Reviews

Review by Chris McFeely
Dir: Tetsuo Imazawa
Starring: Hiroshi Takemura, Keiichi Noda, Katsuji Mori, Hidekatsu Shibata

FEATURE
Released in 1988, Transformers: Super-God Masterforce is the second Japanese-exclusive Transformers animated series, and hence the second instalment in Metrodome’s “Takara Series” of boxsets, finally released today (July 3rd), nearly a year after its predecessor, Transformers: Headmasters.

Although set in the same continuity as the previous Transformers cartoons, there is a very clear effort by head writer Masumi Kaneda to make a “fresh start” with Masterforce – whereas Headmasters followed directly on from the third American season, using older characters and introducing new ones, allowing them to interact before pushing the old aside, Masterforce is all new from the get-go. Set a few years after the conclusion of Headmasters, the Autobot and Decepticon armies are currently warring in space, and while Earth appears to have left the conflict at last, a group of Autobot Pretenders remain in residence on the planet, using their powers of disguise to hide in plain sight as human beings. The Pretenders, led by Metalhawk (Mori) have been hidden this way for thousands of years, quietly guiding the evolution of human society, but in the modern day, when their formerly-defeated Decepticon foes suddenly reappear in the service of the mysterious entity, Devil Z (Shibata), the Autobots are forced to return to battle once more. But this is merely the beginning of a new kind of Transformer war… in which human beings themselves must rise to the defence of their own planet as it comes under attack from their own kind. Imbued with the power of the Masterforce, groups of young people find themselves drawn into the conflict on both sides, merging their minds and bodies with Transtectors to become Transformers themselves, leading to the creation of the most powerful super-robot lifeform yet – the Godmasters!

The vast majority of toys released in the Masterforce line also graced toy shelves in the west in 1988, albeit some with altered colour schemes, but the characters, concepts and storylines behind them were often wildly different - most specifically, the Headmasters and Powermasters, who became the “Headmaster Juniors” and “Godmasters” in Japan. While the head and engine components of these toys were aliens from the planet Nebulos who bonded with Transformers in western fiction, in Japan, they are human beings, and – just as the small robots that form the heads in Headmasters were the only mind involved in that process – these humans are the only minds involved here. Although true robots are in no way in short supply in Masterforce, human beings dominate the series, which is immediately off-putting to fans who are… well, I don’t want to say “close-minded,” but I honestly can’t think of another word. The recent preponderance of scene-stealing humans in modern Transformers cartoons has engendered a deep dislike of the presence of fleshlings in the minds of some Transfans, so Masterforce immediately sounds like anathema to them. In some ways, though, I feel this stems from a misconception that these human beings in some way “pilot” the robots from a “Rebirth”-like cockpit, in some sort of “Power Rangers” style, but this is not accurate – the humans merge absolutely with the Transtectors. They ARE the Transtectors. They ARE Transformers. The Transformers in Masterforce are as alive as in any other series – it is just that the soul within them is that of a being from Earth, not Cybertron.

It would be pointless to deny, however, that as the series progresses and more Godmasters are introduced that they DO begin to steal the show away from the Pretenders, who are sadly left to languish on the sidelines, receiving no real focus in the latter portion of the series. What makes this especially disappointing is that they’re all really good characters. Well, except maybe Phoenix, he does very little in general, you don’t get a good sense of him as a character. But the other Pretenders are all particularly well characterised and enjoyable to watch in the series – so to see colourful individuals like ladies-man Lander and arrogant Dauros shoved to the sidelines in favour of personality-free non-characters like Ranger and Road King is grating at the best of times.

In a way, Ginrai (Takemura) epitomises this shift from quality characters to bland ones on his own – we are introduced to him as a loner, a Japanese emigrant who moved to America to work as a trucker due to the solitary nature of the job. When he suddenly finds himself with a Transtector, he faces some tough choices that really shake up the way he views and treats his life, and the progression of the character makes for good viewing. However, when he is suddenly (even arbitrarily) appointed leader of the Autobots, he immediately falls into the same group as most other Japanese-written Autobot leaders – the complete and total cardboard cut-out. Say what you will about Optimus Prime, but while he might have been a by-the-numbers leader, he had a gentleness and sense of humour that distinguished him. Japanese Autobot leaders… do not. Indeed, A LOT of Japanese-written Autobots fall into this stiff, generic soldier cookie-cutter archetype, always speaking in very formal sentences and using titles for their comrades (Victory is especially bad for this), which was simply not the way things were done in the US G1 series. But, anyway, I’m getting off the point… Ginrai suddenly shifts from being an unwilling combatant, shedding his personality and falling into this stiff military cut-out group, droning on endlessly about the “beauty of the blue Earth” and the “wonder in the soul of humanity” and all that other flowery rubbish. When he explains the power of mankind to Sixknight before his promotion to commander, his words ring true… in his role as commander, he simply goes on about it so much that it loses meaning.

In stark contrast to this, however, the Decepticon Overlord (Noda), moves in precisely the OPPOSITE direction. When we are introduced to them, and for much of their role in the series, Giga and Mega – the two humans who form Overlord – come across as little more than depth-free cackling super-villains (there is some attempt to cast them in a “mother and father” role to the other Decepticons, but it is scarcely touched). Then, slowly, another side of their characters is explored – as Devil Z’s hatred of humanity comes out and he desires the extermination of the race, Giga and Mega reveal their own desire to CELEBRATE their humanity, adding a new dimension to their characters and actions that makes you appreciate them in a new way, unexpected so late in the series. And when THEY advocate the qualities of humanity, for some reason, the concept seems much more palatable than when post-promotion Ginrai launches into his little speeches.

Throughout all this, the constants are most definitely the Headmaster Juniors of both factions. They are the heart of the show, the young characters with whom the kids at home can identify, but who are not limited to cheering on the sidelines – they truly enter the battles, and fight for their own reasons and goals, with their own hang-ups and limitations. While on the one hand, you really feel that you get to know the kids, at the same time, the situation that Cancer of the Decepticons is placed in as the series progresses leaves you unsure of how he will act, and how his story – and by extension, that of his fellow Decepticon Juniors – will resolve itself. Although the basic outcome is not shocking or unpredictable, it is the individual, emotional character-based reactions that keep things at their most interesting.

Masterforce’s story is in a constant state of moving forward – while Headmasters lacked any real sense of an ultimate direction, operating instead in a series of small bunches of episodes that reached their own resolutions before carrying the story on in a different direction, Masterforce is a story that begins with a smattering of single-episode stories, gradually introducing the cast members, then carrying on gradually into a building story arc that, in truth, has rather begun before you even realise it. While it is the halfway mark of the series which truly marks the beginning of the greater story which runs to the conclusion of the show, everything that has gone before has assembled the players and established concepts, questions and conflicts that play important parts and contribute all the way up to the end. It does, on occasion, hurt itself through an unusual failing – a total failure to explain, in-story, some of the most important concepts of the series, such as the origin of the Godmaster Transtectors and what Devil Z is. These were later dealt with in a clip episode produced for video, but the fact that they could not work them into the show is baffling – made all the worse by the fact that the one origin story the show DOES offer for the Godmasters is the contorted version served up by Giga, filled with the lies and half-truths told to him by Devil Z. The audio commentary on the set, however, deals heavily in these and other untouched concepts, hopefully helping to clarify as much as possible for the viewers.

