The Energon Pub

dbz77 wrote:

Aside from the animation, the writing for G1 was much more serious, not always trying to make a pop culture joke references like TFA does(i.e. "My Bad")

There were no references to Herbie the Love Bug that I can recall.

And since when was saying "my bad" a pop culture reference? I always thought it was just something people say when they mess up.

While going back and watching some of the G1 episodes makes me cringe at times, it is only because of the fact that I have gotten spoiled over the years by the advances made in "animation" and the clarity that computer enhanced color brings. HOWEVER (before I get pounced upon)...G1 never felt the need to dumb things down for us "kids" back then, it packed more actual worthwhile content in a 30 minute span, and it did, in retrospect, have more fluidity for being a simpler animation style. Go back and watch the episode where Prime gets blown off the mountainside when Bumblebee and Sparkplug sabotage the ruby mines of Burma. That whole sequence from the detonation thru Primes 2nd or 3rd roll down the mountain is more detailed, comparatively, than the "flash,bang" stuff thrown at us today. And the monologues...at least in G1 Prime or Megatron would monologue or chastise one another while they were beating the crap out of each other. I lost track of how many episodes, from Beast Wars thru A/E/C that I flat changed the channel 'cause I got sick of some bot standing still delivering a 3-4 minute narcicistic , ego-maniacal speech.

Todays cartoons are all flash and very little substance designed entirely for an ADHD generation. The only thought involved with TFA is in trying to spot the G1 references subtly inserted for the sake of us older fans. As for the cartoons leading up to it, most of them were just an oppurtunity for the animators and production companies to say "look at the cool new software that we haven't quite got the hang of yet!"

I liked G1. Obviously, as I'm 33 and still a Transformer fan

Was it Shakespeare? No, but even Shakespeare wasn't always Shakespeare (yes, the bard did have his bombs).

A lot of what happened in the G1 cartoon you just can't "do" anymore.

Have robots get drunk? Nope, can't do that--kids might think if Megatron can do it, so can they!

Have robots pretend to be gods? Nope, can't do that--that would be insulting primitive societies.

Have a middle-eastern nation named Carbomb-ia? Nope--that might insult them... oh heck, even back in the 80s everyone knew what they were like lol

Or hey, how about take the main character, kill him off violently after 2 seasons, then bring him back as a zombie who commits suicide? Nah... that would 'scar' the kiddies.

Heck, they even gave the main human character an OLDER female girlfriend... (Spike was too young to drive, yet Carly is going to college... hmmm) that's something you rarely see in the media at all, let alone a cartoon. And she wasn't stereotypically bitchy either lol

A lot of the episodes dealt with "issues," but without shoving the moral down your throat.

Is it really such a sin to like both G1 AND Animated? I mean, both series have their good points and their bad points. I see no reason to say one is better than the other because I can enjoy both equally. I know that many fans have their (admittedly biased) opinions about a TF series, but opinions are OPINIONS only. Not fact. (Except in the cases of Armada, Energon, and Cybertron. Those really do suck.)

No, it's not a sin to like both G1 and TFA. A misdemeanor, maybe but not a horrible sin. I'll admit that there have been times that I have come close to enjoying an episode of TFA for reasons other than that it is time shared with my kids. I just have to consciously remind myself to switch mental gears before sitting down to watch it and to not be so critical. Realizing what TFA is and who it was made for and why, I tend to enjoy it a bit more. Watching my 8 year old as he's watching it and trying to imagine myself in his slippers/shoes experiencing a whole new TF series has made it easier to get into the episodes and enjoy it more.
Children have a great capacity for being able to humble a person and teach so much without doing anything other than just being children.

Oh, I do have to agree, however, that aside from providing us with some cool toys,the collective A/E/C series' in general did suck!

Black Bumblebee wrote:Or hey, how about take the main character, kill him off violently after 2 seasons, then bring him back as a zombie who commits suicide? Nah... that would 'scar' the kiddies.

Didn't it do that the first time? But then Optimus Primal and Armada Prime both died.

Well, Primal didn't really "die" until the very end, and even then, the amount of deaths he had throughout the storyline ruined the impact. As Ratrap would say, "Sheesh, this bot changes bodies often enough."

Armada Prime seemed to still be alive at the end of the series... so, nope... no violent death there either. And I seriously doubt that there were as many kids connected to Armada "what's your name again soldier?" Prime as were to G1 Prime, again reducing the death impact.

