Ironhide (Movie)


 * Ironhide is an Autobot from the Movie continuity family, also sometimes known as the "Tooth Fairy".



Ironhide is the Autobot's resident weapons specialist and Optimus Prime's old friend. He is old because he is hard. He's probably had enough replacement parts to build a small army, but Ironhide doggedly refuses to roll over and die for anyone. He'll fight to the bitter end and take down more than his fair share of Decepticons in the process.

Ironhide doesn't always see optic to optic with Prime, despite their friendship. He's perhaps the more practical of the two, and more than a little trigger happy, so he can be more willing to push to Autobot code to the limit if he thinks it will get the job done faster.

He has more guns than a smaller third-world country.

"I'm just saying we could. It's an option."

- Ironhide on blasting Sam's parents, Transformers


 * Hungarian name: Acélfej (meaning Steel-head)

Transformers (2007) movie

 * Voice actor: Jess Harnell (English) Katsuhisa Houki (Japan)



Responding to Bumblebee's call for assistance, Ironhide and the other Autobots under Optimus Prime's direct command came to Earth, with the old soldier landing in a suburban pool. As he climbed out of the water, a little human girl asked him if he was (of all things) the tooth fairy before he quickly hid behind some trees when the child's parents exited the house. He scanned their GMC Topkick truck and transformed, leaving the residence. He linked up with Jazz and Ratchet, and they proceeded to the rendezvous point, where they met up with Optimus and Bumblebee. After meeting Sam Witwicky and Mikaela Banes, Ironhide displayed an eagerness to show off his cannons, and made a classic Clint Eastwood impression to show it by saying 'You feeling lucky, punk?'.



Going to the Witwicky residence, Ironhide had lubricant released upon him by a rodent. This unpleasant situation was made worse by Sam Witwicky's frantic refusal to let him shoot it. Ironhide relented, despite the fact that it would cause rust. He also suggested shooting the parents, as they were interfering with Sam's search for Captain Witwicky's glasses. Optimus reminded him that they don't hurt humans and scolded his weapons expert, to which Ironhide meekly responded that he merely thought it should remain an option.

After Sam, Mikaela and his parents were captured by Sector Seven, Ironhide and the other Autobots totally outclassed the S7 agents by instantly disarming them of their weapons, then rescuing the boy and his girl. Unfortunately, their escape was to be short-lived, as Bumblebee was captured by the mysterious agents after saving Sam and Mikaela's lives. The next morning, when Optimus Prime was pondering their next move, Ironhide asked why they had to save the humans, prompting Prime to go into one of his long speeches about freedom and sacrifice, concluding that the humans need not pay for the mistakes of Cybertron-kind, and if need be, he would destroy the All Spark by fusing it with his own spark. Inspired by his words, Ironhide debated no further, and the Autobots set out for the location of the All Spark, Hoover Dam. Halfway there, to their surprise, they saw Bumblebee leading a column of Sector Seven assault vehicles, so Ironhide and the rest of the Autobots joined the unit.



During the final battle at Mission City, Ironhide realized that the F-22 Raptor that appeared to be providing Captain Lennox's troops with air cover was in fact Starscream. Ordering the others to take cover, Ironhide and Bumblebee lifted a discarded truck full of Furby toys to protect the humans against Starscream's strafing run. It worked, but threw Ironhide back and accidently crippled Bumblebee. Soon afterwards, Devastator attacked, forcing Ironhide to do several somersaults to avoid the Decepticon's missiles, thus totally scaring the crap out of a lady sitting in the middle of the street.

Ironhide and Ratchet took it upon themselves to protect Sam from Starscream and Blackout as he made his way to a rooftop where he could pass the All Spark to a military helicopter. Unfortunately, Starscream blocked off Sam's path, prompting the Autobot guardians to engage the more powerful Decepticon immediately. After being knocked down, Ironhide implored Sam to keep running.

After the destruction of Megatron and the All Spark, Ironhide somberly cradled the body of the fallen Jazz while Ratchet informed Optimus Prime that there was nothing they could do. Ironhide then gave Captain Lennox a ride home and spent the remainder of the day observing Sam and Mikaela making out on the hood of Bumblebee's vehicle mode.

Transformers The Game

 * Voice actor: Mark Ryan

Brief aside with Optimus Prime reveals Ironhide's actions may have resulted in the destruction of a small planet at one point. Ironhide maintains that it was going to blow up anyway. Strangely, Ironhide uses only his right cannon. But when fighting Ironhide, he uses both. Ironhide is such a gun nut that he even uses it in his melee attacks.

Transformers (2007)

 * Ironhide (Voyager, 2007)
 * Japanese ID Number: MA-09




 * Ironhide transforms into a modified black 2006 GMC Topkick 4500 four-wheel drive pickup truck. The two exhaust smokestacks behind the rear cabin have been shortened from the real scaled length and the prototype due to safety and durability reasons, but otherwise the vehicle mode is very accurate to the real prop truck... well, aside from the fact that Ironhide's massive missile launchers are quite visible underneath the vehicle.


 * Ironhide features an Automorph gimmick in his legs during transformation: As the user swings down his feet, all of the panels that make up his legs automatically shift and fold into place. This gimmick does not affect Ironhide's articulation. Confusingly, the instructions omit the exact positioning of the roof panels and rear window on his back.


 * In robot mode, Ironhide is quite accurate to his CGI design, though obviously simplified for toy practicality. Contrary to appearances, he features full standard up-down and lateral shoulder articulation, as well as articulation in his elbows, hips and knees. His arm-mounted cannons are inactive while mounted on both arms. However, detaching the left arm cannon and combining it with the right arm creates a huge functional missile launcher that is almost as big as Ironhide himself. The missile-launching mechanism itself isn't the typical spring-loaded button design, instead relying on a pressure-launch system to fire the missiles from the four barrels.


 * Cannon Blast Ironhide (Fast Action Battler, 2007)




 * Ironhide (Legends, 2008)


 * Offroad Ironhide (Voyager, 2008)




 * Released as part of the Allspark Powered refresh of the Movie toyline, Offroad Ironhide is a fairly extensive redeco of Voyager class Ironhide in colours reminscent of Generation 2 Motormouth. As he's now made of several colours of plastic, he's no longer the most monochromatic toy in the Movie line.

Titanium Series

 * Ironhide (3-inch Robot Masters, 2007)

Robot Heroes

 * Ironhide vs. Bonecrusher

Bigger Toys


As reported at Edmunds and The Monroe Times, Monroe Truck Equipment, in association with Hasbro, released a GMC TopKick 4500 Ironhide special edition featuring most of the modifications made to the Ironhide vehicle props used in the movie, with the only difference being that the truck will retain its stock orange running lights (the movie used blue) and the large stock sideview mirrors.

Sadly, installing a grumpy trigger-happy alien robot and deadly high-tech weaponry into the works is not part of the included modifications.

Trivia

 * In the initial draft of the movie, Ironhide was not present among the Autobot cast. However, he replaced female Autobot Arcee in later drafts and the subsequent final script.


 * In the movie, Ironhide's guns have 10,000 CGI parts each.