Transforming the Transformers

If all that comes to mind when you think "Transformers" is a cartoon, comic book, and toy craze from the 1980s, get ready to think again. The new big-screen presentation of the clashing Autobots and Decepticons is a far cry from the animated toys of two decades ago. For the past two years, Aaron Archer, design director of the Transformers toy line for Rhode Island-based Hasbro, has helped engineer the updated look and feel of the robots.

When Hasbro began pitching the movie around Hollywood several years ago, he recalls, it was often tough to explain to studio reps that there was more to Transformers than a toy gimmick.

"We explained to them that while they were metal beings that could do this amazing thing ... they're their own sentient beings, and they choose to be good or bad, just like human beings, so there is a relevant story," he said. In one script proposal, he noted, the robots were treated more like objects than as characters, and weren't even going to speak.

"We knew to get the right people and to make this a unique movie, we didn't want the 1980s cartoon remade on film," Archer said.

So when Michael Bay signed on as director, it was encouraging to Hasbro that the filmmaker's watchword was "realism."

"Transformers after the film will be a whole different situation than before the film," he said. "We've only been a toy line and a small animated show and some comics. It's been around, and people understand it, because it's a great puzzle (toy). But it's not 'icon' status. I need to keep something relevant and fresh for a new generation of kids while at the same time trying not to alienate anyone that wants to stay with it."

So while characters like Optimus Prime and Bumblebee and Jazz will have familiar names and attitudes and personalities, they'll sport a different look these days, both in vehicle form and in their robot states.

"Hiding cubes and squares inside a car form doesn't make any sense," Archer explained. "That's how we got to the (new) look."

As an example, he points to lead character Optimus Prime, once a flat-nosed semi truck in bright red and blue. The new incarnation is a long-nose truck in dark blue with red accents.

"I was educated by Michael Bay on the fact that red doesn't film very well," Archer said. "But he understood what I was trying to say (about the character's heritage), and that's how we introduced red into his chest while not making the whole truck red." And as far as the shape of the truck is concerned, from a physics standpoint, Archer explained that to make the transformation believable, a bigger truck was necessary to contain the immense robot's parts.

"It's not a conspiracy to ruin someone's childhood memory of what Optimus should look like," Archer said. "It's to make him cooler."

Having grown up in the 1980s, Archer understands the old-school fan viewpoint, and says balancing that with the need to keep things fresh is a challenge.

"It makes life interesting," he said. "On one hand, there's a theory that says whatever came before is 'right.' On the other hand, you've got to say that 20 years have passed and there are new kids, and new people and you have to move on. They're not still selling the (Corvette) Stingray, for instance. Every business has to move on.

"Licensed toys today inevitably have as long a shelf life as the license holder can have something relevant in the market," Archer went on. "What Transformers has that nothing else has - not even Star Wars, is a true toy feature on top of that rich storyline. Other properties can come and go based on the accessibility of their storyline, but Transformers can live through those doldrums ... because at the end of the day, it's a great toy."

For more on Aaron Archer's artistic influences and his experiences as a toy designer and caretaker of the Transformer line, visit www.fieldsedge.com/Transformers.html