What would be your top 5 or 10 pieces of Transformers media? For me, it would be:

1. Animated Season 3
2. Prime Season 3
3. Predacons Rising
4. Dark of the Moon
5. Animated Season 1
6. Animated Season 2
7. 2007 film
8. 1986 film
9. Beast Wars Season 1
10. G1 Season 1

 

My favorites in order:

1. Sunbow G1: Season 1
2. Japanese G1: Headmasters
3. Japanese G1: Victory
4. Japanese G1: Masterforce
5. Transformers The Movie
6. Sunbow G1: Season 2
7. Robots in Disguise 2001
8. Beast Wars II
9. Sunbow G1: Season 3
10. Beast Wars Neo

 

1. Beast Wars Season 1-3
2. Tie between Bumblebee and IDW1
3. Animated Season 1-3
4. Armada
5. The 86 movie
6. G1 season 2
7. G1 season 1
8. The 07 movie
9. Beast Machines
10. G1 Season 3

 

1) Marvel G1/G2 comics and Regeneration One comics
2) Beast Machines
3) G1 seasons 3 and 4
4) RiD01
5) Victory
6) Zone
7) Beast Wars Neo
8) Beast Wars
9) RiD15
10) Cyberverse

 

1. Sunbow G1 series 1
2. Transformers the movie 1986
3. Sunbow G1 series 2
4. Sunbow G1 series 3
5. Japanese G1 victory
6. Japanese G1 headmasters
7. Transformers bumblebee movie

 

1: Beast Wars
2: Animated
3: Beast Machines
4: Robots in Disguise
5: Transformers Prime

 

1. Eugenesis by James Roberts (Canon be damned)
2. Beast Wars + Beast Machines
3. The Wrecker trilogy by Nick Roche
4. Animated
5. The Chaos Theory storyline by James Roberts
6. Furman's 1984 stories
7. The Marvel Era of comics in general
8. Micron Legend
9. Car Robots
10. Galaxy Force

Ranked in no particular order, plus there's at least a handful of others I'd like to add to that list as well but I figured I'd keep it at 10.

 

Rescue Bots

Bumblebee

G1 (Optimus era)

Victory

IDW 2005

Animated

 

1. Beast Wars Seasons 2 & 3
2. Transformers G1 Season 2
3. Cybertron/Galaxy Force
4. Wings Universe/Timelines by Fun Publication
5. Age of Extinction
6. Armada/Micron Legend
7. Marvel G1 Comics
8. The Last Knight
9. Transformers the Movie
10. Headmasters

Honorable Mentions:
Cyberverse Bumblebee Adventures
Prime Season 2
Robots in Disguise 2001

 

1. Beast Wars
2. Headmasters
3. IDW1
4. G1 Movie
5. Armada
6. Animated
7. Earthspark
8. Victory/Zone
9. G1 in general
10. RiD01

 

1) Beast Wars
2) Animated
3) Prime
4) Generation 1
5) RID 2001

 

1. Beast Wars.
2. Animated.
3. Beast Machines.
4. Bumblebee movie.
5. Cybertron/Galaxy Force.
6. Robots in Disguise 2001.
7. 2007 film.
8. Micron Legend/Armada.
9. G1.
10. Prime.
11. 86 movie.
12. RID 15/Cyberverse*
13. DOTM/ROTF.
14. AOE.
15. Energon/Superlink.
16. TLK.
17. Netflix WFC/Machinima Prime Wars**

Extra: Japanese G1 and BW. I simply haven't seen enough of them to have an opinion.

*Only placed them so low because I never finished them. I'm not saying they're objectively worse or anything, I just didn't like them enough to finish.
**Yes, I consider those worse than Energon. Energon, as much of a disaster as it was, was a rushed early 2004 anime dub shit out in a year to hock toys on public syndication. The Machinima/Netflix shows were, by contrast, modern media targeted at an older and more mature audience and claimed to be more sophisticated in their writing and direction, yet were nearly as bad if not slightly worse in some aspects.

