The Gaming Den

So, Transformers fans, what's your opinions on the various major cartoons like TF: Animated and Beast Wars? I saw some G1 episodes for the first time in decades and I'm amazed. At both at how incredibly retarded the show is and how it nonetheless has better writing than I remember. Which isn't saying much, but it's at least watchable in a 'turn off your brain' sort of way and the characters do have some pretty good lines at times. It's fun-retarded.

Well, Beast Wars and Animated are generally considered among the best TF shows ever. Robots in Disguise (Car Robots in Japan) is also viewed positively. Personally, I don't like Prime, but it seems to also be well received by the general fandom. The G1 cartoon is also viewed positively, although the reasons for that vary from fan to fan, with the most common reason being nostalgia. However, newer/younger fans tend to think of it as not being so good. I, personally, love it.

The Unicron Trilogy sucks balls. Armada is kinda bad, and Cybertron is mostly meh, but Energon in particular is terrible in almost every way, and it is tied with Beast Machines for being the worst TF shows of all time.

As for the Japanese shows, if you cared to watch them, Headmasters is boring, Masterforce is masterful, and Victory isn't too great, although the villains in it are amazing.

I'm kind of saddened to hear that Headmasters is boring. I feel that human beings being able to combine with giant robots in order to turn into even more giant giant robots, Ultraman-style, should've led to a pretty rad show.

If you want an anime featuring humans combining with Transformers and such, I'd recommend Super-God Masterforce, where that is a central theme of the series.

(In fact, the majority of the cast is human; there are only three proper Transformers in the show that aren't humans, Pretenders, or drones. And one of them never actually transforms.)

Can you give me like a two-three line review of those properties and what makes them good/bad/something in between?

I'm pretty sure Gen1 is out there with The Goonies where, if you saw it when you were six, it was awesome, but if your first real exposure to it is when you're in your twenties, it sucks.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Can you give me like a two-three line review of those properties and what makes them good/bad/something in between?

Of the series I've seen...

G1 cartoon: Awesome if you like 80's cartoons like GI Joe, He-Man, Jem, and the like, or if you just like Transformers. Or if you can handle silliness and bad animation.

Masterforce: Really smart for a TF show, good writing and characters, although it has a few problems; it's really self-contained, and there aren't a lot of links to the prior series, and there are a lot of ill-defined holistic elements to it (such as how the hell the Pretenders transform into their shells) A central theme of the show is that humans are responsible for the protection of their own planet. All in all, I'd recommend it.

Victory: The writing isn't great, but it's not bad, either. The good guys are pretty one-dimensional "We must protect the earth because BURNING JUSTICE" who generally wait for the Destrons to do bad things before they act, and literally every episode ends with them laughing in front of a sunset. However, the series redeeming grace are the villains, who are quite entertaining and have more fleshed out characters than the good dudes. Unless your a huge TF nut who doesn't care about those kinds of things, I'd probably give it a miss.

Beast Wars: Although the 3D animation is terribly outdated, the writing and character portrayals are fucking amazing. Totally recommended.

Beast Machines: Really bad. Fucks over many of the characterizations from Beast Wars, and it's really too dark for a TF show.

Armada: Slow, filled with technical errors, wildly fluctuating animation quality, riddled with woefully frequent animation errors that put some of the G1 cartoon's errors to shame. Pretty much all it's faults are due to a rushed production schedule that forced it to be broadcast before they were finished. First half of the show is ponderous and repetitive, although it picks up somewhat towards the later half. It's the KoTOR 2 of Transformers. Unless your in the 4-9 age bracket, I'd stay away.

Energon: We will never talk of this. Ever. But if you must know... terrible dub, terrible writing, terrible animation, especially the CGI, terrible voice acting, confusing and incoherent dialogue and storyline, and the show actually runs out of plot like halfway through it's run, so they literally reuse the same storyline from the first half to fill up the remaining episodes. Basically, every fan on the internet everywhere agrees that Energon sucked. Do you know how rare it is for even two fans to agree on something, let alone the entire fandom?

Cybertron: Basically, the only good show in the Unicron Trilogy. Actual work and context was put into the scripts, resulting in a more comprehensible and lucid plot, and a much more polished dub, and as such it didn't have the myriad errors that Energon and Armada had. Also, the CGI is much better, to the effect that characters can now move their mouths and sometimes show emotion. It also strives to avoid one of the problems Energon, that of running out of plot. This, however, had it's own issues: the first half of the show was ponderous and drawn-out, with one story arc that lasted fourteen episodes literally consisting of nothing more than characters entering into races and having little in the way of plot. Conversely, the final quarter or so of the show truncates a lot of plot points and story arcs, seemingly because the first half was so drawn out that they ran out of room to focus on much else. Also, the show delights in using stock footage, usually as the cinematic equivalent of Styrofoam packing to pad out episodes.

Animated: Really good and very well written. Characters are fleshed out it great detail, even ones that don't have toys needing to be sold (which is rare considering almost all TF media is designed to sell toys). Despite appearances, the show has an unusual level of maturity. A huge hit with fans.

I haven't seen enough of Headmasters, the Japanese Beast Wars anime, or Prime to give a review.

Prak wrote:I'm pretty sure Gen1 is out there with The Goonies where, if you saw it when you were six, it was awesome, but if your first real exposure to it is when you're in your twenties, it sucks.

Well, that can't be true because the G1 cartoon has had a LOT of staying power, and it has had an influence on almost every TF franchise for 30 years. I mean, there's a reason Peter Cullen has voiced almost every version of Optimus Prime.

Also, I watch it as a twenty-something and still find it as good as when I was kid. So it sounds like it's a personal problem on your end.

