The Energon Pub

I've been re-watching Transformers Animated recently and I've been reminded of some great things the series has done.

I really like the way the factions of Cybertronians are portrayed.

Aside from the Elite Guard, the Autobots are largely non combat/military. The divisions of rank and council show a state of bureaucracy that has allowed Megatron and his Decepticons to nearly topple their government.

The Decepticons come off to me like a biker gang led and unified by someone strong and ruthless enough to command their respect, fear, or both.

I love how the Autobots are far more numerous than the Decepticons. The Decepticons in the pilot episode arc reminded me of Reavers from Firefly/Serenity. They were not something commonly encountered and were feared almost like a living ghost story.

The voice acting is great all around. I'm a fan of G1, it was my first Transformers experience, and while Peter Cullen and Frank Welker hold a sacred spot as the voices of Optimus Prime and Megatron for me, David Kaye and Corey Burton are wonderful in TFA.

The Animated Optimus has a good sense of youthful vigour but you can hear a weight on the character's soul. His background of a fall from grace as a promising Elite Guard academy cadet really appeals to me. He is a flawed character, not because of any sort of moral failing, but because he, at first, has given up on himself. He has resigned to not being a "hero" as Ultra Magnus has said. But as the series progressed, he became more sure of himself as the commander of his group. Kaye's great performance is perhaps subtle enough to go undetected at first glance/listen.

Burton's Megatron is second only to Welker for me and mainly because of Welker's Megatron has sentimental value to me. Burton gives Megatron a grounding that other Megatrons just don't, for me at least. There's a regal tone in the voice that is edged by menace. The Animated Megatron isn't overly verbose and so when he speaks, there's a nice weight to it. There's no moustache twirling element that Welker and Kaye imbued to their Megatrons. Not that there's anything wrong with it but in Animated, the voice cast really do balance things out. With the Decepticons, the over the top performances by Tom Kenny as Starscream and Bumper Robinson as Blitzwing are reined in by Burton's Megatron.

Bill Fagerbakke's Bulkhead is a favourite of mine. With the archetype of the big loveable guy, it's so tempting to go too heavy on the silly and dumb side of things. Fagerbakke, like Kaye, gives a performance that can be a little subtle in that there's more depth to things that can be missed the first time around.

I'm ambivalent to Bumber Robinson's Bumblebee. I'm not a fan of Animated BB so that doesn't help either.

Jeff Bennett's Prowl is a pleasant surprise for me. A very stoic performance that shows a spark of humour every once in a while. The ninja portrayal was a nice change from the other Prowls.

Burton's Ratchet is a great grizzled war vet who has a lot of fight left in him. I was hoping he would say at some point "I'm getting too old for this slag", Roger Murtaugh style.

The return of Susan Blu and Judd Nelson to Arcee and Rodimus is a wonderful thing to me, a big fan of the movie.

Cree's Elita-1/Black Arachnia, like BB, is something I'm not a fan of. I just never liked her high scratchy voice. But that does fit the character and I like it when she tones things down to a seductive tone, which captures the idea of a black widow spider.

Lance Henrikson as Lockdown? Wonderful stuff in my opinion. Lockdown is probably my favourate TFA character. I just love the self serving role and he's a true gun for hire.

Fred Willard as Swindle is probably my second favourite of TFA. Just great stuff. He really delivers a great balance of the approachable friendliness of a small town car salesman but has the willingness to make any kind of deal of a street scalper.

Kenny as Starscream is good, a nice homage to G1. Robinson and Kaye as Blitzwing and Lugnut are good too, nicely rounding out the main Decepticon cast.

There's so much more to say on the voice acting but I'll leave it at that for now. Just great stuff. With all due respect to fans of the anime series such as RiD and the Unicron Trilogy, English dubs often have, in my opinion, terrible acting. Part of it is attributed to dealing with translating existing material that is directed to the Japanese culture who have different sensibilities. There's also the common silliness of anime created for a younger audience. There's just something about non-translated work like TFA and other cartoons like the Bruce Timm DC animated productions that generally have a higher level of performance. Now this is coming from an anime fan but I do prefer subs to dubs.

