TF Continuity

[formerly nortagem]

For all discussions on TF continuity and multiversal singularities, please post HERE! :thumb

 

I wasn't saying he did - I'm saying that if Hasbro cared as much about this particular element of continuity as you continue to maintain, then this error would never have appeared in the first place. But it has appeared, and from that we can infer that either Hasbro doesn't care, or that they did care but Bay continued on regardless. The fact that the novelization got it right, the comic adaptation got it right only underscores the fact that the film - with an audience of millions - got it wrong... all under Hasbro's watch.

 

I absolutely, wholeheartedly agree that the error can be retroactively fixed - indeed, I would be very surprised if the question wasn't tabled to Forest Lee or someone similar at the next convention, and a fix will be applied. "Don't worry guys - I know Jetfire said 'seven', but that's cause only seven Primes actually came to Earth"... or "Don't worry, he said 'seven' but he's old and actually meant 'thirteen'..." So on, so on. This is changing continuity.

 

However, it does not change real life history - that the film contained a reference to 'seven', when it should have been 'thirteen'. Again, we aren't arguing about whether or not the situation is fixable - I think you think that it is, and I certainly think that it is. I am simply arguing that it shouldn't have needed fixing if Hasbro were as concerned about multiversal status as you maintain they are.

Yes, it would. Look at what happened with Brawl in the first movie with his being called "Devastator" in the subtitles, and the mess that surrounded that. Hasbro went on record saying that this was a continuity error in the film. It was an error that had been repeatedly been brought to people's attention but still managed to slip through the cracks. So, it's not too hard to believe that some things just slipped through.

 

Can you point me to a quote by Orci and Kurtzman on how they were planning to use the Thirteen? I've been able to find some statements about drawing on the source material, and especially the comics, and finding what they were looking for in the character of the Fallen... nothing about the Thirteen though. Similarly, I wasn't able to find a statement by Hasbro to the effect that they in desperate need of a definitive origin story. If you could point me to these things, I would be extremely grateful. :)

I believe it's in the All New "Hey Roberto" Thread over on the Don Murphy message boards. Unfortunately, that thread has well over 23,000 replies, so going through them all to find one post would take weeks. There are also a number of interviews where he talks about where he got The Fallen from, and the like, such as this quote here:

Talk about the process of deciding what robots to keep, what robots to add. There are so many of these characters that you have to pick from. How do you winnow them down, how do you add the new ones, integrate them?

 

Orci: Well, the easier one, obviously, is the fact that we inherit certain ones from the previous movie and from the fact that Prime and Bumblebee are kind of the two front-and-center relationships. ... In terms of villains, it was again going back to all the source material. ... We got a bunch of the comics again, we got a bunch of the old cartoons, and just started looking for kind of the most elemental bad guy that kind of jumped off the material, and we found one in the Fallen.—Roberto Orci Sci Fi Wire interview

 

Here's a quote by Alex Kurtzman from another interview:

TrekMovie: What did Ehren bring to the sequel

 

Alex Kurtzman: Ehren is a fantastic writer on his own and has made ten movies. We knew that we would have to dig deeper into the Transformers mythology in this one and there would be an expectation, certainly from fans, that we would know more about the robots. And Ehren had been pouring through Transformers lore and had culled the right ideas and so we took the big emotional idea that we had and a lot of the plotting that Ehren had and found a way to marry them.

 

TrekMovie.com: The Fallen is a character from the Transformer mythos. How does The Fallen play into this film?

 

Alex Kurtzman: I think we always saw The Fallen as a Lucifer story. He was an angel who fell and turned against the others, and that is how we reflected him in the movie.—Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman on TrekMovie.com

 

 

In an article in Toyfare Lorenzo DiBonaventura also confirmed that The Fallen was one of the Original Thirteen, and discussed a little about who they were. It includes a summery of the article originally posted on TFW2005. The summary is as follows:

 

- Images of ROTF toys for Leader class Optimus Prime, Preview Bumblebee, Preview Soundwave, and the Voyager Class Starscream figure.

- Lorenzo believes the timeframe of ROTF is about one year after Movie #1.

