Friday 6 June 2014

Transformers Marathon: The Transformers Seasons 3 and 4. "THE FACES OF oh wait, wrong franchise..."


Unfortunately, we’re not done yet with Generation one of Transformers as there were more episodes of the TV show based after the events of the movie, so if you haven’t seen the movie, well then you’re going to be lost as to what the hell is happening in this new episodes. Time to look at Transformers: Generation 1, wave 2. This review is going to be short as a lot of the issues I had with the first two seasons are still apparent for the most part with a few exceptions.

The plot follows on from Transformers the Movie, and like the seasons before it, it doesn’t do anything aside from that as each of the episodes are self contained. That being said though, the stories themselves are stupid a lot of the time, as if the writers ran out of ideas. In one episode, the Autobots have to deal with a Zombie Optimus Prime and then, a few episodes latter, Daniel (Spike’s Son) and Grimlock are sent to the Transformers equivalent of Ghosts and Goblins. When the Decepticons (THE MAIN VILLAINS OF TRANSFORMERS) are the villains, most of the time they come off as pathetic or (in Galvatron’s case) outright insane. The reason why I say “When the Decepticons are the villains” is because a new threat is introduced: The Quintasons, the creators of the Transformers (and scrambling the nonexistent cannon of Generation 1). Are they good villains? Well they come up with good plans, but their still not good villains. The Quintasons are the Transformers equivalent of the Terminators, calculating but don’t do much (unlike said terminators). They come up with the plans, but even when they say the odds of sucsess, you know they’re going to fail so there’s no point. On top of that, they had a 5 part intro at the start of Season 3 called “The five faces of Darkness” (hence the joke in the title) which, in terms of story, is boring to no end. I criticised Season’s 1 and 2 for having fast delivery of its story and it’s ironic now that I’m saying that the delivery in those five episodes (six technically) was to slow because of the amount of padding in it.

Another big issue I have with Season 3 and Season 4 is the cast. While the cast from Transformers the Movie was good for the movie, they can’t hold a tv show, let alone two seasons with a combined total of 34 episodes. On top of that, the issues with the cast in the movie are increased here, like Blur and Wheelie (who I didn’t mention in the movie review because he was bearable).Wheelie is almost as annoying as Blur because his voice is so annoying and he says everything in rhyme with Blur becoming almost unbearable. Galvatron on the other hand, what did they do to you? Not only are you insane, but your new voice is awful. Rodimus Prime’s personality is bland and dry (like Ultra Magnus). It’s just awful. Is it sad when Grimlock is the best character in the main cast?

Season 3 and Season 4 are set in space, as the Autobots and Decepticons travel to other planets which, while good in theory, also brings up problems. Setting the fight in space means that the designers can have alot of fun with the design for the other races of other planets. WHEN THE RACE ISN’T MACHINE, THEY LOOK UGLY. It might just be my opinion but most of the alien races in these seasons look ugly and horrible and when their machines, they look almost exactly the same as Transformers, even having similar abilities (aside from the Quintasons) so what was the point? My other issue is their definition of the term “planet”. If by today’s standards Pluto isn’t a planet, then most of these shouldn’t be anything close to the term. For examples, look Up Quintessa, Goo and Junkeon (yes, those are the names of some of the planets).

It sounds like I’m on the attack when it comes to Season 3 and 4 and there are a few reasons to it. While the most likely is because I’ve been marathon’d all of generation 1 in the space of a week when its supposed to be taken at a slower pace and I’m just sick of it. The other, big reason is because they didn’t need to exist. Transformers the Movie was a great way to close the generation as it sorted out almost everything. While Season 4 is a better way because it sorts out everything, the process of getting to it is so bland and bleak that you don’t care by the time it comes. Season 3 and 4 loves to kill off characters; my only wish is that they KILLED OFF THE BLAND CHARACTERS INSTEAD OF THE GOOD ONES. Finally, Season’s 3 and 4 fall under the same category as the seasons prior, they have not aged well and the movie only made them worse as they went back to the style of Seasons 1 and 2 , animation errors and all. They essentially took the bad aspects of the movie, and turned them into two seasons. If you’re going to watch them, you can both watch them before the movie and ruin the movie, or after and have an awful time, you can’t win with them. I will admit though, there are some great scenes in all of generation 1 including the rise of the Dinobots, Tripticon's scenes and seeing Cybertron in its golden age again are just a few that I can come up with off the top of my head. In short, Seasons 3 and 4 didn't need to exist as the movie was the best way to end Generation 1. Up next in the Transformers Marathon, it’s time to leave the 80’s and move into the new millennium with the start of the Unicron Saga, Transformers: Armada.

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