With every show character that gets introduced, every toy that we see... it's like that character fades entirely from my G1 nostalgia databank. G1 Grimlock / Slag / Swoop? Gone. Megatron? Starscream? Optimus? Bumblebee? Gone too. Blitzwing, Jazz, Ultra Magnus... yep, gone. Animated is fulfilling my G1 love so completely and perfectly that I just don't really care about the old stuff anymore. It's weird.

And I think I want every Animated toy ever.

tell me about it. but theres also classics 2.0 coming a well...

gotta remember that.

Animated is an awesome show. It just shows the writers loved G1 so much

Animated ARE Classics now, IMO.

My G1 nostalgia isn't disappearing, it's actually kinda being reinvigorated by seeing someone do it right. I find myself wondering about/hoping for Animated Cosmos, Powerglide, Cyclonus, Springer (who would rule on the Elite Guard, BTW), any gestalt team at all, Alpha Trion, Perceptor...I'm craving characters I hadn't given a second thought to in ages.

But my Beast Wars nostalgia - which I always considered to be the pinnacle of Transformers storytelling - is in critical condition.

I have been feeling this.

I'm definitely experiencing this, though that's been coming for a while. For me, a lot of the BW appeal was "it's a Transformers show that isn't ghey." Animated has non-gheyness out the wazoo, plus awesome character design (suck it, haters) and more G1 fanwank than you can shake an energon rod at.


yes, I just said that

I would have to go against the general consensus here and say no. Other than some small "easter egg" like references and tributes here and there, this show doesn't really scream "G1" to me all that much.

It's very much inspired by G1, but it's definitely not G1 to me. Well, it might have some similarities to the G1 cartoon... but I'm not the biggest fan of that. To me, the G1 comics were always the "true" source of G1 canon and the Animated show just doesn't hold a candle to it IMO.

...and I so hate how the Animated Dinobots are bunch of savage retards. (-_-)

The G1 comic is lacking in coolness and I only acknowledge its existence in a "I have evidence it exists and, therefore, cannot pretend it does not exist" kinda way.

But in fairness, I feel that way about all Transformers comics - stories about shapeshifting robots are infinitely less interesting when you lack the ability to actually watch the shifting of the shapes because the stories are in a static image medium.

Transformers in cartoons and movies are good times.

I prefer the stories in the G1 comics a lot more than the G1 cartoon. But a comic better than the current fare offered by Animated? No wai

I've been screaming that Animated is my fav show for a while now, but it's all in the story telling. It's been about 22 years since a cartoon inspired me to buy a specific toy and this one is no different. This show is the win of wins in the transformers line, but there are still very few of the toys I've seen that I want. This was much the same with Beast Wars where I absolutely loved the program but loathe most of the toys (of the 3 BW toys I own all were given to me rather than purchased of my own volition.) I will say that I like the way the characters look on the TV, but the toys mostly still look not my taste in the flesh, but then there's plenty of media I take in that I'm not inspired to get toys of.


So anyway, Animated = . Toys = not my cup of tea.

I agree with nutlag mostly. I still haven't seen all the toys tho. but will probly buy some of them anyway(magnus). I mean for crying out loud I bought armada stuff.

until I see Ramjet go back in time to ye oldie England and head buts a knight of the realm Animated will never replace G1

I completely sympathize. It's exactly what I needed from a TF show, since the only shows I have ever watched were G1, RiD, and now TF:A. Everything else was crap IMO. But Animated is weird like that, I want EVERY toy too. The only series I have every toy from is Classics. It's a bizzare feeling, but the nostalgia is gone for me too.

I for one never liked a lot of the original Decepticons. Especially Megatron. This Megatron is

What I really like about this series is that they've put in just the right amount of Transformers to make things work. At least on the side of the Autobots anyway.

I'm still curious to see if more Decepticons are going to team up with Megatron.

Well I don't think he seriously plans to take over Cybertron with three people, even with Space Bridge technology. I'm pretty sure Megatron's going to get a few more troops as the series progresses.

I see it as the "Battlestar Galactica" approach: take something with beloved characters and/or concepts that still hold lots of nostalgic value (and not much else), smoosh it all around, gussy it up with sharp writing and three dimensional characterizations, and voila! Something people might actually like years from now on more than a pure "oh, those were they days!" level.