 

1. Beast Wars
2. Animated
3. The Transformers: The Movie
4. Marvel US comics
5. Cyberverse
6. Bumblebee movie
7. G1 cartoon
8. Cybertron/Galaxy Force
9. 07 movie
10. Prime

A couple things worth noting. I've never rewatched Beast Machines after it's initial airing over 20 years ago, so there's a real chance it could crack my top 10, but I just haven't had the time. There's just too many Marvel UK comics, so I don't think I'll ever get through those. And I intend to getting around and giving JG1 another shot. I only remember being so bored by the Headmasters that it ended up walling me from giving the others their fair shot.

 

I like G1, Beast Wars, Beast Machines, and Bayverse best. No particular order. I like some episodes of those shows more than others, and I like some of the Bay films more than others, but these are the shows and films I like and why I like the brand.

Then probably Animated. I am not as much of a fan of it as some others, but it has plenty of good things.

Then probably Prime. It's not the greatest show, but it's nowhere near as bad as some fans claim either.

Then everything else, which I find either completely awful, completely boring, or just not my cup of tea.

 

1. IDW More Than Meets The Eye/Lost Light.

2. Netflix. My only real issue is Soundwave's voice. Oh and switching Hound and Ironhide's voices roles. Loved seeing legions of Seekers.

3. Dreamwave G1. Got me back collecting as an adult. Has it been 2 decades? The writers had a great grasp of every character and I loved seeing legions of Seekers.

4. Marvel UK. Got me into collecting as a child.

5. Prime Wars. Dodgy start especially Menasor's godawful voice but Megatron and Hot Rod save the show for me. In fairness, I felt the writers had a good grasp of each character.

6. Collector's Club Magazine.

7. Prime. Be higher if it wasn't for Bulkhead, Miko and Raf. Love Smokescreen.

8. Beast Wars. Be higher if not for Rattrap.

9. Cyberverse. Shakey start. Bumblebee was annoying initially. Grimlock is still jarring.. Loved all the Seekers and seeing Hot Rod shine later on.

10. Live Action Movies. The 07 movie and Bumblebee are the best. Dark of the Moon Sentinel Prime may be my favourite live action character due to Leonard Nimoy's fantastic performance. Extra points for killing Ironhide.

Worst

1. Animated. I can't forgive the atrocious human villains or what they did with Soundwave.
It's a shame because they wrote the Transformers characters themselves very well.

2. Unicron Trilogy. Awful show but the toys, PS2 game and Dreamwave comics were good.

3. Revenge of the Fallen. Nearly gave up collecting after seeing it. Left the cinema fuming.
After the mostly excellent and genuinely funny 07 movie, I had high hopes for the sequel. Humour went down fast. They brought back the one unfunny character from the first one: Simmons.
However, he was nowhere near as annoying as god damn Leo!!

Also robots with buck teeth? Get lost!! Though at least they had character.

 

I presume this is in terms of shows and I’m a Unicron trilogy fanboy so
1. Armada
2. Beast Wars
3. Animated
4. Masterforce
5. Galaxy Force
6. Prime
7. G1
8. RID
9. Victory
10. Energon

 

With the proviso that I'm only rating the shows I've finished watching via threads on here (so only up to and including Energon. I'm about halfway through Cybertron right now.)

The "really good" tier
1) Beast Wars - Excellent characters, an interesting, long-form story at its best, a willingness to go dark when it suited but not live there. Some of the most iconic moments in franchise history. It's not a perfect show but it's the closest I've seen to one so far.
2) Beast Wars Neo - A surprisingly enjoyable show filled with unique characters and some dark-horse favorites. Mostly only undone by a stumbling to the finish line
3) Armada/Micron Legend - A little too anime at points, but goes in some interesting directions with some of its characters and has very few truly irritating elements
4) G1 - The original and still the touchpoint that connects the most iconic versions of a lot of characters to the fans and informs almost everything that comes after it. The sheer # of episodes means it has more clunkers than most, but it also has a healthy amount of very fun stories.

