Transformers Animated

[Glitch Girl]

Boy that clip was... toyetic. 

It's going to need some amazing writing.  Seeing them in context doesn't really grab me.  Still, good scripts coupled with a great cast... if they have that I may become a fan.

[Pyroclasm]

Here is another cam clip from the con.
http://www.seibertron.com/news/view.php?id=11290
This one is a longer clip from the actual show.  This further demonstrates how this style does not work for the Transformers.  It also shows that the previous clip I linked to looks much better as if it contained a lot of opening sequence animation...Ya know, the stuff they make really nice but then don't actually do in the show.  :(

Heh, just as I was posting this, my wife was looking over my shoulder and commented how it looks "old & choppy", as in not as fluid as she might expect from today's animators.

[BentonGrey]

Ehh...Well, I'm now even less enthused about this.

[XLR8er]

wow i gotta say i am excited for this!

[detourne_me]

well the framerates definitely off in this clip.   i assume its because of one of two things.
first,  this is a sample clip thats put on repeat at the table,  but not enough of the show has been animated, so they slow down the framerate a bit to make the clip seem longer.
OR   not enough animation has been produced yet,  ie. the producers havent shipped the goods off to the north koreans yet to do the tweens.

i highly doubt the final product will be this low quality.

edit:
or my other thought is that the person who captured this clip was using a digital camera,   they usually have 15 or 30 fps settings.   neither of which are industry standards for animated video (29.97 fps),  hence the framerate jitters

[Glitch Girl]

another Transformers fan's view on the new series designs...

http://www.lilformers.com/comic0055.php

[BatWing]

lol good one glitch!

[Glitch Girl]

Well, they finally aired it, and I've seen most of it (missed the first 20 minutes of the 1.5 hour premier)

First impression... it ain't good

More...
[spoiler]Tha animation is very shoddy.  Most of the time it looks like it's running at 15 fps or lower.  It's made even more evident by the angular and overly stylyzed characters.

The setting is a near future Detroit where robots are the largest export and one company is the leader due to massively new technolgies.  It's shown at the end that these technologies are actually from a dismantled and broken Megatron, but we all know THAT state won't last long.

They have their token "cute kid" in this one - this time an indian girl with inexplicably red pigtails and a "magic key".  That's the best description I can come up for it - it's a keycard that gets infused technology and it can fix transformers by just plugging it in, i.e: it's maaaaaaaagic.  Oh yeah, and her dad's got Megatron's head wired into his robots factory.

The characters themselves aren't that interesting.  You've got Ratchet who is apparenlty the old curmudgeon bot with magnetic hands (wha???), Prowl the motorcycle who can project holograms, the one nod to his origin, a young and unsure leader in Optimus Prime, Bumblebee the kid, and the armoreed vehicle who's name escapes me at the moment who seems to be the big slightly dumb one.  The supporting human cast is a little worse. You've got the loudmouth police chief, the scientist dad, both of whom come off as flat and mostly forgettable. 

Oddly enough, Starscream is rather faithful to his origin - except for the chin that you could land a helicarrier on, he acts, looks, and even sounds very much like the original down to his underhanded backstabbing of his illustrious leader.  Still, as with all the characters, he comes off flat due to some really poor writing.  Plot holes and leaps of logic the size of the grand canyon pepper the script with dialogue wooden enough to whittle on. 

Overall, it's going to take a miracle for this thing to improve. I can only hope it gets dumped very soon or gets a drastic overhaul a la Marvel Action Universe.

One can hope.[/spoiler]

[zuludelta]

Tha animation is very shoddy.  Most of the time it looks like it's running at 15 fps or lower.  It's made even more evident by the angular and overly stylyzed characters.

It actually makes me wonder if they should have gone the full Flash animation route with this one (although they might have, and just did a crap job of it, I've no idea what went into the production of the show). The blocky and stylized designs lend themselves well to that method, it would have probably animated better and been a lot cheaper to make. As it was, the animation in the premiere episode didn't look very appealing, although I wonder if it wasn't so much the animation that was off as it was the poor direction.

You've got the loudmouth police chief, the scientist dad, both of whom come off as flat and mostly forgettable.

The police chief looked like a buffed up version of Inspector Gadget's boss (you know, the dude with the pipe who kept getting blown up by the discarded self-destructing messages). I was half-expecting Penny and that damn dog to show up in the background somewhere.

The one thing I did appreciate in the show is that we finally get a prominent Indian character in a kids' show who doesn't speak in stereotypical "Apu"-ese in the lead kid. Although having her be a nosy, hyperactive tween stereotype isn't any less annoying, either. 

[BentonGrey]

Well.....I can't say I'm surprised.  I actually sort of wanted to see this (despite my misgivings about the previews) until I started seeing the commercials......they sort of pointed at a lot of these issues, and I lost any drive to see it.

