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Post by The Doctor on Jan 19, 2009 19:47:13 GMT
Nominate your favourite animated incarnations of Transformers, and say why! I've not included single episode things like Scramble City or Zone as one show does not equal a series
-Ralph
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Gav
Drone
John Travoltage!
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Post by Gav on Jan 19, 2009 19:52:49 GMT
I've plumped for RiD, which I'm sure some may scoff at.....but hey!
It may not have the best overall storyline of any Transformers series - and the dialogue may be terrible at times - but the humour, the robot designs and frankly - Sky-Byte make a firm favourite. Animated nearly got a look-in but who knows where series 3 will lead us.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 19, 2009 20:17:40 GMT
Super God Masterforce, because it _does_ have the best overall storyline of any Transformers series.
Other reasons:
- Because it is told from the perspective of the humans, the Transformers appear as both giant and alien throughout.
- It is a genuinely new story building on the original 1984 robots-in-disguise concept without being in any way a re-hash. All other TF series I am aware of are variations on the original theme. Masterforce isn't a variation, it's a progression to the next level.
- It builds steadily from the early episodes, which are grounded in familiar situations, escalating smoothly to the later episodes, in which entire continents are destroyed and the heroes find themselves completely out of their depth and without hope.
- It is a 42-part PLANNED STORY. Not made up as it went along, not written with possible cancellations after X issues like the comics, or dependent on success for a second or third series like Beast Wars and Beast Machines. Masterforce showed what could be done when you let imaginative writers off their leash.
I will expand on these arguments in an essay at some point in the future...
Martin
PS I think the pre-Movie cartoons should be considered a separate series from the Movie-era cartoons. If they had been, I might have given them a vote as well as Masterforce, for the original concepts they contained and childhood love (plus the Dinobots, of course)... but not if they're lumped together with the Movie bunch.
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Post by legios on Jan 19, 2009 21:13:05 GMT
I was always going to be voting for Chojin Masterforce here. Martin has already adumbrated my main reasons for doing so - it is structurally the soundest of the lot, with a strong sense of progression to the story and more characterisation than a lot of the other shows. It tells a coherent story, and moves in a logical fashion from where it begins to and ending which grows out of what has gone before - and it also has villians that really feel like they are competent enough that they actually could win the day (such a pleasant change from Megatron in the Sunbow series - who may as well have had "Decepticons Retreat!" as his battle-cry). Rarely have things looked so bleak as they do in the final quarter of Masterforce, and so its heroes shine that little bit brighter as they stand up for heroic virtues in adversity.
Stellar stuff. (It also has a great voice cast in the original language.) It manages to be at the same time a good Transformers series, and also to be a good superhero series(it plays a lot of the traditional cards of Japanese costumed hero shows as well as the Super Robot ones along the way).
Karl
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Post by jameso on Jan 20, 2009 8:47:53 GMT
I've gone for Masterforce, mainly because I've only watched it recently and it's therefore fresher.
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jan 20, 2009 10:46:20 GMT
Beast Machines narrowly edges out both Masterforce and RID for me. That is my top three of the shows. Masterforce has a strong narrative but there is a bit of filler which is something I find increasingly annoying in all tv shows. BM has a lean and tight narrative arc, one or two missteps but arguably one of the most ambitious TF shows we've been treated to.
Andy
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chrisl
Empty
I still think its the 1990s - when I joined TMUK
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Post by chrisl on Jan 20, 2009 13:06:18 GMT
Victory (Predictably) here. Masterforce does run it a close second though. I'm surprised someone hasn't tried to make a comic that fills in between Masterforce and Victory given all the love for those two serieses on here.
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 22, 2009 23:33:41 GMT
I think for me it's a 3-way tie between Super-God Masterforce, Robots in Disguise and Beast Wars for favourite show, depending on my mood. The first has the most gripping and interesting storyline of the cartoons, the second is the most fun to watch and the third is generally a good solid watch. The wooden spoon goes to Victory, which even devoid of the awesome comedy dub has a certain something to it.
-Ralph
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chrisl
Empty
I still think its the 1990s - when I joined TMUK
Posts: 1,054
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Post by chrisl on Jan 23, 2009 9:31:09 GMT
2010 is the worst series by a mile.
Masterforce is a super-hero type effort while Victory is more a traditional Samurai type affair. Beast Wars has dated badly visually. I find RID worse than the star dubs but love Car Robots just slightly less than Masterforce.
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Post by jameso on Jan 23, 2009 17:08:27 GMT
Victory (Predictably) here. Masterforce does run it a close second though. I'm surprised someone hasn't tried to make a comic that fills in between Masterforce and Victory given all the love for those two serieses on here. For me, as soon as I finished Masterforce I had 'I want to see what happens next' moment, but then I realised what I had enjoyed about Masterforce, the humans working with the Transformers, was finished, and what happens next was a generic robot fight. So, in some ways I'm not that interested in what happens between Masterforce and Victory. That's not to say I wouldn't watch/read it if it happened though! |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 24, 2009 20:07:59 GMT
Ho! Just found the bonus Masterforce episode where Grand Maximus explains the plot to Shuta, which I'd never seen before. It begins half way through this video:
Also, some violence with jaunty musical accompaniment:
Martin
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chrisl
Empty
I still think its the 1990s - when I joined TMUK
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Post by chrisl on Jan 26, 2009 15:07:46 GMT
I'm annoyed that they didn't put the Big Book of Master on the Masterforce Boxed Set.
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 26, 2009 17:05:40 GMT
Yes. It is kind of essential. Neither the Metrodome nor Madman releases have it, though at least the Metrodome commentary mentions it.
-Ralph
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Post by legios on Jan 26, 2009 22:07:06 GMT
For my part I've never had the feeling that anything should or could directly follow Masterforce. The show does such a good job of resolving the character arcs of the most of the lead characters that I don't feel there is a great deal in the way of untrodden ground to explore with them. It is a solidly structured story - with a beginning, middle and end - and it would almost seem a shame to open it up again and spoil that structure. (But that's just my slightly askew perspective on it).
For the record my runners-up for the slot were Beast Machines, (and there is my love of clear narrative progression showing, it was perhaps the Transformers series that set its sights the highest and I love it for its ambition), Robots in Disguise because its somewhat gonzo humor and refusal to take itself even vaguely seriously is, in retrospect, such a pleasant antidote to the po-facedness that was to follow.
Behind that there is the duo that is Beast Wars and Victory slugging it out for the last qualifiers slot.
Karl
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