I never said the show was great, I just prefer it over The Rebirth which I find even more tiresome. I recognise that Rebirth had more potential - and it's a shame that Hasbro forced David Wise to butcher the story up to squeeze what was originally a 5 parter into a 3 parter... but the end result is that Rebirth is, to me, just a showcase of the toys and not much more. And to top it off, the animation quality was so appalling that it's not even visually appealing either. I know that all G1 cartoons are fundamentally toy adverts, but Rebirth to me is not much more than that. e.g. Sixshot appears briefly ONCE, transforming to each mode to shoot down Autobots and then we never see him again! In an effort to feature the entire 1987 cast in only 3 eps we had lots of "Hi then Bye!" characters, which I wasn't fond of. Yeah alright, Zone was also just a one episode big toy advert too with not much of a story to boast about either - with a lot of the Micromasters just making similar "Hi then Bye!" appearances... but at least it was pretty well animated! (and the fan debates over Akira's ambiguous gender amuses me (not the idea, but the fact that fans bother to have arguments over this :p)) Sixshot in The Headmasters was much better developed character - someone who became morally conflicted and went through character change. Yeah alright, it was pretty cheesy and contrived, but it had more characterisation than Rebirth IMO. I also found Daniel to be slightly less annoying than in the Rebirth... I've never been fond of the idea of Arcee becoming a Headmasters being binary bonded to Daniel (even at the time I first saw it I thought it was incredibly lame) -- and Arcee's head just happens to transform into Daniel's Exo-Suit with no alt mode kibble?!? And sometimes Daniel's the same size as Arcee... right. The Hive are supposed to be complete cripples, yet Zarak is buff as! :eek: Shouldn't his body be wasted away like Davros in Doctor Who? Although I do like how they made the Nebulans look more alien (with the green wrinkly skin and hair) instead of just making them all look conveniently human like in the comics. :rolleyes: But Headmasters Arcee and Daniel were both lame in another way (but for me not quite as lame as the binary bonding in Rebirth) -- Arcee somehow became the Autobot's secretary who'd sooner serve tea than see combat, and Daniel wasn't as annoying as in the US series, but there was that one episode where Spike needs rescuing, and instead of sending Carly (who has survived previous encounters with Decepticons before, including Shockwave), they send Daniel. Yes, send the boy to rescue his father instead of the next available adult... what?!? These moments of chauvinism where women are portrayed as being incapable of heroic action and even a boy is preferable over a woman was something I find objectionable... but not surprising given the more chauvinistic nature of Japanese society.
One thing I do like about both series is how they made arguably the most uninteresting figure in the 1987 line the most interesting characters in the series -- Cerebros and Fortress. Cerebros the staunch pacifist, and Fortress the principle leader of the Autobots (with Maximus essentially being an extension of his will and body). In this case Cerebros is the more interesting character from an adult's POV, but from a kid's POV Fortress is more exciting. :p I first saw the Rebirth in 1988 (I don't recall seeing it aired here in 1987, got it on VHS a year later) and as a kid I didn't find him that interesting. :p Another thing that kinda spoiled Rebirth for me was that, for some odd reason, on the VHS copy of Parts 2 and 3 the music and sound effects track was way louder than the vocal track. So I'd hear all this loud music and laser blasts, rockets, explosions etc., but the Transformers sounded like they were whispering in the background! (and it's hard to understand/appreciate a story when you can't properly hear what the characters are saying) :( It wasn't until I got the DVD copy that I was finally able to watch those eps with the vocal track in the foreground, and the background track in the background! :eek: Whereas I first saw The Headmasters in 2000, and it was on VHS that was recorded off Laser Disc, so the quality was as good as you could possibly get on video.
I'm not saying that Headmasters was good -- as I said it's definitely the weakest of the Takara series. And the Rebirth had potential that was unfortunately unrealised due to Hasbro swinging the axe around. :( It'd be neat if say IDW did a comic mini series based on Wise's original script for The Rebirth and we can finally see how that story was meant to be. ;) But I can see how The Headmasters wouldn't be everyone's Cube of Energon.
+1 -- very well done indeed. I also like how they can mass-shrink when inside their Pretender modes, whereas in Anglophone continuity the Pretenders were either giant humans and monsters, or they had to go off-Earth to places where giant humans didn't seem out of place (like planet Snoo-Snoo ;)).Quote:
Originally Posted by Tetsuwan Convoy
No, there wasn't. Those story are only told in the manga... which aren't very exciting to read at all, and the quality of the artwork took a massive nosedive. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Tetsuwan Convoy
