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An enjoyable read:

http://io9.com/5973127/do-transformers- ... ritate-you

Oh, it's just another rant about "B.O.T." The dead horse just getting beaten.

Yep, the writing was terrible in G1, but as a kid it was enough just to see the big bad bots on screen while playing with the toys.

A few episodes did have some weight behind them, but being a 22 minute commercial, they didn't need to.

Blot wrote:being a 22 minute commercial

They were 22 minute toy commercials.

Using "B.O.T." as a model example of a typical G1 episode is a foolish act.

Sabrblade wrote:Using "B.O.T." as a model example of a typical G1 episode is a foolish act.

Exactly. The Girl Who Loved Powerglide is much better

Sinnertwin wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Using "B.O.T." as a model example of a typical G1 episode is a foolish act.

Exactly. The Girl Who Loved Powerglide is much better

In all seriousness, yes it is. As lame as that episode was, it was nowehre near the levels of as horrid disgrace as "B.O.T."

G1 was still better than animated.

ausbot wrote:G1 was still better than animated.

Honestly, Animated beats the G1 cartoon in terms of storytelling, character development, animation errors (as in, animated had fewer), humor, drama, continuity consistency, and more.

While both were top notch for each of their times, quality was much higher in 2008-2009 than it was in 1984-1987.

Lets see G1 launched a 30 year franchise, created one of the best hero type characters of all time (Optimus prime) and other Memorable Characters. Fun to epic stories. Animated was cancelled after 3 short series the toy line was cancelled before it finished. The stories were bland at best. It had the worst human characters (Sari in particular). Cheap looking cartoon network animation. Most of the villans were terrible human cliches. In G1 The Decepticons were a fearsome army in animated they were comic relief. Megatron was a head and Optimus was a pale Primal wannabee.

ausbot wrote:Lets see G1 launched a 30 year franchise,

Oh, gee. That makes it superior over everything.

other Memorable Characters.

And then everyone else were generic Autobots and Decepticons that got 2 minutes of screen time to sell their toys.

Fun to epic stories.

Most of the stories in G1 were terrible. The animated movie did better than all of the G1 episodes combined.

Animated was cancelled after 3 short series

3 short series? Three seasons. Also, the longevity of a show doesn't make it better than another. That's like saying Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends was worse than Spongebob because the latter is still on the air.

The stories were bland at best.

Example?

It had the worst human characters (Sari in particular).

G1 had dorky-ass human characters too. That's hardly an argument.

ausbot wrote:Cheap looking cartoon network animation.

Animated beat them by a longshot in that field. G1's animation was utter crap.

In G1 The Decepticons were a fearsome army in animated they were comic relief.

Because the Autobots won the war in Animated. In G1, the Decepticons won (before the Autobots won it back toward the end). Also, in G1, the Decepticons were a sad joke. The Autobots always won, and the Decepticons were left crying like little girls and retreating at the end of every episode.

Megatron was a head.

I have doubts you watched past season one, because Megatron got his body back at the end of the first season.

Yes thrill as the Autobot fight a little girl on a my little pony, wow to the constructicons who don't combine, cheer as the cop from NYPD blue scares the tick, shudder to lack of straight lines on robots, watch out autobots there's a guy with a bow and arrow. But don't worry Sari's magic key will fix everything!
You like the show thats your opinion but G1 will always be a classic.

ausbot wrote:shudder to lack of straight lines on robots,

Why the hell does that matter?

You like the show thats your opinion but G1 will always be a classic.

I'm not a big fan of Animated either. But I'm not going to sit here and say that the show had inferior writing, continuity, or character development to G1.

Sabrblade wrote:

Sinnertwin wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Using "B.O.T." as a model example of a typical G1 episode is a foolish act.

Exactly. The Girl Who Loved Powerglide is much better

In all seriousness, yes it is. As lame as that episode was, it was nowehre near the levels of as horrid disgrace as "B.O.T."

Carnage in c minor. Galvatron and Soundwave holding hands, was it? Now, that's a disgrace

ausbot wrote:Yes thrill as the Autobot fight a little girl on a my little pony,

ausbot wrote:watch out autobots there's a guy with a bow and arrow.

