It's a pretty fair review. I find that G1 is largely unwatchable now for me.

 

Oh what a stuck up little fuck! RELEASE THE FACE SODOMIZING LION!

 

This reviewer is looking at a children's show through adult eyes and criticising it. I think any reviewer worth their salt would acknowledge the demographics for which the show was made. Todays standards of cartoons and shows in general is very different and though many of the arguments that he made are very valid that it's next to impossible to get any real authentic review of the original series. Any fan looking back on it will look back with nostalgia any non-fan adult will look at it through adults eyes and any child looking at it today will look at it and compare it to shows with todays standards.

No matter how bad the reviewer thinks the show is, he has to realize they did something right because it's still going strong after 25 years which can not be said for most of the other shows from the same era.

 

The tone came off a little condesending, but it's a pretty accurate review. Guess they couldn't refrain their pretentious little brains from shitting on the movie and plugging Animated at the same time.

 

Blackstar, at least in my opinion, were one of those cartoons that had great animation as well as He-Man.

 

Thses lists are always a joke because they always lack objectivity and depth. You only bolded cartoons you liked, with little or no regard to the actual animation. The only selection on that list I can agree with is GIJoe and then only because of its near-identical origins. The best GoBot episodes stand up against anything Sunbow ever did and Masters of the Universe is pretty fluid despite some of the awkwardness, while Heathcliff and Inspector Gadget often come across as fairly slipshod visually even although that's much more forgivable with comedy-oriented shows.

That said, the Toon Zone "review" is as predictably stupid and uneducated as the G1-bashing threads here and elsewhere. It's old and is therefore automatically terrible compared to absolutely anything new, which will in turn become the worst show ever the following year.

 

I remember watching some old Beavis and Butthead episodes a couple of years ago, ep's I remember loving as an adolescent at the time they originally aired. Seeing them again, I barely even smirked and left wondering 'what the hell?' After watching the G1 pilot DVD that came with 25th Anniversary Prime, my feelings weren't quite as bewildered as Beavis and Butthead, but I was still startled by the cheesiness (keep in mind I hadn't actually sat down and watched any Transformer cartoon in...a decade and a half, maybe?). I haven't bought the new G1 DVD (I think I'll wait for the box set of all the episodes), but when/if I buy it I won't be buying it for quality of material but just for nostalgia only.

 

Right about here is when I stopped taking you seriously.

 

Who the hell would criticize G1? LOOK AT THE CARTOONS OF TODAY!!!

I mean yeah sure, some of today's generation's cartoons are great. SpongeBob, Penguins of Madagascar, etc. On the other hand, a lot of them are very poorly animated and extremely annoying. I can't believe all my favorite cartoons...

CatDog
Angry Angry Beavers
Ren and Stimpy
Ed Edd n Eddy (still on but nowhere NEAR as much)
and most old cartoons on Disney

...ALL got replaced with the crap you see now. There were some more cartoons on Cartoon Network that I used to love watching in the 90's when I was a kid. Now, for some dumbass reason, CN is getting a lot more live-action programming...even NEW SERIES. What the super flying fuck? It's supposed to be CARTOON Network. Now, pretty soon, it will be "Live-Action With a Small Mix of Cartoons Thrown Into The Mix Network".  

Sorry about all that. I had to let it all out somehow. *hyperventilates*

 

There's a ton of terribly-animated shows to come out of the eighties. I consider a big part of it being related to toy cartoons, and animation subcontracted to overseas (especially Japanese and Korean) crews was a relatively new 'art' at the time, so a lot of details in budgeting, scheduling, and communicating art direction to workers who don't share a language were still being worked out.

It's wierd. I loved the Thundercats cartoon too as a kid, but when I bought a DVD set of the show, I could barely stand watching one episode, while I find Transformers and G.I. Joe much more tolerable. None are high art by any stretch, but I still find it entertaining (not BW or TFA entertaining, but hey)

Man, I'd love a DVD set of Mighty Orbots about now.  

 

Was there an 80's cartoon that didn't fall to the limitations of the time? He-man was goofy, slow and full of re-used animation, G I joe never hit anything, Transformers was full of animation mistakes, Strawberry Shortcake looked like she was drawn on a shakey bus on a notepad... the only ones I *think* were really high quality in terms of animation were MASK and Smurfs.

But they were ALL silly shows and really can't be fairly compared to the amazing stuff like Avatar and Batman TNA of today.

Now that, there's no excuse for  

 

I always felt that the popularity of '80's toons like Transformer, GIJoe and He-Man were because they gave the kid's imagination a push in a certain direction. Most kids had a few of the toys from their favorite show back then so after the show was over, they could continue the story with their toys.

If you think I'm off base here, go check out the Funnies section of this board. Look at the comics the fans are making with their toys and a digital camera. Hell, I did the same thing with my Star Wars toys when I was little. Kids do it today too but instead of toy based toons, it's now card game and video game based ones. (Yu Gi Oh and Pokemon come to mind.)

Not saying this is any kind of a bad thing, actually, it quite the opposite. In fact, it's good marketing if you really look at it. Tho, I do like the better written shows of today like BW and Animated. I'd love to see a new take on the old G1 series with the older stories and characters reused and given a more modern appeal. There were some real gems in that old show.

