I don't really want to bunch continuities together and see every one of them as their own. The only continuity that actually could be something most fans would care about is the U.S. Beast Wars, since it only vaguely alludes to G1 (and keeping mum on whether this G1 is based on any comic or show), and is acknowledged by its follow-ups. Even the comic book that's coming out will be in-continuity with the show.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!! STOP IT!!

 

Most of you have lost the plot! By this I mean, most of you are defining continuity as "which parts of TF canon I happen to be most familiar with or that I happen to like."

Ggrrrr... stop that! That's being completely biased and not at all objective.

 

Darth Zax's post of M Sipher's flow chart basically answers this thread's question the best.

 

Canon is basically anything that has officially produced as a Transformers story. Fanfics are obviously not canon, but anything produced under license from Hasbro and Takara are canon.

 

I don't care if some of you are unfamiliar with some continuities, or if you think some of it is stupid - that's your opinion, fine - but it does NOT mean that these continuities are not canon. They are!

 

Feel free to state, "I personally prefer X and Y canons," - there's nothing wrong with stating one's personal opinions, but do not allow said opinions to obscure facts by denying other forms of canon which you may not personally be familiar with or happen to like.

 

The fact is that Transformers has multiple continuities. It is inevitable that we will prefer some continuities over others - fine - but it doesn't mean that the others do not exist as official forms of canon.

 

Thank you!

 

P.S.: Combining these continuities is an impossibility. Because they often contradict each other, it becomes impossible to combine the continuities without degrading their integrity - you would effectively have to butcher the continuities by hacking at them and splicing non-contradictory elements (which is not much) and stitching them together into some Autobot Spike monster of a continuity! Eeeewww!! Not pretty... Beast Wars made references to both cartoon and comic continuities (this is because Forward and DiTillo used both canons in their G1 research), but never in enough depth to make it contradictory. BW effectively continues the overall G1 canon, as illustrated in M Sipher's chart. Also, for the record, Beast Wars is not a U.S. production... if it were, then we most likely would have seen cameo roles played by Peter Cullen (e.g.: Optimus Prime) - but this was not the case - Optimus Prime was played by Garry Chalk, the reason for this being that Beast Wars was a Canadian production (I believe that Mainframe is based in Vancouver) and there are voice actor union/guild issues which prevent American voice actors like Peter Cullen from featuring in a Canadian cartoon.

The way I see it is like this.

G1

G2

Alts

RiD

Armada

Energon

Cybertron

BW

BM

BW Neo

In that order.

 

A virus decends upon Cybertron after the end of the Cybertron series affecting only the vehicle Bots, and Cons so the Bots and Cons use the beast tech from the Jungle Planet to try and escape the devastating effects of the virus. Thus ushering in the Beast Wars era.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!! STOP IT!!

 

Most of you have lost the plot! By this I mean, most of you are defining continuity as "which parts of TF canon I happen to be most familiar with or that I happen to like."

Ggrrrr... stop that! That's being completely biased and not at all objective.

 

Darth Zax's post of M Sipher's flow chart basically answers this thread's question the best.

 

Canon is basically anything that has officially produced as a Transformers story. Fanfics are obviously not canon, but anything produced under license from Hasbro and Takara are canon.

 

I don't care if some of you are unfamiliar with some continuities, or if you think some of it is stupid - that's your opinion, fine - but it does NOT mean that these continuities are not canon. They are!

 

Feel free to state, "I personally prefer X and Y canons," - there's nothing wrong with stating one's personal opinions, but do not allow said opinions to obscure facts by denying other forms of canon which you may not personally be familiar with or happen to like.

 

The fact is that Transformers has multiple continuities. It is inevitable that we will prefer some continuities over others - fine - but it doesn't mean that the others do not exist as official forms of canon.

 

Thank you!

 

P.S.: Combining these continuities is an impossibility. Because they often contradict each other, it becomes impossible to combine the continuities without degrading their integrity - you would effectively have to butcher the continuities by hacking at them and splicing non-contradictory elements (which is not much) and stitching them together into some Autobot Spike monster of a continuity! Eeeewww!! Not pretty... Beast Wars made references to both cartoon and comic continuities (this is because Forward and DiTillo used both canons in their G1 research), but never in enough depth to make it contradictory. BW effectively continues the overall G1 canon, as illustrated in M Sipher's chart. Also, for the record, Beast Wars is not a U.S. production... if it were, then we most likely would have seen cameo roles played by Peter Cullen (e.g.: Optimus Prime) - but this was not the case - Optimus Prime was played by Garry Chalk, the reason for this being that Beast Wars was a Canadian production (I believe that Mainframe is based in Vancouver) and there are voice actor union/guild issues which prevent American voice actors like Peter Cullen from featuring in a Canadian cartoon.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

uh.... doesn't BW use the matrix's comic origin instead of the cartoon's origin? if it does, that alone is a contridiction/retcon.

