The Energon Pub

Sabrblade wrote:I can ask around to hopefully find out.

Did some digging and found out a few more things.

The charity screenings really did only ever play the English version with Japanese subtitles, so the Japanese dub was only ever released on VHS and LaserDisc before the first DVD release in the 2000s.

The VHS did credit some of the Japanese cast on its packaging, but it wasn't until the DVD release that the entire cast and crew finally got fully credited on the DVD's inside-cover:


It seems the 1989 charity screenings were done mainly in honor of the brand's 5th anniversary. In that sense, playing the English version makes some degree of sense when considering the fact that the brand started in Japan a year later in 1985, making 1989 only the 4th year over there, but the 5th year outside of Japan. So they played the original non-Japanese version of the movie for the non-Japanese anniversary.

With that in mind, it also appears that the Japanese dub of the movie was only made at all as a bonus for the anniversary, with the release of the English version being treated as the focus. This wasn't meant as a slight of any kind toward the Japanese cast and crew, just that the English version's 1989 release was the main event.

The Japanese dub VHS even opens with a splash page advertising the also-available subtitled English VHS, saying it stars Orson Welles and Leonard Nimoy, while the subtitled English tape has no such ad for the Japanese dub tape. It seems they were really trying to bank on those big-name American celebrities in the English version.

Got to watch a couple of my favorite S3 episodes. Call of the Primitives & Burden Hardest to Bear. It was a fun watch. With the constant narration though, felt very much like watching Headmasters, which isn't a bad thing , just different for a different culture. I understand the concept of giri was a bit misused in "Burden", but surprised in an episode that focuses on Japanese culture, the Japanese dub would skip it altogether. probably for the best though, the script translators probably didn't care much for the Sunbow script on that one.

Also, by random chance, I went to a used bookstore yesterday, they had a Japanese Laserdisc of TF:TM. Was $400.00 . Glad I could see it for free on YT, also I don't have a laserdisc player...

It's interesting that the Japanese movie would bank on the big-name American celebrities. As a kid I just wanted to see the TF movie because it was a TF movie. I never connected Galvatron with Spock. And wouldn't have cared anyway.

Fun story. My mom actually explained to me who most of the top billed actors were shortly after we saw the film in 1986. I was 10 at the time, so I knew who Leonard Nimoy was form watching Star Trek in syndication as well as In search of. The rest I didn't know.

How she explained it:

Orson Welles - Oh he just died, a famous actor with a deep voice(didn't mention Citizen Kane)
Judd Nelson (I don't think she knew who he was, She hadn't seen the Breakfast Club yet)
Robert Stack (One of the Actors in Airplane lol....)
Lionel Stander (from Heart to Heart, I knew the show, but didn't know who he was)
Eric Idle (She knew of Monty Python, just told me it was a British Comedy series, I hadn't seen it yet)

I don't think she knew who John Moschitta was. Oddly enough it was interesting he got a primary credit but was the only one to reprise his role in the actual TV series.

Also i was legit mad that the actors for Optimus Prime, Megatron etc. didn't get top bill credit. Of course they are listed in the end credits, but it wasn't until I rented the film I could pause and see who they actually were for the first time. Of course they were in a list of names in the closing credits of each episode of TF, but not with their characters next to them.

Getting celebrities for kids movies and family movies in order to grab parents' attention is sadly an age-old tradition that continues to this day. Just looking at the voice cast of the movie If sickens me. So many CG-animated characters all voiced by celebrity actors and not a single regular voice actor to be found.

When the first Shazam movie came out, I was thrilled to see that the CGI demons in that movie were voiced by none other than Steve Blum and Fred Tatasciore, while the more recognizable actors were reserved for the live-action cast. That's a great way to balance the use of voice actors vs. celebrity actors in Hollywood movies.

Sabrblade wrote:That's a great way to balance the use of voice actors vs. celebrity actors in Hollywood movies.

Agreed. same with TMNT Mutant Mayhem. While the turtles themselves were unknown kids (bravo for that), most of the mutants were celebrities that only had a couple of lines, and were probably way overpaid.

I have to admit though, getting Orson Welles for TF:TM was like lightning in a bottle. Although they had to amp his voice up quite a bit because he was so unhealthy at the time. His labored breathing, now that I know it is due to illness is a bit more haunting, yet impactful.

Burgess Meredith I thought was pretty good also in GI:Joe The Movie. While he was laughable as the Penguin in the Batman TV series, he was a good dramatic actor, as seen in the Rocky series. I never would have believed his variance of being mildly threatening, to shouting rage could be so convincing.

I did more digging and I think I may have found another Japanese TFTM quote referenced in some other Japanese TF fiction. Though, it's very subtle. So subtle that it might just be a mere coincidence rather than an actual reference, but still.

Recall that I wrote this in my big post about all the changes made to the Japanese dub:

"Arise, Rodimus Prime," becomes "I leave the rest to you, Rodimus Convoy."

The exact words used by Optimus in the quote are "後を頼んだぞ､ロディマスコンボイ｡" (Ato o tanonda zo, Rodimasu Konboi.). In this case, "Ato" (後) means "the rest", while "tanonda" (頼んだ) is a present perfect tense conjugation of the verb "tanomu" (頼む), which means to ask/request/order/rely on someone to do something. Basically, Optimus is counting on Rodimus to carry on into the future as the new Supreme Commander of the Autobots.



I felt that this "leave the rest to you" phrase sounded familiar to me, and just now remembered what it reminded me of.

In the first toy catalog for the Beast Wars II toyline, there was a little story that established the early premise and early concepts for Beast Wars II before the series started up both in anime and manga form. In this little catalog story, Lio Convoy and Galvatron were introduced as the new leaders by Optimus Primal and Megatron, respectively.


(Pay no attention to the Japanese text seen at the top of this pic. It is irrelevant to this matter.)

In the introduction of Lio Convoy, Primal ends his intro with this sentence: "たのむぞ、ライオコンボイ!!" (Tanomu zo, Raio Konboi!!, "I'm counting on you, Lio Convoy!!"). Notice that his sentence begins with "Tanomu" (たのむ); this is the same word as the "tanomu" (頼む) modified as "tanonda" (頼んだ) in the above quote from Optimus Prime in TFTM (たのむ is the Hiragana form while 頼む is the Kanji form).

Basically, while the two lines are not word for word the same, the fact that they share the same verb 頼 (which on its own means "request", "rely", "depend on", etc.) leads me to think that the context of both is the same, that Optimus Primal is being treated by this catalog as being to Lio Convoy like what Optimus Prime was to Rodimus Prime, with Primal essentially passing the torch of leadership to Lio Convoy and appointing him the new Supreme Commander with all the duties and responsibilities that come with that role, just as Optimus Prime did with Rodimus Prime in his Japanese TFTM line.

That's kind of interesting. And sort of fitting since both last a pretty short time all things considered.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:That's kind of interesting. And sort of fitting since both last a pretty short time all things considered.

