Talk:Scale

Hi, this is my second (and much larger) personally-originated article. I hope you like it; I certainly had fun writing it.

As I discussed on Micro-Continuities, I'm keen for people to contribute to the article; I'm not overly precious about it. All I'd ask is that if you really hate something, please discuss it HERE first, rather than outright deleting or extensively re-writing it just yet.

I'd particularly appreciate anyone wanting to add examples from other franchises. It's pretty G1 and Beast Era-centric at the moment. More/better pictures would also be great.

Also, I'd REALLY appreciate any suggestions as to what category(ies) this article should be placed in. I'm really scratching my head here...

Anyway, don't be shy, let the newbie know what you think!

Cheers, PacifistPrime.

Wonderful article. I enjoyed it. This is something that's always on my mind when I'm looking at my toys or comics. About the proto-humans in Beast Wars, though: proto-humans were smaller than modern humans (around 4 ft tall). So the scale problems, while still an issue, are not as drastic as they seem. I'm not sure how to integrate that into that section. --Crockalley 18:02, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow, thanks man. And cheers for the protohumans info. Please feel free to contribute anything, especially pictures! Ta, PacifistPrime.

I love the subtle hilarious genius of giving this the Things that Don't Exist category. --Terrocon Blot 05:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Uncyclopedia reference FTW! --TVsGrady 04:07, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Alternators having a problem?

Pardon me for asking, but what problem is there with the Alternators line? Kiss Players obviously deserves its place, but isn't that line seperate from Alternators? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.161.202.19 (talk • contribs).

It's just a joke at Kiss Players' expense. And they're not entirely separate; some Alternators toys ended up as Kiss Players toys. JW 20:11, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

JBW Scales?

I remember hearign that the JBW TF's were scaled like classic G1 TF's, not the 8' tall BW-era average, but it's been so longsince i saw parts of BW2 that I can't back that up.
(This of course creates issues with Primal suddenly getting that size int he teamup. which I suppose is a problem in Robotmasters too.)
Pic of Robotmasters Primal & Prime vs. a 2-shot from Agenda? -Derik 07:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't know; I've never seen more than the teamup movie of BWII and some painful snippets of BWNeo on YouTube. Frankly I loath the little I've seen of these shows, and most Japanese-originated fiction for that matter, although I don't want to force that opinion on anyone. Love the leader-toys though ;-)

Please feel free to add anything like that if you can verify it, and if accurate please do point out the resulting scale problem with Primal in relation BW and RM. Cheers, PacifistPrime.

Such misconceptions were probably caused by the fact that in BWII Most of the Destrons turn into vehicles, the J-Beast Warriors are only G1-Sized if we assume that the Destron's vehicle modes are supposed to be real world scale. They could just be tiny vehicles like in Dawn of Futures Past. Which is probably the most likely, as Lio Convoy has been shown to be the same size as the Lion he scanned, while on the other hand Tasmanian Kid turns into a huge Tasmanian Devil, much like Rattrap turns into a huge rat.

But that's inconsistant as well. I did a quick search and found evidence that LioConvoy was about the size of his lion, as you said [1], but I also saw an image of Tasmania Kid cradling a tasmanian devil that he scanned in his hands [2]. Wikipedia [3] places the average length of a Tasmanian devil at 652 mm, which would be over one-fourth the height of an average man. So it's still confusing.-EricMarrs 23:41, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Contextually, though I haven't seen the episode, I'm betting that's a baby Tazmanian devil.

Sale in JBW is weird. It appears that Lioconvoy was 'real' sized, (about 7 feet tall, and transforms into a normal-sized lion.) while others in hsi crew are ridiculously undersized. By contrast- the Destrons turned into TINY versions of jets and such. The toy scale was (loosely) maintained. Robotmasters is fucked though.

I might rephrase the entry to more accurately reflect this contradiction. -Derik 00:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Mini-Cons

The first paragraph on Mini-Con scale bugs me. The Earth-based altmodes have always been pretty clearly intended as small-scale reproductions of actual vehicles, no different from how Waspinator is (theoretically) a large-scale reproduction of an actual wasp. So Sparkplug, for instance, has windows because he's a tiny Lamborghini and Lamborghinis have windows. (A case could be made for the non-Earth-design vehicles, I suppose.) It just seems to be inventing an issue for the sake of having something to question on a subject where there's already plenty going on that's questionable... if anything, Mini-Cons in Armada are one of the few cases of consistent scale in Transformers. --Andrusi 18:23, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, except the weapons. --Andrusi 18:24, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not wild about it either. They're not supposed to be having passengers at all ever, and clearly were never intended to... except in Cybertron. (And, well, the SAT, right.) --M Sipher 18:43, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I take your point, but it seems to me that it's still a valid inclusion. Even if Mini-Cons were never intended to hold passangers (although for that matter, frankly, how often do you see post-Movie characters actually carrying passangers anyway...?), they nevertheless turn into vehicles that appear to be able to carry people in them but are too small to actually do so. They are, almost by definition, SCALED DOWN representations of (mostly) real vehicles. So feel free to reword the paragraph, but I still think Mini-Cons warrant a reference. That's my two cents, anyway. Ta, PacifistPrime

Question

Why does Lio Convoy and Primal being the same size in BWII cause a problem. Lio convoy was the same size as a real lion.

