by joesaysso » Mon Dec 28, 2009 10:18 pm
- Weapon: Plasma Beam Rifle
I don't think that you can "over-nod" something that was great. Remember the core group that was watching TFA didn't realize that they had just seen an hommage to something else because they had never seen that something else. And the ones that did notice it usually want more of it.
Being 30+ years old, G1 is what I grew up on and love. When TFA came out, I made my son aware of it and watched bits and pieces of it never giving it much of a thought. Then I switched to working night shift. On the weekends, I'd get completely bored in the middle of the night. After glancing oover my figure collection, I realized how many of the TFA molds I actually liked and out of boredom, decided to give the show a go. Thanks to the magic of Youtube, I have been able to watch the first 30 episodes in chronological order and here is what I have noticed:
TFA is a much smarter show than the G1 counterpart. Maybe because its modern, but while every cartoon is farfetched to an extreme extent, TFA is much less farfetched than G1. While I realize that it was an impossibility at the time for the original production crew of G1 due to the fact that they were laying the ground work, I get the feeling when watching TFA that the people who worked on that show are actually TF fans.
The animation is way better. Yes again because it is modern. But I remember all of those animation errors from G1, like Prowl having a decepticon logo or Soundwave being all blue and I remember that those really bugged me when I was a kid.
The continuity in TFA is far superior to G1. With G1, each show was a complete seperate entity from another, each its own story. TFA storyline was much more organized. Each episode was a just a chapter in the much bigger story. It gave you the feeling that the show was actually building towards something bigger. New characters were given proper introductions and regular characters often referenced things that had happned in past shows.
Of course, the previously mentioned hommages. In the garbage episode when Wreck Gar got his spark and was voiced by Weird Al, I thought that was pretty cool. I instantly thought of the 86 movie with the Junkions and autobots living it up with Weird Al playing in the background. And when Wreck Gar dropped the line "I dare to be stupid" in TFA, I about fell out of my chair. There was also a Spike cameo in that episode as well. The very first scene of the series was a video clip from G1 when Rachet is watching a "history" video.
I also like the concept of the Autobot Elite Guard.
I like how the toys actually look like their tv counterparts. I'm not sure if any show and its corresponding toy line has matched as well as TFA.
And of course, the voice acting was top notch, with the voices of Megatron, Prowl, Magnus, and Screamer being the best. Of course, the latter two were hommages to their G1 counter parts along with Grimlock, Blurr, Omega Supreme, Jazz, and maybe others.
Admittedly, there are plenty of things to not like about it too. The art style and OP not being the high commander and what they did with certain characters like Soundwave and the speechless dinobots. But people tend to focus on the negatives which prevent them from actually seeing that the powers that be did a pretty good job with TFA. While it won't replace G1, I am looking forward to watching the rest of the episodes.
One man's two cents
