Toon Zone Talkback - "Transformers: Animated": More Than Meets The Expectations

Meh overall for me. It wasn't terribly bad. Problem was, it wasn't terribly good either.

I didn't and still don't care for the Teen Titans-inspired art style, and just like in the live-action movie, I wasn't thrilled that there weren't any female Autobots. Plus the characters weren't anything to write home about.

Prime came off as wimpy and whiny to me; I guess I have yet to exorcise the ghost of Peter Cullen from my memory.

Admittedly, Bumblebee wasn't as irritating as I'd thought he'd be. The rest of them blurred together for me.

Sari: Well, I had mixed feelings about her. On the one hand, I've seen more annoying characters than her (Jade from Jackie Chan Adventures comes to mind), but on the other hand, she was clearly picked from the Cliche 101 casting file marked "Spunky Girl Tagalong With A Father In A Prominent Position and No Mother For The Occasional Moment Of Pathos", a character type I'm getting really tired of. I guess the humans will always be the weakest element on a Transformers show, but I would've liked to have seen them do something a little more innovative with her. Also, her Allspark power was too overused. Deus ex Machina abilities should be used only once, not 3 times in a row.

I didn't hate this adaptation, but I definitely won't be watching the series, as I've never been a huge TF fan to begin with, and this series wasn't new, exciting or original enough to make me any more of one.
 
The only series that ever had a femmebot on the protagonists' side right off the bat was Beast Machines.



He's supposed to be - he's a newbie commander who's annoyed that he trained for combat and got shuffled into being an interstellar construction worker.
 
This decade began 1/1/01. Just sayin'. Transformers:Robots In Disguise? Evilly denatured by Fox Kids. The Unicron Trilogy? The less said of that crap, the better.

To me, Transformers Animated is the best TF show to emerge this decade. Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Bulkhead, Prowl and Ratchet are clearly depicted and are uninterchangeable.

Black people? Making robots? Founding Detroit's robotics industry? YES! This really could happen!

On every animated work that Mook Co. Ltd. has ever perpetrated, there is a look-a very distinct look that's indescribable-know it as a house style or whatever-once it's discerned, you'll know.


Never, not once, do either this show's drafts1ship or its animation suck.

All in all, Transformers Animated gets a 21....out of 21.
 
What I liked.

The show starts off story wise strong. The writing seems solid so far, the character interactions are decent and there's plenty of action.

I like the few knods to G1 fans as well, who else noticed Spike, Carli, and Daniel getting some family time in the background in their TF the Movie/ Series 3 outfits?

Starscream, thank you for making Starscream Starscream. No more of the noble crap, or just power hungery idiot from the Armada-Unicron Trilogy series. It's back to G1 I'm gonna stab you in the back and claim leadership as soon as you stub your toe Megatron Starscream we all knew and loved. I even liked how the VA tried to give him that somewhat whiney tone to his voice, and the "Solomon face" line after the demise of Megatron just brought a smile to my face.

What I wasn't Crazy about

The animation style. Loved it on :robin: Not crazy with it on a transformers show. I'm sorry, I'm just not down with Prime having a mouth, heh though maybe I could call him the new Jazz TF, cause those lips definitely make him look like a brothah. Also, while I'm down with the line up of Autobots, Bulkhead, the one made up character, could have been named from someone we know (since all the others were. Maybe Hoist). As someone else said, it would have been nice to see a female Autobot (aka Arcee) in the cast to off balance Black Arachina (what is it about bad girls having to be on the Decepticon side?). I'm not sure I'm all that crazy about the main crew of Decepticons either, nice to see a new version of Blitzwing, ,but the other guys don't excite me any.

What I didn't like

Ok, the robot superheroes idea? Why? They're robots, who by default should be able to do a lot of stuff, why must they be superheroes? And the way I see it, there's a reason why the Autobots keep getting their butts handed to them by a single Decepticon, they all have (save maybe fore bumblebee) zero long range effectiveness. Sure, Rachtet has magnetic "powers", but that's not going to do much good against Starscream's arm blasters or Megatrons shoulder cannon. Have we gotten that ASLU/parents group whipped in North America that even robots can't have guns? Where's Prime's laser rifle? What the heck good is a giant axe going to do when somebody is shooting you in the face? Worst armed Prime, ever.