[Silver Shocker]

I saw it this week. I pretty much agree with everything GG said. The only thing I liked about it really is the voice acting, which I thought was solid depending on the character. I especially liked Starscream's true-to-the original voice.

The one thing I did appreciate in the show is that we finally get a prominent Indian character in a kids' show who doesn't speak in stereotypical "Apu"-ese in the lead kid. Although having her be a nosy, hyperactive tween stereotype isn't any less annoying, either. 

I agree, it is nice to divert from the mostly white string of "kid characters" in Transformers without being particularly stereotypical, but the kid was indeed annoying for the reason you listed.  I've never really liked the tendancy to have human kid "P.O.V" characters in Transformers, but something tells me if I continue watching this she's going to become my least favourite ever. 

[BentonGrey]

I agree, it is nice to divert from the mostly white string of "kid characters" in Transformers without being particularly stereotypical, but the kid was indeed annoying for the reason you listed.  I've never really liked the tendancy to have human kid "P.O.V" characters in Transformers, but something tells me if I continue watching this she's going to become my least favourite ever. 

That is one thing that I enjoy about modern entertainment, having kids of more diverse backgrounds is a non-issue.

[Pyroclasm]

well the framerates definitely off in this clip.   i assume its because of one of two things.
first,  this is a sample clip thats put on repeat at the table,  but not enough of the show has been animated, so they slow down the framerate a bit to make the clip seem longer.
OR   not enough animation has been produced yet,  ie. the producers havent shipped the goods off to the north koreans yet to do the tweens.

i highly doubt the final product will be this low quality.

edit:
or my other thought is that the person who captured this clip was using a digital camera,   they usually have 15 or 30 fps settings.   neither of which are industry standards for animated video (29.97 fps),  hence the framerate jitters

Heh, after seeing about 10 minutes of this dren, I can conclude that it was none of those things.  It was as we thought:  Crappy animation.
I had no doubt it would be bad when I first saw the odd style that simply does not fit in with the angled precision that makes up giant transforming robots.
Although there tended to be some odd anime-isms in the last batch of Transformer cartoons, at least japanese studios tend to know how to render their mecha.  Perhaps if they would have gotten Mainframe to do the new series, we would have had something special.  Oh well.  Guess I'll have to wait for the next series to happen.

[cmdrkoenig67]

I've seen only the podcast (I think it was)...I found it to be awful...Choppy, bad animation...Goofy, annoying characters...Not much in it made me want to watch the series.

I liked the original Transformer's series  when I was a kid...I absolutely loved the Beast Wars series (I'm an animal lover...And I thought robots turning into bad-arse animals was the neatest)...But I disliked the sequel, Beast Machines.

Picky Transformers fan,

Dana

[Verfall]

Well since they're specifically targeting a younger audience than the original, I'd say of all the TF cartoons that have come out since the original went off the air, this one is the best. No super power up ala DBZ crap, no generic anime kids over stating the obvious, and each character actually has something resembling a personality. It's a bastardization of the original for sure, but for the targeted 6ish age group, I'd say it's one of the better cartoons out there for that age group.

[BentonGrey]

Good to see you're still around Cmdr!  Yeah, the original series was beyond awesome.

Well since they're specifically targeting a younger audience than the original, I'd say of all the TF cartoons that have come out since the original went off the air, this one is the best. No super power up ala DBZ crap, no generic anime kids over stating the obvious, and each character actually has something resembling a personality. It's a bastardization of the original for sure, but for the targeted 6ish age group, I'd say it's one of the better cartoons out there for that age group.

Well, even if you grant that this is the best of them since the original (although many people love Beastwars), that's not really saying much.

[zuludelta]

Well since they're specifically targeting a younger audience than the original, I'd say of all the TF cartoons that have come out since the original went off the air, this one is the best. No super power up ala DBZ crap, no generic anime kids over stating the obvious, and each character actually has something resembling a personality. It's a bastardization of the original for sure, but for the targeted 6ish age group, I'd say it's one of the better cartoons out there for that age group.

All my qualms with the new show are pretty much based on the technical aspects of the animation, which makes it look cheap, shoddy, and poorly done. I agree with you that the story and the characterizations, at least so far, is inoffensive and isn't any worse than many of the other stuff out there that's targeted towards kids. I did notice that the show didn't really catch on with any of my 5-8 year old cousins who are huge fans of the recent Transformers shows (but that's probably because they don't have the toys based on the new cartoon, at least not yet... if the toys become a hit with the kids, I'm sure the cartoon will gain that much more of a following with the younger set). 

[Verfall]

Good to see you're still around Cmdr!  Yeah, the original series was beyond awesome.