On to the visual presentation of TFA, I'm not a big fan of the designs in general. It's a bit too round for me, too kid friendly. However, there are some great design choices in TFA that appeal to me.

Blurr's overall design and homage to the Mach 5 in his alt mode are great. I love the deadly muscle car design of Lockdown.

Megatron's Earth style is wonderfully reminiscent of G1 but the alt mode is a wonderfully suitable vehicle. Tanks are an obvious direction for a Megatron alt but a dual rotor helicopter with an underslung fusion cannon? Brilliant!

Ratchet's robot mode breaks my aversion to rounded/kid friendly design aesthetics. It just fits the character. An "energon gut", a paunch, on a robot? That, my friends, is simply beautiful.

Shockwave/Longarm Prime is just a great look, hearkens back to G1 while being a contemporary design.

I'm a fan of cycle bots so Prowl and Oilslick are especially cool to me.

Rodimus and Arcee are great for nostalgic reasons.

This is a crazy long post so I'll end it by saying I never realized how much I liked TFA until I watched it a second time around.

So what do you like about TFA or any other Transformers series? I'd love to read your thoughts.

Well, you basically covered most of the good points. But what I can add in is this.

The character models and the toys were almost exactly identical. This case of nearly-absolute "show-accuracy = toy-accuracy" is pure gold. Sure it also occured in the Cybertron series, but with animation models this unique and unordinary, it must have been a challenge to the designers to come up with ways to match up both animation and figure so perfectly. And the that they were successful at this is simply an amazing feat.

Not to mention that, despite its outwardly childish appearance, there lied beneath the surface was a serious (and, at times, dark) show. Anyone could pull off something that kids could enjoy. Same goes for adult shows. But to make the plot enjoyable for both kids and adults is simply fantastic. It wasn't too happy-go-lucky, nor was too to gritty and brooding. There were times where it was light and comedic (Wreck-Gar's debut), and times where it wore a serious face (Lockdown's debut, Sari's origin, Blackarachnia's and Wasp's misfortunes). It even kept a realistic feeling to it at times (the illegal street races) while still retaining a slight sci-fi appeal (Soundwave's VR world).

And let's not forget all the homages to nearly EVERY series. Even RiD got some referencing in the story ("Cars and trucks BAD! Car Robots WORSE!" and TFA Heavy Load). Most of them were to G1 and Beast Wars, though Beast Machines, the Unicron Trilogy, the first Bay Movie, and even Transtech got homages. No series had given this many references since Energon/Superlink (as that was the 20th Anniversary series of the franchise).

All in all, despite its initial distastful look (the very first ads for it looked awful), Transformers Animated has shown bright enough to become one of the greatest Transformers series of all time.

Well said, Sabrblade.

The toy-show accuracy element was so surprising for me and pleasantly so. To design toys that would have proper screen presence in the cartoon and physical presence as toys that transform properly is simply an amazing accomplishment. People could argue that the more simplified look of the show's design makes it easier but I say that more complex or realistic designs can lend themselves more to faking things or changing. With less superficial detail, TFA designs have less to hide behind when you want to depict robot and alt modes well. You can't "fake" as much with TFA without being caught outright for transformation cheating.

I was initially dubious of the show when I first saw promo art where the Autobots were shown in a more stretchy/bouncy/hoppy way. Kind of a "Hey, kids! I'm a cartoon!" way. Then when I saw the first episode, I recognized the animation quality, I quickly grew to enjoy the character designs of the Decepticons, and the plot was not pandering to the young portion of the audience. It was simply a well balanced show with lighter and heavier moments. The writers, for the most part, knew when to adjust the tone. The homages and nods were great!

Though, the title of this thread is a bit misleading. While you're asking specifically about Animated, the title sounds more like it's asking about each series in general and not just Animated.

Ya might wanna change that.

I'm asking about any series of Transformers. I just posted my thoughts on TFA because I just recently re-watched it. I'll update my initial post to better reflect that.