Something else I forgot is that Lio Convoy speaks a single quote to Optimus Primal in this catalog text, and it's sort of an inverse of the Japanese quote Optimus Prime says to Rodimus Prime in TFTM: "あとはまかせてください!コンボイ先輩!! (Ato wa makasete kudasai! Konboi-senpai!!, "Please leave the rest to me! Convoy-senpai!!"). In this case, "Ato" (あと) is the Hiragana form of the same "Ato" (後) Kanji spoken by Optimus Prime in the TFTM line. But, the biggest difference with this line is that, instead of using a form of the verb "tanomu" (頼む), Lio Convoy instead uses "makasete" (まかせて, Kanji: 任せて), the conjunctive conjugation of "makaseru" (任せる), which means to entrust/defer/leave something of up to someone else. It's not the same word, but it is similar, almost like a Japanese synonym.

As for the "kudasai" (ください) part, that's just a requesting form of a word meaning "to give", which is basically a way of asking "please".

So in this case, rather than the senior/predecessor asking the junior/successor to be reliable, it's the junior/successor asking the senior/predecessor to rely on them, with the same energy.

Basically, the line Optimus Primal speaks to Lio Convoy has the same verb as the TFTM quote, while the line Lio Convoy says to Optimus Primal begins with the same "Ato" part as the TFTM quote.

And now that I've written all this, it feels less and less like a deliberate reference after all. Otherwise, the TFTM line (minus Rodimus's name) would have likely been kept verbatim.

The more I think on this, the more it begins to make sense to me how the iconicity of TFTM that exist in the English-speaking fandom isn't as prevalent in Japan. The movie simply never released in theaters over there. It was primarily a direct-to-video release, and marketed the English version more than the Japanese dub due to the fame of Orson Welles and Leonard Nimoy. Japan wouldn't get their first theatrical Transformers experience until Beast Wars Special in December 1998, nine years after TFTM's first release in Japan, and twelve years after its original release in English. The Japanese dub of TFTM simply never got any real special promotion over there.

But let's stop and think for a second as to how and why TFTM became so iconic in the West. The stunning animation? The hair metal soundtrack? The brutal robo-violence? The slaughtering of so many familiar characters? The drawn out deaths of Optimus Prime and Starscream? The introductions of Unicron and the Matrix as significant additions to the lore? All this and more were certainly poignant parts of that iconicity, but why? Because so much of it was all so new to kids of the 1980s. So many of them hadn't seen or experienced much of anything like this before. While over in Japan, lots of anime works of the time were already no strangers to gorgeous animation, stellar soundtracks, intense violence (robot-based or otherwise), beloved characters dramatically meeting their ends, and stories about space-god entities and cosmic McGuffins. These were (and still are) a dime a dozen in Japanese science fiction works.

The violence in particular was shocking to US kids because that level of violence in children's works was uncommon. Compared to Japan, the United States is a very puritanical country when it comes to what is and isn't considered appropriate for children's media, while Japan is far less restrictive about its own children's programming. Dragon Ball Z, for instance, was aimed at elementary school children yet was an absolute bloodbath at times during its Saiyan saga, to the point that it had to be severely edited and censored when it was first brought over to the US later in the 1990s.

But something else of note are the many quotes from the English version of TFTM that are probably considered the most iconic thing about it, having been quoted ad nauseum over the years since its original release. But, those quotes didn't start out being iconic, so how did they become such? Repetition. And why were they repeated so often? Easter eggs and fanservice. In the early days, however, there wasn't much of any repetition of those famous quotes. While both "'Till all are one" and "light our darkest hour" are two most famous quotes associated with the Matrix, the former was never repeated again at any point during Season 3 of the G1 cartoon (despite numerous episodes featuring the Matrix as a plot point), while the latter wasn't first repeated until near the end of "The Return of Optimus Prime, Part 2", when Optimus used the power of the Matrix to end the Hate Plague crisis.

Despite the Marvel Comics giving both Unicron and the Matrix so much significance to the lore of the franchise, the only TFTM quotes to be found in its entire comic series run were in the three-issue mini-series that adapted the movie itself. Likewise, the Generation 2 comics gave lots of focus to the Matrix, but didn't quote TFTM either. When Beast Wars and Beast Machines rolled around, they featured a couple of "all are one" and "darkest hour" lines, but only sparingly and used mostly as little winks to the audience without drawing too much attention to them. Though, surprisingly, Car Robots featured a use of "'Til All Are One" printed on the physical toy of God Fire Convoy's sword as an Easter egg.

It wasn't until the 21st Century (unsurprisingly following the movie's first DVD release in 1999) that the real repetition of TFTM quotes really took off. And it mainly started with, of all things, the PlayStation 2 Armada video game in 2004, with nearly all cutscene dialogue being shameless cribbed from TFTM, even spoken by characters whose G1 namesakes didn't speak the quote (like, Armada Starscream speaks Devastator's "Prepare for extermination!" and Megatron's "I'll rip out you're optics!"). Then the Cybertron cartoon in 2005 really put effort into lifting lines from TFTM wherever it could, for fanservice. Then both Fun Publications and IDW followed suit with more quotes in their respective printed works. Then the 2007 movie dropped into its script Optimus's "One shall stand, one shall fall." As did the Revenge of the Fallen video game in 2009.

By 2010, the Aligned continuity began and, dear lord, did it just drag through the mud as many TFTM quotes as it could, with the Exodus novel, the War for Cybertron video game, and the Prime cartoon all going out of their way to use many TFTM quotes until it just wasn't fun anymore. The later Cyberverse cartoon even got in on the action with more quotes, most memorably two different variations on the "Soundwave superior" line.

The biggest irony of all this: Out of all of the lines overquoted from TFTM, no one ever quotes Springer. He had some really cool lines in TFTM, but you never see anyone recycling "I've got better things to do tonight than die!"

And all the while, during all this time, Japan stuck to their guns in refraining from overquoting TFTM by instead coming up with mostly original dialogue for their Transformers scenarios, only ever really quoting the Japanese equivalent of "'Til all are one" ("Unite the universe as one") in very few, very specific situations that call for it. In a way, I actually kinda envy them for having avoided what has since become the most low-hanging fruit of fanservice in this fandom.


EDIT: With how many times TFTM has been quoted in English, maybe the Japanese caught all or some of these references and translated them accordingly in the Japanese dubs. We'd need someone who's seen the Japanese dubs of things like the 2007 movie or the Prime cartoon to tell us if these lines were phrased in Japanese the same as they they were in the Japanese dub of TFTM, or not.

I do agree that the reason the movie isn't nearly as iconic there as here is a lack of a theater presentation. When it was released that quote you showed me where the reaction was more "oh, that's what happened" instead of tears. And, yeah, of course. By that point it was long past his time and he died again, in vain, during Headmasters.

But you don't think Prime's death would be shocking over there? If they had, actually, released this ting in theaters.

It's true they're used to more animated violence than we were at the time, but it's not like Goku actually, legit, died until the Cell saga. Even in the Sayan saga he's just training in the afterlife - he's not gone from the franchise. Death in DB is just a wish away from being fixed. But in TFTM everyone's death pretty much stuck until the very end of S3. And it was most of the main cast! I have to admit, I'm not as good at my anime as some, but is there one made for kids where pretty much all of the cast is just wiped out as in TFTM? And I mean for real dead and not brought back by the end of the arc?

