I heard about this. They're skipping Energon because it had the worst ratings of any Tranformers series EVER.

They're also putting the whole Cybertron series on DVD in one box set instead of splitting it in half like Armada.

A poster advertising this set has been put on the Internet, but the official box art has yet to be seen.

i hated cybertron. there were so many transformers i forgot who was who!!!!!!!!.

personaly, I could care less about that box set. sure, I'll buy it eventualy, but as of now forget it. that show imo sucked! I'd rather have armada than that load of scrap.

That's too bad, Sabr, I think of the three my favorite was Energon. I think the ratings thing had a little to do with the fact that it was always aired at terrible terrible times in the day. I could never watch it because I was either asleep or getting ready for school that the time. Oh well, I still hope it'll come out eventually, I never got to see the whole series. Either way, we're down to two TF series needing DVD releases, right? Animated has been announced, and all of the others have made it leaving only Energon and RiD, if I'm not mistaken (not counting Japanese exclusive series).

Cybertron maybe be the worst TF show ever next to Beast Machines, but I would still like to get this DVD pack.

IMO, Cybertron was the best of the three. It finally gave us an EVIL Starscream, a nigh-unbeatable Megatron/Galvatron, a chance to see other planets besides Cybertron and Earth, and of course the first animated appearance of PRIMUS! (Energon doesn't count, they made him a glowing puff of smoke)

Armada being the second best started off with the Pokeformers feel, but got good much later with the introductions of Sideways, Jetfire, and Mr. Planet-Eater.

Energon was obviously the worst of the three (and THAT is a fact). Look at this to see why:

http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Energon_%28cartoon%29#Criticisms

It DID have a cool toyline, though. But the show was the worst of them all (RiD's show was even better than Energon's).

I might get this form Blockbuster if it ever gets it. Cybertron is one of my four mot favorite shows, the others being Animated, Beast Wars and G1 (though not necessarily in that order).

Cybertron wasn't too bad, I just hated it when they focused too much on the humans, I can live without humans. I like Cybertron better than Animated.

Great, now we just need RID and Energon.

No way, dudes, Armada was BY FAR the worst of the Trilogy. The art was terrible, translation was awful, and due to an unrealistic schedule posted by Cartoon Network, a lot of the show was unfinished and aired anyway as apparent in the incomplete animation in some episodes. On top of that, Armada's "catch 'em all" plot was absolutely awful. Names didn't get translated properly as a bunch of characters were often called the wrong names. Granted, that still happened up until Cybertron (Smokescreen/Crosswise anyone?), but it was most notably worst in Armada.

That said, the worst of all TF series is undebatably RiD. RiD was a filler series and everyone hates Anime Filler because Anime has notoriously BAD filler. And that's what RiD is, and THAT is a FACT. RiD had bad plot, bad characters, and was also translated terribly due to censorship dealing with 9/11 issues. If there were issues keeping track of characters in Cybertron, then there could have been no way to keep up with RiD. To this day, I can't tell you which spychanger is which because they were all so insignificant.

I still stand by that Beast Machines is only bad if you are a kid. I was a kid when Beast Machines aired and I could not stand what they had done to my show, so I hated it. Now, years later, I own the series on DVD and I love it. I may even say that I think BM is better than G1, but that's an unfair comparasin considering that G1 was made in the 80's so as time goes on, series are supposed to get better. Even so, I'd rather watch Beast Machines reruns than G1, personally.

Well, I think we can all agree that there were some MAJOR problems with all three Unicron Trilogy series, but Energon was the one that got the WORST ratings out all three. In fact, Energon got the worst ratings out of ALL the Tranformers series.

Yes, even RiD faired better than Energon, seeing as how it was released on DVD in the UK and Australia. It wasn't unreleased on DVD in the U.S. because of ratings, it was unreleased because of Disney's possession of it.

If you ask me, I think what saved Armada from being the worst series was its characters of Sideways, Jetfire, Tidal Wave; the three main Mini-con weapons; and the return of Unicron after 20 years.

And who says everyone hates fillers? Look at TF: Animated. The whole first season was filler until the third to last episode, yet it was very enjoyable. As for ANIME fillers, sometimes good things can come from them. RiD was a decent series. The Autobots were good charaters. Prime was perfect, Magnus was brutal (yet, a bit annoying on how he would pop up out of nowhere, but I've forgiven that), Side Burn wasn't as immature as Armada Hot Shot, the combiners were cool, Fortress Maximus is unable to be disliked becuase of his natural awesomeness, Koji isn't as nnoying as the Armada/Energon/Cybertron kids, T-AI was an interesting concept, Sky-byte and the Pred trio cracked me up, Scourge and the Commandos were hardcore, Megs was impressive, Galvy was demonic, what more do you want? Sure there were some big errors, but if you just try to look past them, you'd find a rather cool series.