Edit:

Oh, actually I ask specifically for input on any other series but my post was disturbingly long winded so by the time people get to the end, if they bother to read all the way through, hehe, they probably miss it. So I put the request in bold letters to make it stand out a bit more.

Transformers g1:Was decent the entire series but really shined in season 3/4 with it being really sci fi and bringing back optimus

Beastwars Too short of a show. I hated how they eliminated cool good guys and bad guys so often. I still to this day scratch my head about whether dinobot 2 was actually the original dinobot re-incarnated. Rampage was an AWESOME character so creepy and cruel. I also loved Tigerhawk but he had craptacular death that pissed me off.

BeastmachinesI found myself forgetting it was a "transformers" show like the characters were very odd looking. I did like Jetfires design and Tankor but hated Silverbolt and Night Screams design. But the climatic battle at the end megs verses megatron was awesome and even more cool cause megs had optimal optimuses body. And I loved the wolf/dragon noble he had a poopy death that upset me.

Transformers Armada The only character i gave a **** about in the show was Star Scream. This version of Star Scream is awesome. Star Screams death was very epic and i was sad he died. And what killed me was Megatron actually showed some type of sorrow despite screamers treachery and when has any other version of megs care that someone dies? Animation was great

Transformers Animated, Energon, Cybertron i have yet to watch but i do own them all. I work alot its hard to sit and watch dvds sometimes.

G1 - Mostly for memorable characters and the classic adventure-type format, "The Golden Lagoon" and "The Burden Hardest to Bear" remain some of my favorite episodes.

Beast Wars - More twisted characters like Tarantulas, Inferno, and Rampage, as well as the 'snowballing' story that gradually went from stand alone episodes into a more serialized format. And "Code of Hero."

Beast Machines - Amazing CGI quality, the pseudo-religious undertones, and story-arc format. Retrospectively, this series very much reminds me of the Reimagined Battlestar Galactica, of which I am also a fan.

RiD - We got cars back... thats pretty much all I remember.

Cybertron - Mostly just a few designs, if they put more effort into the face animations, it would've been better. I also like how they worked in probably the largest cast since G1 while keeping characters reasonably well developed.

Animated - A Megatron that gets things done for a change, even Human Villans worked for me. The more Reaver/Borg approach to the Decepticons, while interesting and a good idea, doesn't work for the primary villians. In Firefly and Star Trek TNG the Reavers and Borg were given the "They're out there, and they're dangerous" treatment, while primary villans took different forms. I would like to see this concept of a grand lurking evil return, maybe in the form of Quintessons, but not with the Decepticons.

Cryosis Prime wrote:G1 - Mostly for memorable characters and the classic adventure-type format, "The Golden Lagoon" and "The Burden Hardest to Bear" remain some of my favorite episodes.

Beast Wars - More twisted characters like Tarantulas, Inferno, and Rampage, as well as the 'snowballing' story that gradually went from stand alone episodes into a more serialized format. And "Code of Hero."

Beast Machines - Amazing CGI quality, the pseudo-religious undertones, and story-arc format. Retrospectively, this series very much reminds me of the Reimagined Battlestar Galactica, of which I am also a fan.

RiD - We got cars back... thats pretty much all I remember.

Cybertron - Mostly just a few designs, if they put more effort into the face animations, it would've been better. I also like how they worked in probably the largest cast since G1 while keeping characters reasonably well developed.

Animated - A Megatron that gets things done for a change, even Human Villans worked for me. The more Reaver/Borg approach to the Decepticons, while interesting and a good idea, doesn't work for the primary villians. In Firefly and Star Trek TNG the Reavers and Borg were given the "They're out there, and they're dangerous" treatment, while primary villans took different forms. I would like to see this concept of a grand lurking evil return, maybe in the form of Quintessons, but not with the Decepticons.

"The Golden Lagoon" is something I still remember as well from G1.

I really liked David Kaye's Megatron in Beast Wars. The "Yesss..." was a bit overdone but that was the character's trademark.

I like the Reaver/Borg approach to the Decepticons in TFA because of a few points. The first is that we get more threat and manace from them as antagonists when the series starts off. We also see that the Decepticons are fewer in number than the Autobots but far more capable and dangerous. We don't have two sides with huge armies throwing themselves at each other, losing the audience in the frenzy.

