The Energon Pub

Discussions in other threads have got me thinking more about how far along in development plans for a complete series four of Generation One were. There was potential for a strong storyline with the introduction of the Headmasters/Targetmasters and I would be very interested to learn the direction that the series was going to go in before it was canned.

Do scripts exist for episodes after the Rebirth? If so, are they available or does anybody know the content? If not were show runners aware all along that the Rebirth would be the last episodes made for the American show and a deliberate 'finale'?

Apparently The Rebirth was always meant to be the series finale and the only change was that it was cut from 5 to 3 episodes.

Yeah, they made "The Rebirth" as a mini-series with the expectation of it being the end of the show, but were praying that the mini-series would spark enough interest from the networks to let them produce more episodes. Sadly, though, "The Rebirth" just wasn't that appealing to the networks and thus the series was not renewed for more episodes.

And like Dead Metal said, it was originally going to be five episodes long, but the aforementioned waning interest in the show led to it being condensed into three episodes.

However, there apparently were some additional episodes scripted for the fourth season just in case it ever got renewed, and these aborted scripts were used as the bases for the earliest episodes of the Japanese Transformers: The Headmasters cartoon. Looking at that series, after the first three episodes of that show, subsequent episodes use the American style episodic format of 1980's western cartoons, until later episodes in that series eventually ditch the standalone episode format and concentrate instead on a more Japanese style ongoing story arc.

If I had to guess, I'd wager that episodes 4, 5, 6, 11, and 12 might have been at least somewhat inspired by, if not directly based on, these aborted episode scripts. And maybe episodes 7 and 8, but with some serious changes due to the substantially different take the Japanese had for both the Headmasters and Sixshot.

Well that is a shame. Thanks for the info guys. I'll have to rewatch the Headmasters series to see what you mean Starsabr regarding the episodic story lines. It's strange that they were always going to kill Prime off again then.

I wonder how they were planning to expand the Rebirth further. It seemed overly spread out as a three episode mini series, never mind five.

I think the plan may of been to kill him off and then revive him not long after as powermaster prime. But that's just what I think. I'm trying to remember which episodes thoes were, wasn't one of them the first time we see Fortress Maximus and the master sword?

Wait, kill him off again? No, that was all Takara. I said the episodes of The Headmasters after the first three might have been adapted from aborted scripts. Prime died in the third episode, which wouldn't have been a part of the aborted script episodes.

And it's not like these particular episodes were anything special. Just your typical 1980's Saturday morning cartoon "Villainous plot of the week" type stories that seasons 2 and 3 of the G1 cartoon were (in)famous for. Only with the new concepts made up by the Japanese added in.

Sabrblade wrote:Looking at that series, after the first three episodes of that show, subsequent episodes use the American style episodic format of 1980's western cartoons, until later episodes in that series eventually ditch the standalone episode format and concentrate instead on a more Japanese style ongoing story arc.

This may explain why Headmasters absolutely puts me to sleep around episode 20 or so (That's not an exact number, btw). It just starts to drag on way too slowly for my taste, especially after the frenetic pace of change set at the get go.

ScottyP wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Looking at that series, after the first three episodes of that show, subsequent episodes use the American style episodic format of 1980's western cartoons, until later episodes in that series eventually ditch the standalone episode format and concentrate instead on a more Japanese style ongoing story arc.

This may explain why Headmasters absolutely puts me to sleep around episode 20 or so (That's not an exact number, btw). It just starts to drag on way too slowly for my taste, especially after the frenetic pace of change set at the get go.

It puts you to sleep when it decides to stop goofing around with meaningless plots and gets on with telling an actual ongoing storyline? Something the G1 cartoon never bothered to do?

Sabrblade wrote:

ScottyP wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Looking at that series, after the first three episodes of that show, subsequent episodes use the American style episodic format of 1980's western cartoons, until later episodes in that series eventually ditch the standalone episode format and concentrate instead on a more Japanese style ongoing story arc.

