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Yeah, I liked the animation, the kids weren't annoying, we got an epic battle with Unicron... there was a lot going for it.

Deathscythetransform wrote:Cyberton was kinda annoying with the repetitive transformation sequences

Which were filled in with additional dialogue to liven up the dead air.

Deathscythetransform wrote:and yeah armada was beautifully executed to my opinion.

Are you referring to the "art style"? Cuz that did look good.

It was the "animation" (the actual movement and manipulation of the onscreen objects within the art style) that was plagued by errors and oddities consistently throughout the series run.

From the sound of your previous post, it seems like you were thinking of the former rather than the latter.

Deathscythetransform wrote:the 1st series ever that gave us a true unicron toy

The only non-Mini-Con toy in the whole toyline that was really up to par with the levels of articulation set by the toyline's post-1994 predecessors (other toys came close, but lacked things like knees or elbows or rotating waists, etc.).

gothsaurus wrote:the kids weren't annoying,

And how many years has it been since you watched the cartoon?

gothsaurus wrote:we got an epic battle with Unicron...

That he mostly just stood still and did nothing for.

well. I meant not annoying next to Kicker's whining.

gothsaurus wrote:well. I meant not annoying next to Kicker's whining.

Kicker was more "spiteful" than "annoying". He evoked more feeling of hatred than mere irritation.

But, yeah, I've actually been re-watching Armada these past few months, and it's really saying something when Fred is the best-written of the human allies.

Oh yeah. I liked Fred. Guess it's time to re-watch.

gothsaurus wrote:Oh yeah. I liked Fred. Guess it's time to re-watch.

That wasn't a complement about him from me.

"Hey come on, Billy! Wait UUUUUUP! My therapist says I shouldn't exert myself! Hey WAAAAAAIT! I can't take much more of this! I didn't even get to finish my second lunch! PLEEEEEASE! WAAAAAAH!"

OK, now I'm convinced that there must be two Armadas, the one you've been watching that was awesome, and the one I watched with animation that got so bad it made G1 look like Disney animation, children that made me miss Daniel, terrible plots, and fight scenes that looked like they worked on Final Fantasy "I'll patiently stand here and wait my turn to attack you" logic.

Man, I want to watch your Armada, where can I get that?

Dead Metal wrote:OK, now I'm convinced that there must be two Armadas, the one you've been watching that was awesome, and the one I watched with animation that got so bad it made G1 look like Disney animation, children that made me miss Daniel, terrible plots, and fight scenes that looked like they worked on Final Fantasy "I'll patiently stand here and wait my turn to attack you" logic.

Man, I want to watch your Armada, where can I get that?

The awesome one can't be "watched", only "read", for it is the Armada Dreamwave comics.

Sabrblade wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:OK, now I'm convinced that there must be two Armadas, the one you've been watching that was awesome, and the one I watched with animation that got so bad it made G1 look like Disney animation, children that made me miss Daniel, terrible plots, and fight scenes that looked like they worked on Final Fantasy "I'll patiently stand here and wait my turn to attack you" logic.

Man, I want to watch your Armada, where can I get that?

The awesome one can't be "watched", only "read", for it is the Armada Dreamwave comics.

Yea those are pretty good, but comics aren't animated and we've heard how beautiful the animation of that awesome Armada version is so I would like to share the experience.

Dead Metal wrote:Yea those are pretty good, but comics aren't animated and we've heard how beautiful the animation of that awesome Armada version is so I would like to share the experience.

Well, there is also the PS2 video game that was both awesome and had really good animation.

Yeah the game and comic do help sway in the favor of Armada out of the three. And agreed, it's only "good" taken in context of being the best of the three in the "trilogy."

But come on. Fred had some great lines, like that one about "my mom says I have a glandular problem." Comedy gold!

gothsaurus wrote:Yeah the game and comic do help sway in the favor of Armada out of the three. And agreed, it's only "good" taken in context of being the best of the three in the "trilogy."

