not a purist, but i love the designs over all, simple and armored, probably why i took to animated as well dunno, not many people think that, they're very vocal though g2 burned your eyes for one, and after action masters, it wasn't going to be an easy recovery
G1 was just epic and I suspect that is why there are purists like that. I like the other series but if you did not grow up in the 80's then you really have no idea what it was like. Transformers was HUGE. It was one of those few toy lines that nearly every kid wanted and parents were going nuts trying to find the toys. It was one of the few true phenomenons as far as toy lines/cartoons go. The 80's just owned with alot of their lines and Transformers was probably them biggest of the all.
I don't really get this line of thought. G1 was my childhood too, that still doesn't change my opinion that it's a crappy 80s cartoon meant to sell toys. Especially with far superior stuff like Prime and Animated around, I really don't see why G1 is still held on a pedestal.
I don't think you can generalise every person on this forum that came in through the movies as someone that loves the movies and doesn't give the cartoons a try. On this forum, I only know of one person that will not watch any of the Transformers shows, that's it. The rest are like me, came in through the movies and sort out Transformers shows, whether it be G1, Beast Wars, The Unicron Trilogy or whatever, and watched them and continued to watch more because they liked what they saw. Then they moved into the comics and pretty much everything Transformers related. So, there aren't really that many people out there that won't at least give the cartoons a shot after watching the movies.
I'm just surprised to read that G2 got anyone -into- Transformers. If anything, I'd assume that ghastly neon colored era would have kept potential new fans as far away as possible.
This is an important point too - I'm certainly well aware of the G1 toon's faults (bad animation and simplistic storylines etc) but c'mon, what a voice cast!! Not just Cullen and the ubiquitous Welker, but so many other great names too, including many from tv and movies; Casey Kasem, Clive Revill (the original Emporer from TESB!) Scatman Crothers, Roger C. Carmel (Harry Mudd, ST: TOS), Michael Bell, Dan Gilvezan, Corey Burton, and the late great Chris Latta. And that's just the tv cartoon! Even as a kid I knew TF: The Movie was something special, because it had Leonard Nimoy, Judd Nelson, Eric Idle, Robert Stack, Orson Welles (Orson Welles FFS!) et al in the cast. Oh and special mention also to the great incidental music of the tv show, the superlative theme tune, the awesome movie soundtrack, and the rest of the audio special effects. The transformation sound alone is iconic to the brand. Surely G1 trumps any other TF series for sheer auditory goodness
It helps to know WHY any given fan liked G1 the best. If I know that, I can find that same element in a later line that might turn that fan on to something new. You like diecast? Rubber wheels? Check out some Binaltech, Alternity, Masterpiece. You like realistic altmodes? Alternators, Human Alliance might appeal to you. You like combiner teams and super modes? Here, mess around with Rail Racer, Omega Prime or Buster Prime. You like the cheesy cartoons and comics with wacky plots and silly human villains? Let me introduce you to the Angry Archer and Nanosec. You like grimdark comics like the Matrix Quest and Target: 2006? Let me pass you Last Stand of the Wreckers. Essentially, if you aren't into anything but G1, you simply haven't looked hard enough for anything that tickles your homage fancy.
Thing is I like all these things. Now I don't know if I fit the Purist thing as I own alternators for the reasons above. I watched Animated I have seen all 3 movies in the theater. But I can say that nothing has been as good to me.
Because G1 started it all, did it best, and is the first. G1 is the Brett Hart of Transformers whether you New Kids agree or not. The second question doesnt apply to me. I hail G1 as the Originator, the Architect, without G1 I wouldnt give two shits about BayPrime, cuz he wouldnt be Optimus without G1 anyway. BUT. I love Beast Wars, RID, etc, etc. But Im not going to pretend that Cybertron is somehow better than G1. G2 flopped on its ass because they made Grimlock blue and Constructicons yellow. Etc. G2 flopped on its ass because when me and my friends sat down in front of the tv excited as shit that TF was back on tv, we got "The cybernet space cube" bullshit. FAIL!!
This thread made it to, what, three and a half pages before people started fighting? That has to be a new record for a "Geewunner" thread! That's an interesting what-if scenario. What if G2 had been given its own cartoon instead of just trying to recycle G1? Would it have made a difference, or was the line doomed to flop no matter what? Then again, the thought of those colors moving around on screen at multiple frames per second makes my retinas tremble in fear...
There was the comics, which was canceled after 12 issues, so a cartoon of original episodes may not have fared much better. Plus, if they had done a G2 cartoon, would we have got BW?
G: Can you imagine how EXTREEM a G2 cartoon would have been? Think of Street Sharks with vehicle modes... ...or, maybe, it could have been like BW, which wasn't so long afterward. The G2 commercials did have some big, bad, battlin' CGI.
1) I think it's because more evolved parts of the franchise were not geared towards those who grew up with G1. Many have moved past this to evolve with the franchise, and some haven't. I'm betting that most G1 fans (like myself) are pretty moderate, however. Militant fanatics of any type are often more vocal than moderates, which gets them the attention they crave and then it seems like all G1 fans or most of them are that type. 2) So not true. Even as a G1 fan, I acknowledge that when G1 was in its heyday, actual quality was not the main goal, making $ was. The writers/artists/performers/designers did their best to make something special despite this. These days, the main goal hasn't changed (honestly), but those fans grew up, started working in the industry, toy companies started listening, and now we have a level of quality in most facets of the franchise that would have been unheard of back in the 80s. 3) I'm no industry expert, but from a consumer standpoint I'll wager G2 was trying to appeal to some nostalgic element that didn't exist quite yet with old fans while trying to appeal to the new ones. The fault wasn't with G1 itself (though I'd agree it's not perfect), but with Hasbro for assuming lightening would strike twice in the same place. Hence the success of Beast Wars.
In the 80's, no one knew that Transformers was going to be the big franchise it is today, thus they kept things simple. However despite it's flaws, G1 was the foundation which started Transformers. Thus we're not surprised by many of the characters' personality traits, like Optimus Prime's nobility which was still there in his later incarnations.