That's the difference though, dude. TFA is an American series, we excell at Filler shows. Most of our cartoons are like that because we don't like creating series that have definative beginnings and endings in case they can run for multiple seasons. Anime makes the filler episodes to prolong the ending (here's looking at you Zombie and Baseball episodes of Samurai Champloo).

And Energon was bound to have god-awful ratings because they played it at six o'clock in the morning. here it is a kids' show (arguably) and it's playing when no kids are awake. That and when it first came out it played at like 9 o'clock on Saturdays or some god forsaken night time hour then, too. It barely had any afternoon time back in the day, so it was doomed to fail because the network made it that way. All of the other series were at least on at reasonable timeslots. It also didn't help that there was next to NO advertising for Energon, no one knew when it was on... ever. I loved that one Thanksgiving where they marathoned the Energon Episodes. I could actually see what was going on for once.

And I disagree, the entire character of Koji was super annoying. I couldn't have cared less about him or his father. All that I cared about in relation to his character was that he had a Beast Wars Neo Heinlad clock and I wanted it. At least Kicker and the other Anime Series kids had realistic hairstyles.

And I think that's the real problem with the Trilogy and RiD is that they were kids Anime series. You go back to the Japan G1 shows, and they are really good because they followed the American series formula of the different series being able to flow into one another rather than having the distinct endings. Which is why I think TFA is so funny because it's a pseudo-anime, which when you think about it was our way of saying "you know what Japan, you clearly can't make good TF animes anymore, so we're going to do it now." Or maybe I'm reading a little too into it...

You mentioned your dislike of Koji, yet you didn't say much about the bot characters.

But I did notice you still can't remember which Spychanger is who. Well, I came up with a little trick that helps me remeber which one is which. Hot Shot is the one with the fire deco, and fire is hot. Mirage is the F-1 race car, like his G1 counterpart. Ironhide is the pickup truck, which is nowadays a common form for the "Ironhide" character. Crosswise is the one with the X on his front, an X is a tilted cross, CROSSwise, get it. W.A.R.S. is the red car because red is the color of blood, and wars involve a lot of blood. And that leaves the last one as R.E.V. being the yellow car. Not too shabby, huh.

Not bad, Sabr. I sort of bent the truth a bit before, I can remember one or two because of their decals, but that shouldn't be the case. I mean, c'mon, we should have some character development here and there, you know? There was, like, that one episode with Mirage, and that was it, pretty much.

As far as the bots go, here's the thing. They all fit into that typical anime/kids cartoon formula that we've all come to know and accept without question. Optimus the Leader, Magnus the awesome rival (Vegeta, Sasuke, Knuckles the Echidna to name a few others), Sideburn the speedy good natured kid (which is a TF essential (Hot Rod, Cheetor, Hotshot, Bumblebee) becuase he's the sucessor), X-Brawn the funny southern guy, and then Prowl the stern law-abiding character whose voice actor works in pornogrophy. It's just all stuff that we've seen before.

Preds included. Megs the incompotent leader who doesn't do anything himself, Sky-Byte the good hearted second who everyone likes but is for some reason on the wrong side, the "three stooges" preds, and then a bunch of drones for Decepticons. It's just the same-old-same-old cartoon formula that people have come to accept as okay.

I will say this, though, the only character that I can say I genuinly liked throughout the entirety of RiD was Scourge. That guy was awesome, which is why I think I like Nemesis Prime so much these days. The evil Optimus Prime clones are cool with me!

Yeah Scourge was great, until his treachery went too far and he was brainwashed into a loyal idiot by demon Galvy. What's more disappointing is that his voice actor died quite some time ago and we'll never hear that awesome voice in another character again.

I liked him better than his Nemesis Prime successors. Armada Nemy was just a "munky-trukk" puppet, Superlink Grand Scourge was "only a model (shhh!)," Universe Nemy had very little fiction, BT/Alt. Nemy has had even less fiction, and Classics/Henkei Nemy has had no fiction whatsoever. I haven't seen the BWII episode with Black Lio Convoy yet, so I can't say anything about him at the moment.

My favorite was the Energon series, I hate Animated, to me it seems like it is mocking the Transformers universe.

