Like any gaming fanbase though, they reacted like dickfruits from the bellend tree when the first trailer for the newest game in the Ace Combat series was released back in August 2010. The new trailer showed a new type of gameplay – fast, furious destruction at close ranges, following an enemy aircraft in close proximity, and attacking until it exploded into a shower of debris. It also showed the use of attack helicopters, and the ability to play as a helicopter door-gunner.

The executive producers statements were that they were reinventing Ace Combat to bring a new life into the series, and to try and invent a new style of gameplay with more cinematic elements, and a more in-your-face feel to the action. It was also announced that the games’ setting would be moving from the fictional world used in the original six games, and Ace Combat X, to the Real World.

Of course, now that things had changed, the series was Ruined FOREVER, and could not possibly be any good, ever again. The Waaambulance was summarily called to cart away the stroppy pricks of fans who had already decided that they were never going to play again. Everyone else of a sane mind waited nervously for more news.

As more trailers and news came, things began to get interesting – the new trailers showed new types of aircraft, such as bombers and attack helicopters. More information was released about the plot, and the new style of gameplay. Promotion of the game kicked up a few notches, with industry magazines and websites began to pay a lot more attention.

Of course, there was still a lot of doubt around about the game itself – lots of it was calling up comparisons between Assault Horizon, as the new game had been named, and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare, or HAWX, especially due to what had been seen of the gameplay style, the setting, and the plot.

Now that the game has been released, and is in it’s fully finished form, has the wait been worth it, is Ace Combat Ruined FOREVER, is it Ace Combat: Modern Warfare, and most of all, is it any good?

The answer is, yes and no.

I’ve been a fan of the series for a very long time, since the first game back on the PS1, back in the early 90’s. I’ve played almost all the games, and I’ve liked every one.

It’s true that the game has needed a reinvention – Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation,the first title to be on the 360, was good, but

lacked in a lot of areas. Notably, the choice of aircraft to use was less than generous than many of the earlier games, and the variety of missions was sorely lacking.

Especially infuriating were the cast of characters, and the disappointing storyline, compared to the other games in the series. The Multiplayer was tedious, and the promised downloadable content resolved only to often pointless or game-breaking reskins of the existing small range of aircraft.

So, Assault Horizon has a lot of work to do to try and get past these issues. And it lives up to the task quite well, it’s safe to say.

The game opens by shoving you firmly into the action, and opening with a big bang, giving you a spectacularly gorgeous landscape of Miami to fight in the skies over, an aural lovemaking of a soundtrack, and enough action to leave you tired. It also managed to cleverly teach you how to play during this, with a non-invasive tutorial, as well as introducing you to your main character. Who, in an amazing first for the series, actually talks!

Shortly after, you’re introduced to the rest of the cast, and to other the gameplay types – the notable door-gunner and attack helicopter sections.

The inclusion of these new types of play does break things up considerably, and adds a lot of spice and variety to things. Out of the two, being a door gunner is the less interactive, as all you have to do is point your crosshair at things and hose them with bullets from the minigun you’re manning. Although, that’s pretty fun, since it’s a minigun, after all. It also lets you do considerably more cinematic things with your firepower than Modern Warfare, such as shooting down incoming rockets, and even enemy aircraft at some points – but since you don’t get to control where you’re flying, it is a bit of an on-rails section, and therein are the limits of it.

The Attack Helicopter gameplay is quite different. You do get to fully control your chopper as you scoot around various locations, and hammer the enemies into dusty memories, and there’s a lot of tactics involved in avoiding their incoming fire. Ducking in between buildings at low level can be quite exciting, as is duelling with enemy helicopters or SAM launchers.

The sad part of flying the helicopter though, comes in that the controls for aiming and firing aren’t quite all there. The lack of a foolproof targeting system means that it can be frustrating when your attacks go wide, or otherwise miss a target that, by all of your aiming, should be perfecting in your sights. It’s also very, very easy to lose where enemy targets even are in some

missions, due to the colour of the crosshairs against the terrain. The option to change the HUD colour would’ve been helpful – but is sadly missing.

This doesn’t detract from the overall fun too much though, but can be pretty frustrating on a first play through, and should probably have been examined at some point before release.
In addition to the Helicopter and Door Gunner styles of play, both of which you get to experience twice during the campaign mode of the game, there are also the Gunship and Bomber aircraft to experience.

The Gunship is like the level in the first Modern Warfare game. Like that game, you get to act as the gunner on an AC-130 Spectre gunship, and target enemies on the ground below, of a wide variety of types, while supporting allied forces. The scope of the mission is much bigger than the one in COD and chips, and it’s a lot longer – but you only get to do it once, which is somewhat disappointing.

The same can be said of the heavy bomber section. You get to pilot a heavy bomber aircraft, to use it’s formidable payload of high-explosive rain to lay waste to a large area of real estate – but, you only get to do it once, which is a bit disappointing.

The rest of the game is devoted to what’s always been the mainstay of Ace Combat – fighter and multi-role aircraft operations.

The new style of gameplay makes this missions much more intense and fast-paced than in earlier games, and leads to you having a lot more methods to take down an enemy aircraft, and less tail chases or pointless circling than in earlier games. The new Dogfight and Air strike systems are a lot more cinematic than in earlier games, and leave the player feeling a lot more involved in the action, and up-close to what’s going on, than at a distance. Instant replays of your kills, and the meticulous details of the exploding targets are also shown lovingly each time as well – which is spectacular… but occasionally annoying, if you’re trying to concentrate on shooting down another target with priority. This is a problem overall though – some missions have you trying to shoot down enemy aircraft – such as bombers –

before they reach a certain point, or within a time limit, or else it’s game over.

With the dogfight system, it’s easy to lock onto them and giggle like an idiot while you rape them with the cannon and missiles – but it’s also easy to get attacked and blown into flaming confetti by an enemy plane, and fail that way. Breaking off to try shoot them down usually results in you failing the mission because the bombers have blown wherever you’re supposed to be safeguarding to little pieces, leaving you with a sense of frustration about the mission, and having to repeat the same bit of the game over and over again.

The fighter missions are well handled for the most part though, and have a lot of the up sides and good qualities that the earlier games had. A lot of the good elements, such as a choice of secondary weapons for ground attacks or better performance in air-to-air battles is kept, as is the High-G turns from Ace Combat 6, which are also an integral part of the dogfight system.

The choice of planes has been beefed up from AC6 as well, and types never flown in Ace Combat are also included. However, a dick move by the game results in only certain types of plane being able to be flown in certain missions. This isn’t even handled in a sensible way, such as only being able to fly carrier-capable aircraft from an aircraft carrier, and is instead seemingly completely arbitrary, and at the evil whims of the game developers.

It gets really annoying and tedious when you’re forced to choose from planes on one mission that you later can’t take, or that would’ve been massively useful in an earlier mission. Especially where certain special weapons are involved, that would’ve been extraordinarily useful against a certain target, but aren’t available because a plane doesn’t feature them.

This seems like a step backward from the freedom of earlier games, where the player was free to choose whatever they wanted for each mission. Even to the point of taking an A-10 ground attack plane on air superiority missions!

The choice of planes available is refreshing though, and the new types and marks are welcome. More are apparently going to be made available through DLC as well, and unlike the pointless and occasionally game-breaking downloadable skins for aircraft in AC6, these will actually be entirely new aircraft to fly. Whether or not they’ll be available for campaign as well as multiplayer may be worth considering, and will probably have a lot of effect on how well they are received by the players of the game as a whole.

With this large choice of aircraft though, it’s disappointing in some ways that other aircraft types are so limited. In the attack helicopter missions, you’re limited only to piloting an Apache – which is a surprise, when there are so many types of attack helicopter around the world, and even in the game, the Russian ‘Hind’ attack helicopter is featured so prominently – yet, you’re not given a chance to fly one. Multiplayer does feature the Hind as a playable aircraft – but not including it as an option in campaign seems like a big shame.
While you’re given a choice of two bombers to fly, the fact there’s only a single mission – albeit, a very, very good one – where you can fly one is a massive disappointment.

This is a big problem with the game overall though. While the plot does move fast, there are some occasions where details seem almost glossed over, or even missing, from the overall storyline. One notable occasion jumps straight from a seemingly unrelated mission to another point, and seems like you’re missing a huge chunk of story out, and the potential for more missions of all sorts of types. There’s even mention of the bomber pilot character flying a mission concurrently with the two other characters – the helicopter pilot, and Bishop, the fighter pilot – both of which you get to play, one after the other and not even remotely awkwardly. That the opportunity is missed almost seems like the game was rushed without this mission being included, or it being cut from the final release.
It seems a shame in a similar manner that so little of an attempt is made to use the gorgeously rendered cityscapes you can see in multiplayer, and in a meagre handful of the campaign missions.

Fighting above Miami in the first mission is a glorious experience – so why the hell are you reduced to spending so much time fighting above disappointingly boring generic-looking countryside, desert, and featureless water in other missions? If Miami can be made to look so good, and Dubai also, why not include somewhere really cool. I would’ve loved to be able to dogfight around the Pyramids and the Sphinx for example. Or fly under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Or the Grand Canyon!

Some other cities have been created and are seen in multiplayer, in the Capital Guardian mode of play. But, if they’re included there, it seems all the more a shame that they weren’t featured in the campaign. Again, it seems like a missed opportunity, which is the biggest problem the game has overall.

There is a lot to enjoy, and a lot that is exciting, new, different, and epic about Assault Horizon. It does have a great campaign, and while the story does seem like the Namco team went through the bins at the back of Activisions’ HQ to get the CliffsNotes version of the Modern Warfare 2 plot, it does have enough of it’s own variations to

be interesting – but ultimately, not as epic in scope as the earlier non-real world games.
It could’ve done with being a bit longer, and while multiplayer will give it a bit more life, Ace Combat has always been about the single player experience, and it’s that that needed to be looked at, and given the lease of life.
While it has changed, and it has been made better in terms of gameplay, that there’s not more of that new gameplay to be enjoyed is a big shame.  Assault Horizon is worth playing, and that’s for certain. Especially if you liked the other games in the series, or if you’re looking for something with aeroplanes and a lot of excitement, then you’re in the right place. Wait a few weeks to drop the cash on it though – the price will come down quickly (I got the Limited Edition, since I’m such a fanboy, although Namco have been nice, and released it at the same price as the retail for pre-order customers!)

Hopefully the lessons learned from this game, and the new things it’s added will be taken forward, and whatever Ace Combat is released next for the main consoles will be the truly epic game it deserves to be. In the meantime though, Assault Horizon will give you a few hours of feeling like an aerial badass to get you through.

rifles, machine-guns and handguns. And secretly, haven’t we all thought sometimes ‘man, I wanna be that guy!’

Everyone’s heard of paintball, but when the guns look more like bug-sprayers, and everyone wears neon sports gear, it’s hard to feel badass and like you’re in a gun battle as part of a crack military unit, or part of a SWAT team facing down a gang of criminals, or even just your favourite movie badass on the big screen.

But rejoice – because there’s another way to get your gunfight kicks – welcome to the world of Airsoft.

Similar to paintball in terms of the concept (as much as airsofters would beg to differ), airsoft guns use 6mm plastic ball-bearings at a velocity of no more than 350 feet per second. This is to ensure that while you feel a hit, it doesn’t leave a lasting mark or impression – and it doesn’t hurt too much to stop you enjoying the game.

Games are wildly varied across all manner of playing arenas – there are woodland and urban airsot sites, based in things such as underground disused bunkers, Hospitals, factories, disused RAF or Army bases, swathes of woodland and farmland, quarries and, probably unique to the UK, a shopping mall, up and down the length and breadth of the UK and other countries as well. The games themselves can be a single day of a number of individual games lasting anywhere from ten minutes to several hours, or can be multi-day ‘military simulations’, or ‘milsims’ with detailed backgrounds and storylines, multiple factions, props and even vehicles used by different groups involved.

Airsoft is a popular and growing hobby, with sites of all kinds across the UK, in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, as well as all across the rest of the world – so you’re never too far from a site.

How do the rules work?

Unsuprisingly, when you get hit by a BB directly from a gun (yes, friendly fire counts!), then you’re out. Unlike paintball, it doesn’t leave you visibly marked, so the games are run on the honour system. And it’s usually pretty easy to see when people are cheating. Mistakes do happen, and people don’t notice being hit from time to time – but when it’s genuine foul play, the penalty tends to be a stern talking to – and if the offender persists, then they’re usually chucked off site. Not to mention, earning the scorn of everyone else in the game. Unsurprisingly, cheaters aren’t very common in airsoft.

Most games run on players having a single life per being shot, and often use

things such as respawn points, similar to video games, or having to be tagged by another player to come back into the game – all of which add to the tactical rules of the game in progress.

The objectives of the games are much like any First Person Shooter you’d play online – capturing a flag, defending a base, planting a bomb, eliminating the other team. All of those are common game types in a normal one-day skirmishing event, and are common on all sorts of airsoft sites, along with a lot of other more inventive and varied kinds of games besides.

For milsim type games, things can get a lot more complicated and varied, with players being split up into varied factions, which are then further split into different groups, each tasked with different objectives throughout a day of playing, and often include things such as a command staff, radio communications, vehicles, and simulated fire support. In some cases, they’ll even include eating and sleeping in the field, and limits on how mcuh ammo a player can have on their person at a time, and what kind of magazines (for their weapons!) can be used.

I’ve had experience in both kinds of game, and enjoyed them equally. I’ve been in a game in the depths of the Welsh hills, in a village used for military maneuvers and training, assaulting buildings and facing down Armoured Personnel Carriers, Hummvees and exchanging fire with people sheltering in other buildings. Dodging across a garden to lob a grenade through windows, while counting on my teammates to give me covering fire. And it really does feel like you’re part of an epic set-piece battle, at the climax of a movie.

The Sunday games are often much more fast-paced and more like an online game, where there’s little background or storyline – but the action is all there, along with the playful atmosphere and chance to chit-chat and make some friends, as the groups are often much smaller than the far larger milsim-style events.

What about the guns?

The reason most people are interested in airsoft is, let’s face it, because they’re enjoy the idea of playing with guns, in one way or another.

Fortunately, Airsoft guns are of the utterly non-lethal variety. But of course, not still without deserving to be respected – Always wear eye protection when handling a loaded airsoft gun, as, despite the low velocity of the weapons, they could damage your eyes if hit directly.

Guns are available in a variety of styles and types. Most ‘shoulder weapons’ – that is, rifles, submachine-guns, and machineguns, such as the AK-47, M-16, MP-5, and suchlike, as seen in many video games and movies, are powered by a hi-capacity battery, like those in radio-controlled cars, and are capable of semi-automatic (aka ‘single-shot’) and fully-automatic modes of fire, and use a gearbox and an air piston to fire – which is where the name ‘airsoft’ comes from.

All sorts of guns and accessories are available, from things like flashlights, optical sights and lasers, to things like underslung shotguns or grenade launchers.

Handguns are also available, and most players will carry one as a backup

weapon for use in close quarters, or when they feel like it. Pistols and other handguns are usually powered by gas (normally a form of compressed HFC-134a gas), which is fed into a compartment in the butt of a pistol magazine, along with the ammunition. Of course, given the weather in Britain, this tends to mean that they’re less reliable in the winter time, but there are electically powered alternatives available – but they lack the authentic-looking moving slides and hammers, and the more meaty ‘crack’ when you fire a shot – and the near-real size and weight magazines.

In the UK, due to changes in the law regarding replica firearms over the last few years, it has become significantly harder to purchase an airsoft gun if you’re interested in the hobby. To do so, if you want a fully realistic replica, a player must be ‘registered’ as an airsoft player, which involves attending No less than three games at the same site in No less than two months, and getting this certified by filling in an application form from the United Kingdom Airsoft Retailers Association, who will check your membership when you purchase a gun from them – be it online, or in a store.

Never trust any retailer selling airsoft guns without asking for UKARA membership – They are breaking the law!

The exception to the above regulations would be to buy what is known as a ‘two-tone’ gun. They are airsoft replicas with at least 50% of the gun coloured anything other than a realistic colour – such as bright blue, or bright green, or any other delightful neon colouration. While they are legal for purchase by

anyone over the age of 16 and without a UKARA membership, most skirmish sites will not allow them to be used, as they are somewhat… distracting… from normal play. Some will let you use them if the neon portions are coloured with electrical tape or some other method of darkening it, but to do so yourself permanently would also contravene the law – as modifying a what is defined as an ‘Imitation Firearm’ into a ‘Realistic Imitation Firearm’ is illegal – even if you have your UKARA membership.

But there are still ways to join in, despite these regulations – most, if not all, airsoft sites offer the rental and hire of airsoft guns for a game day, along with eye protection and magazines for the gun in question. Some will also offer you the use of camouflage clothing for the day too, sparing you from getting your own clothes muddy or damaged. The only thing you’d need otherwise is absolutely a pair of boots – because your ankles will thank you afterwards!

Renting and going for a Sunday game is the best way to start playing – as it allows you the experience of playing the game, and handling the weapons, without having to shell out cash for your own kit first time – only to find out you don’t like the game, and it isn’t what you think. It also allows you to meet some people, have a look at their stuff and see what there is in the market, and to get some ideas on what you might like to do. You can also get your UKARA membership this way too, if you’re a UK resident. Even for those of you in the rest of the world, who have different laws and regulations regarding the purchase of Airsoft Replicas, rental is still the way to go, as you’ll get the best idea of what the hobby is like.

Airsoft is a hobby or activity that isn’t for everyone – unlike paintball, it has restrictions that deny it a wider appeal and availability, mainly due to the nature of the guns being replicas themselves. However, it can be an excellent team-building activity and a completely different day out of fun for a group of friends who are interested in doing something different and varied.

Most of the new players I’ve met or overheard lately have come to airsofting after playing video games such as Call of Duty or Bad Company, and wanted to see what it was like to hold full-sized replicas, and get out in a field and run around with them, wearing some similar gear and equipment. Other players are often active or retired members of the Armed Forces who have wanted something to replace the adrenaline they’ve had before, or people who want something similar to re-enacting, but more modern or with a bit more of a pace. And indeed, there are Second World War and Vietnam War-era period games, often on a large scale, and some other specialist sites often games that are a blend of Live-Action Role-Playing in settings with a great deal of time spent on background and storylines, as much as on rules and game details.

In short, if you’re curious or interested in the idea of airsoft, it’s worth taking a look into to find your local site, and maybe going along just for a day to see what you think – I’d recommend it, and I’ve been playing for years!

If you want to find out more, try some of these links:

Arnie’s Airsoft ((http://arniesairsoft.co.uk/news2/)) – a regularly updated news section, reviews of guns and gear, as well as a large, international forums section

Airsoft International Magazine ((http://www.ai-mag.com/)) – A monthly Airsoft Magazine, published and written in the UK, and available from all good high-street retailers.

UK Airsoft Zone ((http://ukairsoftzone.co.uk)) – a large forum site, with lots of resources for players old and new.

It’s another trip to my personal childhood memories with this show, as it was on when I was a young boy, and at the time when I had enough of my awareness to remember it, and love it.
One of the things I remember loving the most about this show was that the characters were all feline-themed, which probably explains a lot about my interests now in life, and appealed to me a lot because I’ve always liked animals.

I also like the show because of it’s memorable characters, action, and the look of it – which, even now and looking back at it, had some excellent animation compared to a lot of other shows of the time, with great effects in shading and colour, movement, and visual effects. It turns out, this is because most of the animation was handled by Toei animation, a Japanese company better known for animating series such as Captain Harlock, Devilman, Mazinger Z, the Dragonball series, and the video for Daft Punks Interstella 5555 – no wonder it looked so good.

This aside, the show was a pretty normal and average Saturday Morning Action Cartoon. It had clear villains and heroes, both of which slotted into pretty normal stereotype – the villains being villainous, and the heroes being moral, just, and right. Despite having a regular cast, villains of the week also regularly turned up, often bizarre and outlandish creatures with gimmick abilities designed to sell toys and serve weekly plots.

Unlike other cartoons though, there was a loose sense of continuity in the seasons, tying each loosely together into an order with a general storyline. However, this was usually lost due to TV Networks showing the episodes out of order.

Like many other 80′s cartoons, the show had it’s own theme tune, which was immensley memorable, as well as an excellent quality animated opening.

There was also a considerable amount of memorabilia, including a toyline that now sells for vast amounts of money, despite being limited and not seeing a release for the third wave of advertised toys, after the cancellation of the series.

Thundercats lasted for four seasons, ending finally in 1990 with the Thundercats returning to their reconstructed home planet, and settling down at last to forge a new society and civilization.

But lets go right back to the beginning, with the very first episodes, named ‘Exodus’ and see where it all began!

