This makes an impressive amount of no-sense.

A season finale spaced out over 4 episodes is a rare treat. Animated had godawful space barnacle filler as the lead in to the season finale, with the only build-up to the next episode found in a five-second stinger.

The more I think about both shows the more I'll nitpick them. Both had great finales and great openings. So I've got to judge them by the rest of the season.

Animated: Really and truly, never quite cracked its Big Idea that the Autobots were "Detroit Superheroes." Even the Megatron plotline couldn't rescue many episodes from feeling perfunctory, and this feeling sets in almost immediately during the season.

Prime: The season stays strong through the introduction of three new Decepticons and MECH. Moreover, at no point can you take your eyes off Starscream, as all the way up till Megatron's awakening--and even briefly afterward--he's got a path to power that we inch along with him. Finally, the show is much bolder in the risks it takes with the human characters. Even though he is kidnapped at the end of season 1, the danger to Sumdac never feels as real as the danger to Jack's mother or to Raf.

Prime's not perfect, but I have to go with my gut and say it's a stronger first season. Not to knock Animated, because it got MUCH, MUCH better after its first season.

 

Warning: Personal opinion incoming.

For me, Animated wins it.

The characters were much stronger, and had much better interaction with each other. Season 1 of Animated did serious world building work, and had a much more well rounded, fleshed out, and populated world. The show could take itself seriously while still having fun, which made it much easier to get pulled in.

Prime's first season was a bore to me. There were a few genuinely good character moments, but the show has serious pacing problems. Things drag on for a half our of boring, badly lit filler for one or two scenes that are genuinely interesting. The season finale throws out too much, too late. A prophecy we've never heard of before. history that wasn't even hinted at before. A boring, completely un-intimidating unicron tops off the season and is eliminated without any actual sense of accomplishment. Like so much of the rest of the show, it's just "something that happens". Unicron was wasted in Prime.

No Prime episodes really stand on their own for me either. I can go back and watch any episode of Animated now and they hold up on their own, while still contributing the the overall running story either through primary events, background events, or character building.

I watched all of Prime so far, and I'll keep watching. I'm still waiting to be entertained in any way by the show. It's biggest problem in season 1 is that the show seems genuinely afraid of having any fun, which is the best way to build character. Much like Beast Wars, Animated wasn't afraid of having fun, even when the shit was hitting the fan. So Animated wins for me.

What works for me isn't going to work with everyone though. If you like Prime more, cool. I'm still giving the show a chance, and I'd really like to be able to enjoy it (it's really not fun NOT liking something). I hope it's second season improves, but I imagine it's going to stay much the same with the fear of fun being in full effect.

 

Prime

 

As much as I enjoyed Animated later on... and still wish they would continue it... Prime had a better first season. In all honesty I didn't think I'd enjoy Prime anywhere near as much as TFA. But yea, if they keep it up, it can quite easily become one of the bets TF series.

 

Again, to me, the first season of Prime works to me the same way the first season of Beast Wars: generally enjoyable, some interesting ideas, but even after 26 episodes, it took another season to really start throwing out the interesting stuff.
Once again, I hope Prime is setting itself up for a similar tract, where season 1 was mostly about world building and character establishment, and season 2 is where things kick into gear.

I do agree the show seems like it is trying too hard to "epic" and in doing so looses a lot of the "fun" that made prior standout series like Beast Wars and Animated resonate so well with fans and kids.

 

I think the world building in Prime has been sloppy so far, at best. It was done fairly well in the finale. but before then, all their attempts at it were badly concieved "everything important from cybertron magically landed on earth" events, aside from the street racing episode and when wheeljack landed on earth with an actual explanation. It DID focus hardcore on character, and I will give it credit for that. But the world of the series still, even after a whole season, feels empty and lifeless outside of the main cast.

While most people are happy to give the show credit for making unicron be inside the earth, to me it just reinforces that "thing magically ending up on earth" is the only type of (non-character-focused) story these people know how to write, even if they gave an explanation for unicron. All impact of him being inside the earth was killed by having literally everything else - weapons, artifacts, skyquake, end up on earth too. OF COURSE Unicron was going to end up on earth. The writers are seemingly incapable of writing a story about something dangerous linked with cybertron any other way. It's frustrating. I literally facepalmed when they revealed that, because I'm so SICK of those types of stories, which made up a massive portion of Season 1 and are such a big reason I think Prime probably had the weakest season 1 out of ANY Transformer show.

 

Animated hands down, not sure why so many dig Prime...at least Animated actually was an animated cartoon, not computer renderings. I prefer old school animation over most computer animated shows/movies, Pixar being the exception.

 

Prime. I didn't really like Animated season one.

 

Prime.

I found Animated didn't get really good until Mid-Season Two. Season one was a bit to childy, at least until Megatron Rising. That's not to say I don't like the show, but I would chose Prime over Animated any day.

 

Exactly my thoughts.

 

Animated completely revolutionized the way Transformers looked, they were stylized very differently, but very cool. Surely there was no way they could convert this style to actual toys. But when I saw the toys COULD be made, i was absolutely AMAZED. They were a refreshing change but also had some clever manipulations.
IMO: Prime is just a cartoon COMMERCIAL to clear the Movie stock off the shelves, since they look enough like the movie line. The show is good, but, and i know i'm going to get flamed for this, i really hate the movie look of my beloved characters.

