So, we're all pretty well known with how the G1 cartoon could have some horrid animation errors, big examples being B.O.T and Carnage in C Minor.

But what about some of the best animations found in the series? Scenes that are so well animated that you'd think they could rival the movie's animation.

So far, without watching all of G1 again, I can name two instances, both coming from season 3.

First up would be The Call of The Primitives, the animation in several scenes in this episode is sublime, such as the Terrorcons forming Abominus (which almost looks like he's drawn by the Japanese.)

The second would be The Ultimate Weapon, which is an oddball in this as most of the episode's quality is decent at best and it has various errors throughout it, but it is when Trypticon attacks Metroplex and their brief fighting sequence where the animation's quality is suddenly a lot higher.

Any other examples you guys can give?

 

-Season 2 ep "Aerial Assault" that opening canyon battle

-Season 2 ep "Golden Lagoon" that "rave party" with the Decepticons firing everywhere was pure gold  

-I felt all the panarama shots of Cybertron from Season 1 and 2 were great

-the poor battered looking Decepticons in Season 3's "Five Faces of Darkness Part 1 and 2" were done well

-Season 2's "B.O.T." where the Combaticons tried to combine was hilariously well animated.

 

Yeah, Season 1 and 2's shots of Cybertron were nicely done.

Season 3's episode Dark Awakening, the ending with Zombie Prime piloting was disturbingly well animated in terms of battle damage on Prime.

I also found Cybertron closing in to Earth in The Ultimate Doom also well animated.

 

The 1986 Movie was the peak of G1's good animation. The Megatron reformation scene is easily the best animated scene in Transformers....and one of my all time favorites.

 

My favorite was Optimus opening the matrix to cure the plague at the end of season 3

 

Well I love the animation and coloring in The Return of Optimus Prime, the movie was beautiful to look at, I liked the animation in The Burden Hardest to Bear, War Dawn and The Search for Alpha Trion were good, Starscream's Ghost was done decently, and while Nightmare Planet was just insane overall, I really loved the creativity that the animators had with it. Also Call of the Primitives, goes without saying.

Headmasters, Masterforce and Victory had some great animation too.

 

I don't which episode it was, I think it was The Secret Of Omega Supreme, were we see Sideswipe next to Megatron

 

I'm confused are we talking about animation in terms of actual movement of each character? I don't think anything from the G1 series proper can rival that of the movie. At best you have some well drawn character art, but detail shots of the character models aren't animation. Call of the Primitives had some great character art in terms of detailed drawings, but I'm not sure about actual animation.

A better example is this: Headmasters had much more high quality character drawings then Rebirth did, but I think that the animation might be on par barring exceptions. Then again, its been a long time since I compared the two.

 

Yuuuuup. That absolutely has to be the best sequence in all of G1, maybe in all of TFs - like you said. So cool.

 

Besides the movie, I really loved the overall animation in Call of the Primitives and also how the animation was really stepped up for Return of Prime part 2. Some of the diaster scenes from Ultimate Doom were quite good especially with the Dinobots trying to stop the tidal wave.

 

If we're talking individual G1 scenes there's a few that spring to mind (not including the movie and Call of the Primitives, which would win all the animation accolades):

The Revenge of Bruticus: When Blast Off is dropping bombs during the end battle, there's a well-animated scene of Optimus having a close call with one.

A Prime Problem: When (the real) Prime revives and wonders where everyone went, the scene where he gets up is well done.

Heavy Metal War: Most of this ep has better than average animation, but the duel between Prime and Megs has some great sequences.

Megatron's Master Plan P2: The scene after Teletraan's control over Cosmos is broken and the whole force field full of Bots goes by the camera. I always liked that scene.

 

One of my favorite scenes was Optimus with an energon axe fighting Megatron with an energon mace

 

Any way we can merge this with the G1 Cartoon Appreciation Thread? I'll contribute to this topic when I get a bit more time because it's a great idea and I've been meaning to post about this anyway. For as much hate G1 gets and as quickly as so many like to dismiss it as poorly animated (and AKOM's work and the Filipino studio's work were definitely sub par) and point out all of its errors, Toei's work was above average for its day and could often be breathtakingly beautiful and dynamic. In fact, it's something of a miracle that it turned out as well as it did considering its insane production schedule, the difficulties in communication between Toei, Sunbow, and Hasbro, and that they were really making it up as they went along. Floro Dery delivered amazing designs, Peter Chung and Romeo Tanghal are legendary storyboard artists, and even the great Masami Obari cut his teeth on the show. Of course, TMS's Call of the Primitives is in its own league.

As I understand it, this is about scenes/episodes with the best animation, not necessarily one's favorite moments, right? So while Dark Awakening had some great story moments with a lot of pathos, none of them were particular exceptional when only looking at the animation (sloppy drawings, dull coloring, boring composition). Whereas TMS made Grimlock sliding down a cliff and Sky Lynx peering down after him something drool inducing.

 

AutoBerserk has a pretty decent amount of good animation.

 

Fortress Maximus transformation animation from Headmasters.

 

I've re-watched G1 countless times. Here's a list of its best animated episodes. Obviously, anything by AKOM or the Filipino studio are going to be excluded. Some Toei episodes were simply workmanlike, so I've excluded those as well. Even Toei's best episodes had many scenes that were simply workmanlike, but I've included them because it just can't be avoided. Time and care could be taken to go through these episodes and take out the best executed scenes, but I'll have to do that later. Here goes...
Season 1
More Than Meets the Eye pt3
Transport to Oblivion
Roll for It
Divide and Conquer
SOS Dinobots
Ultimate Doom pt2 & 3
Countdown to Extinction
Fire on the Mountain
A Plague of Insecticons
Heavy Metal War

Season 2
Autobot Spike
The Immobilizer
Dinobot Island pt1 & 2
Traitor
Atlantis, Arise!
Microbots
Day of the Machines
Megatron's Master Plan pt2
Desertion of the Dinobots pt2
Blaster Blues
Make Tracks
Golden Lagoon
Quest for Survival
Child's Play
Auto-Bop
The Girl Who Loved Powerglide
Trans-Europe Express
Aerial Assault

Season 3
The Killing Jar
Chaos
Madman's Paradise
Fight or Flee
Webworld
The Dweller in the Depths
Nightmare Planet
The Ultimate Weapon
Money is Everything
Call of the Primitives
The Return of Optimus Prime pt2

As far as the Japanese seasons, there were a lot of well done episodes from Headmasters and pretty much all of Masterforce and Victory were gorgeous, but I'm not going to go through those.

Hope this helps!

 

Another of my favorite scenes was seeing the Autobots compete at a race track

 

A good sequence for me was the opening of Fight or Flee when Scourge and Cyclonus were tracking Airraid and were ambushed by the Aerialbots.

 

That whole scene and the dialog still gives me goosebumps when i see it.