We also get the indication, especially with Ultra Magnus' casual dismissal of Optimus' report of Decepticons during the pilot episode arc, that the Autobot high command has gotten a bit too big for its britches. With the Decepticons being on the fringe of awareness during the beginning of the series, we see how the time of peace and prosperity has weakened the Autobot government's vigilance.

This rarity of Decepticon presence allows us to see the different tiers of Autobot society. You have the current "young" generation like Optimus, Prowl, Bumblebee, and Bulkhead who only know of Decepticons from history data. You have war vets like Ratchet who is far too aware of the real threat of Decepticons. You have those in the higher levels of the government like Ultra Magnus who have lost the healthy respect one should have for a capable foe. This weakened state of the "armed forces" of the Autobots, due to complacency and lack of constant threat, also shows how someone like Sentinel Prime can even rise to the rank of Prime and advance as far as he did in the Elite Guard.

Convotron wrote:This rarity of Decepticon presence allows us to see the different tiers of Autobot society. You have the current "young" generation like Optimus, Prowl, Bumblebee, and Bulkhead who only know of Decepticons from history data.

"Five Servos of Doom" established that Prowl was much older than he seemed, as he was alive around during the time Project: Omega was occuring.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that! I guess Circuit-Su keeps bots youthful looking.

Beast Machines: The visual style was so different then what had been done previously and the story was really well written. the only thing that bugged my was when the transformed Beast wars was also very good

G1: Was great when i remembered it from watching as a kid but looking at it now its pretty poor in some respects.

Nightscreech wrote:G1: Was great when i remembered it from watching as a kid but looking at it now its pretty poor in some respects.

Yeah, G1 from the eyes of a kid is not so bad, especially if it's one of your first cartoons. Watching it from my eyes now, as an adult, it's fair at best. It's a typical 80s cartoon created to sell toys. I associate G1 with fond memories and it allows me to forgive many of the flaws, though I totally acknowledge them.

Convotron wrote:

Nightscreech wrote:G1: Was great when i remembered it from watching as a kid but looking at it now its pretty poor in some respects.

Yeah, G1 from the eyes of a kid is not so bad, especially if it's one of your first cartoons. Watching it from my eyes now, as an adult, it's fair at best. It's a typical 80s cartoon created to sell toys. I associate G1 with fond memories and it allows me to forgive many of the flaws, though I totally acknowledge them.

Especially those seen in B.O.T..

Sabrblade wrote:

Convotron wrote:

Nightscreech wrote:G1: Was great when i remembered it from watching as a kid but looking at it now its pretty poor in some respects.

Yeah, G1 from the eyes of a kid is not so bad, especially if it's one of your first cartoons. Watching it from my eyes now, as an adult, it's fair at best. It's a typical 80s cartoon created to sell toys. I associate G1 with fond memories and it allows me to forgive many of the flaws, though I totally acknowledge them.

Especially those seen in B.O.T..

Wow, I remember snippets of that episode...it's probable best left that way.

Coughler wrote:
Beastwars Too short of a show. I hated how they eliminated cool good guys and bad guys so often. I still to this day scratch my head about whether dinobot 2 was actually the original dinobot re-incarnated. Rampage was an AWESOME character so creepy and cruel. I also loved Tigerhawk but he had craptacular death that pissed me off.

As far as your confusion with Dinobot 2 goes, that is due to the fact that they did not air "Dark Glass" and replaced it with "Go with the Flow" in the line-up. In it, Rattrap finds Dinobot's personality/memories inside the Axalon's computer (apparently that is what he was uploading into the computer in "Bad Spark" and said "It may still be up to me"). He then downloads it into Dinobot 2, but it appears as though it doesn't work. Hence, this is why Dinobot 2 has the flashbacks of Dinobot and then begins talking about honor to TM2 Megatron.

Anyway, I will list what I like and don't like.

