Rewatched season 1 of the G1 cartoon

Ryan F · Post by **Ryan F** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 12:07 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:That script too. I know everyone's said the Magnus quote so often it's lost something but about the first ten minutes especially is just full of cracking lines.

Cyclonus throws a generic robot guy into a computer monitor; his back half is now dangling out of said screen. "Hey, I'm stuck up here!"

Cyclonus (shrugging): "Everybody's gotta be somewhere..."

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Oct 02, 2015 2:09 pm

I love cartoon Cyclonus, old Harry Mudd really knocked the impressively deep yet world weary at the very idea of what Galvatron might have done now thing out of the park.

Post by **Warcry** » Fri Oct 02, 2015 3:34 pm

Season three is my favourite of the bunch because there's actually some attempt to make actual characters out of the new main cast, no matter how much it went off the rails by the end. And Cyclonus is probably the best of the bunch. Carmel was awesome but the character also got scripted a lot better than anyone else bar Rodimus (who actually managed to come off as a good leader in spite of ticking off all of the "why in the world is this irresponsible idiot in charge?" boxes).

Tetsuro · Post by **Tetsuro** » Fri Oct 02, 2015 4:21 pm

Warcry wrote:Carmel was awesome but the character also got scripted a lot better than anyone else bar Rodimus (who actually managed to come off as a good leader in spite of ticking off all of the "why in the world is this irresponsible idiot in charge?" boxes).

While I can see what they tried to do with Rodimus, I can kind of understand the initial reactions and people calling him a whiner to this day, because that's exactly what he comes across as in a less competent script.

Except when Ultra Magnus tells him about the mantle of leadership and he asks if he'd like to buy a slightly used mantle. That was funny.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Oct 02, 2015 4:23 pm

Rodimus was basically a Lion-O knockoff really wasn't he? Youth aged before his time into the leader's role and having to cope with it. Thankfully they only did the "He has the ghost of his dead mentor hanging about" thing a couple of times or it'd have been really obvious.

Brendocon 2.0 · Post by **Brendocon 2.0** » Fri Oct 02, 2015 4:24 pm

Warcry wrote:Season three is my favourite of the bunch because there's actually some attempt to make actual characters out of the new main cast, no matter how much it went off the rails by the end. And Cyclonus is probably the best of the bunch. Carmel was awesome but the character also got scripted a lot better than anyone else bar Rodimus (who actually managed to come off as a good leader in spite of ticking off all of the "why in the world is this irresponsible idiot in charge?" boxes).

Rodimus is a character that I've find got a lot more time for the older I get.

I mean yeah, he's a bit rubbish and completely underqualified, but that's sort of the point. He's a brash young kid who's told "right, you're in charge now." He's in no way suited to any form of responsibility, has no idea what he's doing, doesn't even want the job... but tough. That's life. He's in charge and the only thing that's going to change it is the previous guy miraculously coming back from the dead. Suck it up and get on with it.

And if that's not a metaphor for the shitstorm known as getting older, then I don't know.

[EDIT] Wasn't TF:TM being written/produced before Thundercats aired? Can we chalk that one down to parallel evolution? Obviously season 3 was being churned out after TC was public conciousness but I'm in a chirpy generous mood.

Brendocon 2.0 · Post by **Brendocon 2.0** » Fri Oct 02, 2015 5:42 pm

Y'know my favourite part about Metrodome's season 3 DVDs?

The way they structure a gap between Starscream's Ghost and Ghost in the Machine so that we can have Surprise Party, Madman's Paradise and Nightmare Planet back to back.

I might be on the brandy again.

Brendocon 2.0 · Post by **Brendocon 2.0** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 8:45 am

AND THIS TIME NO POWER IN THE UNIVERSE CAN STOP ME.

So awesome that I can overlook the continuity error with Dark Awakening, the bit where they say the Quintessons built Prime in the first place, the wacky roll-call sequence, the inconsistencies in the infected Transformers' behaviour, the plethora of really ****ing bizarre animation errors and the jarringly edited version of The Touch.

