In 1986, girls were illegal.
At least that was the prevailing wisdom if you were an executive for a line of toys about warring robots from outer space. By some minor miracle, the 1986 animated Transformers film (y’know, the one featuring Orson Welles as the one creature in the universe with a bigger appetite than himself) did include a female-presenting robot amongst its fast-talking cast of newcomers. But even though Arcee, aka The Pink One, is very much part of the Transformers furniture to this day, at the time she was denied immortalisation in plastic and zinc.
In fact, she didn’t receive her first official, retail transforming toy until 2004 - and even then it was as a motorbike with fairly different design and colours instead of her ‘classic’ form.
But it was never as straightforward as ‘we don’t make girl ones’, as much as this sort of dinosaur thinking was the prevailing corporate wisdom of the time. In fact, a 1986 toy of Arcee made it at least as far as prototype stage over at Takara in Japan.
Photos of the curious-looking, hand-sculpted mock-up, with its shocking orange-and-pink colour scheme, have been passed around Transformers fandom for decades, reliably prompting mournful what-if conversations amongst middle-aged collectors haunted by the empty space on their shelves next to Hot Rod, Springer, Ultra Magnus et al.
Sure, in time we could pick up any number of modern Arcees in any number of sizes, breathtakingly accurate to her on-screen appearances and with far more poseability than the ageing flesh of their owners, but that blocky, 80s, quick-switching original line-up would be forever left incomplete.
Well, well, well.
The ‘Missing Link’ range is the most exciting thing to happen to Transformers in many a year (at least if you’re a greying 80s child like me). Nominally, it’s about re-releasing select original ‘Generation One’ Transformers without the design limitations of the time - whether that’s less articulation than a Dalek after eight pints, or having to remove half a dozen easily-lost parts during the process of transformation.
As I’ve written about before, there’s something bittersweet about that - the amazing work that our childhood imaginations used to do in bringing these plastic bricks to life is now instead covered by a plethora of ball-joints and ratchets. But, inna final analysis, it’s just to nice to be able to buy pristine, non-knackered versions of 40-year-old toys and without having to pay hundreds for the privilege. A good way to tick a few boxes.
Arcee, though. She’s something else. What the wizards at Takara did here was to reverse-engineer a fully-transforming toy that never truly existed, based solely on a couple of photos of an unreleased, 39-year-old prototype that, as far as we know, did not actually transform. (I must admit I don’t know if they still own said prototype themselves, if it was destroyed, or if it’s in the hands of one of the storied handful of ultra-exclusive collectors who’ve quietly hoovered up the most extreme rarities yet decline to show them to the world).
That gap on the shelf? As of this month, it’s finally filled. And in style.
Well, presuming you’re already acclimatised to the G1 aesthetic. If you’re not, you’re currently thinking I’m perfectly mad to have spent £70 on a pink Weetabix with arms, and I don’t blame you in the slightest.
…This is when I tell you that I actually bought two Pink Weetabixes With Arms, as those bastards at Takara released Missing Link Arcee in both those wonderful/sickly orange and pink prototype hues, and in the pink, white and grey film scheme (replete with a more screen-accurate Princess Leia head). As recently hand-wrung about, I have mixed feelings (but terrible self-control) when it comes to Same Toy But Different Colour, but on this one I was powerless to resist. 39 years, man!
For the record, I gravitated to the orange one first, and she’s the one who’ll stand proudly next to Hot Rod, Kup, Blurr, Springer, Ultra Magnus, Wreck-Gar and (spit) Wheelie in my little Transformers: The Movie cluster. I’ve always found the divergence of the toy and cartoon designs oddly fascinating - and, moreover, the screen-styled aesthetic of Meringue Arcee makes it feel much less of a piece with her 1986 peers. Most of all, though, I guess I want these to look as they would have done in an alt-timeline mid-80s where Little Alec got every Transformer he ever wanted, instead of just one at Christmas and birthdays. So Orangee it is, and Pinkee goes with the rest of my Shadow Transformers.
But in either colour scheme, Missing Link Arcee is an extremely weird toy. Obviously it looks awkward as hell to the modern eye, but that’s entirely in-keeping with its contemporaries - though admittedly exacerbated by the stick legs and wide hips. These possibly imply some less than edifying vintage attitudes about what visually says ‘woman’, but are infinitely preferable to the occasional modern Arcee figure that shapes her chest armour to resemble a whacking great pair of norks. It is a robot. Please, dear lord please, it is a robot.
In any case, weird proportions were a sign of the times in the 1986, so no objections there. What really gives me pause is that Neo-vintage Arcee does not feel quite like her contemporaries. While not complex per se, the transformation is more involved and more inventive, with ideas and technologies that simply did not exist 40 years ago.
I mean even before the ‘new’ articulation in her limbs, to match the rest of the ML range - I’m taking stuff stuff like a long swing-out, folding bar to reposition her hips, and little flip-out heels for balance, or the micro-engineer tabs and slots that hold everything in place in the (delectably svelte and retro-futuristic) car mode. I’m not sure such thoughts would not even have occurred to an exhausted Japanese guy churning out his 38th Transformer design of the year in 1985, without any computerised assistance whatsoever.
And though this approach ‘solves’ the transformation obstacles that likely contributed to Arcee’s cancellation all those decades ago, as well as enabling quasi-modern levels of possibility, I think it speaks to the impossibility of today’s designers being in the minds of yesterday’s.
They simply can’t know now what it’s like to not have CAD prototyping, tiny little joints and pins, ball joints and mushroom pegs and every other quiet innovation that action figures have taken for granted for decades now. It’d be like asking me to write and distribute this accursed newsletter purely with a typewriter and self-addressed envelopes. Sure, I could chaotically approximate it, but I couldn’t live it, not really.
This is not a gripe. I’m absolutely delighted this thing exists - until about six months ago I never believed it ever could. I’m simply preoccupied by how it doesn’t ‘feel’ like any other G1 Transformer - or indeed any other I can think of. It exists in a strange and liminal space between memory and modernity, yet so far from either shore. So, already, I find myself daydreaming about what it would have been like in 1986.
Which parts would have to be removed for transformation, like Blurr’s bonnet/shield or Ultra Magnus’, well, everything? Would those arms have been perpetually stuck at a startled 45 degree angle? Would the legs have been one solid part that slid up and down, rather than swung out and separated just so? Would the ‘fake’ wheels in her knees have somehow been the car mode’s actual rear wheels?
I’m dying to know. This toy has taken me so very close to answers denied for decades, yet somehow the questions now burn more than ever.
But she’s here, and she’s pretty great. That burning gap on the shelf is filled at last. She looks weird and blocky and antique, like I wanted and expected. Unlike more modern Arcees, she looks like the 1980s’ idea of a robot, rather than a superhero wearing a partial robot costume. And she even comes in orange, as the gods of yesteryear intended. The journey is complete.
Except… well, there’s Unicron, isn’t there? Massive, portly 1986 Unicron, who came far closer to release than Arcee ever did, but ultimately suffered the same sad fate.
Will they dare to be stupid?
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