A short voice0ver gives a brief introduction to the characters and their abilities, as well as their outlook on life (justice, truth and the american way honour), as well as the mutants, their villainous enemies, and Mumm-ra, a ‘devil priest’.
And that’s before the show’s even begun – then the opening theme kicks in, with the gorgeous animation, and singalong theme!

The action starts with the Thundercats – who are, apparently, like a group of  ‘nobles’ in their society – leaving their planet Thundera, which is destroying itself volcanically and through earthquakes. The Thundercats debate waking up Lion-O, their ‘leader’ and a young boy.
Weirdly, all the Thundercats appear to be naked.
Well, not quite naked – they are wearing belts, boots, and accessories… but no obvious clothes. But they also apparently have no genitals or nipples… probably just as well.

Anyhow, Thundera explodes and destroys itself, before Lion-o’s eyes, as Jaga, the wise advisor, counsels him on the responsibility of being leader, and introduces to him the Sword of Omens, the most important artefact, along with the ‘Eye of Thundera’, embedded in its’ hilt, giving them all of their powers.
After a bit of exposition, Jaga explains that the Sword is alive, and can do all sorts of cool things, such as seeing ‘sight beyond sight’, and being able to ‘know when it’s needed’.
Jaga also gives the others their clothes (apparently protective, and not needed on their home planet), and weapons they may need on their new home world.

Before they can show off too much, the baddies attack “Mutants, from the Planet Plun-darr!”
Well, I wonder what they do? Plundering, perhaps?
There’s an alliance of apparently different groups of mutants – a surprise – and they engage in a pretty well-animated ship-to-ship battle, picking off the other Thunderan ships, and leaving only the flagship intact, in order to board it and plunder their stuff and things.

Snarf, the irritating and obnoxious sidekick character moans some more about everything, and promises to keep Lion-o safe… perhaps by nagging the enemies to death… and then the cool combat theme kicks in, while the Thundercats show off their powers, each themed after the big cat they’re modelled after – Cheetara uses speed, Tygra uses invisibility (camouflage), Panthro uses strength and wit.

Slythe, the mutants leader, and Jackalman, find the Eye of Thundera, and Lion-o and Snarf guarding it – and react as you’d expect, with sniggering and jokes, since it’s being guarded by a fat gnome-cat-thing, and a kid. However, the eye wakes up and scares them off, making the mutants retreat altogether.

Lion-O is worried Snarf is dead – but sadly, it’s not true, he wakes up. He

explains the sword held them off, which results in forced laughter from the others.
Panthro explains that they’re off course and are headed for the ‘wrong galaxy’, and there’s only ‘one galaxy nearby’, which means they’re going really, really, really fucking far, if the script-writers got the terms right.

No seriously, that’s really far.

Anyhow, they head for the third blue planet of a small sun…

sounds kinda familiar

and to make the trip, which will take longer than the original trip (what?!) they have to go into sleep tubes, but Jaga remains to pilot the ship, to make sure they reach the destination, as the robot pilot is damaged – this means he’s dooming himself to die in the process, making it a noble sacrifice to do so (and it is pretty good, with the soundtrack too) – sadly the voice acting lets him down a bit. But that’s something of an overall problem too, as everyone sounds a little on the corny side.

Use of a montage makes it seem like the journey takes a long-long-long time, Jaga dissolving into energy as he dies finally, and the robot pilot taking the ship the last distance, past a surprisingly familiar looking planet and into a crash-landing on the new planet, which looks awfully familiar from orbit.
The ship almost lands, but ends up crashing somewhat spectacularly instead, scattering the life-support pods all over. Snarf, out of everyone, wakes up first – and sadly, is not eaten by the local wildlife.
Lion-O turns out to have aged while in stasis, and has grown into an adult body, but still has the mind of a child – although Snarf is remarkably under-surprised by the fact.

The mutants arrive shortly after the crash, searcing for the eye again, and finding the other Thundercats asleep in their suspension pods. Lion-O’s memory isn’t quite working – too much sleep? – and then the mutants attack him, after he gives himself away.
Snarf helps Lion-O out (and actually does some good!) and gives the Sword of Omens back to Lion-O, jogging his memory and prompting Obi-wan Kenobi Jaga to appear, which gives Lion-O a chance to use the Sight Beyond Sight, and summon the Thundercats to his side, in the most memorable part of the show, used over and again.

They fight off the mutants – for now – with the aid of the opening theme, and show the mutants to be utterly incompetant, as most 80′s cartoon villains were.
Lion-O steps up as leader, and the others notice how much he’s grown – Cheetara notices how handsome he is, which seems weird, considering he was a kid a little while ago. Lion-O also vows to found a new empire too – which seems a bit harsh on Cheetara and Wilykit, the only two women in the group. Thundercats certainly will be loose, it seems.

The ‘cats retrieve stuff from the ship, as the mutants scout around for someone to enslave, but don’t find any civilization – other than some, yet again, familiar looking ruins. They decide to build a castle, but are put off when their ship is downed by bolts of energy from a mysterious black pyramid, seemingly with architecture by HP Lovecraft.

Lion-O bunks off of chores to go and wander around and be a big slacker. Tygra reminds the others than Lion-O spent ten ‘Galacto-years’ (what?) in the capsule, and has no experience of life, which sounds to me like he wants him to go get beaten up somewhere by the local wildlife.

Meanwhile, Slythe and the other mutants head back to the pyramid that shot them down, and are beckoned inside by a mysterious and evil-sounding voice, which tells them to have no fear… to which Slythe responds he ‘has no fear!’ ooooh, big man! Well, big mutant reptile thingy.

A casket opens up to reveal a mummified creature known as Mumm-ra, who appears to be a withered looking creature wearing a red cloak, claiming he has known of the Eye of Thundera since the planet was known as ‘First Earth’ (which might explain the similarities!)

Monkion (because he’s a monkey), threatens Mumm-ra with a fleet of ships – after which, Mumm-ra sinks their surviving ship into the sand, trapping them on the planet. And, presumably killing all the ships occupants, and depriving the mutants of all their technology and resources… nice job breaking it, villain.
Slythe claims to ally with Mumm-ra – in the most patronising voice ever – and then Mumm-ra gets them to go and do his dirty work, while Lion-O is playing about with the Sword of Omens like he’s a LARPer.

Jaga tells Lion-O off for threatening innocent animals with the sword, and Lion-O decides to behave himself, before the mutants show up and overpower him – amusingly interrupting him in the middle of summoning the Thundercats, but he manages it all the same.

The others show up, and another great theme cuts in as they kick the Mutants asses, and Mumm-ra teleports them back. Lion-o goes to look for Cheetara and Tygra, who haven’t turned up yet, not having seen the signal.

Mumm-ra taunts the mutants for sucking and failing hard at being badasses, and decides to do the job himself, summoning the Ancient Spirits of Evil, to transform him into his bigger, badder, meaner self, before going off to do some big-game lion-hunting.

Lion-O finds a tar pit, and sticks the sword of omens into a tree while he plays with the tar, before the sword warns him of Mumm-ra’s impending visit. He has a small fight with the demonic sorceror, who laughs incessantly in a sneering manner, while Lion-o spouts some ham-flavoured exposition at him (“As Lord of the Thundercats, I must fight this demon… alone!”), and

Mumm-ra knocks the sword into the tar pit, closing the eye of Thundera. Oh Lion-O, if only you’d thought to bring the Optrex of Thundera with you, to clean the Eye!
Lion-O tries to summon the others, but it doesn’t work, because the eye is closed by the tar – which is a novelty, considering usually in most action cartoons, the Heroes super-powers and stock-effects sequences always worked. Nice to see one with a weakness!

Lion-O and Mumm-ra have a fight, this time Mumm-ra virtually winning and having Lion-o pinned – before Mumm-ra catches sight of his own reflection, transforming him back into his shrivelled mummy-like form and driving him back.
Cheetara and Tygra emerge from a cave in a cliff, and then after Cheetara gets some guilt over humping Tygra in a cave, they go to find Lion-O, who has driven off Mumm-ra. They reflect that Mumm-Ra was driven off by the only thing it fears ‘the evil in it’s own face’, before Snarf cracks a joke about courage and not needing any. He just uses complaining instead.

Mumm-ra retreats and sulks in his casket at the mutants sneers, leaving them to their own devices.
An indeterminate time later, Snarf and Lion-O go through the jungle, where Snarf is being scared of quite literally, his own shadow. A rhino-looking thing attacks him, and he tries to go after it, as it’s running away. Lion-O falls down a hole, and uses some exposition (“Can’t… get… a foothold… sides… too… slippery…”) to tell Snarf what’s going on, before he manages to rescue him. Or he would, if he didn’t get captured by a bunch of robotic bear-things, who then capture Lion-O as well.

The bears speak in synthesised voices, and speak a bit of nonsense to Lion-O and laughter (and it’s really hard to understand what the hell they’re saying!) They drag Lion-O and Snarf off somewhere, and Mumm-ra wakes up from his time-out and decides to have another go at the Eye of Thundera, explaining, in case you’d forgotten at the start of the movie, that the Eye is embedded in the hilt of the sword, yaddayaddayadda.The sorceror gloats about destroying the Thundercats (mawaaahaahahaaaaaaa, etc), while not really doing anything.

The Thundercats are marvelling over the new ‘Thunder Tank’ Panthro has created from salvaging the ship (man’s got some skills!), before the other take cover from a storm of raining rocks inside the hulk of the spaceship, Panthro deciding to stay outside in the tank. The tank and ship are buried, although Panthro digs himself out in the tank, and then rescues the others. Tygra claims the storm wasn’t natural – which presumably means it was a very lazy plan of Mumm-ra’s.

Lion-o and Snarfs’ captors are revealed to be called ‘Ro-bear Berbils’, and are harmless and cheerful enough, it turns out. They also have apparently delicious fruit, which they share with Lion-O and Snarf, giving them a supply of food.
Mumm-ra throws a hissy fit that the Thundercats can make friends, and he has no one to have dinner with, and goes off on another plan.

The Berbils show Lion-O and Snarf a big grove of awesome-sounding fruit – candy fruit? Get me some of that! – before a giant locust attacks. Lion-O tries to fight it, and it knocks him for six, sending the sword flying. Jaga appears in a vision, and Lion-O learns how to summon the sword to his hand.

The giant bug turns out to be Mumm-ra, who goes into another casket-sulk again, vowing to do better next time. The berbils turn up, and happy to have the ‘cats as neighbours, and decide to help the Thundercats build their new home, the Thundercast initially refusing, but then the Berbils point out that friends help one another, to which the Thundercats concede. They have a meal together.

Another indeterminate period of time later – which makes me think this isn’t the same movie anymore – Wilykit, and Wilykat, encounter some mutants in the jungle who’ve enslaved a race of ‘brutemen’ creatures to build themselves a new castle – Castle Plun-darr – complete with beastly styling, to rival the Cats’ Lair feline-styling.

The thunderkittens are noticed by Monkion (‘a’ Monkion, according to Wilykat), who follows them as they leave to report the developments to the others. The pair of them escape from the Monkeyman after tricking him into falling from the tree branch he’s trapped Wilykat on.

Tygra and Cheetara extol the virtues of the lair, finished way ahead of time thanks to the Berbils (they must work fast!), before the kittens return and explain things. Panthro and the others head out in the tank to go kick the mutants faces off, but they’ve erected a barricade… which after some 80′s electro-pop, proves to be about as resilient to the Thunder Tank as tissue paper. A wall proves slightly more challenging… until they blow a hole through it with the Thunder Tanks’ guns.

No one seems to be home though, much to their surprise – but of course, it must be a trap!

The Thundercats make their way in, with Lion-O immediately finding the captive Brutemen, after defeating the mutants amazing security measures – a padlock, which he opens by bashing it with the Sword of Omens’ hilt a few times. Wow, that sword really can do anything.

Jackalman engages Cheetara in a fight, and gets to hear her theme music, while she makes an absolute idiot out of him. Monkion has the same situation with Tygra, who defeats him with great ease using his whip. Panthro has a cool-looking fight with Slythe, using some neat tricks with his nunchaku, and a good background track. They end up in a hand-to-hand beatdown, with Slythe turning-tail and running away.

He ends up in the castle, using exposition to come up with a plan to reverse the Brutemens’ natures, involving ‘warp gas’, which also effects Lion-O after some more exposition (‘Feel… strange…’)
The Brutemen attack Panthro when he arrives, and Lion-o finds out from the Sword of Omens, and summons the others to help Panthro.

The mutants watch the attack, and get a good line
“Slythe, what’s with the Brutemen? are they Revolting?”
“They are, Jackalman, but not in the way you mean”
He explains his plan to them all, and they watch as the Thundercats try to fight back – but the gas wears off, until he uses another dose to attack the Brutemen, Tygra pointing out it was outlawed – but laws are meaningless, unless people agree to them – otherwise they’re just words (wow, strong words!)

The gas backfires on the mutants after Lion-o deflects it with a forcefield from the sword, sending the Brutemen after them. The mutants run away, and the Cats laugh it up, before Lion-O almost gets mobbed by the Brutemen, the gas – luckily- wearing off at the last minute. Otherwise the series would’ve been very short.

Anyhow, the others have a short recap that freedom is awesome, and that doing the right thing is better than getting thanks or rewards, and so the show ends, and the series continues.

So, not a bad opening in all. Originally five separate episodes, the opener is also around as a re-edited telemovie and on some rare VHS copies too. It sets the story and setting up nicely, and introduces all the regular cast quite nicely.

The animation is pretty consistent throughout the five-parter, but occasionally some of it gets a little out of proportion or a little sloppy – but no 80′s cartoon seems to be immune to that, especially ones with ‘farmed’ animation to other studios, and quality control is never high on serialised animation anyway.
The voice acting is also pretty bad for some of the characters, especially Lion-O’s exposition-heavy dialogue as demonstrated above – Sound… like… sixties comic book character… got to…. explain problem…. make… audience understand…

But a quick look at the cast list will tell you why, the voices are so strained -  for the series there were initially only six voice actors for the first season, to do the voices of everyone in the cast, including one-week-only characters, as well as the returning cast. This only rose by two new members in later seasons, meaning they were pretty overworked – especially the female member of the cast, who had to provide voices for every female character that showed up!

Despite these downsides though, the series is remembered fondly with the camp charm being part of what people like about it, along with the action sequences and unique look. Thundercats merchandise has never been more popular, with the cats’ head logo appearing on T-shirts, hats, belt buckles, posters, hoodies, and all sorts of things in recent years – more so than at the time, most likely.

The series was popular enough with nostalgia, that in the early 2000′s Image comics released a number of Thundercats mini-series, as well as an ongoing series that carried on after the end of the cartoon.
The artwork was lush, and the comics are well-regarded in most circles, for their more adult plotting, and exploration of the characters’ traits and identities more than the cartoon had done before.
They also featured a crossover with Superman, and Battle of the Planets at various points, before Image decided to close the series. Trade paperback collected editions are still available, however, and are quite popular.

It’s no surprise then, that as of this year, a remake of the series has been announced, with all new character designs, and a complete reboot of the plot and storyline, placing the Thundercats squarely on Thundera, and following Lion-O’s ascension to the throne, and the intrigue surrounding it.
An initial teaser trailer has been released, which has no voices or indications of the plot, but shows off the new animation and some of the characters and locations. It’s pretty shiny-looking, but so far it doesn’t really hint at what the general ‘feel’ of the show is going to be – but press released by the show-runner have said it will be ‘darker’ than the original, which is

encouraging, but as this is the man who is responsible for Ben 10, I reserve the right to be sceptical. Time will tell though, and the fact that a new series is even being made shows the long-lasting appeal this series has with people.

Rumours also persist of a live-action Thundercats movie being made, but with no evidence or news to back it up, it seems destined to languish in development hell.
It seems that Thundercats will always be remembered though, and has a definite part in the hearts and minds of people everywhere.

This time, I’m going to look at a cartoon a little later than the others I’ve covered – from the early 90′s, comes the gem of hilarious eco-bludgeoning, and Ted Turner’s favoured son, Captain Planet and the Planeteers.

The show was originally imagined by Ted Turner, head of TBS and later Hanna-Barbera cartoons, to promote  the concepts of environmentalism and eco-centric ideals, which were reaching prominence for the first time in the early 1990s, when the cartoon was first made.
As such, it featured villains based on an array of pollution and ecologically-damaging ideas – such as radiation, toxic waste, trash, runaway scientific experimentation, ruthless corporate ideals, unchecked hunting, and even warfare and violence. Arrayed against these villains are the ‘planeteers’ five ‘special young people’ from around the world with five magic rings that represent the four elements – Earth, Air, Fire and Water – as well as one ‘special’ element, ‘heart’, representing emotions and ‘humanity’.

When the five powers combine, they summon ‘Earth’s greatest champion, Captain Planet’, who is a superhero avatar of the Earth itself, and possesses whatever powers are needed to solve the immediate problem at hand.

As you can imagine, this occurs pretty much every episode, in one way or another, and leads to a fairly formulaic series, which was nonetheless successful enough to spawn five series (three under the name The New Adventures of Captain Planet, and animated solely by Hanna-Barbera, with new opening titles and different animation).

The Planeteers were pretty stock characters too – each of them was a very stereotyped ethnicity – Wheeler was from Brooklyn, and had a hot-headed temper, and the power of fire. Linka was pretty, and from the Soviet Union (as it was 1990, and the Soviet Union was only disassembled the following year), and longed for a better world and had the power of wind. Gi was the water-controlling marine biologist from an undisclosed country in ‘Asia’, Kwame from ‘Africa’ and no discernable country and controlled earth, and Ma-ti from ‘somewhere in South America’ and controlled the power of heart.

But to cut a long story short, let’s have a look at a couple of episodes.

Episode One – A Hero For Earth

So, the show opens with a narration describing the show, and a pretty ear-wormy and epic-sounding theme tune and some decent animation. So far, it’s pretty much what you’d expect from an early-90′s team-show – here’s what it’s about, now sit down and watch it, and leave your parents

alone for half an hour.
Also worthy of note is that Kwame’s voice – the narration – is provided by LeVar Burton, who also played the character Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The episode proper opens with a cute bunny and other animals fleeing from a giant monster machine, apparently, according to it’s pig-faced mutant weirdo driver, ‘Hoggishly Greedy’, is for oil-drilling in a wildlife sanctuary…
um, what?
Apparently they’ll be able to ‘fill their tanks with oil, before anyone even knows they’re there!’
Huh. So, no park rangers? No tourists? they’re not going to see this GIANT ROBOTIC DRILLING PLATFORM, wandering around in a wildlife preserve? Also, given the trail of destruction it leaves, surely someone would notice? And wouldn’t he stand to make more money selling his design on the open market, if it’s that good?

Well, logic applied to cartoon villains aside, all the disturbance wakes up Gaia, the Spirit of the Earth (another Star Trek performer – Gaia is voiced by Whoopi Goldberg!), who has been slumbering for centuries. Strange that unlicensed oil drilling is the final straw to wake her up, rather than, say, the Seveso Disaster, the Bhopal Disaster, or the Chernobyl Disaster I guess it’s all about having an Ecological Terrorist involved.

Anyhow, she observes the ‘poor silly humans’ making a mess of things, and decides something needs to be done. And rather than exterminating humanity, she decides to be more moderate, instead sending the five rings to the five planeteers – who find the rings in a variety of strange places, sent by Gaia. And, as they’re ‘special’, they don’t try and pawn them off, or sell them to anyone.
When the five planeteers put on their rings, they are magially transported to Gaias’ Hope Island -
-with no reference to their parents or families?! Well, an emergencies’ and emergency…
Still, seems pretty irresponsible.

Gaia teaches the five to use their powers, after Wheeler, the dumbass American, hits on Linka – who is Soviet NOT Russian, thank you very much! – before some mild comedy and environmental anvilism on Kwames’ part, mentioning ‘planting many crops, and stopping many bulldozers’ Subtle, wow.

To make Ma-ti feel better, Gaia explains that his power of ‘heart’ allows them all to keep in contact, and Ma-ti to sense the thoughts of the others, and the planet around them – potentially making it, yes, the most powerful… but he never uses it for anything clever or smart, such as messing with the heads of his enemies, communicating with the others, using strategy or tactics, or controlling animals or even helping out people in trouble… instead, it’s usually used in the obligatory summon captain planet scenes.

Gaia goes on to tell them all about Greedlys’ activities drilling for oil in the

middle of a wildlife sanctuary, and all the animals its’ hurting. The Planeteers are already on the way – in a change of clothes – and in a eco-friendly solar-powered jet (don’t ask me how that works!), and accidentally set off their powers some more, for giggles.
Gaia hints at the existence of Captain Planet, while they argue some more, and turn up to see the poor animals of the reserve all hurt by the oil spill.