I'm not sure you get what I'm saying...

Animated doesn't scream "G1" to me, it's actively sucking all my interest away from G1. It's like the fulfillment of everything G1 could have been / what I wanted it to be. And it happens almost literally the way I described it above. Every time they introduce a character in Animated who was in G1, I cease caring about that G1 character. I don't give a crap about G1 Blitzwing anymore, or G1 Ratchet, or G1 Megatron or G1 Optimus Prime or G1 Bumblebee or G1 Soundwave or G1 Starscream etc. It's like going back to your hand after you've had a real woman.

not to get too -ish with the metaphors

I think you're thinking of Beast Machines. That was the one that took a bunch of beloved characters, turned them into whiny angst-machines, stuck them on ill-lit sets, and had them act out a plot that made little to no sense and made it clear that despite the writers' extreme pretentiousness they really didn't have any clue as to where the story was going.

Animated, on the other hand, is actually good.

I never got the sense the Beast Machine writers didn't know where they were going...I didn't like where they were going, but I never doubted they knew what they were doing. And the Beast Machines story makes perfect sense - again I don't like it, but it makes sense.

Let's not let our prejudices influence the discussion, please.

You're right. I suppose it wasn't fair to Beast Machines to compare it to Battlestar Galactica.

Excellent retort.

Wait, am I to assume you harbor a deep respect for the original "Galactica" while actively hating the re-imagining? Are you, in fact, noted 80s television cheese producer extraordinaire Glen A. Larson?

The old Battlestar Galactica was cheesy at best and damn near impossible to watch at worst.
The new Battlestar Galactica is easily the best show on television, IMO.

This is true times a million.

I had some old BSG nostalgia b/c I used to have a Cylon Raider toy. Only ever saw the show once or twice, though. Needless to say, that nostalgia disappeared within five seconds of seeing the new BSG.

Beast Machines is totally awesome too.

But I've fought that battle already.

Nah, I'm not getting that at all. I see G1 and Animated as entirely different universes, and quite frankly, Animated just isn't as good as G1 (again, primarily coming from the G1 comic POV). I appreciate Animated and G1 on different levels so they don't really clash with each other.

I mean, when Beast Wars came out it wasn't as if my appreciation for say Optimus Prime or G1 Megatron dwindled because of my appreciation for Optimus Primal and BW Megatron. IMO Optimus Primal and especially BW Megatron are much better written characters than their G1 namesakes. I love how BW Megatron is an intellectual villain who maintains and gains power by manipulating friends and foes against each other. But that's never effected my feelings for G1/G2 Megatron - I still like that character in his own regard for different reasons.


That's a shame. I thought that Blitzwing was one of the more interesting characters in the G1 cartoon, especially when he became a conscientious objector to the war - which is a pretty mature concept and something that I applaud G1 writers for having done. Especially in Season 3 which was primarily a crap series - Blitzwing's objection was one of the better moments. Whether you believe he was rebuilt and reprogrammed as Octane ... well... I don't really buy into that, but either way, his turning his back on the war was a cool moment IMO.

Mind you, it's something that Thundercracker should've done (as it would've been more in character too) but they just weren't promoting the first year toys by Season 3.


G1 Ratchet will always have a special place in my heart; and IMO none of the other Ratchets (or other Autobot medics) have ever been as cool as Ratchet. His courage and sacrifice rivals that of Optimus Prime. Who could forget the moment that Ratchet sacrificed himself when he tackled Megatron onto a pile of explosives before an opening warphole. The resultant explosion was presumed to have killed both Ratchet and Megatron, but ultimately they suffered a fate worse than death that saw Ratchet begging Prime to kill him.


Again, even though BW Megatron is my favourite Megatron, I still do like G1 Megatron on his own merits.

Unlike say, Wheelie, who has no merit.


Animated Prime really feels like a rehash of Optimus Primal - who is a very cool character and I prefer him to G1 Optimus Prime in many ways - although I don't think that Animated Prime is as cool as Optimus Primal (yet?); although he certainly has the potential to be as cool as Primal. We'll see.

G1 cartoon Prime is a very bland and one-dimensional archetype, rather than an actual character. Mind you, that's most of the G1 cartoon Transformers in a nutshell - archetypes rather than characters.

