Scale

Scale in the Transformers multiverse is, to put not too fine a point on it, screwed.

Virtually no generation, era, franchise, fiction, toyline or other incarnation of Transformers has presented scale in a consistent, logical or easily-believable fashion. Most fans would agree that one needs to either ignore it or accept it, lest they be tempted to actually explain away these problems and in the process undoubtedly fanwank themselves into oblivion.

However, this does not mean that the chronic scale problems of Transformers do not merit description.

Scale within toylines
As is generally well known, the early Generation 1 toyline, especially the entire pre-Movie lines, were created from repackaged and redecoed toys from several different Japanese transforming toylines. The crucial point being that they came from different toylines. All characters (well, virtually all; see below) should be in correct scale to each other as they all are supposed to represent real-world altmodes that can pass for correctly-scaled vehicles etc. However, since the Diaclone toys were not designed to be part of the same line as Microman toys, scale issue arise. While Diaclone figures such as Optimus Prime, Prowl and Hound are more-or-less in correct scale to each other, many of the Mini Vehicles from the Microman line are clearly far too small by comparison. Even aside from the deformed penny-racer style proportions, even a comparatively small car such as a Volkswagen is disproportionately tiny when compared to a Porsche that should be in the same scale. The disparity becomes all the more obvious with other minibots such as Warpath and Seaspray whose altmodes would suggest that they should be many times their actual size.

Another glaring scale problem comes in the form of the Seekers, who turn into F-15 Eagles which, in real life, are 63.8 ft (19.44 m) long. Clearly not in scale with the Autobot cars then...

Even toys specifically designed to interact with each other often suffer from this problem. The Combaticons, for instance, are wildly out of scale to each other--Blast Off's space shuttle mode should be the largest by far, and Swindle should be significantly smaller than the others.

Other scale problems come from characters who transform into the same (or very similar) altforms but whose toys are very different sizes. For example Air Raid transforms into and F-15 Eagle, but his toy is half the size of Starscream's. In reality they should be an identical size (in fact, Silverbolt, transforming into a Concorde passenger jet should in fact be one of the largest G1 Transformers with an Earth altmode). The same can be said for Breakdown, who, having a Lamborghini Countach altmode, should be in scale with Sunstreaker. This also goes for the other Stunticons and all the Special Teams/Scramble City-type combiners with Earth-based altmodes, whose toys are all out of scale to earlier waves. By the same token, Warpath should be roughly the same size as Blitzwing.

Speaking of Blitzwing, Triple-Changers create a whole new set of problems. Octane transforms from a roughly 60-foot tanker truck into a 200-foot plus jumbo jet. Broadside transforms from a Earth jet into an entire *aircraft carrier,* presumably sized to carry quite a few Earth jets. More recent series, such as Dreamwave's More Than Meets the Eye, suggest that this is possible due to a variety of sliding panels, essentially making the transformations akin to incredibly elaborate origami.

Also, from an in-universe logic perspective, the characters with role-play altmodes such as Megatron, Soundwave, Perceptor or Armada Laserbeak are scaled to be human(well, kid)-scale. Although size changing is obviously not possible for real toys (or at least, that's what Takara wants us to think...), this human-scaling makes in some cases for inordinately large robot modes, e.g. Blaster.

Most post-Movie G1 characters (and, for that mater, most post-G1 lines) are difficult to accurately scale, as they generally transform into "futuristic" or "Cybertonian" vehicles for which there are no real-world specifications, or indeed don't transform into vehicles at all. Therefore the scale of characters such as Hot Rod or Leobreaker are fairly arbitrary and can at best be estimated by their relative size to more scale-friendly characters within the same fictions, although most animation is highly inconsistent in this regard (see below). Nevertheless, if one presumes that most vehicle altmodes are intended to house human passangers, comparisons of toys such as Chromedome and Lightspeed suggest a scale disparity similar to other combiners.

There has only been one notable exception to all of this; the Alternators toyline, where every item is a 1:24-scale representation of a real type of car, and thus remain in perfect scale with each other.

