As much as I like to make Michael Bay my personal whipping boy in my articles, I do have to say that the first live action Transformers movie was quite enjoyable. Sure, critics had plenty of complaints about plot this and action-porn that, but screw it, I was in the theater with my vintage Transformers lunch box, eating the whole thing up (the movie, not the sandwich I packed in the lunchbox, although I ate that too). Those skeptics don’t know what bad really is. We all remember the old classic Transformers that changed our childhoods, but true, diehard fans had to sit through worse … much, much worse, to get their Transformers fix. You think Michael Bay’s movie was bad becuase it focused on humans more than giant robots? Well, then just look at some of the beauties we dug up, and compare. I’m sure they will make Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen look like the Cybertronian Mona Lisa.

Beast Machines

OK, so when Transformers did the whole Beast Wars spin-off thing, fans were pretty skeptical. Robots turning into animals on a desolate planet … it just didn’t feel like the Transformers we knew and loved. Still, it slowly grew on us, and for a while we were happy with our new CGI Transformers buddies … until this happened. Beast-Machines sucked!!! I cannot say three words that are more true in this universe. Through convoluted plot twists, everyone ends up back on Cybertron, and then inexplicably get stranger, more streamlined bodies, for no reason other than to show that CGI had evolved since Beast Wars premiered. I don’t even remember what happened to resolve the Beast Machines plot arc, all I know is that it looked ass-ugly and was basically filler between otherwise good Saturday morning cartoons.

Transformers: Armada

After Transformers had been off the air for some time, fans started clamoring for more Transformers action in our Saturday morning cartoon lineups. Then Transformers: Armada came out, and fans immediately regretted their incessant nagging. Transformers: Armada could have been cool, except for one thing: Mini-Cons. These tiny little robots couldn’t talk and, more to the point, couldn’t do anything except be lame deus ex machinas. What’s worse is that Transformers: Armada had spinoffs — three friggin’ spinoffs. I wonder if Optimus Prime ever gets sick of people bastardizing his image?

Transformers: Animated

… Apparently not. I don’t know what the crap happened here. Apparently, Pokemon and Looney Tunes had a baby that suffered from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and, somewhere down the line, it climbed into a Transformers costume and somehow got on the air. How!?! How the heck does something like this get on the air? The characters are all laughably drawn, the Transformers themselves are nothing other than “slip on a banana peel” joke fodder, and the whole series is an excuse to try to pass off a poorly designed American TV show as anime. This series made me want to punch Cartoon Network in the energon. I’ll take Michael Bay over this any day of the week.

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