Need something different...

[ITZTRU]

Hey guys and girls,

So when it comes to Transformers, I'm a US G1 fan. Toys (including masterpiece and palisades statues), animated series and animated movie. That's it. But as much as I love watching the series and movie, there comes a time when you sometimes need a bit of a change. So I go out and buy the Japanese continuation of G1 ie: headmasters, etc etc as I've never seen it before.

I gotta admit...not all that impressed. I bought the US region 1 versions of the G1 series several years ago (the ones with silver boxes and bonus animation cels) and i could go through each series in about a day if i had the time to do so and not get bored. I've had the japanese collection for more than 6 weeks now and i'm only half way through the headmasters series. As much as i'm sure i'll get through it all eventually, I can only stand to watch an episode at a time before I get bored. Either way, I'm still without that change I was looking for...

SO...

I was wondering what you guys thought of the Unicron Trilogy? Whether or not buying the set was worth it? What did you guys think of it? I guess...while we're on the subject...what about the Beast Wars/Machines series?

Your thoughts, please?!

Thanks in advance!

[Gutsman Heavy]

Watch Beast Wars its truly a great show BM is pretty good, albeit a tad "different". AVOID the UT its horrible, if you feel you need to watch the show at least skip to Cybertron.

[Defcon]

I found the headmasters a little strange at first, but it grew on me. There are many boring episodes. The english dub makes it humorous, but I enjoyed listening to it in japanese and read the subtitles. I totally understand about watching only one episode a day.

I found beast machines to be quite boring.

I have enjoyed watching transformers animated. I can recommend watching that series. Also maybe try watching Mask. Its not transformers but its a cartoon series. Im thinking of getting into this but I can't say if its any good.

[ITZTRU]

Yeah i heard good things about beast wars, but i dunno...the whole animal thing just never appealed to me...my cousin used to watch it...i guess i'll give it a try...

As for english dub...i know what u mean...i tried to watch jap version first...but i found myself reading subtitles more than anything else...eventually just switched to english dub.

Animated i've been skeptical about also. Not sure why...always looked a little TOO childish if you know what i mean...i know we're talking about cartoons and all but yeah...

I know all about Mask...i used to enjoy watching that as a kid. I always thought about buying the box set of that series also...might still eventually...

I'm going to jb soon anyway...might pick up blu ray animated if its in...i'll see what else is on the shelves

[liegeprime]

Beast wars is a very good one to watch, I actually finished watching it in 3 days - one season per day. My eyes were sore and at times my neck hurts but I was happy. It's got good story line that makes it very interesting and not too flooded with so many characters that makes the series an absolute toy plugging fest. Its more about the story and there's character development.

Beast Machines.. well I like it but not on the same level as beast machines. waaaay less. its kinda anti climactic sequel to beast wars actually.

Unicron trilogy... meh. I still want to complain about the parents of those children for allowing their kids to be truant delinquents, gallivanting in a war of alien giant robots. It sucks IMO, Id rather watch beast machines.. at least there's no annoying humans who seems able to avoid being squished to death by "ruthless evil decepticons". If I were a decepticon these kids wouldve been dead less than 5 seconds flat. I also hate the transforming "sailor moon" sequences which takes about a third of the story time in most of em. we know their transformation sequence after the umpteenth time its shown already , get on with the story! Oh and from what griffin has summarized before seriously many loopholes in the storylines and continuity.

Animated - would be next to Beast wars for me. It gets better as the series got older. Sure plenty of hit and miss but at least the annoying human turns out to be only semi human (oops erm spoiler?!?)

Japanese series G1 does have plenty of boring episodes, especially headmasters, I admit I kinda fast forwarded a couple of episodes when I watch em but since i watched them in Star TV before , its more of nostalgia watching for me, I dont need to go thru all of em just the pivotal episodes to get the whole plotline to the end... it gets better in the last episodes, kinda. I watched it in Jap with eng subs coz I sometimes end up laughing while watching it in dubbed, since I can tell that theres like 3 people dubbing it trying to change their voice with each character and failing miserably
Watching it 1 episode a day is enough indeed.

One series Id like to own and watch out of curio is the RiD/ Car robots but sadly it's not yet mass produced for our region I believe.You tube has only a few incomplete episodes. As far as Ive seen its interesting.... bar the Cheesy - pedo nature of Brave Maxs power hehehehehe

[Sky Shadow]

In decreasing order of brilliance, the only Transformers cartoons worth watching are:

Beast Wars,
Animated,
Beast Machines,
Masterforce and
Car Robots/Robots In Disguise.

Avoid the rest. And seriously, if you haven't watched Beast Wars, it should be leagues above everything else in the world on your 'to watch' list. I'm envious that you even have the chance to experience it for the first time, which - unless I get Alzheimers or something - is something I'll never be able to do again. It continues on from G1 continuity and is the best animated series Transformers has ever had. (And probably ever will have.) It won an Emmy. Watch it.

(In my opinion. Obviously.)

[Lord_Zed]

For me there is only Beast Wars and to a lesser degree Beast Machines.

So far none of the other TF toons have been able to hold my interest for more than an epside or two ( I haven't even managed to finish the ones I bought). Personaly I feel when comparing Transformer cartoons to other Cartoons of their respective periods, the late 90's era is the only time when Transformers shone as a well above average cartoon.