You do realize that those two were filler villains, right? You don't honestly believe that those two were meant to be taken seriously as credible threats, do you? If so, then I'm afraid you're sorely confused. Even the show's other characters acknowledged the lameness of those two. They're nowhere near the same league as the likes of Meltdown, the Headmaster, Nanosec, and certainly not the Decepticons, and they're not supposed to be. They're called "minor side threats" for a reason.

ausbot wrote:wow to the constructicons who don't combine,

What's to "wow" about? They're not meant to "wow" us, they're meant to "amuse" us with their familiar personalities and Blue Collar, Average Working Man style of humor. Honestly, by comparison, the G1 Constructicons were generic mooks with only Long Haul having any discernible character traits due to his constant whining.

ausbot wrote:cheer as the cop from NYPD blue scares the tick,

When did that happen? No seriously, you say it happened, so you must know something about it. When did that happen?

ausbot wrote:shudder to lack of straight lines on robots,

ausbot wrote:You like the show thats your opinion but G1 will always be a classic.

DUH! Of course it will! It came first and help set the foundation for all that came afterward. But "first" doesn't always equal "best", as PrymeStriker so eloquently demonstrated in his post.

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Sinnertwin wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Sinnertwin wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Using "B.O.T." as a model example of a typical G1 episode is a foolish act.

Exactly. The Girl Who Loved Powerglide is much better

In all seriousness, yes it is. As lame as that episode was, it was nowehre near the levels of as horrid disgrace as "B.O.T."

Carnage in c minor. Galvatron and Soundwave holding hands, was it? Now, that's a disgrace

Yep. But that episode's fault lie mostly in its animation errors and its premise. "B.O.T.", however, is bad all across the board in nearly every regard.

Sabrblade wrote:

Sinnertwin wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Sinnertwin wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Using "B.O.T." as a model example of a typical G1 episode is a foolish act.

Exactly. The Girl Who Loved Powerglide is much better

In all seriousness, yes it is. As lame as that episode was, it was nowehre near the levels of as horrid disgrace as "B.O.T."

Carnage in c minor. Galvatron and Soundwave holding hands, was it? Now, that's a disgrace

Yep. But that episode's fault lie mostly in its animation errors and its premise. "B.O.T.", however, is bad all across the board in nearly every regard.

*watched B.O.T again* Oh dear...

Oh dear, the can of Combatitronian grease-worms has been opened...

In all honesty, I love the original series. I grew up with it (thanks to the magic of video, RID was actually the current series when I first started my addiction, but I never watched a single episode despite my first Transformer being Side Burn) and it will always have a place in my heart.

However, I still accept that it was, at the very best, mediocre. Even for the time the animation was pants, especially for the great Toei Animation (let's face it, aside from the CGI helicopter scene, the Golgo 13 movie had better animation and that was from before Transformers).

I never watched Animated, as the style just wasn't to my liking (although I thought the style suited female characters and humans much better) but it actually had an interesting story. Transformers Prime (I have seen clips from) is possibly the best Transformers cartoon series so far. Cybertron wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, Beast Wars had awesome voice acting and great stories despite the horrible animation, Beast Machines was hugely underrated, and Armada was rather rubbish but had an OK story, and was much better in the original Japanese.

By far the worst Transformers cartoon series so far has to be Energon, which was simply dreadful in every conceivable way. ARGH.

Delta Magnus wrote:Beast Wars had awesome voice acting and great stories despite the horrible animation,

Only by today's standards. Back then, that animation was considered cutting edge.

Sabrblade wrote:

Delta Magnus wrote:Beast Wars had awesome voice acting and great stories despite the horrible animation,

Only by today's standards. Back then, that animation was considered cutting edge.

I thought and still think Beast Wars' animation incredible. Don't see a lot wrong with it.

PrymeStriker wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Delta Magnus wrote:Beast Wars had awesome voice acting and great stories despite the horrible animation,

Only by today's standards. Back then, that animation was considered cutting edge.

I thought and still think Beast Wars' animation incredible. Don't see a lot wrong with it.

Agreed. I can still comfortably watch it today. If anything, I'm more impressed with the animation now than I was as a kid, knowing the technical restraints of the time. I hadn't seen anywhere near the level of complexity in character design and expression in Transformers animation until Prime. Energon and Cybertron look underwhelming in comparison, even 7 years later with (presumably) better graphical rendering capability.

As for all the Animated hate on here... the animation is probably the show's weakest point, but it earns a ton of points with me by making the Decepticons seem like credible threats and not like ineffectual morons. Even guys like Lugnut, the eternally loyal underling, could whip all five of the main cast single handed. The storytelling was also great, though I suspect if you quit after seeing Angry Archer and Professor Princess, you missed the show's finer moments.

You want to know, definitively, why we like Animated? Watch The Thrill of the Hunt, a season 1 episode. Tell me you hate it then.