On the audio side of things, Masterforce is also easily the superior of Headmasters – whereas in that series, the limited range of characterisation left many characters sounding overly similar and uninteresting (excepting Banjo Ginga’s sinister Zarak), the cast of Masterforce, or at least those members that are well defined (lookin’ at you, Ranger, Road King), distinguish themselves well with unique, well-chosen voices that stand out amongst each other. The background music, meanwhile, starts out sounding like recycled Headmasters, but soon develops its own tunes and style, and whereas Headmasters had a grand total of two insert songs, which were barely distinguishable from each other, Masterforce has twice that number, each quite unique, from the gentle melody of “We Believe Tomorrow” to my personal favourite, the energetic, pumping “Super Ginrai’s Theme.”

In summary, if it wasn’t obvious, Super-God Masterforce really is a top-quality show. Although some characters have trouble sustaining themselves, or being sustained by the story, throughout the show, and the approach may be too “Japanese” for fans to traditional western animation to take (the animation, incidentally, is entirely anime-styled at this point, and of a consistently good quality), the depth of story, concept and character puts it head-and-shoulders above a goodly-sized chunk of other TF fiction. It is a terrible pity, then, that its wildly different and unusual approach leaves it as a series that is… well, heck, even Masumi Kaneda fully admits that, if you were basically to remove “Autobot” and “Decepticon” from the script, you would have a show that is BARELY Transformers. It is disheartening that this is likely to dissuade a certain type of fan, leaving them deprived of one of the better animated series under the Transformers banner. It is, by a wide margin, certainly the best Japanese-written Transformers series there is.

DISC SPECS
In a surprise move, this five-disc set has turned out to be Region 2 – not region free, as previously expected, given that Headmasters was. So any Americans wanting to play this will require a multi-region DVD player.

The 42 episodes of the series are split across the discs in groups of 8, 9, 8, 9 and 8, with one audio track – the original Japanese – and accompanying English subtitles. The infamous “StarTV” English dub is NOT included on this set for reasons of cost.

The subtitles will be essentially familiar to some fans, as the translations are the work of Jordan “Buster Darkwings” Derber and previously appeared on TV-Nihon’s online fansubs of the series. They are not EXACTLY the same, however, having been modified by my hand in certain ways – although the characters have retained their Japanese names throughout (don’t worry, Ginrai’s not Optimus Prime!), the western “Autobot” and “Decepticon” terms have been used to promote familiarity and continuity with previous releases (and hardly ill-fitting, as the word “Decepticon” actually appears in text in the animation at one point). Additional changes include the removal of the vast majority of explanatory notes (a few still remain, as does the dual-language format of subs for the assorted songs in the series), and general Anglicisation of the text - replacing the various untranslated curses from the original subs (Onore, yatsu-ra, kisama, etc) and amending the text to English spellings. Even as I observe the subs once more while writing this review, though, I see that a few American spellings have slipped through the cracks – I never professed to be a talented proof-reader, and I guess my frequent exposure to Yank spellings through my regular Inter-nettery blinded me to a few. I doubt they’ll prove in anyway distracting, and it merely serves to galvanise me to do a better job on Victory.

The video of the episodes are not remastered in any way, but are still perfectly watchable. They are complete this time around, with all pre-title-card sequences (which is an especially good thing, as all Masterforce episodes have them, and they are essential parts of the stories), and all next-episode previews.

PACKAGING AND PACK-INS
(Although his review is based on the unpackaged check discs, since I’ve yet to get my finished packaged copies, this description should be accurate.)

The discs are mounted on a card tray, decorated with re-drawn screenshots from the series, with the discs themselves forming parts of the background images. The tray folds up to slide inside a cardboard sleeve, designed in the same style as the Headmasters set with the “Takara Collection” and original Japanese series logo - the cover depicts God Ginrai and Overlord clashing in the centre, with Grand Maximus, BlackZarak and Devil Z in the background while Metalhawk and the Autobot and Decepticon Headmaster Juniors (in human form) run across the bottom. The art is the work of fellow Irishman Nick Roche, a name that will be familiar to members of the UK fan community as a regular artist for the Transmasters group, convention magazines and more – US fans are getting exposure to Nick’s work through his covers to IDW’s Transformers Generations, and he’ll be pencilling the upcoming Spotlight series of one-shots.

Nick’s illustration also adorns the cover of the accompanying 16-page booklet, written by me. An introduction to the series and a quick table to explain which western character corresponds to which Masterforce character kicks things off, and the rest of the booklet contains an episode guide for the series (separated out per disc this time).

SPECIAL FEATURES
As with Headmasters before it, Masterforce is light on extras – the only features included are three audio commentaries on episodes 1, 27 and 35. Once again, as on Headmasters, I am the commentary voice, and I’m really very happy with these ones, if I do say so myself. They’re wall-to-wall chatter – I’m never stuck for anything to say, and Masterforce is a series with plenty to talk about, thanks to articles that have found their way online like the interview with Masumi Kaneda from the Japanese Transformers: Generations book. Episode 1 covers Pretenders, Seacons and other basic series concepts, episode 27 is mainly about Japanese-exclusive toys, and episode 35 is about Godmasters and “everything else.” I think – I hope, at least – that these will actually prove informative even to Transfans – although I think I sound a bit too “earnest” in my manner of speech sometimes, and I did goof my words up a couple of times, saying “season” where I meant “episode” once, calling Dreadwind and Darkwing “Pretenders” instead of “Powermasters,” and mixing the mispronounced “Devil ZEE” (damn my Sesame Street upbringing!) and “Gin-RAY” (should be “Gin-RYE”) in with the correct way. Y’all can ignore the bit where I gripe about how much I want an Overlord, though, since I got m’self one last week. Hurray!

Nick’s illustration gets a little more mileage as part of the Extras menu, bolstered with pieces of background music from the series. The main menu itself plays “Burn! Transformer,” the show’s closing theme, though it’s got a very basic design with a slightly misplaced “Volume 2,” which refers to its place in the Takara Collection, but which made me think I’d just put the second disc in the first time I saw it. The set’s easter egg, however, offers you an opportunity to see another way it could have been – on any of the five discs, go to the extras menu, highlight “main menu,” and on discs 1, 3 and 5, press right twice, and on discs 2 and 4, press left twice. This activates the egg, which is a string of alternate menu designs – which, quite frankly, I prefer!

Review by Chris McFeely
Starring: Ikuya Sawaki, Banjou Ginga, Michihiro Ikemizu, Hori Hideyuki, Seizo Kato, Tesshou Genda, Hiroya Ishimaru

FEATURE
As anyone who buys this boxset will quickly become aware, although “The Rebirth” marked the end of Transformers in the West, Japan continued to produce their own series, supplanting that final three-parter, first with Headmasters, the series collected here, and then further with Super God Masterforce and Victory. The very prospect of one of these series getting a release in the west seemed preposterous, but Metrodome is here to prove everyone wrong.

It is the year 2011, and the Decepticons have not been seen since the temporary truce called by Galvatron (Kato) following the resurrection of Optimus Prime (Genda). But now, the release of the Matrix’s energy has caused Vector Sigma to destabilise, and the war erupts again in the battle for Cybertron – as a new breed of warrior enters the fray! Witness the death of Optimus Prime, the rebirth of Rodimus Prime (Ishimaru), and the coming of the mighty Headmasters, as Fortress Maximus (Sawaki) and Scorponok (Ginga) face off in the greatest adventure you’ve never seen!