Yeah, kinda sucked once he was loyal. It was pretty lousy. (Good reference with the Munky-Trukk there, bro.) My Nemesis Prime collection is severly lacking as of late. I have the Universe and Armada figures, but I haven't gotten any of the others, nor do I have either RiD Scourges. It's pretty depressing. And you'll like Black Leo Prime, he's the most compotent of them all. He actually managaes to make his how team, and it pretty much seems like his whole goal is to replace the Maximals and fight the Predacons themselves, rather than just kill them for the sake of it. It's been a long time since I've seen the episode, so I can't remember how it ends. Maybe I should go and throw that DVD into the player and relive the Anime Beast Wars glory days...

O_O You bot BWII on DVD? How? Burned it? Bootleg? Bought the japanese one and learned the language?

But would you know where I can find the whole series (and the movie and Neo) on the Net with english subtitles? I can only find some raws and some TFCog.net fandubs.

I bought the series a while back... actually, that's a lie, I got BWII, the Movie, and Neo for my birthday a few years back on DVD off of eBay. Turns out they are bootleg and the guy advertised them as real DVDs... which they are real DVDs, they're just bootleg DVDs... Anyway, I also own the first... 19? episodes on some CD/DVD format with subtitles, and the movie and the first 9 episodes of BWNeo, also.

You actually learn a lot just by watching it though, with or without subs. You generally have a good idea of the plot regardless of if you can understand the words...

I have BIG plans for a fandub of the two series, I'm just in a bind because I don't have the nescessary programs to completely put my dubs in motion... but I will, soon. BWAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!!!!
<.<
>.>

Would you keep all the original names, or would you change all/most of them to match their U.S. toys' names?

No, I plan to go to the US toy names for those available. There are a few that are exceptions, however. Such as Galvatron, Artemis, Moon, Ikard. Stuff like them, there really isn't much of an option. I've been working on this fandub for over three years now for it to be the best it can be. I'm just devoid of some of the resources I need, but now that I have some income, I can actually start to pull it together.

That and the whole thing is just for fun anyway, so I don't really like to kill myself working on it. I'm actually going to college for film and related stuff so, who knows? Maybe one day I'll have enough pull in the industry to pursuade Hasbro to make an official dub, that'd be pretty cool. But, like I said, for now, it's just fun.

I hope you'll keep DJ, Motorarm, and Gimlet's japanese names. Cuz their U.S. toys' were already used as the Predacon Tripredicus Council.

I've got a few things in mind. We'll know when we get there what's going to happen, but that's still a ways away to be a main concern as of now.

So TPR, I'm guessing you'll be calling each of the following:

Cybertrons - Maximals
Destrons - Predacons
Insectrons - ? (Maximal Insecticons?)
Cyborg Beasts - ?
Autorollers - Auto Rollers
Seacon Space Pirates - Seacons
Jointrons = ?
Magnaboss team = Magnaboss team

Apache - B'Boom
Artemis -Artemis
Autocrusher - ? (Roadblock?)
Autojetter - ?
Autolauncher - ?
Autostinger - ? (Dirtbag?)
BB - ? (Dreadwind/Dreadwing/Gigant Bomb?)
Big Horn - Bonecrusher
Big Mos - Transquito
Black Lio Convoy - Black Leo Prime
Burning Convoy - ? (Optimus Primal?)
Coelagon - ? (Skalor?)
Dirge - ? (Skywarp/Thundercracker/Shyfire/Wing Stun?)
Dirgegun - ? (Waspinator/Buzzsaw?)
Diver - Spittor
D.J. - ? (General Cicadacon is a Tripredacus Council member)
Drillnuts - Drillbit
Flash Lio Convoy - ? (Leo Prime?)
Galvatron - Galvatron
Gigastorm - ? (Trypticon)
Gimlet - ? (General Sea Clamp is a Tripredacus Council member)
God Neptune - ? (Piranacon/Piranhaking?) (something nonreligious?)
Halfshell - ? (Snap Trap?)
Hellscream - ? (something nonrelgious & Starscream related?)
Ikard - Ikard
Lio Convoy - Leo Prime
Lio Junior* - ? (Prowl? or something Prime-related)
Magnaboss II - Magnaboss
Majin Zarak - ?
Mantis - Manterror
Max B - ? (Wolfang/K-9/evil Wolfang?)
Megastorm - ? (Megatron?)
Moon - Moon
Motorarm - ? (General Ram Horn is a Tripredacus Council member)
Powerhug - Retrax
Santon* - ? (Ironhide?)
Scissorboy - Powerpinch
Scuba - Claw Jaw
Scylla - ? (Tentakil?)
Sea Phantom - ? (Overbite?)
Skywarp* - ? (Silverbolt?)
Starscream - Starscream (or Smokescreen/Smokejumper/Smokesniper?)
Tasmania Kid - Snarl
Terrormander - ? (Seawing?)
Thrust - ? (Megatron/Megaplex/Wind Sheer/Air Hunter?)
Thrustor - ? (Dinobot/Grimlock?)
Tonbot - Jetstorm
Tripledacus - ? (Tripredacus Council?)