[GoktimusPrime]

The Headmasters is the weakest of the Japanese G1 series, although I think it's a LOT better than The Rebirth. Masterforce and Victory are a lot better. But IMO if you want better G1 canon then look no further than the original G1 comics from Marvel, a lot of which has been reprinted (and is still currently being reprinted).

Beast Wars is just absolute awesomesauce. It follows on from G1 and G2 continuity and actually enhances. I think that once you watch Beast Wars you never quite look at G1/G2 the same way again. And as Sky Shadow mentioned, it won an Emmy Award - Beast Wars is the only Transformers series that's won an Emmy (it's won more Awards than Revenge of the Fallen! ); the great thing about Beast Wars is that it was always written to appeal to both adults and children at the same time. There's plenty of action to appease kids but also a rich character-driven storyline (and cleverly disguised adult humour!) for older fans to enjoy. I think that those of us who were kids and those of us who were adults when Beast Wars came out would've enjoyed it for different reasons.

Beast Machines. It's a sequel to Beast Wars but is quite dark and brooding in tone with philosophical themes throughout. I really like how there are no real good or bad guys in it; simply that the Maximals and Vehicons are fighting for different causes based on different opinions, both of which seem right from their own POV. Both Optimus Primal and Megatron see themselves as heroes of Cybertron, with the lines between supposedly "heroic" and "evil" are suddenly blurred and become entirely subjective concepts. The series takes Transformers into a whole new and very controversial concept (technorganics).

The Unicron Trilogy... I watched both Armada and Micron Legend and I much preferred the Japanese version. I found the English dub really ruined it, so I never watched Energon or Cybertron (only seen Super Link and Galaxy Force). So I personally recommend watching the Japanese versions, but I personally think that it's better to watch all film literature in its original language.

[Jhiaxus]

You're going to run into the same problem with the Unicron Trilogy that the Japanese generation 1 cartoon had. It's a Japanese toy-based serial.

The people making it didn't give a crap about quality -- only quantity. There's a TONNE of episodes, and none of them are particularly good. Basically, you'll be wasting a CRAPLOAD of time to try and find the handful of awesome moments that hide in among the bullshit.

Sure there are some fun moments in Armada (Especially with the Unicron Battles arc), and the Cybertron dub can be a lot of fun... but to get to it you have to sit through endless boring stories about hunting mini-cons (oh god... such a yawn) or racing on Speed Planet. (Yes, somehow the Japanese production company managed to make a PLANET ENTIRELY BASED AROUND CAR RACING boring.)

Beast Wars doest not have this problem.
Animated does not have this problem.

You might find them jarring -- for various reasons -- if you're STRICTLY used to G1. They are not aesthetically the same as Generation 1 and the characters, despite similar (or identical) names, are not the same. But if you ACCEPT that it's going to be different before you go in it should be fine.

Both series, Beast Wars and Animated, are relentlessly fun with self-contained episodes that are entertaining on their own merits. They're also FILLED with character, acting (both the voice acting and the actual animation of the characters), and humour. They have some great action -- and are able to mix a sense of menace in with the sense of fun.

--Jhiaxus
(Masterforce is bad because every single story is the same. The Decepticons attack/whatever to draw out the Autobots. They draw out the Autobots and the Autobots kick their sorry arses. The first five or six episodes are really quite entertaining... but the rest isn't worth anything.)

(Victory is the opposite way -- it starts off really BORING. Same thing every time. Decepticons attack, Decepticons kick Autobot butt. Star SAber shows up and kicks the crap out of the DEcepticons. Then... suddenly... at one point it changes the dynamic completely. The story kicks into gear with the Decepticons rescuing Gaihawk from an Autobot prison, then shortly after that they're able to merge Leokaiser and really kick some butt. It's pretty good from there up until they introduce Victory Leo and things fall apart again.)

[Jhiaxus]

The Unicron Trilogy... I watched both Armada and Micron Legend and I much preferred the Japanese version. I found the English dub really ruined it, so I never watched Energon or Cybertron (only seen Super Link and Galaxy Force). So I personally recommend watching the Japanese versions, but I personally think that it's better to watch all film literature in its original language.

Yeah... I'm not sure that the Japanese language is powerful enough to make Cybertron or Energon even REMOTELY worthwhile.

I will totally agree that the dub REALLY hurt Armada. It was a sloppy, bored, dub... with no feeling, or sense of fun. No one wanted to be there and no one cared about the quality of the product they turned out. Boy does it show, too -- it's one of the worst dubs I've ever been exposed to.

Cybertron's dub is a LOT more lively, and tries to bring to life some horrible episodes. But there's only so much you can do with an episode where Optimus Prime transforms (Stock footage), then Leobreaker transforms (stock footage) then they merge (stock footage), then they attack Megatron (stock footage attack powers) then they realise they aren't winning, so they UNMERGE (stock footage), then REMERGE WITH LEOBREAKER AS PRIME'S OTHER ARM (the same merge stock footage from before, but FLIPPED).

Terrible. Cybertron was so FILLED with stock footage they barely bothered to animate anything else -- certainly not anyone's faces.

--Jhiaxus.
(The Japanese should never be allowed to create the TF cartoons -- because they're so quantity-over-quality focussed. They don't care whether the individual episodes are worthwhile, as long as there's enough of them to fill the timeslot.)