- When asked about the challenge of creating Devastator on screen, Lorenzo mentions that Bay had the challenge in the first movie of having 30 foot robots. In the second movie, Bay has the challenge of having a robot almost four times that. Expect Devastator to be 100 to 120 feet tall in the movie.

- Archer said he couldn't give away the plot point, but there's a reason that Soundwave is designed the way he is for the movie. Hasbro had a more basic toy need. So, the two were blended together.

- Toy launch date confirmed as May 30th. A few weeks before, Bumblebee and Soundwave will be released.

- Characters mentioned in the initial wave are "Sideswipe, Sideways, Bulldozer, Voyager and many others". Promise of more off-screen characters.

- Robot Heroes will have better articulation

- Bumblebee helmet has voice mixer

- Bumblebee converting pulse cannon

- Big ticket deluxe item for the year is still "top-secret"

- Gravity Bots are geared towards younger kids. Convert automatically when you pick them up.

- A Megan Fox Human Alliance figure is on Archer's "wish list".

- The Fallen's origin confirmed: He is one of the original 13 Transformers. Lorenzo said to think of the 13 as "apostles". The Fallen is the one who turns and is the reason Transformers split into Autobots and Decepticons.

—Lorenzo DiBonaventura talks about RotF.

 

I believe you are correct in stating that Hasbro worked with and / or potentially vetoed the filmmakers to ensure that Optimus Prime retained certain characteristics as befitting his iconic status. (I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the same applies also to Megatron.) What this tells me is that Hasbro take the cinematic depiction of Optimus Prime very seriously, and that he forms a very important part of the Transformers franchise. There has to be a reason, after all, that Optimus Prime and Megatron (or analogs thereof) have appeared in virtually every single continuity and played such incredibly prominent roles.

 

Regarding Unicron sharing this very same iconic status, well... would you say he's as important as Optimus Prime and Megatron?

 

I mean sure, he was pretty pivotal as the main antagonist in the 1986 movie. And certainly, his disembodied head served something of a purpose in season three of the G1 cartoon. The Marvel comic was pretty fond of him, and there's a reason the AEC trilogy is also referred to as "The Unicron Trilogy". But has he had the same amount of exposure as Prime and Megatron? It doesn't seem even close, does it?

 

A simple thought exercise: Michael Bay walks into Brian Goldner's office and says "Brian, it's this character. I know you said that it was important Optimus Prime be red and blue, but we did some test footage, and... well, it looks silly. We really need to change this."

 

What would Brian Goldner say?

 

Now, replace 'Optimus Prime' with 'Unicron' and 'red and blue' with 'orange'.

 

Do you think Brian Golder would still have the same response?

 

And let's try to quantify precisely how 'iconic' Unicron's appearance is. You talked about how Unicron's appearance hasn't changed much from one depiction to another - but that's not really all that surprising, as he hasn't had much opportunity to change! Heck, one could even argue that Uncron's outer appearance in the trilogy bearing his name was, in many respects, a homage to his 1986 look. One might as well argue that the Autobot scientist Flame has an indisputably iconic appearance, because every time he appears, he always looks the same. It doesn't matter that he's only ever appeared once, right? If Prime and Megatron have changed so many times, it's because they have appeared so frequently... an honour that has not been bestowed on Unicron.

 

And let's come at this from another tangent. If Hasbro were willing to work with and / or veto the filmmakers on the appearance of Optimus Prime, but not take action on the 'seven / thirteen' issue... that's a pretty strong indication that Hasbro care considerably more about Optimus Prime than the Thirteen, right? There's a very strong inference there that multiversal entity status doesn't actually seem to confer any special protection from radical interpretation, at least not as much as iconicism does.

 

Now, a quick note on the subject of 'fan veto'... as far as the movies are concerned, no such thing exists. Sure, the fans reacted badly after Megatron's first facial design was leaked - and not longer after, and in the face of bad publicity, the filmmakers released new images of an updated and improved facial design. However, this is but one example in the face of many counter-examples - for instance, the fans also wanted Frank Welker as the voice of Megatron. I don't think I need to tell you that the fan veto did not come into effect that time. :)

 

Lastly, I am still waiting to see an argument as to how Unicron's importance to the mythology trumps Michael Bay's twice-demonstrated ability to deliver box office and toy product sales. Imagine the following conversation:

 

Michael Bay: "We want to use Unicron in the next movie."