Thirty-five episodes in length, Headmasters is immediately accessible as a continuation of the American series, featuring characters from both before and after the movie, as well as introducing the Headmasters to the universe in a different way. What almost instantly sets it apart from its predecessors, however, is its ongoing story – while the American series was content to tell stories that, by and large, operated independently of one another or occasionally referenced past events, Headmasters steadily moves in a (not always clear) direction, with changing situations and events leading on from one episode to the other, building to assorted conclusions across the length of the series. At the same time, however, episodes regularly function strongly as distinct, single stories, rather than blurring into one another - a malady recent Japanese Transformers shows like Armada and Energon have suffered from. In general, it is enjoyable to watch, although it is not unusual to find emphasis placed too heavily on battle scenes to move the plot forward, requiring the Autobots to sit around and wait for the Decepticons to make their next move.

In shaping a story which actually advances, Headmasters features characterisation of a much stronger and more consistent nature than its American predecessors. Chromedome, in particular, is often in the spotlight, and the poor bastard just seems to go through endless amounts of trouble and tragedy in the series, usually at the hands of Sixshot, the other particularly strong character.

However, it’s not all good, because two of the characters at the forefront of the series are the much-maligned Wheelie and Daniel. Now, personally speaking, I never had much a problem with these two characters in Season Three – they were very clearly ill-concieved, skewing younger than Spike and Bumblebee in a season that skewed older, but they were not actually in a lot of episodes. In that respect, it’s all change for Headmasters, as they become two of the series’ main characters, and quickly and easily get right on your nerves (not helped by the fact that Daniel has been regressed to acting much younger than he ever did in the American series). It embodies the Japanese preoccupation with including an intrusive human child character in their stories, right down to the show’s closing theme music. In a way, a lot of Headmasters is about Daniel growing up… but that’s not a good thing. Oh, and Wheelie doesn’t talk in rhyme or have a particularly annoying voice… he’s just a freakin’ jerk.

Visually, there is clearly an effort from the animators to mimic the animation style of the American series, rather than employing a more traditional “anime” style one might expect from a uniquely Japanese production. Mind you, that’s about where it stops, because a lot of other aspects of Headmasters – from Hardheard drunkenly slurring a karaoke version of the closing theme to the Headmasters linking hands and using the “power of friendship” – are very “Japanese” concepts that one would not have seen in the American series. You remember all those mechanical noises you heard used for comedic effect in Dexter’s Lab? This is the kind of show where they get used seriously.

It is not unusual for the dialogue in Headmasters to beat around the bush

The dialogue beats around the bush?

Just like that. The dozenth time that Fortress says something, and one of the four Headmasters repeats it back at him in the form of a question, you really will want to rub your forehead and sigh. And nobody can come up with an original threat. If a Decepticon screams “I’m going to send you to hell!” the best an Autobot can come back with is “You’re the one who’s going to be sent to hell!” And so on. And so forth. Man, it’s a good thing subtitles get a bit of leniency when it comes to formality of dialogue, because this stuff would never fly if it were spoken in the English language.

Overall, Headmasters is a fairly enjoyable show, although some of the cultural difference between it and its American big brother may be a bit of a hurdle for G1 fans that haven’t experienced any of the recent Japanese shows (and I’m sure that this will be the case with many buyers in the UK). The series is bursting with characters both old and new, and holds a lot of appeal purely by being a continuation of G1 that offers viewers the chance to see classic characters again, but it is often dragged down by the grating presence of Daniel and Wheelie. All in all, it’s probably more notable for the simple fact that it’s been released on DVD, rather than for the actual content of the show, but there’s still fun to be had if you’re willing.

DISC SPECS
Thirty-five episodes split up across four discs in groups of nine, nine, nine and eight. The menus are designed in the same sort of visual style as the recent “Transformers: The Movie – Reconstructed” release, which would work okay, except for the out-of-place use of Unicron’s theme as the background music.

The visuals have not been remastered, and are consequently not especially sharp, but remain colourful and perfectly watchable. However, for some unfathomable reason, the master copies that Metrodome received were not quite complete – the “next episode” previews are missing from each episode. Similarly, for any episode which had a sequence before its title card, that sequence is also kaputski. There’s not really any negative effect here – when you have the whole series in a boxset, recaps and previews are decidedly inessential. The main episode afflicted by this is the first one, since it featured a short summary of events with new animation. The absence of this sequence and any information it contains (specifically, the existence of the Athenia base) has been noted in the booklet, with appropriate regret (although any regular Metrodome customers can still see the sequence for themselves, as the first dubbed Headmasters episode, with this sequence intact, is available as an Easter Egg on the Season 2, Part 2 boxset).

There are two audio tracks on offer (or three, in the case of the first three episodes, see Special Features) – the original Japanese audio, and the infamous “StarTV” English dub. A product of Hong Kong, the dub was first found airing on the Malaysian TV channel, RTM 1, in the early 90’s, but is more famous for its airing on the StarTV satellite channel, where it was grouped with Victory and Masterforce under the umbrella title of “Transformers Takara,” and were all labelled with Victory’s opening, and a peculiar pseudo-American closing. Thankfully, since the Japanese animation was used for this DVD, the series’ unique opening and closing remains. But even that doesn’t save the pure awfulness of the English dub, which was clearly done by a small group of people with little knowledge and less talent. The mistake-riddle scripts – in both the names of characters and the translation of the dialogue – and the stilted, flat delivery all combine to produce something so atrocious… that it’s absolutely hilarious, and Metrodome know it. Best used as fodder for a drinking game – take a shot every time someone says “Darnit!” That said, however, in transplanting the English audio on to the Japanese master animation, there have been some slip ups - the soundtrack of episodes 7 and 14 are very out of synch, while episodes 4, 20, 22 and 32 are similarly iffy, to a lesser degree.

To accompany the original Japanese audio track, a new set of subtitles have been created by SDI Media UK. As has previously been noted – and hotly debated – the subtitles have been rewritten to use the English-language names for assorted characters and concepts that have different monikers in Japan. Not being Transformers fans themselves, of course, there was great possibility for some translation cock-ups from SDI, so I provided a list of important info and names, and went on to proof-read the finished subtitle scripts, catching and correcting assorted errors that they had made, that one would not expect a non-TF-fan to get.

Ahem.

NOT A SINGLE F**KING ONE OF MY CORRECTIONS HAS BEEN IMPLEMENTED FOR THE FINISHED BOX SET.

Having spent quite an amount of time reading through and correcting the scripts, this leaves me both disappointed and frustrated. This should not have happened.

Sigh… but… gnng… anyway, my personal frustrations aside… the subtitles really are fine 95% of the time. Mostly, the mistakes are just TF-specific naming things – Hot Rod, for example, is consistently called “Rodimus,” because the dialogue did not refer to him as “Hot Rodimus,” so when the subtitlers search for that term to replace, they got nothing. Intermittently, the Autobots are the “Cybertrons,” generally when referring to their bases. Episode Three is saddled with the title, “Birth of Double Optimus Prime,” because they translated “Convoy” to be “Optimus Prime” (although the booklet and menu refer to it by my re-written title, “Birth of Double Prime”). Or how the Techbots/Technobots are twice called the “Headbots” because the subtitler misheard the name. Or Superion being called “Spellion” once. And my re-writing of Grimlock’s dialogue to be in his traditional style… ffft.

Mind you, occasionally, there is just dumb stuff, like the way that “the Matrix” is just referred to as “Matrix” for most of episodes two and three. Or that one fleeting reference to “Optimus Maximus.” Or how the city of Lemuria is referred to once as “Demonia” and once as “Lebelia” in the same episode. There are some more errors like this that are not TF-specific, but just the result bad translations, but, thankfully, they are very limited (literally, I picked out maybe ten in the whole series). There one was utterly bizarre occurrence, though, in episode 21, when two subtitles from another episode flashed up onscreen. I haven’t seen this occur anywhere else yet, thankfully.

