The Transformers franchise needs to move away from prequels, which are severely limiting the possibilities for the world of the robots in disguise. Transformers has been going strong in one form or another since debuting on TV screens and toys shelves back in 1984, but the franchise hit another level with the launch of the live action film franchise in 2007. While the franchise is still trucking along in 2020, everything feels too safe and predictable.
The modern era of Transformers fiction began in the late 00s, with the Transformers: The Last Knight, and the Aligned Continuity came to its natural end the same year; IDW's much-celebrated comics continuity would end at the end of 2018 before undertaking a full reboot with new creative teams and format in 2019.
Hasbro appears to be aiming for some synergy between the various current iterations of the franchise, something they've not concentrated on much in the past, usually resulting in wildly varying stories between the comics, TV shows, and films. Losing that freewheeling style may make sense on the bottom line, but it has sucked some of the creativity out of the franchise. Yet it's another unpopular trope that's truly keeping the franchise in neutral - prequels.
Prequels Are Keeping The Transformers In Neutral
More than corporate synergy or overly safe creative decisions, the thing holding back the franchise is its obsession with prequels. Transformers has a well-known basic story: the Autobots and Decepticons are caught in a civil war that eventually makes its way to resource-rich Earth, where Optimus Prime and the Autobots must defend humanity from Megatron and the Decepticons. Those tropes have been used dozens of times in slightly different ways over the franchise's 36-year history, generally with a few new wrinkles to keep things relatively fresh.
Whether by design or by accident, all three media formats - the film franchise, the TV shows, and the comics - went with prequels after their stories ended or reached creative dead-ends. The most successful prequel was the live action film X-Men films eventually did, there's little reconciling an additional chapter in that story with what we know is to come.
IDW's reboot in the comics has been decidedly less successful. After the fandom-expanding, award-winning runs by authors like James Roberts and John Barber that proved the franchise could stretch its legs creatively, Brian Ruckley's current book feels like a massive overcorrection, telling staid stories of life on Cybertron before the war began with the ultimate outcome dully inevitable.
When the animated series Transformers: Robots In Disguise - sequel to the extremely popular Transformers: Prime - came to an end, it marked a turning point in the production of Transformers animation. No longer would veteran voice talent like Peter Cullen and Frank Welker be used, but new, younger (and presumably cheaper) actors were brought in to redefine the Autobots and Decepticons. That new voice talent works on three different current animated projects: the preschooler-friendly Transformers: Rescue Bot Academy, the older kids-aimed Transformers: Cyberverse, and the Netflix War For Cybertron series aimed at adult fans. Not surprisingly, War For Cybertron is a prequel, set on Cybertron before the war makes its way to Earth.
Creative Risk Like Beast Wars Is Needed To Boost The Franchise Again
The last time the Transformers franchise was in real trouble of being discontinued was in 1996. Generation 1 had run its course, and the Generation 2 line - largely a redux of G1 with recolored toys and repackaged reruns of the TV series - had proved to be a failure. A last ditch effort to save the franchise was Beast Wars, which reimagined the Autobots and Decepticons as Maximals and Predacons, respectively, waging war on prehistoric Earth. Not only did Beast Wars produce some of the best toys the franchise has ever seen, the animated series is still the gold standard for Transformers storytelling, weaving a complex, emotional time travel story that kept revealing new wrinkles as it went from strength to strength.
Beast Wars was a triumph partly because it abandoned the "Autobots and Decepticons battle on modern day Earth" trappings, while managing to be an effective prequel and sequel at the same time. It was the kind of bold, innovative storytelling that proved the Transformers franchise could evolve and tell stories in new and exciting ways, a feeling severely lacking from the franchise's current output.
Where Transformers' Story Can Go With Future Stories
While a full on Beast Wars adaptation for the big screen may seem far-fetched, the basic idea for how to innovate with the Transformers is still hidden in plain sight - set new stories after the war is over. This was the defining theme of IDW's award winning Transformers series, More Than Meets The Eye (renamed Lost Light midway through) and Robots In Disguise. Midway through its run, the war was over, the Autobots victorious over the Decepticons, leaving a tantalizing question for the Cybertronians - what happens next?
Robots In Disguise largely took place on post-war Cybertron, where newcomers and old warriors alike jostled for political power in something akin to Games of Thrones' early seasons with robots. More Than Meets The Eye went in an even more extreme direction, with Rodimus and a group of disillusioned C-list Autobots leaving Cybertron behind in the starship Lost Light, ostensibly to find the legendary Knights of Cybertron, but mostly just to go have fun adventures after millennia of war. More Than Meets The Eye's humor, intricate world-building, and emotional heft elevated it to Beast Wars' level as arguably the best thing the franchise has ever produced, and it did it by smashing franchise tropes wherever it could. A film adaptation of the Lost Light crew's adventures would take the franchise in a completely new, unexpected direction, which is exactly what Transformers needs right now. A franchise about constantly changing robots needs to be able to evolve; leaving the prequels behind for the great creative unknown should be the only way forward.