THAT is the #1 part of what made the movie, and to be honest Prime himself, so iconic. A well done, epic fight scene where our childhood heroes legit die and do NOT come back by the end of the movie. And it will never happen again since it wrecked the TF franchise, lol.

But if you approach that same fight years later, knowing he died and seeing him die again in a lame way ... yeah it really takes the teeth out of it. The disconnect is just too great. But most of those other guys stay gone. Starscream comes back as a ghost for one ep, but the other Seekers are gone. The Insecticons are gone. Pour one out for the vans. So many characters we spent our afternoons with were just cast aside. But if you don't experience that until several years later (even after Wheeljack makes an appearance in Victory) the emotional impact of the whole first act is just gone.

But maybe it's also a good thing? Because it sort of allowed TF to evolve. Clearly scarring kids is a bad way to promote your new line of toys. Roddy lasted ... I want to say 1/4th of Headmasters before flying our of the franchise like Superman. And they seemed far more open to new Autobot and Decepticon leaders than US audiences.

And yet TF did die out eventually and was only brought back with the return of an Optimus and Megatron.

We got another one from Karyuudo Fansubs. This time it's not an episode or a movie, but rather the Japanese-exclusive promotional VHS that was released to hype up TFTM's release in Japan.

Transformers: The Movie - Apocalypse: Matrix Forever​



No need for me to take any notes on this one since it's just a collection of preexisting materials.

It's incredible how many of these are dubbed versions of the US commercials. I would have thought they would have wanted new footage of Japanese kids playing with the products.

It's also nuts that we've never gotten high quality releases of these commercials anywhere. It's a bit nostalgic for me now since I've been running the gamut on Transformers episodes for a while now. Speaking of, I wish we had more TFTM animation tests. I suppose it may be a pipe dream since the movie is so old and the creators just saw it as a way to turn over a new product line ... and it was a commercial failure, but it seems like there was a lot.

Superlink

Finally finished with Transformers Superlink. And I gotta ask:

What happened???

Micron was top shelf stuff! It was legitimately good! And Superlink just ... isn't. It doesn't reach the depths of Headmasters, but it's quite a shock to the system after coming off from Micron.

I guess the main culprit is the themes of loyalty. Which Micron also touched upon. Here we have a few characters who have loyalties in conflict.

Scorpinok has loyalty to Alpha Q and the planets he wanted to revive, but had to work under Galvatron

Ironhide had loyalty to Megatron and genunine friendships with the Autobots and Kicker during peacetime. Afterwards his loyalty led him back to Galvatron.

The mvp of Aramda - Starscream - had a VERY complicated relationship with Megatron.

ALL OF THESE GUYS GET MINDWIPED! And only Scorpinok really gets explored in terms of Roadbuster trying to bring him out of this. But it never really happens. But Scorpy himself was not really Scorpy, but a random Deception spark that was made into Scorpy, so ... WTF, Alpha Q, you're not really better than Galvatron are you? Seeing as you also did the same to Screamer.

I feel like Nightscream would have worked better as his own character, completely separate from Starscream. And maybe call him Skywarp? But Nightscream is a really cool name.

And what went on with Inferno? It's cool that he didn't get mindwiped, but his whole struggle never gets mentioned again, nor does he get much screentime afterwards. And having a mindwiping Decepticon bade ... why didn't Galvatron use that on Scoprpinok in the first place?

The cartoon seems full of asspulls. Super Energon is suddenly there. The Energon Grid is useful against Unicron ... until it isn't. It can cover a world, then a galaxy ... until it just isn't large enough the next episode. Cars can fly, the raw energon Terrorcons produce can't be touched until it can be used on Decepticons just like Energon stars later on. Kicker can sense energon, but not the Super Energon.

I still think the minicons are the worst part. The Energon Saber is supposed to be made up of Minicons, but they have even less agency than Armada's, which is saying something. All of them seem to just be drones. Ditto the Combiner's limbs. I guess there are enough characters on the show, but it hurts them as a legitimate faction when you just have these guys as equipment more than Transformers.

I got real sick of Alpha Q too. Even after he died he wouldn't shut up. It was fine when he was plot-relevant, but his voice and personality are grating. Maybe if they let him go I'd feel better about him, but hanging out as a ghost leaves me feeling cold.

Maybe my boy Galvatron is just cancerous. First Season 3, then BW2 and now Superlink.

SL is actually a lot like Season 3. An expansion into space. Largescale partnerships with humans. But, a majority mid cast.

Still, it's not like it's the worst. That has to be Headmasters, still. It does feel bloated. Galvatron and Prime becoming giants seems like it should happen the ONE time, not about three times. But it is pretty cool. It's interesting to see Unicron used as a tool after his fall in Armada. Ironhide does start out as MVP, even if he's wasted. Although I do like his eventual friendship with Snowstorm. They were a nice duo.

I did grow to begrudgingly like Ironhide and Kicker as the show bore on and, I have to admit, chuckled at Team Ironhide. I was even a little sad when Scoprinok killed them.

I'd feel Scorpinok was a highlight if they didn't make him an altered Decepticon to begin with. Because Galvatron sort of made him more like how he used to be, in a sense. Like, it's actually really messed up how Alpha Q just molds this random guy into his best pal. And nobody - not a single Decepticon - remarks on how disturbing it is that Galvatron has to brainwash so many of his minions into joining him.

Speaking of ... why are so many of his minions on board with destroying Cybertron itself? Okay, I get the mindwiped ones, but the others? There's no pause or discussion on that. It's right on part with G1 Scorpinok destroying Cybertron and everyone just going wiht it when they should be calling him an asshole and lynching him.

Also, that ending is really dark. Nightscream, Galvatron, and Sockfleet all commit suicide. Very Japanese, I think. But pretty dark.

Favourite characters:

Galvatron - Ironhide was just wasted so he's out. Nightscream is cool, but, like Ironhide, his connection to the previous series is a big distraction and makes him feel like a waste. Unicron (who counts as a Decepticon in my eyes) is less a character and more a force of nature. But Galvatron is fun. He's definitely unhinged compared to Megatron. Way more powerful. But more competent than his G1 self. I'm glad they have him enter the fray both in comparison to G1, but also in comparison to the J leaders in general. Although he spends a bit too much time sitting in that chair.

I do like his bad, belligerent attitude. It made me laugh at times and drove the plot forwards. I do like how they use him overall, how he retains the connection he had to Unicron in G1, but in a new way. This time HE is using Unicron .... until the tables get turned. It's a fine reversal.

Rodimus - I mean, like most of the Energon cast he just stops having a unique character once he accepts Optimus as a commander, but I still like him. I feel like he's a real glow-up form G1. A gruffer, no-nonsense commander with just a different view than OP with an alt mode that should have been given tot he G1 version. I felt like he was a good counterpoint to OP, at least when they were disagreeing when he was first introduced.

The Shockwave Bros get honorable mentions. I know they're based off a specific trope, but I don't remember what it's called. I enjoyed their portrayal. It really reminds me of how Sockwave is in Marvel - a strong Decepticon who wnts to overthrow Megatron ... but with a totally different personality.