The best thing to watch in Terms of Transformes is still the 1986 Animated Movie. Which is set squarely between S1 and S2 of Gen1.
Meaning you need to have at least a bit of prior knowledge to appreciate it really . .

Erm... it's actually set between season 2 and season 3.

TRUE FACT: I cried during the scene where Optimus Prime died.

Admittedly I've seen little of either, but I thought Beast Machines was worse than Energon on the merit that it fucked over a much better series. It killed the G1/Beast Wars continuity. Energon didn't manage to do the same with the Unicron trilogy. It doesn't compare to reusing the first half of the plot over again, but an entire plot arc of Beast Machines was devoted to the Maximals "becoming more in tune with their beast modes" which was literally a plot point resolved in one episode of Beast Wars, the series it was a sequel to.

As for tone and message, Beast Machines wasn't as much dark as it was humorless and riddled with wangst. It tries to be deep and edgy, but comes off as really shallow because the writers don't really have the skill to pull off the complexity that they were trying to portray. It's the kind of pseudo-philosophical crap that bad PS1 games tried to do. Also, while the CGI is of decent quality (for the time, at least) the Maximal character designs are hideous.

Yeah, forgot to mention all that stuff, too.

Shrapnel wrote:Erm... it's actually set between season 2 and season 3.

ok, my mistake. i have little reason to doubt you nerd.

TRUE FACT: I cried during the scene where Optimus Prime died.

i cri evrytim

Stahlseele wrote:

Shrapnel wrote:Erm... it's actually set between season 2 and season 3.

ok, my mistake. i have little reason to doubt you nerd.

Thank you for acknowledging my superior nerdiness.

i rather doubt there being anybody else here who knows as much about transformers as you do . .

True. It is both a blessing and a curse...

... Since there isn't really anyone here who I can nerdgasm with.

Shrapnel wrote:

Prak wrote:I'm pretty sure Gen1 is out there with The Goonies where, if you saw it when you were six, it was awesome, but if your first real exposure to it is when you're in your twenties, it sucks.

Well, that can't be true because the G1 cartoon has had a LOT of staying power, and it has had an influence on almost every TF franchise for 30 years. I mean, there's a reason Peter Cullen has voiced almost every version of Optimus Prime.

Fair

Also, I watch it as a twenty-something and still find it as good as when I was kid. So it sounds like it's a personal problem on your end.

Sorry, that was a bit of a miswording on my part. What I mean is, Goonies/Gen 1 are awesome to people who first saw them when they were kids. To people who didn't, and first consumed them as 20-somethings, there's no nostalgia to patch the rough bits (somewhat corny animation/often corny lines of Gen 1/practically the entirety of Goonies).

Since there isn't really anyone here who I can nerdgasm with.

That's ok, I'm sure one of these days you will find someone of your preferred gender who will nerdgasm over Transformers with you.

Prak wrote:

Also, I watch it as a twenty-something and still find it as good as when I was kid. So it sounds like it's a personal problem on your end.

Sorry, that was a bit of a miswording on my part. What I mean is, Goonies/Gen 1 are awesome to people who first saw them when they were kids. To people who didn't, and first consumed them as 20-somethings, there's no nostalgia to patch the rough bits (somewhat corny animation/often corny lines of Gen 1/practically the entirety of Goonies).

'Kay, I must admit that that is probably true.

Anyone heard anything about the latest Transformers cartoon, Robots in Disguise? I know it hasn't aired in NA yet, but you guys are like mega-nerds and I'd be surprised if everyone here hasn't at least gotten a peek.

Info on it is pretty scarce at the moment. I didn't really follow Prime, so it's doubtful that I'll watch RiD, either (since it's a sequel an' all). Also, a lot of the character designs just seem... stupid.

I don't know, I kind of like the less blocky-humanoid and more stylized designs of later-series Transformers. Don't get me wrong, Gundam-style mega robots are rad as hell, but not all or even most of them need to look like that outside of their alternate mode.

But then again, I'm one of those people who think that the MMBN robot masters NetNavis look better than the Megaman Classic/X designs, so who knows.

I'm not opposed to stylized designs; in fact, I'm all for them.

What I am against is the derpy looks that some of the Decepticons in RiD have.

Dammit, why hasn't Beast Wars Neo been subtitled/dubbed properly yet? That series looks really fun.

Because our God is not a kind and loving one.

The toys are awesome, too, btw.

Speaking of toys, do you have any idea how freaking expensive this hobby is? Transformer toys are often much more expensive than toys from other lines. For instance, a single carded GI Joe figure usually sell for $9.99 MSRP, while a deluxe class Transformer sells for $16.99 MSRP, with higher prices for the larger figures (most of the cost is due to the fact that producing a Transformer toy is much more costly than producing a GI Joe or MLP figure).

And that's for new, current toys; older toys tend to cost much more (but not always) due to the secondary market being full of evil bastards. For instance, Fortress Maximus probably sold for around $100 back in 1987. But nowadays...

Yeah.

Toys from Japan, especially ones that were only sold their (or in other Asian markets) also command mad prices on the secondary market. And European-exclusive toys are not only really expensive, they are also marginally harder to find that D.B. Cooper.

But perhaps the absolute worst offenders are... exclusives. If you aren't rolling in cash, then they only serve to mock your very existence.

Now, I don't have a job. My income is very low, and that makes it very difficult to maintain the hobby of buying and collecting Transformer toys, merchandise, and comics. Yet, I still somehow find the means to have acquired +100 plus toys. I estimate that, in total, I have spent ~$5000 on Transformer toys and related errata. And that's a somewhat conservative estimate.

Speaking of Japanese-only toys, this guy is fucking impossible to find.