Customer Reviews

Original Transformers (Collector's Edition)

5 star:		(93)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

When I first heard that this DVD boxed-set had been released, I instantly planned on purchasing a copy of it. I was 6 years old when the Transformers first aired on television, and I was fascinated with them. Well it's been 18 years since I've seen those first episodes, and now I've finally gotten another chance! This set of DVDs took me on a nostalgic trip back to my childhood, where afternoon after-school television was an essential part of every young boy's life. I put the first DVD in my player, and after just a few seconds into the intro to the first episode, it felt like it was 1984 all over again. Good old Optimus Prime and Megatron, Autobots and Decepticons, good and evil, battling it out, just like old times. If you're a fan from back in the mid-80's, then you'll really appreciate this set. If you're a fan of current-day Transformers television series, like Transformers Armada, or if you like the previous Beast Wars series, Beast Machines series, and Robots In Disguise series, you really need to take a look at the Generation 1 series. Generation 1 is really what it's all about..it's the REAL Transformers series. All of the series since then don't even compare to the original. The episodes and Transformers characters that are part of Generation 1 are by far the best of any Transformers series. The same goes for the Generation 1 toys, but that's a different matter. There are some audio and coloring flaws and errors present on the DVDs, which many other people have already pointed out on this site. In retrospect to many of those other peoples' views on the errors and flaws, I think those mistakes can sometimes be quite amusing (Megatron's voice comes from Optimus Prime at least once, Starscream is colored like Skywarp and Thundercracker numerous times, Optimus Prime colored totally blue at least once). If you haven't seen these episodes in 18 years like I haven't, you probably won't even notice most of the less noticeable errors, and if you do notice them, you likely won't even care. It's just great to be able to watch these old episodes once again, and in chronological order. Go ahead and buy this set, you'll really enjoy it! Then get ready for the DVD set of the first half of Season 2, coming out on November 12, and the second half, scheduled to be released next April. Watching Season 1 again was very fun and entertaining, and I'll definitely be in line to buy the next two boxed sets as well!

Another original animation error for you Transformer fans to watch for:
In the episode where Skyfire is first discovered under the ice by the Decepticons, scenes of past events prior to the war are shown in which Skyfire and Starscream are scientists that travel to Earth to explore. In these scenes, Starscream is already shown in an F-15 jet transformation mode. This could not be, because Starscream was not changed to a jet until after the Decepticons were revived after they crashed to Earth in the Ark, millions of years later. Also, should Skyfire resemble an Earth jet as well? Is this another error?

This is a good Transformers Season 1 Box set but it has many flaws! During many of the Transformers scenes and sequences you will notice a-lot of coloring mistakes! The original the Transformers shows that aired on Saturday Morning did not have as many coloring mistakes as this DVD set. The mistakes start with Disk 3 which has the Episode "The Ultimate Doom" Part 1 and continues to the end of Disk 3, the last episode of the DVD set,"The Heavy Metal War" But the Heavy Metal War episode has the most coloring and editing mistakes. These episodes are not how it was original presented on Television in 1984 or the original video releases by F.H.E. during the 1980s. Rhino Home Video Messed up this DVD set big time! The Only reason I giving it four stars is because this Transformers DVD set is better then nothing at all!

Rhino Home Video better fix the mistakes with the Transformers Season 2 DVD box set or some Transfans will get very angry!

Ok, there are tons of reviews nit-picking every little detail in this box set. I am not going to do that. If you look for mistakes hard enough you will find them, hell you will spot them easily in this box set. But if you are looking to be entertained, as you were when you were a kid watching this series, then you will feel like a kid again seeing this series come to life again on DVD. This is not your kid's Beast Wars or Beast Machines or Transformers Armada, Energon or whatever other boring, bad-animation, rip-off that spun off of one of the greatest cartoons/toy-lines ever. No, this is the original and best.

From the introduction of the Transformers in the 3-part opening episodes "More Than Meets The Eye" to the introduction of Skyfire (Fire In The Sky) & Dinobots (S.O.S Dinobots & War Of The Dinobots) to the introduction of the Constructicons (Heavy Metal War) & the Insecticons (A Plague Of Insecticons). This first season is what started it all. None of us would be writing reviews, or caring about the Transformers all these years later, if not for this first season.

The 2nd season gets better with introductions of Omega Supreme, the Aerialbots and others.

The 4th disk is all Special Features with bumpers, Botcon special and oher extras and outtakes. The first Box Set is definately one of the best.

The animation and characters stand the test of time. This was long before they created Transformers with little or no character. Optimus Prime is one of the best leaders ever in a cartoon, cool characters like Sideswipe, Jazz, Bumblebee and many others in the first season left us fans wanting more and more.