At the end it helped when I sort of turned off my brain and just sort of went with what was going on. I think I'd have liked this better had I not seen the previous show. The animation took a LOT of getting used to It's so weird that they had to break out 2D animation for impressive sequences. Isn't 3D just supposed to be better overall? The facial expressions too ... couldn't they have more than a few versions of an open mouth?

While ML seemed to make good use of their time this show seemed to run in place a lot. As a show, I think it could have used some streamlining. Unlike other shows I've watched I don't think you could just cut the fluff for a better experience, however; you'd need to re-edit it.

On to Galaxy Force. Since I'm watching the Japanese version I know it's not part of the Unicron "Duology" there, but a standalone show. Maybe it'll work better that way. Let's see.

May as well replay to myself on my initial impression on Galaxy Force and it's first ten episodes.

It's rough. It's like someone cut it with a rusty saw, leaving bits of the original premise still attached to the show. Megatron and Starscream arrive, as you might expect as Galvatron and Nightscream were caught up in making the new sun at the end of Superlink, but they act totally different. You can see Aramada-era design cues here and there, like Megatron's arms and Excelleon's helmet, but they're not the same characters. Primus appears in Superlink and you can see how that might evolve into him being the planet in GF, but it's not the same Primus.

Plus everything in the first few episodes feels like it's on fast forward. Master Mega and SS appear out of the black Hole and everyone acts like they've known them forever, but this is really our first time meeting them. How did they get there? Why is there a black hole all of a sudden?

Getting past all that, it's also jarring that everyone just has their final character models all at once, Earth kibble and all. The mouth flaps are a distraction. I mean the models are better than Energon overall, but still. Geez.

So it's taking some time to find it's footing. So far it's kind of a straight forward, kind of shallow, action show with some cool designs. Of all the Autobots I think I like Excellion the best. I like the youthful determination type he has and I like how he rescued the old TF (can't rememebr his name)> I don't get OP's order not to talka to anyone of Epeedia. How are they ever supposed to find the Planet Force if they can't interact with anyone? Come off it, Prime.

The con side is weaker. I guess I like Starscream because of his strong design.

Hopefully the show gets better. So far I like that the Minicons are actual characters.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:May as well replay to myself on my initial impression on Galaxy Force and it's first ten episodes.

It's rough. It's like someone cut it with a rusty saw, leaving bits of the original premise still attached to the show. Megatron and Starscream arrive, as you might expect as Galvatron and Nightscream were caught up in making the new sun at the end of Superlink, but they act totally different. You can see Aramada-era design cues here and there, like Megatron's arms and Excelleon's helmet, but they're not the same characters. Primus appears in Superlink and you can see how that might evolve into him being the planet in GF, but it's not the same Primus.

Maybe I should have shared this Galaxy Force promo with you before you started watching, like we did with the Superlink promo:



Although, some remnants of the original premise are also present in this promo, so while the characters are all still different from their predecessors, footage from Superlink is still used to represent events of the past.

There is also a second promo video, but it recaps the first half of the series and shouldn't be watched until you've gotten further into it.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Plus everything in the first few episodes feels like it's on fast forward. Master Mega and SS appear out of the black Hole and everyone acts like they've known them forever, but this is really our first time meeting them. How did they get there?

Now that you've seen some of the show thus far, I can say that where they came from was not actually the black hole, but rather a pocket dimension simply called the "fire dimension" (in the English version; the Japanese version called it "Firespace"). IIRC, it is never given an origin or explanation for where it came from or how it was created (not even in the English version, which liked to invent explanations for some of Galaxy Force's more unexplained phemonena). All that's really known about it is that the Decepticons use it as their main headquarters.

As for the black hole, well...

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Why is there a black hole all of a sudden?

This will be explained. A long time away from where you currently are, but it will be explained (the English version had the added benefit of giving it a brief explanation early on, while the Japanese version wanted to keep it a looming mystery for a good long while in order to build up dramatic tension and suspense).

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Getting past all that, it's also jarring that everyone just has their final character models all at once, Earth kibble and all.

Heh, we're back to how the G1 cartoon did it like that in its first episode.

Although, in the English dub, due to an animation error, Optimus had a different look on Cybertron before he first scanned his Earth altmode. Prior to scanning it, he was depicted with an unfinished character model design, which was corrected to his finalized one after scanning it. This did not happen in the Japanese version because it used the version of the scene with the completed animation.

See this comparison pic with Galaxy Force on the left and Cybertron on the right:



Though, the final two pics at the bottom were not the result of unfinished animation, but were instead a deliberate change to give away what the four Cyber Planet Keys (what the "Planet Force" in the Japanese version were called in the dub) looked like in the dub, for enhanced toy marketing.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:The mouth flaps are a distraction. I mean the models are better than Energon overall, but still. Geez.

This is another thing I'll give the dubbers credit for. They took great pains to match the lip flap animation as best they could while making sure the dialogue both looked and sounded natural and coherent to American ears.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:So it's taking some time to find it's footing. So far it's kind of a straight forward, kind of shallow, action show with some cool designs.

I think the reason the English version was initially so well received was because of it coming off the back of the absolute roller coaster of quality that the English dubs of Armada and Energon were. Armada's dub started off terribly mediocre, with voices and dialogue that ranged from just bland and boring to dreadfully awful. But during its second half, the dubbing improved significantly, with some really strong performances from the cast. Then came Energon, whose dub started off decent, but took a severe nosedive basically once the show left Earth and headed for space, with scripts and performances that felt so bafflingly bad and insanely bonkers that one wonders just what the dubbers were smoking at the time and where we could possibly get some for ourselves. By the end of Energon, our brains had turned to mush. The show was beyond bad, and its dub was beyond worse.

Then came Cybertron, whose dub was handled by a completely new team of dubbers, who put real genuine effort into doing a good job from start to finish. After the miserable drek that was Energon's dub, Cybertron's dub was a legit breath of fresh air. Even if it was trying to have its cake and eat it too by both trying to tie it back in with Armada and Energon while also trying to stay decently faithful enough to the Japanese version being its own thing, all while trying to also churn out scripts and performances that were as coherent and sensible as they could make them be. Quite the Herculean task, but one that the confident and competent Cybertron dub team was ambitious enough to strive for.

Not to mention the dub also tried to vary up the character voices with a greater array of accents (much like the G1 cartoon, Beast Wars, and RID 2001's dub all did), giving characters such accents as Australian, American Southern, American New Yorker, British, Scottish, French, and more, giving the dub some more memorable performances.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Of all the Autobots I think I like Excellion the best. I like the youthful determination type he has and I like how he rescued the old TF (can't rememebr his name)>

Exillion rescued Autolander ("Brakedown" in the dub).

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I don't get OP's order not to talka to anyone of Epeedia. How are they ever supposed to find the Planet Force if they can't interact with anyone? Come off it, Prime.

The con side is weaker. I guess I like Starscream because of his strong design.

Hopefully the show gets better. So far I like that the Minicons are actual characters.

It's still early in the show, so I cannot say much more about these points.

The promo doesn't help that much this time. I think the only time it really heped a lot was to say what happened to all the minicons in Superlink.