And I'm getting a similar vibe from the Animated TFs as well, a lot of them (e.g.: the Dinobots) seem like a bunch of caricatures rather than characters. Some of them have had some character development, although in some cases it's either insufficient and/or inconsistent.


I see G1 and Animated Bumblebee as very, very different characters who are nothing like each other beyond namesake and some visual similarities. Animated Bumblebee is more like Rattrap than Bumblebee - although not quite as cool. Like Prime, he has the potential to be as cool as Rattrap, but that all depends on how the writers with develop this character in future eps (if they choose to develop him at all or allow his character development to stagnate, as it has with Prowl (T-T)).


Animated Soundwave was nothing like G1 Soundwave other than his voice and appearance. Now G1 Soundwave had two distinctly different personas in the cartoon and comics, and Animated Soundwave is like neither of them. If anything, Animated Soundwave is more like G1 Shockwave - cold and calculating who makes all decisions based on his perception how, as Shockwave would say, "logic dictates."


Starscream is yet another caricature rather than a character. (-_-)
I do like how he's more beguiling than cartoon G1 Starscream was, which is more accurate to his original G1 (tech specs) persona. Cartoon Starscream was way too direct and open, which was out of character. G1 comic Starscream was more cunning, which was more accurate. IMO Animated Starscream has a long way to go before I can compare him with G1 comic Starscream... if they introduced the Underbase into Animated then that might be a start - may not improve his character, but he'd sure kick a LOT of arse.


Or man (not for me, but I'm trying to be inclusive here). I dunno about the rest of you, but I've never given up the former after experiencing the latter. Ms. Palmer and her five daughters are always in the mood when you are.


Continuity-wise, Beast Machines most definitely makes sense. There are no continuity clashes with Beast Machines - it actually slots into G1 continuity better than Beast Wars. Remember that some of the BM writers were also writers on the G1 cartoon.

the problem with the BM story is that it totally boxed itself in at the end. It's really difficult for other writers to continue from having Cybertron as technorganic. Even TF Universe writers, who wrote stories that followed from BM, basically took the Transformers off-Cybertron, effectively meaning that they didn't have to continue addressing the whole technorganic Cybertron issue.

If you were to follow up from BM you would have to either:
a) Continue with Cybertron as being technorganic - which wouldn't be a very popular decision.
b) Undo Cybertron as being technorganic, which would suck because it would make Beast Machines and the Maximals' battle seem pointless. (-_-) Bad enough that the Oracle has since been retconned as a malfunctioning Quintesson artifact.

But I don't really blame the writers. IIRC it was Aaron Archer's decision to make the Maximals technorganic, and the writers had to work that into the story in order for to promote those new toys. Put yourself in those writers' shoes - you have to write a story to promote a toyline where the good guys are technorganic and the baddies are technological. Ultimately the good guys need to win, which means that technorganicism has to triumph over technology.

What I don't like about BM is how some of the characters just became completely out of character, and essentially entirely different characters from their BW selves.
e.g.:
Rattrap: by the end of BW he was very confident and charismatic. In BM he suddenly becomes insecure for no apparent reason.
Megatron: "Evil triumphs!" (The Agenda). In BW Megatron was a villain who revelled in being a bad guy and was acting solely for personal gains. In BM he see has developed a Messiah complex - sees himself not only as a hero, but as Cybertron's saviour (and for those who are opposed to technorganics - he IS a hero!). Although ultimately he's working for himself (to make himself the sole uncontested ruler of an enslaved Cybertron) he's doing it from this heroic justification, which BW Megatron never did. Don't get me wrong, BM Megatron is a VERY cool character in his own right - he's the only Megatron who's actually carried out G1 Megatron's motto: Peace through tyranny, but he's just not the same character as BW Megatron. And what's with the hatred toward organics??
Rhinox: he's NOTHING like BW Rhinox. 'nuff sed.

TL;DR

I'll definitely have to say that Beast Machines is my second favorite series now. No TF series has come so strong right out of the gate like Animated has.

I'm not having that.

and BM is the best TF show evah!

What about Beast Wars? That was like the Transformers Renaissance. As Damolishor2 said in another thread, it breathed new life into a dying franchise. It wasn't as if Generation 2 was blistering with success. Transformers was on its last legs until Beast Wars came along and saved it. You have to give BW a lot of credit for being so successful considering that it followed after a series of crashes...

