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Your story is awesome and somewhat plausible. However, do you have a source?

All I could find is that Megatron is banned because he can transform into a gun.
http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-news-rumors/343668-tsa-bans-transformers-flights.html

Uhm, no. I was referring to this.

And this.

I could swear I read on AICN about Spielberg. Might be there as well. Dunno, and I don't really have the time to search (I'm at work).

> the original projected release date was 2005

Not quite. The projected release date has always been 2006. 2005 was just a date picked by the fans to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the first movie. On the web forum, Don Murphy mentions they were shooting for a summer 2006 release. More information on the movie can be found on the TF - The Movie roundup page. If the first movie is successful, they plan for Unicron to make an appearance in the third one.

Though many people do not realise it, over 500 episodes of Transformers have been made in their various incarnations.
Here is a brief rundown of the various Transformer shows that have aired in the last 20 years.

American shows
Transformers Generation 1 TV show (American written show, set during 1985-86 and 2005-06)

2) Transformers Generation 2 TV show (modified version of the G1 series that added an annoying 3D space cube animation.

Japanese only series
Transformers: Headmasters (Japanese). Available as an official or partial fandub.

Transformers: Masterforce (Japanese). Available in official dub or sub-titled versions.

Transformers Victory (Japanese series) Available as an official dub, fan dub, or subtitled.

Transformers Zone (Japanese). Available in subtitled or dubbed versions.

Though transforming robots remained popular in the East, the Transformers line was 'rested' for a few years.

The Beast Era
In 1996 the toy line was relaunched. After the disappointing sales of the Generation 2 series, vehicle modes were abandoned and animal forms introduced. Optimus Primal transformed into a gorilla and Megatron became a dinosaur. The Beast era was set years after the original series 300-1000 years, depending upon your source) and introduced two new factions - the Maximals and Predacons.

Beast Wars - The Autobots and Decepticons are gone and the Maximals and Predacons have made peace. This peace is broken by Megatron (a namesake, not the original), who travels back in time in an attempt to change the course of history. In most episodes he is thwarted by Optimus Primal and a small band of Maximals. The animation shows its age, but it is probably the most intelligently written TF show made (season 2, in particular).

Beast Machines - The Beast Wars are over and the Maximals return to Cybertron. They find that Megatron has captured the sparks (soul) of every Transformer on the planet and created an army of mindless drones called Vehicons. Best remembered for the strong religious overtones, huge explosions and scenes of the Maximals running away.

Japanese Beast series
While the US got the second and third season of Beast Wars, Japan received two spin-off series that focused upon other planets.

Beast Wars 2 (Japanese). Leo Convoy (lion) Vs Galvatron (dragon).

Beast Wars Neo (Japanese) - The Maximal leader, Big Convoy (a wooly mammoth) faces against the evil Magmatron. Unlike earlier Convoy/Prime toys, Big Convoy has a removable matrix in his chest.

Autobots and Decepticons return
Hasbro's initial plan was to create a followup to the Beast Machines series called Transtech. This would feature vehicle TFs with animal moulding. However, it was later abandoned and Hasbro made a deal

The original transformer toy designs predate the American TV show by a number of years. They were produced in Japan and then the cartoon was built around the robot toys when they came to America. Read the story yourself.

Look, I even found a picture of an old 1974 Megatron: very realistic

They just don't make toys like that anymore.

...when we have brand new Transformers to waste our hard-earned money on?

I just finished burning all 200 episodes of Sailor Moon onto 11 CDs...got them off my hard drive, at long last. I only have a few gigs, I need that space! :) I've also burned a couple fansubbed episodes of the new Transformers series, Car Robots to CD, so I can take and show them to people.

I've also archived about 450 megs in textual logs generated by a private roleplaying chatserv I frequent (and felt guilty about "wasting" 200 megs of space, if you can believe it :). I also have plans to master some personal mix CDs, maybe do a few copies of them for friends. I'll also make some personal MP3 CD-ROMs for playing at the school computer lab, since they capped my cable connection to a point where I can no longer stream them from home.

I'm not sure what else I'll do with them. Download more video eps and burn them, perhaps archive all my Webscription and other e-books . . . maybe I'll even back up my hard drive.

It's kind of sad, in a way. Now that hard drives with dozens of gigs are affordable, 650 megs doesn't seem quite so big anymore.
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If you think Ultra Magnus is cool, check out God Magnus, Super Fire Convoy, and God Magnus+Super Fire Convoy=God Fire Convoy. Look here. GM is the blue one, SFC is the red one, and GFC is the really improbably large one at the bottom of the page. One thing to say...WOW.