Tranformers should have progessed after Beast Wars, but it did not, why?

[Bug-Eyes]

After Beast Wars one would assume the visual style of the next series would advance. Now with the return of an American based show "Transformers Animated" why did they not make it CGI........

Its such ashame. If they wanted to get back old fans and new fans alike, they should have relaunched G1 as a 3D animated cgi series...............

[lars573]

It IS CGI. Pretty much any cartoon on TV right now is CGI. For the most part hand drawn animation is a thing of the past and indie short films. TFA is 2D CGI. Why does no one get that.

Oh and Energon and Cybertron were cell shaded 3D CGI.

[CBGB]

Being 3D won't generate new fans. And as Lars said, Energon and Cybertron were 3Dish. Plus old fans really don't give a crap on what the style is, I'm a fan and I'd rather have 2D than something like Storm Hawks or other 3D **** that they have on these days. As long as it's Transformers I'll be happy!

[lars573]

Not to mention that 3D animation is still very expensive compared with 2D. Consequently you get shows like Energon and Cybertron. Where the back grounds and humans are all 2D and the 3D robots have zero ability to emote, facially.

[Cth]

Because CGI cartoons tend to look incredibly dated, incredibly quick.

I put off giving Beast Wars a shot initially because I hated the animal mode thing, but by the time I was willing to give it a shot, the graphics were horrendous.

So yeah, traditional CGI -- expensive, longer production time, and dated looks.

I can see why they decided against it.

While it'd be nice to see a Final Fantasy Spirits Within type animation, the costs, etc wouldn't justify it.

[Jochimus]

Originally Posted by Bug-Eyes

After Beast Wars one would assume the visual style of the next series would advance. Now with the return of an American based show "Transformers Animated" why did they not make it CGI........

Its such ashame. If they wanted to get back old fans and new fans alike, they should have relaunched G1 as a 3D animated cgi series...............

We almost got this, actually: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transtech. Not really a relaunched G1, but it would have brought back several "staple" G1 characters in-continuity. But aside from the expensive of doing it, and the fact that it was a follow-up to the much-reviled Beast Machines, reaction to those designs was largely bleh. Which is a shame, as I admire the fact that they wanted to "evolve" the TF design aesthetic even further, and these look better than the movie versions, IMO.

[Bug-Eyes]

Good points. But really Transformers Animated annoys me. The little girl the whole thing............its like power rangers meets power puff girls.........just my opinion

[lars573]

Watch a few episodes of Armada and Energon (esepcially Energon, Kicker FTL ). After that you'll get down on your knees and praising what ever higher power you believe in for Sari Sumdac.

[Bug-Eyes]

Originally Posted by lars573

Watch a few episodes of Armada and Energon (esepcially Energon, Kicker FTL ). After that you'll get down on your knees and praising what ever higher power you believe in for Sari Sumdac.

Well Energon and Armada, humans were annoying. Call me an old Skool G1 fan, but what was wrong with Spike and his dad.........Sparkplug. It worked. Now they bring in these stupid kids and the whole concept seems silly to me......I wish they would just redo G1 with new graphics, improved story line but basically the same concept.....

[lars573]

Your nostalgia goggles are about the only thing keeping you from seeing how silly G1 was. Cartoon writing in the 80's was a big steaming pile of crap in most regards. Awesome concepts, bad execution. And G1 human characters were 1 dimentional at best.

As for redooing G1, Animated is about as close as your going to get. Considering the sheer volume of G1 characters updated for todays standards. In fact I'm better off listing the characters who aren't, Bulkhead, Blackarachnia, Lockdown, Wasp, and Lugnut. Hell the entire Witwicky Clan (Sparkplug, season 3 Spike, season 3 Carly, and Daniel) have all had cameos. Spike and Carly even had speaking roles, Spike even had his G1 voice being that Corey Burton is on the cast.