Shame they ruined the whole thing by sticking a "from the files of Teletraan 2: Ultra Magnus" clip on the end though. Talk about killing the mood.

There will be no war today.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 7:46 pm

I give a pass to the odd behaviour of the virus as we're told what it does by a metallurgist who comes to the conclusion it's a hate virus after three seconds of tests. The fact it makes people glow bright red is surely the most unusual effect it has yet no one ever comments on it.

It really is a kick in the balls to Rodimus' leadership that even before the crisis kicks off everyone seems really keen on the idea of getting the old guy back. Look at how excited Sky Lynx is!

I used to be able to do the roll call from memory unprompted.

It's kind of a shame the show didn't end there, everyone shaking hands would have been a nice upbeat final. Indeed, Optimus is getting along so well with Galvatron at the end there he happily leaves him in Metroplex whilst he takes the boys out for a drive.

Tetsuro · Post by **Tetsuro** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 9:07 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:It's kind of a shame the show didn't end there, everyone shaking hands would have been a nice upbeat final.

True, but Rebirth's finale with the new golden age of Cybertron while the villains fly off to fight the heroes another day isn't too bad either.

Brendocon 2.0 · Post by **Brendocon 2.0** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 9:38 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:It really is a kick in the balls to Rodimus' leadership that even before the crisis kicks off everyone seems really keen on the idea of getting the old guy back. Look at how excited Sky Lynx is!

I kind of wish the resolution had involved Rodimus accepting his role as leader, with Optimus just hanging about in the background. But it would have been a bit difficult to pull off with Op having just bailed them all out.

Tricky one.

In hindsight "no power in the universe can stop me" is possibly a bit of a psychopathic thing for the all time king of the good guys to say as soon as he wakes up. Hrm.

Tetsuro · Post by **Tetsuro** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 10:47 pm

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:I kind of wish the resolution had involved Rodimus accepting his role as leader, with Optimus just hanging about in the background. But it would have been a bit difficult to pull off with Op having just bailed them all out.

It's been a while since I watched TROOP, but they don't explicitly state they're going to retrieve his body to revive him and shove him back into his old shoes, do they? Considering they're just getting his corpse, I at least assumed Rodimus wanted to give the old man a proper funeral this time around.

Unicron · Post by **Unicron** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 11:25 pm

Tetsuro wrote:It's been a while since I watched TROOP, but they don't explicitly state they're going to retrieve his body to revive him and shove him back into his old shoes, do they? Considering they're just getting his corpse, I at least assumed Rodimus wanted to give the old man a proper funeral this time around.

That was Rodimus' reasoning at least. He wanted to retrieve Optimus body so they could it somewhere where he could rest in peace.
I suppose it's possible, but unlikely, Magnus and the others went along with Rodimus' plan of walking into an obvious trap so they could retrieve the body in hopes of reviving him and kicking Rodimus back to Hot Rod.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 11:37 pm

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:In hindsight "no power in the universe can stop me" is possibly a bit of a psychopathic thing for the all time king of the good guys to say as soon as he wakes up. Hrm.

IIRC it's prefaced by "This time...", which you'd think would make everyone a bit more nervous as the last time he nearly wiped out the Autobot fleet and it took a ****ing planet full of missiles to take him down. They could at least have asked him if he was evil this time before making him magically indestructible.

Rodimus' problem is Season 3's problem. Sometimes he's quite nuanced and it's like it's a proper show with characterisation and stuff. Other times he's generic leader guy and other times he's a whiny little bitch who needs a slap (generally when he just moans for no reason whatsoever, without any sort of prompting). It's all over the place.

Optimus coming back is still just so BIG, though. It's still fresh from the days when you didn't assume he'd be coming back anyway at some point and at the time he was still pretty much Optimus Prime without the diluting of there being a new Optimus Prime out every couple of years.

