TRANSFORMERS: THE BASICS on UNICRON

[Music] this week's episode is sponsored by collector Kong toys and they don't come much bigger than this one the chaos bringer the world eater the monster planet Unicron Unicron was created as the arch villain of 1986 --is the Transformers the movie a giant transforming metal planet that sought to devour all life in the universe possessed of vast cosmic pyres often used to empower lesser beings who would serve Him as his heralds unicron's only weakness was the Autobot matrix of leadership known during production first as simply the entity and then later in Jaster before his name was finalized Unicron was like the rest of the movie's new characters designed by artist Fleur Oh Deary prototypes for a Unicron toy were created based on theories artwork but the figure was ultimately scrapped and never saw release set in the Year 2005 the movie saw Unicron set his sights on consuming the Transformers homeworld Cybertron to eliminate the threat posed by the matrix he used his powers to reformat Decepticon leader Megatron into Galvatron and sent him to destroy it but Galvatron rebelled enabling Autobot leader Rodimus Prime to open the matrix inside Unicron destroying him from within the film concluded with Unicron severed head settling into orbit around Cybertron and it remained there in the subsequent third season of the Transformers animated series in the course of the season it was discovered that Unicron still functioned and the Autobots had to thwart his attempt to use Cybertron itself as a new body while the movie had given no hint of unicron's origins or motives the cartoon explained that he was the rebellious creation of an alien scientist named primacron who had built him to scour the galaxy of life leaving in a blank slate on which primacron could experiment for his debut in the movie unicron's voice was provided by cinematic legend Orson Welles bargaining postures highly dubious very well but for his appearances in the cartoon Roger C caramel took over the role no the movie was hugely influential on the Marvel Transformers comic published in the United Kingdom for which writer Simon Furman crafted original stories that followed on from the film's events unconnected to the cartoon 1980 it's the legacy of Unicron revealed that in the comics continuity rather than enter Cybertron's orbit unicron's head had been flung to the planet of junk where he mentally enslaved the native junk eons to build him a new body for this story Furman crafted a very different origin for the comic book version of Unicron no mere robot he was a dark God a primordial being of chaos from the beginning of time who was the enemy of all life long ago unicron's nemesis Primus the god of light had sought to end their eternal and mighty by trapping them both within asteroids but over time Unicron had used his powers to reshape his asteroid into the robotic planet scene in the film Primus meanwhile reshaped his asteroid into Cybertron through which he gave birth to the Transformers and created the matrix to house his power explaining why Unicron wanted to destroy Cybertron and why the matrix was so harmful to him the story ended with Rodimus Prime trapping unicron's evil life force within the matrix where it would remain to haunt Rodimus for the remainder of the series soon after Furman took over writing the American comic book and immediately introduced Unicron and Primus into its pages retelling the origin from the UK comic and creating a brand-new climactic Unicron storyline for the series set in the then present day of 1990 rather than the future scene in the movie the Sangha culminated in Optimus Prime using the matrix to destroy the chaos bringer violence quickly came to consider the comic books cosmic origin for Unicron superior to the cartoons and it would become the template that the vast majority of depictions of Unicron would be based on for several decades Unicron enjoyed a few cameos in the 1990s animated series Beast Wars most famously when the alien vaak briefly adopted his form but his first true return to television took place in the Japanese exclusive beast wars cartoons 1990 it's Beast Wars second introduced a mysterious energy known as angle mwah find on post-apocalyptic earth by Predacon commander Galvatron 1999's beast wars neo revealed that this energy was in fact the destroyed unicron's disembodied life force reunited by his servants the bland Thrones unicron's lifeforce possessed Galvatron and launched an attack on Cybertron almost turning the planet itself into his new body until he was purged by big convoy and his matrix Buster a new Unicron toy was designed for the beast wars neo toy line but just as in generation 1 it was never released never getting past the prototype stage it wouldn't be until 2003 that Unicron would finally be immortalized in toy form as the 16 inch tall crown jewel of the transformers armada toy line this new series came with a new origin for Unicron here he and Primus were a pair of transforming robotic planets created at the dawn of time by an extra dimensional entity known the one for the purpose of exploring the universe only for the power-hungry Unicron to turn to evil the Armada animated series saw Unicron strike at the Transformers subtly in the distant past he disguised himself as Cybertron's moon and secretly created from his own body the mini-cons tiny Pyrrha enhancing robots who the transformers went to war to possess allowing the hibernating Unicron to psychically feed on the hatred and aggression of their conflict in the final arc of the series subtitled the Unicron battles Unicron was awakened to destroy Cybertron by his servant sideways but was defeated when the mini calms turned on him and the autobots and decepticons laid down their arms thereby depriving Unicron of the hatred that powered him unicron's appearance in Armada marked the beginning of a major resurgence for the character who went on to be involved in almost every major piece of transformers media for the next several years multiple toy wins cartoons comic books and more most prominently armadas two direct sequels 2004's transformers Energon and 2005 transformers cybertron the three series together collectively known as the Unicron trilogy Energon revolved around the Autobots struggle to prevent the Decepticons from repairing unicron's deactivated body represented by a