Brian Goldner: "Unicron? That's great! We love Unicron."

Michael Bay: "But there's a hitch."

Brian Goldner: "What's the hitch?"

Michael Bay: "We just don't have the technology to render a planet-sized transformer yet."

Brian Goldner: "So what are you going to do?"

Michael Bay: "We want to turn him into a cloud."

Brian Goldner: "A cloud?"

Michael Bay: "A menacing, ravenous cloud that eats planets."

Brian Goldner: "Well... that might work... but it's a pretty big change to our mythos. Why should I let you do this?"

Michael Bay: "Well, it would mean sales. You could probably break the $700 million mark."

 

Brian Goldner: "Hmm... the shareholders do like money. Cloud it is!"

 

...or...

 

Brian Goldner: "No way, mister! Any other character, I wouldn't say no - but Unicron's appearance is a longstanding, iconic part of our mythos - a mythos we need to protect! I don't care how much money you think you can deliver to my company - Unicron is and forever will be a giant orange planet-eating robot! My god, Hasbro might collapse or worse if we started fiddling with the visual design of the one and only multiversal Chaosbringer!"

Unicron does indeed share that same iconic status as Optimus Prime and Megatron. When you say the name Unicron, it immediately conjures up a specific image. That being of a huge, horned robot that transforms into a planet which devours worlds. His demonic appearance, and massive size, his alternate mode, etc. are very iconic images, just as much as Optimus Prime.

 

Well, you're just telling me something I already know - that an origin story is important element of any mythos. I can even see the point of having a unified origin story - i.e. Hasbro putting down in their franchise bible "There is Primus, there is Unicron, there were thirteen original Transformers" and insisting that this applies to all series backwards and forwards.

 

What I don't understand is the point of having a multiversal origin story that ties together every continuity. What advantage does this bring? Why is it not enough that each continuity can have similar talking points - why must they also all technically cross-link via a very confused dimension-hopping narrative? What is so important about the Dreamwave Fallen being the same as movie Fallen that warrants introducing all sorts of problems and potentially limiting future narrative expansion?

 

Furthermore: I do not know if this is considered actual, current canon or if it has been superseded recently, but my understanding is that Unicron is a multiversal entity - there is one of him, hopping from continuity to continuity... and that Primus is a multiversal entity, in that there is one of him, but he exists in every continuity simultaneously. Now call me crazy, but... don't those seem like rather contradictory depictions of multiversal status?

 

They appear to be contradictory, yes, but they really aren't. First off, we're talking about gods here. Thus, they can do things which are well beyond anything we mere mortals can conceive or perceive. Their differences are a result of the parts they play in the grand scheme of things, and their inherently contradictory purposes and roles.

 

Primus is the Lord of Order. He is the protector of all of creation. In order to protect the entire multiverse, he needs to exist in all realities at once. His very being spread throughout the multiverse. He does this be existing as an astral being, connected to each reality through the Planet Cybertron, the having many physical forms, one in each reality, all connected to his single, central consciousness—the Allspark—through nodes and avatars like Vector Sigma, The Matrix of Leadership/Creation Matrix, the All Spark cube, etc. Thus, the Planet Cybertron in each reality is the physical body of Primus.

 

Unicron, however, is the ultimate force of chaos and destruction, a destroyer of realities. He consumes them individually, destroying one reality and then moving on to the next, like a predator that has consumed all of the available prey in an area needing to move on to a new territory. His predatory nature thus binds him to one reality at a time as he attempts to consume them each in turn.

 

That is why they have such different natures.