But, anyway, like I said, personal issues notwithstanding, I don’t think that what mistakes there are will be enough to actually spoil enjoyment of the show. It just really burns me to know that they had a correct version, and ignored it.

PACKAGING AND PACK-INS
The slipcase of the Headmasters set bears an attractive image of Fortress Maximus and Scorponok by noted UK Transformers artist Andy Wildman (though the expansive, featureless “outer space” background lessens its impact), proclaiming it as “Volume One” of “The Takara Collection,” foreshadowing the oncoming Masterforce and Victory releases. In a particularly nice touch, the Japanese Headmasters logo is also on show. The blurb on the rear of the slipcase was penned by me, and summarises the nature and story of the show, and shows how it fits into continuity. I had also included a line about the “infamous English dub, which must be heard to be believed,” just as a qualifier for those who didn’t know what to expect, but it’s been snipped.

Unlike previous Metrodome boxsets, this slipcase does not contain individual DVD boxes – the four discs of Headmasters are presented on a fold out carboard tray, also decorated with Wildman’s image and faction symbols, and some illustrations of Sixshot, Ultra Magnus and Rodimus and Optimus Prime, decently redrawn from stills of the show, mirrored on the discs themselves.

The standard booklet is also included, written by me. It features a brief introduction to the series, a note about the missing previews, an explanation of the origins of the dub and the choices made regarding the subtitles, as well as a comparative table of names and concepts appearing the series with different names in English and Japanese, including Katakana translations. An episode guide fills out the rest of the booklet’s 16 pages. Metrodome have employed a particularly nice design for this booklet that looks nicer than their G1 efforts.

SPECIAL FEATURES
Special features are minimal for Headmasters – the primary one is the audio commentary for episodes one, two and three by me. I really didn’t want to listen to myself, but I bit the bullet and did it, which turned out to be worthwhile, since I can note that they cut some of what I said – namely, when I ragged on the narrator, and when I espoused the value of the dub as a drinking game, which I think it fair enough. I don’t, however, agree with the one other cut, though, from the start of the first episode, when I explained about the absence of the previews and the pre-title-card sequence. That just felt like trying to cover up one the set’s flaws. It’s still covered in the booklet, at least. But, anyway, regarding the rest of the commentary, I’ll just say that I doubt I’ll be telling serious Transfans anything they don’t already know, and that I hope I don’t sound like too much of a rampant dingus.

The second and final special feature is one of Metrodome’s staples – episode scripts as DVD Rom content. Each disc contains the respect scripts of the episodes on it, and features both the new subtitle script (again, not my rewrites, and episode 14 appears twice, once in place of episode 15, but the subtitles on the episode itself are fine) in MSWord format, and the script of the StarTV dub in PDF format, in assorted states of production, with lines crossed over and written out… makes you realise these things could have actually been worse, with Scoroponok/Zarak being called “Bronco,” Scourge being “Garth,” and the Autobot and Decepticon Clones being the “Nicks” and “Bens” Brothers, among others. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

Interestingly, however, although the set makes no note of it, the StarTV dub scripts for episodes 1-6 are not present, and in their place are what I think appear to be (very bad) translations of the original Japanese scripts themselves in MSWord format – looking at episode 1, the presence of some additional scenes, including the Throttlebots protecting Spike and Carly as they take the spacebridge to Athenia, would seem to support this notion.

OVERALL
So that’s Headmasters, folks. It’s no work of art, but the sheer fact that it has been released on DVD for anyone to see is truly a milestone. Of all the Japanese Transformer series, it’s easily the least-talked about, and least-documented, and now, people who have only been able to hear vague stories about it and some bad screenshots online can see and enjoy the whole thing, in its original language, no less. What mistakes there are in the subtitles are the only real detrimental factor in the set (and are, to me, at least, particularly infuriating), but things can only get better as Masterforce and Victory approach.

Now, I just want to add a little something. As should now be apparent to those who didn’t know before, I had quite a heavy degree of involvement with the production of this DVD, and its been a great experience. However, I incredibly ignorantly neglected to include any thanks in the booklet, for which I profusely apologise. Metrodome have inserted some of their own thanks, but I would now like to add some of my own. My thanks go out to Jordan L. Derber, Doug Dlin, Hydra, Tim Finn, Jon Talpur, Groundsplitter, Nevermore, the whole gang at TheTransformers.Net and everyone who voted in the subtitle polls for all the input, advice, help and general support you guys gave in the last couple of months. You all rock.

Written by Chris McFeely

With the threat of Unicron defeated, life goes on for the Autobots and Decepticons – but while the Autobots, and their new leader, Rodimus Prime (Gautier) have retaken their home plant of Cybertron and begun a new age of peace, the destitute, starving Decepticons, without their leader, Galvatron (Welker) are in dire straits… until the arrival of the mysterious Quintessons, who have an agenda all of their own. In the third season of Transformers, the future is now, and the saga of the robots in disguise continues!

The third season of the Transformers marked the biggest shake-up to the status quo imaginable. Taking its cue from the events of “Transformers: The Movie,” the third season leaped forward to the year 2006, with a new cast and surprisingly changed premise. It’s surely no coincidence that the addition of Flint Dille – grandson of the creator of defining sci-fi show, Buck Rogers – saw the series itself transform, from genial robot action to grim sci-fi adventure, with many outer space and alien world settings, giving a much broader scope to the season, and following it up with some of the show’s grittiest, most mature stories. Continuity between episodes became stronger than it had ever been as plot concepts and locations were revisited and threads from episodes would carry over into others, creating a more coherent universe, in a season that finally fully fleshed out the history of Cybertron and the Transformer race.

In addition to this, a smaller core cast was formed that the show would revolve around, with peripheral characters being alternated in and out, as opposed to the previous season’s method of largely just selecting a random group of characters to go with Optimus Prime or Megatron, or giving one or two characters an episode to themselves. This allowed for more development of the characters’ personalities and relationships, in a way that didn’t feel as forced or short-sighted as the character-focal episodes that peppered the second season. Of course, this wasn’t a perfect idea – it resulted in the abandonment of a metric ton of Autobots from the previous two seasons (in addition to the ones who died during the movie), which creates a rather jarring disconnect between the second and third seasons (even moreso than a twenty-year jump). But where we lost old characters, we gained new ones – and also a third party that shook up the basic nature of the show’s war. The introduction of the Quintessons as a third force, playing both sides off against each other, attacking both at once, and working towards their own agenda added a factor to the show that this reviewer thinks was much-needed. The season even worked in some crossovers with fellow Hasbro property, “G.I. Joe,” without actually explaining them in dialogue – an elderly Flint appears as the father of Marissa Faireborn in “The Killing Jar,” and the ever-popular Cobra Commander plays a major role in the unique “Only Human,” which revolves around Synthoid technology from the “G.I. Joe” series.

The third season catches a lot of flak for having weak animation – courtesy of Korean animation studio, AKOM – but when one actually watches it in a set like this, you realise that this reputation is not actually that true. While about half the season IS animated in this sub-par manner (on a ratio, yes, that’s more than any other season), the other episodes break this up well, and give the season a pretty dichotomous look, as they contain some of the BEST animation the series has – “Call of the Primitives” is undisputedly the best animated Transformers episode there is, while episodes like “The Dweller in the Depths,” “Chaos” and “The Killing Jar” have some particularly excellent visuals. Most episodes that are not AKOM work are actually above the average set by past seasons. And when animation was weak, story would often pick up the pace – the opening “Five Faces of Darkness” mini-series features some incredibly shoddy animation which only worsens as it goes on, but features the most ambitious, complex story of the entire G1 cartoon, which weaves multiple plotlines in and out of each other with skill, slowly revealing the mystery the story is built around, with some of the best dialogue of the series.

