This is how I feel too. In my opinion Season One and Two were by far better than season Three because of the whole cheesy looking future alt modes. I still remember watching the opening Intro to season three for the first time!   It was just animated like crap! To me it's obvious just looking at how well the seasons one and two intros were done compared to season three. But ultimately I guesse it's all of a matter of opinion. I don't like season three.... But Transformers won toy of the year in 1985 and 1986. So obviously somebody liked season three? http://www.toyretailersassociation.co.uk/toty/80.htm

 

Question though, about Gen-1 stuff..Was there other versions, other episodes released over in Asia etc, but not here? In some of the Takara reissues, they have episode screen caps, and there were quite a few I've never recognized..Did we lose some in the translation over to english?

 

It's interesting that some here see the return of Optimus as a copout... that's precisely what the producers of Headmasters in Japan must have thought (as they promptly had him offed once more!)

To me, it's annoying that ever since, there has been a reflex which has prevented any leader emerging in a Western series without the word Optimus in his name, for fear of upsetting the audience. Even when Super Link became Energon, Rodimus Convoy was demoted to Rodimus, and Galaxy Force's myriad of Convoys were similarly altered. (And Vector Prime was only acceptable as he was supposed to be one of the first 13...)

Ironic when I read the line written in the Vector Prime FAQ on the Transformers site, about the word Prime being given to TFs with important jobs. I felt like asking: 'You mean like Rodimus Prime?'


And the S3 music stomps all over that from 1 and 2, in my opinion - as does the great intro sequence!


EDIT: And Sami - who's the person in your sig?


Gary

 

Think they'll ever have those episodes over here in english? And really? The cartoon started here, not there? Learn something new everyday now don't ya?

 

You can get the subs (they were dubbed before, but... 'shudder') on region-free DVD, such as this one for Masterforce
- one of the better Japanese G1 series.

I think Victory, the followup, should be out soon, as well.


Gary

 

Yup that about sums up Season 3.  

Sure some of the spotlight episodes (mostly with Grimlock) were enjoyable, but the rest was an acid trip.

 

If you are interested, here's where you can get the episodes on amazon.co.uk - just noticed the amazon.com link sucks:

Headmasters,
Masterforce,
Victory - due out in late December

There's also a one-shot OVA, Zone, which I really like, but I don't know if it'll be done by the same crowd.

EDIT: Hmm, it seems that Zone will be on the 20th anniversary Movie DVD, but it's not listed on Sony's site... unless it's meant to be an easter egg or something.


Gary

 

As bad as Season 3 was, and whoa was it ever bad, nothing will compare to the shite quality of Season 4... if you can even call it a season since it was only 3 episodes. Everything about it went straight into the gutter - the voices, the story, the animation (what the hell was with Prime's white-plated head & back?) and even the background music. It had an overwhelming stench of being cheap & rushed.

As lame as the concept of Headmasters & Targetmasters was, the comics (and the Japanese) at least managed to still pull it off. Season 4, on the other hand, let it play out like a ******ed chimp wrote & animated it. Nebulons being green carbon based aliens with names like Nightstick, Blowpipe, Recoil, Firebolt, Pinpointer, Spoilsport..., Daniel & Arcee apparently being in love, the way the Nebulons (and Spike & Daniel) sat in the heads of the TF's like they were in a cockpit driving a car one minute but then had exosuits that transformed the next minute, Spike building Fortress Maximus entirely on his own, Cybertron being turned into a vacuum by sucking energy from the Sun and getting its Golden Age back, the way the Targetmasters threw their guns when in battle rendering the concept of the Nebulons transforming into their guns utterly useless, the way their guns could also fly/float in mid air, the way the Headmasters' heads when in robot/exosuit mode would sit on top of the vehicles instead of *in* them, Ultra Magnus apparently turning ******ed while in Prime's presence, ALL of the dialogue but especially where Punch/Counterpunch's was concerned, etc. etc. etc. Just aweful from start to finish... and the worst possible note for TF to go out on. It's no wonder there were so many years of hiatus after G1 ended.