 

As to why it is so important, one of the reasons is that it was the central theme of an entire toy line and story line. Unicron drawing characters from throughout the multiverse and forcing them to battle in order to consume their sparks and simultaneously regenerate himself and weaken Primus, with Primus calling forth heroes from throughout the multiverse to stop him. This was the basis of the original Universe story line and toy line. The whole point was to create a single, unified, meta-continuity from which all of the others were connected while still being their own entities, with a single origin for all realites, thus making each continuity a divergent continuity from a single point of origin. The Unified Multiverse is also still a key part of the Timelines stories being put out by the OTFCC, with the main characters hopping from one reality to the next. It played a part on the Cybertron cartoon and comics, as well as the preceding Armada comics that Dreamwave had published before it went bankrupt. The multiversal nature of Primus, Unicron, and the Thirteen has been a central theme of much of the modern fiction. That is what makes it so important.

[Breaker]

A wizard did it.

[JOP]

For all discussions on TF continuity and multiversal singularities, please post HERE! :thumb

Thanks nort. :)

 

Yes, it would. Look at what happened with Brawl in the first movie with his being called "Devastator" in the subtitles, and the mess that surrounded that. Hasbro went on record saying that this was a continuity error in the film. It was an error that had been repeatedly been brought to people's attention but still managed to slip through the cracks. So, it's not too hard to believe that some things just slipped through.

You're just making my point for me - if errors in character names and numbers creep into the finished product, then clearly Hasbro aren't putting a whole lot of effort into guarding against such issues. Seriously - are you suggesting that if Hasbro had asked Forest Lee or some similar to watch the film once over, he wouldn't have caught the 'seven' error?

 

What if they made him watch the film twice?

What if they made him watch the film four times over?

 

Errors this simple don't 'slip through the cracks'... unless the cracks are the size of canyons.

 

I believe it's in the All New "Hey Roberto" Thread over on the Don Murphy message boards. Unfortunately, that thread has well over 23,000 replies, so going through them all to find one post would take weeks.

Yeah... I tried using the board tools to search through the thread or alternately through Orci's posts, but it kept coming up with zero results - whether the board search function is broken, or simply available to members only and guarded with a false results message, I don't know. I also tried using google to search the thread and got back six hundred results, but nothing with Orci specifically talking about the thirteen.

 

If only the search functionality wasn't toast... :shrug

 

As for the various writer quotes you supplied - all certainly interesting, but nothing specifically pertaining to the Thirteen. The quote attributed to Lorenzo di Bonaventura was certainly more interesting, although it still supports my point above - if one of the film's producers knew that there should have been 'thirteen', and instead we got 'seven', then that still means Bay changed a supposedly fundamental aspect of the Transformers universe, and nobody thought to correct him.

 

Unicron does indeed share that same iconic status as Optimus Prime and Megatron. When you say the name Unicron, it immediately conjures up a specific image. That being of a huge, horned robot that transforms into a planet which devours worlds. His demonic appearance, and massive size, his alternate mode, etc. are very iconic images, just as much as Optimus Prime.

So? Say the name 'Warpath', and one conjures an image of everyone's favourite dispenser of comic book sound effects. Would you say that on this basis, Warpath is as iconic as Prime?

 

The problem here is that you are confusing Unicron's individual iconcism - his 'memorability factor', if you will - with importance as an iconic element of the franchise. As I said earlier - there is a very good reason why Prime and Megatron (or analogs thereof) have appeared in virtually every continuity, as have their respective forces. These are iconic elements of the franchise. They are a fundamental part of the Transformers brand formula.

 

Unicron is simply part of Transformers lore.

 

Think about this: the 1986 movie introduced Unicron and removed Prime and Megatron; it was a box office failure. The post-movie G1 cartoon only limped on for another season and a half. Unicron resurfaced in AEC, along with the first animated representation of Primus, and Hasbro were happy just to be doing $100 million of product sales per annum.

 

Michael Bay produces a single Transformers film, and - despite featuring only a handful of Transformers, none of which were Unicron - the end result is the near-quintupling of Hasbro's product sales.

 

Again - how does Unicron's importance to the mythology trump Michael Bay's twice-proven ability to deliver massive box office and toy product sales? If Michael Bay essentially offers Brian Golder $600 million worth of product sales at the expense of turning Unicron into a cloud, what is it about Unicron that will motivate Goldner to say no?

 

They appear to be contradictory, yes, but they really aren't. First off, we're talking about gods here. Thus, they can do things which are well beyond anything we mere mortals can conceive or perceive. Their differences are a result of the parts they play in the grand scheme of things, and their inherently contradictory purposes and roles.

