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Thanks to CBR.com, we have a new interview to share with you, this time from the Executive Producers of the show, Ant Ward and Dale Malinowski. In this interview, they talk about making Megatron an ally of the humans and Autobots, the heartwarming reaction to the Terrans, and teasing Season 2 as well!
Check it out below, and let us know what you think in the comments section below!
Transformers: EarthSpark EPs Discuss Megatron's Turn, Terrans, and Season 2
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Transformers: EarthSpark's Ant Ward and Dale Malinowski reveal more about the Paramount+ animated show.
The way of the Bot evolves in Transformers: EarthSpark. The new series sees many allies and foes come together as they meet a new family -- the Maltos -- in Witwicky, Pennsylvania. In addition to the new partnerships, the show marks the birth of the Terrans -- the first Transformers born on planet Earth. Unfortunately, several Decepticons and other villains detest the newfound alliance and peace, doing everything possible to throw a wrench into it.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Transformers: EarthSpark executive producers Ant Ward and Dale Malinowski discuss the road to the small screen and the moments that made them the proudest. They revealed more about the initial concern of turning Megatron from the Autobot's greatest enemy to their new ally, as well as the overwhelming positive response to the creation of the Terrans. Ward and Malinowski also teased what the audience can expect for the second season of the animated show.
CBR: First of all, congratulations on the first season of Transformers: EarthSpark. Looking back, how do you feel about the journey up to this point?
Ant Ward: Thank you! We are deeply proud of our crew and series. On the production side, everyone overcame challenges that made them grow as artists and storytellers. On the narrative side, the Maltos overcame challenges that helped them grow as a family and as a team of heroes. Their story is far from over, though, and we're thrilled for everyone to see how Robby, Mo, and the Terrans level up in Season 2.
The show is an evolution of the franchise as it expands beyond the regular battle between Autobots and Decepticons -- in fact aligning old foes. What were your biggest concerns surrounding the concept of Transformers: EarthSpark in the beginning?
Dale Malinowski: We were eager to know if fans would accept Megatron as an ally to the Autobots. Creatively, we knew we had a solid causality for Megatron's story, and we had the support of both studios. We felt we were staying true to Megatron's character because, in lore, he and Optimus Prime were allies before they were enemies, so Megatron's the type who's willing to make significant changes for the sake of progress toward his goal. We committed to Megatron's story very early in development, but you never know how the audience will react, and in animation, the wait time between production and distribution is very long! Our hope was that fans would be intrigued and come along for the ride, and we're grateful that they have.
Taking a look back at the first season, what would you say has been your proudest moment in the series?
Ward: Creating original characters that resonate with our audience. We have a large cast, so there's someone for everyone with those characters telling stories that encourage empathy with others. Eight billion people are sharing planet Earth. Our world is rich with cultures and diversities. If our show inspires even one person to broaden their perspective and understanding of the people and world around them, we'd be very happy.
What has surprised you the most about the fans' reactions to the Terrans?
Malinowski: How quickly and passionately the fans have embraced the Terrans. We see a lot of fan art online, and every piece warms our hearts. Some of our crew have been printing everything they find and hanging it up near our production space in the studio.
Family is a strong concept in Transformers: EarthSpark. What challenges have you given yourselves and the team in expanding this theme for the second season?
Ward: The challenge is to never repeat ourselves, so we allow our characters to evolve. Family remains a core theme in Season 2, but so is growing up, trust, and loss. For Season 2, we want our themes to mature in tandem with our characters.
In a previous interview, the actors said they recorded their parts individually for the show. I'm not sure how far into Season 2's production you are, but is this the plan moving forward, or is there any intention to try to do group recordings?
Malinowski: For us, all decisions come down to creative intent. When we have a script or sequence hinging upon the dynamic between two characters, for example, then we'll ask the casting and records teams to schedule a session for those two actors to record together. Nickelodeon's in-house teams always support creative intent, so they're fantastic to work with.
What can you tease about Season 2 of the show?
