When Did One Continuity 'Drop The Ball' While Another One 'Caught' It?

[FFN]

To sell toys.

[Sky Shadow]

To sell toys.

Hey - by coincidence I only edited that page yesterday and the edits have been retained. Yay. Anyway re: "to sell toys" - yes, all the continuities exist to do that. It doesn't change the fact that some of them do it well at times while others completely stuff it up.

[SilverDragon]

I feel that initially the Japanese Beast Wars continuaty dropped the ball. Seriously, Beast Wars is supposed to be just beasts (hence the title). No vehicle alternate modes (aside from Transmetal ones), period.

In the cartoon, however, Hound goes to a museum and brings back some tourist snaps:

WHEELJACK: If only we had some dinosaurs working for us. They'd really shake up the Decepticons.

RATCHET: Mmm. I'm with you, Wheeljack. We could build robot versions of those oversized iguanas -- if it was okay with Optimus Prime.

OPTIMUS PRIME: Robot dinosaurs might be useful. You have my authorisation.

What? That's it? Other than the fact that for some reason Prime's lines make me want to punch him or the scriptwriters in the face... the Autobots can just make Transformers now? Why don't they just make an army of them and... I don't know... actually beat the Decepticons?

Of course, the real problem is why Wheeljack built them with such small brains (and then gave them FLAMETHROWERS) in the first place.

[GoktimusPrime]

I agree. Anyway getting back on topic...

+ Shockwave: I prefer the G1 comic version. The G1 cartoon version was rather dull - just an obedient lackey for Megatron who was left behind on Cybertron. Comic Shockwave is the one we all really love - running on cold logic and vying for leadership of the Decepticons!

+ Galvatron: Again, prefer the comic version. Cartoon Galvatron was a rampaging retard. Comic Galvatron was a freakin' god. I agree with Paulbot's sentiment about the comics handling post-movie continuity/characters better than the cartoon.

+ The Dinobots: Prefer the comic version for reasons cited by Sky Shadow. On top of that Swoop and Slag have some dark secrets - Swoop has been dishonoured (and longs to regain his honour) and Slag is a Berserker.

+ Ultra Magnus: Prefer the comic version, even if he did get the crap pummeled out of him by Galvatron repeatedly. As they say, a hero is only as good as the villain he fights. Cartoon Magnus wasn't a bad character but lacked decent enemies to fight (and was also overshadowed by Rodimus Prime).

+ Headmasters (series): Comic version of this story is my favourite. Second favourite is the animé and US cartoon (The Rebirth) is my least favourite - although I will give kudos to the US cartoon for making more of an effort to make the Nebulans look alien (e.g.: green skin). One thing that bothers me with the comic Nebulans is the fact that they all look like Caucasian humans. What an inter-galactic fluke, eh. As a character comic Fortress Maximus (and his relationship with Spike) is my favourite. But there is a certain coolness to The Headmasters' Fortress Maximus in terms of being the Autobots' main starship. The transformation scene is really cheesy but kinda cool from a kids' POV (like Voltron's merge sequence - illogically over-dramatised but it looks cool!) It's not like BWII~Armadaverse where I think it went too far (because everyone got over-done transformation sequences).

Sixshot: Japanese animé version is my favourite. I really like his moral ambiguity.

Japanese G1: I prefer the animé over the manga. The Victory Decepticons never had freakin' wives and children in the animé (*shudder*). And I agree with Chris McFeeley about the final battle between Star Sabre and Death Zaras - best G1 cartoon fight ever since Optimus Prime vs Megatron in Transformers The Movie.

G2: Prefer the comic. Not hard considering how crap the cartoon was. *shudders@cybernet.space.cube*

Armada: Preferred the comics. The cartoon was mediocre at best and the English dubs just trashed them and made them vomit-inducingly horrific IMO. The Mini-Cons were quite dull in the cartoon... the fact that they couldn't talk didn't help. I really liked how the comics showed the Mini-Cons as an under-class in Cybertronian society. I found Carlos, Rad and Alexis less annoying in the comics. The Worlds Collide Saga was really cool, although the ending wasn't quite as dramatic as I thought it would be (I guess because we didn't see a truckload of known TFs get killed off like in G1 ). There were some cool moments in Micron Legend - particularly the characterisation of Starscream and his relationship with Alexa... but I felt it was lost in the English dub. The artwork in the comics would've been a lot better if the artists weren't compelled to draw the humans in manga style and just stuck to doing them in Western comics style.

