70's, where everyone was oddly happy about something.

 

And the "TRANSFORM!" shout-out is cool, to me..it makes Transforming seem like a power, not an ordinary thing for them. That was the problem with G1...they made Transforming such an ordinary occurance that they had to start using Headmasters and stuff to re-define the gimmick...at least in the new shows, Transforming is still significant.

Whereas they aren't using ANY transforming gimmicks in Energon.

I dont know BC how significant is transforming to TRANSFORMERS as the mythology goes, they had the power on cybertron. actually I could care less, the sound is the most important (the speed of the sound is also irrelavant)

 

also the call outs are reminiscent of prime yelling ROLLOUT and picard saying ENGAGE. its not awful, just awkward

Not reading through all the pages of posts, so sorry if this has been covered. We'll start with toys:

 

Overall the articulation of Armada is better, but given that the toys were designed 2 decades later, they'd F'n better be. In terms of looks, I'd say that for robots it's a toss up, whereas with vehicles I'd say that G1 easily wins. And there are cases of G1 toys being far better than Armada toys (Armada Jetfire isn't fit to carry G1 Jetfire's jockstrap). The minicons gimmicks were OK at best, whereas the true gestalts of G1, the triplechangers and several other gimmicks were nothing short of awesome. Ultimately, I can say that G1 was heads and tails over any other toyline prior to and current with it. Armada was a big step back from G2, BW, BM and RiD.

 

Show: Like with the toys, G1 blew it's contemporaries away. Armada was an unwatchable joke compared to nearly all other cartoons on against it. But, forget that, I'll just compare these two shows as if they were contemporaries. G1 still kicks Armada's ass. Let's take it by the numbers:

 

1) Pacing - G1 was excellently paced, very exciting and fun to watch. Armada was the most poorly paced cartoon I've ever seen. That's not an exageration, a huge portion of each episode consisted of characters standing around silently staring at each other. It's as if the writers had twenty episodes worth of material and had to stretch it out to fifty-two, and the only way that they could think of to do that was stall like hell.

 

2) Action - G1 had great action and fight scenes. Excluding episode 52, Armada was once again, a sad joke. Close quarters combat consisted solely of hand holding, and the firefights were a still picture with lights flashing back and forth. Pathetic.

 

3) Dialogue - Next to pacing, Armada's greatest flaw. The dialogue for Armada was written for the kids on the short bus. Not to say that G1 was Shakespeare, but it did have quite a few gems. Nothing on par with "I've never seen anything this beautiful in the entire galaxy! All

right, give me the bomb" or "Sometimes it's better to be known for one's ennemies" was ever found in an Armada script.

 

4) Prime - G1 Prime was a solid, decisive, definitive hero. Armada Prime was a wishy-washy wet noodle who consistantly acquiesed to a 12 year old boy.

 

5) Art - Both series had highs and lows. G1's highs were much clearer and better.

 

6) Overall Story - Armada was too heavily dependant on minicons, basically reducing the show to a large scale scavenger hunt. G1 did have the quest for energon in it, but it wasn't ruled by that quest and they easily navigated around it.

 

7) Humans - Sparkplug and Spike were OK, and Daniel was a little annoying. But they were friggin' awesome when compared to the three (and later five) dumbcraps in Armada. I'm still amazed that Hispanic groups didn't protest Hasbro at how Carlos was depicted.

 

8) Originality - I don't think I need to mention G1's originality. The story was created without anything remotely like it occuring before (yes, the story was created before the Gobots), it resembled nothing that came before it, and it was a smash hit. The writers were put through the wringer to pump out new episodes, and while with many of the episodes those time constaints are very visible, most were very entertaining episodes that still hold up today. Armada consisted of the following: Bots and Cons at war on Cybertron, bring war to Earth in search of something to give them the edge in the conflict, Bots befriend humans, Transformers with combining abilities threaten to tip the balance of the war, Giant, planet eating transformer named Unicron is an approaching threat, Bots and Cons band together to fight Unicron, Prime and Megs have an all out brawl to the death, Prime dies (though not really) and a young pain in the ass with the first name 'Hot' takes command. In the originality department, I'm afraid I'm going to have to give Armada a big 'F'. It plagarized a 20 year old show, had plenty of time to work with, knew the overall direction of the series beginning to end from the get go, and still managed to make it inferior to everything that has come before it and since.

 

Overall, to say that Armada was on par with, much less better than, G1 is a pathetic joke. Keep Armada lumped with DinoZoars, that's more its speed. G1 certainly has its flaws, but it's still infinitely better than that crap Aeon shat out.

In japan Armada had better animation better namesand better writing.

P.S. Prime dies before Unicron shows up and in japan Hotshot was Hot Rod.

Good points didnt we first start seeing this with beastwars, some advanced machinery that is. they probably do it now to remind the kids what they are watching but it is not that new. I remeber watching voltron as a kid and thinking that everyone should know that Keith would make the head.

 

They did say "transform" in BW, but not every single time. As for the Voltron comparison or phrases like "Transform and rollout" or "Engage", that to me is not the same either. They would say that like once or twice an episode, but to have every single transformer letting me know they're going to transform just bothers me. I'd much rather have some cool sound effects. That's just my opinion though.

I don't like them shouting it out But I do like the Pretty transformations.

As much as I like G1, Armada is the superior series. Armada features the greatest Megatron of all-time...

well thats chocolate and vanilla for you. I thought Arm Meg's character was pale in comparison to BM Megs. Good, just not as good. Well, whatever floats your boat! :)

Having said that, I like G1 better just for the fact that they don't say "transform" everytime they do it.  How annoying.

Amen brother! That is the most annoying thing ever! It can't be said enough.

Smithsquared Post in TFans

:)

 

Good points didnt we first start seeing this with beastwars, some advanced machinery that is. they probably do it now to remind the kids what they are watching but it is not that new. I remeber watching voltron as a kid and thinking that everyone should know that Keith would make the head.

hahah me and my friends make that joke all the time!!

 

"and I'll form the head..."

 

 

NO SH%T!!!!

Yknow, if I looked at my Beast Machines Night Slash Cheetor, and said to myself, "Well...I bought this toy hoping for a transforming evil spaceship, so I give it an F." that'd be f'n stupid.

 

both shows had their ups and downs. I felt the G1ers had some more different characterization...but Armada took some chances that G1 really didn't, and its end was much more dramatic.

Each has its pluses, and minuses.

 

Cmon...how cool would it be for Downshift to be a New-York accented, mad scientist good guy? yeah, no originality, but can you label any current autobot with that much personality?

 

well anyway, my point is, I enjoy each show for what it's worth.

 

I don't look at cheetahs expecting spaceships.

Wheeljack/Downshift talks in english some times in SL...or is that Towline?