Ward: Season 2 starts with a bang! The heroes are in the middle of an extremely important mission. They have new skills for the job, but many obstacles and foes stand in their way. Amidst the chaos, new relationships develop, new and familiar characters enter the story, and big secrets are exposed. It's a wild ride from start to finish!
Considering how Transformers is crossing over with G.I. Joe in the comics, and there was a tease in the recent movie, have there been any discussions about crossing over into other Hasbro properties?
Malinowski: You know we can't admit anything here! We're excited to see the Transformers comics and features explore their crossovers.
Transformers: EarthSpark Season 1 is available to watch on Paramount+.
Next in line for the Beast Wars Again versus line we have what appears to be our first look at Airazor VS Inferno via Champion Toys on Facebook. While much like the previous sets in the line these Kingdom and Legacy molds are getting more cartoon accurate repaints, but this one comes with an interesting bonus. In these photos not only does Inferno have his thruster in his back, but also has a second one in his hand painted up to look like his massive flamethrower from the cartoon! While a new weapon mold would have been nice, this is a nice consolation prize. The images say the reveal date is September 7 so we should be seeing full details next week!
In 2010, screenwriter Ron Friedman consigned many scripts and reference material from his days writing for Sunbow Productions in the mid-80s, to be sold by Heritage Auctions. A group effort by fans, coordinated by Jim Sorenson, saw 31 Transformers TV scripts, briefing binders and the second script for The Transformers The Movie bought up, scanned and made available online.
One item that eluded this endeavour was Friedman's first script for the Movie. Completed in February 1985 and rejected by Griffin-Bacal, who supplied a new outline for Friedman to make a second attempt, before Flint Dille was called in to make heavy re-writes as production commenced.
In Autumn 2020, former Sunbow producer Flint Dille was in the process of clearing out his storage, finding many items from his decades-long writing career. One such item displayed online on October 9th was a second copy of that first Movie script. Most likely in Flint's possession as reference for his and Creative Director Jay Bacal's own unsuccessful attempt at writing a Transformers movie: The Secret Of Cybertron.
The following month, Jim Sorenson flew out to LA in order to scan as many of Flint's written works from his Sunbow days before they were auctioned off. On November 2nd, he scanned this script and sent the digital files to me for merging and OCR.
The script was used as the basis for a panel presentation at TFNation 2022, hosted by Jim Sorenson and Chris McFeely, that summarised the plot and featured fanart intepretations from a quartet of artists.
Now, fourteen years since it was first seen, nearly three years since a second chance emerged and a full year since the story was revealed to the world, the Sunbow Marvel Archive is proud to present the very first script for The Transformers The Movie: https://sunbowmarvelarchive.blogspot.com/p/mp-4034-transformers-movie-sunbow.html
Another set of leaks from Jtprime17 posted to the Seibertron Pub forums by Munkky seems to run the widest spectrum of figures yet for the line. Some of these we can only speculate on and others are likely errors (like MV6 Frenzy which is probably the 86 repaint). But there are a few references that we haven't previously seen like "Deluxe HM Megatron" (another High Moon Megatron?), "Next Gen Bumblebee", and two figures marked as "A Level AST" without price classes, one of which is "MV8 OP". Feel free to speculate away in the forums what these could possibly mean!
Munkky wrote:More 2024 Studio Series listings have dropped, courtesy of JtPrime17:
Tra Gen Studio Series Core 86 Steeljaw
Product Number: F8752
Tra Gen Studio Series Core MV6 Frenzy
Product Number: F8753
Tra Gen Studio Series Deluxe MV7 Wheeljack
Product Number: F7233
Tra Gen Studio Series Deluxe 86 Gnaw PR
Product Number: F0786 (same as original release)
Tra Gen Studio Series Deluxe WFC Decepticon Infantry
Product Number: F8763
Tra Gen Studio Series Deluxe Next Gen Bumblebee
Product Number: F8764
Tra Gen Studio Series Deluxe HM Megatron
Product Number: F9849
Tra Gen Studio Series Voyager MV6 Skywarp
Product Number: F8769
Tra Gen Studio series Voyager WFC Ratchet
Product Number: F8770
Tra Gen A Level AST MV8 OP
Product Number: G0221
Tra Gen A Level AST 86 Bumblebee
Product Number: G0220
Thanks to another list from Jtprime17 brought to us by Seibertronian Munkky on our forums we have a new batch of possible leaked figures for the Legacy line in 2024.