The "very good but flawed or solid but unremarkable" tier
5) Victory - Not the most adventurous series, but it is the most Transformers-y of the 3 Japanese G1 shows and has some fun characters. A good, solid, middle-of-the road effort that's eminently watchable.
6) Robots in Disguise 2001 - Not outstanding in any way, but also with very few missteps. I think it's better than people remember largely because a lot of people don't remember it since Hasbro has little regard for it.
7) Beast Machines - I disliked how aggressively they re-positioned things from Beast Wars in almost no time/space during season 1. I also disliked some of their character choices. But season 2 offers some of the most tightly plotted and gripping serialized story work the franchise has seen.
8) Masterforce - The tipping point beyond which I start disliking the series more than I like them. I don't hate this series. It's... fine. But it's fine as a series that desperately doesn't want to be a Transformers show. Has several awful, awful characters.

The "mostly bad or severely flawed" tier
9) Headmasters - Maybe the most disappointing show so far because it gets handed the legacy of G1 on a silver platter and it does the worst possible thing it can with it: It makes things excessively boring. 35 episodes that has like 23-25 episodes worth of plot featuring a largely cardboard cast and a bunch of plot points that sound like they should be amazing but ultimately barely matter in the scope of the series. It also was the first series to give us my most venomously despised character archetypes in the franchise: the hot-blooded young shonen action hero who's going to bully and whinge his way to prove how great he is while mostly just being a selfish knob (Chromedome).
10) Beast Wars II - A kind of boring slog mostly stocked with uninteresting characters save for a few (Scuba, the Space Pirate Seacons) who are too good for this show and a few (Tasmanian Kid, the Jointrons, especially Lio Junior) who are insufferable and awful and dominate too much of the screentime. I also think Lio Convoy is one of the most boring and ineffectual commanders the franchise has seen.
11) Zone - Maybe it's just kneecapped by being a single sub-30-minute OVA, but it's far too much content being crammed into a short runtime that's just go-go-go-go-go-things-things-things-things-things-happen so quickly that none of it lands and sinks in and none of the characters get enough time to make me care about them.
12) Energon - Almost nothing about this show is well made. The animation is sloppy, the plot is drawn out, the characters are boring or annoying or infuriating, the connections to Armada are mostly ignored or irrelevant, and the pacing is a random mess that backtracks and lurches forward at random intervals. There were hardly any really redeeming qualities about this show's production for me.

 

Alright, here's my top 5! All of these are pieces of media that I hold near and dear to my heart.

1) More Than Meets the Eye/Lost Light - Without a doubt in my mind, I will herald this as the best thing to ever come out of the Transformers franchise. The characters were fun and made being no-names work in their favor. Every arc was handled masterfully. The jokes hit on every panel. There's nothing more to say other than I wish we could see where the cast is now.

2) Prime Seasons 2/3 - Look, if season one of Prime turned you off, I don't blame you. It was very 'meh' and didn't live up to Animated. But seasons 2 and 3 are some of the best the franchise has to offer. The characters are fleshed out, the fights slap, (special mention to Soundwave vs. Wheeljack,) everything just works. Favorite show bar none.

3) Animated Season 3 - Just a complete step up from Season 2 that made a great show into one of the all-time best.

4) 'Till All Are One - There is no better execution of politics and character in this franchise. Believable motivations, actions having consequences... it took what should've been a hot mess and turned it into the most underrated part of IDW's run.

5) Cyberverse Season 3 - It shouldn't have worked. There was no reason for this concept to work. Guess what? The writers made it work, and we got a thrilling and shocking ride to the finish out of it.

Special mention to Beast Wars. I like it, just not a personal favorite.

 

Usual proviso of only what I've seen/consumed enough of. So no Cyberverse, RID'15, Rescue Bots, or the Japanese-only shows.

Mostly Like:

• Animated
• Beast Wars
• IDW (Furman/MTMTE/RID/TAOO/OP)
• Cybertron
• Prime
• Bumblebee
• Armada
• RID '01
• G1 (show and movie)
• Marvel comics/Regeneration One

Flawed but not with merit

• Beast Machines
• G2 comic
• '07 film

Mostly Bad

• Dark of the Moon
• Age of Extinction
• WFC (Siege and Kingdom)
• Energon
• The Last Knight

The Worst

• Revenge of The Fallen
• WFC (Earthrise)

 

1. G1 cartoon
2. 2007 Movie
3. 1986 Movie
4. Beast Wars
5. Bumblebee Movie
6. DOTM
7. Prime
8. Animated
9. Beast Machines
10. ROTF