Nanotyrannus?

You should remove the nanotyrannus caomment since many now believe it's just a young rex.

Except that when Mainframe created the CGI models for Beast Wars, Nanotyrannus was believed to be a real genus. I always assumed that they had Megatron get his beast mode from scanning Nanotyrannus fossils so he wouldn't completely dwarf the rest of the cast. --Rotty 20:36, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the same explanation of Nanotyrannus applies to Meg's beast mode scale-he just scanned the fossil of a juvenile T-Rex. Darktruth 23:17, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Scale within Toylines

Parts of the paragraph involving the movie toys are very inaccurate, especially the claim that non-Prime or Megatron characters having toys in different classes representing the same body is virtuarlly unprecendeted. If it were just the Legends that were the exception, that would be fine, as the reason for that class was "small versions of the large toys", much the TF-Juniors (same goes for fast-food toys and kabya kits).

The main problem with this is Beast Machines, as the first Megatron (Mega) toy is the same "body" as his TMII form (Ultra), three toys for Cheetor (Mega, Supreme, Deluxe) and Primal (Deluxe, Mega, Supreme), Jetstorm (Deluxe and Ultra), Tankorr (Mega and Basic), and Thrust (Deluxe and Basic). (Yes, the Basics forms of the last two were techinaclly Drones, but the Beast Wars Returns line released the Basics as the Generals, and the visual difference between General and Drone was some extra paint.) --FortMax 20:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Awsomeness.

Hey man love the article. I wish all of wikipedia could be like that, informal and with a bit of humour, instead of being as about as much fun as getting repeatedly kicked in the face. Lauds.

Movie

While not perfect, the movie has avoided many of the scale issues that previous generations have had, and should be mentioned. As with Beast-Era, this entire new kettle of fish is in need of its own section and should probably be added soon. If anyone can point out any scale problems in-movie (not in the toys, though there are many there) please mention them here. -King Starscream 14:08, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

• In the movie we are shown the All-Spark compressing itself from a massive cube to a much smaller one, in which a human is easily able to hold and run with it. Isn't it reasonable to suggest that the Transformers, being a product of the All-Spark, would be able to, to some degree, compress or expand themselves in the same fashion?

Yes, but that's a topic for the size changing article. While this article does talk about size changing (possibly too much), any discussion that's just about size changing shouldn't be here. JW 20:34, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Featured?

Any chance of this article becoming a featured article? It contains an enormous ammount of knowledge, and is also witty at the same time. As such, this article could be said to be a perfect example of what this wiki is about. Tindalos 20:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, as the originator of the article, I'd second that! ;-) I'm enormously chuffed to hear you say that, thanks. PacifistPrime.

Ideally, I'd like to see the BW sections edited a bit more, and possibly integrated into the top sections of the article. Currently, the article is partly organized by topic (scale and toys, scale and fiction) and partly by franchise. Also, it needs to be trimmed of discussion of size-changing that is not relevant to scale (with that discussion moved into the size changing article). JW 02:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi there JW,

Your points are valid, but I'd actually argue that the BW stuff should stay separate. Although there's no massively logical rationale behind this (scale, after all, is scale), I think the fundamental aesthetic differences between the vehicular TFs that dominate the franchise and the animal altmodes of the Beast Era, especially Season 1 of BW (which is mostly what this material covers, since they were the only significant depiction of "real animal" altmodes) are better discussed separately. I know that falls a little bit afoul of the usually meaningless "toasters versus squishies" dualism, but in this case I really think it justfeels right as an organisational divide for this particular article.

As to the size-changing stuff; I'll have a closer look but I really thing that some discussion of size-changing is inevitably required with a topic concerning scale.

Cheers, PacifistPrime 23 October 2007

Me again, JW,

I've had a close look at the article and I really feel that all the discussion of size-changing herein really is neccessary, and thoroughly relevant. Sorry. PacifistPrime 26th Oct. 07

If you think the amount of size-changing discussion currently in the article is about right, I won't quibble much. JW 11:50, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Metroplex

While his "city" mode isn't really shown, Metroplex is about the size of Autobot City in the UK comic ("Space Pirates", to be precise).

Cliffjumper 09:42, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I've added a short line to indicate this, though I'm buggered if I can work out how to link to Space Pirates properly...I've tried it with an underscore, with a space, and both with and without the exclamation mark, but it keeps redirecting me to a new page. Anyone?

[edit]...aha, fixed it. The Space Pirates article has a picture of 'Plex in robot mode that might be useful for this article too, if the Citybot section was more substantially re-written.

