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Rating:  -
An exceptional deal for under $20, this DVD contains the first season of the Transformers original series (16 episodes). With a 3rd DVD containing extras and special features, you can't go wrong buying this DVD set...unless you already have this season on a previous DVD release.
Overall, a great deal! Excellent for fans of the original series or for people who want to discover the roots of their favorite robots in disguise.
Rating:  -
This box set is a must have for anyone that grew up watching the Transformers. The only thing I don't like about it is it's still in the orginal format so there's black bars on the sides of the screen, but it takes nothing away from the cartoon. The show is still as great as it was 25 years ago!
Rating:  -
Well I bought this DVD collection because I loved the first movie so much, and I'm excited for the upcoming Revenge of the Fallen. This is a nice collection if you grew up watching this. I find myself being very bored by the episodes. Each one usually has the same outcome,("DECEPTICONS RETREAT!!!!) lol. It is pretty cool to see the cartoon versions of the Autobots and Decepticons have the same personalities they had in the movie though. This would be a good gift for a child or someone who grew up watching the cartoon. I would NOT advise you to buy this if you are in between like me.
The Collection does come with some nice DVD extras. Old transformer toy commercials, PSA, and an AUTOBOT magnet. The picture and sound quality is top notch so in that aspect, its good. But don't buy this collection if your looking for some ACTION! but it is a nice collection for a child or someone who just wants to Relive their Childhood!!
Rating: -
For the last few years it's been a wonderful time for fans of 80s cartoons. Between the lovely Filmation sets released by the now sadly defunct BCI Eclipse, Warner Bros. stepping up to the plate and offering action cartoons like Thundercats and the Silverhawks, WEP/Anime Works/Media Blasters releasing the complete series of Voltron, Time Life releasing the complete Real Ghostbusters, and Shout! Factory picking up dropped licenses for a ton of DiC and now Sunbow cartoons, releasing 30-odd episode sets instead of the paltry 4 episode discs for shows like C.O.P.S. and Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, it's just been great.
With the recently released Transformers season one 25th anniversary edition, Shout! Factory has stepped up its game and taken on a tent-pole series, looking to correct the mistakes in the show's past DVD releases (both in terms of price point, attractive packaging and actual animation and sound snafus from the 2002 Rhino releases.) Taking a nod from Time Life and their release of the Real Ghostbusters, Shout! is putting together multiple DVD sets that'll hopefully appease both casual and hardcore fans. This set is the first of 4 individual releases that will comprise the complete Transformers cartoon. They're also prepping a all-in-one complete series package set ,the Matrix of Leadership edition set for release on July 13th through their website.
This first set includes all 16 episodes from season one, a 20 minute documentary featurette featuring a lot of the creative team responsible for the original toy line, the Marvel comics series, and the cartoon, a G.I. Joe-style "Knowing is half the battle..." PSA featuring Bumblebee, three archival Hasbro toy commercials, a printable script for the episode "Transport to Oblivion", and a large b&w Autobot magnet. For the most part, these episodes are from the same masters that Rhino used in the 2002 releases, but Brian Ward and his team painstakingly researched the discrepancies between the original masters and the broadcast versions, and replaced most of the incorrect footage (and sound) with the correct sections from the 1" broadcast tapes. For most casual fans these changes will be transparent, but for longtime viewers, these new DVDs are the closest we've gotten to how the show was originally shown on TV. Unfortunately, the 1" tapes segments tend to stick out a bit, and can be a bit jarring as the animation flows between the crisp sequences of the original masters and the softer, slightly duller 1"broadcast tape. On the whole though, knowing that the original broadcast versions are preserved far outweighs the visual bumpiness.
The episodes included on disc 1:
-More Than Meets the Eye: Part 1
-More Than Meets the Eye: Part 2
-More Than Meets the Eye: Part 3
-Transport to Oblivion
-Roll for It
-Divide and Conquer
-Fire in the Sky
-S.O.S. Dinobots
The episodes included on disc 2:
-Fire on the Mountain
-War of the Dinobots
-The Ultimate Doom: Part 1
-The Ultimate Doom: Part 2
-The Ultimate Doom: Part 3
-Countdown to Extinction
-A Plague of Insecticons
-Heavy Metal War
As far as the packaging, presentation and bonus materials go, I was very impressed by the attention to detail and that Shout! had and eye on the style of the original toy packaging when designing the slipcase, sleeve inserts, disc art and the episode guide. The foil embossed slipcase is brilliant and just plain beautiful (especially compared to the rather dull silver digipaks of the original 2002 Rhino release.) This is the best work I've seen from Shout! when it comes to their 80s cartoon releases. The menu navigation is light years better than the old Rhino DVDs as well, with an included feature to play multi-part episodes together without interrupting the flow of the cartoon by cutting out the opening and closing credits on the in-between episodes. The 20 minute "From Toy to Comic to Screen" featurette takes its cue from the docs that Andy Mangels did for the BCI Eclipse He-Man, She-Ra, and Dungeons and Dragons sets, and is well produced. The main focus of the doc centers around Hasbro acquiring the toy license from Takara, the development of the Marvel comic series, and eventually how the storylines for the three platforms differed, and features creative talent that worked for Marvel, Hasbro and Sunbow past and present. It's not quite as in-depth as I was hoping, skirting talk of the production of the series for the most part, but according to the specs of the Complete series set, we can expect two more docs in these individual sets, as well as two additional and exclusive docs on the complete set (including a voice actor reunion), so there's room for more down the road. As for the toy commercials, two of them pertain to G1 toys, while a third is for the G2 Optimus Prime re-release. It's really interesting seeing these, though it can be distracting while watching them because the child actor's faces were blurred.
All in all, for a set retailing between $20-30, fans couldn't really ask for anything better. This is the first time the Transformers series has been released with this much loving detail at such an affordable price in the US, and hopefully it's just the icing on the cake as there are three more sets, a complete series set, 4 individual G.I. Joe sets (G.I. Joe A Real American Hero: Season 1.1) and the complete G.I. Joe series to look forward to.
Rating: -
I remember watching these as a kid after school and it's everything I remembered it to be. Now I can watch it with my boys and relive the fun all again. Quality of picture and sound are great and you've gotta love that old-school transforming sound!
The only complaint I have is that they actually put in the transition to commercial screens "Transformers will return in a moment" and "And now back to Transformers". I was expecting maybe some old Transformer toy commercials which would have at least been nostalgic, but this is just wasted time, in my opinion.
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