From here:

Quote Originally Posted by jaydisc
Will G1 ever get dethroned? :/
Unlikely.

G1 has always been the most popular TF line because:

+ It's the most common denominator in Transfandom. Some fans aren't into Beast Wars, some aren't into G2, some aren't into Beast Machines, some aren't into Animated etc. - but almost every Transfan likes Generation 1.

+ It was the line that gave birth to Transformers and Transfandom. Without G1 nothing else TF would exist. I think G1 will ever remain the fan-favourite TF series just as the original trilogy remains the fan favourite amongst Star Wars fans.

+ G1 was awesome for its time. Transformers reaped US$100,000,000 when it came out in 1984, becoming the most successful toy introduction ever.* Back then, when you picked up a toy like Soundwave, Jazz or Optimus Prime, most fans didn't complain about the lack of articulation or fragility of the toys - they just thought they were great toys and fell in love with them... a love that has endured for 25 years now.

+ Along with the toys was the mythos attached to them which fans also came to love. We had tech specs bios, books, comics, cartoons etc. - some kids preferred the comics others preferred the cartoon... but everyone loved G1. And again, it has endured for a quarter century.

The only way I see that G1 could be dethroned as the fandom's favourite would be for a new TF franchise to come along that gives us a whole new twist on Transformers - not just some "upgrade" of G1 like Armadaverse, the movie franchise and Animated essentially are - and then for the fandom to fall in love with that line to the point where it overtakes their love for G1. The only series that's come close to doing that was Beast Wars. The reason why Beast Wars didn't 'dethrone' G1 though was because, as kup has often pointed out, Beast Wars actually serves to enhance G1 (and G2) - Beast Wars made a lot of people enjoy G1 and G2 on a whole new level! Beast Wars was intentionally written to compliment existing TF canon, not to negate it.

We would have to see something like Beast Wars come along that would actually attempt to supercede G1... but some might argue that part of Beast Wars' success was its ability to maintain G1/G2 fans rather than "fighting" against them, yet still give Transformers an entirely new and fresh direction.

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*Schodt, Frederik L., "Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics." Tokyo, Kodansha, 1986.