The Energon Pub

Sabrblade wrote:

unawaredave wrote:Its doesnt make sense to me either, it was the clear the best transformers cartoon series past, present and short term future. The drawings, characters, story plots were really good!!

98 episodes isn't enough for you? And, no, it was certainly not the best TF series ever. It had just as many (if not more) animation errors, plot holes, static characters as later series. It was good for its time, but a lot of it doesn't completely hold up to today's standards.

I think most objective fans cite Beast Wars as the best, both for being the most ahead of its time and also for the best combination of catering to both kids and adults at the same time.

As far as holding up to "today's standards", the G1 series of course is going to seem dated in a lot of ways, but if you compare it to other shows on at the same time (original He-Man is a glaring example) I think it holds up better than the majority of shows (animated or not) from that same time period.

kevinblevins wrote:I doubt the long breaks helped, but I am not yet convinced they were the primary cause. How do the season breaks for TFs compare to other popular cartoons of the time?

"He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe" started in September of 1983 and finished it's first season in December. The second season began in September of 84 and ran through December. "G.I. Joe" started with two mini series in September of 83 and 84. Seasons one and two would both air from September through December of 85 and September of 86 through November. The movie was released in April of 87 and aired a few months later. I think that's pretty common for back then.

Just Negare wrote:To be honest, I'm of the mind they cancelled it because end of the day, teh show was there to sell the toys, and the toys weren't doing so well, so they just had to call it quits. Kids can bore easily, and if something new comes along, they move into that. Then of course, a decade or so later we get BW, and then a whole host of other new stuff coming out of Japan and America, so more interest, more stuff, live action movies.

Its all about selling toys, it was never about adding something to the culture.

I'm okay with that. Even if there were other reasons for its cancellation.

If the show died due to lousy toy sales, then why did the toys continue to sell and be made up through to 1990? Plus, it didn't end after "The Rebirth". There was that fifth season that aired in 1988 that ran old episodes with a new opening/ending, new footage with Powermaster Optimus Prime and Tommy Kennedy, and the 1986 movie split into five episodes.

Delicon wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

unawaredave wrote:Its doesnt make sense to me either, it was the clear the best transformers cartoon series past, present and short term future. The drawings, characters, story plots were really good!!

98 episodes isn't enough for you? And, no, it was certainly not the best TF series ever. It had just as many (if not more) animation errors, plot holes, static characters as later series. It was good for its time, but a lot of it doesn't completely hold up to today's standards.

I think most objective fans cite Beast Wars as the best, both for being the most ahead of its time and also for the best combination of catering to both kids and adults at the same time.

As far as holding up to "today's standards", the G1 series of course is going to seem dated in a lot of ways, but if you compare it to other shows on at the same time (original He-Man is a glaring example) I think it holds up better than the majority of shows (animated or not) from that same time period.

Which is why I say it doesn't "completely" hold up. not all of it does, but there are some parts of it that I think do indeed hold up even to this day.

Having watched the "He-Man & She-Ra Christmas Special" last month on MeTV, I can attest that MOTU and it's spinoff series doesn't hold up as well as TF G1, much less the 2002 MOTU series. BW is ahead of G1, but I think "Prime" is catching up to it and could surpass it. It already has in terms of CGI, but then, a dozen years in between will do that.

If the show died due to lousy toy sales, then why did the toys continue to sell and be made up through to 1990?

Hell, it was still going strong in Europe while it was going dormant in the US and Japan. Though I will say that the Action Masters figures definitely didn't help matters, even if it gave us older characters who were no longer available.

There are parts of G1 that are dated today.

There are parts of G1 that have not been surpassed by any other iteration and still hold up today.

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:There are parts of G1 that are dated today.

There are parts of G1 that have not been surpassed by any other iteration and still hold up today.

Exactly. Some of it is old and subpar by today's standards, and weaker than later material. And some of it still holds up quite nicely, being better than some of the later material. But it's a matter of selectively picking out what's still good and what isn't, which many have different opinions on.