TBH, I feel like it's weird that the cons hang out in this other dimensional space. Right now, and maybe it's just me, that doesn't seem to get explained very well.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Master Mega and SS appear out of the black Hole and everyone acts like they've known them forever, but this is really our first time meeting them. How did they get there?

Maybe Sabrblade could correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I recall, there was a mixup between Hasbro and Takara regarding whether or not this was connected to Micron Legend/Armada and Superlink/Energon. The Hasbro version was intended to be a sequel, and the Takara version was not. Because the show was a collaborative effort between the two, there are some strange elements to both series.

In the English version, this is the same Megatron as Armada/Energon, which is why everyone knows him so well. This Starscream is also the same as Armada Starscream/Energon Nightscream (Who is just called Starscream in the dub).

Of course, the series being connected would bring with it a whole slew of continuity issues, but it does shed some light on those two characters.

I know. But, even in GF where we're supposed to be meeting these guys for the first time it's a strange choice. It feels odd since it's so close to Superlink's ending ... but not close enough.

But maybe I misread the scene. When seeing it it seemed like Megatron's emergence related to the black hole and that's why everyone was shocked to see him. Maybe that's what threw me off.

Also the names. Gotta say. In a reboot universe add ons to the names don't make sense. Like, which other Convoy and Megatron are they differentiating themselves from in-universe?

Edit:
Just met Noisemaze; He manages to fool the heroes for all of two seconds before revealing he can change factions. Real Reverse Megatron energy.

Edit2:
Speedia goes on forever. It'd be fine, but they just keep on racing the same people over and over again.
Also the races are BS. One minute they crash or have an extended stay in bot mode the next they're in the top 3 spot? What? And is there a structure to the race? I thought the one with everyone in it was gonna be it, but not yet (as of 18)

One thing that's constantly bugging me now is how exactly do the Autobot's human friends go to the bathroom or eat? Ok, on Earth they can adapt, but now on Cybertron or Speedia. lol, not something you're really supposed to think about, but I find myself doing so more and more during the UT.

Edit3:
Finally got an explanation for the Grand Black Hole! It's ... the lack of evil in the universe causing an imbalance. Somehow that creates a black hole you can travel in and out of.

I know that it's further explained that Unicron's destruction in another universe creates a black hole, but the show itself says it's an imbalance of good and evil. I guess that's Energon bits left over from the rusty saw that tore Cybertron from it's initial premise. Honestly, really bad. You'd think they would have come up with a better explanation after all this time.

Edit4:
At 46. How did Galvatron get ahead of everyone without them noticing? And how did Super Starscream do the same!? GD, maybe if it was one of the teleporters I'd get it, but it takes me out of the moment to see Starscream so far away from everyone and then, suddenly, to jump right in front.

Super late in the following responses (real life and other distractions kept me away), but I've given a lot of thought to what I've had to say.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:For me, the fiction comes first. It's the primary reason I'm into whatever I'm into. I know success is measured by how well the toys sell, but even so, the cartoon should advertise those toys by being ... a good overall cartoon. At least, that's how I see it.

For most of its existence (at least up until the first live-action movie in 2007), Transformers fiction was completely reliant on the toy sales. I've been doing some deep-dive research into old posts and interviews from Beast Wars story editors Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio that they made on alt.toys.transformers back when Beast Wars was still new in the 90s, and they spoke all the time of how difficult and ephemeral a show Beast Wars was since it's life was completely determined by the toy sales. They often spoke in worry or even half-joking about how the show could easily just end at the drop of a hat the second the toys stopped selling, no matter how well written or well received the show was.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Speaking of weirdness, the time travel stuff. I don't think it was necessary. At all. Just weird for the sake of weird. You could have easily cut it out of the series - had the Minicons land on Earth due to coincidence - and it would be stronger. Because now we don't have a do-over power! It's kind of like the Time Turner in Harry Potter. They use it for this one thing in this one instance? Why not any other time it could have come in handy? It makes the kids a bit more relevant to the plot, but also is unnecessary and complicates a plot that doesn't need to be complicated.

This slipped past me before. Are you referring to the strange bit in Episode 46 where Rad, Carlos, and Alexis are sent to a weird place where Hot Shot lies dying and they seemingly awaken a sense of free will in the Mini-Cons? If so, that actually wasn't time travel. The subtitles made a translation mistake with that scene, misinterpreting it as time travel when what actually happened was that Rad, Carlos, and Alexis were sent to a parallel alternate reality set in the present, one where the kids never met the Mini-Cons and so Unicron won by taking over the Mini-Cons and having them turn on the Autobots and Decepticons, all so they could all be consumed by Unicron. I got confirmation of this mistranslation by one of the Wiki's Japanese-language experts, who pointed out what the dialogue really said.

Funnily enough, this same misinterpretation of the scene was actually made by the English dub as well.

But then the kids interact with the Minicons of the past. It makes High Wire's eyes turn on and that seems to cause them to go to Earth to meet the kids in the first place.

But all of that - the alternate reality, meeting the Minicons in the past, the whole predestined bit - is unnecessary to what's going on. You could have it be a complete coincidence like in ever other Transformers property. And the kids could just go with them to Cybertron. It just makes this wierd wrinkle in the plot that I dislike because it gives High Wire a power he uses a grand total of ONE time.

It was fun to see what Unicron's plot could have turned out had things gone fully his way, but the Minicons could have just turned on them due to their own free will and not due to the kid's interference. They were already important.

Okay, I took a closer look at the scene in question, and I goofed a little bit. There is both an alternate universe and time travel involved in this scene.

The part with Hot Shot dying and acting like the Mini-Cons betrayed everyone was an alternate universe. The subtitles mistranslated Rad's dialogue as "This is from before Wheelie and the others even reached our world!" But the actual Japanese dialogue translates to something like "This is a world where we never met Wheelie and the other Microns."

Then, there's a blinding flash of light and the kids see the Mini-Cons all being born in the underground birthing chamber. This scene is time travel, creating the closed loop predestination paradox of the kids giving life and free will to the Mini-Cons for the first time, which comes back later in the penultimate episode when the kids and the Street Action Team confront Unicron and he calls the latter "the first deviant Microns", as in the first to break free of Unicron's will.

These two scenes imply that Unicron created the Mini-Cons not just to escalate the Autobot/Decepticon war so that he could feed off the hatred built up by the fighting, but also so that the Mini-Cons could manipulate the Autobots and Decepticons to play right into Unicron's hands, all so that he could consume them all. The kids going to the alternate universe showed them what could and would have happened had they not done what they did when they went back in time after that, meaning they changed history for the better, preventing the "bad ending timeline" from coming to pass.

Sabrblade wrote:

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Just kinda wish he wasn't, actually, Unicron. Maybe it was just in that one episode? I like him better as his own guy.

It's more like he's a piece of Unicron (like the Mini-Cons themselves) but given his own sense of autonomy, and that Unicron can use him as an avatar to communicate to lesser beings. Unicron would be arrogant enough to claim that Sideways isn't his own guy, being just a part of him, when we saw before that Sideways was independent enough to fear Unicron like he was a separate individual.