Munkky wrote:More 2024 Legacy leaks have dropped, courtesy of JtPrime17:
Tra Gen Legacy UNI Core Energon Galvatron
Product Number: F8523
Tra Gen Legacy UNI Core Rock 2
Product Number: F8522
Tra Gen Legacy UNI Deluxe Slipstream
Product Number: F8534
Tra Gen Legacy UNI Deluxe RID Sideburn
Product Number: F8538
Tra Gen Legacy UNI Deluxe G1 Quake
Product Number: F8536
Tra Gen Legacy UNI Voyager Animated Motormaster
Product Number: F8547
Tra Gen Legacy UNI Voyager Metalhawk PR
Product Number: F9183
Many, if not all, of these will likely share tooling with existing or previously leaked figures like RID Sideburn from Shadow Striker and Animed Motormaster from Animated Optimus Prime.
Thanks to a new round of leaks from jtprime17 (brought to us by Seibertronian Munkky) we've got our first list of figures for a potential Star Seekers capsule (exclusive line) coming to Walmart in 2024. There's been some rumblings about a few of these figures happening, but this is our first solid look at the lineup from a reliable source. For those unfamiliar with the Star Seekers they're a group of Pirates popularized by Aligned fiction and Botcon 2014 and lead by either Thundertron or Cannonball (one of them) depending on the story.
Munkky wrote:Looks like we're also getting a Wal-Mart capsule line focusing on the Star Seekers as well:
Tra Gen Legacy Star Seekers DLX AST
Product Number: G0200
Tra Gen Legacy Star Seekers Capsule Deluxe 1
Product Number: G0231
Tra Gen Legacy Star Seekers Deluxe Roadpig
Product Number: G0232
Tra Gen Legacy Star Seekers Deluxe Lockdown
Product Number: G0233
Tra Gen Legacy Star Seekers Deluxe Filch
Product Number: G0234
Tra Gen legacy Star Seekers Voyager Ferak
Product Number: G0235
Tra Gen Legacy Star Seekers Leader Thundertron
Product Number: G0236
For reference here's Transformers: Prime Thundertron -
Often when talking about Studio Series and the progression from live action movies to animation to video games the question of what exactly is a "studio" comes up. Thanks to a Q&A held by TFW2005 with the Hasbro Transformers team (and thanks to Seibertronian Munkky for bringing this to our attention) we get some insight into just what qualifies as a studio. The short answer is, well, basically everything including comic books.
Q: So we kind of hit on this with the comic talk, but just to elaborate – first we had 86, now we have Gamer Edition expanding Studio Series even more. What sort of other things could happen?
A: Anything that’s technically a studio could be on the table. We’re trying to look at that and make sure that it’s authentic to what Studio Series is. We don’t want to just shoehorn everything into Studio Series, but we do know that there are opportunities to grow the brand. We always say from screen to toy. And a lot of people read comic books on screens now.
Q: Hasbro turns the tables! Asks us if we’d consider comic publishers as studios, and that they could live in the Studio Series segment?
A: Led to a small back-and-forth on this subject, but in short it seems Hasbro may be interested in something like this.
On that note, they also talked about what games they're open to doing in the Gamer Edition line.
Q: For Gamer Edition, is it limited to just WFC or will FOC (Dinobots, Bruticus, etc) and all the Transformers games be included?