Scale within fictions
Scale issues abound within fictions, especially the G1 cartoon. A lot can be attributed to animation errors, or even "lazy animation". Size changing is rarely depicted on screen outside of characters such as Megatron and Blaster, but is rather implied (or, one could argue in many cases, inferred) in the following method: character such as Astrotrain transforms in-frame from robot to shuttle with no visible expansion of size relative to his surroundings. Cut. In the following shot his fellow Decepticons are shown running into frame, suddenly tiny in stature so that they can board the shuttle. Although Astrotrain has not been shown to actually grow (in the way Megatron is usually seen to perceptibly shrink in-shot), one infers that it is more likely that Astrotrain has expanded rather than all his confederates have individually shrunk. The same goes for Omega Supreme and other "transport" characters.

Some scale problems appear to be arbitrary, for example Optimus Prime (and, indeed, most Transformers in general) is routinely shown as being throughly gargantuan, equal to several stories in hight and capable of cradling humans in the palm of one hand. In reality, Prime would probably be less than 20 feet tall. Conversely, Bumblebee is sometimes shown as being only a few feet taller than an average human, where in reality he would be around 10 feet tall. And those pesky Seekers remain a walking scale problem; in reality they would be amongst the largest Transformers of all and would tower over their Autobot adversaries, whereas the animation generally depicts character such as Thundercracker and Wheeljack as being approximately the same height.

In most cases, the G1 cartoon adopts approximations of the toy scale (with all its inherent problems) when depicting the characters in robot modes; Prime, Megatron and Soundwave are generally animated at the same height, Seekers and Autobot cars slightly shorter (although not as much shorter and unevenly so as the actual toys are), and Minibots are given a smaller stature again. However, these depictions were far from consistent.

Some fans interpret these discrepancies to also be the result of size changing, but this is debatable. If virtually all characters used mass-shifting (or whatever) to gain or drop just a few feet for no apparent reason (other than to make the animation more plausible), the technology would seem pointlessly mundane. Furthermore there is no strong evidence in the series to indicate that size changing truly is so widespread as opposed to the animation having a particular style to it that favours emphasizing the hugeness of the Cybertronians.

Combiner scale
Combiner characters are often depicted as far larger than the sum of their parts. Characters such as Devastator and Menasor are frequently shown being as tall as large buildings, sometimes even the size of small skyscrapers. When one thinks that their individual limbs are comprised of mere cars and construction vehicles, this becomes patently absurd. Superion, however, actually would be fairly massive, if one considers the much larger real-world size of his component parts.

Show scale vs. toy scale
Some characters have great discrepancies between their cartoon scale and their toy scale. "Giant" characters such as Omega Supreme are, even aside from any size changing for transport purposes, clearly not in the same scale in toy form as they are depicted on screen. Cassette characters such as Rumble's toys are roughly the same height as most minibots, while in the show they are usually portrayed as human-sized (which is odd, considering that Soundwave is capable of expanding to massive size).

Rodimus Prime and Ultra Magnus are usually shown to be of a fairly similar hight (although Magnus is much bulkier), whereas there is a considerable difference between the size of their toys. By the same token, Rodimus is always depicted as being an equal stature to his opposing leader Galvatron, whereas the toy Galvatron is instead the same size as Magnus.



Cybertron Metroplex and the other citizens of Gigantion are depicted as gargantuan in animation, whereas the toys are merely among the normal boxed size-classes. (Although, the Japanese Galaxy Force release, dubbed "Megalo Convoy", included an exclusive redeco of the Heroes of Cybertron Optimus Prime to indicate the "correct" scale.) Within the animation, though, this causes problems with their Mini-Con partners, who are depicted as human-sized in robot mode by themselves, but when directly interacting with their larger partners, retain their size in relation to the toy... meaning some temporarily-gigantic Mini-Cons!

Pretender scale
The G1 concept of Pretenders had some interesting scale issues. In the original comic the pretenders appeared fairly literally as their toy counterparts; normal-sized robots inside humaniod shells. The logical result of this was that the Autobot Pretenders were depicted as giant-sized humans. Which ain't much of a disguise. By comparison, the Decepticons merely look like garden-variety giant Saban monsters.

Although the original American cartoon did not feature any Pretenders, the Japanese-only continuity did, in their series Super-God Masterforce. Here the Pretenders were not shells so much as ill-defined wholistic transformations which involved size changing, allowing the large Autobots to achieve human size and convincingly pass themselves off as such. The Decepticons, by comparison chose to retain their gigantic proportions when in Pretender-mode.