*NOTE - Prowl, Silverbolt, and Ironhide make up the Maximal Imperium in some fiction. Yet their connection to the Maximal High Council of Elders (A.K.A. Council of Convoys) is unknown.

Well, the easiest answer is yes, to a lot of that, no to a lot of that, and for your really question-marked ones, you'll just have to wait and see.

Like I said, I've been working on this little diddy of a project for years now, so I have a few tricks up my sleve (which really just means that there were extensive amounts of excess research that went into finding the best possible names and all the while making sure the decisions made are loyal to the way the fans view the characters). For example, characters like Wolfang and Spittor seem to be serious fan favorites and Max B and Diver are not exactly loyal representations to those characters so did I feel comfortable dubbing them so? The answer may shock you. Gotta remember, Slapper is technically a Spittor repaint as well, and he and K-9 will probably never know the fanbase that the others do, so I may have felt more comfortable just because they were the characters that less fans cared about (for peace of mind, I did not use the name Slapper, it's just an exaggerated example that I'm making, just to emphasize how much extra thought I've really put into all of these names, lol). I think my favorite name changes that I figured out applies to Thrustor and then the remaining "Cyberbeasts" (you forgot Cybershark as an option for Hellscream, by the way; I'm not saying that's the used name, but it too was an option). So the question really remains, my friend, now that you've done the first step to figuring out the BWII names and have a general idea for what it would and will sound like, can you possibly figure out what the Beast Wars Neo names are?

I could probably guess:

Archadis - ? (Airraptor?)
Bazooka - ? (Slapper?)
Big Convoy - ? (something Prime-related?)
Break - ? (something ice-related?)
Bump - ? (Armordillo/Psycho-Orb?)
Corahda - ? (something snake-related?)
Crazybolt - ? (Iguanus?)
Dead End - ? (keeping this one?)
Drancron - Sky Shadow
Elephorca - Torca
Guiledart - ? (Triceradon?)
Hardhead - ? (Dinotron?)
Heinlad - ? (something time-related?)
Hydra - Laserbeak
Killerpunch - ? (Triceradon?)
Longrack - Longrack
Mack Kick - ? (something speed-related?)
Magmatron - Magmatron
Randy - Razorbeast
Rartorarta - Injector/Ratorata
Rockbuster - Razorclaw
Saberback - ? (Striker/Snarl?)
Sharp Edge - ? (something shark-related?)
Sling - ? (Sludge?)
Stampy - ? (something foot-related)
Survive - ? (Polar Claw/Grizzly-1 (Barbearian)?)

I ommitted Cybershark on purpose, because why would you want to call a Starscream-character "Cybershark"?

Plus, you also have to take into consideration that Cybershark, Wolfang, Armordillo, Polar Claw, Buzzsaw, Snapper, and Insecticon all were sold in japan as regular characters and are, thus, part of the Japanese continuity. The only name differences were that Polar Claw was "White Claw", Wolfang was "Howlinger", Armordillo was "Armor", and Insecticon was "Kuwagaigar".

Also, some other non-show figures have been given identities by the Japanese, including Iguanas, Manta Ray, Beetle, Panther, Rhino, Under-3, and the unused Transmetal figures (Scavenger was Metals Inferno). Iguanas, Beetle, Panther, and Under-3 were given the names "Igunar", "Insecticon", "Jaguar" (has nothing to do with G1 Ravage), and "Lionhead" respectively.

Plus, there are also those Japanese-exclusive characters that have been in no fiction. They include Shadow Panther (the Japanese version of the character that isn't connected to Ravage), Eggbot, Eggbird, Eggleo, Dark Eggbot, Dark Eggbird, Dark Eggleo, Double Punch, Grizzly-1 (Barbearian), nad the Pred Wolfang (not Howlinger).

I've gotta say, bud, it feels good know somebody who can prattle off this stuff just as easily as I can. I'm pretty sure most of us on here can, it's just reassuring to see somebody as willing to as I am, lol. And sorry, I thought you forgot Cybershark because you did list the options for Starscream and then didn't for him, so I thought you forgot about him.

