Sari Sumdac


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



Sari Sumdac, the 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.

"If the AllSpark chose you, it must have had a good reason."

- Optimus Prime

Animated cartoon

 * 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 Autobots' ship, 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). The 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 the 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 their ship and leave Earth. Sari's reaction to this was displeasure (in the form of a high pitch shout of NO!). However, they needed the 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 the Key to reactivate the Autobot ship's decommissioned weapons, reducing Blitzwing and Lugnut to pieces.

Eventually, Optimus Prime decided that the 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 Autobots' ship out of the lake. She was ticked that Ratchet had lost the 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 ship, 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.

After that, Powell kicked Sari out of Sumdac Tower, took Tutor Bot and Sparkplug, and gave her room to Henry Masterson as an office. With nowhere else to go, she went to Autobot HQ. Bumblebee and Bulkhead tried their best to cheer her up, employing such methods as loud music, inedible food, and unedifying teaching lesson. All they did was make things worse. Eventually, Prowl put the two bots in their place and told them to listen to her. Sari opened up about all her frustrations, such as her missing father, being kicked out of her home, her fear of Powell ruining her father's company, and the fact that there was no record of her existence. Bumblebee promised that they were there for her, no matter what, and Sari finally started to feel a little better.

And then Ultra Magnus decided that the Autobots couldn't be there for her, as the Decepticons had begun attacking the fringes of Autobot space, so Prime's crew were needed elsewhere. The Autobots decided that Captain Fanzone was the best human with whom to leave her. (Granted, their list of known humans was rather short and included Prometheus Black and Nanosec.) Before anything close to adoption could occur, they managed to convince Magnus that there were Decepticons on Earth (mostly because Starscream fell out of the sky and landed about ten feet in front of them), allowing them to stay on planet.

Sari amused herself after settling in with the Autobots by hooking up illegal satellite TV, which she used to watch pay-per-view races. (The races were also illegal, as the Autobots found out from Fanzone.) When Bumblebee wanted to join the races to compete against a mysterious blue car, Sari came along with him. Sari discovered that man in charge of the races, Master Disaster, had a remote control containing an AllSpark fragment, which he used to control the blue car. Blitzwing showed up to take the fragment, so and Bumblebee had to run for their lives. Eventually, she used the remote to get rid of Blitzwing, allowing the Autobots to get the AllSpark fragment. After that, Bumblebee severed her satellite connection, saying that he had to set a better example for her. Sari advised him not to try too hard, or she wouldn't recognize him.

Sari was awakened from her night's rest by the loud cavorting of the Constructobots. A game of flattened-oil-barrel frisbee severed her trademark pigtails, which left her none too pleased. Subsequently she proved that she was still more mature than Bumblebee in a number of ways, warning him off of taking on villains solo just to prove a point. Sadly he wouldn't realize this until the Decepticon behind the villains' success, Swindle was revealed. By then it was too late, and she had to team up with those same villains to take his immobilized chassis to Sumdac Tower. Alarmed that the receptionist robot was now declaring it to be Powell Tower, she utilized the Key to rectify that little situation before heading off and successfully disabling Swindle's technology jamming device.

A while after, Prowl and Sari were honing their agility using the factory's old assembly line. Sari claimed she could complete the exercise at full speed, like Prowl, but it was set to a quarter-speed, which proved to be too much for her at that and got a massive whack upside the head for her pains. After the Autobots discovered the return of the Constructicons, Sari was left at the base at the command of Optimus, who told reminded her that they had almost decapitated her the last time they met. Also, he doubted she would be able to take on a pair of two-story robots. At first Sari sulked at her situation, before realizing that she was completely alone in the base and did what any eight-year-old kid would do in an abandoned factory: raid the vending machines, use cranes as miniature G-force slings and try to take on Prowl's obstacle course at full speed (which went as well as last time).

While listening to her music, Sari failed to notice the alarms going off, which heralded the invasion of the Constructicons who were looking for a drink. After the two louts accidentally crushed her cell phone and left her with the option of sneaking to the communications room to call the Autobots for help, Sari decided to take on the two bots using her trusty hockey stick (which shatters soon after she strikes them with it). She escaped and made it to the communication room, contacting Bumblebee who told her to hide and wait until they finish fighting off the recently appeared Blitzwing, who was also looking for the Constucticons. Sari concluded that it would be too long and set up a trap for the two invaders, using three barrels of oil to trip them up and the plant's assembly line to knock them around for a while, forcing Mixmaster and Scrapper to flee. The Autobots returned to find the place in ruins, but Sari showed them that she was all right. Optimus both apologized for his previous comments and lauded her for her bravery, and all was well for Sariif she could just explain away the mountain of candy wrappers Optimus discovered...