I get all that, all I mean is...

 

The term 'multiversal entity' is being used to describe the idea that in a proposed multiverse, there is only one Unicron. Things must be pretty quiet in the G1 universe if Unicron is off eating the Armada universe and vice versa, right?

 

So the opposite of a multiversal entity - a regular, 'universal' entity if you will - is a character that exists in multiple (potentially all) universes. Optimus Prime is a universal entity - there's essentially an Optimus Prime in every continuity, and all these Primes could even meet up in a dimension-spanning adventure.

 

Now Primus, unlike Unicron, is a multiversal entity that exists in all universes simultaneously... well, isn't that what a universal entity does? (Now, if you want to say "Actually, a 'multiversal entity' is more like an incredibly powerful god that can take whatever form it desires' then that's all good and well... but that's not how the term was being thrown around earlier.)

 

Again, this isn't the end of the world - I'm sure there are ways in which the apparent contradiction can be explained away. I just bring it up because I think it indicates rather strongly that the people intimately involved with carefully and clearly laying the foundation of the mythos can't even seem to agree what 'multiversal' actually means before applying the term.

 

(Also, while we're ironing this stuff out... why is is that there is a Primus in every universe, but only one set of Thirteen? Did the Fallen actually die at the end of his titular revenge flick? If so, how is this going to effect the timeline - will all future appearances of the Fallen take place in the past? If the Fallen is tasked with overseeing entropy in the multiverse, what happens when he's gone?)

 

The multiversal nature of Primus, Unicron, and the Thirteen has been a central theme of much of the modern fiction. That is what makes it so important.

Oh, it's definitely been a popular subject of late. I'm just unclear as to the actual advantage of this multiversal business. Joining all the continuities together produces continuity conflicts and stifles creativity in future endeavours. On the bright side, we get in return... I don't know. I don't know what the bright side is.

 

A wizard did it.

Now, now - his name is Simon Furman. :rofl

[Tramp]

You're just making my point for me - if errors in character names and numbers creep into the finished product, then clearly Hasbro aren't putting a whole lot of effort into guarding against such issues. Seriously - are you suggesting that if Hasbro had asked Forest Lee or some similar to watch the film once over, he wouldn't have caught the 'seven' error?

 

What if they made him watch the film twice?

What if they made him watch the film four times over?

 

Errors this simple don't 'slip through the cracks'... unless the cracks are the size of canyons.

 

Actually, things like that slip through the cracks all of the time. They happened on more than one occasion in the Star Wars Prequels, for instance. One of the biggest was when Palpatine said "I will not let this republic, which has stood for a thousand years..." This statement was an error because it contradicted a specific piece of information already established about how long the Republic had been in existence. That statement came from A New Hope, the very first SW movie, when Ben Kenobi said, "For a thousand Generations, the Jedi knights have been guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic." Note the key words there, years verses generations. That one little gaff in the Prequels. No one caught it until after the movie came out. So, it really isn't that hard for an error like that to slip through.

 

Yeah... I tried using the board tools to search through the thread or alternately through Orci's posts, but it kept coming up with zero results - whether the board search function is broken, or simply available to members only and guarded with a false results message, I don't know. I also tried using google to search the thread and got back six hundred results, but nothing with Orci specifically talking about the thirteen.

 

If only the search functionality wasn't toast... :shrug

 

As for the various writer quotes you supplied - all certainly interesting, but nothing specifically pertaining to the Thirteen. The quote attributed to Lorenzo di Bonaventura was certainly more interesting, although it still supports my point above - if one of the film's producers knew that there should have been 'thirteen', and instead we got 'seven', then that still means Bay changed a supposedly fundamental aspect of the Transformers universe, and nobody thought to correct him.

No, it doesn't mean he changed a fundamental aspect of the mythos, it was simply an error, which, within the context of the story can be explained away very easily.

 

So? Say the name 'Warpath', and one conjures an image of everyone's favourite dispenser of comic book sound effects. Would you say that on this basis, Warpath is as iconic as Prime?