Of course, the writing wasn’t going to be great all the time, and there are a few clunkers in the mix – take “Surprise Party,” with the unpleasant, ill-conceived characters of Daniel Witwicky and Wheelie taking centre stage in a completely pointless story, or in a more general sense, applying to episodes of various qualities, the infuriating regression of Grimlock, a serious, gruff self-serving character in the previous seasons, into a goofy, kid-friendly sidekick character. And I would be remiss if I did not mention “Carnage in C-Minor,” the worst-animated episode of the series, with a horrible execution of a concept that was dodgy in the first place.

The season ends with the “Return of Optimus Prime” two-parter, which, despite it’s good animation, is executed somewhat clumsily, and laboured with a plot device which could have been played for some pretty grim subject matter, but instead resulted in a return to the more colourful, straightforward superheroics of past seasons, lacking the ‘edge’ that much of the season before it benefited from.

The third season of Transformers is, by and large, the least popular with both serious and casual fans. I’d have to say – beyond the dislike many have for the Quintesson origin of the Transformers, preferring instead the origin story crafted in the Marvel comics - this probably largely comes from childhood experience of the season, from the massive change in premise it underwent, coupled with the discarding of many familiar characters, particularly Optimus Prime, leading to a wide dislike of Rodimus Prime, seen as a transitional leader and labelled a “whiner” by most. Of course, what some will call “whining,” others will call “actually having a personality and problems,” which was more than Optimus Prime ever did. Optimus may have been a great leader, but Rodimus was a better character (and when everyone’s singing the praises of Simon Furman’s comic-book portrayal of a self-doubting Optimus Prime, they seem to forget Rodimus did it first). Anyway, to get back down off the soap-box… I think the best way to describe season three is: it was Transformers, Jim, but not as we knew it. And that, in that day and age, was where it went wrong, producing something that, in both principle and exercise, was the superior of it’s predecessors, but changed too much to be accessible to the established fan base, who couldn’t accept a lot of the radical differences. Rodimus and Galvatron may not be as iconic as Optimus Prime and Megatron, but try looking back on it now. I think – I hope – you’ll be surprised.

After season three comes the three-part mini-series, “The Rebirth,” which is the entirety of the show’s fourth season. It was conceived and written to be the end of the series, though it was cut down from five episodes to three, which results in it being a little rushed, at least in it’s introduction of the new toy characters, bringing in around two dozen of them, with all but two of them showing up in the first episode alone (and that’s not even counting the Nebulons). It’s a fairly straightforward tale that suffers from having to give excessive time over to introducing the toyline’s latest gimmick, with more of AKOM’s sub-par animation, but an open, yet fairly satisfying – if slightly syrupy – ending.

DISC SPECS
33 episodes on four discs, each with six chapter points. Split up over the discs in groups of 9, 9, 9 and 6.

Two audio options – a remixed 5.1 audio track containing extra sound effects not in the original show, and a 2.0 stereo track, without ‘em. This DVD also restores the original ending to “Dark Awakening,” not on Rhino’s American release.

When season three originally aired, several episodes were broadcast out of order, disrupting the chronological story order of the series. This DVD set puts the errant episodes in their proper place so viewers can enjoy the stories in order, but otherwise preserves the original airing order, unlike its American counterpart.

PACKAGE AND PACK-INS
Collected in four standard DVD cases in a silver card slip case bearing Galvatron’s head, drawn in the style of the Autobot and Decepticon symbols. The cover to each case bears the image of Galvatron and Rodimus as a background, with some odd choices for central characters – Bruticus, Defensor, Superion and Blaster. All art is by Andy Wildman, which probably goes some way to explaining the characters, as the art had probably been already drawn. Note that the Bruticus image isn’t used anywhere else, while the others grace postcards (below).

This set contains a booklet with episodes synopses and an intro by TheTF.Net webmaster Darren Jamieson, a set of six postcards, and the second instalment of the fan comic, “The Beast Within.”

The synopses booklet is standard (I wrote the summaries for “The Rebirth”), but where Jamieson’s intros have been energetic and excited before, he seems unable to muster much enthusiasm for season three, simply pointing out the lack of knowledge about it in the UK, and it’s poor animation. And I can’t agree even for a second with his belief that the shift to space-bound stories was just because space was easier for the animators to draw.

Six postcards come with this set, instead of the four that have been with previous sets, four decorated pieces of art by Andy Wildman (Galvatron, Rodimus, Menasor and Defensor) – why does no-one have a faction symbol? Galvatron and Rodimus’s chests look positively barren without them! – and the remaining two featuring the winning images from the fan art contest Metrodome held.

This ‘issue’ of “The Beast Within,” subtitled “Consequences,” once again proves to be a very uneven affair. Artist Dylan Gibson turns in vastly superior work this time around, as he has ditched the Pat Lee mimicry that hurt the previous instalment, and produced a grimmer looking story that would have befitted the first part more. The lettering appears to be done by hand, which has at least resulted in the proper use of full stops this time (still lots of dropped commas, though). The story itself, however, is terribly unsatisfying – limited greatly by its six-page length, it progresses nicely up until a hideously rushed final page which crams in more panels that is comfortable, ending suddenly and anticlimactically. Additionally, this part’s sudden shift in focus from the torment of Grimlock in the first part to the bland heroics and clichéd dialogue of Optimus Prime does it no favours, leaving the Beast feeling like little more than a generic monster.

SPECIAL FEATURES
The fourth disc of the set contains the special features.

Starting it off are the staple character profiles, this time for Rodimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Kup, Blurr, Arcee, Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge, with art by fan-turned-pro, Simon Williams, who illustrated some of the UK Armada comic.

Next is a 20-question quiz, with some genuinely hard ones in the mix that even serious Transfans will be given pause over. Making it more challenging is the new set-up, where you don’t discover your score until the end, meaning you’ll have to go back to the start to try again, abandoning the previous method of letting you try over and over again until you got each question right.

In the vein of the other sets, a fan art gallery is included, with some particularly nice pieces, but it’s notably smaller than other sets’ offerings.

Thoroughly trouncing Season 2, Part 1’s Auto Assembly footage is the film from the 2004 convention. Presented – just a smidge nervously, methinks – by Omar Shefta, a.k.a. Overload from TheTF.Net forums, it’s full of clips from events at the ‘con (including the panels, with Wally Wingert’s camp Grimlock impression), little chats with fans, and interviews with TF luminaries Simon Furman, Lee Sullivan and Andrew Wildman, as well as the above-mentioned Simon Williams. It’s followed up by the full-length interviews with Furman, Sullivan and Wildman, of which only clips appear in the main film. It totals about 40mins.

The DVD-Rom content of the set is where it shines, presenting all 33 original episode scripts, allowing fans to see things that were cut and changed (although two parts of “The Rebirth” have clearly been recreated from the finished episodes). Also included is a Cast List and Synopses for the entire series, containing more interesting titbits, a selection of desktops, and some simple kids’ masks (made from the images that adorn the covers of all four season box sets).

On the main menu of disk four, highlighting “Episode Selection” and pressing up twice reveals the link – hit enter for the egg, which is the second version of the episode, “Dark Awakening,” containing the re-dubbed ending narration advertising “The Return of Optimus Prime” (this version of the episode was on Rhino’s set). It’s a bit excessive to include the entire episode when the only change is basically the replacement of three words at the very end, but a nice attention to detail.

