The Three R's Of Transformation an essay by Dave Van Domelen copyright 2000 ============================================================================ transform 1. To change markedly the appearance or form of. 2. To change the nature, function, or condition of; convert. - American Heritage Dictionary There you have it. The definition of "transform." But it doesn't cover all the bases, especially when you're talking about toys that transform. Much ado has been made about how some toys "really" transform or "just hide a robot inside," and so forth. But as long as the toy "markedly changes apperance or form," it has, in fact, transformed. So, how to deal with the fact that some toys transform differently than others do? The three R's of transformation, that's how. 1) Reassemble 2) Reveal 3) Rearrange Most transforming toys take at least a little bit from each of the three R's, but each will have a primary mode of transformation that can be used to classify it. Each of the R's has its strengths and weaknesses, and I'll be discussing some of them. Reassemble: A toy that transforms via reassembly is taken apart into pieces and then put back together in a new form. The most extreme example would be a Lego toy, which can be taken apart and then made into another model, although Omega Supreme is a pretty clear reassembler. Any toy that has more than, oh, a quarter of its mass detached at any point in the transformation process can be considered primarily a reassembler. All combiners can be considered reassemblers in this case, although they're generally a secondary transformation for the toys involved. Omega Supreme is a pretty good reassembler, but less-successful ones include many of the transforming Gundam toys, or those weird Omega 2099 metal robots that TEK puts out. Reassemblers are easy to design, because you don't have to worry about keeping everything together. They also leave open the possibility of modular parts, so that if you take two reassemblers from the same line, you can swap parts between them. However, because all the parts separate, it's easier to lose vital pieces. Reveal: This style of transforming toy has become more popular lately, especially in Japan with Beast Wars Neo and Transformers: Car Robots. Essentially a revealer has a fully-formed robot folded up and hidden inside a realistic shell. The shell breaks apart and hangs off the robot when transformed. If you can remove more than about a third of the non-robot-mode pieces from the robot and still have a head, torso and all relevant limbs, you have a revealer-style transforming toy. In other words, the vehicle or beast part isn't the arm, it's simply clipped or screwed onto the arm. To use an example, given a screwdriver you can remove enough penguin parts from the Beast Wars Neo toy Break to make a new penguin, yet still have a skinny robot standing there next to the penguin. Revealers are Pretenders that carry their shells around with them...the difference here is that the inner robot of a Pretender can transform. The inner robot of a revealer is just a robot. I'm trying to think of a *good* revealer, but the toy that does this trick best does it least. Good revealers, like Mach Kick of Beast Wars Neo, are good despite being revealers...the chunks of horseflesh hanging off the toy just detract from it. The biggest strength of a revealer is that the alternate mode can easily be made to look very realistic, with just a few seams here and there. No need to allow for joints in the surface, just hide all the joints inside the shell. The biggest weakness is that you get a robot with altmode bits hanging all over it. A secondary weakness is that the robot is often top-heavy and spindly, carrying the entire beast or vehicle mass on the thin legs that hid inside the altmode. Rearrange: This is the "standard" Transformer transformation style, and some think of it as "true" transformation. The pieces of the toy rearrange to make the robot mode. You can't just remove the altmode pieces, as they are integral to the body of the robot. And pretty much everything stays connected at all times, although weapons often come loose. Rearrangers are often fairly bulky, since they have to accomodate everything from their altmode within their torso and limbs. On the other hand, beast-form rearrangers are sometimes given to simplistic "stand the animal up on all fours" transformations. An example of a good rearranger is Beast Machines Jetstorm. He's nice and solid in both modes, a good job is done of making his two modes look distinctly different, and there's lots of challenging joints and tabs to mess with. With the exception of his wingtips, just about everything "jet-like" about him becomes an integral part of his robot mode. A weak rearranger would be, well, just about any limb from one of the G1 combiner teams. Rearrangers, when done well, are probably the most satisfying of the transforming toys. Every part has a place in both/all modes, or at least doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. Pieces that have no place in one of the modes are nicely hidden out of the way or turned into decoration that looks like it fits. However, they're also the hardest to design. This results in a lot of lame robot modes, either because of poor poseability or odd limb lengths or both. Wrap: Okay, this isn't an R, but it's an afterthought and doesn't generally apply to Transformers. Some toys transform via the addition of extra pieces onto a core toy. If you remember the old Centurions (Power X-Treme!) toy line, they're a good example of this. The figures could become mini-vehicles by snapping on wings or wheels or whatnot. The core figure was not taken apart, so it didn't count as a "reassemble" style toy. Some Transformers, mostly Japanese, have taken advantage of this method, usually with combiners. When another toy just wraps around the previous toy (Victory Sabre, Super God Jinrai, Super Fire Convoy), that's wRapping. The advantage of wrapping is that you can get a complete toy on its own and not buy any more, but if you have the money and the interest, you can pump up the existing toy with snap-ons. To the toy company, the advantage of a dedicated wrap line (like Centurions) is that they can keep turning out accessories each year while continuing to issue the same base toy. Saves on molds and research. The disadvantage is that often any poseability the base toy has is lost when it's covered in plates of something else. Plus, of course, it can get pretty expensive (GodBomber's starting to go for more than a year's worth of college textbooks!).