No, I think that because I have actually thought (a lot) about the two different approaches to the idea of Headmaster technology, and the Japanese one just makes a lot more sense.

The American approach to Headmaster technology is very confusing -- as evidenced by the title and subject of this very thread. The Japanese approach is pretty simple and clever: Transtectors are the Transformer equivalent of Mobile Suits. To wit:

A Mobile Suit is a robotic vehicle piloted by a human.

A Transtector is a robotic vehicle piloted by a small Transformer. The small Headmaster drives the vehicle (or beast) mode, and operates the robot mode by transforming into head mode and merging with the transformed vehicle. (Plus, there's actual functionality in swapping heads & bodies.)

By comparison, the American approach to Headmaster technology is confusing and screwball and awkward and more of a disadvantage than an advantage, it seems to me.

Again, I'm talking about the Japanese approach to the technology, not the anime itself. (But the anime was still better than the vomitous abortion that was The Rebirth, in my opinion.)

 

I'll take something that is interestingly bizarre (Rebirth) over something that is just plain dull (Headmasters) 9 times out of 10.

Rebirth also wins in terms of matching the tone, characterizations, and mythology of the rest of the series, as opposed to the Takara shows which go more and more in their own direction.

 

To me, Rebirth has one thing going on for it that Headmasters doesn't.

It's upbeat. While Headmasters delivers a bit more satisfying story, as opposed to a three-episode rush-job...Rebirth does conclude the cartoon series on a very positive note. It's like choosing between the red or the blue pill; you take the blue pill (Rebirth) and the story ends, and you leave with high spirits. Autobots win, new golden age of Cybertron, everyone is happy, Decepticons are still out there to menace you another day, maybe. The end. You take the red pill (Headmasters) and you'll see just how deep the rabbit hole goes - but it'll be a walking the gauntlet.

 

Seem personally both shows, I prefer the Rebirth because the interaction between the Autobot (or Decepticon) robot and their Nebulan or Human partners, and that the robots and their partners had their own individual personality which sometimes would match (as Hardhead and Duros) or be in conflict with (Highbrow and Gort). The Japanese Headmaster felt more like Mazinger Z type where the small robot operator would create a bigger suit and join them by becoming their heads, an approach that I totally disliked because if they were small robots they could have gone the route of the MicroMasters, but it was a quick way by Takara to explain why their new products would have their heads become little robots, which never made any sense to me. I watch the Rebirth in my Iphone a couple of times during the week because I feel even though it might have been rushed, it made much more sense than the Headmaster series which did not make much sense at all.

 

Honestly I dislike both. I think 1987 wasn't a good year for Transformers fiction (Marvel comics aside).

 

I agree that this is an interesting dynamic, and a lot can be done with it... But damn, Hasbro and Sunbow, did you guys really have to make the Nebulans pugnacious green space goobers? God those guys were unpleasant and unrelatable. Hell, the "Nebulans" really should have just been humans.

PRECISELY.

It makes tons of sense. The little robots could have taken the Micromaster route, yeah, but then they still would have been shrimpy and at a disadvantage when fighting bigger, stronger enemies. By becoming Headmasters, they came up with a way to overcome their tininess and weakness -- they developed larger transformer bodies they could control. Perfectly logical.

Can't agree with you there, but that's a matter of personal preference anyway.

 

I love the idea in Rebirth that Vector Sigma has been manipulating both factions all these centuries for its own long term plans, making the entire war kind of pointless in the big picture. That's one of the most interesting ideas in the entire G1 continuity, maybe the entire franchise. I think a lot of people miss that, because they are so used to dismissing Rebirth out of hand.

 

Wait what? That actually happened?

That's actually an interesting twist....as you've said there....I wouldn't have known as I'm not a fan of the Rebirth.

 

Yeah, Galvatron is as much a pawn of Vector Sigma as anyone. VS actually is the one who alerts Galvatron to the existence of the Plasma Energy Chamber and goads him into launching an attack to capture it in the first place. The only reason the Decepticons attack Cybertron in the beginning of the story after months of inactivity is because Vector Sigma is manipulating them. The fact that the Autobots are getting attacked and the chance some may be injured or killed does not concern VS in the slightest. Everything that happens, including the journey to Nebulon, is part of Vector Sigma's grand design. I really liked the idea that Vector Sigma doesn't really play favorites between the two factions, and uses each side as it sees fit.