[Dragons Claws]

Sure G1 was maybe silly but it was th e best, the characters were great, whta they lloked like were great and what they transformed into were great (until post-movie). The human characters were the best ones theres been. Ok the continuity wasn't there and some of the story telling was lame but that is why people wanted a new verion of it. Animated is probably the closest we will now ever get. Sadly it is too childish for myself and a lot of other people. UPdated animation like He-man and the Turtles with new storylines could have worked brilliantly. Maybe G1 fans are just in the minority as I's sure there would have been some market research when coming up with new series'. There must be some reaosn why neither the movie or the cartoons seem prepared to give the fans what they want.

[brimstone_halo]

Although "animated" has grown on me a little I would be happy if they just re aired G1 on adult swim or something.

At first I hated animated but after I got past the silly anime, it's actually not that bad. The stories are pretty good for the most part. And for the very first time OP is not my favorite character on the show, I don't like his voice (thats not even close to what OP should sound like) and his skinny little waist and legs bug me. Once you get past the looks and learn to deal with boys cheerleading team voice over cast, it's pretty not bad

[Darthkush]

Originally Posted by lars573

Your nostalgia goggles are about the only thing keeping you from seeing how silly G1 was. Cartoon writing in the 80's was a big steaming pile of crap in most regards. Awesome concepts, bad execution. And G1 human characters were 1 dimentional at best.

As for redooing G1, Animated is about as close as your going to get. Considering the sheer volume of G1 characters updated for todays standards. In fact I'm better off listing the characters who aren't, Bulkhead, Blackarachnia, Lockdown, Wasp, and Lugnut. Hell the entire Witwicky Clan (Sparkplug, season 3 Spike, season 3 Carly, and Daniel) have all had cameos. Spike and Carly even had speaking roles, Spike even had his G1 voice being that Corey Burton is on the cast.

I don't think everyone who thinks G1 is the best always has their nostalgia goggles on. Look at the Marvel, Dreamwave, and IDW comics for example. Not every one is an gem but there are several that are and and there are more than enough that serve as an example that they could easily do G1 and not make it ridiculous. Personally, I'd love to see an G1 cartoon set in the time frame between season 2 of G1 and Transformers the movie. I want to see what happened in that time frame in animated form. You'd get to see characters like Hot Rod interact with Iron Hide, etc. It'd be neat.

Also, despite the odd designs, Transtech sounded kinda neat. You continue with the beast machines/wars characters AND bring back some G1 characters as well? That sounds pretty awesome to me.

[DCnightwing23]

I honestly think they need to continue the story, im hearing that Transtech is getting a comic series. But i think they need a tv show. It'd be really interesting because it was said to bring Beast era and G1 era characters together. Which sounds really interesting, and brings loads of Transformers fans together, and not only that but the concept designs were amazing. I say someone needs to pick this show up. No doubt it would be successful.

Cheetor Transtech:

DepthCharge:

Megatron Transtech:

Starscream Transtech:

Nightscream Transtech:

Optimus Prime (Primal) Transtech:
Final Concept Prime -

This should have made it to tv, especially with the animation from Beast Wars and Beast Machines, it would have been pretty awesome.

[Grommers]

Actually I was glad they ended Beast Machines..
the only 1 out of the 3 franchises mainframe made (that I cared about) that had a definitive ending.

The other two (ReBoot which apparently now is a webcomic which feels more like fan-fic than anything else)
and
Shadow Raiders..

Tekla, whose sole mission is to save the rest of the universe from the destruction of the beast, allows them to just teleport the beast planet away, and suck up other worlds yet she rejoices?




With that said, I was more than gratified about how beast machines ended up turning out however I would of rather seen a remake of g1 with those graphics than the garbage they put out after.

[Lunar_Wolf]

Originally Posted by Bug-Eyes

After Beast Wars one would assume the visual style of the next series would advance. Now with the return of an American based show "Transformers Animated" why did they not make it CGI........

Its such ashame. If they wanted to get back old fans and new fans alike, they should have relaunched G1 as a 3D animated cgi series...............

I never liked the idea of going back to G1, it was great for what it was, no point of going back to it. Plus the G1 story is over. You could remake it, but again, that's just messing around with something that's good for what it was at that time. At the end of the day, style is secondary and story is first. I think alot of stuff about Beast Machines was terrible, but it had an amazing story. Animated may not appeal visually, but it is G1 heavy and has a decent story.