Ahead of the release of VIZ Media's The Art and Making of Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy, written by Mike Avila, Movieweb had a chance to sit down with Mike and showrunner F.J. Desanto. The book, scheduled for release on October 11th, is an in-depth look at all the stories that went into creating the story that audiences got to enjoy when the series appeared on Netflix. Filled with chapters about the characters' in-depth stories, rich and unique backdrops, toys, and more, the book is really a must-read for fans of the series and perhaps Transformers in general.
Mike Avila, an award-winning TV producer, has penned many works. Wolverine: Creating Marvel's Legendary Mutant, The Art of Making Aquaman, The Man in the High Castle, and many more. F.J. Desanto wrote the foreword to the book, and it is not his first dive into the waters of Transformers. He co-wrote and executive produced Transformers: Prime Wars Trilogy before getting the call to be the showrunner for Transformers: War for Cybertron. F.J. himself is an expert on Japanese Manga, being the first person to speak on the subject at a presentation at the Smithsonian Institute.
When we first sat down, the interview immediately got off to a great start when the two noticed my display shelf with several Transformers figures and a display of several Kentucky Derby-themed bottles of Kentucky Bourbon. It really opened up the conversation with the two men. I let them know that the work on the show really did produce at least two definitive figures for collectors: Cyclonus, who is not in the series, and Jetfire. Both figures are held in high regard among collectors.
The Foreword
I started things out with F.J., whose forward felt like a love letter to G1, and he felt the same way, that it was supposed to be a love letter encompassing the almost 40 years (at the time of production) of the franchise.
We spoke on the biggest struggle of fitting those almost 40 years into 18 thirty-minute episodes. He explained that while some of it is dictated by the toy line and Hasbro, they had to figure out when and how to bring certain characters into it. He described it as being that love letter to the entire franchise that they had hoped by putting together the right team.
The Timeline
I wanted to use Machinima's Prime Wars Trilogy just to set the tone for the War for Cybertron in terms of timeline, noting that the former is understood to take place in a different universe but a similar G1 timeline, one where Starscream's body was never destroyed and where the Dinobots learned to combine. Even though that universe is different, you kind of view it as a sequel to G1. To that effect, F.J. noted that this installment is certainly a prequel to G1, especially the first two chapters, Seige and Earthrise.
"The third chapter, and it was Hasbro's idea, and not ours, of introducing the Beast Wars characters at this particular point basically contradicted G1 as we knew it and subsequently Beast Wars as we knew it."
He went on to note that as showrunner, "Seige and Earthrise are happening in G1 and when they enter the Dead Universe, all bets are off. The inspiration was like J.J's Star Trek, which did a great job of incorporating Leonard Nimoy and if you watched this show for 40 years, all this happened, and then it twists it in another direction."
He chronicled the tale of a creative debate he had with Hasbro when they wanted the show to end with G1. "I had to say, guys, you're the ones that wanted the Beast Wars characters to show up in the third season, you've inherently negated G1 as we know it."
He explained the relentless approach for Hasbro to use the Beast Wars characters due to the 25th anniversary coming up, as well as the new film: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. "It was always my intention to show this as a different version of G1, one where there is no Ultra Magnus, and Elita is dead, Chromia is dead, Jetfire is dead, and see what that world opens up into. It was my intention for someone to come after me and tell that story."
He also chronicled concern about the "black hole" that Marvel is falling into now, specifically pointing out the Marvel Multiverse that may be hard for them to get out of. They wanted to do a G1-centric multiverse, and they needed that because they had a "kill list" consisting of characters they could kill by season and those that had to survive.
Bumblebee
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They were told initially they couldn't use Bumblebee.
"Hasbro was concerned that with the movie coming out, there may be an over saturation of the character. They saw how the movie was doing and came back and asked if we could have Bumblebee hiding on the Ark. But I can't just have him hiding in the closet. Finally, they saw how well the movie was doing and said 'ok, you can have Bumblebee.' So, we retroactively kind of created his own arc, the Han Solo arc. The guy who wasn't invested in the war at all and is sort of brought into it."
Rich Backgrounds
In the book, Mike brings up Dunkirk and Saving Private Ryan and compares it to the background. "It's key to the story of the show. You see what life was like before the show happens, the culture. I then found out the detail of this world that would get wrecked on screen."