Emvee 05:10, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

The recent changes to this article removed the Space Pirates info about Metroplex and it now once again reads 'almost no fiction even begins to approximate the logical size of a true "city-bot"' - is there some reason why the one instance of a Citybot being shown to a reasonable scale is being omitted? Emvee 06:45, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

movie scale alert

i think there might be one more scale problem in the 2007 transformers movie : when bumblebee shrinks the all spark he holds it fairly easily with one hand and when ladiesman217 takes it he holds it just as easily with two hands217.43.84.145 13:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Yah, but the All Spark explicitly can change size, so it's hard to argue Bumblebee didn't just shrink it again . . . JW 15:31, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Long Article

For people who are tempted to add to this article, please note that it is close to the maximum recommended length of 32kb already. Don't add new stuff unless it's pretty important to the article. New material that is just jokes will probably get cut again to make room for more substantive stuff. JW 11:55, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Animated

There's nothing in the article about any size inconsistencies that may have cropped up in Animated, so, as the series goes forward, we should probably keep an eye out. Im' guessing the first problems to crop up will involve Prowl, as he's a motorcycle rather than a car or truck. --Nemesis Primal 05:26, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed a few instances, but they're more "animation company screwups" than any kind of consitent scale issues. Look at Prime from the first episode when Bulkhead is loading an injured Prowl onto his bed. Prime's truck mode is HUGE. That's not a consistent thing, though, so I don't know that' it's worth mentioning outside of the episode's "animation errors" listing. --M Sipher 18:51, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Forget Prime. PROWL in robot mode is gigantic in many shots, considering his tiny altmode. --ItsWalky 19:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Technically, Prowl in the show isn't too bad, considering that he's supposed to stretch and fold out. The real Animated scale issues (for the toys anyway) are in their vehicle modes. Ratchet, I've always found, is particuarly bad. Ambulances are quite big, but his alt is one of the smallest in Deluxe. Prowl, meanwhile, has a motorcycle mode that's just as big as him. Ratchet would have done a lot better as a Voyager. Not to mention the lanky characters, like Lockdown, end up towering above quite a few of the bulky but technically larger characters, like Lugnut. Harley Quinn hyenaholic 14:33, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

minicons

i think the gigantion minicons are supposed to be huge because in the episode showing the origin of soundwave and sideways it says that the people turned there planet and THEMSELVES (which would include the minicons on that planet) into giants81.108.233.59 17:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Except they're clearly not, and they're explicitly said to be tiny to do detail work. --M Sipher 18:46, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Rattrap

The article mentions that only Cheetor and Tigatron were seen next to their actual flesh and blood counterparts, but I could have sworn there was a scene where Rattrap was seen next to a real rat (and the real rat was tiny compared to him). In A Better Mousetrap, perhaps? Excise 14:33, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

True. Fixed. JW 14:44, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Dreamwave Devastator Pic

While it's an excellent example of scale problems, it doesn't belong in the Toys section (since it's not a pic of a toy), and in the section where it does belong, we already have a Dreamwave Menasor pic which illustrates the problem. Unless there's another place to put it where it will fit, it should probably be cut. JW 12:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Alternators Only Toyline to Scale?

Perhaps I'm missing the intention of the statements in the article, but a couple of times the Alternators are spelled out as the only exception to the scale difficulties that plague all-that-is-Transformers. The G2 GoBots (later known as Spychangers) were designed to be 1:64 scale, weren't they? Or is there something wonky about their scale I'm missing?--G.B. Blackrock 17:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I think if you place RID Hot Shot, Ironhide, and Mirage next to each other, you'll see that they're only roughly to the same scale. Mirage is big for an Indy car, and Ironhide is a small pickup. "1:64 scale" in this case means "about yay long". JW 17:38, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, basically in this case it means "Fits most Matchbox/Hotwheels tracks."

Article cleanup

This article, with its many many subsections and considerable length, has been bothering me for a while. I think I figured out why: it had sections talking about a type of problem, such as explicit size changing, then it also has sections about various fictions, then it also has sections talking about a type of Transformer that suffered from those various problems, thus repeating all the information previously given.

It seems to me it's got to be one or the other -- we either break it down by type of problem, by fiction, or by type of Transformer. It's redundant and sloppy to have it all three ways. Considering how many kinds of Transformers there are and how much media exists, the logical choice is by problem type. That's what I'm shooting for with the most recent edit.

It still needs further cleanup; for example, the city and planet sections should be combined with other instances of an alternate mode implying a different size of robot than is actually shown. When you get down to it, Seaspray has exactly the same type of scale problem as Unicron; the article should reflect that instead of rambling all over the place. -- Repowers 15:45, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

The Fictional scale ≈ toy scale section in your rewrite cuts off abruptly mid-sentence. - SanityOrMadness 16:16, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, missed that. And sorry I just called you someone else's user name in the Recent Changes list. <:D -- Repowers 16:39, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

omega supreme

omega supreme (energon) is out of scale with himself, if you look at him in vehicle mode then the cab for the train is much larger than the COMAND DECK of the battle ship81.108.233.59 15:28, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup for # 1.4 Multiple scales of same character

Hi. I don't neccessarily have a problem with the statement that my new section "# 1.4 Multiple scales of same character" requires cleanup, but I'm a bit confused by the text below the tag. Saying that there's too much rant but then listing many more examples that I "missed" seems a little contradictory. Can you please elaborate?PacifistPrimePP 13:36, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

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