I've only seen Armada, but I liked it well enough. The first half of the show is honestly pretty boring, but the second half is much better, especially when "The Unicron Battles" begin.

 

They are by some. Not so much by others.

 

Unfortunately, the town that I lived in didn't get Cartoon Network until 2004. I definitely would've watched Armada as soon as it started. When I finally did get CN, Energon was in the middle of its run, and I was pretty lost as to what was going on. I'd imagine that I would've watched the Unicron trilogy in its entirety if I had access to CN when Armada started. But as it is now, I've never seen any of the three parts in their entirety.

I used to get SOOO upset that my town didn't have CN in the early 2000's. There was so much that I wanted to watch: Justice League, the Mike Young Productions He-Man cartoon (I didn't end up getting to see the first two seasons of each until I got them on DVD). And back then, CN used to air reruns of so many of my favorite cartoons: Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, G.I. Joe. Now I refuse to even put on Cartoon Network with the garbage that they play during the day, especially after the treatment that they gave the 2015 R.I.D. series and Justice League Action.

 

I won't say I hated it by itself. I did enjoy the comedy and characters, and some of the toys were great. The primus vs unicron is established there. And a detail never mentioned, I loved how you could transform a toy the same way as the cartoon. Most people hated the transformation sequences, but I thought a lot of detail was put into them.

What I hated about them was 1. The kids were annoying. I hated that part. 2. Established rules of the universe were just thrown out.

Number 2 seems unfair, but keep in mind, this was not a stand alone series in japan, it was a direct sequal from g1 and beast wars. Cars driving in space on a space bridge, things like flying sharks (though I love him) transforming street lights in the middle of the desert, and over silly things disrupted the tone.

 

Couldn't finish Armada, shit was boring and I hated the kids. Didn't care for the comedy.

 

because Optimus and Megatron keep refering to their troops as " men " .

 

I think Armada toys should be embraced for what they are. Sure, Demolishor could only move his arms in one plane but he's also packed with paint and comes with a smaller transformer for whom he can act as a mini playset. The mini-con integration was sometimes really well done and sacrificing articulation was imho acceptable. Tidal Wave would've been nicer with better legs but he split into three vehicles, one of which was a transport for mini-cons with fold-out chairs. That's good shit, you know?

Cybertron would've been the best if the keys weren't such garbage. A plain button to deploy the gimmick would've been better. Mini-cons at least were little transformers in their own, weird right.


Criticism of the UT toylines were at the time fair but since we've now been getting years of collector-oriented G1 characters prioritising articulation I think it's best to judge them for their own style instead. And, in that, they succeeded massively. I didn't care for Energon Optimus at the time but with hindsight I'm kinda thinking of picking up some variant of the figure. His chubby base robot and lozenge trailer certainly make for an oddball incarnation of the character without going against what he usually is.

 

That's exactly it for me.

I want to watch Transformers for Transformers, not a bunch of anime rugrats or smartass teens with modern stupid humor.

We need a show about bots in space, with aliens and other bots. No more humans and Earth, otherwise it'll be the long-term reason the franchise fails. People want to escape, and TF hasn't provided that in years. I hate Beast Wars, but at least it checks most of the boxes on how to get the toons done right.

 

Energon is horrible, but Armada and Cybertron are criminally underrated.

 

At least we have War For Cybertron

 

Yeah I mean one of.the things I loved about IDW was that it explored the planet and its interactions with other aliens in thier star system or local group.

 

I'm not sure which of the shows was the one saw a few episodes of, but after the disappoinment of RiD'01 which was my first attempt at coming back to the franchise I didn't give it a fair shot at the time. Now, having watched a few episodes here and there on YouTube, I can say that it's probably the most I'll watch of the series. I understand that it was aimed at a different, younger audience compared to the G1 toon, but the overall tone of the show turned me off.
If someone gave me as a gift the entire series I'd watch it but I'm not going out of my way to actively search for episodes online.

 

Armada was by far my favourite of the unicron trilogy after that it was a steady downward descent. Energon was interesting to start with since we got this take on an earth were autobots and humans had created a type of formal alliance but after a while it started to loose me. Seeing stuff like Scorponok leading the Decepticons and Starscream brought back as a ghost assassin were quite cool though. By the time of Cybertron I lasted like one episode for some reason the Autobots were hiding from humans again basically erasing the alliance they created in Energon the voice acting was horrendous everyone seemed to have these primus awful stereotypical accents Metroplex is for some reason scottish and Jetfire has gone aussie and al the decepticons seem to be little more than comic relief.

 

1. You had people who loved the Beast era and were upset about it ending.*
2. You had people who maybe didn't like the Beast Era, but were upset about the G1 timeline finally getting a full reboot.*
3. You had people who were upset about the engineering of the toys taking a totally different direction after being mostly the same since late G2.
4. The new shows starting with Armada often lacked a lot of things in the writing department that had been well done in the Beast shows.*
5. On top of item 4, the English language versions of the shows were rushed and often poorly translated and edited.

Even if the shows had done everything right, you'd still have 1-3 working against the UT.

Me, I was ready for a break and a new direction. A lot of the Armada stuff wasn't so well articulated, but it wasn't hideous and weird like BM, nor covered in excess kibble like segments of RiD and Beast Wars. And they were a blast to play around with! I'm a toys-first guy, so while aspects of the shows were disappointing, each line in the trilogy had tons of figures to get excited about. Each series was better than the last, with Cybertron/Galaxy Force still standing out as the best non-"let's do G1 again" toy line in my opinion.

*While not technically a continuation of the Beast Era, RiD 2000 was a bit ambiguous about whether or not it was an actual reboot, with some materials implying that maybe it took place in the Beast Wars universe. It also carried over molds and concepts from the Beast era, creating a mashup of designs from G1, G2, Beast Wars, and new designs that amalgamated all three. Perhaps most importantly, there was a sense that it was a "filler" line to keep things going until the next big thing. So although the Beast Era had arguably ended already, Armada was when it actually felt final.

 

I think I read somewhere that Cybertron was its own seperate thing and only Armada and Energon were in the same continuity.

 

In the Japanese continuity, Cybertron is sorta its own continuity (the part where the Armada kids and Minicons show up at the end of the series notwithstanding).

However, it got tacked onto Armada and Energon because it shared a lot of the same engineering and gimmick technology, along with the fact the live action films were in development so it was easier to continue that continuity instead of starting a new one before launching the films.

 

Subs over Dubs, yo.  

 

I jumped into the Transformers franchise during Cybertron. I personally love the Unicron Trilogy and honestly wish that they’d bring more back from it. I’d love to see a new TF anime. Plus the toys were incredibly fun. Starscream’s tragic struggle in Armada is amazing and I even enjoy Energon(fight me). I was so excited when they announced the Galaxy Upgrade Optimus figure for Siege thanks to my nostalgia and I am looking forward to that Hot Shot figures if it’s truly coming out. As for why people hate them? I have no idea. Armada has a pretty rough dubbing job and some animation hiccups but it’s good outside of that. Energon is the most flawed of the trilogy given how many poorly resolved or outright ignored plot lines it had. And Cybertron goes back and bring things back up in quality again. People have dumb opinions. That’s just a part of any fandom.

 

The UT was dope. Many new and memorable characters came out of it. Sideways, Tidal Wave, Kicker, Override, Demolishor...