If Prime's a futuristic firetruck, where's his trailer or his ability to put out a fire in vehicle mode?

And I just hope that they don't make the humans a large focuse of the story as some of the other modern TF series have done, because that little girl is going to become real annoying really fast. The Sorry Sari jokes are already becoming old.

At anyrate, I'm willing to give this show a chance as it's not really made for my generation, (a generation that was used to seeing better overall animation and character designs, where as, this generation is growing up on ugly character designed shows like Rugrats/Ed,Edd, and Eddy/ or simiplified designs like Sponge Bob).

So long as the stories stay a bit more dramatic and series as they currently are (and don't do season one Teen Titans with over the top wanna be anime takes and stories) I'll keep watching. I think the thing that suprises me more is the fact the toys that go with this series actually manages to take these designs and do something with them.
 
I really enjoyed this "movie" and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. I think that Transformers:Animated is the best series since Robots in Disguise. I enjoy how the humor and the action are well mixed together. Starscream was great and I enjoy how this version of Optimus Prime is portrayed, he's not the great leader of Gen. 1 or RID, but similar to Beast Wars Optimus Primal he has the seeds of greatness and the events that he shall go through shall give him a chance to shine.


My top five of Transformers series

1) Beast Wars
2) Generation 1
3) Robots in Disguise
4) Beast Machines
5) Transformers:Animated
 
Eh, I liked it. Not all of us are big DCAU fans who LURVE the TF:A style. I think it's a funny way of representing this fact. Keep in mind the artist had a filler up recently where he jokingly stresses how important it is he 'tell people what to hate'. I think most of his critique of the new show and the live action movie is spot on.
 
And I think it's pandering to the lowest common denominator of TF fans. He makes jokes that have been in the fandom for years (Prime's trailer?) or stuff that Shortpacked has already spoofed and spoofed better. And considering the months preceding both of their releases, I'm not sure people who don't go for either the movie or the cartoon NEED a spokesman.
 
Yet you're saying it's ok for the fans who do like that stuff to have one through Willis? I like Shortpacked but I don't always agree with it. Folks like Animated, especially those who already liked DCAU. But that isn't everyone. I myself lost alot of interest in the DCAU stuff when its art and story style changed and I'd grown up with B:TAS.
Likewise, I think Lil Formers went after fair targets from the movie. Stuff like the ending makeout scene and the peeing Bumblebee deserved to be made fun of.
 
Willis is shown he's perfectly capable of making fun of things that are rife for parody. Look at the comic addressing Jazz's death scene.

Lil'Formers mostly panders to G1 fans and knee jerk reactions to everything different. Yes, you can pick at the movie, but there's such a difference between being funny and just pandering to the overly rigid "old guard" and then justifying them.

I mean, honestly, does the fandom need more crap like this? http://www.lilformers.com/comic0062.php
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To be fair, the bulk of Willis stuff is "Toy fans are stupid and complain too much". Just look at today's strip. It has it's moments but really he is just recycling the same joke.
 
I'd much rather look at humor that forces a fandom to look at itself than the kind that embraces all of its vices and character assassinations.
 
I don't really think Shortpacked is asking fans to look at themselves. Willis uses it as a soapbox just as much as Lil Formers does. Even that's not much, given I've never seen Lil Formers advocate hatred but just present the creator's thoughts in a one panel gag comic. Both comics do the same thing. Willis just sprinkles in his own characters and sex jokes.
 
And the fact that Lil'Formers' comics are basically the same thoughts as every Geewunner and overdone fandom joke isn't telling at all? Yes, Willis uses it as a soapbox, but you have one person telling the fandom they're ridiculous and another one pandering to it.
 
I don't think it's pandering at all. Look at the Transfans filler series he did, which specifically poked fun at fans. Namely, G1 fans who give nothing else a look in. Some of the material such as Prime's trailer is old, yes. But the majority is pretty fresh.
 
You say that like Lil Formers has never made fun of G1 fans before, or never will again.

TF Animated is the hot topic in the Transfan community, so you can bet that there's going to be a lot facing it besides mindless praise.

Oh and...



Shinji Ikari.
 
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