 

obviously, there are alternate continuities when it comes ot G1. more than one person here has adknowledged that, so why are you complaining?

uh.... doesn't BW use the matrix's comic origin instead of the cartoon's origin? if it does, that alone is a contridiction/retcon.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't think it explicitly states the origin of the Matrix in BW.

uh.... doesn't BW use the matrix's comic origin instead of the cartoon's origin? if it does, that alone is a contridiction/retcon.

Don is right. BW doesn't specifically state the origin of the Matrix. In fact, the All-Spark Matrix in BW/BM is something of a different concept than the Creation Matrix and Autobot Matrix of Leadership.  This explains my understanding the Matrix. Yes, it's very comic-centric... Yes, I am well aware that the Autobot Matrix of Leadership is more of a collective font of knowledge as opposed to being a divine artifact as portrayed in the comics. Yada yada yada.

 

obviously, there are alternate continuities when it comes ot G1. more than one person here has adknowledged that, so why are you complaining?

Because some people are picking and choosing which conitinuities they think actually countes as actual canon - which is bollocks. All TF continuities classify as Transformers canon, regardless of what you think about it.

 

Yes, we may prefer one source of canon over another, but it doesn't make the other source of canon any less valid. For example, I much prefer the Marvel Comics as a source of G1 canon, but it doesn't mean that the cartoon is any less valid as a source of G1 canon. If you've never seen the Japanese G1 cartoons or if you didn't like them, that doesn't make them any less valid either. All forms of Transformers continuity are equally valid forms of Transformers canon.

 

My gripe was about some fans not remaining objective in their definition of what is and what isn't Transformers canon. You cannot disclude one source of continuity just because you haven't had a lot of exposure to it or because you didn't particularly like it.

uh.... doesn't BW use the matrix's comic origin instead of the cartoon's origin? if it does, that alone is a contridiction/retcon.

Don is right. BW doesn't specifically state the origin of the Matrix. In fact, the All-Spark Matrix in BW/BM is something of a different concept than the Creation Matrix and Autobot Matrix of Leadership.  This explains my understanding the Matrix. Yes, it's very comic-centric... Yes, I am well aware that the Autobot Matrix of Leadership is more of a collective font of knowledge as opposed to being a divine artifact as portrayed in the comics. Yada yada yada.

 

obviously, there are alternate continuities when it comes ot G1. more than one person here has adknowledged that, so why are you complaining?

Because some people are picking and choosing which conitinuities they think actually countes as actual canon - which is bollocks. All TF continuities classify as Transformers canon, regardless of what you think about it.

 

Yes, we may prefer one source of canon over another, but it doesn't make the other source of canon any less valid. For example, I much prefer the Marvel Comics as a source of G1 canon, but it doesn't mean that the cartoon is any less valid as a source of G1 canon. If you've never seen the Japanese G1 cartoons or if you didn't like them, that doesn't make them any less valid either. All forms of Transformers continuity are equally valid forms of Transformers canon.

 

My gripe was about some fans not remaining objective in their definition of what is and what isn't Transformers canon. You cannot disclude one source of continuity just because you haven't had a lot of exposure to it or because you didn't particularly like it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I tend to think the same thign about the botcon comics... even if IMO, the retcons in them are fairly stupid. they obviously continue BM, even if it's not in a direction that's particularly liked.

well i dont have much to say on this cuz in my oppinion they didnt keep up with it until energon and cybertron...but in japan they didnt keep up with it...they are in a new universe and new world...where here we are continuing off from where unicron was destroyed and blah blah blah, our megatron is the same "guy" he was just pimped out theres a new person all together

You cannot disclude one source of continuity just because you haven't had a lot of exposure to it or because you didn't particularly like it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If I were to write a fanfic, I would consider the G1 comic 'official', unchangeable, canon.

That's not to say I wouldn't change some things, but it would be done without contradicting or changing the events and those involved, and those changes would not be seen until after the original comic had ended.

The only true exception is the comic future, which was constantly changing in the comics.

I would also gladly borrow parts from the cartoon as the comic occasionally did, but discard or ignore the rest.

For example I may introdcue the cartoon only characters of Elita One or Alpha Trion, but ignore their official stories and all that goes with it to fit the comic continuity.

 

As it is I don't do fanfics, but I do kitbash and I do plan on trying a couple of comics.

I refuse to limit my creative desires by sticking to characters from just one continuity, but at the same time I refuse to keep character origins vague or non existent just so they don't contradict a particular continuity.

 

And to do that I must have a very clear idea of what I consider official 'fact' and what I can ignore because I didn't like it or wasn't familiar with it.

 

I'm not saying the rest aren't canon within themselves or to the masses, I'm saying they aren't canon to me.

But outside of my collecting and creative process, that impacts nothing.

I only recognise the cartoon continuity. Both AMerican and Japenese. I view them as AUs, with G1 and BW, BW2 and BWNeo in one and Headmasters, Master force, Victory in the other