Yeah, Beast Wars had incredible animation for the time, and is still one of the best Transformers cartoons made so far. But by today's standards, let's face it...Ooh. The later days weren't as bad, but some of the episodes didn't even have the characters casting shadows.

But you are right, for the time it was superb.

Cybertron wasn't bad though. Granted it wasn't on the level of Beast Machines or Prime, but it was certainly better than the abomination that was Energon.

Henry921 wrote:Energon and Cybertron look underwhelming in comparison, even 7 years later with (presumably) better graphical rendering capability.

Although I will give Cybertron points for amazingly accurate toys.

You want to know, definitively, why we like Animated? Watch The Thrill of the Hunt, a season 1 episode. Tell me you hate it then.

The only episode of Animated's first season that I enjoyed. Ahh, memories.

Delta Magnus wrote:Yeah, Beast Wars had incredible animation for the time, and is still one of the best Transformers cartoons made so far. But by today's standards, let's face it...Ooh. The later days weren't as bad, but some of the episodes didn't even have the characters casting shadows.

Just gives them more of that eerie alien feel to them.

Using "B.O.T." and "Carnage in C-Minor" as examples on why the G1 cartoon forever sucked is like using "The Star Wars Holiday Special" as the primary example as to why the Original Star Wars Trilogy sucked. It shows either an immense ignorance, deep bias, and/or lack of intellectual honesty.

The G1 cartoon was produced at a VERY fast rate. At the time, mind you, the mid-1980s, it was cutting edge in terms of both a Saturday morning/weekday cartoon AND a cutting edge animated movie. And dark... GI Joe and Transformers may seem child-like and error-filled to today's audiences, but they were much darker in tone to most if not all of their contemporary animated series. Not to mention the amount of writers, voice actors, animators from different areas of the world putting something together at a STRICT deadline. Keep in mind, Hanna-Barbara's stiff animation was what dominated the airwaves before series like Transformers and GI Joe came along. And even when I was a kid I thought Hanna-Barbara animation was lame.

You want to bash the G1 series? Take some if its best examples instead of its worst. Most of the 1st season is of good animation quality and good stories. "More Than Meets The Eye" started it all, gave the origin that pretty much all series re-hash to this day, and "The Ultimate Doom" was such a dark storyline with decent animation, that today it is still a standard bearer, even re-hashing part of the story for the live action movie (which I really enjoyed that they did). Most of the 1st season was well-animated, and being the seminal launch of the series, it was highly imaginative and deeply entertaining. Only after a while did it seem apparent that every episode ended with the Decepticons retreating. But...

And as for the Decepticons retreating like scared girls in season 1... did you compare the size of each army? In the 1st season or two, the Autobots badly outnumbered the Decepticons.SO much so that they had to use mindless clones of "Seeker" jets, Reflector, and Insecticons just to make the sides seem even. It was something like 2 or 3 to 1. Just look at the 1st season toy catalog. Later on, they started making the sides equal in size, and the Decepticons didn't always retreat in every episode in such cases. In fact, they didn't always have a big massive battle in each episode.

Most of the second season had respectable animation quality (considering their production schedule), but 23 minute commercials, introducing a character or two per episode. Meanwhile, a large percentage of season 3 suffered from horrid animation errors (AKOM was the end of the series, IMO), but still had quality storylines. Dark Awakening, with better animation, would be a masterpiece. It suffered from AKOM studios. If some of those stories were re-animated with talented studio, they'd be far more respected. Regardless, some of the best and stylistic animation and interesting stories in the history of the series occurred in season 3:

- Dweller in the Depths
- Call of the Primitives
- Webworld
- Nightmare Planet
- Madman's Paradise

The '86 Movie was the break-out of what they could get away with... it SHOCKED and STUNNED the youth of that day to not only see the Decepticons so ruthless and powerful, and some of their favorite characters having horrid death scenes... people are desensitized now... back then, that was extreme. Some parents had fits. Some kids NEVER came back to the series after The Movie. It was dead to them after that... I knew because they were my classmates in school.

It's fine that so many people love the new series. That's great. They aren't all my cup of tea, but Beast Wars and Animated have some strong points, and carry on the torch for new generations of young fans. But to bash G1... I wonder if any of the G1 bashers are older than twenty-something? Because if you lived through that time period, if you are in your mid-to-late thirties and approaching forties... G1 was cutting edge, dark, amazing, and deeply inspiring. I'm an adult collector today because of G1. If it was up to Armada or one of that era of cartoons/toys, I probably wouldn't be one today.