpse of some universes being a Beast Wars world, 2001 RID, Tankot from Beast Machines, and Big Convoy. So far two universes have confirmed here being Viron 1103.12 Gamma (rid) & Primax 1103.12-R Gamma (g1/bm)

In the Viron universe, it's Optimus (and thus Scourge) are actually ladies and all of the autobots were spychangers because Sky-Byte accidentally made all of Earth's energon toxic. Later on, Optimus and her group would be later join the Universe War as Children of Primus

The Beast Machines universe's Rattrap, Thrust, and Terrorsaur would be snatched their universe. Though they would later be freed by Primal's crew.

The glimpses of universes with Rattrap, Tigatron, and Big Convoy haven't been confirmed, tho with Dreamwave attempting to create a Beast Wars comic series i.e. Shell Game which did have Magmatron, could be possible that they're from Primax 302.06 Gamma, the Dreamwave universe

[hasbr0mniverse]

Transformers Robots In Disguise 2001 - Autobot W.A.R.S. - Function: Autobot Wicked Attack Recon Sportscar - Subgroup: Spychangers - W.A.R.S. is an aggressive warrior who loves to fight. He is covered in thick armor and specializes in body-slam attacks. His violent actions frighten both his allies and enemies. He has a machine gun that he fires non-stop when in battle. “I Dare You To Come And Get Me!”

[transingthoseformers]

Earthspark Megatron: He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake?! Optimus surely you must agree that Santa has a spy network all over the world?

Earthspark Optimus: Please next thing you'll tell me is that the Elf that sits upon the shelf is a spychanger?

ES Megs: Isn't that what they do, SPY!? Santa Claus uses deception to spy upon the people of Earth. His dedication is impressive.

ES Optimus: Maybe he is a Prime? Maybe he has tapped into the Powers of the Primes? How else is he traveling all over the world in one night?

ES Megs: He has duplicates Optimus! They're everywhere, at the mall, in parking lots, everywhere! He must have access to some kind of cloning machine.

ES Optimus: Aren't they just regular people wearing santa outfits?

ES Megs: That's exactly what they want you to think, Optimus.

Megs is this close to setting up a christmas themed conspiracy board

[sternerstufftoys]

Whoops! Had a #parkbot with me this morning, and completely forgot to post it. Anyway it's Mirage GT! I presume the GT stands for gin and tonic, as he looks he appreciates a good tipple. Another Beast Machines redeco for RID, and I really wish we'd had more of them. There was an Obsidian, a couple of Jetstorms, but no Tankors or Thrusts, which is a damn shame. In fact, those two never got any redecos, did they? Damn shame. Anyway, Mirage GT has these tiny little thighs and massive calves, fires his own exhaust pipes as missiles (which can't be healthy) and has a gun where the driver should go. Somehow he's supposed to be the same guy as the goofy Spychanger who had an episode in the cartoon where he learned sign language. I don't see the resemblance myself.

[srkizer]

there's something about spychangers' attack postures that i don't recall seeing from any others