 

I liked parts of the season 3 episode with Predaking and Galvatron building a weapon to destroy cybertron. The plot was absurd but I liked it. There were a few eps late in season 3 that were bareable, with the obvious exception of the optimus prime episodes.

 

I've been recently looking through the old G1 cartoons to see for myself just what were the good points and bad points.

Seasons 1 and 2:

Seasons 1 and 2 had quite a few memorable characters and a very memorable good guy leader that would later turn iconic. Since they had the advantage of being first up at bat, vehicles that we (when I say we I mean people living during 1984 and 1985) were familiar with transforming into robots; therefore, it was a novelty for lots of American folks. The voice acting also helped and the humans did help out quite a few times.

The villians weren't the greatest at all. Megatron and the other Decepticons suffered from the requisite dumb@$$ syndrome that so many 80's villians had; however, they did have their moments where they did show competency. Megatron actually quoted some good battle strategy during this time frame. Were the show written today, I think Megatron would have far more latitude, as in being allowed to win on daytime television.

The animation wasn't fantastic (the usual cheap 80's animation) and there were loads of errors (like two Optimus Primes showing up outside of Prime Problem, Sideswipe and Silverbolt showing up with the Decepticons) but it was good enough to get the point across. I'm not sure what the priorities were for the writers and producers as far as continuous storytelling went.

When they introduced the Dinobots, Aerialbots, and Constructicons, it was usually fairly consistent but they also had some glaring plotholes such as after More than Meets the Eye (why didn't they go back to Cybertron even with the help of the Earth's governments?). Even with Megatron saying the Constructicons were built, it wasn't until Season 3 that we see the Constructicons building Megatron; therefore, creating the continuity error. The stories themselves weren't too deep and some were downright silly with really silly ideas, such as robotic insecticide...who the f*** thought that one up? They also weren't dark but they did do the job of keeping a child entertained.

The Movie

The movie was pretty bad. It had some moments of fantastic animation (like Unicron's initial passthrough) and a couple of really great moments but all-in-all, it was pretty bad in terms of story. I mean hell, Prime putting Ratchet and Prowl on a supply shuttle, none of the shuttle guys being able to detect the Decepticons before they entered, and Unicron swallowing the Matrix (the one thing that he admitted that could stand in his way) are only a handful of samples of the bad writing.

Other moments such as all of the old favorites and Prime dying within the first 15 minutes only added injury to insult. Yes, I know the phrase is "insult to injury" but considering that kids around that time lost their favorite characters in the first 15 minutes and were probably crying at this point (at least we all were in the theater I was in) and too upset to really catch what happened in the movie for a bit after that. I also noticed that parents were also very upset that all of the old favorites were killed largely because their children were so upset by what occurred. Yes, war involves beings getting killed but for what should have been a kid's movie, I think that was a really bad move. Of course to be fair, who knew there would be such a reaction? I mean these are just robots afterall, not humans, getting killed so how could Hasbro have predicted this?

Another problem with the movie wasn't the fact that there were new characters in it, it's the way they were introduced so abruptly that caused problems. I tend to notice that a lot of people don't respond well to radical change...I mean hell...look at the MP-03 Starscream threads when the "samurai sword sheaths" and the different paintjob was introduced or the 2007 movie threads. There was a lot of radical change in the movie and I don't think a whole lot of people at the time adjusted all that well. As was already stated in this thread, there should have been something else in-between to introduce all of the new characters and get a chance to know them.