Greedly decides to put off the Planeteers by spraying their plane with oil… surely that’s a waste of his potential profits? And there are better ways, too? If he’s built this huge robotic platform, he evidently has money to waste, and doesn’t care much about the law – so why doesn’t he have a bunch of flunkies with machine guns?!
Probably because that’s not ecologically damaging enough.

Wheeler trash-talks Greedly after the Planeteers save themselves from the crash using their powers properly. Greedly threatens the animals if they interfer further. So, after deciding they basically suck, the planeteers summon Captain Planet!
GO PLANET!

Greedly runs away (wasting thousands of dollars  more oil in the process…)

before the Captain, with his mighty earth-saving green mullet hairstyle, uses his powers to create a whirlpool and suck the oil back into the ground. Greedlys’ sidekick tries to attack Captain Planet with the drilling machines’ arms, but he’s invulnerable, and through the use of puns and super-strength, he does some damage – before getting spammed with toxic waste, which knocks him out for the count. He uses a bit of exposition, before the Planeteers wash him off and recharge his batteries in sunlight.

He trashes the drilling machine thoroughly, and Greedly (of course) gets away, leaving Captain Planet to return to the five rings, and the planeteers to clean up the animals.

And of course – then there’s time for  quick moral message, advocating us all not to waste petrol, electricity, or other resources, and then the ending theme.

So, not a bad cartoon episode, but nothing special. The environmental messages and absolutely anvilicious and overly simple – but they have to be, in order to make the cartoons’ idea work, and get the message across to kids. Certainly I remember myself and my sister bugging our parents to recycle, and turning off lights when they weren’t needed, and similar things. Not to mention cutting down on littering.

The show is pretty ridiculous though – again, mainly, the simplicity and camp nature of the thing prevails over any useful message, and it got much more ridiculous as it went on too – especially after the revamp, when animation and plot were handled by a different company – much like the GI Joe newer series I reviewed previously.
Like many cartoons of its’ kind, it had little in the way of consistency or continuity, and veered all over in terms of quality.
A particular episode in the final season featured Dr. Blight (an ‘eco-villain’ representing the problems of runaway technological development and scientific experimentation) traveling back in time with an older version of herself, to World War Two in order to sell Hitler an Atomic Bomb and change the course of history, as well as Captain Planet delivering an ‘anti-hate’ speech at the end of the episode.

Despite its’ flaws though, the series did try and tackle a lot of revelant issues for the time, which was unusual, and probably wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the show being bankrolled by Ted Turner.
Some notable episodes dealt with drugs and addiction, as well as showing the related death of an addict related to one of the main characters, and an episode dealing with HIV and the paranoia and suspicion a sufferer of HIV could experience – touchy and brave stuff, for a kids TV Show.

The show also attracted a surprising amount of guest stars who either were famous, or would become famous, including Malcom McDowell, Tim Curry, Jeff Goldblum, Meg Ryan, Sting, Martin Sheen, Danny Glover, Louis Gossett Jr. and Elizabeth Taylor.

Evidently it made a mark on many young and impressionable minds, as well as sticking in the collective consciousness of a generation, since most people remember Captain Planet in one way or another – mainly for how silly it came across, and the simple moral nature of the show.
However, it does appear to have done some good, as the Captain Planet Foundation is a genuinely beneficial charity organisation that does good work in supporting education around the world.

So, Captain Planet may have been a pretty camp and silly cartoon series, but at least it has done something it set out to do – raise awareness of issues, and try and do something positive about the environment in some way.

As a popular and memorable cartoon series from the 90′s, with a large presence in the collective consciousness of the masses, it’s surprising that Captain Planet hasn’t yet received either a remake or a movie adapatation – the Wikipedia article hints at a screenplay submitted setting the action in a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by ecological catastrophe – which sounds awesome – but was never made anything of. Who knows – maybe one day, we’ll see a new Captain Planet!

This week it’s the turn of another well-known franchise in the spotlight, famous for it’s toys, comics, and also one that has had a live-action movie made.
It’s the Real American Hero, GI Joe.

GI Joe started out in the USA  as a series of 12-inch articulated action figures, thought up by someone during the 1960′s as a counterpart for boys to girls’ dress-up-and-play dolls. The figures came with removable clothing and varieties of weapons, and as time passed, the line grew more diverse, and the figures became smaller following the great success of Star Wars toys, which were in a similar size.
For their size, the figures were extremely well articulated (although had ugly joints), and there was a bewildering array of vehicles available for both the good guys – the Joes – and their enemies – Cobra, a snake-themed terrorist organisation.

Over time, the original aim of GI Joe as a military force became less and less realistic, as the character ideas grew steadily more outlandish. However, this didn’t seem to dampen kids’ interest at all, and comics and cartoons of the toys were soon spilling into the spotlight during the 80′s, on the wave of merchandise-based cartoons that were so popular.

GI Joe at one time was as popular as Transformers, with it’s own cartoon, comics, figures, and so on – but I always come up with one curious anomaly when remembering this. Despite most people knowing of GI Joe, and even knowing most of the theme tune, or some things related to it – Nobody I knew ever remembers watching it!
I found this a curious anomaly, but then I also don’t remember seeing it myself until I was much older, so perhaps it wasn’t just me, and it never did have much of an airing in the UK.
One other curiosity about the GI Joe in the UK is that it wasn’t GI Joe at all!

When the series was localised to Europe, and especially the UK, it was re-branded as ‘Action Force’, and was pitched as a spinoff of the Action Man toyline that had always been popular, and filled the same niche as GI Joe toys did in the USA and elsewhere.
Action Man had always had comics and suchlike, usually telling tales of military adventure and derring-do (Oh how the mighty have fallen…), and Palitoy, the company who produced the Action Man figures, also took the step of producing smaller figures following Star Wars toys’ popularity. The line took off well, and many figures, vehicles, and such were released, in several yearly waves, with a few molds borrowing from GI Joe ones initially, but the majority being brand-new.
However, things changed when one of the toy companys’ owners died, and Palitoy allowed Hasbro to take over. They began rebranding GI Joe as Action Force, and tied the storyline into one whole.
Over time, the distinctions disappeared, and the two became one and the same thing, with Action Force, INTERNATIONAL HEROES sadly disappearing, and the REAL AMERICAN HERO taking over.

Oh, and just for the record? The Action Force theme tune sounds way way less crap than the GI Joe one.

Anyway, looking at that should give you the hint that it wasn’t really especially a ‘conventional’ military unit, being as how it contained a variety of people – soldiers, sailors, wrestlers, models, and American Football players, and Cobra was equally ‘varied’ with their army of soldiers, robots, and biker gangs.
Similarly, the cartoon dealt with Cobra’s plots being less actual military or terrorist plots (Kidnapping, extortion, suicide bombing, car bombs, insurrection, etc) and more Saturday morning cartoon friendly, such as taking over the world by stealing things like solar energy converters or other such MacGuffins of the week, or some other fantastically outlandish and rediculous plan – despite having a huge army of fighter planes, tanks, and robots, and never resorting to all-out warfare.

The GI Joe cartoon was all the same solid material for Saturday Morning cartoons, and continued for two syndicated seasons totalling 95 aired episodes, as well as three mini-series of four episodes each under the Sunbow company, who also made the Transformers cartoon. A further series was aired in 1999 under a new animation and production company, DiC, and lasted for two seasons for a total of 44 episodes, and several other incarnations as mini-series or one-offs have appeared since then.
An animated movie was also produced, and was originally planned for a theatrical release, like the Transformers  and My Little Pony movies. But the  GI Joe movie was instead released direct to video instead, as the other movies performed poorly at the box-office.

Which is a blessing in the case of the GI Joe movie, as it was fucking terrible, involving some idiotic plot about an ancient society of snake-worshipping mutants who lived in the Himalayas, and of whom Cobra Commander was secretly a member. Various other idiotic things were also mentioned, all of which contradicted established facts (such as they were) in the cartoon, and ultimately the film is regarded poorly on the whole, and disliked by fans and non-fans alike, and the movie has become a curio on DVD and the internet.

Of course, it’s the series that everyone remembers most, and that I’m here to review. To do it some justice, I’ve decided to review one episode from the original Sunbow run of episodes, and one from the DiC run of episodes too, and see what the difference (if any) is.
So, without further ado, let’s get into things!

Lights, Camera, Cobra!

So, the episode opens with the theme tune, as above (still not as good as the Action Force one), and then Cobra and the Joes (Yo Joe! – though makes me wonder what they said in Action Force?) are engaged in a fight – and here’s one of the things I remember the most.
The Joes and Cobra never used real guns that fire bullets, despite, or perhaps because of, being an elite military force and the world’s most powerful terrorist organisation, oh no – they had LAZORS! PEW PEW PEW!

The Joes arrive in 1950′s vintage helicopters, and the Cobras are using curiosly realistic looking vehicles too. Duke (leader of the Joes) jumps Cobra Commander (Leader of the… well his name gives it away), and they both tears through a wall… and it turns out it’s all a movie set!
Gosh! What a surprise!

Anyhow, the producer, or whoever he is – it’s not made clear – storms off, declaring he won’t film unless he’s got authentic equipment and some advisors from GI Joe.
At Cobra HQ, Destro, the Cobras’ arms dealer (Yes, apparaently they have one specifically), arrives in Cobra Commanders’ office to tell him that they’ve tracked down a captured Cobra fighter jet at the film lot, and he’s worried about it giving away their location. Cobra Commander hires a bunch of his allied Mercenaries, the Dreadnoks and their leader Zartan (a master of disguise) to recapture the vehicles, and put a stop to the shenanigans. What a party pooper!

Also worth noting is the fact he hires the Dreadnoks for 4 million dollars in gold ingots.
If the man has that kind of money to throw away at his disposal, the question begs, why the shit is he a terrorist?
It’s never made exactly clear what Cobra’s ideals and goals are. Terrorists are usually defined by having some set goal and ideal to achieve – the IRA wanted Northern Ireland to be part of Ireland again, Hezbollah want Israel to be gone, the Basque seperatists want the Basque lands of France and Spain to be a seperately governed area – but there’s no clear indication of what exactly it is that Cobra wants. But whatever it is, it apparently allows them to have masses of money, resources, and manpower at their disposal, as well as the ingenuity to hide all of this somewhere where no-one has bombed the living fuck out of all of it so far to stop them.

Anyway, logical reasons for violence aside, the Joes also send an unlikely bunch of  ‘advisors’  for the movie, who look not unlike the village people, especially as one of them is a sailor, with most unexpected voice ever – i.e. – he looks like the stereotypical sailor, with a little hat and everything – but does not sound like a salty sea-dog at all. One of them is also ‘Cover Girl’, who is a Fashion model turned special forces soldier, which is the weirdest career change I’ve ever heard of.
They go along to the movie set, where the nefarious Cobras have set up a nefarious trap… or they’re going to, anyway.

Shipwreck (the sailor) makes up an excuse to go and get some movie equipment, instead going to a bar and getting in a bar fight (you actually see it!) and Cover Girl follows him to keep him out of trouble – which she fails at.

Meanwhile, Zartan, who is using his mastery of diguise to appear as… himself, but being played by an actor (STUNNING), antagonises one of the Joes so much that they have a motorcycle race using their respective sides vehicles.

Oh, that reminds me – according to the movie director, the authentic Cobra vehicles were turned over to the move by the US Government.
Yes, that’s right – after capturing advanced military hardware from the world’s most dangerous terrorist organisation, the US Government gave it to a movie producer.
Imagine if that happened in real life.

Anyway, the two Joes are injured after the Dreadnoks attack and cause their bike to crash, leaving Zartan and the others to topple a wooden water tower onto the Director and the other film crew, and Shipwreck about to be in trouble with the police!

OH NOES!

The Dreadnoks attack, and cause utter chaos on the film set, destroying the filming equipment, but Junkyard sets his dog (imaginatively named ‘Mutt’) on them, and the remaining Joes drive them off, stopping Zartan from destroying the Firebat jet.
The others return, and Shipwreck is bailed out. They take the Cobra jets to look for the missing Joes from the race, while Cobra Commander scolds Zartan for the failiure to destroy the jet.

Around this scene, I suddenly realised something about the incidental music – it sounds awfully familiar, almost as if… Sunbow used the same music from the transformers!
In an awfully cheaptastic move, the incidental music is actually the same music reused from the animated transformers series, creating a weird sense of deja-vu in my case, being familiar with both series!

So, Dusty and Rocondo (if that’s how you spell it?) are being stalked by Coyotes, where they’re both still stuck in the desert. Shipwreck rescues them in one of the Cobra flying pod vehicles, but then leaves them behind (which is reasonable, as there’s no passenger space), but is ambushed by the Dreadnoks as he gets back, and through a series of unlikely events, ends up getting stuck in the plane as it returns to Cobra HQ under remote control.

Anyways, Shipwreck ends up at Cobra HQ, and proceeds to put up a reasonable accounting of himself, slugging Cobra Commander and Destro in the face, before getting a rifle butt to the back of the head. And then Cobra Commander announces to have him taken inside for their ‘amusement’…

….Snigger. Maybe that’s Cobra’s goal – recognising Man-love throughout the world. Although that would suggest Shipwreck in his little sailor’s hat is on the wrong side.

So, the Joes come up with a plan to get Shipwreck back by using the Hollywood studio magic, while Cobra Commander uses elaborate torture methods – Shipwreck standing on a steel beam over molten metal, while Cobra soldiers shoot at him – and miss, though I’m willing to believe it’s deliberate to try and make him fall in – and a James Bond pastiche quote to ‘Amuse’ himself with Shipwreck.

I also noticed that Cobra Commanders’ voice is very familiar too…

So, Cover Girl’s plan is to use their captured Dreadnok to bring Cobra running, by showing him being tortured, which is an elaborate deception using camera trickery.

The message is sent on Cobra’s Ultra-Secret Frequency – By one of the Joes. Which means it can’t be very secret at ALL – and even if it was, the cobra soldier reporting it, does so in front of Shipwreck.
This does indeed bring Cobra running, as Cobra Commander is worried about their location being revealed – despite having a Joe on the base – and then the Joes also come running, and there’s a big ‘ol fight.
The movie crew also finally get their battle footage, as the Joes Conduct an airstrike on a civilian target to get rid of the Cobra, and we see the other thing besides Lazors that GI Joe is famous for – guys coming down on parachutes after their planes are shot down, which is laughably going to lengths to avoid showing anyone being killed in the show.

The huge battle is captured on film, and Cobra Commander escapes thanks to Destro, and the Joes are annoyed he escaped, but get to see the movie all the same – but the Director doesn’t credit the Joes, much to Shipwreck’s annoyance, as he threatens, in an almost perfect imitation of Scrappy-Doo, to ‘murdilise ‘em’, while the othes hold him back.

So, all in all, a none-too-special episode. A lot happens in it, but as a result it feels kind of jumbled, and the plot is a bit lackluster and dull, compared to some of the more exciting and wider-scoped ones found in comic books or other Joe episodes. It also focused on some of the less interesting cast, and I was disappointed I didn’t see Flint, Lady Jaye, or any of the Joe characters I remember from my young days – and had as figures – although I did have one of Shipwreck, now I recall.

So, let’s move onto the next episode and see if it’s any better.

‘Chunnel’

Well, this is going to be hilarious already – it’s about the Eurotunnel.

The episode opens with a hilariously inaccurate depiction of London, with GREEN London buses going back and forth, and a badly-realised Tower Bridge shown. The Chunnel is also shown in London, rather than being anywhere near the Channel, while a voice supposedly belonging to the Queen conducts a speech opening the tunnel.

One interesting piece of difference that comes up right away between this series by DiC and the previous Sunbow series is obvious immediately – the animation is far more primitive in the DiC series, and looks completely different. The colours are all far brighter, and the designs less technical or detailed than the Sunbow show.

So, the hilariously inaccurate Chunnel visuals continue, with there apparently being a station underground, and a character who is presumably supposed to be Queen Elizabeth II (there’s a Corgi shown at her feet) reading the dedication. A rumbling occurs, and for some reason, rather than being accompanied by Armed Police, MI5 or any other security forces that would accompany the Queen, instead five soldiers of the Coldstream Guards, for some reason equipped also with bolt-action rifles, instead of assault rifles, react to the sudden, and completely expected appearance of Cobra Commander through a wall. Cobra Commander abducts – oh, sorry, Cobra Commander – Queen-naps, the Queen – and then escapes into the opening credits – which are Awful.

After the horrendous noise, the terribly English -what-what-what-cup-of-tea-shine-your-shoes-guvnor- (ARRRRRGGGHHHH) ‘Big Ben’ (ARRRRRRRRGGGHHHHH) calls some other Joes in to help rescue the Queen. Duke and Scarlet are shopping in London in their full combat gear, and are stampeded to death by shoppers, leaving only a russian guy, and some other dude as well as Big Ben to rescue the Queen. Despite the odds, Big Ben announces in his painfully bad accent

“Come on Lads, let’s save the Queen!”

So, off the merry band of fuckwits go.
I already hate this much more than the previous episode. What did they do for research? Read the word ‘England’?

The horrible parody of the Queen wonders if Cobra Commander is a circus performer, and then a snake charmer. BECAUSE IT’S FUNNY. HE WEARS A MASK. SHE IS THE QUEEN, AND KNOWS NOTHING, AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Sorry, let me find my medication.

…

Yes, despite Cobra being the world’s most dangerous terrorist organisation, and having threatened the security of the free world on several dozen separate occasions, apparaently the state leader of the United Kingdom, one of America’s staunch allies, has never heard of them. GO FIGURE.
Starscream Cobra Commander is less than pleased, of course, and follows the Queen as she walks off. Meanwhile, the rest of the Cobra play with the dog, for no good reason.

The Joes show up, and a small and stupid gunfight happens, with the Joes doing some fancy and improbable driving to get past.
Ugh, I so don’t care anymore – this episode is dire, and the DiC series is so much worse. Everything is more comedic, and the colours are so BRIGHT, it hurts.

Anyway, the tunnel is breached, and water starts to fill the tunnel, causing trouble for everyone, as Cobra Commander escapes with the ‘Queen’, leaving the Joes in a tunnel filling rapidly with water. Hopefully they’ll drown.

Sadly, the return after the ads does not start with a funeral service for the lost Joes, so on we go.
The SCUBA equipped Joe manages to close the tunnel safety door, and use the abandoned Cobra vehicle to get them out of the tunnel. Meanwhile, Cobra Commander and the other idiots are being attacked by the Corgi, while Cobra Commander scrapes and grovels to the Queen, for some reason. She berates him, and he finally reveals his plan to steal the Crown Jewels… for some reason.

Duke and Scarlet are apparently at the Tower of London (still wearing full combat gear..) and end up meeting the bad guys who are armed, yet do not instantly decide to fight armed terrorists in the heart of London, and are somehow defeated by the bumbling and incompetent Cobra lackeys. Cobra Commander and his goons escape, with Cobra Commander deciding he wants to be King of England.
Duke and Scarlet escape from the Tower, while Big Ben (AAAARRRRGGGHHHH) escape from the Chunnel, and are attacked by a Cobra jet, piloted by the most incompetent of all Cobra Commanders’ minions, and the Corgi.
The diver guy shoots down the plane with a rifle, but not before it damages the train and shoots out the brakes (very precise shooting…), leaving the Joes ‘Special’ team on a crazy train.

Duke and Scarlett use one of the Joes vehicles to ram the train to a stop in a fairly reasonable representation of Waterloo station. The Joes go after Cobra Commander, who is idiotically not realising that the people in the palace are bowing to the Queen not him… not that everyone bows to the Queen anyway…

The Joes storm the palace, while the Queen tells the Cobra that they’re basically useless and smell bad. Cobra Commander reveals he has bombs planted everywhere across London, which ought to stop them. Cobra Commander goes crazy and starts appointing the idiots with him into royal positions.

A random battle takes place outside, as the Joes decide that assaulting the Palace isn’t a priority, and instead engage in a physics-defying dogfight with Cobra, including slowing a jet down enough to open the canopy and pick someone up, before they decide to stop Cobra Commander again. They get into the palace, and corner Cobra Commander, who holds the Queen hostage. However, she fights her way out by stamping on Cobra Commanders’ foot, and setting a Corgi on him – which is evidently enough to cause him to retreat…
Wow. He’s a pretty shitty terrorist.

Anyway, the Queen congratulates the Joes, and they accept an offer for tea, as well as letting Scarlett spend the states’ money on shopping, before the end credits roll.

