Not that Transformers: Headmasters is terrible, it is certainly better than Victory and the Unicron trilogy(especially Armada), but for great Transformers shows look to the 1984 series- the best-, Beast Wars and Prime. Reviewing Victory, I mentioned that Headmasters was very good, but this was from memory. This was a prompt to go and watch Headmasters again and see whether it was still that from an adult perspective, unfortunately it wasn't.
There are some good things, the animation while not mind-blowing is slick and shows some evidence of detail and love. There are some very funny lines like Where is Galvatron? Is he alive?"/ "He told me not to tell anyone"(though not always for the right reasons) and some imaginative episode titles(The Emperor of Destruction Vanishes on an Iceberg, anybody?), while the theme tune is relatively catchy and some episodes like Planet Cybertron is in Grave Danger and the finale are securely paced. The story arc is straightforward there are some funny and dramatic moments that don't feel too strange- the episode with the eye-patched-lion leader is an exception- or too daring and some effective death scenes- the only one that didn't work was Optimus Prime's which didn't make much sense- and Rodimus and Galvatron are serviceable characters.
However, there are other things that don't work. The worst aspect is the dubbing which is horrendous. It just sounds so disengaged and without any signs of life, some of the voice actors even sound as though they were recorded in a cave. The Japanese version is a little better but with not enough dynamic range. Most of the characters don't work with not much substance to them(Scourge has never been this dumb or dull before), Daniel is incredibly irritating and having Sixshot, Hortrod, Blur and Cup come and then go again with no mention of them again was a waste and an example of lazy writing. The music did agreed have one too many moments where it did grate, some of it didn't fit with what was happening, some of it repeats itself too much and some of it is at times too dramatic that it's overbearing. There are funny lines sure but from a characterisation and story development point of view Headmasters is rather lazy. Dull isn't the word to describe the execution of the story arc and story lines, in fact the problem is the opposite. It's not disastrous as there are some good moments here but some episodes cram so much in and go at a rapid pace that the storytelling can feel muddled and confused that could have been avoided if less was incorporated and the pace was slowed down. Headmasters also ends on a rather anti-climatic note
Overall, not terrible, as a matter of fact the opinion is very mixed feelings, and not among the worst of the Transformers franchise but it wasn't as good as I remembered and it doesn't really hold up. 5/10 Bethany Cox
There are some good things, the animation while not mind-blowing is slick and shows some evidence of detail and love. There are some very funny lines like Where is Galvatron? Is he alive?"/ "He told me not to tell anyone"(though not always for the right reasons) and some imaginative episode titles(The Emperor of Destruction Vanishes on an Iceberg, anybody?), while the theme tune is relatively catchy and some episodes like Planet Cybertron is in Grave Danger and the finale are securely paced. The story arc is straightforward there are some funny and dramatic moments that don't feel too strange- the episode with the eye-patched-lion leader is an exception- or too daring and some effective death scenes- the only one that didn't work was Optimus Prime's which didn't make much sense- and Rodimus and Galvatron are serviceable characters.
However, there are other things that don't work. The worst aspect is the dubbing which is horrendous. It just sounds so disengaged and without any signs of life, some of the voice actors even sound as though they were recorded in a cave. The Japanese version is a little better but with not enough dynamic range. Most of the characters don't work with not much substance to them(Scourge has never been this dumb or dull before), Daniel is incredibly irritating and having Sixshot, Hortrod, Blur and Cup come and then go again with no mention of them again was a waste and an example of lazy writing. The music did agreed have one too many moments where it did grate, some of it didn't fit with what was happening, some of it repeats itself too much and some of it is at times too dramatic that it's overbearing. There are funny lines sure but from a characterisation and story development point of view Headmasters is rather lazy. Dull isn't the word to describe the execution of the story arc and story lines, in fact the problem is the opposite. It's not disastrous as there are some good moments here but some episodes cram so much in and go at a rapid pace that the storytelling can feel muddled and confused that could have been avoided if less was incorporated and the pace was slowed down. Headmasters also ends on a rather anti-climatic note
Overall, not terrible, as a matter of fact the opinion is very mixed feelings, and not among the worst of the Transformers franchise but it wasn't as good as I remembered and it doesn't really hold up. 5/10 Bethany Cox