The Transformers - More than Meets the Eye

The Transformers - Then and Now

Transformers I would say is the re-incarnation of Super Robot.  In the 70's I believe there was an anime "Macross" or "Revoltech" which featured planes that turn in to robot.  Not to mention the other piloted mecha.  What's interesting about the Transformers is that they are sentient beings... they had life, a mind of their own, set of principles between right and wrong.

I won't say I'm a big follower of all the Transformers franchise or all of the incarnations but G1 holds a special place in my heart.  Aside from the voice of Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime and Frank Welker as Megatron, I was truly amazed on story, the transformation from vehicle to robot and vice-versa. The ultimate catch point then was the toy commercials every episode.  My jaw would literally drop and droll as I wish I could own a toy like that. 

As a kid, I never owned a Transformer toy; we could not afford to buy one.  But like every kid who dreamed of a Voltes V or Superman Toy... I always wanted to have Optimus Prime.  He was up there with Superman, Steve, Keith and other cartoon leaders.

I was one of the poor kids who would put together match boxes and create a truck like Prime or be creative enough to put together an Optimus Prime robot with some glue and sticks; with a help of tons of imagination, I get to play with a Transforming box that I pretend to be Prime.

As I said, I never really followed all of the TF series but I was surely a G1 fan. Among my other favorites were Transformers Cybertron and Beast Wars, these two captured my attention due to the introduction of GCI Animation to TV in a series. It was for me a combination of good story and great animation.  Sadly during this time I have no means and resources to start a collection.  I was one who would frequent the mall's toy section specially when I'm stressed out to check out the new figures that would come out.  It was part of my stress reliever to frequent toys section specially when I was working.

Aside from these TF series, the Transformers movie is what really drove me back, somehow seeing prime in a live-action film had a lot of kick.

I heard a lot of rumor regarding this live-action movie.  It was a bitter sweet moment!  A lot of attention were made, the fuzz of redesign, the sense of being true to G1, even the name of the human counterpart Sam from Spike was an issue. Excitement filled in specially after the Teaser Trailer was released by yahoo. A lot were bickering about how much it changed, I was in awe on how they made the change.

During my childhood is was the amazement of seeing these transforming vehicles turn into robots, from the animation in the 80's to the CGI almost instructional graphics of transformation now a live action movie. During my early 20's i have always been a fan of the engineers that makes the toy.  Here is a cartoon I watch and here it is tangible, transformable and playable within my reach. It was like chess, rubic's cube and lego all together. It was putting together boxes as armor and dorming a vehicle mode when playing.  It was part of every boys childhood.

In the Transformers Movie, you gotta admit the amount of detail they put up with.  And as trend has it for every comic or cartoon inspired movie a toyline supports it, and Transformers did not fail to deliver.  Fascination grew when I was these new toylines, more intricate, more realistic and more complex. I get it, its different from the original cartoons on TV, changes were dramatic but also needed and with basis.

Now with the trend of Transformers growing back and the movie has proved and gave it more hyped for younger generations, I'm back into collecting and hopefully will continue to do so.  A friend once told me "What do you get with all this, its non-sense!" I smiled and said "It's me, i'm in-love with it. My toys is the source of my inner peace. Hahahahhaha....." I'm enjoying collecting with patience and now more focused and guided with direction.

There's one thing I wanna leave to all the readers "COLLECT BE CAUSE YOU LOVE TO, NOT BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO." There's no such thing "THE TRUE VALUE OF OUR TOYS IS BASED ON HOW MUCH WE LOVE THE CHARACTER AND HOW IT INFLUENCED US."

God is truly gracious to those who strive and is blessed when there is patience.  My collection grew through time and by the grace that God has given for me to be able to purchase them one at a time.  Now, with the wide influence and impact of collectors, I may not be a key player... but I'm proud to say God has gotten me in the game.

Copyright njvelasquez 2012

All characters mentioned and shown are owned by their respective company.
 Transformers and related Characters owned by Hasbro/Takara Tomy and its subsidiaries.
No copyright infringement intended in the creation of this review.