A question that repeats in my brain is “why the hell does this jazz exist the last one was the best ever pretty sure.” RTS Jazz was a great mold, and pretty definitively Jazz, and probably couldn’t be topped for “G1 Jazz toy” until a Masterpiece comes out at some point, and maybe not even then.
Of course, the answer I have to shove back in that question’s face is, “Fall of Cybertron Jazz isn’t G1 Jazz.” I mean, sure, this design has been repurposed AS G1 Jazz in the current IDW comics, and it looks more like a G1 Jazz than a design from the universe he’s intended to be from, but it’s still the case. This is the “Aligned” continuity Jazz, the universe Transformers Prime is located in, as well as the War for Cybertron/Fall of Cybertron video games. This is the Jazz who was Orion Pax’s best friend before the war. Organizationally, he’d go on my Prime shelf. He’s technically a new character.
But still, comparisons still battle in my mind, not unlike when I got Prime Wheeljack not so long after G1 Wheeljack. And then, y’know, the size. RTS Jazz was a pretty friggin’ huge Deluxe, and FOC Jazz is a pretty small Deluxe. He’s no Scout, but he’s definitely less massive. And while RTS Jazz’s transformation is pretty standard and been-there-done-that, FOC Jazz is streamlined even more. His entire car mode roof and rear is pretty much a shell that Automorphs onto his back, with his legs tucking underneath. The only manual transforming you really have to do is folding down his feet and rotating his arms at the elbow.
Things I do really like, however: He’s blue! The Jazz of my childhood was white and blue, thanks in part to the Marvel Comics coloring practices of the times, as well as the Pretender and Action Master toys. And so a Jazz with blues instead of blacks hits me right in the nostalgia.
And, yeah, he’s fairly simple, but at least he’s not goddamn WFC Bumblebee. That toy should die in a fire.
While the whole “Where does WFC/FOC fall into continuity” is overused to heck, with many points supporting both Prime and G1 and both having as many inconsistencies as each other when it comes to what continuity you want to put it in, it should be pointed out that Matt Tieger himself considers WFC/FOC to be the prequel to G1, not Prime. He stated in an interview “FOC ends right before the G1 cartoon begins”.
Therefore, its pretty safe to consider the WFC/FOC toys all G1 characters if you want to.
Matt Tieger has ALSO said that HOC is specifically a part of Hasbro’s new Aligned continuity, and not only how proud he was of being able to help establish the new timeline, but he was interviewed at length about how he fought hard to use the Dinobots, who had no place in the timeline yet.
The “this fits before the cartoon” line is pure marketing speak for those who don’t exactly have the knowledge of zillions of continuities in their brains. It’s shorthand for when the story takes place spoken in a way that casual fans will understand.
WFC/FOC makes for a shitty cartoon prequel anyhow. Half its characters shouldn’t even be born yet. The Aerialbots? Dinobots? They don’t happen until the 1980s. And I’m pretty sure Skyfire wasn’t an Autobot named Jetfire back on Cybertron. Plus the story line throws the episode “War Dawn” out the window.
But you can’t say that it can’t be a G1 prequel because of inconsistencies, when there are just as many inconsistencies with Prime. If you’ve played WFC, then you’d recognize the fact that Dark Energon in Prime and Dark Energon in WFC are completely different substances, one being from Unicron, the other being manufactured in a factory, so you’d have to ignore the Decepticon storyline in its entirety. Optimus Prime becoming Prime is completely different to Prime’s established origin story, occuring far after Megatron was established as evil, so you’d have to ignore most of the Autobot storyline. There are also huge character inconsistencies such as Breakdown acting like G1, completely opposite of his Prime personality and Soundwave being identical to his G1 personality.
I think its silly to completely write out the fact that much of WFC and by the looks of things FOC too had G1 in mind, not Prime by saying that they’re different characters. I think you can go either way, neither are consistent with either continuity and saying that its Prime Jazz and not G1 Jazz is just as supported as saying its G1 Jazz and not Prime Jazz. If you want to say its a Prime prequel there are HUGE inconsistencies that you have to ignore and if you want to say its a G1 prequel there are HUGE inconsistencies that you have to ignore, like the one you said.
