Energon is as bad as Armada was, the voice acting again sucks because again they decided to make it in Japan and animate it before recording the voices.
Set 10 years after the end of Armada and has the now Adult versions of the 3 brats in Armada, but they must've all skipped puberty because they still sound like they're in their early teens like the where in Armada, Alpha Q (who has had not introduction as to who he is or how he came to be inside of Unicron, since he was not in the Armada series) is Energon's attempt to bring back The Quintessons from G1 and doing a very bad job of it, Alpha Q is a three headed alien inside a robot body which is linked to Unicron via something like an Umbilical cord, he activates a couple of Robot's inside of Unicron, Battle Ravage and Divebomb I believe to go to earth to collect Energon, in order to revive Unicron, Unicron is in a terrible shape apparently, again no explination is given as when we last saw Unicron in Armada he had Transformed back into his Planet mode, when Galvatron sacrificed himself to stop Unicron from comming back to life and Destroying Cybertron, Galvatron was sucked into Unicron, who then just Disappeared, but then appeared from behind a planet at the closing moments of the final Armada episode and looked to be perfectly fine...
The Animation is a mix between CGI and normal Cell Animation but the problem is where the Cell Animation is far superior to that of Armada's, the CGI looks badly done and really doesn't mix well with the other animation, for a start the robot's seem too bright, brighter than the cell animation, and when they move, it's like they move faster than you'd expect a 20 to 30 foot robot to move, the head turning also seems to have this problem, another problem with the CGI is like the previous 2 Transformers show from Japan they Transformers with mouth plates such as Optimus Prime and Tidal Wave, don't actually look like they're talking since their mouth plates don't move at all, unlike G1 where Optimus Prime and the other Transformers with mouth plates would move up and down when they spoke, or in Wheeljack and Warthpath's cases the side lights on the side of their heads would flash when they spoke.
The Problems I feel with Energon that have been brought over from Armada, re-writing the cartoon, the horrible voice effects for The Autobots and Decepticon (neither G1, Beast Wars or Beast Machines had horrible voice effects that made the voice actors sound like they're talking in the bathroom) the horribly lame Transforming sound from Armada (Superlink has the G1 Transforming sound, why can't Energon?) There are more annoying kids, and an even worse Intro and ending theme than Armada's was, Superlink has an awesome intro theme again vastly superior to what Energon has to offer...
In G1 they didn't dub the show, I'm pretty sure they recorded the voices before the show was actually animated and they sure didn't re-write the episodes from Japanese like they've done for the past three Transformers shows now, the story's where written in America for a western audiance.
What's the point of re-writing a story that's already been written? surely someone can translate it and the could just use the same story for the show, it'd be alot easier...
or better still why can't they just write the show in english like they did with G1, Beast Wars and dare I say Beast Machines, and have the voice acting recorded before animating it....
that way the voice acting would'nt be so terrible, they wouldn't need to re-write it and people older than 5 years might actually get into the show and stop hating every new TF series that comes out...
Take Beast Wars, it was animated using CGI by Mainframe in Canada, it had various differen't writers from the states writing the episodes, it had two great executive producers Bob Forward and Larry Ditillio who actually took the time to study the comics and the original cartoon to better prepare themselves for working on the show.
Is Transformers in such a bad state now that it's required to be written and animated in Japan before being sent over to the west I.E. Canada or The U.S to be badly re-written by talentless hacks who do a horrible job at re-writing it, and then is horribly dubbed by people who really prefer recording voices before the show is animated, but don't really like dubbing because it's such a hassle.
Hasbro seem to be that obsessed with saving money and being tight fisted nowadays they might as well do the same with the comics...
Sadly I just don't think that it is possible possible nowadays for Hasbro to bring out a Transformers series that can be watched by kids and adults, the way the series are made they might as well not bother making them at all, because they can't even get it right like they did with G1 and Beast Wars.
Take my advice if you are a true fan of the original G1 Transformers or a Beast Wars fan avoid this and watch Superlink insted, no horrible voice effects, no lame transforming sound, better intro/outro theme.
I honestly don't know why Hasbro have taken this path, this year is the 20th anniversarry of Transformers, but instead of doing a G1 Revival series with the remaining members of the original series,we get Energon, another lame, badly dubbed, re-written show from Japan.
Way to go Hasbro.