Here's something that I always thought was interesting. The character Break's name I'm pretty sure is supposed to be Bleak. You know the R's and L's flop in Japanese and then it's spelt "eak" but they pronounce it "ake". I always thought it was weird and I've kept it in mind as an option for the character's name, but he, Stampy, Heinrad, and Killerpunch are all still undecided. Then again, there's still plenty of time to worry about them considering that I'm not worrying about Neo until II is well underway. Anyway, you've got a handle on a lot of this stuff, you're just a few steps behind me now (which is expected because you did all of this on short notice). Hopefully, people'll enjoy the decisions that we've made along the way and just enjoy the dub when it gets out there.

Well, TFCog.net did some renaming for their BWNeo fandubs. They called Guiledart "Ramhorn" (after the G1 Autobot Rhino casette tape) and Heinlad "Countdown" (after the G1 Autobot Micromaster). As for the rest, the orginal names were kept.

However, they were considering changing quite a lot of the names back before they started their dubs.

I quote:
"Next, Mike Hudson had an idea. Why not rename all of the characters? He had ideas for everyone, Big Convoy would be Maximus Prime, Cohrada would be Cobra or Quickstrike, Stampy would be Springer, Break would be Ice Breaker and so on. I knew many people wouldn't be happy with some changes, but I changed a few names to make it easier and to reference previous series. Heinlad became Countdown and Guiledart became Ramhorn."

There's some interesting ideas, but some are a little awkward, if you ask me.

Here's my thing, I've got a lot of respect for TFCog. I love their Victory Dub and they have done a great job of staying true to the Japanese versions of the series. My interpretations of the series are a little more influenced by the American predacessors. I have ambitions of doing a Masterforce dub as well as the two Beast Wars series, but that's even farther off in the future that's it's not even really something I think too much about. I don't know if I could ever bring myself to do a Headmasters Dub just because of the sheer multitude of work involved; it's just a lot to do.

If you ever do a Headmasters dub, makes sure you get some VERY good G1-actor impersonators. Like Dr. Smoov, his Prime sounds almost identical to Cullen's G1 Prime.

Believe me, that's one of the reasons I am so apprehensive about doing it. I've actually considered that thought though that if I ever did, I would be writing that guy and seeing if he would want to do it, lol. But, like I said, that's why I'm not even really thinking about it now is because I'd want it to be as loyal to the G1 series as possible.

Only beastwarsss............

....?

On the subject of dubbing the Japanese series, which groups of voice actors do you think should do each series if they were to be dubbed professionally? The guys who did G1, The Ocean Group (Beast Era, Unicron Trilogy), the ex-Saban guys (RiD, Digimon, Dinozaurs), or the guys doing Animated?

For me, I think the guys who did G1 should do Headmasters, the Ocean Group should do Masterforce (David Kaye would make a great Ginrai), the ex-Saban guys should do Victory (with Kaye reprising his role as Ginrai, and later Victory Leo), and I'm not sure who should do Zone.

Also, the ex-Saban guys could also do Beast Wars II and Neo. I could totally see Neil Kaplan as Lio Convoy, Kim Strauss as Big Convoy, and Paul St. Peter as Unicron.

Well, I'd have to exclude most of the G1 guys... because a good portion of them are deceased these days, but I would agree for them to be the guys for Headmasters. As for on from that, I don't really have a preference. Personally, I'd like the Ocean group to do BW so that Gary Chalk could reprise Primal, but that's about the most that I really care to think about it. I think, over all, I want the Saban people to stay away because, while they had great actors, I still think RiD was the worst of the series.

I don't know, man. If you heard some of their latest stuff, they're really good actors.

In fact, in the newest episode of the latest Digimon series, one of the best lines in that episode, spoken by a female antgonist, was:

"Forget about those charity cases and come with me! Together we can become GODS!!!"

Seems Disney is becoming a little more flexible on what they allow the actors of their show to say.

That's it though, I just don't want it to become a Disney thing. Disney is honestly like a Communist when it comes to this kind of stuff. I'd love to see RiD hit a DVD release, no matter how horrible it was, but it can't because Disney is such a pain. And I love for the old Digimon seasons to come out, too, but that probably won't happen either. Don't get me wrong, I love the VA's from RiD and Digimon and such, but I never want to see TF fall into their companies' hands again soley because we'll never see it again.

Well, it doesn't have to be dubbed by Disney, yet the old Saban guys could still do it. They've done voices for other non-Disney animes like Naruto and Bleach. They could do BWII and Neo under those copanies' names.

Heh, if they did, they'd probably keep Kid's peeing scene in episode two of BWII.