Seasons 3 and 4

As with Seasons 1 and 2 and the movie, there were good points. Springer, Ultra Magnus, and Cyclonus were all good additions and people generally like them to this day. There are also some characters that are met with mixed feelings such as Rodimus Prime, Galvatron, Arcee, and Scourge. Then again, there are some characters that a whole lot of people don't like such as Blurr, Wheelie, and Daniel. The continuity did get better for the most part and again, there were silly storylines but not unlike Seasons 1 and 2; however, there tended to be a darker tone such as characters yelling, "DIE!!!" all the time. Whether the darker tones were good for the show or not is subject to debate largely depending upon people's personal preferences. The vehicle modes are subject to debate as well. Some like them, some don't and again, that's all a matter of personal taste.

The animation overall was about the same as Seasons 1 and 2; however, it tended to fluctuate moreso than the first two seasons. Some episodes were really bad animation-wise while at least one was really good -- "Call of the Primitives."

Another large problem I felt with the series was that neither side really had a strong, capable, confident leader like the first two seasons. Rodimus Prime was coming to terms with being a leader while Galvatron had his circuits majorly scrambled and I don't think either one was particularly good to market to kids back then. Nowadays, I don't know. There was also a tendency to make the older characters look rather inferior when compared to the newer characters -- most notably, Grimlock. This was probably a marketing strategy but I don't know if that was such a good idea to do that on a kid's show back then.

The biggest hurdle these seasons faced is that the series is now 3 years old at least by this point and stuff is getting to be old-hat. Not to mention that it's coming off a rather expensive bust of a movie and there wasn't much money to put into the show. I think that's why we saw more gimmicky TFs come out like the Headmasters and Targetmasters, so that new life could at least be attempted to be breathed into the toyline. Also the reason why they brought Optimus Prime back to life. I think the nuance of the Transformers wore off and people became used to it and Season 3 gets the majority of the blame as the scapegoat since it was the latest then. Season 4, as was already mentioned, was probably solely made to get the next toyline out and thus, everything went to hell in a handbasket.

I think G1's downfall was simply time and human behavior towards a new stimulus. We liked the new rush, got used to it, then moved on to the next.

 

You know, that is why I chose the user name I did. Not because "Galvatron" was taken. I preferred the season 3 Galvatron over the movie one. Simply because he was more entertaining. I think I must have a thing about insane characters. Inferno was my favorite BW character... I'm seeing a pattern.

 

Iwill say this. Rodimus in my opinion was the best transformer leader why because of his self doubt and the internal struggle of being the chosen one when he really did not want to have that resposibility (espically shown through The Burden Hardest to Bear). Now finally with titaniums we get a Rodimus figure worthy of him (and a Scourge as well). Optimus was very charismatic and didnt seem flawed as rodimus did. He seemed more dare I say human.

 

I'd have to subject myself to it again to really remember, but a few things I hated post movie:

1.) the colors. Everything seemed so unnatural, or different for differnce sake. (pink skies, green humanoids, gold metal, blue trees, red water)

2.) the quasi-stalagmite cybertronian backgrounds. (which in retrospect was actually quite consistant with season 1/2. But it seemed more offensive here)

3.) all roads seemed to consist of steel plates

4.) legions of sweeps (especially since the Scourge toy was such a brick) The Target master jets were actually a relief.

5.) alien cars = cool. Transformers that bear no resemblence from bot mode to vehicle mode uncool. (Magnus, Wheelie, Scourge and Springer are the biggest offenders)

 

Season 3 was the best season of G1 (American version, I'd probably rate Headmasters as the best Japanese season). Of course, perhaps thats cause I prefer Rodimus to Optimus...

 

I'm torn on the Rodimus/Optimus subject. I really like Optimus but I think Rodimus should have been given more of a chance to grow plus his settling in time as leader was a bit drawn out. The 3rd season was a series of hits and missed imo. The five face of death being great while carnage in C minor was simply awful.

 

OP was better leader but I did like Rodimus, but he was always putting himself down.

 

Well I hated that just about all the main characters died in the movie but I'm really glad that the dinobots didn't. I did like season 3 just not as much as season 1 and 2. I just missed all my favorite characters.