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For those of us who grew up watching cartoons and carried on that enthusiasm into adulthood, there’s almost always a nagging sense that recent efforts just aren’t up to the level that we remember. The mid-‘80s saw a rise of animated series designed to market toy lines, and several of those brands proved so popular that they’re still being produced today. One of the most successful, Hasbro’s Transformers line, has seen a number of animated series, as well as a run of feature films, and Shout! Factory has just released a complete run DVD set of the 2002-2004 series Transformers: Armada. But for someone who fondly remembers the original run of Transformers cartoons, that feeling of diminishing quality is hard to shake.
Transformers: Armada reboots the series from the beginning, as three young teenagers—Rad, Carlos, and Alexis—discover a buried spaceship in a cave and reactivate a group of smaller transformers called Mini-Cons. Before long, the good transformers, Optimus Prime and the Autobots, and the bad, Megatron and the Decepticons, show up to reclaim the long-missing Mini-Cons. The factions seek to tap into the extra power and transformation abilities that the Mini-Cons provide, gradually becoming aware of their link to an older and vastly more powerful force that’s slowly coming their way.
Eschewing CGI for traditional hand-drawn animation, Transformers: Armada bears some resemblance to the original series. The cast has been shuffled considerably, with only a few of the mainstays carrying over into the new set—and even those undergoing some substantial redesigns. That’s all well and good, but so little effort is put into distinguishing the secondary characters that it takes the better part of the first season just to figure out who everyone is. Outside of Optimus Prime and Megatron themselves, the only developed characters at the outset are the kids, who are mostly distinguished by being as annoying as possible.
Some of these problems result from a rushed production. Though American company Hasbro commissioned the project, Japanese studios created it. In order to make broadcast deadlines in the U.S., they had to rush the first batch of episodes with barely-finished animation and an English translation that’s riddled with errors. While the animation has been cleaned up for the DVD, the audio hasn’t received the same attention.
Unfortunately, even after those first few speed bumps have been cleared, the first three seasons don’t offer much beyond fairly basic cartoon action and repetitive plot points. When the show enters the final season, however, there’s a noticeable uptick in quality. Previously glossed-over loose ends come back into play, and the narrative shifts into a genuinely interesting end-of-the-world scenario. I’m not sure if the 40 episodes required to get there were absolutely necessary, but the last 12 are surprisingly good.
For long-time fans of all things Transformers, it’s hard to recommend Transformers: Armada as being worth the investment of time and money. But for younger fans who might not be quite ready for the intensity of the live-action films and don’t carry the baggage of knowing when cartoons were just somehow better, this may be worth checking out.
