The Energon Pub

[Lastjustice]

Back in 1984 they allowed cartoons start being commericals for toys. Which honestly they were so much better for it heh. During this we were faced with a choice, as two transformer robot series and toylines emerged, Transformers and Go-bots as the two main franchises.

The WWF and WCW of their respective markets. Which Transformers proved be the WWF of the two, as they outlasted and continue to be popular to this day, and absorbed the Go-bots loosely into their own franchise. Which they make cameos from Cy-kill being killed by Megatron a couple times, to Crasher being used in the 2007 movie toyline under the name Fracture since Crasher had some legal issues. So they may be gone but not forgetten.

Which someone linked a short video clip from youtube of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr6PAJVlRj4 after the Revenge of the fallen came out. While likely was made after the first film in 2007, it actually made a few of us on the thread feel a bit sorry for them since most of them are just a joke at this point, as fans will go oh they totally suck and what not. Thats not the point of this thread simply go oh it sucks.

I thought they had their own merits as toys and a show, but what was critical areas they absolutely fell short in I asked myself. So I came up with a breakdown to why they ended up in the scrape heap. While other 80s properties have been long forgotten like M.A.S.K.( which is attempting to revive thru GI joe as they have a Matt Tracker figure coming out.) and others.

- Names and taglines-
When comes to transformers, its taglines of Robots in disguise, and more than meets the eye have always been burned into our memories. Go-bot and their shows name Challenge of the Gobots was rather uninspired. I mean we already had Challenge of the super friends from hannabarerra.(who made Go-bots as well.) Which was a crappy name the first around, why everyone just called it super friends. The toy adds said Mighty vechiles , mighty robots, gobots, but the theme song for the show had no lyrics besides them chatting The Go-bots repeatedly.

Like I said everything was so uninspired. The name Gobots was hey just take robot and replace the first letter with Go-bots. The planet was Gobotron, and their race was called gobings. This was the tone the names for most of the characters followed. A motorcycle named Cy-kill, scooter turns into a scooter. Much of their cast follows this. As it was created and named by people who made toys, while the people who named and put profiles worked with comics, had far better taste in names and imagery.

Not say Transformers never had a silly or lame named character. But on average they were better and didnt always sound like whatever the alt mode was for a name. Like if Prime and Megatron were Go-bots their names would been probably something like Rig and Gunner. While Optimus Prime means first and Best, which sounds power and epic. Leader-1 just sounds generic. Be like if an alien race of robots made a show about humans, and had the leader of them called president-1. Like what was he called before he was their leader? 1? heh.

- Transformations.-

As a toy I understand theres kibble, as its hard make a toy have a bunch of moving parts and look perfect between forms. Which transformers as toys had the faces of the characters on the bottoms of them in robot mode. Which is fine since its a toy, but this where gobots dropped the ball. They might been more toy accurate but it looked stupid in the show. Seeing cop-turs face on the bottom of him while he flew around didnt make him cooler.

While plenty of transformers were not toy accurate(ironhide and rachet were major offenders), they made sure always try make the characters look or sound cool if possible. (some cant be helped like wheelie.) So having guys like scooter with their face on at all times just was an awful choice. Plus they never had a cool sound when they changed like transformers do. (which i loved in the one episode of animated they were trying imitidate the sound of transforming while in human bodies.) Its one of those things ingrained into the series as the live action films include it.

- Main cast-

Both series had some compareable archtypes to reference between. While transformers rotate their cast far more often than Gobots did as they seem have this teleportation system between their home world where good guys could only hang around for a limited window and get sent back.

A:Main villian (renegades)
Cy-kill is hands down the weakest link in the show. He turned into a motorcycle, which he didnt fly as so he wasn't usually the primary foe for Leader-1 to be dueling with. Coptur was usually the one facing him in the air. This left Cy-kill fighting the comedy relief/kid friendly chaarcter...Scooter. What serious threating villain is always losing to comedy relief?

Cy-kill failed on so many lvls, his name was very lame. Megatron was a powerful name. He struck fear into his enemies and kicked the autobots butts. he was the primary foe for prime. A hero is only as good as his villain. Cy-kill just never came across as scary or a credible threat. (which if you were put the Go-bots in simliar setting as the Bay films, Cy-kill would be so tiny haha. I picture Leader-1 just stepping on him as a much larger F-15.)

B: Crazy minion
Crasher was one of the few characters I liked from Go-bots. I didnt realize she was supposed be a girl at first since she wasnt very femine. Her body had the appearance of any other robot for most part, and with higher pictured voices in cartoons (like starscream and scooter.)

She was probably more terrifying with her shockwave power than Cy-kill ever was.(I dont recall him doing anything cool in combat.) You'd see the heroes take pause to face her. Though she was actually loyal to Cy-kill despite probably being able to kick his butt. Unlike Starscream who would offed Cy-kill by end of the first episode.