The only problem I have with the Transformers cartoon continuity (not this box set but the overall series) is that there seems to be chunks of story cut out. For example, how did Teletran One get destroyed? What happened to the Ark? Where did Transformers from the Movie come from originally? Was Hot Rod built by the Autobots on Earth or was he a rebuilt Autobot from Cybertron? Same for Sky Lynx. Who created Autobot City aka Metroplex? What happened to Sparkplug (Spike's Dad)? If someone could answer some of these questions please feel free to email me at Joecool1@ptd.net

i love transformers long time since i was kid and my favorite love no1 is optimus prime the autobot leader he turn in semi truck and lot battle with megatron much times. and also my favorite 2nd is starscream too best than megatron. thanks i have two dvd of season 1 and 2pt1 thanks i will order more like season 2pt2,3 and season 3, 4 soon thanks very much i love it!!!!!!! thanks!!!!!

Man, I still can't believe that Rhino got this one right! 16 of the original episodes are recaptured in pristine order, worthy of inclusion in any DVD collection. Although the first season was the Original and Best in regards to characterization, it still has cringe worthy dialogue as opposed to season two and the Movie...but why carp? Children of the 80's- Buy it and enjoy. Roll out!!!!

As a little girl, I was hooked on the transformers. I was dismayed to realize that today's youth does not have access to the high quality series that I grew up with. If you are a fan of great animation AND plot, you must get this series.

I remember when I was a kid I would get up well before dawn to catch this on Saturday morning TV. This was back in the day when children's cartoons were actually worth something. Nothing like the mass-produced soulless trash that is hacked up these days.

Personally, I blame the overexposure of many such shows on channels like Cartoon Network and Fox Kids. Somewhere among the syndication of modern, lifeless animation, greats like He-Man, MASK, The Real Ghostbusters and Transformers have slipped away and been forgotten.

Thank heavens for Rhino. Not only have they digitally remastered the entire first season here but they have also given us a cracking Dolby 5.1 track (the bass is strong and it will surely give your whole system a good workout, tho it can be a bit strident at times) but a whole load of extras too.

There is a feature on the animation goofs (two Starscreams in one shot!), a documentary on Botcon (the Transformers convention) which makes me jealous that we don't get anything like that here in the UK, Japanese clips of the show and 2 limited-edition cells. Wow! It's well worth the price.

Tho you can't really put a price on something like this. I haven't seen the new Transformers: Armada show but if it's anything like the new toys (plastic instead of die-cast metal) then I am not interested.

Having been a fairly ardent TransFan back in the day, I watched the 'Generation One' Transformers TV show just about every weekday afternoon to help ease the pain of somehow surviving yet another torturous & nightmarish day of middle school. I must'a seen every single show at least two times over-- which shows ya how much of a lamer I was when I was but a wee 'Norch. But if you asked me which eppies I found particularly memorable, I'd have been really hard-pressed to give ya an answer. This along with several other factors eventually got me nostalgic enough to check out the first season DVD box set and give all the eppies a view. And after doing so, I can understand why I couldn't think of any particularly memorable shows. Why is this, you ask? Well, because...

...each episode had pretty much the same plot and story line, just with different locations and a few changes in the rotating cast of 'bots. Basically, it boils down to Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons (AKA the bad guys) hatching yet another nefarious plan to collect and stockpile enough energy (in the form of energon cubes) and/or developing some scary super-weapon to "conquer the universe", as he likes to state in that trademark low, gravelly reverberating voice and maniacal laugh of his. The execution of this nefarious plan usually leads to Megs and his troops attacking and causing extensive property damage to some manufacturing facility or power plant located in the middle of nowhere. The attacked facility sends out a distress call to Autobot HQ, where Optimus Prime and his boys "Transform and roll out!" to save the day. Then the Autobots fall into some trap or another the Decepticons have set up for them, which they barely manage to escape with their lives. Optie and his boys then arrive in the nick of time and start wailin' on "Decepti-creep" @$$, sending Megatron & company packing... until tomorrow's episode. Throw in a bumbling attempt by Starscream to overthrow Megs as the Decepticon commander (or a less-than-bumbling attempt to humiliate the big man in front of the troops), a few abrupt editing cuts here and there, some really corny dialogue between combatants, a smattering of glaring continuity errors (well, 'glaring' if you're as nit-picky as I am, anyway), preposterous leaps in logic (such as: why does Megatron keep Starscream around when he's made quite clear on several occasions his intentions of replacing Megs as the Decepticon leader?!), an appalling disregard for the laws of physics, and a couple groan-worthy puns, and you've got a pretty good example of the kinda glorified-toy-commercial-action-toon fare that was quite popular back in the 1980s.

