The Transformers...

[Mark D.]

Some people say that I'm "obsessed" with Transformers, so is there anyone there who still likes them?
Besides me, of course.

[OtakuRob]

Me for one..

There's gonna have to be more than just two of us Transfans on the forums here..

But as we all know, Decepticons/Destrons/Destrongers/Predacons are the best..

Gods did Beast Machines ever suck...

[gniticxe]

Yeah, I definitely remember getting up early when I was like 14-15 to watch Beast Wars in the morning. I liked it because it (and ReBoot) were the first complete computer animation shows. But I moved, then the new series came out (was that the Beast Machines you were talking about OtakuRob?) and never found it again. But imo Beast Wars was a kickin show.

[David Kelly]

that has to be the best show ever!! the new one that is on now is terrible. it's not even close to the real deal

[OtakuRob]

Okay, I've had to go through this so many times, so I'll just limit this dissortation to just the American broadcast shows:

Inspired by previous mecha design and the likes, Transformers, premiered in 1984. In 1986, the first and only Movie came out, with such names as Robert Stack, Judd Nelson, Eric Idle, Orson Wells, and Leonard Nemoy playing Ultra Magnus, Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime, Wreck-Gar, Unicron, and Galvitron, repectively. After the movie, the show lasted one more season in the US, finding termination after 4 episodes of Transformers: Headmasters..

Headmasters was picked up in Japan and continued until the premiere of Transformers: Car Robots. Hailed as a kickback to the old-style vehicle mecha, while still keeping the Predacons in the picture..

While this was going on, in the early 90s, Generation 2 came out in the US.. Toys for the original vehicles were slumping and this was to be the marketing ploy to end all marketing ploys.. It failed.. G2 went down the tube, as old episodes were rehashed for the 20th time and the toys were merely repaints.. Though the Megatron Tank was cool, and the Oil Rig Optimus Prime is worth a mention..

Beast Wars appeared in the late 90s, totally computer animated and throwing a whole new spin on the original while weaving a whole new storyline.. Cameos by Starscream's spark, Ravage, and a bunch of G1 bots in stasis on the Ark topped off a series of great characters, namely Inferno, Waspinator, Blackarachnia, Dinobot, and Rampage in my opinion. (notice a trend??)

Beast Machines was the ultimately lame follow-up to Beast Wars.. What can I say, the premise was flawed, the characters were warped beyond recognition, and the "organic transformations" were terrible.. they were more of shapeshifters than Transformers..

Well anyways, Car Robots, remember from above??, was reboxed as Transformers: Robots in Disguise, but since only one season of Car Robots aired in Japan, only one season of RiD aired here.. No chance of anything else.. Notables here include Gigatron (renamed Megatron in the english version), Scourge ( a black version of G2 Optimus with cool little upside down autobot ensignias on the shoulders), repaints of Devastator ( known as Buildking) and Bruticus, (forgot the new name of the gestalt).. Oh, and the fact that it's the only series where Predacon and Decepticon factions work together..

That would be that.. It's interesting to note that there was a group of Decepticons from G1 called Predacons, they joined and formed Predaking.. Also, the name of the Decepticon faction changed..(Decpticons-Destrons-Destrongers-Predacons) Mostly due to translation and differences in the japanese and english languages.. Also, all told, 4 planets, give or take 1 were destroyed over the run of the show, including Mars..

If you wish to know personal favorites, just ask.. my fingers hurt after typing that one..

[Carolyn Duncan]

I used to have the toys all over the place. My favorite was the recorder that used real answering machine tape! Yeah I used to play with toys that were "for boys" but why would I pass up a chance to have Transformers and have to get My Little Pony crap? They still show Transformers on cartoon network but at odd times. So now I'm wondering... am I the only girl who liked 'em? What about Thunder Cats? They used to come on right after Transformers.

