The Energon Pub

Does anyone remember when Transformers series never had a silly gimmick tying the Autobots and Decepticons into war?

With Armada, there was Mini-Cons, Energon is self-explanatory, and Cybertron was a hunt for the keys. Heck, even the Movie was for the Allspark.

Will Animated go back to pre-Unicron Trilogy series? All I want is a series like Beast Wars.. or RiD. Just pure Autobot and Decepticon fighting.

I think beast wars falls into that category too. The reason they fought was because of the golden disks and megatrons plans to get all the protoforms and make his army blah blah blah.

Searching for things is a popular theme.
I love Armada and Energon, but Cybertron is kind of a flop.

Yeah, even G1 had a focal point, that being contol of Cybertron, and later the universe over all...

But if you mean having things like "In Between" episodes that focus on something other than the main story arc even if it can tie in later, yeah, I miss those.

G1 and Beast Wars had plenty of episodes that could stand alone. Even if you never saw an episode of that series beore, you could watch a story begin, get fleshed out, then end in one sitting. Still each season was a wrapped up story on a grander level.

AEC where more dragged out, with everything being a cliffhanger. In it's own right it's good, you know you have a progressive story. But on the same note the loss of one shots hurts cause you loose that sense of completion that you should have between opening and closing credits.

Briggs wrote:I think beast wars falls into that category too. The reason they fought was because of the golden disks and megatrons plans to get all the protoforms and make his army blah blah blah.

Yeah, but they didn't throw it in your face every episode like those other shows.
Armada-"A new minicon has been activated. Let's race the Decepticons to get to it first. Because we need them to activate weapons inside us we didn't know we had."
Energon-"Oh, no! The Decepticons are attacking our Energon supply. Let's help Kicker beat them back. And while we're at it, let's have the Omnicons create some melee weapons that disintigrate after 5 minutes to use on the Decepticons that are shooting at us. And if we start losing, we can combine and cut our numbers in half."
Cybertron-"We need to find the Omega Lock and the Cyber Planet Keyes. OK kids, can you hear it? Can you hear now? Can you hear it now? Good!

Wow I guess some fans love Transformerse so much that their blind to the facts of the show.[not an insult dude]

Blurrz wrote:Does anyone remember when Transformers series never had a silly gimmick tying the Autobots and Decepticons into war?

No because every single Transformers show had an under lining sub-plot that could be considered a "gimmick" for the war.

Even the G1 toon had the serach and the collecting of energon so someone could control Cybertron gimmick.

Blurrz wrote:With Armada, there was Mini-Cons, Energon is self-explanatory, and Cybertron was a hunt for the keys. Heck, even the Movie was for the Allspark.

Which is no different then the G1 toon.

Blurrz wrote:Will Animated go back to pre-Unicron Trilogy series?

From what I've heard they are useing the search for the Alspark gimmick from the movie.

Blurrz wrote:All I want is a series like Beast Wars..

Beast Wars was all about the Maximals trying to recover the "Golden Disks" and to keep Megatron from gathering enough energon to launch a full scale attack and start the war again and later in the serries it was about trying to stop Megatron from changing the past......thats a gimmick too.

Blurrz wrote: or RiD. Just pure Autobot and Decepticon fighting.

RID had its gimmick as well.....Megatron came to earth to find the "O" parts which he thought would lead him to ultimate power.It ended up leading them to Fortress Maximus.



In some of the serries the "gimmicks" may not have been overly silly and shoved in your face but each show had a gimmick.

Bit of a difference between MacGuffins and gimmicks.

Transforming could be considered a gimmick itself, by the way.

In any case, I gotta say I'm glad the minicon/cyber key years are over. TFA is gonna be a big breath o' fresh air.

And some of the more dubious gimmicks from G1 (Pretenders, Headmasters) have been getting a fantastic overhaul in IDW's TF comics.

Yeah, animated will be one of those villain-a-week shows.
Sometimes it'll be decepticons and be fun, sometimes it'll be really dramatic and sometimes it'll be funny with stoner-nerd villains voiced by Brian Posehn.
Thats what Teen Titans was like so why would they make Transformers animated like that.
Though G1 was kinda like searching for Energon, that was only the decepticons side, mostly it was just one unrelated story after another and sometimes they'd have 2-parters and those were episodes that were really important.
same with Beast Wars.
if you miss an episode, you can still watch the rest of the series usually.
What pissed me off was that when i watched Armada, every episode had a repetitive(mini-cons everyday get to Unicron already) but also somewhat crucial(why are they pissed at eachother. what did he do? who is he) part of the story.
and they didnt have repeats.

I agree with WhiteRabbit.
There are MacGuffins and Gimmicks.
Energon searching is a MacGuffin
The Golden Disk was a MacGuffin
The Allspark was a MacGuffin

Mini-cons, Energon and Keys are gimmicks

so basically, gimmicks are things that there are many of while a MacGuffin is one thing that the story revolves around

Yeah, but they didn't throw it in your face every episode like those other shows.
Armada-"A new minicon has been activated. Let's race the Decepticons to get to it first. Because we need them to activate weapons inside us we didn't know we had."
Energon-"Oh, no! The Decepticons are attacking our Energon supply. Let's help Kicker beat them back. And while we're at it, let's have the Omnicons create some melee weapons that disintigrate after 5 minutes to use on the Decepticons that are shooting at us. And if we start losing, we can combine and cut our numbers in half."
Cybertron-"We need to find the Omega Lock and the Cyber Planet Keyes. OK kids, can you hear it? Can you hear now? Can you hear it now? Good![/quote]

yup. G1 - "We have to stop Megatron from being evil. but first lets stop Kremzeek and then lets have AutoBot Olympics and then lets fight British people who hunt too much and then... "
Anime - "lets go there and do the same crap again. and one person will have to get a grudge or something so it doesnt get boring"

every show needs two things every episode
one thats in every episode
one thats a new plot
one stands out, one is just there to move the story

in the anime the same crap in every episode stands out
in american series new stuff stands out

G1 wasn't all that original:

1-Some scientist(s) create something capable of destroying the world and sometimes this device is smaller than a human,but can cause a huge explosion.Just to be sure the decepticons will appear to steal it,the scientist show his dangerous device on Tv and if that not enough,he calls the Autobots just be sure the decpticons will steal it.
2-A great surge of energy appeared and Megatron want make energon cubes with it.Autobots come and blast the power surge,kick the butt of Megatron and his buddys and go home.

Tell you the truth, we really shouldn't comlain like we do (that includes me).
We should be happy we get a cartoon, they could just drop it altogether, so love what you got.