Me, I've never been all that fond of G1. I was during my childhood, but once I "re-entered" my Transformers interest in the early Beast Wars days and really started collecting hardcore, I've paid little attention to G1. Everything today just seems so much better in comparison (except for the RiD/Unicron trilogy shows). Out of my entire collection-- which is pretty sizable, if you look at my info on the sidebar-- I'd estimate about 30 of those are G1 figures. Nearly all of my collection is from Beast Wars on up. They just don't do it for me like today's TFs do, having unimaginative transformations and being very brickish. I prefer repaints of modern figures to a brand new G1 figure anyday (with the exception of a few G1s that were exceptionally well done for the time, like Shockwave and Soundwave-- both of whom are in the 30).

I DO really really want the Club Seacons coming out, though, even though I know the actual molds themselves are rather unimpressive. I think it's the awesome colors combined with my love of combiners.

 

As far as the voice work, I meant more along the lines that it was inconsistent and full of errors. The people that did the work were great, I'm a huge admirer of Welker and Cullen and Latta, but the other characters, specifically Thundercracker and Skywarp were always screwed up.

 

I love G1 because I can. Bet you won't box about it.




Just kidding.  

 

Hey LoserBroadside, do you really wanna kick into this hornet's nest?

Sure LoserBroadside, why not? What's the worst that could happen?

Alright LoserBroadside, it's you're funeral/banning...

Sigh. Ok, here's why I think Weeklyhero's little review is a) wrong and b) condicending (me spell gud):

"Inconsistent origins (I'm looking at you, Constructicons)"

OK, that's a given. Cant argue that one; its annoying.


"Content quality (animation and voice-work errors)"

At worst I'd say it's inconsistant. For every poorly animated ep. there's at least 1 fantastic one. Golden Lagoon springs quickly to mind for example. The the voice work was actually pretty good. I'm not sure what errors you found, but G1 had some of the best voicework for its time.


"Horrible character portrayals (Beachcomber's a hippy? Tracks is gay? Wheelie exists?)"

Um...you're projecting. First, Tracks is gay because he talks like the Millionaire from Gilligan's island? That's a pretty weird stereotype for homosexuality you've got going there. And if he were gay, um, so what? Was there a lot of robosex that i missed in that show?

As for Beachcmomber being a hippy, again, so what? I for one was grateful that there was a mix of characters on the show; that they weren't all one-note warriors and bad-asses. There are the peace-loving Autobots, after all. Also, Golden Lagoon is a fantastic message episode, so without Beachcomber being all hippy, it wouldn't have worked.

And Wheelie, well, yeah. I can;t defend that one. Nor can I defend Nightscream, Hotshot or any of the other dumb characters that have graced TF shows over the years. They introduced about a hundred characters; there was bound to be one or two that were annoying.


"Inaccurate toy models (Ironhide and Ratchet mostly)"

The G1 toyline was cobbled together from various existing giant robo toys. When if came time to make a show, they did kinda need to rework the designs so tha some of them had, you know, heads. Also, I seem to recall there being significant differences between toy and show for nearly every TF line. BW Primal comes to mind. Blackarachnia. Rhinox...


"Lame episode plots (Almost all of episode 2)"

Again, for every bad one there's a "Fire in the Sky" or a "God Gambit." Episodes that dealt with some fairly adult themes. I mean, it's still a kids show, but they tried and often succeeded. And even a lot of the dopey plots managed to be done really well. "Auto-bop" and "Only Human" are two fantastic episodes, despite revolving around two really dumb concepts.


"It amounts to the same 1980's cartoon gargbage that had no real substance. So what makes it so special to where people would hate a good quality cartoon (Beast Wars, maybe) in comparison?"

The Low Road. C'mon man, even BW had it's problems. Blackarachnia looked nothing like the toy. It had some dopey episodes. There were some continuity errors (albeit minor ones). It had two pascifist characters (though I liked that), a robot with a Bronx accent and a cowboy. You really wanna go there? If you don't like G1, that's cool. But don't piss on our legs and wonder why you get smacked.

-LoserBroadside will sing his way into your heart

 

That's a really broad statement. You do realize you're basically saying the performances from the rest of the voice cast "were always screwed up"? And there were some terrific voice acting talents --some of them legends in the biz --among the TF cast like Corey Burton, Don Messick, Michael Bell, Casey Kasem, Neil Ross, and I could go on and on.

The inconsistencies in voice work you're pointing to as examples are relatively minor. They never bothered me much, and I'm a purist when it comes to voice acting. I could also cite other much better animated series that have had their share of "inconsistent voice work" (try watching the first season of The Simpsons sometime) but the fact stands that TFs had a very impressive voice cast, and their performances overall were one of the best (if not THE best) quality things about the show.

 

I'll grant that the show itself was not Shakespearean...for my part, watching G1 as it occurred, it was left in medias res, more or less. It never felt properly finished, especially since the toyline continued. I kept hoping it would continue to come on the air. I wonder if others in that general age group felt similarly, at least those of us who didn't get Headmasters, Masterforce, or Victory.
Nostalgia is the short answer...but I look at Voltron or the early TMNT and I find Transformers superior, if not great for its own sake. Still...<rant><br>
I can hardly sit through half of the episodes nowaways since they're so cheesy, but some of them have grown on me with age. Some of the episodes I liked as a kid have worn thin (Return of Optimus Prime and Rebirth haven't aged well at all, nor has The Ultimate Doom, and Fire on the Mountain, which I thought for some reason was a pinnacle of storytelling, is really a middling episode with good moments, a great ending, and an idiotic premise). Some I like as much (Heavy Metal War, Five Faces of Darkness, Call of the Primitives, and most of the season 2 Cybertron eps). Some I like more (Webworld, The Burden Hardest to Bear, The Golden Lagoon, and, oddly enough, More Than Meets the Eye). </rant>
Objectively, I like Beast Wars and Beast Machines more as entertainment, although G1 is still my favorite on a more visceral level. I like Animated so far, too.