I guess we can think of it like an evil, perverted analogy to the "God the Father, Jesus the Son" relationship, where the two are both the same yet also separate at the same time.

In addition to this, when Sideways placed the Star Saber into Unicron, recall that he sent Thrust away and said "One being should be enough for this. You may step aside." We're never told what "this" is that he no longer needed Thrust's help to accomplish, but when next we see Sideways, he's emerging from within Unicron's heart and begins to act as an avatar for Unicron to speak through.

My interpretation is that the "this" he referred to before was the process of being possessed by Unicron as his avatar, which he only needed one person to do (hence his dismissing Thrust), and that Unicron in his arrogance claimed to be Sideways due to having created him from his own being. But, throughout the scene of Unicron taunting Optimus and the later scene of the kids and Mini-Cons confronting Unicron, we can hear Sideways's chuckles and laughs in the background of Unicron's dialogue, as though there were two separate voices from two distinct people coming from the same body in those moments.

It was like Sideways was a willing host to Unicron possessing his body, yet retained enough autonomy to laugh at Optimus and the Mini-Cons while his master spoke through his body, being allowed to keep that autonomy likely because Unicron was confident enough that Sideways wouldn't try anything against him (and he was right, since Sideways was a genuinely and thoroughly loyal minion of Unicron who simply let him use his body without issue). We even see Sideways later retake control of his body after the kids and Mini-Cons shut Unicron down and basically exorcise him from Sideways's body.

Something else related to this also comes up later when the kids and Mini-Cons confront Unicron, where the Mini-Con renounce Unicron to his face and his says "You little fools... Have you forgotten? You Microns are my own cells! Just as I am you! Why do something stupid like fight yourself?" That same arrogance, claiming that anything created from his being is also he himself, despite the autonomy that both Sideways and the Mini-Cons have. The only difference was that Sideways, in his unwavering loyalty, didn't contradict Unicron on his arrogant claim, while the Mini-Cons and kids stood in direct defiance of it. But that defiance is proof that Unicron was just being arrogant in declaring that Sideways was really him all along.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I do agree that the reason the movie isn't nearly as iconic there as here is a lack of a theater presentation. When it was released that quote you showed me where the reaction was more "oh, that's what happened" instead of tears. And, yeah, of course. By that point it was long past his time and he died again, in vain, during Headmasters.

But you don't think Prime's death would be shocking over there? If they had, actually, released this ting in theaters.

It's true they're used to more animated violence than we were at the time, but it's not like Goku actually, legit, died until the Cell saga. Even in the Sayan saga he's just training in the afterlife - he's not gone from the franchise. Death in DB is just a wish away from being fixed. But in TFTM everyone's death pretty much stuck until the very end of S3. And it was most of the main cast! I have to admit, I'm not as good at my anime as some, but is there one made for kids where pretty much all of the cast is just wiped out as in TFTM? And I mean for real dead and not brought back by the end of the arc?

THAT is the #1 part of what made the movie, and to be honest Prime himself, so iconic. A well done, epic fight scene where our childhood heroes legit die and do NOT come back by the end of the movie. And it will never happen again since it wrecked the TF franchise, lol.

But if you approach that same fight years later, knowing he died and seeing him die again in a lame way ... yeah it really takes the teeth out of it. The disconnect is just too great. But most of those other guys stay gone. Starscream comes back as a ghost for one ep, but the other Seekers are gone. The Insecticons are gone. Pour one out for the vans. So many characters we spent our afternoons with were just cast aside. But if you don't experience that until several years later (even after Wheeljack makes an appearance in Victory) the emotional impact of the whole first act is just gone.

But maybe it's also a good thing? Because it sort of allowed TF to evolve. Clearly scarring kids is a bad way to promote your new line of toys. Roddy lasted ... I want to say 1/4th of Headmasters before flying our of the franchise like Superman. And they seemed far more open to new Autobot and Decepticon leaders than US audiences.

And yet TF did die out eventually and was only brought back with the return of an Optimus and Megatron.

I've thought a lot about this, and I can only think of one case where the entire cast of an established work was all killed off at the start of the next major installment, and that's in the live-action movie G.I. Joe: Retaliation, in which Duke and nearly the entire Joe cast of the first movie, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, are killed off at the beginning (though, Duke's the only one whose actor actually returned, so it doesn't hit as hard since we couldn't tell who the other Joes were that bought the dust alongside him).

But, when you think about, the reason that's the only instance I could think of is likely because, the practice of callously and carelessly killing off beloved characters at the beginning of a big story... simply isn't done. Any respectable writer knows that it's foolish to unceremoniously kill off a vast amount of popular characters all at once for sheer shock value. That reeks of carelessness, callousness, and a total lack of understanding what your audience likes. Which is exactly what was the case with TFTM slaughtering so much of its 1984-1985 character cast, based on all the backlash the movie got from kids who were traumatized by it.

And not only is it a practice that isn't done often, but it certainly wasn't something common in children's media of the 1980s. The genre of "advertainment" was still very new at the time, and no one had really done something as drastic as massacring a beloved character cast at the beginning of a movie before. It was bold new direction to take the series in, but done purely for cold-hearted corporate reasons rather than any real creative storytelling decisions. It would have been far more creative (and considerate) to simply have Optimus retire from Autobot leadership once Hot Rod was revealed to be the true chosen bearer of the Matrix, and become his second-in-command and main advisor.

The toy that would become Ultra Magnus could have even instead been sold as an armored version of Optimus, representing the form he took on after stepping down to become Rodimus's sub-commander (maybe named "Optimus Magnus" since Rodimus would be the new Prime). While this would have removed the new character Ultra Magnus from the equation, the new toy would have still been sold (preferably in its original, more-Optimus-like Diaclone colors) and the trauma would have been less so (maybe not completely gone since the other Autobots likely would have still been removed from the picture, but Optimus getting to survive and with a new armored toy to boot might have been enough for kids to better forgive the movie for killing off the others). It also would have paralleled Megatron getting a new upgraded toy of his own as Galvatron.


But there's also this to consider: The movie bridged the gap between Seasons 2 and 3 of the G1 cartoon. Because Season 2 never got a proper finale, the movie serves that purpose for us English-speakers. We need it because it's a jarring jump going from Season 2 to 3 without it (as "B.O.T." is anything but a proper finale for Season 2). But, this actually wasn't the case in Japan. It wasn't as jarring for the Japanese viewers to go from FSRLTF to 2010 for two reasons. The first is that they're used to long-running series starting over with new characters and settings changing out every year, like with Super Sentai and Kamen Rider. But the second reason it wasn't as jarring was because, unlike the English version of the G1 cartoon, FSRLTF did receive a proper finale. No, not the Scramble City OVA (that ended on a cliffhanger), but rather something else that already existed in the English version.

When the first two seasons of the G1 cartoon were dubbed in Japanese, several episodes were completely reordered from how they were both produced and broadcasted in English (the English production order and broadcast order vary greatly, too, but I digress). Many of these rearranged episodes were the ones that featured Skyfire. Because of the G1 Jetfire toy being made from a Macross VF-1S Super Valkyrie (which is owned by Bandai, Takara's biggest rival), it couldn't be sold in Japan. And because Skyfire was based on Jetfire, Takara had to iron out the legal details surrounding the character before any of his episodes could be aired in Japan. This delayed all of his episode appearances until the end of the FSRLTF series. However, this created a unique situation that allowed FSRLTF to have a proper multi-part finale event, because among the Skyfire episodes delayed to the end of the series was the three-parter "The Ultimate Doom".