Although never depicted in any of their actual fiction, Dreamwave's More Than Meets The Eye profile book included a description of their continuity's take on the Pretender concept. Something of a fusion of the above two, it described a physical shell that utilises shrinking technology to achieve the Masterfore-like capacity to pass the wearer off as a real human (or other bipedal lifeform of choice). Intriguingly, the profile also obliquely implies that such Pretender technology would/could later lead to the development of the synthetic faux-organic beast-mode tech of the Beast Era.

Mini-Con scale
The Mini-Cons of the Unicron Trilogy are small robots who stand approximately the same height as a human teenager. However, they almost all transform into vehicles (of either Earth or Cybertronian design) which are clearly modelled to include cockpits etc. for carrying passangers, and yet they are obviously too small to accomodate humans (the only exceptions being Grindor, Sureshock and High Wire, who turn into a human-scaled skateboard, scooter and pushbike respectively). Who then these smaller-than-human passengers could possibly be is something of a mystery.

In the Cybertron cartoon, the Recon Mini-Con Team retain their slightly-larger-than-human robot modes, but their alternate modes are large enough to contain a human passenger.

Citybots


The characters Metroplex, Trypticon, Fortress Maximus and Scorponok each have altmodes which are described as a "city". However, the scale at which they could plausibly house enough humans, let alone Transformers to be in any way reasonably defined as a "city" would suggest a robot-mode scale that would make Godzilla look like a gecko. No fiction to date, not even the very large depictions in the Japanese Headmasters cartoon, even begins to approximate the size that a true "citybot" would logically become. In reality, the grossly-undersized depiction of Unicron (see below) would probably be closer to the scale of an actual transformed city. Which is ironic, as in Season 3 of the G1 cartoon Unicron requires citybot eyes to replace his own shattered ones. That's right, citybot eyes fit a planetbot. Explain that one...

Rare examples which even suggest such a realistic city scale include occasional Japanese promotional art (e.g. see left). A popular non-official source which also depicts citybots in "true" scale is the 13th installment of Matt Moylan's LilFormers.

Furthermore, there is virtually no way to reconcile the "city" altmodes of the actual toys with any believable use of the term. Using windows as even a vague scale, they would hardly qualify as a city block. The cartoon episode Thief in the Night makes some headway in explaining this via an establishing shot that shows Metroplex to be only a small smaller sub-section of the "actual" Autobot City, although this was not repeated.

Although little fiction to date has significantly featured the Headmaster leaders fulfilling their "city" roles, they have in the Japanese-exclusive cartoons been employed in their tertiary modes as massive starships capable of transporting and housing many normal-sized transformers. Conversely, the Marvel G1 comic depicted Fort Max and Scorpy as merely "large-standard" size characters, of an equal height to Powermaster Optimus Prime and, in some UK issues, even the same as Rodimus Prime (to be fair, Powermaster Prime was often drawn "undersized" in the comics).

Planets
Scale when it comes to planets is almost so fraught it's actively painful. The logic problems of describing citybots as "cities" is a thousand times worse if Unicron is supposed to have a planet-sized altmode, and that Cybertron is in turn supposed to be in scale with him. Although different fictions have compared both Cybertron/Primus and Unicron to drastically different Sol-system planets, the fact remains that they are supposed to be planets, and yet across most fictions they are shown in such insane scale-relation to characters that it would suggest they are barely the size of a very, very small moon (or a space station).

To start with, Cybertron itself was depicted throughout G1 as having buildings visible from space. Although this was clearly intended to make it immediately obvious that the planet was entirely technological in nature, it actually makes no sense whatsoever, as such structures would have to be the size of small continents to actually be visible from such a distance. If the buildings were in fact supposed to be Transformers-scale skyscrapers (or even 2000 A.D. style mega-bocks), Cybertron would therefore be barely a fraction the size of Earth's Moon. By comparison, the rather Coruscant-like orbit-views of Cybertron in the Beast Machines cartoon may be less distinctive or recognisably "Cybertronian", but are far more believable.