I hated Rebirth as a kid. Hated it. Didn't care for the story, which I barely paid attention to, and I hated the animation, which they somehow managed to make even worse than that of Season 3. I doubt I ever would have watched Rebirth again in my life, except it was one of the first 2 TF dvds ever produced. In the early days of DVD, Rhino put out two dvds, without even listing the episodes included. One was called "Heroes", and the other was called "Villains." There were no other TF dvds at all at that time, so I bought both. I was horrified to discover that "Heroes" was in fact 'The Rebirth' parts 1-3. But then I watched it. And I have to say, watching it for only the second time in my life as an adult, I immediately thought more highly of it. I could see what they were going for, and it was ambitious and interesting.

There's no doubt in my mind now that if Rebirth had been allowed to stretch over its originally planned 5 episodes instead of the condensed 3 we got, it would be at least equal to 'Five Faces of Death,' if not better. And I consider Five Faces to be another high point of the original Sunbow cartoon.

 

Well obviously the Marvel miniseries is superior to both.

Also that's Five Faces of Darkness.  

 

Yeah, I must be a big fan I am when I can't even get the name right.

I like the comics version...kind of... More than the Takara show, at least. But not as much as Rebirth.

The comics are filled with problems. Budiansky muffed it. He forgot about Cerebros until well into the storyline. He made Fort Max WAAAAAAY too small. Even when he realized his mistake and tried to increase Max's size, he was still way too small. The aliens are just humans left over from Marvel's Conan series or something, with stupid Prince Valiant haircuts and stuff.

I still think Rebirth had the most interesting ideas going on out of the three.

 

Rebirth definitely had the most interesting concept of the 3. It's too bad the series never really got to explore the TF/Human partnership properly - could've been great stuff, but just as well, it would have been waaaay too complicated for TV of that era.

 

Heh, the Marvel US comic always found excuses to fit in pretty girls into the TF comic, witness a mostly Bikini clad Jesse in Marvel US #47's Club Con story.

Not complaining though, mind.

 

The Marvel US comic always found excuses to fit in any human characters into the TF comic, really. And the artists they chose for the book were always very clearly more comfortable with and more interested in drawing human characters than they ever were robots. Perlin, Delbo, Springer... none of them seemed able to put the same love into drawing the ostensibly main character robots that they would into even the most incidental cameo human character.

Marvel UK had it way better, but that's a separate story.

 

Marvel UK Transformers made Marvel US Transformers look like Sunbow Transformers.  

 

Say what you will about Dreamwave, but they sure ushered in a new era of drawing the Transformers well.

 

J Jonah Jameson Laugh - Spiderman - YouTube

 

Transformers the Rebirth was very important to the tf myths because it finally partnered out the humans or nebulans with the tf in a real mutual alliance, the marvel comics tended to focus more on Scorponok/Lord Zarack duality and Spike's doubts to join Fortress Maximus, the UK comics delved a little more inside the compatibility between the headmaster partners and the robots personality themselves, if a season 4 would have continued there would have been more examples of how beneficial the mutual partnership would have been, but alas, we will never know by the US cartoon.

 

Hey Takeshi357,

Thanks for the snide response. I gather it means you don't think Dreamwave ushered in a new era of drawing the Transformers well.

So then, you'd prefer Transformers comics had stuck to their Marvel look?

 

I, at least, can very honestly say that I'd take that Marvel cover over the Dreamwave one any day of the week.

Really the only complaint I'd have with that Marvel cover is that the block colouring on Optimus makes him a bit hard to notice. On the Dreamwave cover, meanwhile, both characters look weirdly puff and kind of malproportioned (Where's Megatron's right leg?! And either his forearm is occupying the same physical space as Optimus's big, puffy chest, or Optimus has a hilariously long neck.). The hundred-tone colouring feels kind of overwrought too. You can use two or three tones and still look really dynamic.