A: Pretty much all of it. Think the clear winner will probably be, everybody wants some Devastation stuff, we need to figure out how to do some cell shading for it. Continuing from WFC, think FOC is on the table. Team has even joked about doing Mystery of Convoy, doing some sort of dot deco or something like that. We have the Ultra Magnus now and we have the Rodimus from Kingdom, it’s like why not. Why not some N64 Transmetals too? We can get some of that in there, there’s a lot of options. If it’s been in a video game, we have the opportunity to look at it, taking a little bit of a cue from what the Star Wars team did with their gamer stuff. There’s no licensing issues, we own all of that, it’s all on the table for us. But with the live action movie stuff, there’s always that stuff going on, you still have to deal with Paramount and the licensors.
Could we really see the Studio Series line become the home of Beast Wars Transmetals figures or future and former Commander Class figures done up for Mystery of Convoy for the Nintendo Famicom? Time will tell!
Final big piece of news that's currently making its rounds on video game news channels is the current status of Activision's Transformers games. It's a mixed bag, but the team seems optimistic about these being available again. Turns out licensing was never the issue as has long been speculated.
Q: Possible to re-release the Activision TF games to coincide with Gamer Edition?
A: Sadly, apparently Activision’s not sure what hard drives they’re on in their building. When a company eats a company that eats a company things get lost, and that’s very frustrating. Hope is that now that the deal is moving forward with Microsoft and Xbox that they’ll go through all of the archives and every hard drive to find it all, because it’s an easy Game Pass add. We want those games back up for people to have a chance to play.
Q: How did that impact the process of making Gamer Edition?
A: Sam had to load up the games on older platforms because there were some deco details we couldn’t find – we have the CAD, but it’s not colored. So we had to find some of the character details within the games themselves.
Q: So you do have some of the game assets then?
A: We do, but it’s very interesting. FOC, we have everything. For WFC, we had to rip it ourselves, because they could not find it – they kept sending concept art instead, which we didn’t want, we need the CAD. So we booted up an old computer and ripped them all out from there. Which was a learning experience and a long weekend, because we just wanted to get it right, so that’s why we did it like that.
Hopefully Activision finds those hard drives, fans have been begging for new opportunities to play those games for years now.
TFW2005 also did a very lengthy solo Q&A with Evan where he talks about figures he'd like to make, what is and isn't possible, and whatever happened to that Takara Armada Optimus Prime prototype among many other things. It's a very extensive read so check it out the link at the top of the page.
Hasbro and Robosen have revealed their second character to get the auto transforming and interactive treatment, none other than Grimlock! This is Robosen's first robot to take two bipedal forms meaning he's still fully functional in both bot and dino modes making him look every bit as animated as he is in the cartoon. With a kingly stature of 15" in both modes he's definitely an impressive sight! He also sounds impressive being voiced by original G1 actor Gregg Berger producing 150+ lines for Robosen. He also features programable RGB lighting in his heads and light up weapons, 34 motors, 42 voice commands and a number of other features you can read about below or over on Hasbro Pulse.
Now, here's the down side: $1,499. That's right, not only is he more than twice the prices of the previous Optimus Prime releases but also costs more than Robosen Elite Optimus Prime and the trailer together! It's a big ask that will certainly price out the majority of fans. But those that can justify the price are going to receive a very impressive bit of robotics.
Thanks to fellow Seibertronian blackeyedprime for the heads up!
Via Hasbro Pulse:
Introducing the world's first dual-form, bidpedal walking robot. This is the most articulated robot engineered by Robosen with 34 small, yet, high-torque and high-efficient servo motors that activates seamless conversion, while ensuring stable and smooth movements. The 6-axis IMU sensors constantly monitor the robot's balance, delivering even greater stability.
Built in rechargeable Lithium-Ion Battery (2500mAh)
Authentic G1 Sounds
Grimlock has built-in 150+ original Generation 1 Transformers audio lines, recorded exclusively for Robosen by Gregg Berger, original voice of G1 Grimlock. These iconic soundy bytes are paired with robotic actions, providing an immersive entertainment experience. It can recognize 42 voice commands, allowing a hands-free interaction with the robot for conversion, walking, and other various stunning stunts.