 

Animated easily, at least things happened. In Prime everything that happens just ends up returning back to normal at the end of tje episode. I enjoy Prime, but Animated was far superior.

 

prime season 1 was better than animated as a whole

 

Not even close in my books. Prime hands down. I found Animated mildly entertaining but that is about it.

 

I'm going to give my vote to Animated.

I just liked the Autobot group dynamic better in the first season of Animated better than on Prime. The Animated Autobots had personalities that clashed with the fellow Autobots and they really seemed like they wanted to learn about Earth culture instead of just Earth is somewhere to fight. The Prime Autobots sometimes only seem to a bit of sparkly away from being all doom and gloom like those Twilight vampires.

What kind of hurts the season one story with Prime for me is that we start out big and huge with the death of Cliffjumper and they come up with a really big really huge ending for season one, but the in between just didn't seem all that big or very epic at all. It's like a meal where the first bite and last bite are great but the middle bites are bit bland.

Kind of seems like we get too much of the Decepticon troopers and not enough of the Decepticon characters on Prime. I really like the Decepticons on the show but it seems we don't get them as often as we got someone like Lugnut and Blitzwing.

The first season of Animated felt kind of infinite like they could really bring in almost anyone and that there was plenty of room to expand. Transformers Prime is feeling more finite like there really isn't much room to expand so it will always be a tiny cast.

Ha ha, guess it doesn't help that I hate Transformers Prime Bumblebee.

 

I have to agree with many of the advantages of Animated over Prime written here. I think it would be great if the autobots went into a big city and other places to observe the different types of people and the culture. It would be great if they can.

 

I think both series are important. Personally, I greatly prefer Prime, but I'm grateful for what Animated did...

Pros:
1. It was able to bring A LOT of new ideas to the series. From the visuals to a lot of great, new character types to an original and deep mythos, I think that Animated has done better world building than most of the other series.
2. At the same time, it was able to pay homage to a ridiculous amount of things from the cartoons and movies.
3. It seemed to be more kid-friendly, and as such, it probably expanded the Transformers audience.
4. It was a lot of fun.

Decepti-Cons:
1. For me, it was a bit too kid-centered. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing at all, but the writing and acting for a lot of the characters just made for somewhat exhausting viewing. For as much flak as Miko gets, there are 4 or 5 Miko-level characters in Animated with much more screentime.
2. I think that they went a little overboard in homage department. Having Prime die in the premier and in such a stupid way really took a lot of the wind from the sails, IMO. In the first season alone, they bring back the Dinobots, Soundwave and Black Arachnia. I felt that they were rushing through the mythos highlights a little too much.
3. I think that making the humans the day-to-day antagonists and saving the Decepticons for real threats was an AWESOME idea. However, the execution on the human enemies left A LOT to be desired.

For me and my family, we are enjoying Prime a lot. There are only really two things that I'd wish were investigated:

1. Original material - Prime seems guilty of homage a little too much. I'm hoping that this first season was the one that gets all of the callouts out of the way. I'm hoping that Season 2 is all new stuff. New character types, new plot lines, new mythos. I don't really ever, EVER need to hear "One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall" again.

2. Weapons - This is probably silly, but for me, they need to focus on the distance weapons. It all seems like they have the same guns. It would provide more depth if there were at least major differences between the Autobots specialties. Rate-of-fire, visualization of the lasers, limitations, etc. They all seem to be packing the same heat. It would be cool for me, if Bulkhead had a slow to charge, huge payload, slow to reload, highly ammo-restricted armament while Bumblebee has maybe a higher rate of fire, but lower energy weapon set. For me, the deadliest things in the show are Starscream's fingers.

Animated did a great job in this regard. Blitz had the fire/ice thing, Bumblebee had stingers, Bulk had the wrecking ball and was melee based, Lugnut's POKE, Prime's Axe, Megatron's swords and cannons, so on and so on.

 

Prime, no contest.

On the onset it seemed like a lot more happened with Animated, but when the disparity becomes less when we compare the amount of story episodes. Prime, minimum had twelve episodes relating to the main story (5-parter, Masters and Students, Out of his head+Sick Mind, 4 part Season Finale). That's nearly as much as Animated's first season (which had like, 4 really important episodes). So that's a mute complaint.

The animation is LEAPS AND BOUNDS better on Prime. I'm not dissing on Derrick Wyatts character designs, cuz I love'em, but the studio they used for Animated was crap. Characters moved stiffly (unless it was stock footage), and there were errors everywhere.
Prime's CGI is beautiful, on the other hand. Go watch Scrapheap or the Season Finale and you'll see what I mean. And dat fight scene choreography! Amazing.

While I lament that Prime didn't get the character based episodes that Animated got, I'm glad it didn't revert back to the "lesson of the day" format that Animated used so often. Plus, the characters on Prime seem a bit more interesting, just because its got the same vibe BW had, in that you just love to see them interact.

Plus Miko>Sari. That is all.

 

I really enjoyed TFA season 1, but I disliked the stories with humans. I think TFA really took off at the end of season 1.

I've loved TFP since the first 5 minutes!

 

Sorry to break it you, but ALL TF cartoons are toy commercials in one way or the other.