TF G1: I like the battles and it was actually very serious and dark at times given that it was meant to be a children's show. I agree that the biggest problem with it is the animation errors, but it is such a great show that I can overlook those errors. The other thing that is bad with it is how many freaking TFs there were; some of those TFs should have been left out of the show as they either didn't really play an important part or weren't a TF that anyone would really care about.

Beast Wars: This show is still, imo, either a tie with G1 or a close second to it based on how I feel on a given day. The character personalities and developments, storyline, and tone is still superb. Dinobot alone shows that it goes beyond the mundane simplicity of good vs. evil as he was a warrior in constant inner torment. I didn't like the fact that it was too short, "Dark Glass" wasn't aired, and some episodes seemed to be useless for nothing but filler/slapstick such as "The Low Road".

Beast Machines: The Vehicons were interesting as was Megatron's plans for Cybertron. Rhinox within Tankor is so opposite of who he was in Beast Wars, but he actually became my favorite character in this show. I don't like the "I am transformed" line and how Optimus became Mr. Meditation.

RiD: I liked the Car Brothers, Ultra Magnus when he first showed up, Omega Prime, and the Decepticons. I didn't like Optimus Prime or the Predacons.

A/E/C: I liked Armada Wheeljack, Kicker, Energon Scorponok, and Cybertron Vector Prime. I don't like pretty much everything else.

Animated: I do like some of the designs such as Prowl and the Dinobots, but that's all I liked from the few times I watched it.

Movie: I do like that it explains one thing that G1 never did, which is how new TFs appear without being introduced to the audience when they first appear. In G1, the original TFs came from the Ark and a few new ones were introduced such as Skyfire, but the rest just appeared in the mountain as if they had always were there when they hadn't been. In this movie, the fact that the TFs land on Earth by crashing in their protoform makes it so they don't have to have been on the Ark because there isn't an Ark. That's the only "good" thing I can say about these movies.

Predaprince wrote:As far as your confusion with Dinobot 2 goes, that is due to the fact that they did not air "Dark Glass" and replaced it with "Go with the Flow" in the line-up. In it, Rattrap finds Dinobot's personality/memories inside the Axalon's computer (apparently that is what he was uploading into the computer in "Bad Spark" and said "It may still be up to me"). He then downloads it into Dinobot 2, but it appears as though it doesn't work. Hence, this is why Dinobot 2 has the flashbacks of Dinobot and then begins talking about honor to TM2 Megatron.

Regarding Dark Glass, something still doesn't add up. In the finale Dinobot II saw memories of Dinobot's final moments, which took place after Dinobot made the download. Meaning, they wouldn't have been included in the download. So, whether or not Dark Glass took place off screean or not at all, Dinobot II shouldn't have been able to see memories that he didn't have.

Out of all the TF series I have seen, the characters are what I enjoyed the most. In G1 and G2, BW, BM, and TF:A, the characters' personalities made me want to watch every episode and hear what they had to say and to see what they would do in each storyline. I was slightly disappointed by the character development in Beast Machines because of the whole Optimus-as-a-mystic/psychic ordeal, but other than that, I thought it was an enjoyable series in contrast to the mixed reviews. I haven't seen RiD or the Unicron trilogy yet, so I can't put an opinion over what I liked about them. But, my friends are pushing me to watch Armada, so maybe I'll have an opinion on that show soon.

I plan to watch RiD and the Unicron Trilogy in the near future. I've seen the odd episode but I'd like to watch the all the episodes to get a better idea of the storylines.

Convotron wrote:I plan to watch RiD and the Unicron Trilogy in the near future. I've seen the odd episode but I'd like to watch the all the episodes to get a better idea of the storylines.

One thing just poped into my head with Beastwars. The star scream "spark" thing. It was weird and confusing as well.

G1: In my opinion, although it was lined with painting errors, voice acting flaws (such as in "SOS Dinobots" where both Slag and Sludge speak lines while only Sludge's mouth is moving), cell overlap errors (shuttle launching with Spike and Bumblebee on the outside of the door after it shuts), and lame dialog at times, it still retains a charm that I find hard to match. Most of the time, I find the flaws to be comical as well as a sign of the times since all 80's cartoons seemed to have various similar qualities.