I'm always torn on whether it should have ended because I've always kind-of liked Rebirth for its' repeated, insistent blend of outright stupidity and Magnus just deciding to assassinate Galvatron (seriously, just give the guy the ****ing job, I'd let myself get killed if I was stuck on a planet with Daniel, Arcee, Blurr and Wreck-Gar).

But Optimus is really shit in it. Like, really shit. He does nothing at Autobot City, he lets Galvatron retake Cybertron with a handful of discontinued toys (okay, he didn't know Hot Rod was going to take half the population of Cybertron to see what Scourge was up to, but still), he buggers off to Nebulos when things get tough and he hasn't got a ****ing clue the whole way through. It's like he's got a concussion. I don't think he even fires his rifle, whereas in TRoOP he's smart, inspiring and dishes out gunishment to that spider with a cool pose.

Cyberstrike nTo · Post by **Cyberstrike nTo** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:44 am

Unicron wrote:Batman. They did too many episodes of Simpsons to have been axed

The show that they should have gotten the axe was Exo-Squad that series had a great story and some great voice acting but man it had some real crappy animation.

Brendocon 2.0 · Post by **Brendocon 2.0** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 8:57 am

Cliffjumper wrote:IIRC it's prefaced by "This time...", which you'd think would make everyone a bit more nervous as the last time he nearly wiped out the Autobot fleet and it took a ****ing planet full of missiles to take him down. They could at least have asked him if he was evil this time before making him magically indestructible.

Especially as he's just been resurrected by one of the guys responsible for his previous revival...

That would have been a hell of a twist ending. Proper Angelus "I can't believe you fell for it again" stuff.

I'm always torn on whether it should have ended because I've always kind-of liked Rebirth for its' repeated, insistent blend of outright stupidity and Magnus just deciding to assassinate Galvatron (seriously, just give the guy the ****ing job, I'd let myself get killed if I was stuck on a planet with Daniel, Arcee, Blurr and Wreck-Gar).

Yeah, Return of OP is a nice way to round out the series. Rebirth is just sort of an encore coda type thing.

But personally I couldn't ditch the Headmasters stuff though. While I saw RoOP as a kid, it wasn't among the episodes my dad copied for me, whereas Rebirth was. So that's the one that I've seen 237 times and is hardwired into my brain.

I'm very much looking forward to revisiting it this evening and pre-empting 90% of the ridiculous dialogue.

"ALL OF THEM!"
"I think the name Aimless suits you better."
"They ARE the Hive!"

There's a part of me that genuinely hopes Cerebros will just stick to his guns this time and let the entire universe crumble on a point of stubborn dick principle though.

We shall see, Galvatron. We shall see.

Red Dave Prime · Post by **Red Dave Prime** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 3:39 pm

Wow, I only saw rebirth twice years ago as a good and that final zarak line is just about all I can remember with any clarity. Well that and the awful animation of scorponok vs fort max

Tetsuro · Post by **Tetsuro** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 4:35 pm

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:There's a part of me that genuinely hopes Cerebros will just stick to his guns this time and let the entire universe crumble on a point of stubborn dick principle though.

It doesn't help that we already had another Autobot with the exact same personality in The Ultimate Weapon.

Brendocon 2.0 · Post by **Brendocon 2.0** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 4:39 pm

I can only dream of a world where the fate of the universe rests on First Aid's idealism.

Brendocon 2.0 · Post by **Brendocon 2.0** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 5:26 pm

Right, what's the ****ing deal meant to be with Punch-Counterpunch anyway?

Did he just truck up at Decepticon HQ one day and go "Hey Galvatron, my name's Counterpunch, I'm the counterpart to that Autobot dude Punch. I'll totally help you deal with him" and Galvatron just went "Derp derp derp I'm crazy this sounds like a totally legit thing welcome aboard I am king penguin"?

Also massive dick points to Optimus Prime for the bit where he explains what the Plasma Energy Chamber is to Ultra Magnus, along with the part where every Autobot leader is charged with guarding it. Just glossing over the whole part where he left Magnus in charge and didn't bother mentioning it. Top management skills all round, really. This is what happens when you don't do a proper handover.