Once again, as with Season 2, Part 2, it’s not the quantity of extras, but the care with which they are handled and presented that makes them quality. They top off a great DVD set of a great and underrated part of TF history.

PREVIEW DISK ODDITIES
This review is based on as set of preview disks that I received, which had a few flubs on them. Primarily, the original ending to “Dark Awakening” was only on the 5.1 audio track of the episode, while the re-dubbed ending was on the 2.0 track. It was supposed to be on both. This is the main flaw that Metrodome plan to fix, which has resulted in the set being held back two weeks. Also, “The Face of the Nijika” was missing its ‘trailer’ and end credits, and, as was the case with the Rhino disks, the unique “Five Faces of Darkness” opening sequence is only on parts 3 and 5, with the regular season three sequence on parts 1, 2 and 4. Whether or not this and the “Nijika” error will also be fixed during the extended time remains to be seen.

Written by Chris McFeely

Woo-hoo, my copy of Season 2, Part 2 finally came today! I’ve been really looking forward to this set, even more than I was looking forward to Part 1, and even better, I’m off work right now, so I can just sit and soak it in all day.

Now, to kick this off, I’ll say this - this set is SO much better, in terms of presentation and professionalism than the first set was. The sleeve is just like the first set, shiny silver, on this time, it’s decked out with a big Decepticon symbol, and the two boxes look very well next to each other on a shelf. The back of the sleeve remains mostly the same, except with the purple and red backgrounds for the extra features list and character illustrations switched. The blurb for the set itself is now in purple, making it *much* easier to read than the white text on Part 1 (white on silver, really?). Once again, the individual boxes are red plastic (I was kinda hoping for purple to really set off that Decepticon theme), and their covers are a little gaudy, but functional. They depict, in order, Jazz, Starscream and Soundwave. I wonder why they didn’t put Jazz in Devastator’s place as the cover to volume 3 in part one, to make that set fully Autobot-centric, and this one fully Decepticon-centric, but there you go. The discs are labelled volumes 4, 5 and 6.

Before getting into the discs themselves, there’s a small bundle of inserts and stuff inside volume 4’s case. First is the booklet like that which was included with Part 1 - a listing of the episodes on the disc (and instead of a red border at the bottom of each page, it’s now purple. The Decepticon theme runs strong!). Also included are ads for Dorling Kindersly’s “Transformers: The Ultimate Guide” (out this Thursday, the 6th), and Atari’s PS2 game (no date given, and official sources range, but this Friday is looking good. It’s a damn good week to be a Transfan!). A typically enthusiastic intro from Darren Jamieson rounds out the booklet.

Next are Andy Wildman’s four postcards, and boy-howdy, do they beat the pants off of Lee Sullivan’s. Wildman is *rocking it* since he started doing Dreamwave-style, rather than his usual “people in boxes” Transformers, and the spiffy backgrounds on the cards liven them up to no end. The cards are of Prime, Megatron, Blaster and Superion.

Now, the most interesting insert - “The Beast Within,” a fan comic written by theTF.Net’s own Darren Jamieson, and illustrated by Dylan Gibson. And I will be frank. My first instinct in writing this was to not say much, but I don’t think Daz would want me to sugar coat my feelings about it, and just to be honest with what I think, so I will be.

The cover is a wraparound of metal tendrils bursting out of Grimlock, and Prime, Megs and Starscream and Soundwave looking on. The inside cover is an intro to the story (essentially - a big arse fight has gone on, and it don’t look good for Prime’s boys), followed by an intro by Dylan Gibson, which probably should be read after, as it spoils a bit about what’s in the story. To quickly summarie the story - as battle rages around him, Grimlock seems to be holding back, afraid of something within himself. But he is eventually forced to act by the deseperation of the situation, and, shockingly… the Dinobots combine! The unnamed monstrosity that is formed from their combination is pure, uncontrollable rage, that quickly rips through Predaking, Devastator, Bruticus and Menasor. And then, with the Decepticons defeated, it turns on the Autobots… to be continued, presumably in the Season 3 DVD set.

Now, my thoughts. It’s an interesting concept - I thought that “the beast within” would just be Grimlock’s own berserker drive, so I was surprised by the revelation, and thought it was a good idea. However, I find it’s implimentation to be a bit… well… fanwanky. It comes off as… “Look, look, this is REALLY awesome!” As a reader of comics who is now, frankly, bloody tired of Grimlock thanks to Simon Furman’s overkill use of the character, I wasn’t loving the concept of *another* story about him. I think he’s one of the most overrated TFs there is. But that’s personal preferences, and that’s all I can REALLY complain about, story wise.

Art-wise, Gibson does a nice job, a little affected by the small amount of space his work has been compressed to. Also, unfortunately for him, he seems to have made an effort to ape the style of Pat Lee, particularly in his drawnings of Optimus Prime (white stripes on arms, chunky window frames), a particularly overrated artist who people shouldn’t strive to emulate.

But the biggest gripe about this comic is the lettering and dialogue. It’s apalling. The text is all over the place, poorly formatted in some ill-shaped word balloons, and there’s not a SINGLE FULL STOP in the entire comic! Three dots don’t count!

Anyway, enough ranting. It’s a neat, intruiging extra that just needs a bit of fine tuning.

And now, the main event!

The twenty-five episodes of the set are split up nine to volume 4, nine to volume 5, and seven to volume 6 (as opposed to the 10-10-4 split of Part 1). The main menus are VASTLY superior to Part 1’s decidedly underwhelming offerings, with more use of the energy grid from the season 2 opening and nifty 3D faction symbols. These ones are NICE to look at. However, I don’t know if it’s my player or not, but the transititions between menus are a bit jerky and iffy.

Again, we have 5.1 or 2.0 audio options, with 5.1 being the default, unlike Part 1. Now, most people will remember the rantings that have gone on in the past of how Rhino, the American company who remastered these episodes, added extra noises to the 5.1 track (jet fly-bys, big explosions, and the primary truly annoying one, a demonically irritating WHCSSH!! to nearly every laser impact). For their season 1 box set, Maverick used only this 5.1 audio. Metrodome, for S2, Pt2, gave us both 5.1 and 2.0, although an error by Rhino on their set carried over, which saw the extra noises applied to the 2.0 tracks of “Changing Gears,” “City of Steel,” “Attack of the Autobots” and “Traitor.” Furthermore, on the American Season 2, Part 2 set a technical error resulted in the 2.0 track of EVERY episode getting the added noises, driving many US fans up the wall.

The good news?

This error HASN’T carried over! I haven’t watched EVERY episode yet, but after a good chunk of disc one, and a sampling of some episodes from the others, flicking back and forth between tracks and rewinding to examine specific instances, I can find no evidence that the 2.0 tracks contain the added noises! TAKE THAT, YANKEES! If I find evidence to the contrary, of course, I’ll take this back.

So, with that joyous discovery made, I was really settling down to watch some awesome robot action. There’s little point in actually going into episodes in that much detail, but I reccommend-

- the refreshingly mature change of pace that is “The God Gambit”
- “The Secret of Omega Supreme,” which gets the “Contradicting the Conustructions’ Origin, but Giving A Reason For At Least ONE of the Season’s New Characters” award
- the hoots that are “Prime Target” and “Triple Take Over”
- The really quite spiffy “Key to Vector Sigma”
- the continuity-chewy-tasty “War Dawn”
- and the absolutely CRACKIN’ “Starscream’s Brigade” and “Revenge of Bruticus.”

The worst ep on the set is, without question, the utterly nonsenscial, brain-itching “B.O.T.,” one of the worst episodes of Transformers ever.