C: One track mind loyal minion
Cop-tur was dumb as a rock. But he was an ok character, which again he was more threating than Cy-kill. He regularly fought leader-1, which he is either to dense realize its a losing fight or brave enough to fight anyways. Again horrible name heh.

Soundwave was atleast effective for Megatron butt kisser minion.As he and his tapes probably have the highest success rate of all the decepticons.

D:Main Hero (guardians)
Leader-1 was ok, just his biggest probelm was he lacked any good foes to prove he was a bad ass like Prime did. Mind you he had a few moments where he took on Zod solo while badly damaged. Not say he didnt have the making of being a epic character he just never realized it.

As a kid I thought he was cool cause he was a jet. (which Im a huge fan of Jetfire, seekers and the aerial bots for same reason hehe.) He was your typical good and noble hero from the 80s. He just lacked a powerful prescene Prime had. I think we can attribute that largely to Peter Cullen. (though Gary Chalk isnt bad, I like him as Prime too if Cullen isnt avaible.) Toss him a better name,villain and slight make over , may be he could been a winner.


B: Tough guy
Turbo, Your typical shoot first and ask quesitons sort of hero. His name was alright. Nothing particular was wrong with him. While I prefer Ironhide, Turbo got the job done.

C: Kid friendly/comedy relief character.
Scooter: Of the heroes, he is by far the weakest link. It be like having Wheelie as the main cast and appearing in almost every episode of transformers. (which both were voiced bY welker.) His voice was annoying, he was unarmed, as his own way of helping was to make holograms, just most of his foes were dumb enough fall for them.

If I was to overhaul the gobots, he d be removed or turned into a minor role. Or completely rebuilt. Both bikes need sent to scrap heap.

Bumble bee in G1 wasnt very tough, but he atleast had some charmisa and was a loveable little scout. He tried and got his butt kicked but he always had heart. He was brave, while scooter was a coward who crapped himself at the first sign of danger. Both were the closet friends to humans, Bee kicks his butt up and down the block.


- Weapons and gear-

Gobots had everything internal. While from the stand point made them less violent in appear compared to the gun toting transformers, and worked as toys since they had no extra parts to lose, it just felt weak. I mean like they could shot out of body part since there was no point of origin for the blasts drawn on them.

Megatron probably would be seen nearly as imposing if he didnt have a big ass gun mounted on his arm. (or may be if cy-kill had one he d look like he could hurt someone heh.)

- Gimmicks-

Go-bots took the regular cast put them in power suits to form their combiner mode. Which was named Courageous, and seemed have no personality of its own. While the G1 combiners had special teams (which also netted more toys to sell heh.) which had unique traits. The bad guys had Zod, the giant dinosaur robot, but it had an exploitable weak point.

While there was combiner teams simliar to transformers with in the toyline, they were never given any personality as the toys had no profiles to know anything about them.

And by far the dummiest gimmick. Rocklords.... Transforming rocks..who thought this was a good idea? I mean not like they turned into anything other than piles of rocks of different colors. Like how uninteresting and bogus can you be? I'll take headmasters, and action masters over this idea anyday heh.


Well probably other things that they dropped the ball on, besides transformers just being marketed better but I think that covers its major cracks in their armor. Not say was all bad as I liked the toys for gobots, since they tended have more range of motion for a toy of simliar size and price for a transformer. Since the cast was all same size, they felt like one toy line while transformers had many sizes for their toys.

Anyone else think of anything to why they didnt last while transformers continues to transform and roll out heh.

- Other pot shots at the Go-bots
http://www.lilformers.com/index.php/200 ... -leader-1/

http://www.lilformers.com/index.php/200 ... 0-cy-kill/

(which liltransformers has more.)

[cybercat]

NOt much to add in your vein, but on the "Transformers rule, GObots drool" theme:

As you said, Gobots were a Hanna Barbera property. That's pretty much starting off in the basement. HB was very slow to change their business plan--they did a lot of cartoons in the 60s and 70s (before cartoons were allowed to have toys or vice versa) so the whole idea of using the cartoon to advertise the toy was going against a couple of decades' worth of how they ran things. They were trying to advertise an 'out of house' property, right? I think Gobots were Tonka. So they had some control issues, I'm sure.

Hasbro has always been a toy company first, so they utilized the media better. Hasbro is still known to exercise veto power about how the characters are used.

I agree CyKill was a pretty weak enemy, but let's be fair: he turned into a motorcycle? That's still way better than G1 Megsy, who turned into a handgun that had to be fired by someone else. That always struck me as a little...weird. And though the names are lame, but ultimately forgiveable: Dare I remind you of some of the equally cringy names of He-Man's friends? (Mech-a-neck sticks out).

HK, HEY! Don't diss transforming rocks! Rocklords are awesome!