How is Armada better than Cybertron? The latter actually had memorable characters with personalities, multiple ongoing plotlines, definitive story arcs with clear defined objectives, a higher level of hand drawn animation, voice acting that sounded like the actors had a better grasp on their roles, writing that was competent enough to work with the material they had, and best of all, no hasty rushing to meet unreasonable deadlines.

gothsaurus wrote:But come on. Fred had some great lines, like that one about "my mom says I have a glandular problem." Comedy gold!

I liked him better when he was Eddy in Ed, Edd, n' Eddy. He didn't whine every five minutes.

Well, for one ... the comics and video game were better.

gothsaurus wrote:Well, for one ... the comics and video game were better.

Hmm... Never thought to compare the Armada comics or video game to the Cybertron cartoon. Will have to think on that one.

But, yeah, I was referring to the Armada toon.

Yeah, I think I was just happily surprised by the G1-ish animation ... after so many seasons less-expressive CGI. But you're right, there's a lot that was better about Cybertron. At least we can all agree Energon was NOT the best of the three (??) Ha ha ha.

gothsaurus wrote:Yeah, I think I was just happily surprised by the G1-ish animation ... after so many seasons less-expressive CGI. But you're right, there's a lot that was better about Cybertron. At least we can all agree Energon was NOT the best of the three (??) Ha ha ha.

Rampage had more and better expressions than any of the characters in any of the Unicron Trilogy.

Dead Metal wrote:

gothsaurus wrote:Yeah, I think I was just happily surprised by the G1-ish animation ... after so many seasons less-expressive CGI. But you're right, there's a lot that was better about Cybertron. At least we can all agree Energon was NOT the best of the three (??) Ha ha ha.

Rampage had more and better expressions than any of the characters in any of the Unicron Trilogy.

Yeah, the Beast Era's CGI was very expressive. It was the CG of Energon, RobotMasters, and Cybertron that was anything but (most of the time).

Observe this the scene from its beginning to its end (at the 5:00 mark) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=eIRanMWh9nE#t=186

Take notice of the facial and body feature expressions. Eye movement, mouth shapes, blinking, shoulder positions, head positions, motion and position of the arms; the overall body kinesthetics of these two is astounding for mere 1998 CG, on par with today's work.

Ryan's wishlist:

Transformers Animated Box Set
Beast Wars II
Beast Wars Neo
Robots In Disguise (I've already got the UK DVDs, but it would be awesome for everyone to get this too)

Seibertron wrote:Ryan's wishlist:

Transformers Animated Box Set
Beast Wars II
Beast Wars Neo
Robots In Disguise (I've already got the UK DVDs, but it would be awesome for everyone to get this too)

The first I could see happening very easily.

The second two are a whole different can of worms.

The last one is... also a can of worms (of the Disney variety), but probably has a far better chance of happening than the two Beast Wars series.


Primarily, the biggest factor in how Shout! Factory was able to release the three Japanese G1 series is because the UK (and Australian) subtitled DVD releases for those three already existed. The Shout! versions just used those as a based to work off of.

Whereas neither of the two Japanese Beast series have had any subtitled DVD release for Shout! to use as a base. A major reason for this is due to neither having ever been released in Japan on DVD until just a couple of years ago, along with these two series being owned by a different company from Toei (who was the studio who made the three JG1 cartoons). Said company, Production Reed, is also one that has never done business with Hasbro before, even.

I think our best hope for ever seeing these two officially released in subtitled DVD form would be to generate enough interest and desire for them since anyone whose ever been willing to watch them, or even subtitle them unofficially, lost interest in them over time for how silly and childish they were. I myself would even just be happy if some unofficial fansubbing group could get them subbed all the way through, as has happened for the likes of Super Link and Galaxy Force.

Sabrblade wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:

gothsaurus wrote:Yeah, I think I was just happily surprised by the G1-ish animation ... after so many seasons less-expressive CGI. But you're right, there's a lot that was better about Cybertron. At least we can all agree Energon was NOT the best of the three (??) Ha ha ha.

Rampage had more and better expressions than any of the characters in any of the Unicron Trilogy.