[OtakuRob]

Actually Caroline, they can't show Transformers on CN.. A lot of anime is considered "Mecha" anime, which basically means that there will be big transforming robots of some kind, the current fad used to be Wing Gundam, and now Gundam and 08th MS Team.. The liscencing(sp?) rights are way to costly for CN to purchase, in my humble opinion.. I'm pretty sure you were thinking about Voltron if it came on before Thundercats, in the hey day of Toonami.. Remember?? Herculoids, Voltron, Thundercats, Ronin Warriors??

That's my two cents anyways..

PS~ Do you mean Blaster or Soundwave, Caroline?? Both were cool, but my pick from the two was Blaster.. A boombox always beats a walkman.. Though Soundwave had the better Cassettes..

[Carolyn Duncan]

I KNOW WHAT TRANSFORMERS ARE! I couldn't stand Voltron. I do know that they still show Transformers on tv, I would almost swear to seeing them on CN but if you say no then ok.
And the Transformer i had was not one that played music it recorded stuff on the mini tapes.

[Mark D.]

Whew...It's good to know that I'm not alone.

I agree. Beast Machines really did suck. The "drone" idea was a big mistake, in my opinion. It's better to have a lot of different robots, like on the generation one Transformers, a few like on Beast Wars, than to have a bunch of mindless robots that are there only to take up space.

Speaking of Beast Wars, I never did see or learned how it ended. The latest I episode that I know of is when "Megatron"* turned Transmetal 2. So OtakuRob, do you think you can fill me in on what happened? The "good" seasons of Beast Wars on the WB were not shone in the state that we moved into and because of the time difference, I couldn't even watch Beast Wars on FOX.

*I think that the writers could have thought of a new name to give to the Predacon leader. I mean Optimus Primal souds tacky but at least it's a little bit original. There's only one Megatron, and he was the leader of the Decepticons.

Voltron sucks!
Voltron the 3rd Dimension sucked even more.

[Wetzel]

Beast wars was icky...
However, I don't remember far enough back to when Transformers was on tv, although I do still have some of the figuri...action figures.

[OtakuRob]

I'm gonna try to answer all the questions..

First off Caroline, I'm sorry if I sounded like I was being snobbish..
Secondly, the only TF on TV were Robots in Disguise, which, as I said was Car Robots, which was shown on Fox.. that run ended and there is no more.. there is however on CN, Gundam, I think Zoids was showing for a while, and CN did show a week of Beast Wars, I believe.. My mind is a little foggy as that was a while back..

Oh, that was still season 2.. we got about 17 episodes... The ending of Beast Wars, as I remember it.: ((Spoiler Alert out of habit))

Well, I'm giving you the short version.. Full episode summaries to be found at Go here!!

When all was said and done, Megatron( now a dragon) was captured, strapped to the front of the Maximal ship, and they all went back to Cybertron.. Megatron being one of two Predicons live.. The other, Waspinator, was left on earth as a sort of a god type..

Some important events: The Ark, remember the Ark, was discovered, and Megatron came close to destroying Otpimus Prime, that's right Optimus Prime not Optimus Primal.. It was revealed that the Golden Discs told the history of the Cybertronian Civil War from Megtron's(G1) point of view.. A rebuilt Ravage, the casette, appeared and helped the Predicons for a short time.. The leaders of the Predicons appeared as well, the Tripredicus council.. Dinobot was rebuilt, in a cool Frankenstien episode, with the help of half of Rampage's (explained below) spark.. Megatron became a dragon at the end.. Proto-humans were discovered.. And I forget what else, really..


As for some other characters.. Protoform X, aka Rampage, kicks back to Starscream, as the preliminary test of an indestructible spark, if you remember, Starscreams spark came back and posessed Waspinator.. Rampage's rival, Depth Charge, came and began causing problems.. Dinobot was rebuilt as a cyber-raptor, he was all skeletal and cool..

That's most of what I can remember.. The transition from Beast Wars to Beast Machines was terrible..

And Voltron wasn't that bad.. I liked the original movie.. they just changed it too much for much of the series..

That's my piece.. I'm out for now..