For the most part, it's a nostalgic series that laid the founding for many great series to come, and therefore has my respect. I will agree that there were way too many characters and that many of them were placed into the background and hardly used, killed off, or just fell off the face of the Earth (such as Skyfire and Reflector). Too many toys to sell, so little budget, but at the same time they did try to present a history, or back story, that was more in depth than any cartoon I remember from that time.

The Animated movie of 1986: I absolutely love this movie. The animation for its time is amazing, there were some nice voices, and there was a great balance that kept me both entertained and informed throughout the entire movie.

Headmasters: I wasn't too impressed with Headmasters. It was as if 2/3s through the series, the writers said, "umm...maybe we should have given the Cybertron Headmasters some personality so there's some dichotomy." =p Also, the attempt at a story was rather lackluster, but at least the cast was smaller. There were also a few aspects that confused me, such as Sixshot's sudden change in character from being a murderous Destron ninja that killed several Cybertrons throughout the series to being Danial's best friend, or how they showed Ultra Magnus maybe twice throughout the series only to give him a random, seemingly useless death near the end of the series.

Masterforce: I actually liked this series a bit more; it had much better animation values as well as more of a human influence than any other TF series had. There were a lot of unique, yet confusing, ideas, but for most of them, I could theorize an explanation. Again, there were a few aspects that I thought were pointless, such as Sixknight making an impressive introduction, then falling off the face of the Earth until they need a character to save the day or die (he showed up maybe three times after his introduction).

Victory: I'm almost done with this series (six episodes to go), but so far, it's decent. The animation values are close to that of Masterforce, and it has a nice comical atmosphere usually; however, the writing has its share of pretty redundant filler-esk episodes with a lackluster story element.

Beast Wars: Beast Wars was one of my favorite series, as well as the one I grew up on. I like the comedy aspect, the writing and character development are awesome, the story is both original as well as reflective of G1, and I enjoyed it greatly. The characters, for the most part, had their own distinct personalities, and the cast was small enough so that no characters got left behind; a few of my favorites were Rattrap, Rampage, and Dinobot.

Beast Machines: Once you get past the morphing aspect, it's really not a bad series. I enjoyed the dark, serious atmosphere that was, just like the new graphics it had, a sign of the times. I enjoyed the story, but I'll agree that a few of the character designs were rather lacking. Blackarachnia looked more like a daddy long legs as opposed to a black widow, Silverbolt could have used some work, and I was on the fence about Rattrap. Overall, it had great writing, a nice strategic warfare element to it that made you feel like you were watching an actual struggle take place, and the final fight was pretty epic.

Armada/Energon: I just got the Japanese versions of these two series, and I plan to rewatch them soon. The English versions were pretty good, the animation values in Armada was really nice, and I thought the cell shading idea for Energon was pretty clever since it fit right in with the drawn humans and various backgrounds. These series seemed to follow a linear story, and I enjoyed each one. I had seen various episodes in Japanese, such as "Zarak's Scar", an episode that was never aired or released in America: from what I could tell, the translation was pretty accurate, as were the voices and personalities of the characters when compared to the dub. However, I do look forward to seeing why that episode was taken out and what was done differently.

Cybertron vs. Galaxy Force: I'll be blunt about this: I watched the first four episodes of Cybertron before I had to stop. The beginnings to both Armada and Energon grabbed my attention strongly, but Cybertron seemed to lack a certain flare, the voices were completely different (fully equipped with various accents), and it just seemed slapped together as far as event sequences went, like a collage of different clips being put together to create new scenes. After watching those few episodes I decided to watch the Japanese equivalent instead to see what differences there were.