Super Link/Energon: I can't decide which I prefer - the Energon comics or Super Link animé (I've never seen Energon, but I've heard that the English dub is really bad). Super Link was fairly ordinary as a series, but it occasionally had a few interesting moments - like when Kicker and Roadbuster started discussing the meaning of life. That's pretty heavy sh!7 right there. The Energon comics I found wasn't done as well as Armada. Again, I didn't like the way the humans were drawn with the "forced manga" look (that's not to say that non-Japanese people can't draw manga style - of course they can... unfortunately I can't say that about the artists at Dreamwave). The whole "belly of the beast" thing was cool - but then the series got canned just at that point! Gah!! It would be interesting to see how the Energon comics would've been if it'd been allowed to finish... but I guess we'll never know. :/

Classics: The Timelines story which portrays the Classics TFs as being a direct continuation of the G1 comics (ignoring the UK comics and G2) is my favourite form of Classics canon. The Henkei catalogue manga is good in terms of being a unified story - as really goofy as it may be (although the Galvatron story was kinda okay). I only wish that the comics were more commonly available and could include Universe-Classics characters. I'm glad that we can at least see some Classics & Universe characters in All Hail Megatron though - just from a visual POV.

...I could also say that I prefer the Story of Binaltech over the Story of Alternators... but that would be facetious.

I feel that initially the Japanese Beast Wars continuaty dropped the ball. Seriously, Beast Wars is supposed to be just beasts (hence the title). No vehicle alternate modes (aside from Transmetal ones), period.

That doesn't count because Japanese Beast Wars is in the same continuity as the Canadian series (much like how the UK G1 comics are in the same continuity as the US comics). This thread is about comparing different versions of the same continuity. Like you could compare Hasbro's Beast Wars origins with Mainframe's Beast Wars origins. I prefer Mainframe's by a long shot.

Also, you need to keep it within the context of the stories. In the Canadian they all scanned beasts from life forms and DNA samples found on pre-historic Earth. In Beast Wars II the Maximals scanned local life forms on the planet Gaea, but the Predacons scanned records of vehicles from an ancient Gaean computer. Beast Wars Neo's characters are all beasts though - not vehicles. So your statement is at best only 25% accurate.

[FFN]

Energon is one of the worst (actually english-speaking and not Malaysian RTM-1) dubs in Transformers. Of course, it wasn't helped by the... Japanese flavour the series occasionally had, like Mirage being Gay For Galvatron (complete with love hearts), or that scene where Starscream is forced to bow down and make a face apology to Six Shot on behalf of his feudal lord Galvatron.

Hey - by coincidence I only edited that page yesterday and the edits have been retained. Yay. Anyway re: "to sell toys" - yes, all the continuities exist to do that. It doesn't change the fact that some of them do it well at times while others completely stuff it up.

You made a typo, jerk!

[liegeprime]

I just find it ludicrous in the G1 comics (marvel) that Prime personality can be all kept in one single "floppy disc". Its not even a laser disc or "a set" of discs. Just A disc. Man talk about a lack of personality!! . And they spend technology on crystal engrams used to house peronalities ( e.g. tracks, grapple et al) when it would've saved more space on just a simple floppy filed neatly in one corner of their ship. For all their vaunted tech and size, G1 comics TFs are nothing more than shells for a floppy disc size of a personality. what a let down. My PC could then store and preserve their whole generation.

Having said that there are some aspects I like better in comics than in the toons

Dinobots in Comics rather than the dumb and dumber Dinos in toons

In comics one has a better medium to explore more on personalities later on to make them interesting ( floppy disc size they may be aside) - e.g Bludgeon, Scorponok, Thunderwing

One thing the toons have over the comics though is that voice characterizations bring about greatness and at times makes the character really famous and endears it to fans no matter how campy or lame it is. Perfect example - Starscream. Sure he is depicted as a conniving scheming deadly second in command in the comics but at the back of everyones head they are reading it with Chris Latta's Screamer voice. And as such all subsequent Screamers HAD to HAVE that screechy whiny voice. It just wouldnt be Starscream without that voice.

[Kyle]

I prefer Jetfire/Skyfire's origin in G1 cartoon.

[i_amtrunks]

I think that the AHM series dropped the ball on what Furman had going in the "-tion" series of comics. That and in order to get AHM out as early as possible, Furman had to cut right back on his work, making a mockery of years of setup.

[kup]

I think that the AHM series dropped the ball on what Furman had going in the "-tion" series of comics. That and in order to get AHM out as early as possible, Furman had to cut right back on his work, making a mockery of years of setup.

Yeah his latest QA section is filled with comments about having to cut back on the stories due to lack of time or administrative decisions.

[Golden Phoenix]

I sort of mix and match things anyway.
And you have to take the good with the bad, the bad bits kind of help us because they make the better fiction look even better.
Plus, there is bound to be someone who likes the other fiction, so I guess its just up to personal choice and everyone can be happy