 

You guys are a bit touchy, eh?  

The dude spoke complete truth.

Animation errors? Check.
Overall framy/inconsistent animation? Check.
Bewildering story and plot points? Check.
No logic to anything at all? Check.
Bad guys acting like morons? Check.
Way too many characters to care about? Check.
Cullen, Welker, and Scatman turning in amazing performances to pull the whole mess up? Check.



And don't pull this 25 years old stuff. Loony Tunes/Tom and Jerry from the 40's has amazing animation by any standards and look at how old that is. And it's not like the 80's was a lost decade for animation. Stuff like the Smurfs had fantastic animation and memorable well-written characters.

 

Yep those are the legit complaints that you can make against Transformers and RAH Joe. However bad guys acting like morons is endemic for 80's shows.

The Loony Tunes/Tom and Jerry from the 40's are actually short films. And would have been budgeted (I'm talking time as much as money) accordingly. To me making it a bad comarsion. They had time to go back and clean up technical stuff like colouring errors, wonky character scale, and badly animated sequences. It took the advent of modern digital animation techniques to give the same abilities to animatiors worknig a TV schedule. Animated stuff from the 60's (Johnny Quest, Flintstones, Yogi Bear) would be a better comparison. But trying to compare an 80's TV series that had to fill ~20 22 minutes episodes vs. a series of cartoon shorts that have to fill ~10 10 minutes short films a year is not fair to the 80's TV show at all.

 

I didn't just pick the shows I liked. I'm a big animation fan and I'd say I have a pretty objective eye.

I didn't pick Masters because it has flat thinking... like Hanna Barbara cartoons. More like a stage play than the openness of say a movie. ... and the fluid animation you speak of are mearly stock footage... which was re-animated from even early stock footage from other Filmation action shows.

Gobots was just plain awful animation. From what I remember they did try to be more dynamic but it ended up being little better than Superfriends.

Dic Cartoons were almost always well made. They put effort and more personality into their characters.

....... dispite that though. My views are irrelivant... the list of shows is fact. Draw your own conclusion as to where Transfomers lies in quality.

 

^this but i still love it

 

Yup... here we have yet another G1 hater dickwad who has internet access. Not just some guy who doesn't happen to dislike a particular show- because there's nothing wrong with that. No- this guy is a twat because he singles out a popular show and holds it apart from every other show that was on at that time as if it was the only show with flaws and problems. And then, right after that, he plugs his own favorite (which, IMPO, is just as unwatchable).

It's true: I can't remember a single show on TV that didn't have animation errrors, corny dialogue, sappy stories, etc.

One of my favorite shows- the Real Ghostbusters- even had their share of problems.

However, when yo are in the 7th grade, you either don't see them with the critical eyes of an adult or you forgive them.

What did I see in G1? When I was a kid, I liked robots and I thought that it was pretty good sci-fi... as a kid. Sure, there were some goofy episodes and there were some grand episodes. BEing a show that was made in different countries with different budgeting and technical/artistic capabilities there were some poorly drawn episodes and there were some pretty nicely drawn episodes.

Just like any other show at the time:

G1 wasn't a flawless masterpiece. We get it.
Beast Wars hit the pleasant stride of good animation and good storytelling. Even Beast Machines- a show that I greatly disliked- had the same production values.
RID? Nicely drawn animation, but silly stories and crappy voice acting.
Armada? Craapily drawn animation, silliness and crappy voice acting.
Energon? A step toward better animation, but silly with crappy voice acting.
Cybetron? The animation took a step back- probably to match it crappy voice acting.

And here's the nail in the coffin- for me at least: Animated. For me, just AS unwatchable.

Now, you all tell me- As a 38 year old who it attempting to watch programming designed for 7-10 year olds- Am I being unfair?

Beast Wars was, to me, the piccacle of Transformers storytelling. All other shows suffered some issue or another that makes them AS painfull to watch as G1.

Unless I was 7-12 years old. Then I wouldn't care.

But this reviewer doesn't just like G1- he has to compare it to somethingdone today. To me, that's like holding up the 1933 version of Kink Kong and comparing them evenly with the the Peter Jackson King Kong. The comparison is absurd. That is why I consider this reviewer a hater- on the same order of any hater that roams the 2005 Boards.

As being the show that inspired future shows of the same brand, G1 should be respected as such. For if there was no TOS, then there would have been no TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT or new JJ Trek.

Apparently G1 and Star Trek TOS did something right... even if self absorbed pinheads like any other hater fail to get it.

And no- I have my doubts that I will be buying the G1 series on DVD.

 

People are a bit defensive aren't they.

I love G1 and even I get bored through most episodes of the cartoon. It was pretty shit, get over it. The comic and the toys probably cemented my love of the brand more than the cartoon anyway and yes, the comic was also rubbish in places and so were the toys (Iron hide anyone?).

Of course, on a related note, the 86 animated movie stands up better than the actual series and, lets face it, despite it age is still better than the Bayhem monstrosities.

Steve.

 

Oh, you were this close to a "^ This"