 

No G1 no TFs. nuff said.

 

holy crap, a loserbroadside posting  

how you doing guuuuuuuuuuy

 

word!

 

oh, you think G1 Transformers cartoon sucks? well, look at things this way. Some kids grew up watching that turd called Superfriends with the twins and that blue monkey and they adore it more now than back then.
or my mom to this day can recall almost all the favored phrases of those cheesed out Hanna Barbera cartoon characters from Atom Ant to Yogi Bear.
Or imagine if there was a cartoon series for the Slinky....bet you there'd be ad executives or retirees right now that would hear the slinky jingle and cry from the memories.
it is kinda like a time/date stamp for us in our lives. my dad can tell you to even the smells at the moment what was going on when Cronkite cried while telling the world Kennedy was shot.
me and my age group? well until Challenger, i was so fixated on transformers, so that was mine. Thing is, it was what we knew, what we grew up with. i bet those superfriends kids would liked say, Batman the animated series more, but they were kinda stuck with them so...you get the idea.

90 percent may be nostalgia, but there is one other thing and it is a kid thing: i am at home at 330, and i have Prowl in my hand. and then, on the screen, i hear his voice, i see him move, i see him transform.
a kid wants to see things come to life. they want to know their imagination really works and the cartoon was proof.
and it was always awesome to yell out, I got him!
he does that? wow....

 

Is all about nostalgia man. If you don't grew up with G1, you don't understand maybe.

 

I grew up with it, trust me. I loved it as a kid and I love a lot of the alternate G1 stuff (mostly the comics). But I watch the cartoon now and... wow. Just wow.

 

It's great for so many diffrent reasons to many diffrent people. I bet Star Trek fans have these same types of arguments about why the first is always loved so much and not Next Generation or the other ones, but lets face it, the first is usually the best, its the groundbreaker, it introduces the concepts the all the others attempt to mimick. It had great voice acting, good characterization, a plethora of interesting and varied characters. Were all episodes great? No of course not, but were they pretty good and still fun to watch? Absolutely. But as others have said, the show is 20+ years old, you can't really compare it to what we have now, thats like comparing a cellphone to a typewriter, just because something is old though doesn't mean its not good or still relevant.

 

I'm gud duuude!   I mostly lurk right now, what with grad school kicking my teeth in.

-LB, master by degrees

 

Yeah :}

 

Honestly, inaccuracies be damned. The show for me was about the robots kicking ass, which they did. The iconic characters (Prime, Megatron, Starscream and Soundwave, the Dinobots) were so much better than all the other 80s cartoons. GI Joe, while great was nothing special character wise, same for HeMan, ThunderCats etc etc (apologies to M.A.S.K the great forgotten cartoon of the 80s). Seeing a boombox transform into a robot, Starscream and Megs fighting... It was great.

And a major thing it did different other than all other 80s cartoons (to me) was allow you to like the bad guys. Most of the other cartoon baddies were generic 'terrorists', "evil demons", or "giant monsters." But even the most diehard Autobot fan has love for Soundwave. Starscream speaks for himself. Devastator anyone?

I've never understood the infatuation with Beast Wars. Some great stories, but to me the whole beast to robot CGI animation bit sucked. Enjoyed some of it, great writing, but if Beast Wars was the beginning of TFs, they wouldn't have as wide of a fan base now. Kids don't look at gorillas and go "that's Optimus Primal!!" But with the movie, I already see a bunch of kids (mainly little cousins and nephews) looking at 18 wheelers going "that's Optimus Prime!!"

In retrospect, adult eyes, G1 was a wildly error filled inconsistent cartoon. But sometimes, it's our flaws that make us beautiful.

 

It was the foundation! We would never have the new shows that we have today with out the original. The voice cast was amazing such talent went behind it. Yeah it had its problems but it was a cornerstone of the 80s cartoons. Alot of us grew up with this show. I am afraid that the new generation of Transformers fans will grow up with out the orginial series. I thought the stories were good also. It really kept my attention span. The only others to do that was Beast Wars and now Transformers Animated. The personality that comes shinning through each character that comes through the way the stories was told. Starscream really come through in how he is always trying to take megatron over. Megs to me was amazing. And Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime really is just amazing he was a huge role model. well as huge as a cartoon can be haha. The first series just show how amazing it was to watch robots kicking each others asses. That is why G1 will always be my fav no matter what!! I hope that the future fans will have a chance to enjoy the originals.

 

Amen

 

It's a combination of things, really. Nostalgia, for starters. But also the amazingness of growing up in the 80's. You had GI Joes, TMNT, Ghost Busters, He-Man. That really was the golden age of cartoons with a toy series (and vice versa). And above all of them, TF was the king.

If you watch the G1 series, the voice acting is great, even on the dopey characters you mentioned, but so were the characters. Soundwave, Starscream, BB, Ironhide, Jazz etc. The fact that they could turn cool toys into awesome personalities really made the show for most kids growing up. If you weren't raised on it, and thus able to appreciate it, then you cant really enjoy the magic of it.

But I'm only talking about seasons 1 and 2. Season 3 was as bad then as it is now.

 

G1 is where it all started. Simply it was the first Transformers that we now all base and compare new TFs with. It created the fantastic world of TFs for children of the 80s who were swept up by it.