Transformers Armada - Battle for the Mini-Cons

Rating:
Summary: Skip It
Review: "Transformers: Armada" is pretty good 21st century take on the Transformers story. It's set in a new Transformers universe filled with new characters and new adventures. This DVD isn't worth buying, though. It has only a few episodes on it, and they're not even in chronological order; they're random. For a series that's built on story arcs, releasing the episodes on DVD in chronological order is a must. Don't bother buying this disc. Save your money and buy the boxed set, which include these same episodes and a lot more, instead.

Rating:
Summary: Battle to Save the Reputation of Transformers
Review: As an avid Generation 1 Transformers fan I must say that I am extremely disappointed with Armada and its successor Energon and must fully concur with all of the reviewers who have written prior to this entry.

Armada and Energon's plot are terrible at best. This is the first time since I watched Generation 1 and Beast Wars that I hoped that the Decepticons would destroy and obliterate the Autobots and their human sidekicks.

The humans in Armada and Energon are annoying and hold no special purpose. In comparison, Spike, Sparkplug and Chip from Generation 1 were not put in every episode in an attempt to try to help the Autobots. In many episodes in Generation 1, we did not see any human counterparts that played a pivotal part in deciding the victor of the battle between the Autobots and Decepticons. However, in Armada and Energon the Autobots cannot win without their human companions.

I disagree somewhat with the voice casting in Armada and Energon. In Generation 1 we had great voice actors for the Autobots and Decepticons. For example, Peter Cullen, Frank Welker, Chris Latta, Neil Ross, Michael Bell, Scatman Caruthers, Casey Kasem and other greats portrayed my heros that I have watched growing up. In Armada, I am pleased with the voice casting of Megatron (David Kayle), Optimus Prime (Gary Chalk), Hot Shot, Starscream, and Demolisher. Mr. Kayle has done an extremely wonderful job since he started with Megatron back in Beast Wars and the same complement is extended to Mr. Chalk, but the other voices are sub par at best. For example, Ironhide in Energon sounds like Carlos...ridiculous.

Real Transformers should be ashamed of the latest incarnations of the Transformers story line. I have not seen a suitable Transformers story since Beast Wars and Beast Machines and odds are that I never will again.

Now to the DVD review, first off I would like to congratulate Rhino for releasing box sets of Transformers Generation 1, Jem, and G.I. Joe. However, they completely destroyed the credibility of the Armada DVD's such as this release. For one, the DVD jumps from one episode to the next as opposed to going through the episodes in a sequential order, not that it would matter to me what order they put the episodes in because they were all bad.

In conclusion, the best thing about the Armada release is the cheap price. This DVD is selling for a cheap price because the Armada and Energon television show is a cheap product.
To the executives at Rhino STOP releasing Armada and Energon DVD's and release Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light also done by our friends at Sunbow and contains the same voice actors and writers who appeared in Generation 1 Transformers, Jem and G.I. Joe. Rhino please complete the Sunbow dynasty.

Rating:
Summary: Oh yeah...this SUCKS alright!
Review: I really don't know what to say, other than this Armada garbage really sucks.

I started to follow the Transformers mythos in 1984, and have enjoyed every series I've come apon. Be it the original Transformers, Scramble City, Head Masters, Master Force, Victory, Zone, Beast Wars and Beast Machines. Well, that's not the case with this Armada crap. I don't know where to begin a list of everything that's wrong with this abomination.

Mixing cell animation with CGI animation and effects is a bad start and garantees that "cheap aesthetic" that we keep seeing more and more of these days. The characters are annoying at best (those that have some sort of hint of a personality anyway)and the writing is embarassingly bad.

As some other reviewer has stated, the human characters in this crap fest are particulally revolting. There's actually this fat kid in the group who goes on about being hungry all the time. The only lines he ever says during an episode are "I'm SOOO hungry" or "Who wants waffles" or something else to that effect. Yes people, the writing is THAT BAD.

Bland writing and bland voice acting, combined with repetitive CGI polluted animation and bad techno music would be the only words that come to mind if I were to describe this pathetic incarnation of my beloved Transformers.

I'm giving this Rhino release 1 star, because at least the disc itself played correctly on my DVD player.

Yuck!

Rating:
Summary: sigh.....
Review: this series is stupid,the only good episodes were at the end of the series,there's a season1 box set that's supposed to be released later on this year I suggest that the older fans (the ones who like gen1) pick up the box sets and not these single discs,if you have a two year old and want a "baby sitter" then this is the disc to get,but it's not for the serious transfan....