Crash 1: Cancellation of US cartoon series after 1987
Crash 1.5: Cancellation of cartoon series in Japan. 1990 line becomes almost entirely dominated by Autobots.
Crash 2: Hasbro line is dominated by Action Masters.
Crash 3: Cancellation of G1 comic series.
Crash 4: G2 fails to adequately restore fandom.

Animated on the other hand is following a series of increasing booms in TF interest.
Boom 1: Beast Wars
Boom 2: Car Robot/RiD & G1 reissues
Boom 3: Binaltech/Alternators & Armadaverse
Boom 4: Live action movie

...also, Beast Wars dared to be different - we'd never seen true beast moded Transformers before. Animated is sticking to the tried and true formula of vehicle moded Transformers.

So I give a lot more credit to Beast Wars as it came out in a much tougher time and was a much more ambitious endeavour.

Don't get me wrong. I love(So to speak) BW. But BM is a better series.

As a kid, I thought different. I hated BM. After I saw BM again, I realized why: It's not a kids show. It's boring as hell if you're under the age of 14(I was 11 when BM came out).

As for credit... Yeah, BW did a lot. To me at the time, however, it was just another Transformers show. The beast modes didn't bother me any due to the Dinobots and Sharkticons in G1.

Although I respect Beast Machines a lot more in hindsight, no way is it a better series than Beast Wars.

Point of Unity: Both of them are not as good as Animated

It depends on what you're looking for. Animated is everything I ever wanted G1 to be (much as BW was a "better G1 with animals"), but Beast Machines has a level of artistry and thematic depth that is miles beyond anything else in TF-dom. There are moments in the show that are as good as anything I've seen in the genre.

But I really don't directly compare the two, because they have such different emphases. And Beast Machines is really its own story anyway. I don't consider it to be "Transformers," just "Beast Machines." Continuity is overrated. (A lot of dislike for the show could be alleviated if people just looked at it that way IMO.)

Which is to say, BM is different enough from Animated for it not to be threatened by my growing Animated luv. Beast Wars, on the other hand.... DANGER WILL ROBINSON because what I loved about Primal in BW is being done at least as well in Animated, and he's not a MUNKY this time.

At this point, the only safe G1 territory for me is TF:TM, which I doubt Animated will revisit. (Ultra Magnus notwithstanding, but we all know he sucked in the movie anyway.)

and P.S. seriously Goki... you might want to start a blog or something, because no way is everyone reading those 5000 word posts of yours.

I'm loving animated, but it's hard to let go of g1... but my love for g1 is primarily TF:TM related. TF:TM is what G1 should have been from the beginning. A war with consequences >>>> laser fire that doesn't do any damage.

Though I can sympathize with ur feelings because for a while, the New Live action movie usurped those characters in my head as "The Optimus Prime" and "The Bumble Bee" but that faded. Not that I don't totally heart the movie still, but it's compartmentalized away from G1.

For me, all my G1 nostalgia is primarily tied up in the toys. I didn't really watch the cartoon much as a kid and only saw the movie once, so as far as the Animated cartoon goes it doesn't really have any big shoes to fill. For personal reasons, Beast Wars sits at the top of my TF show pinnacle and I don't think Animated will be able to replace it there. That's not to say that Animated is not a good show, I'm enjoying it a lot, but I don't think its going to be able to fill Beast Wars shoes. At least in my book.

Now, as far as the toys go, I don't care how cool/sweet/neat/ the Animated toys are (and believe me, I think they are going to be all those things x10 wrapped in burrito), nothing...NOTHING...is going to replace the euphoria I experienced back in the mid-80's when I was tearing open the box to my G1 Blitzwing.

I lovers to movie Prime because of the trukk and the flames and the Peter Cullen-ness of it all, but that never got confused in my brain with G1. I think it made G1 seem more iconic, actually.

Animated is more dangerous for me... especially if they end up growing/maturing Prime so that he eventually becomes the more G1-ish heroic leader we all know. If they give Prime a character arc like that in Animated, it's all over.

Transformers Animated Season 3: Optimus PWNS some Decepticon ass.

