Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Review of TRANSFORMERS Generation 1: Complete DVD Box Set 15 Discs (98 Episodes+The Movie)

Okay, so I got the DVD set from China yesterday afternoon. I bought it on ebay for about $80 bucks and it shipped to me within a week. It's hot. I watched the first 5 episodes so far and I found instructions online how to use it, because the menu is in Chinese (i'm not sure if its Mandarin or Cantonese), but it was easy to figure out.

The quality is really good and it's an official product they made for fans in China, its packaged nicely: Comes in the Tin Box (see above), comes with a geeky key chain and also a envelope full of Transformers Post Cards with cool art. The actual DVD's come in a booklet form and each slit in between the pages has a DVD in a plastic baggy type covering. Each page has art on it and also the first page has all the episodes listed on it. One issue I had was the freaking guy who mailed it to me, put it in a thin envelope with some bubble wrap and metal box got dented a little, but the inside of it was fine and everything is in working order. Now to the show.

The first 5 episodes really brought me back man. Definitely a billion times better than the new Michael Bay movie. Watching it as an adult is kind of funny, because it was made for kids, so some things are corny. Some of the dialogue are for older kids and I'm pretty sure we didn't know what was going on when we were all younger.

I found some holes in the story between episode 3 and 4. They never explain how the Autobots came back to earth once they defeated the Decepticons in episode 3. Also they throw in the space bridge story so randomly in episode 4. They don't even explain how it came about. Also another funny thing was, at the end of episode 3 all of the Earth's leaders give the Autobots enough energy to travel back to Cybertron, but like they hardly show that human factor
when they're fighting the Decepticons through the first 3 episodes. The only 2 humans they show are Spike Witwicky and his dad Sparkplug. I guess that was enough for us kids to handle. You can see the difference in drawing of the characters in the first 3 episodes and it changes in episode 4. The first 3 episodes were like pilot episodes to introduce the Transformers, and then it was picked up for the season. The first 3 episodes was like a series special....and they leave it open ended with Megatron escaping from the starship they built on earth which crashes in the water....this happens when the Autobot Mirage teleports onto the Decepticon starship and distracts Starscream from shooting Megatron.....and Starscream ends up shooting part of the ship.

I think its definitely worth buying. It will cost more if you buy it from someone from the US, but I have seen it on Amazon.com for $88 bucks. China is your best bet, but the tin case might get damaged during delivery. Maybe you can tell the seller on ebay to put it in a box with styrofoam pop corn.
Here is who I got it from: Ebay
Here it is on Amazon: DVD SET

Posted by: MAC-X

3 comments:

linglingdoe said...

the easiest place to buy this is:

http://stores.moviesville.com/Store/Search.aspx?Page=1&Sort=2&key=transformers

Suz said...

Hi,

I bought the same set from Amazon. I was worried about the quality, and whether or not the English translation would be the original voices.

It arrived about 2 weeks ago and my worried cleared. So far the set has been a great trip down memory lane. The Chinese menus take a moment to figure out, but they are simple enough. I love catching the spelling errors in the episode titles.

Someone said that their version didn't have an English translation of the Atlantis Arise episode, but mine included it.

The series in its entirety is a mixed bag. Some episodes are great in both quality and animation, others are pretty poor (Child's Play to name one.) But the characters are there and it's just lots of fun.

http://quotabletopimusprime.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Good words.