Will G1 ever be "dethroned"?

[GoktimusPrime]

From here:

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.

[d*r*j*]

I think that with some invesment and the right vision G1 could be blown out of the water. I mean with people my age (around 30) there is a huge sentimental draw towards G1 and all that it embodies.
But most people want to go somewhere further than that...
And what do those people get? A great live action movie to get people's blood racing and movie toys that have no hands (jazz, starscream) have no faces (swindle, clone planes) break easily (bumblebee) have backpacks (voyager prime) or... and this is the really bad one... the main bad guy transforms into... nothing really.
Animated is a joke. Well the show is anyway, saw a few episodes seems to be about some creepy friendship between a little girl and a slightly retarded robot.
It's like no-one wants to even try and out do the mid eighties.

[jacksplatt11]

seems to be about some creepy friendship between a little girl and a slightly retarded robot.

Hahahahaha

[Golden Phoenix]

It's all up to opinion.
I think the main reason it wouldn't be dethroned is because it was the original.
Everything is going to be compared to it. It is the start.
Most people just like the original thing, and are usually hostile to change.
So when they do go to make a new series they usually try not to change things way to much.
They learnt that from what happened with beast wars, remember "Truck not monkey"

[Hereticpoo]

To Dethrone G1:

Every adult fan who grew up watching G1 would have to *ahem* kick the bucket. Touch wood, everybody!

Every new fan would have to watch G1 cartoons AFTER seeing a new kick ass CGI version of G1, Final Fantasy movie style, M rated, with kick ass writing by novelists and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Jerry Seinfeld.

The new toys from said new G1 would have to be perfectly detailed and scaled, cost no more than $40 for ANY figure size and be painted by the Gamesworkshop 'Eavy Metal Team.

And Robot Points

[Robzy]

To Dethrone G1:

Every adult fan who grew up watching G1 would have to *ahem* kick the bucket. Touch wood, everybody!

Every new fan would have to watch G1 cartoons AFTER seeing a new kick ass CGI version of G1, Final Fantasy movie style, M rated, with kick ass writing by novelists and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Jerry Seinfeld.

The new toys from said new G1 would have to be perfectly detailed and scaled, cost no more than $40 for ANY figure size and be painted by the Gamesworkshop 'Eavy Metal Team.

And Robot Points

Piece of cake!

[roller]

it will be superceded one day


Im sure the majority of G1 fans are 20+ yrs and thus will die within the next 50 years

I dont think Beast Wars has done what G1 could do, make people come back to it years and years later when they've grown up. I see people who had every beastwars toy when it first started, nowadays they can't remember what Beast wars is, so i think Beast wars doesnt and will not ever have the nostalgia appeal.

Animated might lure a few people in the future to become fans

[GoktimusPrime]

The extinction of G1 Transfandom doesn't count as the "dethroning" of G1 btw. I'm talking about whether or not something else can ever replace current Transfandom's love for G1 - I believe that was the spirit of jaydisc's question (correct me if I'm wrong jd). Making a new generation of fans like something else is fairly effortless - converting existing fans, especially those of us who grew up with G1 to switch to something else is much harder. Beast Wars came the closest, but never replaced Transfandom's love for G1 - not that BW ever intended to.

Every new fan would have to watch G1 cartoons AFTER seeing a new kick <expletive> CGI version of G1, Final Fantasy movie style, M rated, with kick ass writing by novelists and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Jerry Seinfeld.

The new toys from said new G1 would have to be perfectly detailed and scaled, cost no more than $40 for ANY figure size and be painted by the Gamesworkshop 'Eavy Metal Team.

Dude... that's still G1, just reimagined - like the live-action movie, Armadaverse, Animated, IDW Retro-G1 et al. As I said, I think the closest has been Beast Wars - something which was drastically different from G1 and was the second most successful TF franchise next to G1.

[Tiby]

I think Beast Wars came the closest, and in my book is equal to and in some instances better than G1, but given the way shows are written for kids these days, I doubt anything in future will dethrone G1.

[Sky Shadow]

I actually believe it was dethroned during the Beast Wars years - in the fandom, Trukk Not Munky fans were the minority. G1 regained its crown after the Beast Wars were over. I think it was probably a combination of Beast Machines not being as great (or for us - even shown on free to air in Australia), G1 DVDs coming out, the Dreamwave comics and - mainly - people who'd been non-fans for fifteen years suddenly feeling nostalgic and getting back into the Transformers they remembered as a kid.