This may explain why Headmasters absolutely puts me to sleep around episode 20 or so (That's not an exact number, btw). It just starts to drag on way too slowly for my taste, especially after the frenetic pace of change set at the get go.

It puts you to sleep when it decides to stop goofing around with meaningless plots and gets on with telling an actual ongoing storyline? Something the G1 cartoon never bothered to do?

Don't try that, we both know how awful that ongoing story line is. And claiming that all the original toon did was good around as a way of defending Headmasters is incredibly ironic considering how goofy that, it's characters, story and episodes are.

"Teach us your transformation techniques or we'll let them have it!"

"Wow, that was a good workout! Transformers need to lift weights regularly to get stronger!"

"Oh no, it wasn't an alien, I was communicating with Galvatron. ALIENS DON'T EXIST! Now let me go play with my friends who are robotic aliens and we both currently live on this alien planet and its people!"

Pirate space ships made of wood - with sails - in space.

Dead Metal wrote:"Teach us your transformation techniques or we'll let them have it!"

Sabrblade wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:"Teach us your transformation techniques or we'll let them have it!"

As much as I love Klaus, it's all on Takara in this instance.

Dead Metal wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:"Teach us your transformation techniques or we'll let them have it!"

As much as I love Klaus, it's all on Takara in this instance.

False. Hasbro botched the subtitle scripts for the Shout! Factory DVD releases of the JG1 cartoons, rewriting many lines of dialogue into utter nonsense, both in the contexts of the Japanese continuity and in general contexts.

That above line is but one of many such rewritten lines. The original dialogue had the Decepticon Headmasters threatening to kill their hostages unless the Autobot Headmasters were to surrender their Transtectors to the Cons. Whoever rewrote that line obviously had no idea what they were doing, and all three DVD sets are full of such moronic subtitle changes.

I liked it when they made Sixshot into a bitch.*






































*I didn't like it.

Blast Cannon wrote:I liked it when they made Sixshot into a bitch.*

Don't quite get ya since he's virtually owned everyone he's ever fought one-on-one. Any time he's been defeated is no different from when any Decepticons get beaten.

Dude even scored one of the most critical kills in the series.

Sabrblade wrote:

Blast Cannon wrote:I liked it when they made Sixshot into a bitch.*

Don't quite get ya since he's virtually owned everyone he's ever fought one-on-one. Any time he's been defeated is no different from when any Decepticons get beaten.

Dude even scored one of the most critical kills in the series.

Then he became a bitch and decided to turn into an Autobot in the most bizarre piece of character development since they had Spike father a son.

Blast Cannon wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Blast Cannon wrote:I liked it when they made Sixshot into a bitch.*

Don't quite get ya since he's virtually owned everyone he's ever fought one-on-one. Any time he's been defeated is no different from when any Decepticons get beaten.

Dude even scored one of the most critical kills in the series.

Then he became a bitch and decided to turn into an Autobot in the most bizarre piece of character development since they had Spike father a son.

Sixshot the bitch inexplicably starts protecting Spike's dopey son who, in an ironic turn of events, is also a bitch.

Blast Cannon wrote:Sixshot the bitch inexplicably starts protecting Spike's dopey son who, in an ironic turn of events, is also a bitch.

Honor. He's a ninja who had been fighting with the Cons for so long that he'd forgotten what it meant to fight with honor. It was Daniel who helped him to realize that and eventually turn over a new leaf.

At least he (and Chromedome) had some development, unlike 90% of the rest of the cast, including the 1984-1986 cast members.

Sabrblade wrote:

Blast Cannon wrote:Sixshot the bitch inexplicably starts protecting Spike's dopey son who, in an ironic turn of events, is also a bitch.

Honor. He's a ninja who had been fighting with the Cons for so long that he'd forgotten what it meant to fight with honor. It was Daniel who helped him to realize that and eventually turn over a new leaf.

At least he (and Chromedome) had some development, unlike 90% of the rest of the cast, including the 1984-1986 cast members.

A powerful and high ranking Decepticon ninja allows everything he has ever thought or believed in to be changed by a ten year old boy. Face it, he's a bitch.

