On September 19th, 2005, the third part of what has become known as The Unicron Trilogy, Transformers: Cybertron, premiered on Cartoon Network. It imported the video and music from the Japanese series Super Robot Lifeform Transformers: Galaxy Force with translated and localized dialogue and a new theme song created by Paul Oakenfold. Where Transformers: Galaxy Force was aired as a stand-alone series separate from the previous Super Robot Lifeform Transformers: Micron Legend and Transformers: Superlink (though later it was retconned to be connected to them), Transformers: Cybertron was openly connected with callbacks to Transformers: Armada and Transformers Energon added by the series writers when they localized the translated scripts. Even so, the story still retained many elements and lines that showed that it was not meant to be connected to the two previous seasons. Additionally voice overs were added to scenes that originally had no dialogue, most noticeably during the lengthy transformation and power-up sequences. The pilot episode, titled Fallen, was also edited by combining parts of the first two episodes of Galaxy Force. Many scenes from each of those episodes were cut and re-ordered to create the pilot for Transformers: Cybertron, though the second episode of Transformers: Galaxy Force was later redubbed and added as a 52nd episode.

Aside from all of the changes, Cybertron proved to be the superior third of The Unicron Trilogy in terms of story and animation. This series capitalized on several major off-world colonies of Transformers that had developed independently of Cybertron itself, namely Velocitron, Jungle Planet, and Gigantion. The main plot of the series involved the Transformers home planet of Cybertron being threatened by a black hole, and a race between the factions to gather the Cyber Planet Keys and the Omega Lock, in order to save it. Each planet had its own set of trials for the characters to endure to gain access to its Cyber Planet Key, resulting in subplots unique to each setting. This series also introduced a new character, Vector Prime, the guardian of time and space, who in later lore was shown to be one of the Thirteen original primes. Cybertron heavily featured the creator of the Transformers, Primus, and brought forth the first action figure of the planet Cybertron that converted into a giant robot mode representing the Transformers’ progenitor. It also provided us with a truly frightening version of Starscream that came complete with a massive crown, referencing the one the character had worn in The Transformers: The Movie (1986).

(Above: Cybertron transformed into Primus)

This series, now nearly two decades old, was engaging and viewed favorably overall, especially with the wide variety of characters and the action figures that accompanied them. The toys were some of the most screen accurate to date and well designed. The Cyber-Planet Key gimmick would unlock hidden features in the figure to which it was inserted, and featured codes on the back unique to most of the toys.

There’s a lot to this series, and a lot of later lore built off of the foundation it laid. We can, and shall, do multiple articles on these contributions in the future, and that’s why we say “Happy 18th birthday to Transformers: Cybertron“!

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Vector Prime and Primus Image credits: Boo’s A.I. Art