Thursday, February 10, 2011

Transformers: Generation 2


G2 wasn't exactly the most loved adaptation for Transformer fans, but it helped Hasbro keep their line alive a bit longer. Basically, it was a push of the G1 line that we talked about a couple days ago but with some retooling; like CGI, new faction emblems, and recolorized figures... 

Marvel Comics was really the only original stories for G2. It had Simon Furman still on board and created new storylines and utilized some of the newer characters that the G2 toyline had. The animated cartoon show, on the other hand, was just the same episode from G1 but with a computerized opening and closing credits. As the clip above shows, it basically makes it look like your accessing the data banks to see each episode. 

The toys pretty much kept the main G1 favorites but had them recolored, like the Constructicons went from a pastel green to a yellow. Personally, I liked that change because it made more sense for them to be that color but that's just one of the examples of the good color changes. The Dinobots had a small color change which is not major and the Minibots, like Bumblebee, went to metallics but their colors were the same. Hasbro did some other crazy color schemes using neonish colors that didn't make much sense. As you can see the colors for Starscream change. Other gimmicks were used for the toys; like missile launches, sound effects, color changes, and so forth.  The Aerialbots and Combaticons even got a rap video! 


Marvel Comics run was limited and not all the characters in the cartoon show made it to the toy shelves. Some of the unused prototypes were used in Machine Wars. 

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