Unicron, however, is a much more extreme problem. If one presumes that no obvious size changing occurs during his transformation (and really, why would he want to become smaller?), he would be so massive that any shot that features even a part of his body, let alone the whole thing, would be of such a scale that no normal Transformer, however massive, would even be visible in the same frame. His depiction in the The Transformers: The Movie in which he directly interacts with normal-sized Cybertronian characters is blatantly absurd (regardless of how totally phat it looks). Shots such as the Dinobots fleeing his grasping hand, a starship penetrating his eye or especially picking up Galvatron between his thumb and forefinger before swallowing him (or, similarly in the comic, impaling Brainstorm on his fingernail before crunching him between his teeth) bend any concept of plausible scale beyond breaking point. If Unicron is the size of a planet, his hands would be the size of continents. This would make Galvatron the size of Great Britain.

There is no possible explanation for any of this. Just go with it.

The depiction of Unicron's scale in Armada was (very debatably) a slight improvement, at least in as much as the concept of physical interation (or much bodily movement for that matter) with such tiny beings was not even attempted, preferring instead to communicate with normal Transformers by possessing another body in their own scale. Nevertheless, shots featuring Thrust and Megatron standing on his neck region are still farcially out of scale.

Beast Era scale
In the Beast Era scale is not such a large issue, although it certainly does crop up in less obvious (depending on your point of view) ways.

Real world scale
Although the Beast Warriors all seem to exist quite happily in their own relative scale, their scale in relation to the real-world animals they have adopted as altmodes is more problematic. While the "giant insect" characters such as Waspinator and Inferno are obviously not in real world scale, when considered carefully virtually none of the characters actually are. The only characters who has been clearly depicted interacting with real members of his adopted species are Tigatron and Cheetor, who is seen attempting to interact with other cheetahs in Beast Wars, Part 1, who react in fright. Cheetor was shown here to be in the same scale as real cheetahs, which effectively makes him the measuring stick for all other characters. Rattrap is therefore obviously a monstrously huge rat, about the size of a large dog, Rhinox is a rather small rhinoceros, and Optimus Primal is probably a roughly normal-sized gorilla. However, Megatron is therefore an positively dwarfish specimen of a Tyrannosaurus rex.

In their few interactions with (adult) protohumans, the Cybertronian characters seem between twice and three times the average height of protohumans. Considering human ancestors really were smaller than modern humans, this scale issue is not as extreme as it may appear, but the point deserves addressing.

Scale relative to G1


Size changing appears to be a thing of the past by the Beast Era, as the majority of the Cybertronian race seems to have considerably downgraded in size, apparently due to the Maximal Upgrade Program (although this is of course a backwards rationalization, since the show's basic premise requires the characters to transform into (vaguely) normal-sized animals, compared to the G1 characters transforming into large vehicles etc.). When entering the Ark, the Beast Warriors are very small compared to the dormant G1 characters, especially Optimus Prime. They are roughly the size humans should be (but usually weren't) depicted in relation to these characters.

Of course, in Japan, tiny Beast Warriors wouldn't be able to have Awesome Robot Battles, so in Japanese fiction Beast Warriors are the same size as G1 Transformers, despite how this contradicts everything ever anywhere +1.

It's vaguely possible that passage through the Blasty Zone may somehow account for this discrepancy, but let us not kid ourselves. It's Japan.

Toy scale vs. cartoon scale
The first waves of Beast Wars figures were not made in the same relative scale to each other as depicted in the cartoon, although from Season 2 onwards the scales (and general toy-accuracy) of the cartoon became much more consistent with the toys.

For example, of the Season 1 Maximal crew, Dinobot, Cheetor, Tigatron and Rhinox are all from the same deluxe size class, while Airazor and Rattrap are considerably smaller basics. Optimus Primal, an ultra, stands at virtually twice the size of the deluxes. In the show, Dinobot is the tallest, followed by Rhinox and a slightly shorter Optimus Primal, shorter again is Tigatron, while shorter still is Cheetor (despite being an identical mold) and Airazor, while Rattrap is marginally the shortest, but by no means to such a degree as his toy would suggest.

The Beast Machines' toyline was far worse in terms of scale discrepancies with its cartoon, with the tallest character Silverbolt becoming the shortest (show-featured) Maximal toy, and similarly the massive Tankor was reduced to a tiny basic-class (well, in Japan anyway, but the Tank Drones that his BWR toy was redecoed from were supposed to be the same size anyway). And, sadly, the most show-accurate toy in the line (well, sorta in the line...) "Air Attack Optimus Primal" was rendered as an enormous supreme figure, completely incompatible with the other toys.