TS: TRANSFORMERS! the movie vs. GI JOE! the movie

Plus, Tranformers the Movie was the last performance of Orson Welles. I can't work out whether this is very cool indeed or just tragic.

That said, everything that came after the movie was utter, utter shite and should be destroyed.

But for the reasons I watch animation as an adult, namely to see things that you just can't do in live action, it's yo Joe. To put it flatly, the film is insane. It has no narritive structure, in part because it was split into episodes for tv. But thats partially immaterial. The real defining characteristic of G.I Joe the movie it's tenacit yot let reality fall apart. People growiing and shrinkng, wrestlers practically throwing cars around, men dying and not dying, people emerging from fleshy pods, the list goes on. Men have worm bodies. Men turn to snakes. All this in juxta position to what G.I. Joe was before this movie, namely a weak Justice Leauge rip off except no one has powers (except Zartan, kinda) and you have a total gem.

But watching makes me ill. Like sex with squid. Feel good for body, feel bad for mind.........................

http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=24850

Both are great but Transformers is far superior. It's sad that a cartoon from the 80s could be 100 x better than a full feature high budget cgi film from 2007.

Wow, timely revive - I watched Transformers The Movie yesterday with my five year-old (DVD was £1 in Fopp). I didn't have a clue what the hell was going on half the time. You know you're getting old when you get befuddled by a kids film.

Amazing cast - Orson Welles, Eric Idle, Casey Kasem and Leonard Nimoy.

Transformers, definitely, if only for that bit at the beginning when the dying Ironhide begs for mercy and Megatron shoots him in the face. That was hardcore for a kids film.

Yeah, that kind of blew my mind: after years of no characters dying on the regular cartoon, they just started offing them left right and centre in the movie, which was great. And the scale of things seemed appropriately boosted up for the movie.

It's sad that a cartoon from the 80s could be 100 x better than a full feature high budget cgi film from 2007.

Amen x 100

Cast also included Robert Stack as Ultra Magnus!

GI Joe animated film is the most surprisingly good film I've ever seen (as in expecting it to be crap but actually being good). Might be the only non-martial arts action movie I like.

I feel some contempt and sadness for a lot of my fellow 80s-90s kids who seem to endlessly watch Transformers, Dragon Ball Z, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Ghost Busters, Masters Of The Universe, Thundercats, Ninja Turtles, Disney films and any new special effects driven franchise films.
I just don't think most of those things were very good but I still think GI Joe animated film is great.

It has loads of intentionally and unintentionally funny parts, so many great lines. Serpentor is doubly hilarious because his costume is so idiotic. It's still one of the grossest and most disturbing films I've ever seen. Just generally entertaining and fun in a way that is incredibly rare.

I could totally understand people who haven't seen it being repulsed by the idea of this American military stuff for kids, but it's great. I've heard that most fans of the GI Joe franchise dislike this film but I don't really know how widespread that feeling is.

I've heard that most fans of the GI Joe franchise dislike this film but I don't really know how widespread that feeling is.

That surprises me! I like both (haha dating myself) iterations of the regular series (i.e. when Storm Shadow was still part of COBRA and then when he became a Joe (come to think of it, I think the movie is the dividing line between the two)), and LOVE the film.

Was watching compilations of 80s-90s cartoon intros and now it's so blindingly obvious that Japanese studios did most of the American action fantasy ones. They only drawn the faces different and the bodies more muscular but everything else is very much like anime of the time.

I never knew about a lot of the stuff like Silverhawks and so many cartoons about vehicles and monsters. Street Sharks was a favourite of mine at the time and I was oblivious to how much it was just a copy of Ninja Turtles (Biker Mice From Mars fits in there too) and that virtually all these cartoons were just made to sell lots of toys and merchandise. Still I like a lot of the designs of these things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUdmetykD6o
This is great.

After seeing a lot of those intros (which were probably always more exciting than the actual episodes), Defenders Of The Earth had the most funny song.

It's a very different cartoon but in Raccoons I could never get over those horrible penis noses.

Also, Captain Planet intro seems more striking today with the environmental focus and racially diverse heroes. Truly the most relevant superhero of our times.

Surpurised I'm not in this thread!

Anyway, I watch old episodes of both all the time. I was sad to see Destro get replaced in the genius/second in command/second banana roll by Dr. Mindbender.

what weirded me out about The Raccoons was that Cedric's girlfriend wore clothes but he was nude xp

http://www.serienoldies.de/images5/raccoons_sophia_tutu.jpg

horrible penis noses nit helping there, obviously

the writing in 1986-1987 Transformers surprisingly quippy and smart but often the animation is inconsistent if not horrendous.

One of the better episodes, a tip to its Japanese creators:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PzVdjahVes

Check out this G.I. Joe-Transformers crossover: Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, Springer, and Arcee get human bodies, thanks to Old Snake (ahem)'s synthoid technology:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuFngsb0wD4

I love the ending of that episode with Snake beginning to shout 'COBRA' but descending into coughing and spluttering

the degree to which Galvatron was Megatron fascinated me at eleven.

The user Quuboid has a huge 12 parter of 80s-90s cartoon intros and the lines between the genres blur quite a lot but here's what I think are comparable action/fantasy cartoons.

- Transformers
- Voltron
- M.A.S.K.
- He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
- She-Ra: Princess of Power
- The Centurions
- The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers
- Bravestarr
- G.I. Joe
- ThunderCats
- Biker Mice from Mars
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- The Real Ghostbusters
- Robotech
- Visionaries
- Conan the Adventurer
- Dungeons and Dragons
- Captain Planet and the Planeteers
- Spider-Man
- Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends
- The Incredible Hulk
- Batman
- Double Dragon
- Dinosaucers
- Dino-Riders
- COPS
- RoboCop
- Mister T
- Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
- Street Sharks
- Mighty Max
- Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs
- Blackstar
- Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors
- Turbo Teen
- Thundarr the Barbarian
- Mighty Orbots
- Challenge of the Gobots
- Ulysses 31
- Starcom: The U.S. Space Force
- SilverHawks
- Bionic Six
- Defenders of the Earth
- X-Men
- Pole Position
- Inhumanoids
- Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars
- Toxic Crusaders
- Hurricanes
- King Arthur & the Knights of Justice
- The Pirates of Dark Water
- The Legend of Zelda
- Battletoads
- Battletech
- Street Fighter
- Earthworm Jim
- Swamp Thing
- Rambo: The Force of Freedom
- Spiral Zone
- Star Wars: Droids The Adventures of R2-D2 & C-3PO
- The Neverending Story
- Aeon Flux (series)
- Skeleton Warriors
- WildC.A.T.s
- Gargoyles
- The Mask

Missing are Space Monkeys, Superman, Savage Dragon, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Extreme Ghostbusters, The Phantom. But I think that guy wanted to draw the line at mid90s. Can you guys think of any more?

Lady Death animated film is supposed to have a very similar feel to these.

Swamp Thing's theme tune is The Trogg's "Wild Thing" with really silly rewritten lyrics like "Swamp Thing... you're amazing".

Between these cartoons, toys, superhero comics and fighting games I think all this stuff gave me a real taste for diverse and distinctive character design that I don't see enough of today. It always bothered me how fighting games increasingly just became wardrobe designs rather than proper character designs.

All this also reminds me of the hundreds of unused designs by Jack Kirby for Ruby Spears.
http://comicsalliance.com/10-amazing-jack-kirby-designs-that-need-to-happen/
It's a shame there's never been a big book of this stuff, only a trading card series.