 

The problem here is that you are confusing Unicron's individual iconcism - his 'memorability factor', if you will - with importance as an iconic element of the franchise. As I said earlier - there is a very good reason why Prime and Megatron (or analogs thereof) have appeared in virtually every continuity, as have their respective forces. These are iconic elements of the franchise. They are a fundamental part of the Transformers brand formula.

 

Unicron is simply part of Transformers lore.

 

Think about this: the 1986 movie introduced Unicron and removed Prime and Megatron; it was a box office failure. The post-movie G1 cartoon only limped on for another season and a half. Unicron resurfaced in AEC, along with the first animated representation of Primus, and Hasbro were happy just to be doing $100 million of product sales per annum.

 

Michael Bay produces a single Transformers film, and - despite featuring only a handful of Transformers, none of which were Unicron - the end result is the near-quintupling of Hasbro's product sales.

 

Again - how does Unicron's importance to the mythology trump Michael Bay's twice-proven ability to deliver massive box office and toy product sales? If Michael Bay essentially offers Brian Golder $600 million worth of product sales at the expense of turning Unicron into a cloud, what is it about Unicron that will motivate Goldner to say no?

Unicron is not simply an aspect of TF lore. He has been a major player in nearly every incarnation of the Transformers since his inception. He's appeared in every rendition of G1, he was in Beast Wars and BW Neo, he was the major threat in the Unicron Trilogy, He was the main bad guy in Universe. He has had one of the greatest impacts on the TF mythos., and, on top of that, his appearance has changed very little in all of this time. Optimus Prime has had more changes in design that Unicron. I would call that a very iconic character who has had a major impact on the mythos.

 

As for Warpath, no, he isn't. He's a relative minor character who has only really played any significant role in G1, and hasn't even really appeared in any other continuity since, bar a cameo in Animated as a direct homage to G1, and as a toy for the movie line, and even that wasn't even a tank. it was a repaint of Cybertron Overhaul. So, no, Warpath is far from iconic. Unicron has appeared as a major player in virtually every continuity and has been virtually unchanged in appearance of character. That makes him iconic.

 

I get all that, all I mean is...

 

The term 'multiversal entity' is being used to describe the idea that in a proposed multiverse, there is only one Unicron. Things must be pretty quiet in the G1 universe if Unicron is off eating the Armada universe and vice versa, right?

 

So the opposite of a multiversal entity - a regular, 'universal' entity if you will - is a character that exists in multiple (potentially all) universes. Optimus Prime is a universal entity - there's essentially an Optimus Prime in every continuity, and all these Primes could even meet up in a dimension-spanning adventure.

 

Now Primus, unlike Unicron, is a multiversal entity that exists in all universes simultaneously... well, isn't that what a universal entity does? (Now, if you want to say "Actually, a 'multiversal entity' is more like an incredibly powerful god that can take whatever form it desires' then that's all good and well... but that's not how the term was being thrown around earlier.)

 

Again, this isn't the end of the world - I'm sure there are ways in which the apparent contradiction can be explained away. I just bring it up because I think it indicates rather strongly that the people intimately involved with carefully and clearly laying the foundation of the mythos can't even seem to agree what 'multiversal' actually means before applying the term.

 

(Also, while we're ironing this stuff out... why is is that there is a Primus in every universe, but only one set of Thirteen? Did the Fallen actually die at the end of his titular revenge flick? If so, how is this going to effect the timeline - will all future appearances of the Fallen take place in the past? If the Fallen is tasked with overseeing entropy in the multiverse, what happens when he's gone)

 

The difference between a character like Optimus Prime or Megatron, and Unicron, Primus, or the Thirteen, is that each version of Optimus Prime, or each version of Megatron in each reality is a completely different character each is entirely independent of the other versions. RID Optimus Prime has no relation to G1 Optimus Prime, and he has no relation to Movie Optimus Prime, or Animated Optimus Prime, or Shattered Glass Optimus Prime, etc. Each is their own character existing in their own reality. Each is separate from the others. Primus is the same Primus in every reality, whether it's in Sunbow G1, Marvel G1, RiD, the Unicron Trilogy, Universe, etc. He is still the exact same being, not a different Primus in each. Primus exists as a singular entity—a singular consciousnessin all of the multiverse. That is what makes him a multiversal singularity. Every "version" of Primus is the exact same Primus as any other "version. They are not different beings in each reality, they are all the same being. There is only one Primus. Unicron in any G1 reality is the same Unicron as in the UT, or RiD, or Universe, etc. The same with the Thirteen, there is only one of each of the Thirteen in all of the Multiverse. That is what makes them multiversal singularities. What makes Primus and Unicron different is that Unicron is trapped within a singular physical form and has to travel between realities whereas Primus' consciousness is connected to various Cybertron "nodes" throughout the multiverse, much like a computer network all connected to a single main server, to use an analogy.