Yeah, the Beast Era's CGI was very expressive. It was the CG of Energon, RobotMasters, and Cybertron that was anything but (most of the time).

Observe this the scene from its beginning to its end (at the 5:00 mark) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=eIRanMWh9nE#t=186

Take notice of the facial and body feature expressions. Eye movement, mouth shapes, blinking, shoulder positions, head positions, motion and position of the arms; the overall body kinesthetics of these two is astounding for mere 1998 CG, on par with today's work.

I've always assumed that the Beast Wars cartoon was very expensive, which is why it could only do 52 episodes over 3 years whereas they went with cheaper animation for the Unicron Trilogy, but were able to produce 52 episodes for one season (basically 3 times as many episodes for the same time period). I'm assuming that this approach was to allow more characters to be featured instead of having a smaller cast of characters which means less products featured. I like the Transformers Prime approach better with cameo appearances but am aware that they still had limitations with cost which still restricted the number of characters that could be in the show (hence why Beast Hunters was only 13 episodes instead of 26 ... again, an assumption, but probably correct considering the history of Transformers cartoons).

Seibertron wrote:I've always assumed that the Beast Wars cartoon was very expensive, which is why it could only do 52 episodes over 3 years whereas they went with cheaper animation for the Unicron Trilogy, but were able to produce 52 episodes for one season (basically 3 times as many episodes for the same time period). I'm assuming that this approach was to allow more characters to be featured instead of having a smaller cast of characters which means less products featured.

Interesting theory.

On another note, regardless of CGI, there's a lot of anime out there that tend to run for 52 episodes, as that's something of a standard procedure for anime in general, with story arcs that run either 13 or 26 episodes in length. Formats of four 13-episode arcs or two 26-episode arcs, bringing the total episode count to 52, seem to be quite popular choices for anime companies.

Whereas Beast Wars's 52-episode length was something of happy coincidence since they made each season with an uncertainty of whether they'd get another season or not, and the decision to end the show happened to fall in late in the development for season 3, explaining the rather quick feeling of the last three episodes (like introducing and then quickly killing off Tigerhawk after they'd just introduced Megatron's new dragon form).

Sabrblade wrote:

Seibertron wrote:
Beast Wars II
Beast Wars Neo)

I think our best hope for ever seeing these two officially released in subtitled DVD form would be to generate enough interest and desire for them since anyone whose ever been willing to watch them, or even subtitle them unofficially, lost interest in them over time for how silly and childish they were. I myself would even just be happy if some unofficial fansubbing group could get them subbed all the way through, as has happened for the likes of Super Link and Galaxy Force.

Yeah, I can see why fansubbers gave up. Somewhat recently both Beast Wars II and Neo were uploaded to youtube in raw japanese with slightly out of sync sound. And since I have always wanted to see them, I've been watching them....slowly. I've seen all of II and I'm up to 20 on Neo.

II has very uneven animation and was definitely made to shill toys. Every few episodes a new character, upgrade, or gadget was introduced, and there was a lot of fighting, and several useless clip shows. Still it was at least visually entertaining to watch, nice to see certain toys animated(even in different colors), and there was that episode the Tripledacus bots kidnapped Scylla for Bighorn so he could show her a romantic evening (or something like that, it was silly ).

Neo on the other hand has been a bore, at least the first 14 eps. Art style is consistent and looks good, but there's not a lot of movement or animation and battles aren't exciting. It's at least improved after Mach Kick was introduced and the new toy an episode trend makes the Anglomois capsule collect a plot more entertaining visually.

Despite these flaws I DO want to see these shows dubbed because I know I'm missing something and they are half decent.

....and drat for the double post.

Same here. I hope Shout Factory picks those up. I'd pick them up in a heartbeat just to get to see what I missed.

Really, it's the same story with Headmasters and the rest of the G1 lot. Even though it doesn't quite have the charm of the G1 series, you want to 'finish the story.'

Duke of Luns wrote:Despite these flaws I DO want to see these shows dubbed because I know I'm missing something and they are half decent.

No dubs for me, please. Gimme subs so I can see the shows how they were made to be.