Sari Sumdac


 * Sari Sumdac is a human from the Transformers Animated franchise.



Sari Sumdac, the adopted daughter of robotics genius Isaac Sumdac, doesn't get out much. She spends all her time within her father's laboratories, receiving her education from robots. Despite this, she doesn't seem like a shut-in. She's curious, excitable, adventurous, and knows that crying can sometimes get her what she wants. She just doesn't know what it's like to be around other kids. Fortunately, she has Bumblebee and Bulkhead to help with that, and she claims that Bee is the best friend she's ever had. In fact, she's become very possessive of all her robotic friends.

The key around her neck has miraculous powers from the AllSpark, but her guardian, the robotic dog Sparkplug, thinks it's just another chew toy.

Transformers: Animated

 * Voice actor: Tara Strong (English), Tanja Schmitz (German)



When her pet robot dog, Sparkplug, stole her security key card, Sari chased it outside and was confronted by Bumblebee and Bulkhead, who spoke to her as if she were Sparkplug's pet. Naturally, she freaked out, but quickly befriended Bumblebee once he saved her from a giant bug that had grown from her father's nanite experiment gone awry. Stowing away on Bumblebee and coming aboard the Ark, she came across the AllSpark, which infused part of its power into her security key. This allowed her to heal Transformers, such as the injured Prowl, earning her brownie points with the 'Bots. She also managed to talk the police down from shooting the Autobots, saying they were friendly (except Ratchet, who was grumpy, but not evil). Sari later helped teach the Autobots about Earth and humans, explaining their method reproduction to a very startled Optimus Prime.



During the unveiling of her father's new transit system, Starscream arrived and attacked. Bumblebee took a shot meant for Sari, allowing Starscream to capture him, Professor Sumdac, the Mayor, and Captain Fanzone. Sari came up with the idea to distract Starscream while she and Prowl rescued the others (even faking some tears to make it happen). Her key later saved Optimus Prime's life when she used it to revive his spark.

Sari would go on to be Bumblebee's usual partner in crime, encouraging him to engage in such questionable activities as high-profile wrestling matches and installing rocket boosters to make him go faster. Sari likely hangs out with Bumblebee because she knows she can scare the holy beprimus out of him.



On Sari's eighth birthday, the only other kids who turned up were the children of her dad's employees. None of them really wanted to be there and soon focused their attention on the Autobots. Sari was left alone and shunned along with Bulkhead, both morose that the kids didn't like them. Her father's present, a music robot called Soundwave, cheered her up, and she soon began neglecting her friendship with Bulkhead in favour of her new toy. Repeated uses of her AllSpark Key turned Soundwave into a malevolent, sentient being who tried to enslave Humanity, and she learnt she'd been wrong to ignore her friend.

When the Decepticons Blitzwing and Lugnut arrived on Earth, the two Decepticons manhandled the Autobots. Although they survived, it made apparent the fact that more would come looking for the AllSpark, so the Autobots decided to repair the Ark and leave Earth. Sari's reaction to this was displeasure (in the form of a high pitch shout of NO!). However, they needed Sari's key to assist Ratchet in repairing the ship. Sari was unwilling to help them leave, nor was she pleased to work with a grouch like Ratchet (who was not that keen on working with a protoform), but they managed to get her to the ship. While alone with the AllSpark, Sari decided to try and sabotage the ship, thereby keeping the Autobots on Earth (and dooming her species to enslavement and/or extinction) but the key repaired the damage. After that, the AllSpark showed her an image of a giant Transformer. In her panic, Sari opened the air lock, nearly drowning, but Ratchet saved her. Ratchet then explained that they were leaving because they couldn't risk anything happening to Earth or her. Swayed by his compassion, Sari used her key to reactivate the Ark ' s decommissioned weapons, reducing Blitzwing and Lugnut to pieces.

Eventually, Optimus Prime decided that the AllSpark key was no longer safe in Sari's hands, and he ordered Ratchet to take it from her. Distraught, Sari ran off crying, only to be captured later by Blackarachnia, who was looking for the key herself. Sari basically told her "too little, too late," and the two seemed to have a heart-to-heart about their gripes with the Autobots.

