Armada & Energon -- FawnDoo's Cavalcade of Whimsy

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 01:35:39 01/17/04 Sat
Author: Goktimus Prime
Subject: Armada & Energon
In reply to: Defiant 's message, "Happy Birthday Fawndoo!!" on 18:17:12 12/31/03 Wed

(half a month later, I join the fray...)

Well I can see whay you mean as far as playability going up cause the toys were so sturdy, but however for me playability went down for two major reasons.

1) The toys while more sturdy, at the same time were far less posable. That took away much of the fun and playability for me and made them seem far more like statues to me than RID did.

While I agree that Armada figures generally weren't as poseable as CR/RiD figures, you're ignoring the fact that these toys were loaded with more gimmicks, which in themselves enhance playability. Ideally we'd like to see toys that combine articulation with gimmicks, and Armada does a reasonably good job trying to marry to two concepts. No, I'm not saying that it was done perfectly -- I see no real reason why Armada Starscream can't lift his legs up forward -- but it was done well enough to appeal to children. That's right, children, still the dominant market demographic for this toyline.

Cyclonus' copter mode does look a bit dorky with the robot fists clearly visible, but the toy is so fun to play with because of all the different ways you can powerlink MiniCons onto the guy! Sure, it's a simple gimmick, but having one trigger that can not only spin the rotorblades, but activate pom-pom action machine guns, a drill and a cannon is cool!

As far as Energon not looking as Playschool as Armada, IMO it's not. The cars do not look as real as RID cars looked, but not nearly as Playschool as Armada.

I thought Scavenger, Nightbeat and Sideswipe were ugly, but other than that, most of the toys look pretty cool. The quality and detailing of the sculpts are really good. There is so much detail sculpted into some of these robot modes - e.g. Starscream, Skywarp, Wheeljack. Take a close look...it's absolutely incredible.

As far as "realistic" vehicle modes go, having futuristic non-realistic alt. modes is _nothing_ new to Transformers.
Hello Shockwave, Omega Supreme, Jetfire, Insecticons and Dinobots, anybody?

By time the post-movie line rolled in (late 80s), the line was dominated by non-realistic tech vehicles.

I've been collecting some of the Go-Go-Gobot figures, and Armada is anything BUT PlaySkool.

We don't have the detail or nice color schemes of RID or the rubber tires, but we do have see through windows and head lights again. We also have doors and a hood that open and close.

While these are certainly features that enhance the cosmetic look of the toy, it doesn't make Energon Hot Shot any more "real" than Armada Hot Shot, since neither vehicle appear to be based on a real car like a Mazda RX-8 or something.

As far as hoping Energon does well, I am kinda upset that Armada did so well. For me a big part of the TF experience for me has always been the show we got with the line. Armada has been the most successful TF toyline since the original, and it was sold using one of the worst cartoons ever made. This showed Hasbro that the best way to sell toys is a very low budget cartoon with awful kiddie writing.

Hang on... just because you don't like Armada, you wanted it to FAIL? Why would you wish for a Transformer line to fail, just because you don't like it? If Armada failed, it would've hurt the overall franchise, and we may not have had Energon.

I personally hate Transformers Universe, it's a line of mostly meaningless and ugly-ass repaints, but I don't sit around hoping that it will fail! Mind you, if TFU did fail, I doubt Hasbro would lose much as they would if Armada failed, since TFU is more of a sideline and Hasbro invested virtually nothing on R&D, since they're just repaints. IMO, TFU is nothing more than a representation of Glen Hallit's enterprising greed and a shameless act on Hasbro's behalf to exploit consumers. But nevertheless, as much as I hate the concept and the line, I don't wish it to fail.

You say that Armada was one of the most successful lines using a poor cartoon. True (mind you, a lot of that had to do with the really poor dubbing - watch Micron Legend some time with an interpreter some time and notice the difference between the two shows when watching it in its original language) - but the G1 cartoon wasn't terribly brilliant either.

I will make these two points about the two respective cartoons:
(1) The main weakness with Armada, is that it talks down to kids and treats them like idiots. The pace feels slower and things are over-explained in exposition far too often. G1 didn't do this.
(2) The main weakness with G1 is that there was very poor plot and continuity consistency... and it was littered with really poor plot devices. You might think that the accumulation of all Mini-Cons is a lame plot device for the overall series, but it doesn't come close as some G1 plot devices like Megatron's "invisibility spray" or "hate plague." And I still can't decide if the Constructicons were built on Earth or Cybertron. Dagnabbit.

And both series suffered from inconsistent animation quality - both series had some episodes that were fantastically animated, and others that you just shuddered at. Although Armada's animation gradually improved, whereas G1's animation just utterly deteriorated towards the end. Especially the bulk of post-movie episodes.

The strength of G1 continuity clearly came from the Marvel Comic series anyway. I noticed that you neglected to comment on Dreamwave Productions' Armada comic series. What did you think of that?

Certainly not mindless kiddie dribble. And I think one of the strengths of Armada is that it had two separate forms of fiction to appeal to two stratas of the fandom - cartoons for the kids and comic books for the older fans. That's more than we got for RiD, where we were just stuck with the kiddie-cartoon.

I thought the ending of the Armada comic series was really poorly executed... the Worlds Collide saga was like a really big build up to a very anti-climactic ending. Pah!

But in some ways, the cartoon achieved things that the comic didn't - e.g.: Wheeljack. He is a really interesting character in the cartoon, yet he's nothing more than a background goon in the comic.
Cartoon Wheeljack: full of angst and unresolved issues. Go smack down Hot Shot's arse!
Comic Wheeljack: ummm... yes... guard that shuttle. Okay.

Mind you, the comic wins over hands down for their excellent portrayal of the MiniCons and the establishment of what I thought was a very interesting caste-society on Cybertron.

It seems that we will never get a CGI cartoon on par with Beast Wars ever again at this point, and my interest in Transformers is bareley alive anymore. I do enjoy these Energon toys, but not nearly as much as I would had I cared about the characters the toys represent.

I'm reserving judgement until I've either seen the show or read the comics. But from the images I've seen from the show's official site on TV Tokyo... I can't wait to see it!

(see the Transformers Super Link post on Planet Sabretron for more info on this site)

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Having seen the first episode... -- Perceptor II, 04:52:30 01/17/04 Sat
re: Armada & Energon -- Defiant, 03:25:27 02/07/04 Sat
- The Hasbro Factor -- Goktimus Prime, 22:49:38 02/07/04 Sat