Transformers: The Movie's First Script Nearly Introduced the Anibots

The Transformers: The Movie almost introduced some very animalistic Autobots, and this unmade Combiner group paved the way for Beast Wars.

The peak of the original incarnation of the Transformers franchise was easily 1986's The Transformers: The Movie. This animated theatrical film closed the door for many of the characters and concepts introduced in the cartoon's first two seasons, all the while introducing several new ones. Unfortunately, some of these Cybertronians were inevitably cut from production.

The initial script for the movie featured Transformers known as the "Anibots," with the bestial robots being a dangerous group of do-gooders. Though they weren't included in the final film, they would transform further into a deadly group of villains. Likewise, they also set the stage for the franchise as a whole to take a much more animalistic form in the next decade.

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After the first two seasons of The Transformers, Hasbro and Takara had mostly gone through the pre-existing toy molds that they had acquired to repurpose for their current line of robots in disguise. That meant producing all-new molds for the characters going forward, namely in The Transformers: The Movie. For the most part, this film's cast was made up of original designs/toys, with Ultra Magnus (based on Diaclone's Powered Convoy) being an exception. As a vehicle for these new toys, the movie was also going to feature some characters who sadly never came to be.

Ron Friedman (who wrote a version of the script for The Transformers: The Movie) was tasked with including the Anibots, a new subgroup that Hasbro was developing for the franchise. As their name would suggest, this team was made up of Transformers with alternate animal modes. Likewise, unlike the Dinobots and Insecticons, they would actually combine, albeit through unconventional means. The Anibots included Simba the Lion Transformer, Clump the Rhino Transformer, Pardo the Leopard Transformer, Shriek the Eagle Transformer, and Thump the Buffalo Transformer. Together, they could unite into the gigantic Dragon Beast, eschewing the humanoid combined forms of other "Gestalt" groups.

Their intended role in the movie had them fighting alongside the Grimlock and the Dinobots to fight off the Constructicons' merged form of Devastator. Apparently, the Anibots were even more vicious than their prehistoric counterparts, being confined to a zoo in Autobot City until the situation required their participation. From what the script described, the Anibots would've surely been made out to be a massively powerful force and probably have become just as popular. Unfortunately for them, the team and their combined form were sadly not meant to be, be it on the small screen or the silver screen.

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The Anibots were eventually cut from The Transformers: The Movie, with their intended existence becoming something of fandom Apocrypha. Hasbro was likely planning for more of a traditional combined form for the team, and Floro Dery's initial concept art for the Dragon Beast was arguably far too complex to modify into a functional toy. Their role was instead taken by the aforementioned Dinobots (minus Snarl), who fought off Devastator as he tried to prepare Autobot City for extermination. Hasbro would still revisit the concept, changing the team's faction allegiance and renaming them to Anicons. Introduced in the opening storyline for the cartoon's third season, these would be known later in production as the Predacons.

New versions of the Predacons would become their own broad faction, and the Decepticons proper would be replaced as the villains in the radically different Beast Wars: Transformers a decade later. The Predacons' rivals were the heroic Maximals, descendants of the original Autobots. Ironically, some of the alternate modes of the Anibots would be used in various Maximals throughout the Beast Wars subfranchise. The Anibots' thematic ties to both the Maximals and the Predacons made them essentially the precursors to Beast Wars in general, even if they were never actually produced in any tangible way. With Transformers: Rise of the Beasts now set to bring the Maximals into live-action, it will, in some way, continue the path that the Anibots ferociously began years ago.

Timothy Blake Donohoo is a graduate of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he majored in Communication and minored in Creative Writing. A professional freelance writer and marketing expert, he's written marketing copy and retail listings for companies such as Viatek. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, playing video games, watching documentaries and catching up on the latest Vaporwave and Electro-Swing musical releases.