What Galvatross said.
I don't hate filler moments, hell even some of my favorite episodes of TV shows are just filler episodes, which add nothing to the plot or are just oneshot adventures.
This is what I classify as a filler moment:

• Do the characters learn anything?
• Does it add to the greater narrative?
• Was the scene atleast funny or entertaining?

If the answer is no, then you got a filler moment or episode.

 

Well you’re missing out bumblebee was pretty great

 

DOTM was also a pretty good improvement over ROTF. Sadly the franchise took a downhill until Bumblebee.

 

I have heard pretty good things about that one so I may give it a try at some point.

I nearly gave one a go when I heard Anthony Hopkins was in it but then I watched a clip in which he said the word dude and my instinctive reaction was nope nope nope nope and more nope I’m out.

 

You have too it’s a really great transformers movie and a good movie on it’s own also I’m not sure if this is a spoiler

Spoiler: Bumblebee

the cybertron scenes were spectacular I had a nerdgasm during those scenes and not only that it gets transformers right within only 3 minutes

Yeah you dodged a bullet there TLK is one of the worst movies ever made imo I had a better time watching justice league than TLK and that’s saying something

 

That settles it. I think I will try and watch it today if it’s free on amazon prime or Netflix as I have today off of work. If It’s not free though I might wait to get it dirt cheap from a trade in shop if they eventually reopen after the lockdown but I will see how much they are trying to charge.

 

Ok great! Tell me what you think about the movie it’s free on amazon prime

 

It's on Hulu.

 

The G1 cartoon, while not the best series, is my favorite series. That being said:
-"The Girl Who Loved Powerglide" always bugged me, maybe because Transformers/human romances seem weird to me. I do like the humor in the episode (particularly after the Decepticons capture Astoria), and Powerglide riding a merry-go-round is great, but the romance part of the episode just bothers me. Even ignoring the Transformer/human part, they don't seem like a healthy couple at all. This, combined with the fact that they're both somewhat annoying, makes for an episode I have trouble liking.

-"Sea Change", "The Gambler", "The God Gambit", and "Child's Play" have plenty of good moments. However, of all the G1 episodes, I think these are the ones I watch the least. Even though I like the Season 3 episodes where the characters visit other planets (besides Earth and Cybertron, that is), they just seemed out of place in Season 2 for some reason.

-"Quest for Survival" is another episode I don't watch all that often. I don't know why; it just doesn't interest me as much as most episodes (though Starscream is great in it).

-"Carnage in C-Minor" has terrible, terrible animation. It may in fact be the worst-animated episode in Transformers history. The FFOD five-parter also has really terrible animation, but it at least has a really good plot.

-And, of course, "B.O.T.". While I like the parts with Swindle, the rest of the episode is....not good. At all. (That being said, it's fun to laugh at.)

 

I liked these episodes just fine. Especially The Gambler and The God Gambit since those episodes actually solidified my liking for Smokescreen and Jazz respectively.

Personally, I kinda liked Carnage in C-Minor. Yeah, the animation was horrendous, but the plot was kinda charming and entertaining. Plus, I kinda like Broadside a lot more than Springer, so seeing him in this one was fun, and I also think this is actually my favorite Soundwave vs Blaster story of the original series. Honestly, I feel Fight or Flee, Starscream's Ghost, Only Human and Return of Optimus Prime are worse than Carnage since they managed to have good plot ideas, but they were ruined by bad execution, a rushed feel and bad characterization.

 

Nah, I just wanted to be funny.  

 

Yeah, story-wise, they're totally fine. I don't hate them or anything, and Smokescreen and Jazz are great in the episodes you mentioned, but for some reason I didn't find them as interesting as other episodes. No idea why; I guess it might just be due to personal taste or something.

Yeah, the plot of "Carnage in C-Minor" isn't bad at all; just kind of hard to follow due to all the animation mistakes. I didn't care for the aliens with their sing-song voices, but the rest of the plot was actually enjoyable enough. Soundwave and Blaster were good in this episode, as you say.
I agree with you that "Fight or Flee", "Starscream's Ghost", "Only Human", and "The Return of Optimus Prime" had great premises that were poorly executed.

 

I think filler moments or episodes can still be entertaining in their own right, as what's funny or entertaining is extremely subjective, so I personally wouldn't put that in a definition of what's filler.

 

IDW's Infestation was certainly atrocious.
So was the plot of the 2007 movie.

 

The BW episode where they are taken over by their animal instincts. You know, the ones from the SYNTHETIC flesh that emulates the beasts they scanned. It'd be like wearing a polyester coon skin cap and suddenly becoming nocturnal as the instincts of the raccoon take you over.

 

Call of the Primitives. The only G1 episode I couldn't finish as a kid. Beautifully animated, but the story was probably the stupidest in all of original G1. Yes, dumber than BOT, than the giant purple griffin, than City of Steel, than the Universal Transformer Off SwitchTM from FFoD. Even Carnage in C Minor actually had an interesting premise, albeit let down by the terrible animation. You've got the origin of Unicron, built as a WMD by a space monkey. That's not so bad - that's basically the origin of my favorite version of Mechagodzilla. But the plot was dull as dishwater and had such a poor payoff. Grimlock hits the reverse switch? Really? Best to consider this a fantasy of Grimlock's and import the comic origin for Unicron. It's a shame Sunbow wasted the best animation in the series on this garbage.

Beast Machines. All of it.

IDW. All of it.

The race plotline from Cybertron. Not terrible, necessarily, but stretched out beyond its breaking point. It really should have been resolved in a few episodes.

Energon, the second half where they retread the plot, only with gestalts this time!

Not the live action movies, because you actually have to have a plot for it to be terrible.

 

I'll go with Afterdeath in the Marvel US run. Optimus Prime killing himself over a video game, let alone the premise of Transformers playing a video game, is terrible. One of the many low points of Budiansky's work.

 

Energon (But I enjoy few episodes).

Bayverse (Especially Transformers Last Knight. I really hate made Hot Rod had french accent. It really don't fit him).

Headmaster (But I like the characters).

Few chapters in MTMTE and Lost Light.

 

I watched that as a kid, and it just went on for SO LONG. The characters and the story weren't even bad; it just lasted far too long and took up WAY too much of the series.

Yeah....I think that may be Prime's worst death (with the possible exception of his death in Headmasters, and there the writers and animators at least had the excuse of not knowing exactly what had happened in the 1986 movie).

  He just....gets shot once by some random Decepticon and dies. None of his troops seem to notice. HE doesn't even seem to notice.
Prime's second death in Headmasters (the one that isn't a flashback) is also pretty bad. He sacrifices himself to stop Vector Sigma from exploding three episodes into the show, only for his sacrifice to be rendered COMPLETELY POINTLESS when Cybertron gets blown up six or seven episodes later anyway.

 

Personally, I felt the Optimus' death in Afterdeath was fine. At least it was in-character (even in a game, he wouldn't sacrifice the life of innocent beings) and shows his selfless nature quite fine. Then again, I never liked Optimus as a character, so that might be why I really didn't mind it.