While Sari was actually misleading Blackarachnia in circles around the frozen Lake Erie, she was grabbed by Ratchet as he brought the Ark out of the lake. She was ticked that Ratchet had lost her key and that her dad had helped rebuild Megatron, but the blame game ceased after the ship crashed on Dinobot Island. Prime told the Sumdacs to stay with the ship while they went to fight off Megatron. Fearing that they might die, Isaac Sumdac said that there was something that he needed to tell Sari, but she was more interested in finding something else the AllSpark could charge. The AllSpark refused to respond, other than cryptically displaying an image of a DNA strand. Suddenly, Megatron and Prime burst through the hull of the Ark, and during their fight, the key once again fell into her hands. Sari tossed it to Optimus Prime, who used the key destroy the AllSpark and disperse its energy. Acknowledging that he had been wrong in taking from her, Optimus Prime gave the key back to Sari, saying that as the most powerful Cybertronian artifact on Earth, it was too important to be left in the hands of an Autobot.

Unfortunately, all was not well, for Sari could not find her dad...as he was now a prisoner of Megatron.

After her father's disappearance, Sari took over running Sumdac Systems. Board chairman Porter C. Powell opposed her, saying that she was too young and wasting company resources searching for her father. When the Cybertron Elite Guard arrived, Sari was cut off from the Autobots and her only source of emotional support. She soon needed them, as police drones coming out of a Sumdac assembly line began to malfunction, and Powell was unwilling to do anything about it. Sneaking aboard the Elite Guard ship, Sari put the fear of god into Jazz before Bulkhead explained that Sari was okay (and Bumblebee explained that Sentinel Prime was a jerk). With Optimus, Prowl, and Jazz's help, Sari managed to get into the plant's assembly line and shut down the systems. When she returned home, she found that she had been locked out of her office, as Powell was now CEO and Chairman of Sumdac Systems. Insisting that it was still her company, Sari was shocked when Powell revealed that she had no birth certificate, no adoption papers, and no social security number. Powell's smug revelation made Sari realize that not only was there no proof that she was Sumdac's daughter, there was no legal proof she even existed.

Trivia

 * See that picture of Sari up top? She's got different boots in-show. Her key is different, too.


 * Unused animation from an early version of the opening credits showed Sari riding a tricycle that transformed into a jetpack. This device has not yet actually appeared in the series.

Sari and fans

 * Fan reaction to Sari has been mixedsome fans hate her, quite a few love her, and some are neutral. Considering the widespread vitriol heaped upon previous child characters in Transformers shows (e.g., Kicker), that means she's come off reasonably well.


 * In contrast, her deus ex machina AllSpark key was initially less popular. However, later episodes in the first season showed it to have potentially disastrous effects when used frivolously (e.g., Soundwave), and hopefully, she will cease using it as the cure for all ills.


 * Since virtually the premiere of the show, fans have been speculating whether there is "more than meets the eye" to Sari; some theorize she could turn out to be a robot, though this is not really borne out by the events of the show that mark her as clearly organic (e.g., she is aged by anti-organic radiation in "Along Came a Spider" and catches a cold in "Nature Calls"). There is definitely something mysterious going on, though, as hinted by voice actor Tara Strong who said in an interview that Sari's "entire identity might come as a surprise."  Actual in-show evidence of the mystery in the Sumdac family first surfaced in "Megatron Rising - Part 2", when Isaac, feeling that the end was nigh for both himself and his daughter, attempted to tell her "something important," only for Sari to run off before he could continue. In the same episode, a point is made of restating the fact that the AllSpark "chose" Sari to bear its power, and when Sari asks it for an explanation, it projects an image of a DNA strand surrounding a blue, glowing orb. Although there is obviously much information yet to be divulged, the implication is that Sari is, somehow, a unique being. The most interesting piece of evidence for this is the revelation that there is no paper evidence of Sari's existence on Earth, such as social security or birth certificate, as shown in "The Elite Guard."