So. The DiC cartoon was a big pile of DiCs, and far more silly and comedic than the Sunbow one, which was hardly a rigid and gritty depiction of Cold War counter-terrorism and hi-tech warfare itself. All in all, I’d say that GI Joe deserves to be remembered with a sense of humour and as a campy item of ridicule way more than the other things I’ve reviewed so far.
The reincarnations of GI Joe in comics for the fans who’ve grown up some more and now have better ideas of what makes a good story and good action are apparently a lot more mature and well thought out, as are the original comic books, which also have more deep and involved plots, as well as more realistic action and combat, as well as simply better characters.

There is also the GI Joe: Resolute series which came out in 2009 as a short series of episodes available only online, which are aimed at a PG-13 audience, and forgo the lazors and parachutes for more realistic and dramatic action, with real danger and a better storyline by Warren Ellis, which I would recommend checking out.

While GI Joe might be remembered in the same breath as Transformers, I wouldn’t say it holds up as well in it’s animated form, and while it’s fun to remember, it’s nothing special, after all.

Besides, Action Force was a much better name.

]]> http://unbored.co.uk/reviews/2010/05/22/retro-reviews-gi-joe/feed/ 3 http://wp.me/p1B5QK-k3 http://unbored.co.uk/reviews/2010/05/12/evangelion-1-11-you-are-not-alone/#comments Wed, 12 May 2010 10:06:52 +0000 Steve Doyle http://unbored.co.uk/?p=1243 Continue reading →]]> When the original Neon Genesis Evangelion series was released back in 1995, it became something of a benchmark for anime. At the time, robot anime hadn’t really gone into the ideas of tortured psyches, twisted familial relationships, and asking philosophical questions.

The series became a bone of contention, as well as a trend-setter for several years to come. Opinions were sharply divided as to whether it was a thing of amazing depth and complexity or of pompous windbaggery, inscrutable and too complex for anyone other than a dedicated fan to follow, and forever isolating many people from Evangelion for a long time.
Either way, it’s hard not to acknowledge its’ influence on many series that followed, making landmarks in both it’s animation style and artistic direction, the themes it presented, the ideological ideas, it’s plot and design, and many of the other elements.
It also gave the ‘super robot’ genre of mecha anime – as in, the shows with super-powered, super-heroic robots – something of a revival, giving them more complex characters and plots than before after deconstructing and putting a twist on the ‘monster of the week and secret society’ formulas so beloved and staple of those shows.

But despite it’s popularity, both fans and critics alike had problems with Evangelion for it’s immensly dissatisfying ending, which was full of meandering introspection and endless talking heads, rather than any form of real resolution.
This was later improved upon by the release of the theatrical movies ‘Evangelion: Death and Rebirth’ and ‘The End of Evangelion’, which presented a more complete ending, but one that was still esoteric, complex, and required a lot of either background information, or leaps of imagination to make ones’ own conclusion.

As such, the ending was still seen as dissatisfying by many, and while other versions, such as the ‘Platinum Collection’ with remastered sound and other tweaks were released, things went quiet for quite some time, bar rumours of a live-action film, and even some pre-production art, which never came to anything.

However, in 2007 a new project related to Evangelion emerged, in the form of ‘Rebuild of Evangelion’.
Director Hideaki Anno stated that this was to be a complete rebuild of Evangelion, with masses of new animation, retouches and computer additions to the original animation, re-writing of the plot adding new scenes and characters, redesigns of the titular Evangelion (or ‘Eva’) mecha, and the Angel foes, and many other alterations and additions, in order to utilise new technologies available, and to make the series accessible to new fans, and to truly ‘realise his original vision’ of Evangelion.

The Rebuild is envisioned as a Tetrology of films, with the first three being a retelling of the series adding the new elements, and fourth and final movie being a completely brand-new ending to the series.
The first movie, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, was released in 2007 in Japan, and has now been released in the UK with an all-new and specifically engineered dub, and a good amount of promotion (I even saw a trailer for it on YouTube!)

As I have been anticipating the release of the Rebuild Movies on DVD since I first heard they were coming out, I snapped up a copy as soon as I could, in order to provide this review, as I picked up the series on VHS when it first came out, and have followed it’s fortunes and misfortunes with great curiosity since.

As soon as the movie began, I could see the differences, and they weren’t small. Cel animation has been enhanced with brighter, crisper definition and colours, flat and plain looking models for aircraft, tanks, ships, and buildings have been replaced with detailed, intricate and beautiful cel-shaded CGI models, creating a world with more depth and beauty than before. And there is also more evidence of the great disaster of the ‘Second Impact’ that befell humanity prior to the show, with cracked pavements, ruined and abandoned vehicles and more – and this is only the first few scenes, mind, and background details.

The plot proceeds the same as I remember, but with new details and elements, new discussions and conversations amongst characters to better introduce them to new fans, and to concede to the shorter 90-minute running time and movie format – but they do not cheapen the presentation. Instead, it keeps things moving, and gives us a more concise insight into Shinji, the main character, and the people around him.

The fights between the Angels and Eva units, when they come, are familiar, yet full of exciting new elements and twists. More emphasis is made on the conventional firepower available, and the sheer amount of it being thrown at the alien and unknowable enemies, which only serves to show how deadly and dangerous they are, before the Evas themselves go into combat – with the fights made more exciting, visually and in terms of plot, by the addition of new animation, new weapons, and redesigns of existing elements.

Most of all, the climax of the movie, where episode 6 of the series would be, Operation Yashima, where the lead character and his Eva unit-01 have to snipe one of the enemy using a gigantic energy weapon, powered by the electrical output of all Japan, is given a lot more emphasis on the sheer mind-boggling amount of support and undertaking needed for such an insane plan to even be attempted, and massive amount of destruction the redesigned angel wreaks on the city and it’s surroundings.
The entire sequence is newly animated, and redesigned, giving more of a dramatic and pulse-pounding excitement, that even knowing the original plot, made me watch eagerly to see the outcome.

If there are downsides to be pointed out to the new movies, they come from the dubbed cast – some of the characters sound flat or unconvincing, but they do not distract from the overall goings-on of the plot.
Some elements could do with a little more explanation, but this could also be seen as setup for the next movies in the series – but also as an oversight. Some elements of Shinji and other characters’ lives could also have been pleasant to see – such as his first days at school, meeting his classmates and their situations, and more time spent on introducing secondary characters could also have been appreciated. But, given the faster pace of the movie and it’s efforts to focus on the main characters in greater detail, again this could be a conscious choice.

The movie keeps much of the series’ humour as well as it’s drama, and it will be interesting to see how the next one comes, as it features all new characters, and the introduction of the redesigned Evangelion units and more angels. The plot is set to diverge further from the series in the second movie also, and this will also be a further source of excitement.

Unfortunately, as the second film only came out in Japan in October 2009, there will likely be a significant wait – but hopefully not as long as the first one!
I suggest Evangelion: 1.0 to anyone who either liked the original series, but found it unsatisfying, or anyone who has been interested in Evangelion, but never managed to get into it, as well as anyone simply looking for a good anime movie that is exciting, as well as something to think over once they’ve watched it – but be prepared to have patience for the next installment.

Like the other cartoons featured previously, My Little Pony existed to promote a toyline of plastic or felt-covered cartoony ponies with soft brushable manes and tails that could be styled, as well as a range of accessories, both pony-themed (like stables) and person-themed (like ice-cream shops).
Obviously, I myself didn’t own any ponies (SHUT UP), as I wasn’t that kind of guy (NO REALLY, SHUT UP!), but my sister had a couple of them. I didn’t think much of them, but then I wasn’t the target audience. They didn’t have many points of movement or anything, and they all looked pretty similar. However, my sister and her friends liked them, and apparently so did a lot of other girls, since there’s a huge collectors club for them, and if you google

‘My Little Pony’ you’ll come up with a wide variety of custom themed ones people have made – including the Master Chief my Little Pony and this collection of excellently realised movie ponies. So, there’s still a lot of interest in them, even now – and some apparently change hands for hundreds of dollars or pounds on Ebay and other auction sites.

But what about the cartoon? My memories of it are extremely vague, as I don’t even remember it being on UK TV when I was younger, aside from the occasional special episode during school holidays. So what happened in it? what was it all about?

Well, apparently the ponies lived in Ponyland, which was a magical place. And it must’ve been, because they don’t have any opposable thumbs, but yet have houses, ice-cream, fences, furniture and all manner of normal conveniences.
I for one, am concerned about this. I think it needs an explanation! Are the ponies all massively powerful telekinetics? Are their human friends (a trio of children) their slaves

off-camera? Did the ponies inherit their civilisation from a long-extinct race of benevolent aliens? Sadly, we shall never know.

Anyhow, there’s also three species of ponies too. The normal ones who are regular ponies, and have no remarkable attributes (well, other than talking, and being brightly coloured, anyway), the flying ones, who are like the Pegasus, with little wings, and the horned unicorn-esque ones. All three groups get along in a utopian and racially-equal society, which is a model to us all, along with a variety of similarly fluffy and cute creatures, but there are also a menagerie of trolls, goblins, and evil witches and wizards who want to capture or enslave the ponies for various ill-defined reasons, and the ponies have to keep out of their clutches, and occasionally teach them a lesson of sorts. I imagine it has very little to do with stampedes or caving in a skull or two with their hooves, though.

The cartoon began with several prime-time specials, and a theatrical movie

(gladly, not live-action), before progressing to a full series of two seasons, with a revival in the early nineties, and apparently another oneis airing currently. Wow, those ponies know how to keep going.
Since most of the stories are multi-part adventures, in this review I’m going to concentrate only on the season two episode ‘The Ice-Cream Wars’ in an effort to lower my dentist bills from tooth decay, and preseve my genitalia from wasting away due to lack of testosterone.

So, let’s fire up the Unbored Retro-Reviewatron to channel a hole back in time and space and have a looksee…

So the episode opens with a variety of technicolour ponies babysitting four of the baby ponies. I note now that they are all in a nursery, and not a barn, and that the little babies are tucked up in a wicker cot, and the other two are in a baby chair.
One pony (I dunno her name yet) has a technicolour rainbow mane, which is pretty cool. However, her voice is also pretty dumb.
The babies are behaving badly, throwing their food and toys at the ponies, so the pink pegasus one breaks out into a song, which seems to cheer them up.

ARGH WHY AM I WATCHING THIS

The babies then almost commit suicide by riding skateboards (why do ponies need skateboards?!) into a wall. THEY ALL CONTINUE TO SING

So, they decide to go out for a walk to calm them all down, and head to the ice-cream store – and oho, it turns out that the little-little ones are the ‘newborn’ ponies and the baby-babies, and the ones looking after them are also babies, as ‘scoops’ the owner of the ice-cream store is bigger and has a more grown-up voice. Aha, the plot thickens. And so does the custard…

Anyhow, Scoops reveals that there’s no Ice Cream! Catatrophe!! Has there been an embargo on ice cream shipments to Ponyland due to the child labour and bad parenting? Is it due to a lack of workers with thumbs?
… No, apparently the ice-cream works of Rocky Ripple (Ice Cream works… what?!) have been shut down to drive  Fudgey McSwain (teehee) out of business.
The two fierce business rivals apparently used to be friends, with one supplying the ice cream, and one the toppings, between them supplying Ponyland with a golden era of Ice-Cream.

It was a time when all across ponyland everyone would know the names of Rocky Ripple and Fudgey McSwain, and not a pony in the land would go without the glorious melding of topping and ice-cream. People came from far and wide to sample their delicious work, and their business partnership served as a model for all – until their disasterous breakup, which I’m sure we’ll learn about in a minute, once I stop making shit up.

The baby ponies decide to do something about it, so I suppose this episodes’ going to be about them – which is irritating, because their voices are really annoying.
So, they go to visit Rocky Ripple, who is either a troll or goblin of some kind, or just incredibly ugly, and he rants about developing his ultimate ice cream before he was put out of business – Double Banana Marshmallow Colada – which to be fair, does sound pretty frickin’ awesome.
It turns out that his recipe has been stolen, and he thinks Fudgey McSwain (snigger) took it.
Fudgey (chortle) is a bit of a dumbass, but agrees reluctantly to talk to Rocky Ripple, and apparently hasn’t stolen the recipe. They make up, and decide to look for the recipe together.

Oho, but it’s a LIE, Fudgey McSwain is actually out to frame Rocky Ripple! ONOES!
He gets hit in the face with ice-cream, and then accuses Rocky of being out to humiliate him, and then runs off to his factory for… some reason. I’m not entirely clear on this. Anyhow, the baby ponies follow him, still carting the newborns around with them – and all the adults are apparently okay with this.

Perhaps the ponies are like some kind of master race, and defying them results in death by ice-cream overfeeding. Or maybe they’re like sacred cows, and if you hurt one, you get beaten to death. Or maybe they turn carniverous on a whim.  Or somehow support the cosmic balance of Ponyland.

Anyhow, they park the babies in their carriages on a conveyor belt for some reason, and then act alarmed when it starts up. But the worst that happens if they get fed some toppings, and put in handy infant pony-sized ice-cream containers, so it’s all good.
McSwain and Ripple then start an all-out ice-cream based artillery duel using giant tanks that fire globs of ice-cream and toppings at each other… and still nobody intervenes. Also, there’s noticably an animation error in this scene, as two of the baby ponies talking to each other are the same pony, which is a bit glaring.

The ice-cream tanks go to war, and the ponies retreat in fear of becoming casualties of war in the quite literally messy battle. They go back to the sweet shop, and Scoops feeds the newborns the last of the Ice Cream to shut up their incessant wailing.
And lo and behold! All is saved, as they discover the recipe, carelssly dropped into a tub of ice cream! THE DAY IS SAVED!

The baby ponies race back to the war zone to deliver the message, but the war is in full swing, with thousands of casualties on both sides, and mass depopulation, the destruction of industry, and organised society and the beginning of an ice-cream holocaust for Ponyland. Refugees are fleeing the area, and the UN are poised to intervene as the death toll mounts.

Luckily, that’s not true, and the flying baby pony (Northstar pony, apparently) flies into the fight, risking her own neck bravely to stop the ongoing battle. The two enemies become friends again, and then say the

ponies can have all the ice-cream they want!
However, understandably by this point, the baby ponies have realised that both the ice-cream makers are fucking nuts, and could go over the edge at any minute. So instead, they calmly say ‘we’ve had enough ice-cream for one day’ and, as was the tradition back in those days, they all laugh their way into the sunset.

So, that’s an episode. It was only about nine minutes long, and it was pretty much what I expected – simple, sweet, kind of silly and straightforward.
I’m guessing My Little Pony was aimed at young girls rather than older ones, and I’m also guessing most of them would’ve been content with this. But it’s still kind of sloppy with things like animation, logic, and storytelling – but again, the audience wouldn’t really notice or care by that point, and as long as it sold toys, I’m guessing the production company and the people holding the cash – i.e. the toy company – didn’t really care.

It is still fun to wonder about the bizarre logic of ponyland, where everyone only ever eats ice-cream or cake, and all the ponies live in houses and have shops, yet no one seems to have money, have hands to build anything, and there aren’t any boy ponies either… so where do the babies come from? Spontaneous budding? Are they some kind of freakish race that shifts gender when in heat? Am I thinking about this too much?

All in all, I know I’m not the audience for this kind of thing, being far too old and entirely the wrong gender,  but it was fun to watch it, and you know – you read these things to see what jokes people make.

The ponies are actually kinda cute (like fluffy kittens cute, not the other kind! it hasn’t warped me that much!) and sweet, despite their silly names and antics, and the whole thing is pretty harmless. and that’s probably why the franchise has kept going for so long.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to see what would actually happen if you feed ice cream to a horse.

]]> http://unbored.co.uk/reviews/2010/05/06/retro-reviews-my-little-pony/feed/ 3 http://wp.me/p1B5QK-jq http://unbored.co.uk/reviews/2010/04/30/retro-reviews-he-man-and-the-masters-of-the-universe/#comments Fri, 30 Apr 2010 06:00:15 +0000 Steve Doyle http://unbored.co.uk/?p=1204 Continue reading →]]> So, it’s retro time again, and this week I’m going to hold my magic sword aloft and shout BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL! because I’m watching a He-Man episode this week.

He-Man was, like many cartoons in the 1980′s, created primarily to promote a toyline. The said toyline was a series of action figures that blended some sci-fi elements, such as laser guns, vehicles, and robots, with the trappings of fantasy, especially Conan the Barbarian, for inspiration too.

He-Man himself was a character who gained his strength from his furry pants magical sword, given to him by a sorceress, and his arch nemesis was an incompetant hilarious evil sorceror named Skeletor. 

But they also existed in a world where his best friend and bravest ally was Man-At-Arms, who rocked around in a suit of technological armour and a moustache to make the village people proud.

He-Man never held the cult notoriety that Transformers did, and it didn’t last as long on TV or in comic books. However, it is well remembered for it’s toyline, and like many other retro cartoons, people remember most of the basic facts about it – that He-Man had an alter-ego in the boyish and irritating Prince Adam, and that every week he’d regularly trounce the incompetent and mostly comedy relief forces of evil, with no real effect on it the next week, all in order to sell more toys.

My memories of He-Man are vague at best. It wasn’t on TV as often as Transformers, and I liked that more because it had robots, which are machines, that turn into other machines. And I like machines and technology, even when I was little. Most of my friends were also into Transformers more too, but I do remember catching He-Man from time to time.
He-Man also has the dubious honour of being the first cartoon to be turned into a live-action movie, with Dolph Lundgren being the ‘most powerful man in the universe’. It also starred a young Courtney Cox, who would later go on to become Monica in Friends.

The move was a commercial flop…

Anyhow, YouTube has the whole He-Man series available in complete episodes for free, so I started with the first episode of the first season – The Cosmic Comet (what a title!) so let’s see how things go…

So, the episode begins with the very familiar opening theme. Once that’s done, we’re launched into the episode with two of the bad guys attacking Castle Grayskull, the source of all He-Mans’ powers, and apparently a whole lot more, because, according to Evil-lynn the sorceress, the ‘stars are right’, and a comet streaks across the sky-

But this is the first episode of the first season… we don’t get any explanation of the origin of He-Man, the castle, who the baddies are, or any kind of real in-depth origin other than the opening credits. It’s full furry pants engaged! We’re just going straight into things!

Anyhow, He-Man throws Beast-man (wow, imaginative name!) off the drawbridge, and then reflects Evil-lynn’s magic back at her using his sword. They fall into a big pit of mud, or maybe poo, under the drawbridge, complete with comedy sound effects, and then swear to be back another day.
Well, so far so Hanna-Barbara.

One thing to note about this show so far, is that the animation is pretty chunky and primitive – it looks very 70′s and crude. All the characters are quite simple-looking, and the colours are quite… plain, with little shadows or shading. But maybe I’ve just been spoilt by anime… either way, it really hasn’t aged well…

So, He-Man, Man-At-Arms, and Man-At-Arms moustache are sent by the Sorceress (I wonder what her real name is?) to go and find a wizard who is apparently the ‘Keeper of Comets’. She doesn’t explain what that means, so maybe it’s like being their carer, or their handler or something. Maybe he has to feed them and water them every day, and let them out for a blast around the solar system.

So, they ask permission from the King to go (He-Man has changed back into Adam at this point), and he comments that he is glad Adam is ‘taking some responsibility at last’, like he’s some kind of unruly teenager who sits in his bedroom all the time, or keeps coming home drunk.
Considering the fact that he’s still buff as hell as Adam, he obviously must have some sense of responsibility or drive. And if I was him, I’d just be like ‘Responsibility? Fuck you dad, I’m He-Man!”
Anyhow, that sadly does not happen, and instead the King decides they should take Teela along, in case Man-At-Arms porno moustache and Prince Adam’s pink shirt don’t let them get taken seriously enough. The two guys give each a ‘WTF’ look, which they should have reserved, because then Orko decides he wants to come too.

Now, just a break for a moment to explain Orko.

In every action cartoon there’s always an Orko. Thundercats had Snarf, and the Transformers… well, they had Wheelie. And I fucking hate Wheelie. But there’s always comedy, light-hearted companion character, who regularly screws up, gets in the way, or otherwise performs some kind of action that either makes things worse for the bad guys, or unexpectedly saves the day for the heroes. Orko is this character in He-Man, complete with annoying voice and stupid look. He’s apparently a magician, but his magic goes wrong every single time he tries to do it, making him less that useless in any capacity.

The little dumbass threatens to practice his magic for an upcoming banquet, so the king decides to let him go along, instantly dooming Prince Adam, Man-At-Arms and Teela, and off they go to find the Keeper of the Comets.