Sari later posed for a Picasso-style picture done by Bulkhead. The results were...interesting, to say the least. After criticism by the Autobots, a depressed Bulkhead walked out, and Sari and Bumblebee went to cheer him up. During a walk in the park, Megatron attacked them, carrying an imprisoned Isaac Sumdac with him, and Sari realized that Megatron had kidnapped him all those months ago. (Apparently, that hadn't occurred to anyone else.) While she looked on helplessly, Megatron managed to kidnap Bulkhead. When she returned to the plant, she heard the Autobot Blurr reveal that Professor Sumdac was helping the Decepticons build a space bridge to conquer Cybertron. Sari refused to believe that her father was willingly helping the Decepticons and got a promise out of Optimus Prime to bring him home alive. Heading to Dinobot Island, Ratchet and Sari worked to bring the Autobots' ship back online. Ratchet realized that they would need riskier repairs to bring achieve their goal.

As Ratchet worked, he explained that the ship was an Autobot who had sacrificed his spark two million years ago. Sari was doubtful that it would come back online...until it spoke to her. She proceeded to use the Key on several of the ship's systems, under Ratchet's direction, until it was able to take off. Taking it to the mine where the Decepticons were based, Sari managed to give the ship enough power to transform into its robot mode, Omega Supreme. The massive Autobot turned the tide of the battle, but sacrificed himself to save the others from being sucked into the space bridge. The Autobots managed to escape, with both Sari and Isaac in tow, and Isaac revealed that he had been forced to work with the Decepticons. Overjoyed that her father was safe and still a good guy, Sari dubbed Isaac Sumdac the most honest and trust-worthy guy that anyone could hope to find.

Then she and the Autobots noticed that the skin on her left arm had been torn...revealing robotic circuitry underneath! Scared and confused, Sari took a few steps away from her father, who told her that they needed to talk.

Trivia

 * A promotional image of Sari from the Cartoon Network Transformers Animated press kit showed her with different shoes, a different Key design, and a slightly lighter skin tone.
 * In an early version of the opening credits, Sari appeared riding on a tricycle which she used the Key to transform into a jetpack. The footage was dropped from the finished credits, but was screened at conventions, and was later included on the DVD packaged with the Optimus Prime and Megatron "The Battle Begins" action figure two-pack. The trike has not yet actually appeared in the series itself.


 * Sari's pigtails do not grow back overnight...or do they?

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 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. In early Season 2 the Key becomes less of a major plot device and Sari-plus-Key is mainly used for quick repairs as the plots swing to revolve more around the Autobots fighting the Decepticons and/or villain of the week.


 * Since virtually the premiere of the show, fans were speculating whether there was "more than meets the eye" to Sari. Some theorized she would turn out to be a robot, though past events on the show had clearly marked her as at least partially organic (e.g., she deteriorates by anti-organic radiation in "Along Came a Spider", catches a cold in "Nature Calls", sets off the Elite Guard ship's organic contamination alert in "The Elite Guard", and is unaffected by the electronic shutdown weapon in "SUV: Society of Ultimate Villainy").  Nonetheless, there was definitely something mysterious going on, though, as hinted by voice actress Tara Strong, who said in an interview that Sari's "entire identity might come as a surprise."  In "Megatron Rising - Part 2", Isaac, believing they were both about to die, attempted to tell Sari "something important", only to have her run off before he can continue.  Sari then asked the AllSpark why it chose to empower her in the first place, and its "answer" was to project a DNA strand surrounding a blue, glowing orb.  In the following episode, "The Elite Guard", we found out that there was no legal documentation of Sari's existence, not even adoption papers, despite Sari's official character profile on the Hasbro website saying she is adopted.  Though there was obviously much yet to be divulged, the implication was that there is something strange and unique about Sari. Although the writers gave no indication of what the truth was at a BotCon 2008 panel, they did remark that they were enjoying seeing all the theories about her. At least someone was...  Finally, the answer was (sort of) revealed in "A Bridge Too Close, Part II". And thus, the fandom rejoiced (and complained).