Exodus is different, as that has far less inconsistencies with Prime compared to WFC, although it is a completely different story to WFC. Optimus’ origin is pretty much the same as in Prime and as a whole it slots in with Prime better, albeit still not being a good prequel as it seems to want to be the prequel to Prime, G1 and the films all at the same time and ends up being a confusing mess. But thats probably more to do with being terribly written then anything else.
Nice. Good points here.
You could always do what I do, which is to ignore Hasbro’s lame “We’re merging everything into one” tactic and just keep them all seperate. For instance – to me FOC/WFC is a retelling of War Within/Prequel to G1. PRIME is its own story, just like Energon and all the other series.
Trying to merge a universe full of new starting points and ideas is just dumb, and I really don’t get why Hasbro is pushing it so much.
Think of it this way, if you keep them separate, then Soundwave from WFC/FOC is G1 Soundwave and not the creepy mutant jet from Prime.
G1 Soundwave wishes he were Prime Soundwave.
Yeah okay Willis, keep telling yourself that.
Sorry, inclined to agree with Walky here. Creepy Jet Ninja beats out Dude With The Tapes.
Though if Prime Soundwave ever, ever has a reason to vocally laugh, it had better be like G1 Soundwave’s laugh.
Preposterous. Kids these days, its all ninjas and music television with you. Tell you what, 20 years from now, lets see who still has any lasting power, the G1 Soundwave or some lame Cobra Commander reject.
Except creepyjet is pretty much the best Soundwave ever.
You’re ignoring the nature of Aligned. The point of this new continuity is to keep Transformers stories anchored loosely to some simple commonalities laid out in the Aligned bible. Hasbro doesn’t consider continuity the way fans do. Rescue Boys and FOC can both be in the same world without shared aethetics, because what’s most important is making sure each wing of fiction material caters toward a certain demographic versus tight visual continuity. FOC is targeted towards older fans, so of course it’s gonna look more like G1. That’s intentional. And Rescue Boys Prime and Bumblebee are obviously not the bodies they have in TfPrime, but that’s not important. What’s important is the shared backbone.
The shared backbone of the Aligned Bible is what makes WFc/FoC Aligned. That’s what defines an Aligned story. Tiny discrepencies are expected and irrelevant.
They’re not exactly tiny. WFC is 100% incompatible to pretty much everything in Prime. I just think that the whole aligned continuity thing is a bit bogus, especially when its claimed that Exodus and WFC are the same story when they very clearly are not. (Again, maybe they were MEANT to be, but the writer can’t even remember important details he wrote a few chapters back, so anything’s possible with his writing).
You are missing Walky’s main point. Hasbro is NOT talking about or thinking about continuity the way you are.
To be Aligned continuity a property must be based on the general backstory/universe guidelines in the Aligned Story Bible. They can do completely different things with them, thats fine, as long as they build from that base. WfC/Foc, Prime, Rescue Bots, and Exiles/Exodus ALL do that, so they are all Aligned Continuity.
Look at it this way, the old G1 Marvel Comics and G1 Cartoon are not the “same story” in the exact way you are speaking of, but they are BOTH STILL G1. THATS how Aligned works.
Yes, they may be true for some of them, but I still think that you CAN’T play WFC without seeing the obvious ties into the G1 series, as well as the fact that it had been being called a G1 Prequel for ages until the whole “Aligned Continuity” stuff even appeared, which suggests that very late into development Hasbro told them it was now considered part of the continuity when that wasn’t the intention. Also the fact that for every time Matt Tieger has mentioned the Aligned Continuity, he has also mentioned that FOC (and by extension, still WFC despite Hasbro’s insistence) is a G1 prequel.
Therefore, I think its fair for fans to decide for themselves wether it is part of the G1 universe, or the Aligned Continuity universe. The thing that I can’t stand however, is people who insist WFC/FOC are prequels to Prime, which they absolutely are not. They have zero ties to each other and clearly did not have each other in mind when being made. Unless, for example, every Autobot and Decepticon on Prime are idiots and have no recollection of Dark Energon even though it was the thing that wiped out all of Cybertron’s Energon and made it uninhabitable. Even if they are Aligned, WFC/Prime is like Cartoon/Comic. Same Continuity, different universes, like how you suggested and I hate it when people think that means that the characters in WFC are the characters in Prime. i’ll again use Breakdown and Soundwave as the obvious examples, looking and acting completely different to their Prime counterparts.