Then we get our first glimpse at the bad guys and their eeeeeevil lair, Snake Mountain – which is, as it suggests, a mountain in the shape of a snake. Evil-Lynn and a gormless looking beast man stand around, until Skeletor, who’s their boss, shows up and starts speaking in his hilarious voice. The bad guys all hold hands (Awww!) and use their magic to take over the comet. Skeletor has a bit of a laugh, which is also hilarious, and then we cut back to the good guys, who are in a tourbus on weird-looking tracks, which no one appears to be driving.
At this point, the animation looks really really cheap. The inside of the vehicle has no detail at all – no one is even sitting on seats, they’re just sort of… hovering… and the cab has no details of any kind. The actual movement of the ‘attack track’ is also steady and solid – now, I know that things were a little more primitive back then, but seriously?

Anyhow, their journey isn’t exactly wrought with danger, as they just sort of turn up and are there.
The Keeper of the Comets turns out to be a moron, and apparently is clueless and kind of dumb and ditzy. It turns out that he accidentally blew up one of the comets he was trying to control, and turned the other one evil (sentient comets? who knew!), and now he’s too old and lazy to solve the problem, and has no confidence in his abilities.

Skeletor and the baddies decide to capture the wizard just in case, and use the comet to send some monsters to capture the wizard. Adam and Teela run around a bit, and then the comet fragments hit, and turn into faceless grey golem-thingies.

Cringer (A big green tiger-thing that’s a coward) runs away, and Adam follows him, giving Teela and Man-At-Arms a chance to show that they’re useless. Adam turns into He-Man, and turns Cringer into Battlecat.
The wizard tries to control the comet monsters and fails. He-man beats them up, while Orko simpers pointlessly.

The wizard passes out, and Orko collects the comet chunks for later. They take the wizard to Castle Grayskull to heal him up, and then go to fight Skeletor in the RV. Beast man attacks them in a stupid looking jet, and the Mobile home decides to grow a sense of humor, which falls flat on it’s face. Some bad animation later, and they shoot down Beast-Man.
Skeleton face and Evil-lynn hold hands again (aww! there’s so much love with the villains) and then attack the good guys using their powers. He-Man declares let’s get ‘em… and then they pass out.
Fortunately, the Sorceress rescues them by teleporting them away before Skeletor can rape them all to death, and the wizard decides they should start a comet arms race by making a cosmic comet of their own filled with ‘good’. They use the bits of comet Orko picked up to make one, filled with the power of good from their hearts…
How digustingly saccharine >.<

Anyhow, the comet is sentient, and they have to send it off into space before the evil one hits.
The comet is on route, and He-Man says he has to try and slow it down. The sorceress uses her magic to make him fly, and then we see how He-Man is the most powerful man in the universe, because he ignores the fucking laws of physics.
He gets propelled into the air, and holds the comet still in mid air.
Yes, not standing on anything, or pushing against anything except thin air, he holds the comet back.

Anyhow, the good comet is propelled back into the air, and they make friends again, and all is happy and right. Skeletor gets a comet in the face, and then everyone regroups at the banquet, where Orko shows off some lame magic, and everyone has a laugh, before Man-At-Arms gives us the ‘moral of the story’ which is not to give up on yourself.

So, that’s the first episode of the series, and it’s got to be said – it’s a lot worse than I remember it being.

The plot is stupid, the characters are weak, and the script is piss-poor. And the animation is ugly, clunky and flat. The character designs aren’t pretty either, and look shoddy and crude.
It is kind of dumb fun to watch, if only to rip into it, and it shows it’s age. Maybe when I was younger I might’ve watched it – but even then, I can see why it wasn’t my favourite show compared to some others.

It did get two reboots as well – one in the early 90′s as which was essentially ‘He-Man in space,’ which didn’t take off and only lasted a single season of 52 episodes (enough for syndication), but did have a lot better animation and character design, and one which was done in the early ’00′s and had a more ‘manga’ art style, and attempts at a decent plot – and thus was sure to fail, despite apparently being a lot better and having vaguely threatening villains and an arc-plot.

He-Man’s fondest memories are probably from the legions of fantastically bizarre and surreal toys, which were supported and advertised by the cartoon, rather than transformers, which had a fictional appeal of it’s own, alongside the toys. It’s interesting to see the differences between the two and how they’ve changed over time, but He-Man is certainly one for the camp-and-dumb archives, and something to remember and watch for shits and giggles, more than anything else.

Well known and (mostly) remembered by a many a geek, the original transformers cartoon aired for three seasons and a mini-series in most parts of the world. Everyone remembers the theme tune and many of the characters, and it has spawned many sequels and spinoffs since it’s debut in the 80′s.

Of course, everyone remembers it fondly – but was it really that good?

Sure, there were some episodes that were pretty exciting – like the first 3-parter, Arrival From Cybertron, which established the setup for the show, and featured a lot of action. There was also The Key to Vector Sigma, which introduced the combining teams of the Autobot Aerialbot planes, and the Decepticon Stunticon cars who were powerhouses in their own right, and the episode War Dawn, which shows the origins of Optimus Prime, and the beginnings of the war on Cybertron, amongst other good episodes.

Of course – there were also a whole bunch of fucking terrible episodes, full of shoddy and awful animation, dumb-as-hell plots with stupid half-assed ideas in them, and mind-breaking problems in continunity between character design, plot, and abilities and more, often within the same episode. Many of these came in the third season when there was less money and more of the work was being farmed out to other companies, and the writing was of a much lower standard.

Of course, reviewing one of the good episodes would be easy, and I’d

thoroughly enjoy watching it.
But that wouldn’t be nearly as funny, so instead here’s a review of two of the worst episodes known to fans everywhere – City of Steel, the third episode of Season two, and Surprise Party, the 12th Episode from Season three, and featuring everyone’s two least favourite characters, Wheelie and Daniel. Why these two episodes? Well, why not.

City of Steel

So, the episode begins with Lazerbeak flying past the Statue of Liberty, and entering New York City. Nobody notices or comments on the giant mechanical eagle, and the sound of his rumbling jet engines, and likewise nobody notices him using his laser cannons to levitate a manhole into the air. Well, I guess it’s New York. Those guys have seen everything.
Presumably it’s one fucking big manhole, as he then flies down it and into the sewer, where the Decepticons have established a secret base.

Now, let’s just take a moment here. The Autobots and Decepticons are stranded billions of miles, and 4 million years from their home planet and their civilisation. The Autobots are known and in contact with the US Government, but the Decepticons are hated and feared. However, the Autobots never establish any bases – but the badguys are constantly building shiny metal bases everywhere! where the do they get all their shit from?

Anyway, somehow, the Decepticons have built a massive base under New York, and no one has noticed. Presumably they also didn’t file a building permit, the Fiends!
The Constructicons actually do some constructing, and sink the Empire State Building beneath the streets and into their secret base, which is apparently part of some Master Plan of Megatrons’.

Meanwhile, the Autobots see this on TV, and Optimus Prime blames Megatron instantly, with no evidence (although, y’know who else was it going to be? Cobra?). They rush to NYC to put a stop to his shenanigans.

Some of the Autobots arrive, inexplicably using hydrofoils to skate over the water. They see Lazerbeak and… well, nothing really comes of it, and they

rendezvous in Central Park and have a bit of a comical slap-fight, before Megatron shows up, abducts Optimus Prime, and renders him a cripple in his secret lair, before raising a phallic-looking Cybertronian building in the Empire States’ place, declaring the city to be ‘New Cybertron City!’
Oh Noes! What will the Autobots do now?

Well, after the commerical break, it turns out that the city has been evacuated – it’s apparently much easier than movies, tv, and the real-world have otherwise made out – and the Autobots sneak into the sewers, where

they encounter a robot alligator, made from bits of Optimus Prime, on Megatrons’ orders.

No, really.
Spike, Bumblebee, Ratchet and Hound manage to drive the robot alligator into a subway train, and send it on it’s way, before discovering the location of Optimus’ dismembered head. They repair him so he can talk, and then set about recovering his body parts, but are missing his right arm, which Megatron had mounted, with it’s gun, on the top of a tower as a freakish gun turret. Soundwave repeatedly clicks the fire button, and the gun-arm inaccurately strafes the Autobots, while Megatron cackles incessantly.
Our heroes are dooooooooomed

Fortunately, the Autobots survive the commerical break, and escape the badly-aimed barrage by transforming into the vehicle modes and driving around hapharzardly. After not paying attention to driving or where they

were going in any way, Bluestreak and Hound fall into a hole that appeared from nowhere that leads into the subway.  They fight Rumble, who turns into Frenzy, who turns into Rumble again in a subway train, which is surprisingly resilient to laser cannon fire, before it explodes, while Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Bumblebee and Optimus are attacked by…

KILLER TAXIS!

They somehow find them hard to beat, but eventually discover the secret of levitation long enough to jump over them with no ramp whatsoever in their car modes, before Optimus rams them all and destroys them. They then begin to scale the side of the decepticon-state-building. Sideswipe learns to fly long enough to take out Starscream, but then forgets how to again, while the others climb up the building.
Spike and Bumblebee infiltrate the control room, and trick Megatron into shooting the base controls.
Well that’s fucking dumb of him. No wonder the war on Cybertron went so badly – he probably blew up half of his own bases and equipment because he was startled by a spider on his chair.

Anyhow, he then sends Devastator, the combined robot form of the Constructicons, after the Autobots, who, rather predictably, proceeds to climb up the building like King Kong, while speaking in the third person. Wheeljack, who has been conspicuously absent since the start of the episode, attacks him with remote control helicopters that fire rockets (maybe he was building them?), which do little, and then gives up completely, despite them not being destroyed.

Optimus takes control of his arm again, despite being grabbed by Devastator, who is waving him around like a kid with an actual Optimus Prime figure, and then blasts him with his gun, which for some reason is insanely powerful, and topples Devastator with one shot.

The Decepticons all fly away, Optimus pulls himself together (they use that pun in the show, too), and everyone lives happily ever after – until the next episode.

So, that was insane, dumb, yet somehow I’m left grinning at how stupid it was. I don’t hate it, I just think it’s incredibly silly. I’m sure my four-or-five year old mind would have enjoyed that episode at the time, but as an adult, I can see how idiotic it is.
Speaking of which, onto the next one!

Surprise Party

The Episode starts with the Season 3 opening, complete with it’s hilariously mis-coloured Springer-as-Kup (there’s a toy in there somewhere, Hasbro! Limited edition repaint!), which was never, ever corrected. For thirty-three fucking episodes! Then onto the real fun!

So, the episode opens with Daniel being surprised by his dad, Spike, and the majority of the Autobot army, who have little to do, apparently, except celebrate the birthdays of small human boys.

This seems surprising, since Galvatron, leader of the Decepticons, is watching on a monitor. Considering he can spy on his enemies’ HQ with such impunity, I would’ve thought the Autobots would have their work cut out, and Galvatron would’ve kicked their asses by now – but hey, whatever. All the same, he gets pissed he’s not invited to the party, and attacks Cybertron. The combaticons (decepticons who turn into military vehicles) attack and destroy two of the Autobot shuttles, one of which looks remarkably like the Aerialbot Fireflight, who’s jet mode is an F-4 Phantom jet fighter. One of the combaticons also looks a lot like Hound.

Wheelie suicide charges the Decepticons for no apparent reason, and for some reason the others decide not to let him die and free themselves of his rhyming bullshit, and instead Ultra Magnus shields him with his body, taking a shot to the robo-kidneys.

Amazed by this display of heroics for a comedy relief character, the Combaticons, including the robot they combine into, along with their seperate forms. Yes, that’s right – the robot they combine into, Bruticus, is present in the same shot as their uncombined forms, in a tiny form, escape into a GIANT version of their space-shuttle comrade, Blast-off, and flee.

Daniel decides that Ultra Magnus should have a surprise party too, which I’m sure he’ll feel in the mood for after getting shot in the robot-kidneys, and set off to find out when he was built, while Spike and the others wangst about the shuttle and the upcoming ‘peace conference’.

Wheelie and Daniel, the worlds most annoying partnership, scour the archives and find only an archive bot who is also annoyed by them, and tells them that Ultra Magnus’ birthday isn’t on record, except for on some archive asteroid that is apparently lost.
They need a ship to get there, and Wheelie takes Daniel to a hangar full of immaculate shuttles.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong – but didn’t the Combaticons attack the hangar at the start of the episode? And didn’t they trash all the shuttles? Furthermore, didn’t Spike and the others head off to find out if the shuttles could be repaired? They’ve got a hangar full of perfectly good ones here!

Anyway, the Dullard Duo head off to the asteroids’ last known location. Meanwhile, using his omnipotent viewscreen, Cyclonus, Galvatrons’ right-hand man, notices… and does nothing about it.

Wheelie and Daniel fly into an asteroid field, which turns into a meteor shower, and crash-land on the asteroid, where they’re attacked by flying scaly eel things. Wheelie, despite being part of the Autobot army, is apparently unarmed, and transforms and drives away to head them off.

This doesn’t really work, probably because Wheelie sucks, and Daniel is an idiot. They somehow manage to disgust the eel-things into going away, and then instead get shot at by the guard robots of the archive base that they’d fortunately happened upon.
Just as they’re about to finally bite the bullet (or laser, or whatever), Cyclonus and his henchmen the Sweeps – who are not a cadre of evil chimmney sweeps, alas – turn up, and prove that they are sincerely evil, and save Daniel and Wheelie from certain doom.

Dumb and dumber reveal all within seconds, and Cyclonus sets the asteroid, that looks suspiciously like a moon, onto a collision course with Cybertron. The Autobots receive a signal from the base, and Cyclonus, in true villain style, reveals his evil plan.
The autobots rush to save their home world and everyone on it, and respond in full force…

…by sending only Sky Lynx and Ultra Magnus (who was injured earlier!) to stop the planetoid on a collision course. Somehow, Wheelie and Daniel also escape. Magnus and Sky Lynx make short work of the flying eel-things, because they bought fucking guns with them, and then kick the Sweeps’ asses too.
Cyclonus and Magnus get in a punch-up, while Wheelie saves the day.

Cyclonus and Magnus get in a punch-up, while Wheelie saves the day.

Wheelie saves the day!

by pressing the button marked ‘self destruct’, which requires no authorisation, and has no covers or other systems to prevent it being pressed accidentally or anything.
Man, the Autobots build some crappy bases – malfunctioning guard androids, doors a human child and an unarmed robot could break into, and easily labelled and accesible self-destructs? No wonder their planet is fucked up.

Anyway, they all escape, and Daniel and Wheelie reveal they wanted to have a surprise party for Magnus, who doesn’t seem to give a shit, or know when his own birthday is. Spike comes up with the idea that that day should be his birthday, forever marked by the near-death of his son, and the destruction of a small planetoid, and everyone cheers hip-hip-hooray!

So two episodes of the cartoon that are far from the worst, but typical of some of the sub-par or run of the mill episodes. And certainly of the far, far weaker third season of the TV show that followed the movie.

They both also show the low production values by the amount of lazy animating or animation errors, as well as the stupid plots – but they still entertained me, and it was still somewhat enjoyable, if in an intensely dumb way.

The series still has some appeal, and some of the better episodes are still pretty good, and it’s hard to resist the warm enveloping bosom of nostalgia as she nestles me with her sweet, sweet familiarity.

In the first part of this article, I explored the history of the Transformers franchise in it’s various animated  incarnations. I showed you the different cartoons, and explained a little about the history and story of each, and gave a brief introduction.

Of course, the cartoons are only one part of the fictional exploits of the robots in disguise from another world. Way before the first episode of the series debuted, there were Transformers comics – and they’ve been going as long as there’ve been toys.

Things started way back in the 80′s when everything awful great nostalgic was made, with a 4-issue limited series by a little comic book company called Marvel Comics

To begin with, the series was pitched as a limited series, as a tie-in with the toyline – as was common back in those days. Everything had comics released to promote it, and Transformers was no different.
The story was simple, and the art and writing was, quite frankly, terrible in the first 4 issues – but it was good enough to keep that 4-issue limited series going into a monthly series.

The art got better, the stories got more exciting, and the series took off – big time.

As things moved onward, the plots grew in complexity and depth, introducing new characters, making stars and fan-favourites of obscure ones, and diverging completely and forging it’s own world and continuity completely separate from that of the cartoon.

Double-crosses and alliances were made, rivalries forged, and epic legends, mythologies and histories came to be over the years of the comics’ publication.
So successful was the US Marvel series that a UK one was published seperate,

extending to a stunning 331 issues in length -although that’s kind of cheating, since some of the page count was filled up with reprints of the US stories. The US Comic, as a monthly, also lasted for a long while, stretching to issue 80.
Many writers cut their teeth doing transformers comics, and many of the UK comics’ artists were regulars from 2000AD. Of particular note is Simon Furman, who has now become the lifeblood of Transformers fiction, and has written for episodes of Beast Wars, and to this date is still writing transformers comics.
He’s also become known for his Furmanisms, which are hilarious.

While the stories were, overall and for the most part, weaving an amazing tapestry that ends in a most magnificent and spectacular ending, there are still some things that are, without a doubt fucking stupid. Some of the stories veer into outright rediculousness, that even the writers must have realised – such stories as ‘Buster Witwicky and The Carwash of Doom’, which is exactly what it sounds like, and things like Micromaster transformer wrestling

leagues  – a result of the popularity of WWF wrestling in the late 80′s.

Many of the stories were also subject to the whims of Hasbro, as the toys were of course still being produced at the time of the comic being published – so frequently the cast would change wildly, and some characters would be forgotten about or killed off, often in rediculous ways. Such as gigantic powerhouse behemoth Omega Supreme being knocked out in one shot from tape-transformer Buzzsaw.
This aside, the comic lasted a long, long time, and is still fondly remembered today by old farts like me, and reprints and collections have been made and fly off the bookshelves with alarming regularity. Modern day publishers of the Transformers comics have also begun reprints of the individual issues, which have steady sales, and many of the original artists and writers still enjoy success in the industry  – and there’s still yet to be a single publisher of Transformers comics that lasts as long as Marvel managed.

Things moved on, of course, and the regular series came to an end, going out on a titanic battle with – who else – but the planet-eating Orson Welles voiced robotic-god-of-evil, Unicron, for the fate of their entire race and the universe.
Awesomely illustrated by top artist Andrew Wildman, the series came to a breathless close, and it was over — Finished!

Of course – it never ends, and only a few short years later, as the toyline was released in brighter coloured, newly molded versions as the 90′s neon-and-gimmick inspired ‘Generation 2′, so too the comics burst back into being, vomited forth with ugly artwork, but a decent story penned, again, but Simon Furman, for another trip around the universe, and another chance to save it.

Once again, all was at stake, and it had to do with the history of their own race. New ideas were revealed, and the dark (and pulled out from Furman’s arse) history of the Transformers, completely different, yet still related, to their other dark history chomping on Cybertron in the picture above, has come back to haunt them, and everyone else.

New enemies have arrived also – the Decepticon Empire, a ruthless race of highly advanced transformers from somewhere at the edge of the Galaxy, and they make the Decepticons of the comics look like the Decepticons of the animated series – incompetent jackass losers, and comedy relief at the worst.

In keeping with the 90′s trend of comic psychopaths Anti-heroes, the Autobots were ‘grittier’ and more ‘edgy’ which just ended up being a bit dumb and didn’t really work, since Furman hadn’t really got that pinned down at the time. The art was also sadly missing Andrew Wildman, Geoff Senior, or anyone who was actually good, and all the transformers looked horrifyingly bad, until the last few issues, where someone managed to surreptitiously sneak a few pages of Andrew Wildman’s art in.

No really – a few random pages. Not a whole issue. Then the art went back to someone elses’ style.

Anyhow, the series ended on a setup for a sequel that was never published in any official capacity, and was instead continued in a fan-related publication written by Furman years later. And so, Generation 2 was surplus to requirements, and faded away for years to come.

But like some vast predatory bird, the spectre of Transformers comics continued to hover, as the franchise did itself. All remained quiet for years, until, with no warning, in 2001, a new company exploded to life from

nowhere.

There was a tremendous buzz as the preview issues of the comics were released. The art was sophisticated and bright, with glorious colours. The comics themselves were of high quality printing, and the writing had a slightly sinister edge to it, which was welcome – after all, Dreamwave knew that their audience would now be twenty-something young adults who grew up with transformers, and wanted stories with complex ideas and conflicts.

Everything was welcome, exciting, and glorious for the new comic series. Fans bought up the comics like the proverbial hot-cakes, so much so that reprints were needed just to keep the comics on the shelves. No one could get enough of their stuff – but then the bad news came.

Issues started being published late, deadlines came and went with no sign of comics – which was due to the books not being correctly licenced for distribution outside of the US. More trouble followed as soon as this was sorted out, as news of creators not getting paid came to the fore, and of a forced ‘house style’ or artwork also came to light.

Artists were, quite obviously, not happy about this, as it made some of their art look like Pat Lee’s, which was far from the best art in use at Dreamwave.