re-release of his Armada toy with a new black color scheme Megatron sought to use the chaos bringer as a weapon but the repaired Unicron wound up possessing the Decepticon leader until he was destroyed following a titanic battle with a Primus empowered Optimus Prime this led into Cybertron in which the destruction of Unicron resulted in the formation of a colossal black hole that threatened to consume the universe Unicron himself did not appear in the Cybertron cartoon the remains of his body having been forged into a powerful armor by Megatron but a new smaller Unicron toy with an alien tank alternate mode was released in the Cybertron toy line it was featured in the tie-in comic published by the Transformers Collectors Club created when Unicron servants signed we have recovered his master spark from within the black hole and implanted it within the planet yeast which Unicron corrupted and fed upon to generate a new body for himself it was during the Unicron trilogy years of the 2004 guidebook transformers the ultimate guide dramatically changed the way that fans thought of Unicron building upon ideas introduced in both the Armada comic book and 2003 transformers universe which both depicted Unicron as having the power to move between dimensions the book made the bold declaration that across all the different infinite Transformers universes there was only one Unicron a single being who actually traveled from dimension to dimension devouring them as he went despite their different origin stories the Unicron scene in the movie the comics the cartoons they were all the same being a multiversal singularity a fundamental cosmic force who embodied the concept of evil itself just as Primus embodied good Unicron took a backseat for the remainder of the 2000s appearing scarcely and noticeably absent from many of the major new Transformers series that premiered during this time it wasn't until 2011 that he returned for his next big mainstream role in the Transformers Prime animated series but his comeback came with a caveat not wanting to be constrained by the rules of past stories Hasbro specifically stated that the Unicron scene in prime was not the same as the multiversal singularity from other stories subsequent material from the collectors Club offered various quantum mechanics gobbledygook explanations to justify this but the cracks were no showing in the concepts workability and eventually the club officially retired the idea in a 2015 story that saw Nexus Prime used the power of the star saber to eliminate singularities from existence this made it so that every universes version of Unicron was its own distinct entity again free to be depicted however creators liked and indeed transformers prime presented one of the most dramatic new ticks on Unicron yet his shadow hung over the series from the art set in the form of dark Energon an addictive unholy energy source formed from unicron's very blood that could even reanimate the dead more shocking however was the revelation that following his defeat at the hands of Primus in ancient times unicron's dormant body had become the earth itself revived in the present day by a planetary alignment unicron's reawakening threatened to wipe out humankind so Optimus Prime fought his way through avatars of Unicron created from out of the earth itself to reach the planet's core and unleash the power of the matrix forcing the chaos bring her back into dormancy Unicron awoke once more in the series finale this time possessing Megatron to attack Cybertron with a legion of reanimated Predacons but he was defeated for good when Optimus imprisoned his disembodied spark Hasbro would only release a toy of the possessed Megatron but a figure that transformed from elemental avatar to volcano spaceship was released exclusively in Japan the concept of Unicron as Earth would also be featured in the 2017 live-action movie the last night though he remained dormant throughout the film with the future of the movies currently up in the air it remains to be seen if the live-action unicron's threat will ever truly be brought to life these days unicron's back to making pretty regular appearances in transformers media of all stripes as our motto toy has even been retold recolored and re-released several times notable appearances in 2018 included his possession of hot rod in machinimas power of the primes cartoon and his major role in a self-titled six issue comic book miniseries from IDW Publishing that brought the company's Transformers comic universe to an end IDW Unicron in particular was another radical reinvention he began life as the planet Antilla which had been left a dead husk after it was ravaged by Cybertronian colonizers in the ancient past a talisman created by an ant Ilyn scientists brought the dead aunt Ella back to life as a weapon of retribution to exact revenge upon the transformer wrists mystically driven by the dead scientists spirit Unicron consumed every Cybertronian colony and even succeeded in destroying Cybertron itself he was only stopped when Optimus Prime sacrificed his life to confront and make peace with the scientists spirit and used the very talisman that had created Unicron to destroy him his iconic role in the movie matched with the cosmic concept Simon Furman added to his story have ensured that whatever his precise origins Unicron will always be remembered as the ultimate all-consuming evil in the world of the Transformers though the forces of good may triumph over him like evil Unicron is eternal and ever-present just waiting for his chance to rise again and those are the basics on Unicron thanks to collector cantos for sponsoring this episode tell me about your favorite Unicron story in the comments give that like button and click Subscribe for more transformers lore if you're not already and I'll see you next time

Channel: Chris McFeely

Views: 1,633,661

Rating: 4.9129338 out of 5

Keywords: generation 1, transformers the movie, orson welles, matrix, rodimus prime, marvel comic, primus, chaos bringer, beast wars neo, angolmois, armada, energon, cybertron, universe, unicron trilogy, mini-cons, ultimate guide, multiversal singularity, aligned, prime, dark energon, the last knight, power of the primes, rodimus unicronus, rodimus cron, idw publishing, lore, history

Id: RjbeCfsWWaQ

Length: 14min 30sec (870 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 13 2019