Um, so, yeah, I hope what I said made sense, I’m not good at not rambling… Basically in conclusion, I think its fine to consider WFC/FOC a G1 prequel if you want to and its fine to consider it its own universe in the Aligned Continuity. Just not a prequel to Prime OR the same thing as Exodus, because they aren’t.
What it comes down to is who you believes decides what’s cannon.
As the owner of the property, is the sole arbiter of that in most folks minds. What they say is true, fictionally, goes. Regardless of what impressions High Moon was under when they started working Hasbro has always ALWAYS said WfC and FoC are Aligned and not G1.
I mean fans can imagine and merge and pretend anything in their own personal vision/universe, always could. But officially it is 100% Aligned and not at all G1.
Also, I feel compelled to point out that while Prime, the games and the novels are all definately their own seperate universes. They have definately influenced eachother. AND WfC and Exodus, far from having no connection are two different versions of the exact same events.
If you’re gonna say what Hasbro says is canon, then everything is Aligned.Afterall, in the Hall of Fame Arcee Bio, it stated that G1 Cartoon Arcee, G1 Comics Arcee, Prime Arcee, Beast Wars Arcee and IDW Arcee are all the same character. Why should this clearly ridiculous piece of Hasbro “canon” be disregarded, but not how they say WFC is part of Aligned?
Evidence: http://www.hasbro.com/transformers/en_US/discover/news/TRANSFORMERS-HALL-OF-FAME-2012-Nominee-ARCEE.cfm
There is another way of viewing the whole thing: Multiverse.
seeing as how there are many continuities, most take place in their own separate universes, with the exception of beast wars, which takes place during the 4 million years of stasis aboard the ark.
Beast Wars is also in its own separate universe. It borrows history from both the original cartoon universe and the original comics universe, and thus exists strictly in neither.
I run the Transformers wiki. I am very familiar with multiverses.
I haven’t picked this up yet and I’m still undecided. I’ll have to see it in hand. But I’ve always looked at it as essentially a modern era figure of Pretender Jazz. Blue head, bit small, massive chest.
I have serious problems with how unlike FOC Jazz this guy looks, with his teensy-weensy little stick legs and his bulky chest. It’s like they made a checklist of everything that made his game model sweet and awesome and balanced, and checked off every item as they systematically got them wrong..
Kind of a bummer since I wanted this figure from the moment they revealed his character as an exclusive WFC retail incentive..
*Sigh*…where the crap do you guys keep getting your FOC guys? I can’t find them anywhere and my stupid Target is packed with idiots who don’t know when “shipments come in at all..”
GRRRRRRRR.
They ordered them online. That’s what I did so I wouldn’t be constantly scouring the stores for these guys.
Just let me start with saying that I can’t remember the original G1 Jazz. My memories about the original cartoon are very blury, and aside from Optimus, Bee, Megs and Screamer I can only remember Grimlock.
While the toy didn’t get the proportions of his WFC appearance, this guy looks really neat. How tall is he compared to the FoC Optimus, Willis?
And if you want to know my thoughts on the continuity discussion: I consider WFC and FOC prequels to the Prime-Cartoon and simply handwave every incosistency regarding the plot:
Dark Energon works different in Prime? It was synthethic in WFC, so it’s of course weaker than the blood of Unicron.
The characters behave different? There are many, many years between the games and the Prime cartoon, so why should’nt they get older and went through changes in their personalities?
The backstory of Megatronus an Orion is portrayed different? Well, maybe Ratchet mixed a few things up when he told the story to the kids.
It makes all sense to me. XD
So, if I understand correctly, continuity wise, the video game toys tie into Transformers: Prime aligned continuity, but aesthetically, the video game designs and therefore the toys are closer to Generation 1? Sounds to me like it’s all pretty open to the interpretation of the collector. Most likely by Hasbro’s own design. Let the fans decide how they want to use these toys based on their own personal canon.
Works for me.
I think I still have an original Jazz http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Jazz_%28G1%29/toys in my closet at home. He was my favorite as a kid.