Dreamwave were forced to reap the whirlwind when their bankruptcy was declared, their debts in excess of 1 million dollars at the time of the company’s collapse. Pat Lee had been ‘forgetting’ to pay the creators, artists, writers, and probably the cleaning lady, and as such nobody wanted to work for him. He secretly moved all the companies’ assets – including his company car, which was a fucking porsche. Proving there is some justice in the world, this company also went bust, but sadly Pat Lee is still at large.

Dreamwave, and especially Pat ‘Superstar artist’ Lee, as he was termed in the companies’ literature, and not Pat ‘I’m a dickhole’ Lee, as he should have been, were put out of mind by Transformers fans with a bitterness and slight taste of excrement, before something new happened – this time, a lot quicker than the six year gap between Marvel and Dreamwave.

All across the world, new comic covers began appearing with art so good it made grown men (and a few geeky women) cry in joy. No marshmallow-bulgy-rounded robots were on show. Clean artwork, with rigid lines, updated and more complex robot designs, and familar, old-school characters were on display. But who was this mysterious company? What were they going to do?

All was soon revealed as a new Generation 1 transformers comic arrived on shelves, published by a company called IDW, known only before for their range of horror comics and tie-ins, before they made a stand, and saved the transformers licence from Dreamwave’s festering clutches.

The new company had salvaged most of the creative talent from Dreamwave too, employing artists such as Don Figueroa, and writer Simon Furman (who by this point, might as well have an Autobot symbol stamped on his forehead), and struck out with new artists as well, making a huge impact from moment one.

Rather than follow any existing or accepted story, they started from scratch, keeping only the basics of the transformers continuity, and starting a new, more complex and more shadowy interstellar cold-war between the Autobots and Decepticons, with more ambiguous motives for both sides, and a much more complex and steady backstory that evolves over the whole run of the series, presenting an escalation in the ongoing conflict between ideologies.

IDW originally published mini-series, despite the fans relentlessly clamouring for an ongoing series of comics. Rigidly they stuck to the idea, releasing a generation 1 mini-series every spring/summer and a mini-series dealing with Beast Wars, or one of the other transformers lines/continuities in the other part of the year. They also backed up the much more popular G1 series with a number of ‘Spotlights’ on individual characters, to allow some of the lesser-known, but still fan popular characters a chance to do something cool, and for writers to tell some other stories. Each of these also filled in some of the back story of the main series.

The format was clever, and the stories themselves were slick, smooth and clever, all folding together like some kind of sexy robot origami to become a tight, tense and thrilling story that reached a explosive finale.

IDW are still publishing transformers comics, and it’s through them that original Generation 1 fiction, featuring the original characters, as well as fiction tied into the (sigh) Live-action movies is also published, as well as all other licenced transformers comics. Hopefully, their licence will continued for a long, long time, and maybe they can best the record set by marvel’s 331-issue ‘limited series’.

Of course, there are other transformers comics – numerous unofficial fan-published comics exist and have been created, some which are sometimes of quality enough that they could be official, or even superior to the official ones, often created through the fan clubs and conventions based around transformers. There are also numerous Japanese-exclusive mangas that have never been translated, and tie in with exclusive Japanese toys or storylines, some of which are more notorious than others, and very, very distinctly Japanese – most notorious of which, is a series called Transformers: Kiss-players, where the Japanese definition of ‘Teenage’ girls, i.e., barely-sixteen-but-looking-twelve girls work for Earth Defence Command, and have transformer partners they must kiss in order to unlock their special powers and abilities.

No, I am not making this shit up.

The idea of the series and trying to choke it down gives me the worst case of indigestion I’ve ever had, but at least IDW are preventing transformers fans all over the world from turning to alcoholism at the existence of Kiss-Players, and can we do less than salute them, by maybe taking a peek at their comics sometime.

Transformers in comics will go on presumably for a long, long time, as there are always new series coming and going, and the toyline is a flagship brand for Hasbro. One day it might end – but as Simon Furman likes to say – It never ends.

Time I wasn’t here!

Transformers

Other than the well-remembered cartoon of that time, there have been many, many more incarnations of the ‘robots in disguise’ that have contributed to the franchise and pop-culture,  stretching from the original series, right up until the current day, and varying wildly in their storylines, continuity, quality, and style.
All of them are regarded differently by the legions of Transformers fans that exist, both casual and hardcore. But to the more relaxed and less transformers-orientated geek, I’ve decided to undertake a voyage into the realms of transforming robot animation to give the rest of you a guide to the galaxy and generation spanning adventures of the warriors from Cybertron, and hope that you can find some fun, adventure and appreciation for them.

The long, confusing, and twisty legacy of Transformers in animation began way back when, years ago, when I was young, and you were even younger. When business suits with shoulder pads, perms for men and women, and leg-warmers ruled the world of high fashion, when the synth was the only instrument pop needed, and when Mobile phones were big enough to bludgeon sea mammals to death with.

The year was 1984, and the original transformers cartoon had arrived.

This is the animated series that most transformers fans, and non-fans be they around when it first aired or after, are familiar with, and will think of when someone says ‘transformers’ to them. This has the classic line up of recognized characters – the Autobots, lead by Optimus Prime (“the truck guy”), and Decepticons, lead by Megatron (“that dude who turned into a gun”), and their friends and underlings, such as Starscream (“wasn’t he, like, red?”), Soundwave (“what use is a tape deck?”), Jazz (“Wasn’t there one who was like, a sports car?”), Bumblebee (“I always thought Bumblebee was awesome!”) and the rest.

The original transformers cartoon established a lot of precedents in the shows that follow it – the Autobots mostly turn into cars, the Decepticons into flying craft and weapons (although later episodes changed those things). There was a war between both factions that had raged for millions of years, and that the robots were from outer space. And both sides were in competition for energy and resources.
These ideas have been repeated over and over again in later incarnations, and these versions of the characters returned to many, many times to continue their adventures. Most fans remember this series strongly, and many of them have grown up to work on later incarnations of transformers. The characters, continuity, and familiar aspects of this show later came be to be known, unofficially, and later officially, as Generation 1, a term that has become widely-known by both fans, and even some-non fans and non-geeks to represent these stories and characters, and their associated works.

However, watching it again nowadays, it’s very much fair to say that it hasn’t aged well.
The show is rife with terrible animation errors, with limbs, heads, and even whole characters disappearing from frame to frame, characters being the wrong colour entirely, inconsistencies in plot, animation, character, and abilities for the tranformers shown, and all sorts of other terrible problems.

Much of this is due to animation being ‘farmed out’ for production to other houses and studios than the main one, for lower costs and quicker working times, which meant mistakes in the finished episodes were inevitable.
The plots of the individual episodes are often rediculous and silly – none more so than the infamously bad episode ‘B.O.T.’ – but there are some that are entertaining, and even excitingwhen viewed now, and as an older fan.
And if you can place yourself back in a child’s mind-set, it’s easy to see why you were entertained, and enthralled at the time.

The characters are kind of simple too, but nonetheless – this is a children’s cartoon, that was designed to sell toys – and it did so very well, as well as capturing the imaginations of a generation of kids so much that the show went on to have three seasons.
Likely the best of which was the second, which introduced new characters alongside the originals, and also had more adventurous plots involving the background of the transformers and Cybertron.

The series also spawned a movie, which was of much higher quality in both story and animation that the series it came from

The movie was a big thing for transformers, and another that all fans remember well. Not least for the fact it killed off almost eighty percent of the characters from the first two seasons of the cartoon!
A daring departure… in which many small children could observe the contents of their toy shelf being systematically elminated. However, it was poorly received at the box office, but went on to become a cult classic.

The third season of the cartoon followed the movie, and took place after it’s events, with the same cast of characters. However, by this point, toy sales were falling, as was the budget for the series, and many of the stories were outright rediculous comedies and many characters – such as the loved by fans, and previously powerhouse Dinobots – were changed into comedy caricatures of themselves.
Eventually, with a final, and pretty awful, 5-part story named ‘Rebirth’, and acting as the most toy-commerical-like episodes yet, the original Transformers Generation 1 series came to an end.

In the USA and UK, that is.
In Japan, things continued…

The transformers toyline had continued after the end of  ”Season 4′ with many new toys and new gimmicks to go with them. Japanese audiences were thus treated to a new storyline to go with their shiny new toys that featured many, if not all, of these new characters and the continuing adventures of the classic characters alongside them in ‘Headmasters’ the new series of transformers.
Uniquely Japanese, it featured many traits of anime aimed at younger audiences, with simplified motivations and plots for the good and bad guys and their personalities, as well as plots involving characters romping all around the galaxy to fight the Decepticons.

This series was not available to western audiences for a very, very long time, but was finally released in a terrifyingly bad, bad, bad, bad! dub by a company named Omni Productions, and most fans wish they hadn’t bothered.
While the dub is widely available, and easy to get hold of on DVD, it is best enjoyed after having consumed most of your body weight in strong alcohol, or possibly window cleaner. There are a multitude of reasons for it’s sheer awfulness, not least of which is the fact that the voice actors all sound like they’re not interested in what they’re doing or saying, having no expressive qualities in their voices at all, even when their friends are dying.
Part of this is probably due to the fact that they’re faced with a terribly translated script that has no relation to what’s really going on onscreen, or any idea what came before it in terms of the previous series and it’s events, who the characters are, or even their names! Several of the characters names are in fact hilariously changed – such as Blaster becoming ‘Billy’ and Blurr choosing the more conventional name of ‘Wally’…
Fortunately, you can find the subtitled (by fans) versions elsewhere. While occasionally a bit silly and simple, they are nonetheless fun, and most often of a decent quality of animation.

Things didn’t stop there for Japan – Headmasters was a big success, and so it was followed up by another series, following the toyline along with new changes, and introducing a new cast of characters.

Masterforce took on a whole new angle, with new characters and a new background than the previous series, and standing away from them to make it’s own story.
Humans were the central focus of the plot, and the theme of ‘personal transformation’ was paramount, as the characters could ‘become’ transformers by donning special suits to ‘combine’ with transformer bodies.

More light-hearted and comical in tone than the previous series, Masterforce was a Big Damn Adventure, though set almost entirely on Earth, as humans were central to the plot and it’s events. While a radical departure, it was well-received and remembered, and had many spin-offs and nods in later fiction.
Unlike Headmasters, Masterforce was available in the UK (because the world loves us), subtitled instead of being awfully dubbed, and continues to be available.
Japan wasn’t done with transformers yet either, and they had one more Generation 1 show in their arsenal to be deployed.

Victory was a return to the roots of the franchise, and followed two small groups of Autobots and Decepticons (or, rather, in Japanese, Cybertrons and Destrons) as they fought across the Galaxy, defending peaceful civilizations from attacks by the Destrons.

New characters, such as the heroic Cybertron commander ‘Star Saber’ and the evil Destron leader ‘Deathsaurus’ (yes, really) were introduced, alongside returning cameos and appearances from Masterforce characters.
The show spanned a short run only, which is surprising due to it’s high quality of story and especially high-quality animation – but perhaps that’s why, as the budget must have been a lot higher.

Victory continued to introduce new characters based on new toys, such as the micromasters, based on the smaller pocket-sized toys (which were a trend at the time), and other combining-type robots, most of which were Japanese exclusives – especially the unintentionally hilariously named ‘breastforce’, with their combining breastplates.

As with Masterforce, Victory was thankfully made available in a subtitled format many years after it’s original release, rather than the crackhead dub by Omni, and is still available.
But this was the last series based on Generation 1 (or G1) concepts produced in Japan, and it was many years before anything new came along.

Back in the west, things had been extremely quiet too. The remainder of the 1980′s had been devoid of any new animated, televised or otherwise tranformers content, despite the toylines continuing strength and presence, and the only blip had occurred from 1993-95 when a cartoon named ‘Generation 2′ had aired.
Consisting simply of the original 1980′s Generation 1 cartoon, and even select episodes at that, with added grating and annoying primitive CGI borders, opening and closing credits, and scene changes all in badly-done, noisy and intrusive effects. The series was a flop as much as the ‘Generation 2′ toyline was, and the only impact it had was allowing the original fans to see many of the original episodes over again – something that, at the time, was unique, as the internet was a nascent idea, DVDs were a few years off, and the only other copies of the show were on very rare VHS releases, that had often been passed around by many hands, and were aging quickly.

A few years later however, things changed as a wholly-new (at least to begin with) show came to the airwaves in 1996, with a new style of animation, and a brand-new setting and cast of characters.
Reviled by original fans upon it’s beginning, Beast Wars soon and very quickly, with the slick plotting and characterisation, became a superb example of Transformers-related storytelling, and amassed a legion of fans.

Most of this was due to the fact it had excellent characters and ideas behind it, and moved swiftly, with individual episodes that contributed to overall arc-plots (something never seen in a transformers show before!) and while aimed at kids, also had many elements that appealed to older viewers.
While the first season stood on it’s own, and made only very passing and casual references to the ‘Great War’ between Autobots and Decepticons, and a few casual name-drops that were mostly for the sake of humour, by the second season, the writers and show staff had realised that the majority of their viewers were transformers fans – and many of those writers were also fans. Synchronicity was achieved, and the references began to gather pace and the show was now explicitly tied to the original G1 series – and no more so than in the third and final series, where the original characters were featured (after a fashion), along with a slew of other elements.
Beast Wars was an unexpected success of it’s time, and is still well-loved and celebrated today by transformers fans. And it was followed up by it’s own sequel show – another first, at the time.

Beast Machines continued the adventures of the Beast Wars cast after the end of their original storyline, transplanting the action back to the Transformers home planet of Cybertron.
However, in the voyage home, their enemy Megatron had escaped, and has taken over – resulting in a much darker, dystopian and bleaker story than the earlier show. the CGI was much more refined, and the theme tune much more rockin’, leading to a smoother and more slick show.

Characters motivations changed from their roles in Beast Wars, many of them growing in different ways and becoming different to what they were, as the world around them is a dangerous, dark, and scary place. Often battles are a result of simply having to survive or flee, and getting caught, and the Maximals (the good guys) are often on the back foot against superior numbers, and more ruthless and warlike foes.

Beast Machines was mature in it’s approach and story-telling style, and didn’t talk down to it’s audience. It wasn’t without moments of levity and humour, or even hope, but was certainly on a different level than earlier shows – but in the end, that may have been part of it’s downfall, as it lasted only two seasons, and came to a somewhat abrupt and non-triumphant ending. It’s still a hotly contested and debated show in the transformers fandom, but for my opinion, makes a perfect cap on the Beast Wars storylines.

Things hadn’t been quiet in the land of the rising sun however. Japan had loved Beast Wars too, despite their dubbing and rewrites turning it into a bizarre and madcap comedy with almost no relation to the original show. However, it had been popular, and as a result, two sequels followed

Like the re-dubbed Beast Wars, Beast Wars II was a comical and zany take on the battle between Maximal and Predacon, though it followed it’s own story and direction than the American series – and, noticably, made a transition to 2D cell animation instead of CGI.
The series received, and has received so far, no release outside of Japan, but is notable because it included many characters who appeared in the toys, but did not appear in the CGI TV series – Likely due to the cost and time involved in creating new models for the characters.

Beast Wars: Neo followed up Beast Wars: II in Japan, and was as equally goofy and odd as it’s predecessor, carrying on the same storyline with the majority of the same cast.

Things were happening in the USA though – the planned follow up toyline and series to Beast Machines, named Transtech, for which only a few designs were produced, never appeared, and instead, a new series was imported from Japan – a first for the franchise, and later to become a common practice – and was renamed, and the story rewritten. This was called Robots in Disguise

This new show was a complete reboot of the franchise, as it featured no connections to the timeline established by the original cartoon, and expanded on by Beast Wars and Beast Machines. It also featured a much more humour-orientated and kid-friendly approach than the other shows had taken, including comedy characters and dubs as standard, and new voice-acting talents (essentially, the entire cast of Digimon) and was broadcast only on cable-exclusive channels.
Robots in Disguise was not well-known even at the time, and has remained something of an obscure curio. It was the first time though that many of the anime ‘stock’ traditions were presented to familiar Transformers audiences, including things like the ‘anime sweatdrop’ to indicate confusion or embarassment, the ‘speedlines’ of a background in a character moving fast, and other notable stock-in-trades, such as stock footage and shouting the names of attacks in battle.
RiD survived for only one season from 2001 to 2002, and has never received much in the way of followups or popularity, but was the first to pave the way for imports of Japanese shows.

Transformers: Armada followed hot on the heels of RiD, and was heavily promoted, with a new toyline to accompany it. Featuring a new host of voice talent (who were not from Digimon), it follows the adventures of the Autobots and Decepticons of another new continuity as they struggle against each other to find missing smaller robots called ‘minicons’ who can unlock special abilities in all of their larger brethren to allow them to battle their enemies and achieve victory in the ongoing war, as the fleshbag annoyance human sidekick ‘Rad’ explains in the clip above.

With the theme of collecting smaller robots with special abilities that don’t speak and instead spout nonsensical sounds, and having to travel around the world to do so, Armada received many less-than-complimentary comparisons to Pokemon, which was also very popular at the time of it’s release.
Pokeformers was however, fairly well animated, and had a good-length run. However, it was boring, repetitive, and had a tedious plotline that managed to encompass several shifting allegiances throughout it’s run.
Somehow, it included several references to G1 characters in name, but was not well-received by many fans of the original shows, though it gained an audience of new and younger fans during it’s time.
Armada became the first part of a trilogy.

Energon was the second part of the so-called Unicron Trilogy, and was a direct sequel to Armada, taking place 10 years after the end of the previous series.

It featured a returning cast of characters embarking on a new plot, and used a brand-new cel-shaded CGI style that seemed to have been deliberately designed to make the transformer characters look as absolutely awful as possible.
All of the characters lacked in any range of movement and expression, and were covered in overly thick details and panel lines, often resulting from the models being bad-scaled in far-off shots or closeups.
They lacked any weight of movement, and had embarassingly bad body language, walk and run cycles, and sheer depth or range of movement in any way, and had faces that could not even move to perform expressions. It’s especially sad and depressing when one remembers that Beast Wars and Beast Machines were made made literally years earlier, and in those two shows the characters – even the ones with nonhuman faces – made facial expressions and displayed body language perfectly!

Combined with bad writing and even worse voice acting, the show was a dismal failure with fans, yet somehow managed to run for a brain-tumour inducing 51 episodes.

Most of the problem comes with the fact that the series ignored any and all character development and sub-plots, ignoring any ideas about personalities and motivations simply to include more scenes of stock-footage – which given the animation quality, have little-to-no visual impact or grand feeling to them.

The plot itself ends up being repetitive and pointless, as the characters constantly attempt to perform the same goals over and over again, ending up in a show padded out with – yet again – more stock footage, and far too many scenes of exposition and characters telling the audience what they know already, or dubbed in non-sequitors, caused by the lack of a proper translation, or sheer confusion in what is an already confusing and badly-drafted script, resulting in the voice acting being stilted and jarring, and often not matching what is happening on screen, or the characters speaking nonsense!

Supplemental comics and spin-offs were produced for some reason, and the series had a small following of fans, most of whom were presumably too young to care about the horrible visual design, or were lobotomised.
Even more sad to realise, was that Energon marked the 20th anniversary of Transformers on TV, which is quite a sad state of affairs.
Worse still, was that this abortion had a sequel.

Cybertron carried on the story of Armada and Energon, as the Autobots raced into space to find the ‘cyber-planet keys’ to stop their homeworld and many others, from being destroyed – at least in the west. In Japan, it was a stand-alone series, with a new continuity and premise, and didn’t feature the same characters.

Fortunately, considering it’s predecessor, Cybertron actually had some work put into it (someone must have told the producers about the reaction to Energon), and as a result the dub ended up with a much better script and much better performances, along with much more work being done to explain things that were otherwise lost in the translation from Japanese to English, and the rewriting performed to make the show part of the Unicron Trilogy.

Nonetheless, the show does suffer from the horrible flaw of endless stock animation sequences for transformation, and the plot often feels laboured in some places, and compressed in others, lacking any real balance. However, it is overall a much better effort than previous attempts.

Following the debut of the Live-Action transformers movie in 2006, a new all-american produced animated Transformers series was produced. It iddn’t tie into the movie itself, but featured a lot of common elements – and it also didn’t tie into G1, but was heaped with references to the series – many of them tongue in cheek, and for fans only.
The new series was called, quite simply, Transformers: Animated

With an animation style that was more reminiscent of Cartoon Networks’ home-grown shows, such as Teen Titans, and Ben 10, the initial reaction to Animated (as in, the few in-production pictures that surfaced before the show even aired) was extremely negative – although that was nothing new, as Transformers fans are routinely extremely hard to please, and considering that the franchise revolves around changing from one form to another, remarkably opposed to change.

