All That Transformers: Part One – The Cartoons

Transformers is very much an established pop-culture phenomenon today. the symbols of the Autobot and Decepticon factions are everywhere, from clothing for adults and children, men and women, in high-street department stores and specialist clothing outlets, along with products bearing the visage of Megatron, Optimus Prime, and all others from the blockbuster movies and their ancestors, the 1980’s cartoons and comics.

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.

Ironhide in four completely different situations. Honest.

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!

Tags: animation, cartoons, transformers, tv series

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