When looking at the first season of the G1 cartoon in production order, "The Ultimate Doom" was the 11th, 12th, and 13th episode of the season, when counting the three-part pilot episodes as part of the season. The pilot episodes were originally made as a standalone production; the rest of the first season wasn't greenlit until after the pilot was made. This is why the first season has the unusual episode count of 16, as the first three episodes were made separately, followed by the more standard number of 13 episodes. But, it my theory that at one point, only 10 episodes were originally going to follow the pilot in order to make the first season a total of 13 episodes, with "The Ultimate Doom" being the grand finale event of Season 1.

But for whatever reason, the pilot was deemed distinct enough to not count for the order total of 13 episodes, and so we got "Countdown to Extinction" as an epilogue to "The Ultimate Doom", followed by "A Plague of Insecticons" and the actual finale of Season 1 being "Heavy Metal War" (which ended with a scene between Optimus and Spike that was almost identical to one found at the end of "The Ultimate Doom, Part 3", in which Spike and Optimus wonder if the Decepticons have finally been defeated for good, which is another reason I feel like "The Ultimate Doom" was originally supposed to be the actual Season 1 finale before the final three episodes were made and added to the count).

In Japan, however, the Skyfire episodes being delayed to the end meant that they could actually use "The Ultimate Doom" as the grand finale of FSRLTF. While this did, admittedly, create some continuity issues like with "Countdown to Extinction" coming long before "The Ultimate Doom", and with many of the Season 2 characters just disappearing by the end (but, to be fair, lots of characters came and went without explanation during the English episode run of Seasons 1-2), "The Ultimate Doom" got to be the epic conclusion that seemed to really want to be, and even aired on Japanese TV on November 7, 1986 as a special 90-minute feature presentation titled "Day of Destruction".

So with that in mind, Japan got a proper conclusion for FSRLTF, then jumped straight into the Season 3 episodes one week later on November 14, 1986, with "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 1" getting everyone up to speed on its new characters and future setting by opening with a brief recap of TFTM (the same one from the English version). In that sense, with the 2010 dub of Season 3 also getting a new series name and a new theme song, it was treated as a separate series with its own identity that was a sequel to FSRLTF, instead of just the next season of the same series.

Sure, there was still the mystery of how Convoy and the others died, how Rodimus Convoy became the new leader, how Megatron had become Galvatron, and who the now-bodiless Unicron was, but as I said earlier in this thread, those details were filled in by TV Magazine. There was also the "Mystery of Convoy" video game for the Super Famicom that came out three weeks later on December 5, 1986. However, the game itself was delayed as well, as it was originally supposed to release in November right before 2010 hit Japanese television.

And the game's story was about Ultra Magnus going on a quest to find out who the next Autobot leader will be following the death of Convoy. Throughout the game, Magnus collects seven tokens that spell out the name "RODIMUS", unlocking the secret alternate playable character of Rodimus Convoy, who would have debuted in this game before his onscreen appearance in 2010, thus revealing him as the next leader and solving the titular "Mystery of Convoy" that Takara was pushing in lieu of TFTM.

And according to this Japanese Yahoo! Answers page, the movie was at one point possibly going to see release in Japan in Summer 1987 (as stated in a video promoting the "Mystery of Convoy" video game, saying that playing the game will "unravel the mystery behind the movie, to be released next summer"), but the exact reason for its delay is just completely unknown, chalked up to "various reasons".

There was also this promo video, "Convoy's Final Message", released around that time, which hyped up the new 2010 series by having Convoy introduce many of the new characters to come in it:

(No subtitles)

It's hard to jump back in on this part of the thread since I'm almost at Giant Planet over in GF. But I'll try...

For most of its existence (at least up until the first live-action movie in 2007), Transformers fiction was completely reliant on the toy sales. I've been doing some deep-dive research into old posts and interviews from Beast Wars story editors Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio that they made on alt.toys.transformers back when Beast Wars was still new in the 90s, and they spoke all the time of how difficult and ephemeral a show Beast Wars was since it's life was completely determined by the toy sales. They often spoke in worry or even half-joking about how the show could easily just end at the drop of a hat the second the toys stopped selling, no matter how well written or well received the show was.

I don't think we're necessarily disagreeing here... TBH, I'm not sure what the original point was.

But, at least for me, the shows must be quality. I have to judge these shows as shows. To me this is fair. There are a lot of toy shows. There are a lot of Transformers shows. So, if it fails at delivering a good show, despite being a toy show, then it just fails at being a good show. It has to overcome creative obstacles like toy waves and marketing. Or use them to it's advantage. For me, it doesn't get a pass because those obstacles exist.



The Ultimate Doom being the end of G1 would be a high note. Maybe you wouldn't feel like you needed the movie after that? But even Masquerade would have been better.

Season 3 was really hard for me to catch as a kid. TFs were on weekdays while Season 3 switched times to weekends. It was a really weird time for TFs and I can't remember it too well since I was pretty young. But I do remember not being able to catch it all the time and being bummed out by that.

I guess the Japanese would have rolled with the changes easier - you're right about them having multiple full show cast swaps. At the same time, I just can't really accept they they'd be nonplussed if it had actually happened at a time when it was relevant. Timing is everything. When it happened for them a LOT of time had passed. How can you feel any impact on the movie when you've already seen the return of OP?

It's like the Death of Superman story from the 90s. If you read that after reading Reign of the Supermen, then it doesn't really have any impact. Random monster comes in, beats a bunch of people up, then Superman and he both die. There was impact because of WHEN it happened. And HOW it happened. If you read it just a few years later there's no emotion tied to it. And there's a lot in there that wouldn't hold up.

Or when Jean Grey died as Phoenix. If you read that only AFTER she came back and was an established member of the X-Men again the impact of a founding member of the X-Men (one of the weakest) getting a huge power boost, becoming corrupted, and then dying is mooted. You know the entire story. You can't feel the impact anymore. We know the story beats, we know the impact. And we've seen it undone. Unlike with Superman I can still call the story good, but my feelings about it are totally different (I came to it far later, after watching the cartoon; Death of Superman brought me into that franchise).

There's just a HUGE difference in experiencing a thing when it comes out at first comes out VS experiencing it far after it's relevancy. It's the difference of saying "this was awesome" VS saying "I can see how this would be awesome historically speaking".

So, I still think it would have been more iconic if it had come out when it was new. Of course now it's all historical and used as an important highlight for the brand itself.

NGL, though, I've somewhat lost the thread of this convo in particular.



On Armada and the Minicons and time travel with alternate dimensions - I understood all of it. I just think it was unnecessary and, well, bad storytelling. Weird for the sake of weird. It's not that I didn't understand it; I just think it's unnecessary and opens up a can of worms if one Minicon can selectively time travel. Never uses it before. Never uses it after. And he's not even a DeLorean, or a phone booth. He's this random bike guy. Not even all three of them combined - like the Star Saber, just the bike one!

