Perhaps with the movie being written as an ending to the story of the Transformers?

 

No. I really feel it wouldn't have been an enjoyable season if it was set between season two and the movie.

In fact, I personally feel that season three was a welcome change from what the first two seasons were going with.

The thing I would have done is just replace a few episodes (mainly Fight or Flee and Return of Optimus Prime) and altered a few scenes to make it a bit better, but set it between season two and the movie... just no.

I also feel the season three casting choices for the movie characters were much better than the movie's celebrity casting choices, so that would be another reason why I wouldn't be up for it.

 

No
I just wish they had done a season 2 that was leading to 20O5, maybe have the film on set earlier in time and not in 2005, but season 3 had to follow the film

 

No.

Season 3 is the last season I would make any changes to. (other than to improve the quality of the animation, I guess.)

 

On the contrary. There shouldn't have been a season two.
They should immediately have killed the 84 cast in the movie and produced season three after that so that the characters that were produced in 87 had a an actual season on television to flesh out their characters and promote their toys.

 

But that would have left out all the characters we got in the 86 toyline without any promotion or characterization

Not very effective

 

No!

For one thing it would be super confusing to go from the movie set in the future and then suddenly go back to the 80's. It's like didn't I just see Optimus die and now he's alive again? What happen to Rodimus? How did Galvatron turn back into Megatron. What would even be the point of the movie if they went BACKWARDS from there?

For another nothing in the movie suggests that should of been an ending the story. We only just meet Rodimus for the climax of the movie. Galvatron and his new troops are still on the loose. There are so many loose ends that the story couldn't possibly have ended there. Granted we never really had an ending anyway and there are still a lot of loose ends that never got resolved but basically the entire movie would have to be rewritten and moved to the end of season 3 to make that work.

 

I meant that the ending of the movie would be different (for example, Galvatron and his troops would be permanently defeated or would agree to a truce).

 

Would still be really dumb. We only just met Galvatron in the movie. Same with Rodimus Prime and a bunch of other characters. To have the story end there would be a horrible idea. Not only from a story stand point because it means we never get a chance to really know any of these new characters but also from a business stand point because no would care enough about any of the new toys to buy them. In fact they'd probably hate the toys even more because a bunch of old characters got killed off just to introduce a bunch of new characters that we're never going to see ever again. What would even be the point of that.

Like I said before the ENTIRE MOVIE would have to be rewritten for that to work as an ending they can't introduce any new characters, they can't kill off all the 1984 characters, they can't have loose ends... It essentially has to be an entirely different story.

 

Why? What would have been better about a third season set before the 1986 movie? Nothing, really. I don't understand this fandom obsession with changing existing fiction. Is it to make everything fit their fandom comfort zone and own nostalgic vision for Transformers?

 

No, IMO it would have been better if they properly introduced Ultra Magnus, Kup, Arcee, Springer, Blasters tapes before the movie in season 2 (and tied up loose ends like what happened to the other Fembots).

 

What I think would have been great is for the show to continue as planned, but have a 18-episode miniseries air between the end of S2 and the movie. This series would have one episode for every year 1986-2004, introducing the movie's new characters steadily and also explaining some of the changes TF86 made to the canon.

They could've called it "The Lost Years" or "Season 2.5".

 

Ultra Magnus was actually introduced before the movie but the episode he appeared in only aired in Japan. Takara made it to promote the Scramble City concept so it's also the only instance where you see the combiner teams in the cartoon swapping limbs and I think they also showed off the Leader's base modes that could interact with Metroplex or Trypticon. Ultra Magnus was labeled on the toy packaging as City Commander and I'm pretty sure most Americans never even knew what that meant because the Scramble City episode that mainly featured him for that reason never aired here.

I don't think it's really a huge loss though because the G1 cartoon often had characters pop up out of no where with no explanation and the Scramble City episode was the most obvious toy commercial of the entire G1 Era. Even watching it in Japanese I kept waiting for it to suddenly cut away from the animation and show kids just playing with the toys. Cause it honestly looked like a literal commercial. I don't think there was any real plot they just constantly went from one gimmick to another. Couldn't understand the dialog since it wasn't in English but I'm almost positive it's the kind of dialog you'd hear in a literal commercial like the below examples rather than a legitimate episode of the series.

The only reason Scramble City seems to be considered an episode of the show rather than a commercial is because it has a longer run time like a full episode and doesn't include the live action bits of the kids playing with the actual toys, it's entirely animation. Still I kept thinking it was going to do the kid toy face transformation thing when they cut from animation to live action. It just looked like that kind of quality with the animation.

 

I think that Hot Rod and Ultra Magnus leading the Autobots in season 3, it would be good if they had a proper introduction. I know that many of the season 2 characters did not get an origin story for example but IMO it would have been better if they did.

 

They really should have had a few more episodes to Season 2 that introduced the new characters. Magnus, Hot Rod, Kup, Blur, Springer and Arcee. It was sort of jarring to go into the movie and have it just focus on new characters with only a few older ones. You'd still get Rodimus, Galvatron, Cyclonus and Wheelie as new movie characters.

An easy solution is the new bots be introduced as a squad of Autobots fighting on Cybertron, similar to Elita 1's group.

 

As I see it, the third season legitimizes the movie. If the movie was as-is, give or take, and the next TV season just took up again where season 2 left off, it turns the movie into a stand-alone future story, or 'what if?" sort of thing in the minds of the audience. Having S3 follow the movie 'locks in' its events to canon as having consequences. Otherwise, if the toy-driven TV cartoon stayed 1980s-present-day relative to the far-flung future of 2005, it would probably only make worse issues like "where were the Aerialbots in the movie? Where was Omega Supreme?" that we have now. Conceivably add "Where was Trypticon/Sky Lynx/Predacons/Terrorcons/Technobots/Battlechargers/Headmasters/and much much more!?" as well.  

 

Hell no. It was an interesting bold new era for better and for worse.

 

Season 3 was the best season.

 

The decision to have another season at all was clearly made last minute and likely based on the numbers coming out of Toyfair '86. I can buy that FFOD was always planned, but they didn't start on the other 25 episodes till late March with a broadcast deadline of September.

 

Hold on a sec
Are you saying that season 3 wasn’t planned and it wasn’t till the last minute that they decided to produce it?