It wasn't three years tho.

December 26, 2007 – May 23, 2009
No. of episodes 42

 

Shh... It hurts enough already...

Even 2 and a half years is a good run... I guess...

 

This^. And This^.

Too many good animated shows get cut short or go on an endless "hiatus" with no resolution or ending (Samurai Jack). We are very fortunate to have Animated as a story, end where it did.

 

Btw there was no reason the story couldn't continue with a new studio and name. But Hasbro loves to restart rather than build.

 

I think Cartoon Network, who had some stake in the property's broadcast rights, would have had enough of a leg to stand on in court in that instance that it just wouldn't be worth the risk.

But yeah, reboots-a-plenty is par for the course for Transformers.

 

The best way to get a fan to love something forever is to stop it before they start tiring of it.  

Animated's on-air presence may have only lasted about a year and a half, but it's not like any other single TF series in the past decade has gone much longer. We shall see how far Prime runs with the ball.

 

If his dates are correct, that's only a year and a half, not two and a half.

 

I guess they wanted something to match the tone of the films anyway. Animated was too fun.

Which brings up my question - why wasn't a series tied to the films developed?

 

As I said earlier (though this is rumor, not fact), I heard that it was because they wanted to hedge their bets if the first film failed. In some of the pre-production stuff I've seen in sketchbooks and so forth, there was some development done that would have had Transformers:Heroes (sort of a proto-animated) look a lot more movieish, to the point that it's possible the design for the ROTF Lockdown toy predated Animated Lockdown.

Why haven't they done it now? I dunno, "aligned" continuity reasons? Maybe Paramount has more rights to the characters, settings, etc. in the films that we're not aware of, and a series would necessitate their involvement or payment? Maybe Animated showed there was room for a separate "television" continuity and line to run alongside the movie line?

 

Incorrect. Cartoon Network partly owns the rights to Animated. Meaning Hasbro would need to collaborate with them to continue it. It's also the same reason season three hasn't seen release, and most likely never will.

As for why it ended. Being created as a back-up in-case the movie was a failure didn't help (which last I knew was a fact), let alone the poor time-slot CN gave it. Retailers having little to no interest in it's toy-line was probably a factor too. In the end, it was for the best, imho. Prime is SOOO much better that I honestly can't see how I at one point liked Animated (can't sit through a full episode anymore).

 

I keep saying this, but no, that's not true.

Derrick J Wyatt posted about that very subject on his twitter, clarifying that Hasbro has complete ownership of Transformers Animated.

I'll trust him over people throwing around random speculation any day.

 

And that's what really pisses me off, more than the fact that it stopped - no Season 3 DVD. I don't care if I have to repurchase the first two seasons, can CN and Hasbro finally bury the hatchet and please make this happen?

CN needs to stop being all sour grapes about Hasbro starting the Hub network and accept that they probably lost their partnership with Hasbro because of their poor treatment of the TF franchise.

 

Well time will tell eventully. Let's hope that this stupid thing can be let go and give us Season 3 on DVD already.

 

Blaming RotF is all well and good, but it doesn't explain reports of Animated performing poorly in its own right. I figure people got so BORED during the first two seasons that only the hardcore fans were watching by season 3 when things finally got moving. Almost the exact same thing killed Enterprise prematurely, so this is not just me being snarky... although I welcome the opportunity to do so in seriousness.

 

I just wish they had finished Sari's back story.

 

TFA was beyond under-promoted. Twice rerun episodes of Johnny Test got commercials all day and week-long marathons, but TFA didn't even get a commercial for its last episode.

 

We need a complete series set of Animated.

 

I would like to see proof on people saying that retailers where not interested in TFA or sales for TFA was bad.

 

Most of the time people will point at how long older waves were on the shelf, and accuse the toys of shelfwarming.

However, that wasn't the situation. Entertainment earth listings at the time showed that Hasbro kept shipping hybrid waves of wave 1 and 2 deluxes mixed with newer toys all throughout 2009, with additional hybrid waves being shipped out for that christmas shopping season.

Older toys weren't shelfwarming, they just kept shipping them out, which gave that impression.

Well, that's the case for deluxes, anyways.

I'm fairly certain the early voyagers legitimately hardcore shelfwarmed, because I never saw any such "really old toys in new waves" listings.

 

I thought Hub was a major player in that.