The stories were completely different, with completely different agendas, and the beginning ran much smoother in Galaxy Force (my opinion). When they brought it over, I guess they wanted to make it more child friendly - the outcome was that I was still seeing clips from the first four episodes of Cybertron being fully played out in as far as episode 10 of Galaxy Force. I still haven't completed Cybertron (though I plan to someday in order to give it a more honest opinion), but Galaxy Force was decent: it wasn't as well thought out as Armada and Energon, but it was still decent. I liked the full 3D aspect of it as well as the basic ideas behind it - it just had way too many holes in its plot to be completely fulfilling.

the live action movies: The first one was alright. It incorporated places and events that were shown in season one of G1: such as a transformer frozen in the North Pole (Skyfire in the series), the Inca temple (it held the "Ancient Crystal of Power" that was saved by the Autobots in G1 and was a place of significance for reading Archubold Witwicky's glasses in the movie), and the military base attack (in the third episode of the "More Than Meets the Eye" pilot, there was a mirage setup of a military base that was destroyed by the Thundercracker, Skywarp, and Starscream, where energy waves were used to destroy tanks, shown much like Blackout's attack on the military base at the beginning of the first movie). All in all, it turned out better than I thought it would. I hated that they killed Jazz though.

The second movie...it was like Spielberg got together with Pixar to make a pretty lame, stereotypical movie. Since when did Arcee have sisters, many of the characters (especially newly introduced Transformers) were very trashy in personality, there were crude jokes as the primary comedy, the writing was pretty unrealistic (I don't know much about any of you, but if I had a transformer as a car, I would NOT leave it behind to go to a specific college, and the whole "can't say they love each other" stuff was just silly and drawn out to me), and overall the highlight of it for me was Optimus going super mode at the end by fusing with Skyfire (but even then, Skyfire just kind of fell off as spare parts afterwards). It had way too much Hollywood stuck between the Transformers element.

I haven't watched R.I.D or Animated yet, but I have them both and plan to watch them sometime in the near future as well as the Japanese versions of Armada and Energon. Overall, there have been very few Transformers series' that I just didn't care for since each seem to have at least their own theme or concept, whether portrayed well or not, each possessing their own quirks.

Wingz wrote:Masterforce: I actually liked this series a bit more; it had much better animation values as well as more of a human influence than any other TF series had. There were a lot of unique, yet confusing, ideas, but for most of them, I could theorize an explanation. Again, there were a few aspects that I thought were pointless, such as Sixknight making an impressive introduction, then falling off the face of the Earth until they need a character to save the day or die (he showed up maybe three times after his introduction).

Confused about Masterforce? I could probably answers some questions if ya got any.

The only real concept that confused me for a while was why the Cybertron Pretenders had to "suit on" into a mecha exo suit before transforming into their original forms. I'm not this far into the comic yet, so I made a theory that their sparks were taking the shapes of humans. In this case, they'd need to call the exo suit to encase themselves (a link, per say) before calling their true forms. If there is a better answer you can provide (or true correct answer for that matter), by all means, I would appreciate it =) Everything else (Are the transtictor vehicles alive and to what extent? for example) is either explained completely or makes more sense as the series goes on.

My only question beyond that was: how can the Godmasters stand to get their legs broken each time they transform XD

Wingz wrote:The only real concept that confused me for a while was why the Cybertron Pretenders had to "suit on" into a mecha exo suit before transforming into their original forms. I'm not this far into the comic yet, so I made a theory that their sparks were taking the shapes of humans. In this case, they'd need to call the exo suit to encase themselves (a link, per say) before calling their true forms. If there is a better answer you can provide (or true correct answer for that matter), by all means, I would appreciate it =)

Well, the most obvious answer would be "to sell toys". They would have to advertise both the Suit Mode and the Robot Mode to better sell the Pretender products. If they went straight from human to robot without the Suit Mode, then they wouldn't be advertising the full aspect of the Pretender toys.

Wingz wrote:Everything else (Are the transtictor vehicles alive and to what extent? for example) is either explained completely or makes more sense as the series goes on.

Well, that depends on whether or not you have seen the finale. The Transtectors themselves without either their Headmaster Jr. or Godmaster partners are not alive at all. They're just lifeless mecha without the human component to give them life. Though, something happens in the end that changes all of this, but I won't say in case you haven't seen the end of the show yet, so as not to spoil it.