I agree here mostly.
I think the movie pretty much wiped away the remnants of my G1 Nostalgia.

But what others have failed to mention is that - this nostalgia has been eroding for quite sometime. And a great deal of that has to do with actually sitting down and watching G1 again, as an adult. Even TF:TM, as much as I lurve it mucho and stuff, bugs the heck out of me with it's totally brutal first half and its baby-cakes second half.

And its not so much that Movie prime replaces G1 prime or that TFA Prime replaces anybody (In my head TFA-Prime really replaces RiD only, but i guess tahts just because i am thinking of his alt mode literally). Its just that the Movie felt like the satisfying conclusion to my G1 love. Like sitting back from a huge meal, I can be happy that its done and that I am full, and that does not diminish or disrespect any of the work that the chef has done.

I disagree with Pete that TFA intrudes on BW territory, primarily because I don't have any Nostalgia for BW at all. ALL of my experience with BW is as an adult, so once I got into it - the idea of BW-Animals has never bothered me. It (along with BM) is it's own entity completely.

But I totally agree that TFA almost perfectly captures what G1 could have been. And what it apparently was inside all of our minds.

And BTW - I have read all of the Marvel comics and while marginally better than G1 cartoon they still dont hold a match up to the current crop of TF-Media (even IDW is light years beyond marvel and i pretty much hate the IDW stuff).

Goki- it doesn't help the discussion (of the CARTOON series) to go off on some tangent about some comic series you read, and suddenly act like you have the moral high-ground.

Click to view attachment

It's probably true that my interest in BW has been slipping for some time. The beginning of the show is really just another G1 with animals and no shadows, and it takes a long time before it gets to something that I enjoy watching more than once. I used to think of BW as "the legitimate TF show" but no longer. Not that the show wasn't great in parts, just that I don't need it anymore.

Is it too early for mid life crisis? Seriously, BTs, Alts, MPs, THS, Classics, tons of the AEC stuff, The dreamwave and IDW comics, All that stuff stole my G1 nostalgia years ago. I stopped my G1 collecting once I saw proto pics of MP Convoy and BT Smokescreen online.

I'd argue that BTs, Alts, MPs, THS, the IDW and Dreamwave comics, and most - if not all - of the Classics count as "G1" in the context of this discussion.

Agreed.
Words can not describe how fulfilled my geek life became the day I got BT-Smokescreen.

It depends... I think it's different for each person. As far as I'm concerned, G1 is the cartoon, the toy line from 1984 up until about 1988, the Takara "Generation One" stuff, and the early DW comics.

IMO

BW and Animated shows rock
Quite a few BW toys rock
Not so many Animated toys rock
A/E/C shows suck
Quite a few A/E/C toys rocked
G1 show was ~ eh, but it started it off
G1 toys were primitive, and I don't collect them
Occasionally an old toy will look great, and I'll buy it, but it's normally because of the character (or is a non-TV character ie Energon Sharkticon and Predacon )

Oh, and personally, G1 =/= Classics. Not released in the right years...

G1, to me, is anything clearly intended to be a G1 character, regardless of year of release:

All the Masterpieces.
The Binaltechs (canonically, in fact. And so, by extension, the Alternators in my mind).
The Classics.
The Dreamwave and IDW comics.
The G1 Titanium characters.

None of this is part of the "G1" toyline, I realize. But it's clearly all meant to feed on the nostalgia in a more intense way than, say, the overall of the RID, A/E/C, or Animated stuff. So, if we're talking about stealing your G1 nostalgia, it would be relevant, no?

If it is to you, then yes. But to me there's a difference between drawing on G1 luv and outright replacing it. Which is what I was describing above. Everyone is different, though.

I hear ya. But if G1 Prime is no longer a character you care about, are you really gonna be hunting down a MP Prime for your collection? Let's be honest, same dude, right?

In my case it counts but only because at that moment (BT-smokes and then the Movie) I felt like i didn't need to see any more G1 figures in that vein.

No more "Car Brothers" no more "red truk prime" - if they did something COMPLETELY new at this point and made Prime a starfish or something - i would be ok with that.

I like the show, and if anything it makes me think more about G1. Wanting to see more of those generation characters. The toys I am not a fan of for maybe except one or two I want to retool.

I hope all the characters get replaced/show up on the animated show.