The artwork is unorthodox, and whenever Transformers takes on an unorthodox aesthetic, there are portions of the fandom who can't accept it.Originally Posted by kristofferrer
Transformers traditionally bases its aesthetics on Japanese mecha (which indeed is its origins - Diaclone, Macross, Dorvack etc.) which is often rich with detail. Animated uses the more contemporary "Cartoon Network" style which is all the rage in American cartoons now (e.g. DC, Powerpuff Girls, Clone Wars, Ben 10 etc.) -- and it's a style that is intentionally very simplistic. I'm personally not a fan of this style of cartoon, but if the story's good I can overlook it. And technically there's nothing wrong with this style, it's purely a matter of personal taste.
I was the complete opposite. I didn't like the first 3 eps. In fact, I don't like Season 1 in general... too childish and lacking in story-telling sophistication for my tastes. But the final eps of Season 1 (Megatron Rising) were the first that really peaked my interest. The human villains are just teh suck. Season 2 -- there were eps that I absolutely loved, and others that I hated (SUV = collective suckage). Season 3 on the other hand was just pure win... it's the only season that I consistently liked. Then it got cancelled!!And of course, I'm still waiting for Season 3 to come out on DVD!
So yeah, I started disliking the show, then came to like it. But even now I'll more often re-watch episodes from Season 3 and select Season 2 eps, but I hardly ever re-watch Season 1. I want Season 3 DVDs!!!
Well that would be because the toys were engineered in tandem with the cartoon. i.e. Hasbro would make character designs which would be given to both the animators and toy designers at TakaraTOMY - so both the animators and the toy designers were basing their designs off common concept sketches from Hasbro.
This is an unusual way for Transformers to be developed; usually Transformers are created as toys first, then later on artists will design comic book or cartoon models based on those existing toys. So generally speaking whenever you see a visual discrepancy between a Transformer toy and cartoon, it's not the toy that's show-inaccurate, but the cartoon that's toy-inaccurate!
Now there are pros and cons to designing Transformer toys in tandem with animators (or even based on animation models, as is the case with many movie toys). The advantage is of course that the toys do look more like what you see on screen. The disadvantage can be in the engineering, because toy designers are suddenly restricted by having to design a Transformer toy and "forcing" it to look like something that a cartoonist has envisaged. And it's a LOT easier for a cartoonist to design a Transformer than it is for a toy designer... griffin recently described Hasbro's concept sketches and TakaraTOMY's design sketches as comparing a child's crayon drawings with a Picasso.Because cartoonists don't have to worry about things like:
+ Reality - where do all these parts go in robot mode? How do they get there?
+ Cost - all toys must adhere to a controlled budget and conform to a size and price point
+ Play issues - is it intuitive for a certain part to move this way? Would it require a tiny part that is easily broken and present a choking hazard? (e.g. Masterpiece TFs; which is why they're marketed at mature collectors in Japan). If Hasbro wants TakaraTOMY to engineer a gimmick into the toy, then further compromises must be made as well.
I'm personally not a huge fan of Transformers being designed as cartoon models first and toys second, I much rather prefer them being freely designed as toys first then let the artists worry about how to design them as cool looking animation models. Nowadays animators are able to do three dimensional scans and use those 3D renders to build animation models. This is what Mainframe did with Beast Wars -- Hasbro sent them toys, they scanned them and built their show models based on those scans. And it also shows that the animators played with the toys that Hasbro sent them too! This is particularly evident in Transmetal Optimus Primal's "assault" robot mode -- it's NOT an official part of that toy's transformation; there's nothing on the packaging or in the instructions that elude to this, but the toy can transform that way! It's like a fan-mode that the animators made up and incorporated into the cartoon!!
I don't know about you, but I remember after watching "Aftermath," the first thing I did was grab my Transmetal Optimus Prime toy and transform him into that assault mode!
You can still find some Animated toys shelf-warming in stores today. Just last Sunday I found an Animated Skywarp at Myer. About week or so before that I found Wreck Gar, Shockwave, Atomic Nut Convoy and some others.
And yeah, collector fairs should have them at fairly cheap prices... don't pay above standard retail prices for these toys, because they are still pretty recent. Also, the Leader Class toys where shelf-warming so bad, didn't TRU slash their prices down to something really REALLY cheap? I don't remember the exact price, but I remember seeing and thinking "Damn! I bought those toys at full retail!" and wished that I'd waited for that sale. Ah well.And even on sale they still took a long time to sell off.
+1. They axed it just as it was getting really really good! The same thing happened with the G1 Marvel Comics! And Beast Wars! I really wish Hasbro would stop doing that!
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