Nonetheless, many of their opinions transformed when they finally viewed the new show. It was witty, intelligent, and smart, and had a very clever and well-paced arc story that linked the individual episodes.
The continuity also received a fresh reboot, placing the characters on an Earth in a near-future, in which the Autobots and Decpticons are unknown, and the war is long over.  Similar to Beast Wars, they are also not warriors, unlike the Decepticons, and must learn to fight their enemies as they go, often needing to team up to take out even a single Decepticon.

The series went from strength to strength, and featured masses of cameos and nods to G1 characters, or Animated versions of those characters or movie characters, to draw in more fans. There were many things featured that would draw in older fans – for example, Wreck-Gar being voiced by Weird Al Yankovic, who had written and performed a song on the Transformers: The Movie soundtrack. Or the cameo appearances of Daniel, Spike and Carly from the original G1 series, or the mention of Metroplex and Fortress Maximus, characters from the earlier shows.

The series was massively popular with Transformers fans everywhere, and news of any new episodes was widely awaited. The production staff also apparently widely enjoyed working on the show, and interacting with the fans, as well as producing and writing the show itself.

As such, it was a resounding shame that Cartoon Network confirmed that Season 3 was the last season of the show, and there would be no more episodes forthcoming, for some unspeakably stupid reason.

So far, Animated marks the last series to be um, animated, for the screen, but 2010 will mark the debut of a new series, Transformers: Prime, which has, as yet, little information released about it.

So, transformers continues to go from strength to strength on-screen, and has many, many different incarnations that offer something to everyone.
But the story doesn’t end with the cartoons, as there are other avenues down which the background and universe of the robot warriors from another world have been explored – that of the printed page, and it’s in the next part of my article that I’ll discuss the transformers comics, and their storylines and histories – and how they altered the transformers as they were portrayed on screen.

Until all are one!

The shorts are all animated in different styles, each indicative of their animation production studio – and the roster is pretty impressive
There’s production I.G., who made both of the Ghost In The Shell movies, Bones, who created Fullmetal Alchemist, Studio 4 degrees C who are responsible for many music videos, as well as the animation for Transformers: Animated and Spriggan, and Toei animation who are one of the largest studios in Japan, and created work such as Dragonball, Mazinger, and other well-known series. In addition, the anthology is overseen by Shinji Aramaki, who directed and created both of the recent Appleseed CGI movies.

So, the production talent is without question, that much is obvious, but the real question is really whether it’s any good or not?
With 7 different movies, all of which are about different subjects and set in different time periods in the Halo Universe, the answer is a ‘yes, but…’

Of the seven different shorts, some of them are stunning, be in in terms of animation or story, and actively add something to the background and universe of Halo as a franchise. Some are simply okay, and are somewhat forgettable, and there’s only really one which is disappointing or not very interesting.
The seven short films are:

Origins 1 & 2 -
Cortana, the AI from the Halo games, reviews the information she has learned about the Ancient Forerunner race, and the overall state of the Halo Universe to the point she and the Master Chief find herself in at the end of Halo 3.
This is a good pair of episodes, as they set in concrete a lot of information that was conjecture before, and link into dialogue in the games, firmly establishing themselves as Canon to the series. They’re also very pretty, and show a lot of exciting moments from different perspectives.

Homecoming
A female Spartan aids in the extraction of a Marine platoon, while reminiscing about an event in her early life, and comes to terms with the realities of the Spartan program

This episode has the least exciting animation, and the story seems a little slow and cliche, compared to some of the others – although it does remind you of the darker side of the Spartans

The Babysitter
A squad of ODST Helljumpers are assigned a Spartan for a special sniping mission, relegating the Team’s sniper to a backup position, much to his disgust.

This one is probably a little ‘typical’ and somewhat disapointing. The twist is somewhat obvious, and the story nothing special, but there are some exciting moments, and the animation is mostly good, with a few glaring faults.

The Package
The Master Chief and three other Spartans are assigned a time-critical mission to recover an important ‘package’ aboard a Covenant vessel in the midst of a fleet, by using small, heavily-armed ridable spacecraft.

This is sadly, the most forgettable and tedious of the group, despite being jam-packed with action, and having advanced CGI animation, and being directed by Shinji Aramaki
The characters lack any real depth, and it’s hard to care about the ones who die as a result. It’s also far more style over any real substance, and is a tad disappointing.

Prototype
A marine sergeant named Ghost must come to terms with his own humanity, as he protects a base in retreat, by using an extremely powerful prototype armoured suit.

One of the better ones, with outstanding animation, a fast-moving and exciting plot that has some genuinely interesting character moments

The Duel
At the beginning of the Sangheli (The aliens know as ‘Elites’)  induction into the Covenant in the past, a General known as ‘The Arbiter’ disagrees with their goals, and refuses to step in line. He must be made an example of, and is drawn into a trap by a scheming prophet.

The animation and overall feel of this story are reminiscent of Samurai dramas, due to the music, and a special filter applied that makes the animation appear to be a watercolour come to life. It is a beautiful piece of animation, and gives the Elites some depth and background they are sorely lacking. One of, if not the, best story in the collection. It also has moments of intense action and a little humour to boot.

Odd One Out
In this non-canon tale, Spartan ’1337′ is accidentally dropped on a planet inhabited by dinosaurs and some abandoned children after falling out of the back of a Pelican dropship. The Covenant send their most powerful warrior, the bestial Brute named ‘Pluton’ to deal with him.

A parodical non-canon story by Toei, Odd One Out is sheer comedy all the way through, and is extremely silly, while being extremely fun. It’s a gentle ribbing of the Halo universe by way of Dragonball, and is a good addition to the other episodes.

Overall, Halo Legends won’t be of any great interest to anyone who’s not a Halo fan, and it’s those folks who’ll put out the price for the disk.
Casual fans may be interested by the extra stories and background the shorts provide, but would be better served by a rental on Xbox Live than buying the disk.
Duel and Prototype are worth a look online, rather than shelling out for the full disk or rental, and are certainly a good way to spend the ten to twenty minutes that the animation runs for.

It’s an interesting addition to the Halo fictional universe, but it’d be much greater to see a full-length animated story, and the shorts prove only that there are characters other than the Master Chief that can tell interesting stories – so somebody get cracking on it!

Many of the best-regarded of the Studio Ghibli movies come from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki, who is head of the studio, as well as being one of it’s most prominent creative forces.

Ponyo, or to use it’s full title, Ponyo: On The Cliff By The Sea, shows the hand of his work, and indeed, he was the main creator for the newest film.
Ponyo is very much a fairytale, full of magic, bravery, love, and excitement, and is squarely aimed at children – but it’s hard to imagine adults won’t enjoy something about it.

The story follows a ‘princess of the sea’, who is in the form of a goldfish-like creature, as she escapes from her father, who lives under the sea. She meets a young boy names Sausuke who lives with his mother in a small town by the sea. He names the strange fish he finds washed up on the shore ‘Ponyo’ and quickly realises she is a lot more than she seems – but he is thrilled, fascinated, and caring for her automatically. When she talks to him, he knows that she’s very special, and vows to look after her and love her – but then her father takes her back.
Ponyo decides she wants to be human, and escapes again, but as she is the daughter of the ‘Goddess of the Sea’, and is very magically powerful, she accidentally upsets the balance of things.

Adventure follows after, as Sausuke and Ponyo have to find Sausukes’ mum, as well as overcoming all the challenges before them, and it’s an adventure of the imagination as much as of the characters, in true Ghibli fashion.

All of Miyazaki’s trademarks are present in the movie too – a love for the diversity of nature and it’s gorgeous backdrops. The sheer detail in some of the surroundings and scenery, young protagonists, and strong female characters, as well as a softly-pitched environmental message and moral content.

The last point is probably the biggest difference between a Ghibli and Disney movie – the subtlety of the moral message, pitched gently and not repeatedly shoved in the face of the audience.

The film’s strongest points are it’s beautiful artwork, and the imaginative freedom and absolute fun and joy of it’s story. Even when dangerous and potentially sad or scary moments are happening, it still maintains an air of excitement, fun, and wonder that capture the mind of a child in it’s whole, and remind older viewers what it’s like to see the world through the eyes of a child again – and all without talking down to them.

The fact that Ponyo received a general cinema release is worthy of note – as all of Studio Ghibli’s releases are now distributed by Disney – and without any cuts or alterations to the content, as part of their agreement – it seems like they are finally being taken seriously, and getting the treatment they deserve, by getting full cinema releases.

By comparison, when Spirited Away, which was later selected as the Oscar Winner for best animated film that year, was released in cinemas, it received showings for only a day or a week, at many cinemas, where as Ponyo is showing nationwide, and is still showing after I viewed it more than a week ago.
Hopefully this film will receive as much attention and reward as it’s stablemates, as it certainly deserves it for being an exciting, imaginative, and beautiful to watch piece of cinema, that while simple in it’s storyline and unchallenging, is nonetheless joyful, uplifting and simply fun to watch.

Of course, none of this really means anything, other than the fact a lot of people wanted to play it.
I played the first COD:MW game, and I did enjoy it. However, the main failing I had with it was it’s single-player mode was far, far too short.

Unfortunately, the same problem exists here too. That has to be got out of the way first, as it’s the main failing with the game – especially as I’m not really a big online gamer.
That doesn’t mean that it’s a bad game, however.

The campaign is fantastic fun to play, and is also really, really good.
I mean, really good.

The story is standard fare for any plot based around the military, especially since the Cold War has ended. But nonethless, it’s still better fare than many other games, certainly, of a similar style, and much better than a lot of movies that would attempt to do similar things.
The characters also remain interesting and are quite varied, so much so that they have some personality throughout the proceedings too, and get some individuality.

It’s also not without moments of humour, or bleakness, or sadness.
And there are a number of incredibly well-staged, and visually delicious set-pieces to savour – all of which make you a part of them, which is the

perfect thing for a game to do – make the player feel a part of what’s going on.
All of them also dovetail neatly together, and each setup gives you (if you have any feeling about anything you play), the drive to perform your goals in the next mission, wanting to get the enemy back for what they’ve done.

It is of course impossible to write a review for this game without mentioning one aspect of it though – the infamous ‘No Russian’ mission.
For those of you not in the know – the mission involves one of the player characters (as you play several throughout the games’ storyline) in deep cover as an Ultranatonalist Russian terrorist involved in a massacre at an airport.

When information about the missions’ content was leaked, there was of course masses of controversy, and most of it ill-informed, knee-jerk reactions.

The mission itself, as you play it, doesn’t require you to shoot at the civilians you encounter. You can walk through the first half of the mission without firing a single round, as no-one shoots back, save a few security guards – whom your computer-controlled compatriots will gun down.

You also receive no ‘score’ for gunning down anyone in the mission, and no achievements or bonuses for completing it – it serves simply to bridge the story, and to expose the player and the character to the horror and terror of the act.
That could open arguments itself – but perhaps that’s a better discussion for The Forums, than a review.
The level does have the effect, however, it is supposed to – assuming you have any normal level of human faculty and decency. It makes you feel repulsed, disgusted, and sickened, by the callousness of the people you are undercover with, and the ends they go to. Which is the point. The game also allows you to skip the level before you start playing the game, and at any point during the level itself, should you not want to play it.
From the point of the plot, it is also essential in establishing several key things that happen, and without it, much would be missing.
All the same, it is certain to raise many arguments long after the game has come and gone.

But on the lighter side – the game is full of callbacks to movies and other sources. There are obvious references to movies such as The Rock, Red Dawn (in spades), Behind Enemy Lines, Blackhawk Down, and more, as well as references to other games, such as Splinter Cell, and the earlier Call of Duty

games as well.

The game does do a very good job of providing the chaos and confusion of battle, as well as showing the dirty, grim, and uncompromising nature of warfare, but blending it with cinematic spectacle and tense, smart, plotting that makes you feel at the heart of the action.

It’s all too much of a shame, then, that the campaign is such a short affair, and can be finished in only a few hours of pushing yourself.
It seems such a sad shame that so much attention is paid to the far more dull and repetitive strokes of Multiplayer gaming, when the single-player campaign is such a joy to play through, and that Infinity Wards’ people obviously have such a great talent for developing gameplay, story, and set-pieces, that they do so little with the single-player aspect of the game.

That said, when the only complaint you have about a game is ‘there’s not enough of it, and I want more’ then that’s not that much of a complaint.
If anything, the real complaints would be that there are moments when the maps are confusing, or the games AI (allied AI, that is) gets confused – at one point, it was telling me to laser-designate a target for supporting fire, which wasn’t available, because the script had moved on from that part of the game. But that’s only a minor bug, and easily moved around.

And besides – any game that lets you participate in a snowmobile chase can’t be that bad, right?

The Internet hasn’t been very fair to Avatar so far. Before it was even released, and only promotional pictures and plot synopses were available, the legions of internet neckbeards and sneering basement-dwellers were typing their wotsit-stained fingers to the bone in every available effort to savage the film and deride it for all that they were worth.

And that was well before it was released. The story was dismissed for being a clone or copy of Ferngully, or Pocahontas, or Dances With Wolves. The Na’vi aliens were ridiculed for being ‘furries’, or ‘Garfield’ or other such tiresome comparisons, and all sorts of other idiotic bullshit was levelled at the film before anything more than a teaser trailer had been released.

These all-knowing, all-seeing mystical internet nerds, with their uncanny ability to predict the reception and content of the movie, also attacked James Cameron’s ability as a director and his involvement with films, which is surprising, considering he’s directed some of the best and highest regarded sci-fi films of all time – namely, Terminator, Terminator 2 and Aliens (also regarded widely as the best film in it’s franchise).
Of course, the Internet Hate Machine comes equipped only with selective vision and memory, so these have now been forgotten about.

Now that Avatar has been released, and more information is available about it, some of these comments have been addressed – and I’ve been to see it.
And I’m glad, pleased, and proud to report that the Legions of Dumb can go screw themselves with a strapon chainsaw – Avatar is a good movie!

It is by no means perfect – the story is, indeed, remarkably similar to Dances With Wolves, and yes, Ferngully. But even Cameron himself admits that, and that doesn’t mean that it’s boring, or twee. You might know what’s coming, and what to expect – but you aren’t bored getting there, and the journey itself is a spectacle to behold.

And therein is the greatest achievement of the film: Visually, it is absolutely astounding. The sheer spectacle of it is something to behold. Everything is astoundingly realistic and detailed to the eye, so much so that it is far, far too easy to forget that you’re watching a film where virtually all of the sets have been created on computers, as well as all of the vehicles and most of the props.

Trees and foliage bend and whip realistically in the wake of aircraft. Water flows and splashes. Light shines as it should.

The world of Pandora, where the movie is set, is realised well as an alien world. The wildlife is drastically different and unusual in contrast to Earthen creatures, and even the plants are different and spectacular. The views are astounding, and the planet feels and looks ‘different’, whilst still having a level of detail and visual depth that allows it to seem real, and ‘there’.
The human side of affairs is also equally well-realised. Machines are striped with dirt, and used marks, given panel lines, exhausts, rivets, and all other manner of working and ‘used’ details to make them have the same depth. Everything is picture-perfect – which is  even more astounding when you get to the ‘blue furries’, or as they’re actually called, the Na’vi.
More than half the film is spent in the company of the aliens, and as such, it’s evident that a lot of effort has gone into making them as realistic as possible. Especially so, considering that the films’ central lead is the ‘Avatar’ of the title, and has to be recognisable, and express emotion realistically.

Motion capture of course isn’t a new thing – it’s been used for years. But here, it’s blended with a variety of other technologies and techiques, leading to characters that are expressive, mobile, and agile, even if they are not realistic – they are,

after all, ten foot tall blue-skinned aliens – interesting and engaging to look at.
So much so, that after they first appeared, I quickly forgot they weren’t real, and very much got on with enjoying the unfolding story as it happened.

The character performances aren’t amazing – but neither are they a slouch of slacking. Many of the cast are handpicked by James Cameron to perform in the movie, due to his familiarity or previous associations with them from earlier projects. As such, any qualities that might make them reminiscent of characters from those movies are probably intentional.
Especially effective is Zoe Saldana, who plays her role as Na’vi princess Neytiri well, making her exotic and intriguing, as well as fierce, strong, and resourceful. Her voice is used well, and with depth, to come across as an alien who has learned, but is not familiar with human language.

Similarly, Sam Worthington plays the role of Jake Sully well. His character

comes across as a regular guy, albeit a Marine, and one who has been confined to a wheelchair, who is pretty easy-going and seems pretty nice. His simplistic nature fits the film well, and he plays the character to a T. An especially joyful moment is the first time he gets to control his Avatar body – and thus gets to walk again. I couldn’t help smiling along with him as he felt the enjoyment, and it was an uplifting moment.
There are a few moments when his voice acting isn’t quite up to par, but they dramatically fade away beside the amount of other things to enjoy throughout the film as a whole.

As mentioned previously, the story isn’t amazingly new, but it is still exciting, fun, and has it’s share of thrills, spills, and moments of joy and tenderness. It probably won’t make you cry, but there’ll be bits when you smile in excitement or enjoyment at what’s happening, and I wanted the good guys to win – which is unusual for me, since the bad guys were the ones with all the cool toys, which is the stuff I go for.

The film does have moments where it can be preachy. The message about environmentalism, and explotation of resources and the ravaging of the ecosystem and that knowledge is preferable to force, are laid on quite thick and simplistically, and it is easy to see them. However, that is not by definition a bad thing, and does not detract from enjoyment of the story. No morals are ‘spelled out’ as such, and they are simply shown ‘as it happens’ on the screen, rather than labored over. It’s certainly no worse than any other popcorn blockbuster, and considerably better than many others have managed in the past.

All in All, Avatar is not a perfect movie, but then what movie could ever be? It could certainly use a better ending theme, for one thing.

But it does contain a massive amount of things that do add up to a damn fine piece of cinema, and I can guarantee that most people will enjoy the time they spend watching it. It’s exciting, and beautiful to watch, and it does what movies are very much supposed to do – entertain you. It really is something that deserves to be seen on a big screen, and very much comes across as an ‘event’ movie.
It has also achieved the goal of being a technical masterpiece in it’s visual brilliance and flair, and that in itself is another great reason to see it.

Ignore the ignorant, tiresome and dull internet dickwads who will drone on in their nasal whines about how bad it is, and refuse to be dragged down by their wotsit-fingered grasp. Go see the movie, and make your own opinion, because otherwise you’ll have missed out on something, new, different, and ultimately, extremely enjoyable.

When Doctor Who was reduced to four specials last year, leaving all Doctor Who fans forced to subside on a diet of reruns on BBC3 between the BBC’s carefully rationed (by which I mean, dartboard scheduling) of the specials, the reason behind such planning was David Tennant’s unavailability for filming, as he had been asked to play Hamlet in a production of Hamlet by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Who if you haven’t heard of them (you philistine), are quite a big and impressive outfit in the UK and worldwide for their productions.

While I wasn’t fortunate enough to go up to the glamour and urban decay of our nations’ glorious capital to see the show in person, I was lucky enough to tune into it with a multitude (or a couple anyway, given the viewing habits of the British Public) of other people on BBC2 and see a lavishly produced screen adaptation of the show.
Was it worth the time away from being Doctor Who? Was David’s acting up to it, or would this be the Doctor in Denmark?

I was glad to see this was not the case!

The RSC have given things an update in setting, and as a result the characters are wearing modern-day clothes – Hamlet spends most of the play in jeans and a T-shirt, or a sharp-looking tuxedo, and likewise the other cast members are dressed in modern clothing. Luckily, they haven’t done the same with the dialogue, which results in some kind of stilted, horrifying, and dumbed-down version…

The production is great too. The sets are all very atmospheric and moody. Of course, as it’s a play and not a film, it’s not quite as finished and detailed, but the effect is there. There’s even some parts of it filmed outside, such as the graveyard scenes, and in an authentic castle corridor, for the ghost scenes.

The use of CCTV cameras for some scenes is an interesting idea too, giving things a big-brother, claustrophobic feel, and adding a unique perspective on certain scenes, especially those of Hamlet alone and indulging in talking to himself and toppling over the precipice of madness – something David Tennant plays well.

Tennant brings a great amount of his playing the Doctor to the role… but not too much. He has the same mental energy of an electrocuted ferret, but also brings the gravitas and drama he has too, and shows his training off well. He plays batshit mad very well, and uses his great range of facial expressions to great effect to show it, and everything else. His changes in voice and tone for the script also come in great use, and he shows the meaning of the unfamiliar language well by using his voice.
Putting him up against Patrick Stewart is of course a fantastic idea too. Long before he was Captain Picard or Professor Xavier, he was of course trained and studied as a classical Shakespearean Ac-tor (ahem-hem-hem!), and is as such, a fantastic one.