Also thrown in amongst the 'Megatron's-latest-scheme-to reign-supreme' episodes are a few shows that introduced new TransFormers characters whose toy versions had just hit the retail shelves a few months earlier. Back in the day, these particular segments added weight to many folks' assertions that the show was merely a half-hour-long toy commercial (my response to these assertions: "No duh!"). The series also was a veritable showcase of the multiple talents (heh) of Top 40 deejay Casey "Shaggy" Kasem-- he did the voices of at least three Autobots as well as several background characters and 'extras'. Betcha the guy's makin' a killin' off'a the residuals from the show (as if the residuals from his work on 'Scooby-Doo' weren't enough, heh), hmm? Anyhoo, the new 'bots intro'd in the first year include SkyFire (AKA JetFire) as well as the Dinobots, Insecticons, and Constructicons. Heh, I can just picture the Hasbro execs watching these particular eppies in the board room, giggling avariciously, and figurin' out how they're gonna split the profits from the toy sales that were sure to follow...

Whoops, got off the track there; sorry 'bout that. Um, where were we...? Oh, yeah-- after seein' all of the shows in this set for the first time in almost two decades, I can state with assurance that it'll probably be another two decades before I ever get up the gumption to watch 'em again. How I managed to endure all sixteen mind-numbing episodes of pure cartoon dopiness without requiring intensive counseling, I'll never know. No wait, actually I DO know-- the Bonus Features disc helped to salve my warped psyche. To be more specific, it was a particular feature on the Bonus Features disc. It wasn't the outtakes, screwups, anomalies, side-by-side comparisons of the remastered footage against the original prints, the selection of US & Japanese eyecatch bumpers & alternate opening credit sequences (though I gotta admit I really dig the techno rendition of the TransFormers theme song), or the frame-by-frame analyses. Nope, the thing that helped restore my geeky sanity was... the BotCon 2001 behind-the-scenes featurette. After takin' a look at all the pizza-faced freakos and get-a-lifers who attended the convention, the Yoo-Hoo-besotted yutzes who cavorted around the showroom floor in home-made Optimus Prime costumes, and the smattering of paunchy mutants who voiced their fond memories of growing up with TransFormers toys as well as their thoughts on the TransFormers phenomenon and how it "shaped my whole outlook on life" (or some such pretentious nonsense), I came to the realization that there are even bigger losers than myself walking this earth! A revelation that is simultaneously comforting AND disturbing at the same time...

Bottom line: unless you're an unabashed super-geekin' TransFan, or you've a desire to rekindle some fond childhood memories for eight-plus hours (though God only knows why), I suggest you look elsewhere for quality animated entertainment. And I ain't talkin' 'bout TransFormers: Armada, either! Yeesh-- I'd rather watch all the eppies in this set three times in a row than view a single Armada show even once...

'Late

THIS STARTS TO TELL THE STORY OF THE TRANSFORMERS. THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD. IT STARTS OFF WITH THEM ON CYBERTRON THEIR HOME PLANET. AND FINISHES WITH THEM ON EARTH. THIS SEASON INTRODUCES US TO THE AUTOBOTS AND DECEPTICONS. AUTOBOTS LED BY OPTIMUS PRIME AND THE DECEPIICONS LED BY MEGATRON WHO THEY WILL NEVER RERELEASE IN THE USA. BY MIDWAY THROUGH THE SEASON WE GET OUR FIRST SUB GROUPS OF BOTH FACTIONS. THE DINOBOTS AND CONSTRUCTICONS WHO FORM THE MIGHTY DEVASTATOR. GREAT SEASON TO START OFF WITH THE TRANSFORMERS WILL LIVE ON FOREVER.

The Transformers may be the greatest television advertisement ever for a toy, but it was also a pretty good show, too. The premise is that there are two groups of transforming robots living on the planet Cybertron. These two groups, the Autobots and the Decepticons, have been at war with each other for a long time now and their planet is almost out of the energy necessary to keep things running for very much longer. Both the Autobots and the Decepticons flee Cybertron to seach for another source of energy, but their ships crash on Earth. 4 million years later they awake (which puts them around the present day) and continue their war and search for energy to return to Cybertron and to restore Cybertron to prominence.

The Decepticons, led by Megatron, have one goal: to strip the Earth of its resources to create Energon cubes, and return to Cybertron to rule the Universe. The Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, are the good guys, and are trying to stop them and are trying to protect this new planet that they are coming to care for. This is a simple premise, but one which works over the course of the first season. Megatron hatches plot after plot to gain the energy he needs, and the Autobots stop him. In the process, there is a huge amount of destruction and damage to Earth, though we never see all of the human death and suffering that surely must have occurred as a result. This is a battle of good versus evil.

I watched the Transformers on television as a child, and thinking back, I believe that every episode I saw back then was part of this season. These are episodes that I remembered even before I purchased this set. We are introduced to the Autobots, the Decepticons, the Dinobots, the Insecticons, and the Constructicons, and also Skyfire. That is a whole lot of toys to buy! Having watched the show again after all these years it is not surprising to find that some things are kind of cheesy now and that some of the dialogue is rather bad. Despite that, no flaw in the show lessened my enjoyment. These are the Transformers, a show I loved as a child and a show that I can still enjoy as an adult.