(OCT-2013) Animated Era Characters - Thoughts and Favourites

Animated was mostly homage characters after the first season, so most of the unique or new characters came early in the series, and right at the end.

Some standouts of Animated...
Ultra Magnus - the first time the name was assigned to a character of higher rank than Optimus... and was a rather arrogant Autobot ruler.
Sentinel Prime - such an arrogant jerk, the character was more like a Decepticon than an Autobot.
Bulkhead - is now the stereotypical Autobot muscle/brute in Transformers... but was later made out to be highly intelligent.
Prowl - now a the stealthy ninja.
Lockdown - a bit like Deaths Head from the Marvel UK comics, but without honour.
Lugnut - a totally over-rated character in the fandom... ;) :p
Angry Archer - the writers created it as a homage to the Hasbro Designer Aaron Archer.
Longarm Prime - it's a spoiler to those who haven't seen the cartoon yet... but the toy gives it away.
Wasp - you gotta feel sorry for this character... it was like a classic Greek Tragedy, or like a kid who gets bullied to the point of bringing a gun to school.
Starscream's Clones - could they be any funnier.
Professor Princess - if I had to pick the worst human in this series, it would be tough, but this one is probably it. (and what's worse, for a long time I thought it was a guy dressed up in drag... because like the word "doctor", the word "professor" is often presumed to be male)


Details of the Animated era can be read about here.


Who are your favourite characters in this era, and why?

Which characters were disappointing or over-used?

Who would you have liked to have seen more of in this Series for being under-used?

Who are your favourite characters in this era, and why?
- It was just so great to see the characters that referenced G1 to actually HAVE their personalities be based at least in part on their G1 characters too (Hell, some even got the same voice actors!). For instance:
- Swindle - cosumate salesman
- Prowl - overly serious
- Bumblebee - happy and chirpy and CHATTY
- Megatron - serious and strong
- Starscream - the backstabber we all know and love looking for power
- Omega Supreme - a mech of few words but BIG guns!
- Blurr - talks a million mikes a minute
- Soundwave - monotone voice and master of sound with flying sidekicks
- Grimlock - Me Grimlock Leader!

Which characters were disappointing or over-used?
- Blitzwing - 3 personalities was too wacky
- Bulkhead - damn annoying
- Sentinel Prime - the only good things about him was the vauge Tick references ;)


Who would you have liked to have seen more of in this Series for being under-used?
- Swoop and Snarl - give them voices and personalities!
- Oil slick and the rest of Team Charr
- Rodimus Minor's team

Who are your favourite characters in this era, and why?
I love them all.

Which characters were disappointing or over-used?
Tough as I generally liked all the characters, even that Bumblebee guy. Perhaps the Headmaster?


Who would you have liked to have seen more of in this Series for being under-used?
This list is way too long to publish. But to pick a significant few: Blurr, Cliffjumper and Captain Fanzone :p

Who are your favourite characters in this era, and why?
I really liked Prime, he's got the same heart as our traditional prime but he isn't a commander yet, over the course of the series he grows towards that point, perhaps he would have made it there if there had been a fourth season.

Lugnut. So loyal, to the point of fanatacism, something that's not often dealt with in Transformers fiction. and hi POKE. awesome.

Lockdown and Black Arachnia, one of the first time a Transformers show has dealt with characters who've had their own goals above or below any allegiance to a particular faction to the point where each individual is almost a seperate faction. Swindle almost fits into this description also.

Ultra Magnus - the introduction of the Magnus Hammer as a concept was inspired and has become an ingrained element of transformers lore.

I liked the Megatron who manipulated events even when unable to move outside of a laboratory. Neat concept and stopped Megatron from Crushing the Autobots for the first season. He was soo much more powerful than Prime in this series.

Which characters were disappointing or over-used?
- The Human supervillains could have been left out entirely in my opinion, they are the brand of silly that I've never enjoyed in my entertainment. There were one or two instances where they were used to advance plot or another character that was good but other than that, I would have been happier if they weren't there.

I would have liked to see prowl maintained as a police car. Groove would have been perfectly acceptable to me as the police bike in this show. I prefer when a name is re-used that the character is maintained, or a new character is created instead (bulkhead, Lugnut). in the case of the multiple personalities of Blitzwing, it's probably not such a big deal as blitzwing had never really been very well fleshed out prior to this series.

Sentinal Prime was overused, they did a good job making his character an annoying self centred prick but it was too good a job and he became grating fairly quickly if on screen for too long in an episode.

Who would you have liked to have seen more of in this Series for being under-used?

I would have liked to have seen more developement of Bulkead as the intelligent guy rather than the clumsy smart guy.

and I agree that the dinobots could have been fleshed out more.

The characters that were homages, the newer characters who showed up in Season 3, it would have been great to have more of the overall cast expanded upon and given more than a couple lines here and there.

