I am still trying to figure out what to do. Right now there are like 3 "pieces" of movie universe that could form 3 different universes, so I am thinking of making a single timeline or maybe 3 of them
- The titan Magazine is the one that diverges after the first movie, I think that they released a sequel comic or something that got contradicted by the second movie and they decided to roll with it and make a paralel universe that is explicitly a divergent timeline, similar to the The Amazing Spider-Man videogames. That makes that timeline the easiest to make.
- There is the "expanded movie universe" that consist of the IDW movie tie ins and the first 3 movies. I have yot to read the majority of them and I haven't watch Last Knight yet but apparently people say that Last Knight openly contradicts the comics or something so ususlly the universe with the tie in comics and the first 3 movies is considered one universe and the universe with the 5 first movies is considered another one.
- Aparently Bumblebee contradicts the rest of the movies because shows The Transformers active inthe Earth in the 80s? (I have yet to watch Bumblebee, so I don't know. Also I don't think that contradicts the first 4 movies that are the ones that I have seen.
- Then there is the two Bumblebee comic tie ins. The first one is a movie prequel that shows Bumblebee in the 60s acting as an spy. Acording to the transformers wiki that contradicts the movie and is based in a original script to the movie that was changed(?)
- The other tie in is the sequel comic to Bumblebee that shows Bumbleebee fighting Decepticons 2 years later and tie ins with the first movie so obviosly the orginal movies and Bumblebbe are suposed to be in continuity acording to this comic.But the wiki also insist that it is also contradictory with something so I don't know.
- The comic expanded universe makes Megatron the one that destroyed Bumblebee voice but the Bumblebee movie shows another Decepticon doing it.
- Are the information that happens before the timeline Split suposed to be the same in both divergent timelines? The titan magazine has a prequel comic that was also reprinted in IDW comics and IDW has another prequel comic that I don't know if contradict one another. I they don't should they be included in the titan and the expanded universe? What about the Revenge of the Fallen comics that happen in 17,000 BC? It is of course happening before the split but it was released after it.
- According to the list of universes Universal Stream Tyran 207.28 Gamma is the IDW Movie comics and Tyran 707.04 Delta is the Movie Universe but there was also a comic adaptation of the movies so, maybe the comic adaptation is the IDW comic unic¡verse and the expanded universe is the movie universe?
- So that leaves (Not counting the Titan divergent universe):
- Expanded Universe
- Movie Universe
- Bumblebeeverse
(That maybe are the same universe)
Remove the Bumblebee film from the whole equation. That's it's own timeline.
The 3 or 4 issue tie-comic is canon to the Movie Universe timeline (and maybe Expanded Universe, but more on that in a sec), but the single comic that came with the Bluray is in the Bumblebee timeline. (Yes, I know the latter had EXTENDED pages digitally that tied more into the Movie Universe, but they cut those out so ignore those bits completely even if the TFWiki won't.)
The comics are basically "canon adjacent" material, but are unique to it's own timeline as well.
Transformers tend to go back and forth to Earth, other planets, etc to scout. That doesn't matter really.
The biggest contradiction if you wanted to factor the 4th and 5th film with the Expanded Universe of tie-in stuff is the Ghosts of Yesterday novel. Since the novelization makes it clear that it's the 60s when the Transformers haven't arrived on Earth yet. Ignore that novel. I know the comics made vague references to it, but not that specific 60s reference so treat that as its own timeline.
Details like the Transformers seen in old photographs could just be similar model designs for nameless Cybertronians and not Shockwave or anyone important. Or those were fake, which considering Anthony Hopkins character in the 5th movie seemed very likely.
Also, any living Transformer from the tie-in comics like the revived Arcee twins and a bunch of other ones I can't remember offhand are probably in Cuba with Agent Simmons.