Blast Cannon wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Blast Cannon wrote:Sixshot the bitch inexplicably starts protecting Spike's dopey son who, in an ironic turn of events, is also a bitch.

Honor. He's a ninja who had been fighting with the Cons for so long that he'd forgotten what it meant to fight with honor. It was Daniel who helped him to realize that and eventually turn over a new leaf.

At least he (and Chromedome) had some development, unlike 90% of the rest of the cast, including the 1984-1986 cast members.

A powerful and high ranking Decepticon ninja allows everything he has ever thought or believed in to be changed by a ten year old boy. Face it, he's a bitch.

A powerful and high ranking Six Clan ninja allows everything he has ever thought or believed in to be changed by a bunch of Saturday morning cartoon villains. Yep, but it was long before he met Daniel.

He's as much one as every non-Galvatron/non-Scorponok Decepticon was as well. They all were.

Sabrblade wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:"Teach us your transformation techniques or we'll let them have it!"

As much as I love Klaus, it's all on Takara in this instance.

False. Hasbro botched the subtitle scripts for the Shout! Factory DVD releases of the JG1 cartoons, rewriting many lines of dialogue into utter nonsense, both in the contexts of the Japanese continuity and in general contexts.

That above line is but one of many such rewritten lines. The original dialogue had the Decepticon Headmasters threatening to kill their hostages unless the Autobot Headmasters were to surrender their Transtectors to the Cons. Whoever rewrote that line obviously had no idea what they were doing, and all three DVD sets are full of such moronic subtitle changes.

Nope, don't have the Shout Factory sets. I have the Metrodome sets, which have been translated by fans and which you previously praised as beeing sooo much better and authentic when Shout released their sets.

Sabrblade wrote:

Blast Cannon wrote:Sixshot the bitch inexplicably starts protecting Spike's dopey son who, in an ironic turn of events, is also a bitch.

Honor. He's a ninja who had been fighting with the Cons for so long that he'd forgotten what it meant to fight with honor. It was Daniel who helped him to realize that and eventually turn over a new leaf.

At least he (and Chromedome) had some development, unlike 90% of the rest of the cast, including the 1984-1986 cast members.

Ninja don't have honor, they are assassins that kill everyone but their own. If Sixshot was a true Ninja and functioned under Ninja honor, then he actually dishonored himself when he decided to protect one of his enemies and in turn fight his enemies.

Sixshot had the standard "awesome bad guy turns good" character development, just less natural than in any other series, because it literally comes out of nowhere. One episode he tries to kill everyone, then suddenly he risks his life to save Daniel. Chromedome had character development?

What I have learned from this thread:

All Transformers are bitches.

Dead Metal wrote:Nope, don't have the Shout Factory sets. I have the Metrodome sets, which have been translated by fans and which you previously praised as beeing sooo much better and authentic when Shout released their sets.

Well I'll be darned.

I have to confess that even the Metrodome ones are imperfect. Granted, the Shout! Factory ones are worse, making the Metrodome ones the lesser evil, but Metrodome's subs did flub a lot of translations for The Headmasters (the Metrodome subs for Masterforce and Victory, however, are in good condition).

There's a bit of behind-the-scenes info regarding the Metrodome subs for their JG1 DVD releases. Their subs for The Headmasters were done by a professional translation company who were really unfamiliar with the content of what they were translating, and thus wound up mistranslating some things, an even misspelling things as well. Fan consultant Chris McFeely, who was involved in the Metrodome DVD releases, attempted to fix a lot of these mistakes, but his final revision of the subs sadly didn't make it into the final product, rendering Metrodome's subs of The Headmasters flawed in their own right.

For their releases of Masterforce and Victory, however, they went with a different translation source: Fansubbing group TV-Nihon. They got permission from that group to use their subtitle scripts, which Chris did successfully edit to remove and replace the "Onore kisama-yatsu!" type stuff with appropriate English equivalents, making for a much better quality translation for those two series that what The Headmasters got.