He then emphasized that's how they felt it was important to show the audience that there was a world that happened before the war, something they are fighting for. He then brought up a "fun fact" they drew the world to scale." That's rather impressive when you consider robots that are 20 feet tall and taller.
Shockwave
It was then that we turned our sights to a particular character in the show: Shockwave. We chronicled Shockwave's comics arc as being shown as equal and sometimes more powerful than Megatron and how, in this show, his mind is so twisted that it even frightens Megatron himself, especially the concept of Shockwave's reformatting tool, which would have essentially turned all the Autobots into Decepticons by force.
"We were fascinated by Shockwave. He's a bigger badass than some people realize. Somewhere it was written, and if our producer Matt were here, he would know, but it says that Shockwave is the only Decepticon that Megatron himself is afraid of. There was a point where Megatron snapped at Shockwave and pushed him against the wall, and Hasbro made a big stink out of it and said they can't touch, you can't do that."
Diving more into Shockwave's madness, we touched on Optimus' inaction with the All-Spark and if it was possibly a red-herring to Shockwave's energy device in what caused the ultimate nuclear winter on Cybertron. F.J. went on to say that the side story of Shockwave, Elita-1, and Jetfire on Cybertron wasn't always in the cards.
It wasn't until later that they realized how rich the story on Cybertron could be, which would have included the distress call that Shockwave sent out to have all Transformers meet in the arena and for him to make the call to go in and collect the energy himself.
"He doesn't care about the Autobots or Decepticons, he only cares about his own survival. When the arena explodes, you don't know what happens to him, but in my mind, he would digitize his conscience and his new body would have been the old Radio Shack 'Shackwave' (What a throwback!) and he'd be the sole survivor of Cybertron. Then, and I don't think I've ever talked about this before, but when you see all the spark ghosts at the end of Kingdom, all the others that died were there, and he isn't there. He'd figure out a way. In my mind, Shockwave survives."
Fun Tidbits
Diving into a spirited discussion about Bumblebee, with F.J. saying once again that he was a reluctant member of the war in their story, but he becomes a guide to the bearer of the matrix, a role that Ultra Magnus held until he was killed by Megatron at the Tarn-Hauser Gate. Another fun fact: the Tarn-Hauser Gate is, in fact, a reference to Tarn, the leader of the Decepticon Justice Division combined with Mike Hauser, an exec at Hasbro studios. From there, we got into another fun fact, this time about Scorponok and his use in Earthrise. " We knew we wanted to do an Alien-like episode and we wanted it to be about Scorponok. The problem was, how do you introduce him? The idea was someone didn't want Scorponok getting out, just like Alien."
The Love Story
For the show, F.J. had to make a call on how to get a female Transformer on par with Optimus, which really led us to the relationship between the two: What exactly is the paradigm for the relationship?
"She's someone who is smarter than Optimus and maybe should have been leading the Autobots. These two, when she was Ariel and he was Orion, they had two different paths in life."
He wanted Elita to be the person to get into Optimus's face and to be the person that could really take him to task. "When he finds her dead, that is when he turns into the hardened leader." It was surprising to learn that for as important as she was to the story, they had a really open canvas to use her.
The Controversies
Controversy is key. To wrap it up, we spoke on the voice cast as a critique and how fans had a problem with some voice casting, but in his eyes, they made the right call.
"To get Peter Cullen to come and do 18 episodes of Transformers, I have to cut a check and then cut 75% of the other characters out. Some of these voices like Elita-1 though weren't heavily featured before but to do a prequel when the other actors are 40 years older, didn't make a lot of sense."
The big critique of the show, F.J. lashed out against, saying he heard the critique but didn't get it: Beast Wars Megatron cowering G1 Megatron when his plans in Beast Wars were arguably more successful.
"I don't get that critique. I'll tell you why. He is a guy that named himself Megatron. His ulterior motive is to save G1 Megatron from becoming Galvatron because he knows Galvatron is a scourge on his world, but he's the ultimate fanboy."
He goes on to say, "He's deceptively cowering to Megatron to take steps to prevent him from becoming Galvatron. He's a history student, and he knows more about Megatron than Megatron knows about himself."
Is it the End?
Legacy was passed on by Netflix, but is there hope?
"My team, while still in production on Kingdom we developed alongside Hasbro an entire three-season Legacy storyline set in the War for Cybertron universe, and Legacy would have been a sequel to G1. It would have been colorful and fun, but real stakes and real drama."