Who are your favourite characters in this era, and why?
Rathcet is number one! The episodes that featured Ratchet as the main character were gold! PLus I love the episode when Sari is playing baseball and the ball hits Ratchet in vehicle mode and he is angry because she woke him up from his nap!
Sentinel Prime. What a MAJOR jerk this guy was. That's why I love him. Goes to show that honesty and hard work don't count for anything in some instances.
Lockdown. Bounty hunter! Lance Henrikson! Brilliance.
Lugnut. I love this guy.
Megatron. Scheming, Powerful, cold. EVIL.

Which characters were disappointing or over-used?
I found Headmaster a bit annoying, but he had a purpose and the episonde where he took Sentinel's body was enjoyable.
The human characters had generally annoying accents. That's about all I can think of.

Who would you have liked to have seen more of in this Series for being under-used?
Everyone who should be in season 4! :p
Oilslick and pals as well as Rodimus. Shame. They'd be good in season 4.

Who are your favourite characters in this era, and why?
Ratchet - Loved the cranky bot.
Starscream - This Starscream actually betrayed Megatron and caused serious damage to him.
Prowl - Cyber Ninja... nuff said :D
Jazz - Again Cyber Ninja


Which characters were disappointing or over-used?
Bumblebee - damn annoying
Human villains - There was way to many of them.


Who would you have liked to have seen more of in this Series for being under-used?
I totally agree with the above comments that I copied the text. With one exception I would have liked to see more of Warpath and Cliffjumper

Swoop and Snarl - give them voices and personalities!
Oil slick and the rest of Team Charr
Rodimus Minor's team

Who are your favourite characters in this era, and why?
Prowl - cos he had more on-screen character development than anyone else. Started off as a self-interested and reckless character who had to learn how to work as a member of a team, then ultimately sacrificed himself.

I also really like Omega Supreme because his character embodies the Autobot ideal.
"I am programmed to protect... and sacrifice if necessary." <---this line still gives me a lump in my throat every time I hear it. :) But... Y U HAV NO TOY?! :p

Yep... these two characters stand out to me in a show that was otherwise populated by walking clichéd caricatures. :rolleyes:

Which characters were disappointing or over-used?
Bulkhead. Yeah I get it... he's a big, strong and clumsy oaf. But the series sure never lets you forget it as we watch Bulkhead trip, stumble, smash and crash through three whole seasons of Transformers Animated! But wait... he just happens to be a Space Bridge Genius cos he was a hillbilly on Cybertron who got bored and read lots of books about Space Bridge engineering. Cos ya know... you can totally become an engineer just through reading books even if you're a total 'tard monkey at everything else. :rolleyes: :o

The Dinobots. They're big and stupid just like real dinosaurs.
"That's the most retarded thing I've ever heard!" - Optimus Prime (SOS Wheeljack) :p
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...mperceptor.jpg

Also... all the human villains were incredibly stupid and annoying. I'm not opposed to the use of human villains per se - I don't mind it when it's done in a more credible fashion like COBRA or even MECH... but the human villains in Animated were just so damn campy it was far more annoying than amusing. Especially Professor Princess <shudder>

Who would you have liked to have seen more of in this Series for being under-used?
Rodimus Minor.

Who are your favourite characters in this era, and why?
Loved Ratchet, the cantankerous old medic, which has been kept in the Prime series. Except the original is far better. Prowl was fantastic, he really changed and great throughout the series. Prime was interesting for a change, being a skilled, but undervalued bot.
I also liked Starscreams portrayal as being somewhat clever rather than an idiot, Lockdown the bounty hunter, Black Arachnia the bot turned organic, Blitzwing the mentally unstable, Lugnutz the devotee and Sentinal the douchebag. Jazz, Blurr, Grimlock and more had nods to their G1 versions.

Which characters were disappointing or over-used?
I didn't mind the human villains as much as many, but I felt they overstayed their welcome after season 1.
Bumblebee was boring, the Constructicons were overused since they were one dimensional and the Dinobots were criminally underused/under characterised. All the bots and cons we saw for brief glimpses would have been nice to see in season 4.

Who would you have liked to have seen more of in this Series for being under-used?
Hot Rod and Blackouts teams would have been brilliant, more of the other bots and cons in season 4, more Jazz, Blurr etc too.

Favourite Character:
None comes to mind, I don't have a favourite and I don't hate any of the characters. In terms of design, I liked Prowl and Megatron (Earth mode).

Disappointing/Over-used:
Hate to say this, but Starscream and his clones were annoying, and seemed to be in your face a lot of the time.

Which characters I would like to see more:
Too many to list, would have loved to see the remaining Constructicons and then combining in Devastator. I wanted more Wreck-Gar and most of the Season 3 bots who only showed up in Episode 1 of that season (Oil Slick, Rodimus, Hot Shot etc).