And yeah... G1 Prime's death did scar kiddies. It's something that the 80s kids still talk about... but the point is that scars are not always bad things. The fact that it made a lasting impression speaks volumes.

On a totally unrelated note... are ya still in for doing the "previously on Transformers the War Within" line...? Haven't heard back from ya

Saying Prime's death "scarred" someone is a little silly. Upset them maybe but I don't think Optimus' death left anyone's life irreparably damaged. I was upset but I got over it, because we all know he comes back in the end, just as heroic as he always was.

Black Bumblebee wrote:Well, Primal didn't really "die" until the very end, and even then, the amount of deaths he had throughout the storyline ruined the impact. As Ratrap would say, "Sheesh, this bot changes bodies often enough."

Armada Prime seemed to still be alive at the end of the series... so, nope... no violent death there either. And I seriously doubt that there were as many kids connected to Armada "what's your name again soldier?" Prime as were to G1 Prime, again reducing the death impact.

And yeah... G1 Prime's death did scar kiddies. It's something that the 80s kids still talk about... but the point is that scars are not always bad things. The fact that it made a lasting impression speaks volumes.

On a totally unrelated note... are ya still in for doing the "previously on Transformers the War Within" line...? Haven't heard back from ya

Primal was killed in Beast Wars, when Megatron duped him into the suicide mission of blowing up the Fake Moon Weapon. Rhinox yanked his Spark out of the afterlife, and put him in an empty (Sparkless) protoform they had lying around.

Armada Prime died when he blocked the Hydra Cannon from hitting Earth. The Mini-cons and the Matrix restored him to his old body. (Or at least a very similar body)

G1 MOST UNDERRRATED???!!!



I think the majority of all Transformers fans loves G1.


It's what started it all.


The 2 ICONIC leaders Optimus and Megatron came from G1.

Starscreams's treachery came from G1.

Lovable Dinobots came from G1.

Iconic Transformation sound came fromm G1.


Without G1, then Beastwars, Armada, Cybertron, Energon, Robots in Disguise would not exist.


TFAnimated is the second best of all the series.

But G1 is the Beatles of all Transformers.

So I really don't think it's the most underrated.


G1 put every young boy's fantasy (Cool cars and jets with Giant Robots) into TV and sold teh toys to most nations in the world on the 1980s.

But G1 is the Beatles of all Transformers.

Well, IMHO the only way to follow up a statement like that is...'nuff said!

Shadowman wrote:

Liege Evilmus wrote:I use to tell my students in my teaching days that DragonBall is a fun show, but it's pictures not animated.

It must have been a hell of a lot of pictures, then, especially considering how fast fights could get.

I'm watching the season 5 DBZ boxset right now, and yeah, back in the day animation was leaps and bounds above this.

Granted there are some great DBZ moments, but even the fastest fight is normaly just a couple movements, a flash backround, and some light effects all looped.

Take a look...

"BEST ACTION SHOW EVER"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dk417CBIIs

VS

A CAT AND MOUSE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iPObnvX-XA

Now you tell me, even with the fast fights, what series had more effort put into it.

It would take a madern series 2 years to tell the story that 7min short did, and they wouldn't have done it half as well.

Don't get me wrong, I love animation, always have, still, knowing what I've seen and compairing it to what I'm seeing, just leaves me with dispair.

Yes there are some series that go above and beyond. However, that doesn't mean I should dismiss an age when going above and beyond was the standard practice, and not an exeption.

Take the Tom and Jerry staff of yesteryear and put them on task of todays animation and you'll have something mindblowing.

Till then we're left with 1 motion with a 4 second loop, which stalls till the next movement.

Aagin, I love animation, yet I'll always long for it to be what it once was.

It amazes me just how much stuff I have floating around in the memory banks. I've dug more obscure stuff out of the blackness in the last 6 months because of postings and various threads than I think I have in the 6 years prior. So, here's one more...anybody remember the 1984 cartoon "The Mighty Orbots" ? It only lasted one season on ABC but I remember that, at that time, it had the best animation of any cartoon I had seen. There were scenes in the opening credits of the show that were near as good as the G1 movie and Orbots was 2 years aerlier. I remember at times wishing that TF was drawn as well as some of the Orbots shows. Check it out on Wiki or IMDb.
Transformers, Robotech, Orbots, Silverhawks, Thundercats, Voltron and GI Joe.
That would have been my ideal Saturday morning line-up.