So, then, I retract my previous blaming of Hasbro for that stupid line and re-aim it at the true culprit: The company Metrodome used for that release.

Dead Metal wrote:Ninja don't have honor, they are assassins that kill everyone but their own. If Sixshot was a true Ninja and functioned under Ninja honor, then he actually dishonored himself when he decided to protect one of his enemies and in turn fight his enemies.

Sixshot is just one of many fictional ninjas that are portrayed unrealistically as abiding by honor and respect like Samurai do instead of just being lethal assassins. Just like Batman, the TMNT, Snake Eyes, even the Power Rangers for a couple series.

After all, true ninjas also don't make "ninja magic clones" of themselves a la the Pokemon attack called "Double Team".

Sabrblade wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:Nope, don't have the Shout Factory sets. I have the Metrodome sets, which have been translated by fans and which you previously praised as beeing sooo much better and authentic when Shout released their sets.

Well I'll be darned.

I have to confess that even the Metrodome ones are imperfect. Granted, the Shout! Factory ones are worse, making the Metrodome ones the lesser evil, but Metrodome's subs did flub a lot of translations for The Headmasters (the Metrodome subs for Masterforce and Victory, however, are in good condition).

There's a bit of behind-the-scenes info regarding the Metrodome subs for their JG1 DVD releases. Their subs for The Headmasters were done by a professional translation company who were really unfamiliar with the content of what they were translating, and thus wound up mistranslating some things, an even misspelling things as well. Fan consultant Chris McFeely, who was involved in the Metrodome DVD releases, attempted to fix a lot of these mistakes, but his final revision of the subs sadly didn't make it into the final product, rendering Metrodome's subs of The Headmasters flawed in their own right.

For their releases of Masterforce and Victory, however, they went with a different translation source: Fansubbing group TV-Nihon. They got permission from that group to use their subtitle scripts, which Chris did successfully edit to remove and replace the "Onore kisama-yatsu!" type stuff with appropriate English equivalents, making for a much better quality translation for those two series that what The Headmasters got.

So, then, I retract my previous blaming of Hasbro for that stupid line and re-aim it at the true culprit: The company Metrodome used for that release.

Not, really. The Metrodome sets even come with a booklet explaining what they changed and why. The changes are the names of characters and concepts, using the Western names over the Japanese names, save for a few exceptions. I don't believe a professional translation company with no knowledge of the material would have done that and instead went with translating the names literally (which would mean the company was a very, very bad and low quality agency) or left the names untouched, like the trade demands.

Sabrblade wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:Ninja don't have honor, they are assassins that kill everyone but their own. If Sixshot was a true Ninja and functioned under Ninja honor, then he actually dishonored himself when he decided to protect one of his enemies and in turn fight his enemies.

Sixshot is just one of many fictional ninjas that are portrayed unrealistically as abiding by honor and respect like Samurai do instead of just being lethal assassins. Just like Batman, the TMNT, Snake Eyes, even the Power Rangers for a couple series.

Still not an excuse for crappy character motivation changes. Shows that do that usually show that side of the character early on or at least hint at it. Headmasters however did not. He was consistently shown to be an irredeemable monster who reveled in what he did. Then suddenly he decides to protect Daniel 5 episodes before the show ends just so the show could have a heroic sacrifice. That isn't character development, that's crappy and inconsistent writing.

The only character whose characterization is even dumber is Sixknight in Masterforce. Who after murdering a heck of a lot of innocents and attacking the Autobots suddenly claims that he's not evil or an enemy, but an honorable an good harted Autobot, who hates evil.

Samurai were also not really honorable, the whole Bushido thing was used during WW2 to make people want to become Kamikaze pilots. The real Samurai didn't really adher to that, it's kinda like claiming that Christians actually live based on a literal interpretation of the Bible and never deviate from it.

Sabrblade wrote:After all, true ninjas also don't make "ninja magic clones" of themselves a la the Pokemon attack called "Double Team".

So? Ninja don't do half the stuff the media shows them doing, but they tried their damnedest to make their enemies believe they did.

You mean ninjas aren't really invisible death machines?