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I know it isn't as great as Beast Wars or anything, but I've been wondering about it, and am trying to give a shot at watching it. Is it any good, or will my eyes bleed out?

I like it, or at least I did however many years ago I last watched it. It's not brilliant, and it'll depend on whether you find the numerous running jokes awful and funny or awful and irritating, and how much some of the anime cliches bug you. It's very lightweight compared to BW/BM, but IMO runs rings around the UT stuff. It won't blow your mind, but most of the characters are likeable enough and it moves at a decent crack. Worth a watch.

It has been a very long time since I watched it.

I remember being very excited about it when it first came out. I think I recorded every episode every week.

I thought it was mostly good every episode. The only thing that needles me about it is that they take the first set of villains and turn them into comedy relief bumblers after they introduce the badass Decepticons. I really hate that kind of thing.

Still, it's an entertaining bit of light fun. The animation is good and the voices aren't too bad. The human character isn't all that annoying comparatively speaking.

It's worth a watch. Better than most of what's come after.

Edit: Cliffy stole what I was gonna write and wrote it faster and better than I did. I call foul...

I've watched the first three episodes. Not bad. Nowhere as good as BW or BM, of course... but for a Japanese produced show aimed for Saturday morning kids it's okay. Dubbing isn't quite as horrible or uninspired as Armada or Energon, and the Animation is more solid than the Unicron Trilogy.

Brawn, Side Burn (stupid name) and Prowl aren't as lifeless as Hot Shot, Red Alert and Smokescreen from Armada. And the Predacons have miles more personality than their Armada counterparts.

I don't like the human kid. No justification whatsoever for his helping the Autobots. Basically he's Spike, but instead of getting caught up in the action, Optimus for some reason calls him on the cell phone...

'Cuttaaaah beam!'

Sky Byte is great. But that's a given.

Yup, I'll take RID out for a spin.

There are maybe-irritating running jokes? I appreciate it if I was forewarned...

I love RiD! The animation is great (even the stock transformation sequences remain fresh, despite continued usage - perhaps because they don't end up cloogging up too much screen time like in much of the UT). Optimus is a little stiff, but he livens up a bit with the introduction of Ultra Magnus later in the series. Ultra Magnus is quite a revelation - an embittered, jealous warrior who gives the Autobots just as much trouble as the Predacons/ Decepticons.

There's also some nice rivallry between Scourge's Decepticons and Skybyte's Predacons, with them each vying for Megatron's favour. The Combaticons are a bit faceless, though.

The stories are all relatively light and fluffy, on a par with the non-Decep starring Animated episodes. There's a bit of toughening up of the story telling chops with the hunt for the O-Parts and Fortress Maximus to add a bit of jeopardy - he is presented as a potential doomsday weapon, which if I was being generous and reading far too much into it almost aludes to the pointlessness of nuclear weapons. Not too sure about his ultimate control mechanism, but you'll have to see that for yourself and make your own mind up.

The finale is a mix of 'great' and 'facepalm', particularly with Galvatron's weird scheme to enslave children. Something defiantely got lost in translation there.

As for running jokes, well they're all acceptable, with the notable exception of Side Burn's obsession with red sports cars (usually driven by the luckless Kelly). He gets powered up towards the end and gets turned into that which he loves - a red sports car, yet the writers miss a trick by not delving into this! Side Burn doesn't even seem to notice that he is now red. I would have expected some vain self- obsession as a result, but it doesn't come.

If you go into it with an open mind and expect typical Saturday morning kids fare, then you'll find it a lot of fun. At the time, it did seem a bit disappointing coming after the more mature Beast Wars/ Beast Machines, but I found it preferable over the stilted and waffly non-event of the Unicron Trilogy series. Plus, it knows that its just a light show and doesn't try to be anything other than fun. I'll take this over the cops and robbers nonsense of the original cartoon any day.

It's enjoyable fluff, and probably what Transformers needed at the time. The Beast Shows are great but by the end had become not very accessible to newer, younger viewers.

Whilst it's not the sort of thing I'd likely have ever paid any attention to if not for the Transformers name I'm glad I did.

Having actually dug out a couple since this morning, I was pleasantly surprised by how well it's aged. It probably helps that, the Prime mini aside, everything's been so shite since, but I'd basically rather watch it than Animated (two episodes in and I don't want everyone to die, for instance), let alone the whole Unicron Trilogy disaster. The funny thing about that is I remember all the masturbating anticipation about Armada, which was going to be the one which went back to G1 style. Which is sort of did, by being rubbish. Still not as funny as that Generation Zero thing, though.

RiD's only problem is that its' style is pretty ubjective - if you don't like that cheerful kiddy Pokemon-ish anime style, you're not going to be able to get past it and enjoy the show. But then that's probably true of the Mainframe series too, in their own way... I do find the reason I don't tend to watch BW/BM back often is just down to them being basically physically ugly series.

Aye, the BM Maximals in particular look like shite.

What is Generation Zero?

It's like Generation Diet but with even less sugar.

Blackjack: have a watch of it, but make sure you have your popcorn and soda ready... it's a kiddie-centric series. A lot of the stories are no-brainers (to adults) and the continued use of localised space-bridges is a plot device Armada employed to better effect. That said, there are a few rather smart moments which prove that these are aliens come to Earth.

Best bits are definitely centered round Ultra Magnus. Worst bit is the end story, from the Western POV.

Its got slightly better animation than the 1st half of TF Armada.

THat, IMO, is the only thing it has going for it.

Other than that, its a quite funny comedy series but something i can take as seriously as Beast Wars/Machines. The comedy was also not as witty or well written as TF:Animated

I remember not liking it, but looking back I now wonder if the reason was why fans like me hated the show is because it had the bad luck of starting a few weeks before 9/11 and because after that horrible tragedy I recall feeling to have more serious minded entertainment. I don't know if that is true for anyone else here, but that is how I felt at that the time.

Cyberstrike nTo wrote:I remember not liking it, but looking back I now wonder if the reason was why fans like me hated the show is because it had the bad luck of starting a few weeks before 9/11 and because after that horrible tragedy I recall feeling to have more serious minded entertainment. I don't know if that is true for anyone else here, but that is how I felt at that the time.

I thought at the time serious entertainment was frowned upon. I know Gundam got pulled from TV.