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Transformers: The Ultimate Guide

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This article is about the American Transformers book. For the Japanese Transformers book, see Transformers Ultimate Guide.
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Transformers: The Ultimate Guide
Publisher Dorling Kindersley Publishing, INC.
First published May 5, 2004 (First printing)
Written by Simon Furman
Continuity Dreamwave Generation One continuity
ISBN ISBN 0756603145

ISBN 978-0756603144

Page count 144

Transformers: The Ultimate Guide is an officially licensed guide from DK Publishing, written by Simon Furman in 2004. In 2007, a second edition was published, increasing the page count from 144 to 152 (visibly different by having a reflective background on the cover instead of white).

Contents

Editorial priorities

The Ultimate Guide is one of many similarly titled publications by Dorling Kindersley which cover the histories, characters and worlds of comic characters such as Spider-Man, the X-Men and many others. However, the Transformers tome is distinguished by one major detail—while the other books serve as encyclopedias of the characters' long histories in print, Transformers: The Ultimate Guide gives only the most basic of treatment to the historical aspects of Generation 1. Instead, its articles are focused entirely on the then-current Dreamwave Generation One continuity. However, as Dreamwave's universe was so monumentally underdeveloped at the time of the book's publication, most of the information in the book actually had to be created for the book.

Additionally, the book appears to deliberately favor story material from comic continuities as opposed to the cartoon continuity. This is most conspicuous in dealing with the origin of the Dinobots in the Dreamwave universe, where Furman dismisses the notion that they were built on Earth by Wheeljack (as in the cartoon) on the basis that it is in contradiction with the "historical evidence" that the Dinobots existed on Cybertron—from the War Within comic Furman himself wrote nearly 20 years later. This approach goes so far as to claim that the cartoon's Quintesson-creation origin for the Transformers is entirely conjectural—when talking solely about the cartoon!

Finally, in the sections where the book does deal directly with historical aspects of Generation 1 (in the pages covering the Marvel Comics, the cartoon and the toys), not one page passes without several errors. Several names are spelled incorrectly ("Teletran-1", "Carlee", "Eleta-1", "Sean Burger"), various 'toon and comic summaries have inaccuracies in them, and the toys used for images are old, ratty artifacts with peeling, misapplied stickers and various missing and/or misattributed accessories (the G1 and G2 samples photographed apparently came from the personal collection of "Tony Marshall and his son James").

The episode guides for the Generation 1 cartoon, Beast Wars, Beast Machines, and Armada are also condensed significantly into "best of" guides showcasing the finest episodes, or ones that push the story forward. A 2001 Robots in Disguise cartoon episode guide was deliberately excluded—leaving that series' section of the book brief and incomplete—in order to leave more room for the then-upcoming Energon line.

Contents

  • Introduction

Generation 1

Generation 2

Beast Wars

Aside from the introduction page, all artwork in the Beast Wars and Beast Machines sections was provided by Mainframe Entertainment

Beast Machines

Transformers: Robots In Disguise

  • A New Wave
    • The explanation of Hasbro's Megatron using the Devil Gigatron version of the mold, retooled to facilitate four extra modes, is phrased to say that Megatron thus inherited all ten modes, when in fact only the original six were covered by the instructions.
    • Hightower is incorrectly labeled as being a pre-TF Diaclone design; apparently Furman got his "Car Robot"-named lines confused.
  • Autobots and Decepticons

Transformers Armada & Energon

Dreamwave Generation One continuity

Other

  • Index
  • Acknowledgements


Updated Version

As stated above, a second, updated version featuring new information was released in conjunction with the (then) upcoming live-action film. New sections added were:

Influence

The Ultimate Guide has no doubt been used as a reference by more than a few individuals working on official Transformers material. Sadly, its influence is always easiest to determine when it causes someone to make a mistake.

The earliest example was the Transformers Legends story, "Lonesome Diesel", in which an author clearly unfamiliar with Transformers parroted several of Cybertron's landmarks singled out by the guide, and when listing off the Decepticons, only named those who received profiles on the guide's Generation 1 Decepticons page... when the story was supposed to be set in the Armada universe.

The guide's incorrect spellings for "Teletran-1" and "Carlee" (as opposed to "Teletraan I" and "Carly") were carried over into the characters' Animated counterparts, although "Carlee" got corrected in issue 4 of the Arrival comic book. The "Teletran" spelling could well have resulted in Devil's Due's "Teletran 3" as well.

Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman beat tradition by not repeating any of the guide's mistakes when they regularly consulted the guide while writing Transformers.[1]

Vital statistics

Second ISBN version

ISBN 1405304618
ISBN 978-1405304610
Pagecount: 144
Publisher: Dorling Kindersley Publishers Ltd.
Date published: June 24, 2004


Updated paperback edition

ISBN 0756630126
ISBN 978-0756630126
Pagecount: 152
Publisher: DK Publishing
Date published: May 16, 2007


Japanese HC version

ISBN 4861760348
ISBN 978-4861760341
Pagecount: 141
Publisher: JIVE Ltd.
Translators: Hiroto Ishikawa, Kōsetsu Tateno
Date published: February 1, 2005

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