Wingz wrote:My only question beyond that was: how can the Godmasters stand to get their legs broken each time they transform XD

When either the Godmasters or Headmaster Jrs. enter their Suit Modes (different from the Pretenders' Suit Modes), their entire body structure becomes artificial, as though they were robots themselves. It's not that they're wearing exo-suits over their human bodies (like in the U.S.'s "The Rebirth"), but rather, their organic bodies have become completely robotic, with the exception of their heads, which stay organic and human in nature.

Sabrblade wrote:Well, the most obvious answer would be "to sell toys". They would have to advertise both the Suit Mode and the Robot Mode to better sell the Pretender products. If they went straight from human to robot without the Suit Mode, then they wouldn't be advertising the full aspect of the Pretender toys.

That makes sense =p I'm not sure how different the Cybertron Pretenders are than the Destrons as far as the toys go, but I have a Gilmer: It just has a stiff outer casing that can be opened with the transforming robot toy inside of it.

Well, that depends on whether or not you have seen the finale. The Transtectors themselves without either their Headmaster Jr. or Godmaster partners are not alive at all. They're just lifeless mecha without the human component to give them life. Though, something happens in the end that changes all of this, but I won't say in case you haven't seen the end of the show yet, so as not to spoil it.

I've seen the entire Masterforce series so I know the answer to the question now, but it was one that I had wondered about until I got there. Until the ending, it isn't really answered. The Pretenders say that the transtictor vehicles were alive a few times throughout the series, and Ginrai's truck seemed to have a personality where it would drive itself at times, giving you the impression that they are alive to some extent before the ending. That was why I was confused: the transtictor vehicles never talked or showed emotions, but they were supposed to be alive.

When either the Godmasters or Headmaster Jrs. enter their Suit Modes (different from the Pretenders' Suit Modes), their entire body structure becomes artificial, as though they were robots themselves. It's not that they're wearing exo-suits over their human bodies (like in the U.S.'s "The Rebirth"), but rather, their organic bodies have become completely robotic, with the exception of their heads, which stay organic and human in nature.

Hmmmm, I meant the last line in jest, but I guess I learned something new anyway =) Thank you for the explanation. Is this explained further in the comic? Or did I just miss it in the series?

Wingz wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Well, that depends on whether or not you have seen the finale. The Transtectors themselves without either their Headmaster Jr. or Godmaster partners are not alive at all. They're just lifeless mecha without the human component to give them life. Though, something happens in the end that changes all of this, but I won't say in case you haven't seen the end of the show yet, so as not to spoil it.

I've seen the entire Masterforce series so I know the answer to the question now, but it was one that I had wondered about until I got there. Until the ending, it isn't really answered. The Pretenders say that the transtictor vehicles were alive a few times throughout the series, and Ginrai's truck seemed to have a personality where it would drive itself at times, giving you the impression that they are alive to some extent before the ending. That was why I was confused: the transtictor vehicles never talked or showed emotions, but they were supposed to be alive.

When either the Godmasters or Headmaster Jrs. enter their Suit Modes (different from the Pretenders' Suit Modes), their entire body structure becomes artificial, as though they were robots themselves. It's not that they're wearing exo-suits over their human bodies (like in the U.S.'s "The Rebirth"), but rather, their organic bodies have become completely robotic, with the exception of their heads, which stay organic and human in nature.

Hmmmm, I meant the last line in jest, but I guess I learned something new anyway =) Thank you for the explanation. Is this explained further in the comic? Or did I just miss it in the series?

Ah yes, forgot about those incidents with Ginrai's Transtector. I wouldn't saythat it was "alive", but more like "aware" and that only its chosen partner could truely control it.

In the finale, the Transtectors all gained setience on their own and became truely alive. The exceptions to this were the Darkwings bros, whose Transtectors still weren't alive, but rather, were bonded with the fully robotic Hydra and Buster (so they now acted like the Transtectors from The Headmasters). Although, despite the Transtectors being alive on their own, the severance fro mtheir human components weakened them greatly, as they were no longer able to connect with the power of Jinchōkon, and thus lost the ability to fully utilize Chōkon Power.

As for the Suit Modes of the humans, it was shown in episode 4, when the HM Jrs. first gained their Suit Modes and noticed that their bodies and abilities had become super-enhanced.