Elevate Grimlock's Playability
Control Grimlock in both dino mode and robot mode simply from the app. Enjoy quick responses with Bluetooth BLE 5.0 as you remote control the robot's auto-conversion, movements, and impressive actions from any mobile device.
MiniTheater
With the app's "MiniTheater" feature, enjoy captivating solo performances in SoloPlay mode and thrilling coordinated displays in MultiPlay mode. Join forces with Optimus Prime and defeat the Decepticons in epic battle reenactments. Stay tuned for more immersive adventures with other Robosen Transformers robots.
Programmable Robot Share and Download Actions
We offer four programming modes, making it easy to program new actions for Grimlock. We also provide cloud sharing functionality, allowing Robosen users from around the world to freely create, share, and download other custom actions, enabling Grimlock to do so much more!
Block-base Programming
where you can drag modules to set the angles and speeds of the robot's movements, and create a segment of robot movements to reproduce classic scenes from the movies.
Manual Programming
Intelligent manual manipulation, where you can directly adjust the joints to suitable angles and positions to quickly create robot movements.
Voice Programming
say "start programming" to the robot, and then say multiple command words in the order you want, and then say "execute" after completion, and you can easily create a robot performance according to the order of the voice commands.
Computer-based programming
When you want to unleash the full potential of Grimlock robot, we recommend using computer-based 3D programming software.
Completely out of nowhere Takara Tomy has revealed two new figures for the Transformers Masterpiece line. MP-44S Optimus Prime is, in fact, being sold as Optimus Prime rather than Convoy for the first time in Japan. According to Takara Tomy the name change comes in honor of the live action movie series, basically catching up with the name changes that have taken place elsewhere in the franchise for over a decade now. The new release is based on the "Ver. 3" figure minus the electronics, trailer and a lot of the accessories. The figure has how been given a '84 toy deco and even a sticker sheet to finish the look. The accessories that did get carried over from the original release are his Ion Blaster, Energon Axe, blast effect, Matrix of Leadership and the "round" head. Priced at 33,000 JPY in Japan and showing up as a pre-order for February at most Japanese online stores for a February 2024 release.
Then we've got MP-56+ Riggorus, a new Decepticon character based on a Diaclone design we haven't seen used in Transformers before. Thanks to Seibertronian Sabrblade for pointing out that this figure combines the body of Hoist with the truck cap of Trailbreaker and a new head in a mustard yellow deco. For accessories he includes two shoulder mounted guns, double barreled hand replacement guns (these guns may be interchangeable though not shown in pictures), force shield effect part and a sticker that isn't described but is likely an Decepticon symbol since one isn't seen in the pictures. He has a Japanese retail price of 24,200 JPY and expected to be out in March 2024.
As always prices will vary greatly depending on where you order, though Amazon Japan (and Deep Discount when Hasbro pre-orders open) will likely be your best bet.
Kotobukiya has revealed on Twitter the fifth figure to hit the Transformers Bishoujo line and it's none other than Starscream! And this one seems to be hitting all the right notes with fans. Her short black hair is braided around the sides to imitate the side vents, red eyes and a tan to represent the dark face of the original cartoon design, red vest and skirt with a gray shirt and yellow striped neck tie to hit all the right body colors, blue gloves and heels with white knee-highs to finish the look off. And not only are the wings represented as a tote bag, but it's slung over her shoulder to get them in the proper position. Judging from the the reactions on Twitter even non fans of the line and non-Transformers fans in general are being won over by that devious smirk of hers. The figure was designed by Shunya Yamashita with more details coming soon. Now just imagine this figure in black and blue.
In other news we have a follow up on Nemesis Prime. She was made available this past weekend at Anime Expo 2023 in California and Kotobukiya says she'll also be available at future events outside Japan that they attend such as SDCC. There's a rumor that she'll also be made available online at some point but they haven't been verified. Nemesis features a new face sculpt and replaces Prime's briefcase with her signature red sword along with a Decepticon base.
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* Price and quantities subject to change. Shipping costs, taxes and other fees not included in cost shown. Refer to listing for current price and availability.
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