Now, as I did in the past, let’s take a deep look at the extras. Before I get into them individually, I just have to say that they are presented *sooooo* much better than the previous set’s. More work has gone in here, and even though there are less individual extras than Part 1, what we do get is simply much more pleasing to experience.

The first extra is the quiz - same format as part 1, multiple choice, only with 20 questions, instead of 10. And these ones are ones that you DO have to REALLY be a Transfan to answer. When you complete the quiz, it’s apparent that nothing is unlocked, but….

…when the quiz is over, and “Special Features” is highlighted, press “up,” and Megatron’s eyes will light up. Hit enter to play the set’s vaunted Easter Egg… and then be disappointed to discover that it’s “Four Soliders From the Sky,” the first episodes of the Japanese “Headmasters” series… again. Forget the fact that it’s the lip-jabberingly poor English dub, and focus instead on the fact that this is now the THIRD time this episode has been on DVD, first on Maverick’s release of the movie, then again on it’s own disc with five more Headmasters episodes, and now this time. It’s hard to know what to feel here - I mean, I am annoyed that it’s this episode AGAIN, but I also applaud Metrodome for using some Japanese episodes (boding well for their use in the future), and although it would have been NICE to start where Maverick left off, that seems silly, even though Metrodome has done it with their box sets. Ah well.

Next up is the game, just identified as “Transformers Game” on the Menu, but called “Guess the Autopart” in the booklet and “Scrambled Transformers” on the sleeve and box. From any screenshots you may have seen of it, you may think it’s played by selecting individual parts and combining them to make a Transformers, but in actuality, it’s just a randomised process - you just repeatedly hit “play” until a whole Transformer appears on screen. You can build either Starscream, Soundwave, Jazz or Bumblebee, and once you have successfully done so, you can play a slideshow of the character’s highlights from the set. Unfortunately, like the menu transititions, these are a bit choppy - though as before, I’m not sure if this is just my player or not. A nice idea for an extra, though the way I *thought* it could be played would have been a better way to play it.

Next are the staple character profiles, presented a bit better than Part 1’s with a preferable use of screen captures, rather than artwork. Profiles are for Menasor, Superion, Bruticus, Defensor and Blaster. Better written all around. Nice work.

Next up is a familiar sight - the Fan Art gallery. Wisely changed from the scrolling movie of Part 1 to a user-controlled page-by-page presentation, this thing is bloody MASSIVE. Art ranges from great to average to copied (bad boys, dirty boys, in your bed, etc).

Next on the list are the Episode Scripts - once again, wisely changed from Part 1’s on-screen presentation to PDF files opened on your computers. They’re the original dialogue of the episodes, lacking the stage directions between speech. All twenty five episodes have their scripts here - that’s a lot of reading!

Finally, there is the Atari game trailer, a preview of the Armada PS2 which rocks my socks. Seeing Tidal Wave transform and land in that water just gave me a joygasm.

And that, my lads and lassies, is your lot. A huge improvement over the already-great Part 1, with a much more professional, polished finish, a better handling of content, some spiffy inserts, and with superior audio to the US set. Roll on season 3/4 - if the quality climbs as much as it did from S2 Pt 1 to Pt 2, I may very well explode.

After a series of average DVD releases, Maverick have a chance to redeem themselves with the Transformers Season 1 Deluxe Box Set. How have they done? Daz finds out…

Rhino’s season one collector’s edition box set won over many fans with its release a few months back. Feature packed and complete with restored animation it was beautifully packaged, and even came with some animation cells. Surely Maverick couldn’t reach the lofty heights set by Rhino with their release, due out this coming Monday (23rd September)?

Upon receiving this DVD through the post I was delighted with its presentation. Packaged similar to MGM’s Rocky box set in a card sleeve, the DVDs slide out in a fold out set adorned with Theo Black’s artwork. Finally a bit of effort has gone into the packaging. There is no booklet though, nor are there any special tidbits such as the film cells that Rhino gave us.

We’re treated to a rather slick intro sequence and a well thought out animated menu, this is in my opinion better than that in the Rhino set. Rhino tried to do something nice but the execution was poor with the playback jarring when you select an option. No sign of this here in Maverick’s release.

Unlike Rhino’s set we don’t get the ‘remastered’ episodes. Errors are not fixed and added with equal regularity, we get the episodes as they were back in the day. I never liked the idea of tampering with production line animation anyway. The picture is sharp and the sound is 5:1 and booming. I can have no complaints here.

What this set succeeds or fails on though is not the episodes, but the features. First off you get two taster episodes from DVDs being released later this year. The first episodes from ‘Five Faces of Darkness’ and ‘The Rebirth’ are included. Many people questioned the wisdom of having these episodes on the DVD, but they are a welcome addition. I’d rather have them than not, plus you get a little synopsis for each episode in the series of Rebirth and Five Faces, so the story for the episodes is set.

There are a series of character profiles for all of the major characters, from Optimus Prime to Rumble. These use stills from the episodes and give you 1-3 screens of info on each character. These are informative and interesting and use info derived from the original toy profiles and the Transformers Universe.

When Transformers The Movie was released one of the most requested features was to see some toy adverts. Hasbro were being a bit tight on releasing these at the time, but now Maverick have gotten their hands on a collection of adverts for toys such as Action Masters, Gen 2 and many more. There are lots of adverts here, make no mistake. Together with the original bumpers from the series this is a great addition. Unfortunately there are no season 1 toy adverts, but I guess ads that old were very hard to find.

The next feature is a classic quotes gallery. This is an interesting addition which allows you to select different quotes from throughout the season (mostly from More than meets the eye) and view the sequence with the quote. My favourite being ‘If on Decepticon turf you happen to tumble, look out robot cos here comes Rumble’.

We now move on to the Fan Art gallery, and this is where the fans of this site come in. TheTransformers.Net mailed all of their Fan Art contributor’s and asked them if they’d allow their artwork to be used on the DVD. All of them responded with much the same answer of a whole-hearted YES. This gallery is superb, and really showcases the talented artists in the Transformers world. They’re hoping this is something that can be carried forward to the next box set and give even more artists a chance to get their work shown.

The original synopsis from Sunbow is included on a press card for you to read, but only on the DVD, not a hard copy unfortunately. This is one item I’d like to own myself. If anyone has one of these then drop me a mail, I’d be very interested in buying one. Great artwork on the card and a very nice item to boot.

To add some interactive elements to this DVD release we’re treated to a little quiz. Five questions about the first season with multiple choice answers unlock some bonus footage if you answer them correctly. If you’re new to Transformers or you’ve not watched the first season for while it might be better to watch the episodes before tackling the quiz. TF experts though should have no trouble with it, and the bonus footage is worth it! Note that Michael Smith is credited on the reverse of the sleeve, so if you’ve been keeping a close eye on TheTransformers.Net you should be able to guess what one of the bonus footage pieces is.

If you have a DVD ROM you are able to access some of the original scripts from More Than Meets The Eye Parts 1-3. These are presented in a web page set up and are accessed using Adobe Acrobat. They are certainly worth looking at and even printing out.

Every episode on the set comes with a few paragraphs about it to set the scene; this is described as an episode guide. It would have been better to have given you info about the making of the episode rather than the synopsis approach it took, more like the Professional DVD set. It’s still nice to have the info though, but reading it before watching the episode will give away info you need not know!