The strength of the production comes really from the cast, and the pedigree it has. It’s not without it’s faults, however. It’s a tad too slow and wandering in places, and on TV, it probably isn’t as grand as it would be on the stage, as it was meant to be seen. The contemporary updating of the setting is good, but seems strange alongside the use of swords and knives by the soldiers and other characters (except for the duel at the end, which is changed to a fencing duel).

All in all, I’d have no problems saying it was good – but I’d love to see it on the stage, to get the real effect. As for whether it was worth the absence from Doctor Who – well, that’s a matter of personal opinion. Personally, I’d still liked to have had a full season of Doctor Who – but I also liked what I saw of this, so it’s hard to say. The Specials haven’t been excellent… but this was something kinda special, so I’d say that Hamlet was worth the while to take a look.

In my previous article, I introduced you to the Gundam universe, and how unspeakably awesome it is. I took you on a magical mystery tour of how the franchise got started, and what’s behind it, and also gave you a brief overview of it’s core continuity and background – the so-called ‘Universal Century’.

As Gundam grew, so too did the aspirations of it’s directors. Tastes were changing around it, and newer ideas were coming to pass, and in the late 1990’s, the franchise took a bold step.

Gundam had grown bigger and bigger, and had a core base of loyal fans. But, as always, there was the need for more. The franchise hadn’t stagnated – but instead, it needed something new, and something different.

At this time, the Super Robot genre, as discussed earlier, was going through a renaissance. The reasons behind that are many fold (and will be discussed in a later article from me, woohoo!), and the popularity of such shows was on the increase. And so, Sunrise and Bandai took a bold step. In 1994, the show expanded out of the Universal Century, and in a radical departure from the Real Robot genre it had established, and the core continuity of the Universal Century, with it’s now over 100 years of continuity, along came a new universe, and a new series – ‘Mobile Fighter G-Gundam’.

A real departure from the ideas and concepts Gundam had established so far, G-Gundam went back to the Super Robot roots, and took a departure from the serious, though-provoking world of the UC, and into a crazy, brightly coloured world, where wars were decided on a barren, blasted Earth by the use of staged ‘Gundam Fights’, between all countries.

The plot was relatively simplistic, and the characters far larger than life – like the machines they piloted, they represented their countries…

…Yeah.

Or as the ‘Mermaid Gundam’ shows – a crude and mildly offensive stereotype of them, at least. The series was full of martial-arts posturing and homages, and while not popular on it’s first run, received praise and a dedicated fanbase in later incarnations for it’s over-the-top action sequences and outlandish appeal.

Following this first successful experiment with an alternate setting, further series were released in different timelines. This time though, the idea taken was much more serious. The next series would become a runaway success, and is still well known to this day – Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.

Gundam Wing told the story of another alternate world, but this one was a strange future, where an enigmatic ‘Organization of the Zodiac’ – Oz – rules the Earth, and the Space Colonies in an uneasy peace, enforcing the rules with it’s powerful mobile weapons.

Into the midst of this, four teenage pilots (who are all very handsome boys), are sent in their outrageously powerful Gundam Mobile Suits to wreak havoc and eventually destroy Oz, to allow the people to govern themselves again.

Gundam Wing was the first Gundam series to be dubbed fully and professionally into English, and was designed as a more action-oriented show with less political manoeuvring and focus than earlier shows – but not ignoring it completely, of course.

Partly, this was a savvy move on Bandai – the well-known parent company of Sunrise Studios – to ease Gundam into a more western market.

Focusing on four teenage pilots, with extremely powerful mobile suits, each following a different motif and with a distinctive design and flair, the four pilots each came from a different background. Unlike the military characters of other shows, they were ‘freedom fighters’ against Oz. The designs of the characters, especially the Gundam Pilots themselves, and many other elements of the show, were also notably designed to attract a female audience as well as a male one – something that apparently succeeded, if the number of fan websites for the individual pilots are anything to go by.

Despite being an alternate universe show, Wing still filled in all the key ideas for a Gundam series – the masked villain, troubled heroes, and exciting mecha battles, as well as a morally complex story.

The hugely powerful mobile suits, with their distinctive themes and designs were also very popular with fans, and the model of multiple ‘heroic’ Gundams would be repeated in later series, to the point of becoming a staple element.

Wing received a warm response in the US, debuting on Cartoon Network, and was the first show for the channel to be aired in an ‘edited’ daytime version, and a late-night ‘unedited’ version, that left the dialogue (such as using the word ‘kill’ instead of the clumsy and unintentionally hilarious-sounding word ‘destroy’) intact.

The reception to this idea was so great, that it later influenced the creation of the now-famous ‘Adult Swim’ block, which bought more anime to Cartoon Network.

Wing was followed by more alternate universe shows, such as Gundam X, which was less successful – so much so, that it was cancelled halfway through it’s run.

Many reasons have been cited for the death of the series, but it is believed that too many Gundam suits, a nonsensical plot about newtypes, and a generally fonsuing and repetitive story, coupled with a poor choice of slot by the channels that showed it, lead to the series’ downfall.

Gundam took a years break from TV schedules after this, finally deciding the time was right for a rest – but then it exploded back into life in spectacular style.

The Alternate Universes and the Universal Century had a meeting of sorts with the return of the original creator of Gundam, Yoshiyuki Tomino, to his creation. For the 20^th Anniversary of Gundam, Tomino wanted to do something special and spectacular, so he had decided to direct the new TV show.

Tomino had also recovered from the deep depression that had plagued him during the creation of Victory Gundam¸ the last Gundam Series he had directed, that had lead to it’s ultimately dark and hopeless tone – and as such, the new series, dubbed Turn-A Gundam, is ultimately a much more hopefully and optimistic show.

Turn-A’s story takes place in what is at first glance a parallel universe – but later is discovered to be a potential future of the Universal Century, where all previous incarnations of the series take place at various points in history.

The show tells a complex and moving story, replete with beautifully designed characters and gorgeous backgrounds, rich music by Japanese music supreme Yoko Kanno, and futuristic, radical mecha designs by famous futurist Syd Mead.

The series markedly divided fans, most notably over the design of the Turn-A Gundam itself. But overall, it was marked up as a success, and certainly a worthy tribute to the series as a 20^th Anniversary. The Turn-A itself has also established a following and notoriety – both as one of, if not the most, powerful mecha in the Gundam meta-continuity, and as a recognisable feature, as it has turned up in many subsequent video games, and was chosen as the 100^th Master Grade Gundam model (more about those later).

Turn-A’s success revitalised the franchise, though there was a gap in the schedule for a year or so – a gap that lead to the later alternate universe show, Gundam SEED.

SEED was a runaway success in both it’s homeland and the US. Retelling and re-imagining the original Gundam, it gave a new cast of characters, a new

universe, and a plethora of new mobile suits. Becoming a big success, it was dubbed into English, and again shown on Cartoon Network, giving the franchise the boost it needed in the USA to become a big name.

So successful was Gundam SEED, that it became the first Gundam Alternate Universe saga to get it’s own sequels, as well as spinoffs – Gundam SEED Destiny, Stargazer and Astray. Rumours persist of a movie forthcoming as well, expanding the continuity of the ‘C.E.’ universe even further.

The Alternate universes continued too, with the release of Gundam 00, which was set in the wildest and most unusually named alternate setting of all – the AD calendar!

Yep – 00 apparently takes place in the 22^nd century of our world, and frequently references past events, named countries, and more. Edgier than some series before it, the characters are like dark shadows of the ‘G-boys’

from Gundam Wing, and their mobile suits similarly are like alternate versions of those units. The story is similar also – but different enough that it doesn’t feel like a re-telling. 00 has now finished it’s run – but again, the fanbase is strong, and audiences in the West are being given the chance to enjoy this series now too.

The UC continued strong alongside these alternate universes, however. OAVs, manga, animated ‘shorts’ and other material supplemented the ‘Alternate’ sagas, and supported it’s older fanbase, some of whom still remained loyal to the ‘original’ setting, and shunned the ‘new’ generations – much like there are Star Trek fans who shun the Next Generation and it’s ilk for the Original Series, and so on and so forth.

With the release of Gundam Wing, and other dubbed follow-ups, Gundams’ popularity grew in the West as well as Japan, as (through the medium of the internet), fans got hold of the series they wanted, and this eventually lead to official releases in later years too, for many of the other series, including UC continuity titles. However – things were confused for a long time, as Bandai didn’t release the original Gundam 0079 in it’s movie format until years after several of it’s sequels had been available! For fans in the UK, things were worse – we didn’t get Gundam series – universal century, especially – until only a few short years ago!

But things were changing. With the popularity of first Wing, and then SEED, fans clamoured to throw their money at Bandai, who gave in, and Gundams’ other supporting pillar planted itself in the fertile earth of the West – Merchandising.

Gundam takes over the world

Mecha shows are driven by the inclusion of the robots. And while it can be effectively argued that they are science fiction shows, the uncomfortable truth is that they also exist because it’s very easy to make lots of plastic models and toys of robots, which then sell to children and collectors alike.

As I mentioned earlier, Gundams original debut was heavily influenced by the toymakers during its initial airing. Action figures were produced to begin with, but it was something unexpected that really kicked off the merchandise craze.

In the early 1980s, following the release of the Gundam Movies in cinemas, Bandai produced the first early series of model kits.

Crude, and lacking in detail, they were also inexpensive by today’s standard. However, they were revolutionary at the time, and begun a craze for the kits.

Many of this first wave sold out in record time. Bandai knew they were onto a winner, and so the phenomenon was born. More and more kits were created and produced, covering all sorts of mobile suits and their variations, and growing in complexity and detail. In the 1990’s the model line really took off, with the inclusion of parts that allowed the kits to be moved and made posable. The Gundam Plastic – or ‘GunPla’ model craze boomed, and became a phenomenon in it’s own right.

Bandai did something else different too – they introduced different ‘grades’ for their kits, based on complexity and size of the models, giving modellers a range of different options to suit both their budget and their skills, and each line also included different mecha and vehicles from the other, allowing builders to hunt down their favourite suit and build it.

Newer and newer parts were introduced, along with clever modelling and building techniques that allowed for hyper-detailed kits – eventually culiminating in the release of the massive 1:60 scale ‘Perfect Grade’ kits.

Standing a good two feet tall, and with thousands of pieces each, and details such as opening inspection hatches, and fully detailed internal workings, light up eyes, and all manner of other widgets, the Perfect Grade series are for the serious modeller – yet they are still clip together kits!

‘Gunpla’ is such a phenomenon in it’s own right, that it has been recognised outside Gundam shows – both the anime series ‘Sergeant Frog (aka Sgt. Kerororo)’ and ‘Genshiken’ feature Gunpla, or gunplay builders quite heavily.

It is no wonder then, that Gundam action figures and models dominate over ninety Percent of all character based models in Japan, and there are Gunpla modelling contests held in Japan, and even internationally!

As well as models though, there are products for everything, from video games, to snack foods, key chains, posters, calendars, CDs of music from the shows, and even more unusual things – theme park rides, commemorative stamps, and more.

The influence of Gundam is so much so, that in Japan a 1:1 scale statue of the original Gundam Mobile suit was erected this year to commemorate the 35^th anniversary of the series’ debut, and Gundam has been recognised as a ‘culturally important artefact’ by the Japanese government.

So, all in all Gundam is much, much more than any other giant robot animated series. It is a cultural trend-setter, originating a whole genre of imitators, parodies, and respectful homages to it’s themes and ideas. It has spawned thirteen TV series, six original movies, ten OAV series, one amusement park ride, a less than successful live-action movie, and more than fifty different manga spinoffs, which could warrant an article themselves.

Again to compare it to Star Trek, it’s a franchise that shows no sign of stopping, despite being mature in age. There are still new stories, new fans, and new ideas to come. The animated products are finally making their way across the globe and expanding out of Japan and off of the back-market dealings of internet sharing-sites and Bit Torrent into legitimate releases – Gundam isn’t going to go away, and the big granddaddy of mecha is still ready to inspire and father many more armour-plated children, and many more legions of fans.

Why Gundam? A lot of anime fans dismiss Gundam easily – I’ve heard plenty of people say it’s ‘boring’ or that ‘it’s all the same’ or, as an actual legitimate excuse, that it’s very confusing and they don’t know where to start. With 20+ years of series, manga and video games, and much longer of established continuity, it’s a pretty fair argument to say it’s confusing.

But there’s one hell of a rich and varied wealth of series to be exploited and enjoyed in the multitude of Gundam productions, and it’s certainly something that shouldn’t be ignored. So, in order to ease your confusion, and pay tribute to an Anime phenomenon, allow me to take you on a tour of the anime franchise that’s been termed the ‘Japanese Star Trek’, and give you a bit of an education about the first family of Giant Robot anime.

The Origins of Gundam – Super Robots and Real Robots

In the 1970’s, anime featuring giant robots was far from unknown. Many shows had been produced, but they had all followed a template – a protagonist, usually a young boy or teenager, receives a giant robot from an older patron or relative, and then uses it to fight the monster of the week – the stereotypical, run of the mill, predictable and samey ‘Super Robot’ show.

Such copy-pasted, cloned series rarely featured any meaningful character development, or any real continuity between episodes. They rarely showed any consequences of the fighting, mass destruction, and property damage they caused in their battles on a weekly basis, (let alone the bills to the construction companies) and the working gubbins of the heroes or villains robots featured were not mentioned or thought about.

Their weapons as well as the robots themselves were fanciful, flashy, and virtually magical in nature (sometimes out-rightly so), rather than being realistic machines, and often the names of their attacks or weapons were called out prior to use – all familiar and common elements of the Super Robot genre. And it didn’t hurt that all of this of course made it all much, much easier to sell lots of shiny toys.

The original Gundam TV series took a bold and different direction in order to stand out from the crowd of its predecessors and do something completely different to the legion of carbon-copies before it.

The creator of Mobile Suit Gundam, took a leaf out of Starship Troopers’ playbook (the novel, as the shitty movie hadn’t even been made at this time), and a look at real life, and considered a revolutionary idea – what if the giant robots featured were weapons like any other?

Mass produced and part of the military, like any other, rather than flashy superhero–like devices.

And, what if they were in the hands of real pilots, rather than kids? (Had I been there, I would have applauded). And, what if the war was humans, against humans, for political reasons, rather than monsters of the week? (again, applause).

Yoshiyuki Tomino’s ideas were pretty far out there at the time, to his colleagues at Sunrise animation studios, not to mention their financial backers.

To you and I, it probably sounds pretty straightforward, but with the revolutionary ideas, they were worried that it wouldn’t take off, that it wouldn’t sell and would be too ‘different’ from what had come before.

Oh, and the one or two of you out there who think it’s boring? Get your coats.

I’ll wait.

Gone? Good.

Anyway, such a revolutionary idea wasn’t allowed to sail through unchecked. Some changes had to be made to let the show go into production. At the demands of the toymakers, the titular robot, the ‘Gundam’ was changed to utilitarian and practical grey in colour to brightly coloured and eye-catching (and very toy like…) white, red and blue, and numerous additional ‘support vehicles’ were added, to make more toys available and draw in younger viewers. Extra weapons were also added for the same reason – and to draw in existing super-robot viewers. With that, the show went into production.

Themes and Concepts – War is Hell

The Gundam robot – or mobile suit – in the show was very different to its heroic predecessors. While it was very powerful and effective, it was not infallible, and was frequently damaged, or broke down, or suffered other mechanical problems – like a real machine would. And it required a lot of skill and practice to operate effectively, unlike just dropping into the cockpit and off you go. In fact, in the first instance, Amuro Ray, the hero of the show, piloted the Gundam with the manual open on his lap. And he almost lost too – very unlike a Super Robot show.

He also didn’t call out the names of every attack – instead, he piloted like a fighter pilot, or other military vehicle. Very unlike its predecessors to say the least…

The enemy robots were also just as different – mass produced, and mostly effective machines (with one or two strays into very odd machines, which once again showed the influence of the interfering toymakers and studio bigwigs), they were not giant robot-beasts, and were instead troops-of-the-line for the most part.

The cast of the show were also another diversion from the norm. While they were teenagers, they showed human sides and failings, and acted like teenagers would.

They lost their tempers, were moody and unlovable sometimes, were spiteful, argumentative, didn’t get along, and often, through the terrors and horrors of way they faced, suffered psychological and emotional shocks. A bit more in-depth than your average robot show, to say the least.

One of the most shocking developments, and one which Tomino would later become famous for (leading to his cheery nickname of ‘Kill ‘em all Tomino’), was the death of main characters throughout the course of the show – driving home the fact that yes, this was a WAR, and not everyone survives a war. And wars are horrible, taxing, and deadly, and not clean and sanitised events.

The multitude of sequel series to Gundam followed the same template for the most part anyway – There were never any aliens, or monsters – at least, not bug eyed, non-human ones, humans always fought humans on or around the Earth, usually over possession and desire for the right to live on the Earth or to become separatist nations

in orbiting habitats called space colonies. These political and philosophical ideas form the background for the various series’ wars and conflicts, and are often the driving forces for the individual characters too, or leading to a rivalry between the lead character and an enemy ace, and showing their parallel or wildly divergent points of view.

One recurring aspect of these enemy aces is that they often wear a mask, hiding their identity both from their allies, as well as their enemies, in a complex plot to gain revenge or regain their original standing, or for other personal reasons.

Char, the original template for these characters, was actually better liked than his counterpart by fans. However, this wasn’t surprising, since Amuro Ray was kind of a dick in the first Gundam show – but his changing personality and nature are something that are shown in great detail through the multitudes of Gundam sequels and productions. Likewise to Char’s equally changing personality, due to his holding onto his ideas.

But following in Char’s footsteps, the Enemy Ace is a noble and likable character, often coming to the heroes’ aid, and respecting more than hating them, and proving a face to the enemies’ ideals and goals.

There was also some, at least vague, basis in real science and concepts for the Gundam series as well. Things like Space Colonies were based on real ideas and concepts, rather than ‘just because’ and there was no ‘warp drive’ to power the space-craft. Only a few fictional ‘sci-fi’ elements were introduced to make things work, and even then, they were religiously stuck to in order to maintain some level of reality within the show – at least within the original timeline of the ‘Universal Century’, which was the ‘home’ universe of the Gundam shows.

Gundam also explored, in most of its incarnations, the powerful theme that one cannot live through a war, much less fight in it, without coming out a changed person on the other side. Almost every character experiences loss and death, either first hand or through a close friend or relative, or their own relatives end up changed. Even the most optimistic of series or characters are often dealt a huge blow for the worse, and not left unaffected (aside from in Gundam Wing, anyway).

Making a Name

So Gundam had become a breakthrough for the genre, a template for the Real Robots that followed it, and a trend-setter. But it wasn’t always the genre-master, trend-setting original it’s become now.

It flopped on its first showing.

Of course – so did the original Star Trek TV series, but look how that’s done. And it eventually became popular in the same way – through re-runs, where it drew a huge audience. This underground popularity soon exploded into the mainstream, and Gundam became a household name, as well as establishing what has become known as the ‘Real Robot’ genre, and spawned a legacy of imitators.

The popularity of the re-runs lead to Sunrise commissioning three movies to be made by re-cutting the original Gundam series. Much of the toy-inspired sillier

content was removed, and instead new animated sequences were added, also clearing up some of the worse-animated sections. The movies were a run away success, and from then on Gundam was king of the robot genre.

With its name established, sequels were only a matter of time in coming, and there was no lack of them, to say the least. The original conflict of 0079, the ‘one year war’ where the original show took place, was revisited from many angles in later years by spin-off and sequel OAV series, even as late as 2009 with the CGI series ‘MS IGLOO’ (No, I have no idea why it’s called that).

The developing plotline of the Universal Century eventually spanned into hundreds of years of conflicts, all following on from events and precedents set down in previous series as it follows a developing society through the years.

The plethora original TV series are followed by movies, OAV series, manga, and more, all of which serve to expand and embellish and develop the fictional world – realising it as fully as an non-animated series has ever done – again, something that has never really been replicated or followed by any other anime franchise since in such detail, and again, very much comparable to Star Trek, with it’s different cast from series to series, and different mobile suits every time as well. And without all the bumpy-headed aliens, but unfortunately with just as many embarrassing fans.

Of course, there’s not just the Universal Century – as the time rolled on, new ideas were wanted and floated, and new directors came and went – with the desire to do new things. And one timeline wasn’t enough to contain all of them, so new and different things had to happen.

New ideas were needed and wanted, and the Universal Century could not contain them all – so join me in part two, where I’ll delve into the myriad of parallel worlds and series, and also look at the other powerhouse of Gundam – merchandising, and especially Modelling!

Until then. I leave you with this.