A lot of people on the boards complain about Transformers Prime. Many of the complaints are valid (too many macguffins, nothing really ever changes, etc.). That being said, I think it ranks pretty high as a good Transformers series. So I guess my question (mostly to those who don't like the series, but everyone is welcome to answer). What series is better? I can get behind people saying G1, or Beast Wars, or even Animated as better....but I'm thankful that it's NOT the AEC series or Beast Machines...

 

Animated mixed everything and have own ideas, Prime have nothing. Its only a copycat of Bayformers and some point from another show.

 

Beast Wars and Animated were definitely better. Beast Machines too in terms of telling a good story.

 

I think prime will go down as another beast machines. Generally disliked by the masses at first, but people will enjoy the show once they give it a re-watch. I went through the first season on Netflix and thoroughly enjoyed the show. I wish they would move away from some of ideas established in the movie, though.

People really say animated is better than Prime? That astounds me.

 

Beast Wars and Beast Machines for sure. Animated too, which really knew how to tell a story in under fifty episodes. G1 is fun, but I really can't say it's better, storytelling-wise.

The real shame is that Prime's highlights, and a lot of its first season, are actually better than most of what those other series accomplished. At its best, it's fantastic. But something's really not clicking as a whole. It's really botched its pacing, development and believability, which were among the elements I would have given it credit for a little over a year ago.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know that I actually enjoy Animated more than Prime. But I do think it's objectively better. All you need to do is think about where that series had gone and where it had taken its characters by the time it hit the number of episodes Prime was at months ago. And it was much more comfortable with its world than Prime is, with Prime's whole "Take me seriously/please ignore all this ridiculousness" thing.

To reiterate, Prime has all the potential to be better than these other series. On occasion, and especially in its beginning, it's even lived up to it. But it's not coming together on a larger scale. (Or, lately, on a 22-minute scale.)

 

Prime > Animated > G1
Prime is a lot less 'kiddy' than animated was, but it doesn't use the twenty minutes in an episode to its advantage. Sometimes, they will spend up to fifteen minutes talking about what they're going to do before actually doing it.
Animated's storytelling was a lot better, but as much as I like it, it was a bit too kid-friendly for the first season and it only started getting really good once season 2 started, whereas Prime has been good pretty much every episode except for timing.
Being the original does not make G1 the best, and I wish people would see past that.

 

This.

 

G1 was better in that it had more characters. With such a huge cast of characters there was a far better chance of finding robots that you would like. G1 was also bolder in going for crazy over the top ideas like combiners or Dinobots. Unlike Transformers Prime it seems like G1 quickly caught on to the idea that generic troopers are rather boring so the generics got replaced by a fun cast of Decepticon characters. With so many characters it was easier to imagine a truly epic brawl.

On the down side G1 suffered from the 80's writing standards for cartoon shows so while you could have some good stuff you also had plenty of things that were just bad by any era's standards. Things could also get a little too crazy so crazy chances didn't always result in a good pay off.

Beast Wars, what can I say it would really take something to out do Beast Wars so I'll not go into pages and pages of why it's number one in so many categories. Also a sneaky yet legitimate feeling way to keep the cast small.

Transformers Animated knew how to have fun and the show wasn't afraid to be fun. Some good story telling. A fairly nice sized cast of Decepticons. The Autobots really seemed to find Earth to be a completely alien place. Bumblebee could talk. We found out things about Starscream we might have been better off no knowing. The Decepticons got a cool catch phrase with "Decepticons, transform and rise up".

On the down side Animated couldn't give us a full Dinobot team and they couldn't give us a full Constructicon team. The show also got killed before it could finish world building because Cybertron was not the dead husk of other Transformers series. Ah the potential of what could have been.

Transformers Prime isn't bad, but it doesn't live up to the early hype as the greatest Transformers series ever made. I think it will be a series that will be well remembered but it just lacks some of the elements that it would take to grab the title of greatest Transformers series ever.

But when you think about the really bad series maybe being in the middle somewhere really isn't all that bad for Transformers Prime. Although I've got my fingers crossed that whatever come next is nothing like the movies and mute Bumblebee becomes a thing of the past.

