Botcon 2008 Animated Panel Report

by Moonbug in Transformers Animated on Sunday, 27th April 2008 17:21:17 BST

Below is a summary of the Transformers Animated report which took place today at Botcon 2008. The panel included Aaron Archer (Hasbro toy designer), Matt Youngbird (Supervising Producer), and Marty Isenberg (Head writer)

Season 2 News

Season 2 will focus more on action and adventure with plenty of action on Cybertron as well as from the Constructicons. There will be more plotting from Starscream and signs that Megatron has a "master plan".

Season 3 News

A third season of Transformers Animated is not yet confirmed. They are waiting on the greenlit, but hope to get that soon. If/when Season 3 goes ahead it will feature some new characters and toys. These will include Blurr (voiced by John Moschita his G1 voice actor), Swindle, Mixmaster (voiced by Tom Kenny) and Scrapper (voiced by Jeff Bennett).

Toy News

Blurr, he will have holo wheels.
Swindle, based on his G1 form.
Wreck-Gar will be released as a Voyager class toy, turning into a garbage truck
Prowl redeco with a side car that turns into samurai armor.
Lockdown redeco with flame paint apps, as well as a new weapon (his chainsaw). Hasbro will fix the problem with the hands if they can
Mixmaster and Scrapper
Skywarp, a recolour of Starscream.
Shockwave. He will be an H-Tank
Arcee will be released with a G1 like alt-mode
Jetfire - a Voyager class fire robot (red deco) who combined with Jetstorm. Unconfirmed allegiance
Jetstorm - a voyager class ice robot (blue deco) who combined with Jetfire. Unconfirmed allegiance
In the Hasbro panel that took place after the event, it was confirmed that Perceptor will also be released as a Animated figure

Question and Answer Panel

The Transformers Rollout DVD will be released in June with the rest of Season one out on DVD in August. You may have to buy both sets to get the whole series.
Lockdown has no official allegiance. That was done to hide his origins.
No plans for Combaticons but there will be Swindle and not in a flashback scene
Blurr's apearance will NOT just be as a cameo
There is a female character coming up that doesn't have a tragic past.
Oil Slick might show up in Season 3, as currently he is a toy only figure
Sari had a backpack that transformed into a tricycle that was originally was going to be in the opening credits but it got cut. Its not planned to be in the show for now but maybe seen later, they call it t-bob.
Due to budget reasons its unlikely that either Swoop or Snarl will ever speak in the show
Blurr will be an Elite Guard Character.
Hasbro will redeco the seekers with all the colors at some point in reference to Thundercracker. They keep saying no clone army in the show, so may be the redeco jets are just toys.
They want to do Octopunch, but not sure if he would be a Pretender. He was gonna be in the first episode after the 3-parter but it didn't work out but they still want to get him in it. They want him to have boxing gloves.
Waspinator's absence from the presentation was brought up - "we've got to leave you wanting something" and "he'll sort of show up" were the answers given.
There are no plans right now of Animated Robot Heroes. Though it was mentioned this would be a great line to put human character from the show in.
When asked if there could ever be a Animated feature film. They said it comes down to rating, sales, ect. However, they would love to do something like that maybe as a straight to DVD.
Blitzwing was meant to be a Joker meets the Mask and can transform into anything when they originally thought about the character, but toy wise that feature wasn't doable. So they ended up with the multiple faces (Man-E-Faces) type feature.
Cartoon Network pushed to have a female lead character (Sari) in the show. Hasbro was a bit hesitant about it cause its a toy line geared for boys, but its turned out great.
The show takes place in the 22nd century, but they deliberately didn't set a specific date.
Captain Fanzone comes from Carmen Fanzone who is a baseball player that was Marty liked. It turns out that only like three people with that last name live in Detroit so he had to go to his neighbor and ask him for permission which he gave.
There might be some type of baseball reference coming up in the show.
The comic will be from IDW that is a 5-issue limited series of totally new stories written by Marty. When Marty found out IDW was doing a comic he really wanted to write it.
The 1st issue retells the movie but from different points of view.
Each issue will be its own story taking place during season 1 continuity.
Starscream is DEAD.