September 17th marked the anniversary of the premiere of the original Transformers cartoon in 1984, with the first episode: More Than Meets the Eye: Part 1.
Back in these days, Transformers was a lot simpler. No deep or complex storylines, not much in terms of character development, and the animation quality is…. yeah, it sucks. I’ve seen worse, but I’ve also seen better. Even the most hardcore Generation 1 purist fans will admit that the animation isn’t exactly the best. However bad it may look at times, it doesn’t stop me or other fans from enjoying it. The low-quality animation along with the low quality plots and disregard for logic as we know it is what gave the show its unique charm that no other cartoon I’ve seen can match.
The first 3 episodes of the series were pretty decent. It’s not anything grand or spectacular, especially these days, but it’s still an interesting piece of history. Let it be known that I did not grow up on this show. I didn’t know it existed until after the first live action movie came out in 2007. I watched it out of curiosity, and was amazed at how much it had changed.
It all started out with the most basic of origin stories. Autobots at war with the Decepticons on Cybertron, both sides fighting over energy, both sides make it to Earth and continue their fighting there. Back then, Transformers wasn’t really about telling an epic, grand scale story. In fact, one of the writers of the show had this to say:
“... we feel action should be emphasized over plot- especially avoiding any complicated storylines- to ensure the success of this series with its intended viewers.”
Yeah…. In terms of story, this basically says “kids are stupid”. To an extent, this bothers me. But there is nothing wrong with simplicity, when done right. And this show did it pretty well. It knew what it was, and what it had to do to win over all the kids and sell toys. If I were a kid, watching this in the 80’s, I can tell you for certain that I would be hooked in an instant.
On September 17th, 1984, the first episode showed the kids what they’d be in for. After crashing on Earth 4 million years ago in search of new energy sources, the dormant robots wake up. The teams quickly move on from the fact that they’ve been offline for millions of years, and the Decepticons begin looking for resources to build a space cruiser. The episode ends with a fight on an oil rig. The Decepticons get away, and the Autobots stay behind to help the humans.
Unfortunately, the humans they chose to save are the stupidest people on the whole freaking planet. Want to know how stupid they are? Well, Sparkplug, the dad, apparently thinks it’s a good idea to bring his teenaged kid (who can’t even drive yet) to work with him on an oil rig! In what UNIVERSE is that legal or logical?
I may hate Shia Labeouf's character from the movies, but I’d prefer him over ‘Spike’ and ‘Sparkplug’. The only time they’re ever smart is in Megatron’s Master Plan… but that’s only in comparison to everyone else’s stupidity in that episode. Either way, I hate them.
Anyway, on September 18, 1984, the story continues with the Decepticons stealing more and more of Earth’s energy and converting it into energon to fuel the space cruiser. Some of the Autobots start losing hope that they’ll stop their enemies, but Optimus Prime won’t have any of that negative energy while he’s around.
This episode has a lot more action in it, which is nice, but the battle at the dam only gives us a first glimpse at the impossible logic and physics that the show will be riddled with as the series progresses. When the dam breaks, Ironhide and Bumblebee use a laser gun to carve trenches for the flooding river to fall into so it doesn’t reach a nearby town. It wasn’t one big laser either. It was a tiny laser gun on the back of Ironhide’s vehicle mode! That is just… stupid! But you will soon learn that nothing is physically impossible when it comes to G1 Transformers. And it only gets even more ridiculous from here.
September 19th, 1984 marked the finale of the 3 part miniseries which would spawn an entire 95 more episodes and a movie. The Decepticons finally have their cruiser completed, and it’s all down to one final battle to keep those jerks from going to space. It’s a pretty cool fight scene, to be honest. It all ends with the cruiser crashing into the ocean, and the Autobots winning the day. What else did you expect to happen?
While I have said that the animation isn’t the best, it manages to have a sort of odd visual appeal that I haven’t seen in any other cartoon in my life. The designs of the Transformers are rather impressive (when drawn right), and while they may not be as detailed and intricate as the newer incarnations, they still look great overall.
Also unlike the newer incarnations, the show stays focused on the Transformers themselves for the most part, with very few human storylines. While most of the characters are one-dimensional and never really undergo any development, they’re still memorable and fun. I guess the simplicity of everything makes them easier for kids to identify with. Depending on who you are, this may or may not be a problem for you if you ever try to watch the whole series…. all 98 episodes of it…. including a movie…. which I have done before.
From the first 3 episodes alone, if I had to choose my favorite character from each faction, my favorite Autobot would have to be Optimus Prime, and the Decepticon would be Soundwave.
This is the Optimus before he went around making constant freedom speeches and ripping off the faces of all his enemies. The original is a lot more charismatic and friendly. I do have to give the writers credit for putting the effort into Optimus to make him the best written character out of the entire series. He’s one of the most iconic leader characters from the 1980’s, and still holds up to this day. SPOILER AHEAD: The kids loved Optimus so much that they locked themselves in their rooms for weeks, crying their eyes out after they watched him die in the 1986 movie. If that doesn’t say something about how loved this character was, then NOTHING will.
I honestly don’t think he would have been as memorable without that legendary voice provided by Peter Cullen. They could have gotten anyone to come in, read some lines for a truck and leave, but it was Peter Cullen’s performance that stood out from all the others. He poured himself into this role and loved doing it, and you can tell. Heck, he still voices the character even these days. He did all 4 of the movies, all the video games from 2007 to present, and the recently ended Transformers: Prime series. Some fans might say that looking at the same exact design for 30 years could get old, but I can guarantee you that not a single one of them will ever say that listening the same exact voice for 30 years will. No matter how many times I hear it, it makes me tense up with fanboy-ism. Even if you aren’t a fan, even if you hate Transformers to the core, you will still say that you love that voice.
As for Soundwave, I can’t complain about him having no character depth…. because he’s an emotionless computer! He has that monotone echo-ey robot voice which is just as memorable as Optimus Prime’s. It sounds so perfect! It’s only fitting that he turns into a cassette player, given his name. It might not make sense how he transforms from such a tiny device into a 30 ft tall robot, but who really cares? It’s a cartoon. His minions turn into cassette tapes that pop out of his chest to go on missions for him. That’s probably the best use of a cassette player in the history of the universe.
I think the reason I like him so much is that he always does all the work. He’s always the one finding out ways to convert Earth’s resources into energon, always making blueprints, always managing computer systems, always going on stealth missions, recon missions, infiltration, hacking, and just about everything else. The others only bicker with each other.
The rest of the characters are enjoyable, but I personally love these two out of all of them the most.
This 3 part series premiere did its job quite well. It got kids from all over interested in Transformers. Even though it took them 3 hours to figure out how the toys worked, and half the episodes from the rest of the show didn’t make sense, they still bought into the franchise.
If you can accept the show for what it is, and what it’s trying to be, even with all its obvious problems, then it’ll be much easier for you to get into it. Sure, it might not have the best animation or story, but look at the positives! The voice acting is great, the characters are fun, and the music is decent. It’s still a neat little trilogy of episodes to sit down and watch. If you haven’t seen it yet, and you’re interested to see what Transformers has evolved from, then it’s a piece of history that you’ll want to check out. It’s on Netflix.
FINAL RATING: 3 / 5
I do plan on reviewing the rest of season 1 some other time, and the rest of the series after that. But that’s for later.
I know I’ve been lacking on this blog for a while now, but how can you blame me? There’s nothing good to see in theaters at this point in the year, so I guess I’ll resort to whatever crappy sci-fi movie I can find next.
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