The Evolution of a Franchise

Of late, I've been thinking a lot about morality. I have spent the past few months reading and watching lectures and debates about objective morality as it relates to questions about god and religion, and I've learned much about the tantalizing idea that science can have meaningful things to say about moral thought and the well-being of conscious creatures. I've listened to such scientists and philosophers as Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Francis Collins, Rick Warren, and William Lane Craig give answers both inspiring and ludicrous for why we are good and what it means that we are, and I think I've got at least one blog in me on the subject. All that said, I've decided today to talk about Transformers.

Transformers Dark of the Moon is scheduled to be released on July 1 of this year. It will be, purportedly, director Michael Bay's last contribution to the long-running Transformers franchise, but I doubt that we will see Transformers fade from the market once the film has come and gone. Transformers: Prime, the latest TF animated show, is still on the air in most markets. The toyline is going strong, having a greater presence in stores now that it has in the last 10 or so years. The Prime line is soon to be announced; add to this the existing line of repaints and re-imaginings and the third movie line, and there are bound to be more than enough Cybertronian robots on the aisle to keep oblivious parents staring for minutes on end (before, inevitably, picking up the nearest pegwarmer). My point is that this should be a great time to be a Transformers fan. The mythology is rich and constantly developing. Supply answers increasing demand - be it from the retail sector or from the body of consumers itself. But there is a question in my mind. I ask this of Transformers 3 and I ask it of Ghostbusters 3. I asked it of Tron Legacy, which I thought was great. The question is this:
Is there a core to this mythology?

Many were excited to learn that Peter Cullen would be voicing Optimus Prime for Bay's Transformers films. Just as many were disappointed that Frank Welker would not be voicing Megatron, but not a word was spoken, of praise or of disdain, about the fact that the leaders of the rival factions would be named Optimus Prime and Megatron. We needn't have commented on that because it was understood. None of us expected to see a complete revision of the Transformers story - one in which familiar names and themes were abandoned utterly. We know, deep in our hearts (or sparks) that there is a core mythology from which all others branch or borrow; there is a grain of what has made this franchise great in every Transformers property developed. But to what degree has Michael Bay acted as Dark Energon, corrupting the Cybertron that is the franchise's core concepts? To what degree is Bay simply a cog in a massive marketing machine?

I waver. I go back and forth between vilifying Bay, vilifying Hasbro, and pretending with all of my being that I'm not a G1 slave. Ultimately, the truth is that Transformers cannot be corrupted by bad writing, thin characters, insane plots, or mindless fanservice. G1 had its share of those things, more or less! (B.O.T, anyone?) I will go see Dark of the Moon, and I will complain about liberties taken with themes and characters who saw their genesis in my beloved G1, but I cannot overlook the glaring truth:
Like William Lane Craig arguing that there can be no morality without a supernatural being, it is empty and pointless to say that there can be no Transformers without G1. Transformers has grown and changed and spawned many creative properties. It has diversified, as organisms' morphology diversifies with increased reproductive success, and it doesn't matter whether Michael Bay's next TF film succeeds or not. The franchise has an engine behind it that has been successfully marketing these remarkable toys and the disparate storylines that make them so interesting for more than 25 years.
So tell yourself not to worry. Sit back, enjoy Michael Bay's vision for Cybertron in whatever way you can, and if you can only grit your teeth over curse words and complaints about changes to a particular character's established personality, then perhaps you might find solace in the fact that there will always be more to see and to learn on the road ahead - and that you can always revisit G1 on DVD.