Just bad.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I guess the Japanese would have rolled with the changes easier - you're right about them having multiple full show cast swaps. At the same time, I just can't really accept they they'd be nonplussed if it had actually happened at a time when it was relevant. Timing is everything. When it happened for them a LOT of time had passed. How can you feel any impact on the movie when you've already seen the return of OP?

I guess. But there was also the difference in how much of a gap there was between Seasons 2 and 3 and between FSRLTF and 2010. In the west, there was an eight-month gap between the end of Season 2 and the beginning of Season 3. That's a long time for a kid, and the movie filled in that gap when it did (albeit, coming seven months after Season 2 and only one month before Season 3, so its release was a bit skewed unfairly far away from Season 2, but I guess that also reflects the in-universe 20-year time-jump from 1985 to 2005).

In Japan, however, 2010 began only one week after FSRLTF ended, so Japanese kids had no time to wait for the next show. The same happened with The Headmasters beginning a week after 2010 ended, Masterforce a week after The Headmasters, and Victory a week after Masterforce, making one contiguous five-year run that was mostly uninterrupted with no real gaps of wait time in between, in contrast to how spaced apart each season of the G1 cartoon was in the west (9 months between Seasons 1 and 2, 8 months between Seasons 2 and 3, and 9 months between Season 3 and The Rebirth).

G1 was still in syndication before the movie came out. It's not like we stopped watching it.

I think the unbroken run strengthens my point on distance making G1 Optimus Prime less relevant to kids who saw the movie, as opposed to the movie coming our right away. By the time it came out OP had died (even if they hadn't seen it), been reborn, and died again and then his successor was replaced! A few times over.

Of course they won't be as into it. There's no way any of those scenes hit as hard. Especially if the culture itself is primed to see their heroes replaced. By that time, if (say) Ironhide was their fav they probably be sad, but they would have probably moved on to other interests by then. It's not like there's a lack of shows. And kids can be fickle. One year TFs could be their whole identity and the next ... who knows! My cousin had a lot of fun destroying his old toys when he was over them.

Galaxy Force

I made some notes earlier while I was watching. My impressions of the show got better as time wore on.

Right off the bat, I think the show suffers by it being it's own thing. There are a lot of things that seemed derived from Superlink and it was a continual distraction for a lot longer than I'd have thought going into this. Also, despite the show starting at a breakneck pace it really lags sometimes. Long, extended transformation sequences for everyone and a plot that sometimes seemed to run in place left me feeling bored a lot of the time. I found myself having a second window open to keep myself occupied as robots kept transforming or getting lost in Giant Planet or racing for the upteenth time.

I was also frustrated by character seemingly teleporting ahead of the Cybertrons. It happened a lot. In on caes when Landbullet and Gasket teleported in front of everyone to lay a trap ... even while they were just flattened a little while ago. Also on Giant where Starscream teleports from his starting point to right in front of the Plant Force.

Magic healing also frustrated me. In one episode Megatron or Starscream would be beaten to a pulp. The next they would be up and ready to fight. They're like a looney Tune. But it takes Guardshell several episodes to heal!

Also, this show was very DBZ and not in a good way. I recognize the "power up" effects as a trope, but I didn't like it. And seeing Megatron just sort of power up due to rage also left me flat. Part of what I liked about Z was the training. GF just skips that. Megatron just becomes more powerful due to sheer force of will allowing him to become so. Especially escaping from the Fire Dimension.

Although I didn't know they called his powered up form Galvatron in Japan. How about that? But without the personality or physical changes it does leave me flat, as in the dubs.

But it's not all bad. I enjoyed the multiple factions at play. From Noisemaze and Soundwave doing their own thing to Starscream breaking away somewhat early; it added an interesting dynamic to the show.

My faves:
Among the Autobots, I initially liked Excellion. But after the Speedia arc he kind of went nowhere. LigerJack actually intregues me. From his adoption of Animatros to his continued rivalry with Flame Convoy to his jealousy creating Nemesis Breaker, I actually warmed up to him and enjoyed him the most.

Among the Decepticons ... can you believe Chromia? I like her shallow, carefree, and fun attitude. Almost makes me want her toy, if only it didn't suck so hard.

Sounwave was a contender since I like his cool attitude and look. But he kind of went nowhere and his and Noisemaze's revenge plot didn't do much for me. It comes so late and doesn't touch on any of Giant Plant's actual inhabitants. All ... three ... of them. And then they, somehow, go into another dimension and find an alternate-reality Planet X they like happily on? What!? Do they or Planet X really deserve a happy ending?

Okay, Giant Planet is a mess. There's three people!? What, you can't afford to make some CGI generics? Also, they just build cities all the time and move on? That's it!? I just .... can't. No wonder Moledive causes trouble. Mindlessly building giant cities on an empty world would make me crazy too.

I feel Starscream had wasted potential here. Like, the show did not need 52 episodes to tell it's story. Starscream just sits around a lot. And sometimes eats a Magic Mushroom. After that first big push he's left to rot and it's too bad. I think that they didn't think his journey through and it hurts him in my eyes.

Speaking of wasted potential, can we talk about Primus? In another thread I asked if Primus did anything cool. And now, after watching the whole thing, the answer is no. No he didn't. The toy is a nice counterpoint to Unicron's and I'm glad to have it, but he could have easily remained a face on a wall for all the good transforming did. When a planet transforms into a robot that should be a show stopper. Instead he transforms and just does ... not much of anything. Okay, he lobs some moons at Super Starscream, but it just isn't enough.

Megatron ... honestly he's in G1 Galvatron mode most of the time. He goes from wanting to rule the universe to also wanting to destroy it. He doesn't care about his underlings. I like that they take the time to explain his idea at the end because before then I had no idea what he's hoping to achieve by letting a black hole destroy planets he wants to rule. I guess when he loses he's just having a destructive tantrum.

TBH, though, Starscream's plan also sucks. He also wants to stop the Cybertrons from saving everyone in order to rule ... what? Everything will go to Hell! Maybe he also has the same secret plan Megatron had?

I wish there was a "Unicron Trilogy Kai". Just cut a lot of the fluff and rework Energon and Cybertron to be a tighter, more cohesive story. Micron Legend is, actually, top shelf stuff and I'd leave it as is.

If I look back to the start of my journey with these, I feel like they did make the Decepticons a force. In BWII I felt they didn't pose a significant threat. Even in Victory I had that sense that there was just too many good guys. By now these problems were fixed. The threats seemed credible. Even if there were a lot of good guys they were spread out. They couldn't easily just teleport in or something.

Of the entire UT, I think ML is the top. Cybertron comes second. Even if I have complaints the fights were pretty good and there were some interesting characters here and there. Superlink had some good ideas, but ran in place way too long. Also there's too much nonsense.

So, what's next on your agenda? If it's Transformers: Go!, don't watch it just yet. Let me send you a list with a proper viewing order for that series's episodes, as they were originally released in a rather haphazard way (I can't send it right now at the time of this typing since I'm still at work at the moment away from my computer).