 

The nature of each of the Thirteen varies form member to member depending upon their primary function. Some are like Unicron and only exist in a single reality at a time. others are like Primus and exist simultaneously in all realities at once yet still a singular being. Vector Prime, as Guardian of Space and time existed primarily outside of the flow of Space and time so that he could watch over all of it, and then, when the need arose, he could enter the time-stream of any given reality when needed. The Fallen was guardian over the Universal force of Entropy, but fell under the sway of Unicron after becoming obsessed with the darker aspects of his domain. He was thus imprisoned in a pocket dimension along with Unicron. Alpha Trion is believed to be one of their number, and was charged by Primus as Guardian of Cybertron itself and Vector Sigma, thus, he exists in all realities at once.

 

Thus, the difference between a "universal entity", as you called it, and a multiversal singularity, is that a universal being exists within a singe universe and any version of that being in any given universe is its own being separate from any other version in any other given reality, whereas a multiversal singularity exists as a singular being in all of the multiverse, whether existing in all realities at once or travelling between them, but always as a singular unique entity.

 

Oh, it's definitely been a popular subject of late. I'm just unclear as to the actual advantage of this multiversal business. Joining all the continuities together produces continuity conflicts and stifles creativity in future endeavours. On the bright side, we get in return... I don't know. I don't know what the bright side is.

 

A wizard did it.

Now, now - his name is Simon Furman. :rofl

The point of the multiverse is to allow every story be canon regardless of the continuity it takes place in. It keeps all of them "true", rather than old continuities being overwritten by new ones. Everything remains true. Everything remains fact. Primus and Unicron, and the Thirteen give a unifying framework for the multiverse as a whole allowing the divergent realities to have a single root to anchor them as a greater whole but still branch out into multiple directions. That is the advantage.

[Liege Evilmus]

It's transformers, ever since the begining they've made it up as they went along. You can try to explain or make sense of it, or you can do something useful with your time

[Tramp]

It's transformers, ever since the begining they've made it up as they went along. You can try to explain or make sense of it, or you can do something useful with your time

In the beginning, you'd be correct, bur since that time, Hasbro has made sure a framework has been in place upon which each new continuity, and each new story, is built upon.

[Liege Evilmus]

yeah but outside of the comics everything seems to just be going in it's own dirrection.

I say it often, the shows are for fun and thats about it. I got my own ongoing story. Thats all that matters for me, mainly because everything goes its own way.

 

You can say somethings definitive now, but all it takes is one new writer or what not to change that.

[Tramp]

yeah but outside of the comics everything seems to just be going in it's own dirrection.

I say it often, the shows are for fun and thats about it. I got my own ongoing story. Thats all that matters for me, mainly because everything goes its own way.

 

You can say somethings definitive now, but all it takes is one new writer or what not to change that.

They all have a common origin though. That's what holds the mythos together as a whole. Yes, the different continuities diverge, but they still have that single unifying factor.

[Liege Evilmus]

RID, AEC, Animated, and Movie say otherwise

[Tramp]

RID, AEC, Animated, and Movie say otherwise

Actually, no, they don't. RiD never even touched upon the origins of the Transformers, and several characters from that reality were pulled into the Universe story line, and eventually crossed over into the Unicron Trilogy continuity. Among them were RiD Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus. And they ended up stranded in that reality. The movie hasn't gone in depth enough into their origins, and the All Spark cube is a proxy of Primus, one of his avatars,much like the Matrix and Vector Sigma, according to Takara's official website. So no, they don't say otherwise.