The final feature is the one that excited me most of all. Billed as the Japanese trailer for Transformers the Movie I though it wasn’t worth adding to this set. Who wants the Japanese trailer for TFTM? It’s not relevant. This however is NOT the Japanese trailer at all. It is perhaps the rarest of Transformers video clips. It’s the 4 minute promo film used to sell TFTM to the territories before completion. It features footage not shown in TFTM, including Ultra Magnus in a different colour! This video clip is available to download from this site, but not in the quality shown on this DVD. This is a great piece of footage, and one that would be welcome on any Transformers DVD.

In short this DVD set is superb. If you don’t own Rhino’s set then you should get this one. If you do own the Rhino release I’d still recommend this set just for the features. It’s worth it. I’m looking forward now to see what both Rhino and Maverick do with their season 2 releases.

Maverick sent a copy of their new DVD, released January 28th, to us here at TheTF.Net to cast our eye over it. It features five episodes from the first season of the original Transformers series - War of the Dinobots, Fire on the Mountain, and The Ultimate Doom parts 1-3.

So what is the DVD like? The episodes themselves are all classics, particularly War of the Dinobots which features the creation of Swoop and Snarl. The Ultimate Doom is currently available in the US on the Villains DVD, but the other two episodes are not yet available on DVD in the English language.

The episodes aren’t re-mastered in any way, but the picture quality is clear enough and it’s the best quality that you can currently find these episodes in. The menu system is actually quite impressive, and features a scene selection allowing you to choose your episode. I would have preferred a theme running through from the movie DVD in the menu system, or in the cover but there isn’t one.

The cover is something of a let down unfortunately. It seems that all of the best Transformers art either exists in comic form or from fan artists such as Dan Khana, leaving very little for official DVD releases - unless they were to commission any art.

Rhino in the US are releasing a season 1 box set, and I’d hoped to get one here in the UK soon but it seems we may have to wait a while. Maverick still intend to release a season 1 box set but not for some months yet. Before you judge them, don’t forget that Rhino released two volumes of episodes on DVD before announcing that a box set was planned, forcing fans to buy the same episodes twice.

It seems like we’ve waited forever for this, an eternity almost, and now it’s finally here. But is it worth the wait? We were hopeful for widescreen, by some online retailers such as Blackstar and Play247 we were promised widescreen but it has not materialised. So is this DVD release worth the money without it, particularly if you already own the region 1 US version on import?

Well, in a word… yes.

The mockery of justice with the cover misprint (a PG certificate with a Universal description) nearly delayed the release, but in the end proved unimportant and in all honesty may actually help. You see there are only 20,000 prints of this first run and the second run will have the cover altered. This original cover with the classification mistake will become something of a collector’s item!

And what a cover! We’re biased because it’s our artwork, but we really prefer this to the badly rendered VHS cover and the American Ultra Magnus artwork. This was the original face of the movie way back with the Video Gems release, and for cinema posters here in the UK. This artwork was also picked by readers of TheTF.Net as their favourite, that’s why it was used. People Power!

When you put this long awaited DVD into your player you’re greeted with the introductory footage from BBC’s I Love 1984. This features interviews with comic writer Simon Furman and Transforce organiser Paul Cannon. This provides a nice little backdrop to Transformers if you’re unfamiliar or are trying to brainwash a colleague, spouse or child - I know from experience, it works.

There is of course the famous mistake in this program where Paul, bless him, talks about Soundwave whilst the good old Beeb cut in some footage of Blaster. Don’t blame Paul, it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t edit the thing, the BBC did and he feels really embarrassed about how dumb they made him look. Apart from that inexcusable error the interview with Simon Furman is great.

Once this footage ends we go straight into the animated intro sequence… and there’s no season 3 intro on a season 1 DVD here (as Rhino did with Ultimate Doom!). This intro rocks.

The words Access Granted adorn the screen, allowing us into the Transformers vault. Shots of the movie flash up in a very slick, well put together montage with the thumping sounds of Leon’s ‘The Transformers’ theme. This evolves into the main menu, with a matrix (Keanu, not Creation) animated backdrop. You can just make out the Autobot logo scrolling down on the left.

Special Features
Let’s talk first about the features, not what isn’t on it but was is!
Your first choice in the menu offers the film, the scene selector, the trailer and the special features. It is the features that we made a bee line for.

There are two special feature in this section, the first being the Takara episode: The Four Soldiers From The Sky’ which is also included on the recent VHS release. The quality is obviously superior here, but the dubbing still bad.

The second feature is something new, a moving picture gallery with music. This is the reason the disc carries a PG certificate. The music featured is a new remix by NRG of their track Instruments of Destruction and it uses samples from the movie of Spike’s infamous line. The remix is great, and is sure to soon be available on many web sites for download.

It should be noted that this mix was part of some work NRG were hoping to finish in time for the 2001 Botcon convention, but unfortunately were unable to do so. Luckily we have a chance to enjoy it here.

The gallery images themselves are all from the movie, which helps… Rhino take note! They are in fact from the Marvel adaptation from 1986 - Transformers the movie comic/poster. This is the comic that TheTF.Net provided for use on the cover art.

The obligatory animated scene selector
Every decent DVD needs animated chapter selectors, particularly if it’s an animated film. This DVD is no exception, and this time the chapters on the cover are spelt correctly. For those that don’t know, the original print of the cover had a spelling mistake that we here at TheTF.Net noticed and caught Maverick just in time to prevent an embarrassment.

Interesting version?
This version of the film on this DVD is quite unusual, it’s neither the U.S. uncut version or the UK version. It is in fact a hybrid of the two. It features the UK scrolling text and voicover, yet still has the swearing intact. This makes it unique, if not unusual. Is this the best version available?

Theatrical Trailer
For me this is the prize of the features, for although it doesn’t say it on the cover it is actually in widescreen! here are some screenshots to prove it. A 4:3 version of this trailer is downloadable in our video section now, but this widescreen version on the DVD is a beautiful sight.

The Film Itself
OK, OK, no widescreen. I know. Sunbow said that it existed and that they’d found it, but they didn’t come forward with it. This is very frustrating and annoying, particularly considering that the trailer has been unearthed in widescreen. This just wets our appetites even more. Never mind, one day the widescreen print will light our darkest hour… or at least our DVD players, I’m sure of it.

As the film itself, I don’t know if it’s just me but the actual transfer looked a little dark. I thought the same about the VHS version, maybe I’m just picking holes. This film also features a 5.1 sound mix that was created at great expense by those chaps in the USA.

I have to say that I feared the worst with this release. We’d waited so long with so many promises, disappointments and false advertising by retailers that I just felt we were in for a big let down. Those fears however were dispelled with the intro sequence of the disc. It was slick, stylish and professional, far better in my opinion the the US region 1 version from Rhino.

The extras from there were like a candy flavoured topping. The widescreen trailer, ooh bliss. The Takara episode, the NRG remix with my images (ego trip) and even the BBC intro footage. I bet Paul Cannon is well chuffed. This DVD made my day, I just hope that Maverick’s efforts to please the fans don’t backfire on them with people feeling cheated, because you won’t be. believe me.

The really great thing is that with this epic project out of the way, Maverick can now focus on the next Transformers release. A DVD containing five episodes from season 1: SOS Dinobots, Fire in the Sky & The Ultimate Doom parts 1,2 & 3. This they hope will be out by December 31st.

Now if you want this DVD, and you know you do, it’s only available in the UK.
If you’re in the US or any other country for that matter you can order it online and import it, GAME will ship to foreign turf. Bear in mind though that there is a US region 1 DVD of Transformers The Movie already available, if you’d rather that check out Amazon. If you’re unsure which one you want, check out our review of the US region 1 version here.

That’s it, the DVD is out, I’m off to bed to dream of Transformers and a time when, well, all are one.

’til then?