 

For me G1 is first with Animated being 2nd. Prime is a distant 3rd. Not enough characters, hardly any humor. I enjoy some parts of it but I only watch it cause my 3 year old loves it and enjoying spending time with her watching it.

Animated did the 5 core cast much better than Prime. They had chemistry, interacted with one another and did things in their down time. They also grew as the show went one. Prowl had a realistic yet very sad death. Wasn't pointless like DW and Breakdown. And Animated Starscream was much better than that Prime joke version.

I will say Prime is better than BW, BM and the putrid Unicron Trilogy.

 

Beast Wars and Animated Beat it by miles. Beast Machines is a lot better than it too. Cybertron manages to just beat it through having much more story. As G1 had no other TF show to live up to, had no adults in the fandom and was made in the 80s, I don't expect much from it so I enjoy it more but acknowledge that it has lower quality. I'll have to rewatch RID to be certain about that but Prime manages to beat Energon and Armada.

Let's see. It handled story arcs better, it had waaay better characters and despite having the more childish tone, it dealt with more mature subjects.

 

Personally I think it's too soon to say.
It had a weaker season 2 than Beast Wars and I think that's because they missed an opportunity in making Toxicity into Bulkhead's answer to Code of Hero. On their own merits I consider Animated season 2 and Prime season 2 equal - they both ended with a bang but were otherwise packed tightly with what was basically filler.

I consider Animated a good show largely because season 3 gave us the last of the character backstories and tied things up in a way that made it seem like there had always been some overall purpose to events - despite the contradictions with characters like Lockdown that suggest they really didn't know where they were going until they got there.

 

People just love to complain. I remember when Animated was still running, everyone was like "oh noes, Ben10formers! Get this kiddie shit away from me! The designs are ugly! Who the fuck drew this crap?!"

Now that Animated is nothing more than a faint memory, everyone's complaining about Prime, and remembering how great Animated was.

The funny thing was, Animated was just as prone to dropping plot threads as Prime is. Remember the Dinobots? Boy they got irrelevant fast.

For me, most of the Hasbro-produced stuff are roughly equal in quality, with varying strengths and weaknesses. Animated was goofy, but had deep characterization and a ton of mythology nods. Beast Wars was camp and has aged badly visually, but took the show in a new direction and tied itself to G1 beautifully. Prime is a bit too one-linery at times, and rushes a lot of its story arcs, but has the best fight choreography, great cinematography, and in the spirit of Animated, tosses in a lot of mythology gags as well. It's also the most serious in tone, without getting as murder-y as the Bay films.

And G1, well, it's got horrible animation, silly storylines, characters that disappear without notice, and very little cohesion from one episode to the next. But it's the first, and I will never forget it.

 

Beast Wars, Beast Machines and Animated are better. Prime sits in 4th place

 

This thread was a bad idea....

 

Yeah, man. We can't have people discussing the comparative qualities of different series in a fiction-based franchise. That would be, like ... too reflective or critical or something.

 

I only recall this before the series started. When it actually ran, I remember it getting good reception. Want proof? http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/trans.../236281-what-would-you-rate-tfa-series-2.html

Except they didn't get irrelevant fast. They kept being important parts of episode plots through the entire series. And it's not like Prime where they actually killed off characters so it wouldn't be impossible to continue using them.

 

This is where Prime sits for me too.

 

I remember it going well beyond the first season. I know because I got into TFA at the end of Season 2, and the TFA threads I visited were filled with hate. Again, it could've been just a vocal minority, like right now.

Not important. They were rarely important after their first few episodes. Hell, they only showed up in Megatron Rising to bitchslap Optimus.

My point is, the vocal minority will always complain about whatever series is currently running, remembering the old with a lot of nostalgia. The truth is, none of the series were perfect. TFA had faults too, and its fair share of haters. Same with G1. Beast Wars.

The fandom will never be appeased.

 

But Animated is still better than Prime to quite a few people. The reasons people gave in this thread have nothing to do with nostalgia. Didn't seem like there was a complaining vocal minority in that link I posted.

 

True but it is G1 and like first love, it will be in a special place in your heart