Well since they're specifically targeting a younger audience than the original, I'd say of all the TF cartoons that have come out since the original went off the air, this one is the best. No super power up ala DBZ crap, no generic anime kids over stating the obvious, and each character actually has something resembling a personality. It's a bastardization of the original for sure, but for the targeted 6ish age group, I'd say it's one of the better cartoons out there for that age group.

Well, even if you grant that this is the best of them since the original (although many people love Beastwars), that's not really saying much.

I like to think of Beast Wars as a fantastic show outside of the main shows. Of all the shows, Beast Wars was far and away the best written and animated of the lot, but it wasn't a true Transformers show. If they could pull off the Beast Wars style of writing and characterization with a vehicle based show it'd be the best damn cartoon on TV.

[BentonGrey]

I like to think of Beast Wars as a fantastic show outside of the main shows. Of all the shows, Beast Wars was far and away the best written and animated of the lot, but it wasn't a true Transformers show. If they could pull off the Beast Wars style of writing and characterization with a vehicle based show it'd be the best damn cartoon on TV.

To be fair VF, I never really watched Beast Wars, so I can't really comment on it.  I saw a little of it, and it didn't catch my interest because it wasn't really Transformers (to me).  The animation was really cool though.

[detourne_me]

i just watched this and i agree with everything Verfall has said.  other than the first season or two of beast wars, this is the best show since the original.  I've tried to get into armada, energon and cybertron, but way too many anime-isms.  this pilot reminded me of the early The Batman episodes,  some bad design choices at first glance,  but hopefully it will pick up its pace later on,   (although it took The Batman 4 seasons to get really good)   I liked this pilot a lot better than the LSH shows i've seen so far...

[BentonGrey]

Give Legion another chance DM, it's gotten MUCH better, although it's still not Timm-verse quality.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

scifiupdates.com had this to say.

And speaking of Transformers, did anyone else watch the cartoon premiere on Saturday? As for us here, we're still trying to erase the memory from our poor abused brains!! But if you really want to know what it was like, imagine the Teen Titans all dressed up like cars one year for Halloween...

[BentonGrey]

LOL!  Ohh, that's beautiful!

[Silver Shocker]

Sorry if this is considered "necroposting" but seeing as the show is still going on (at least here in Canada) I thought it justified and would rather bring up the old thread than make a new one.

This week's episode featured [spoiler]Waspinator, as a Bumberbee recast named Wasp, as well as Shockwave, as a Decepticon spy operating on Earth.  I wasn't sure if Wasp was going to be that much like Waspinator, as the name and green-yellow color scheme were the only things similar. However, near the end of this flashback episode, we see the present day Wasp, whose delivers this dialogue:

"Bumblebot not hide from Wasp. Wasp swears he find Bumblebot, and make Bumblebot PAY for ruining Wasp's life! [expose him as a decepticon spy]" Wasp is voiced by Tom Kenny, and by this point in the episode does a voice clearly inspired by Waspinator's voice from Beast Wars. He seems to be a much more serious version of Waspinator though, not at all the comic relief Waspinator was, at least not yet. Shockwave has size-altering abilites ("to help him spy on the autobots") and uses an alias "Longarm". As Shockwave he looks very much like the G1 character (with the camera-head). [/spoiler]

Either of these two things would have had me excited (though the latter was foreshadowed in an earlier episode) but the two of have me very interested. This show still has a good deal of faults but the second season is a good deal better IMO.

[zuludelta]

This show still has a good deal of faults but the second season is a good deal better IMO.

I've pretty much accepted the character designs as reasonable all things considered (and the new toys based on the designs are pretty neat... the level of articulation and pose-ability in the Voyager and Deluxe class of figures is a significant step above what I was expecting... almost Marvel Legends-like), and the writing is surprisingly entertaining, but the quality of the actual animation is still very poor, perhaps the worst I've seen since the DiC GI Joe series from the 1990s.

[Silver Shocker]

True, the framerate is embarrassingly bad. It's kinda sad, with all the anime on tv these days, there arn't a lot of american action/non-comedy cartoons on tv and this is one of them, one of the most poorly animated cartoons I've seen in recent memories.

[zuludelta]

True, the framerate is embarrassingly bad. It's kinda sad, with all the anime on tv these days, there arn't a lot of american action/non-comedy cartoons on tv and this is one of them, one of the most poorly animated cartoons I've seen in recent memories.

It sort of underscores how poorly appreciated the traditional/2D animation field has become in North America. A couple of 2D animators that I know recently moved to the Philippines because they found it easier to hook-up with a studio with a regular paying 2D animation gig there than in Canada. And in a weird twist of irony, they ended up working on Canadian/American cartoons (Fantastic Four, My Dad the Rock Star, Captain Flamingo) whose animation was outsourced to Asian studios because of the lack of competitively-priced North American animation studios.