Transformers: The Headmasters

This series starts out promisingly. New adventures featuring Jazz, Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Hot Rod, Galvatron and new transformers like Chromedome, Sixshot, and Fortress Maximus. Transformers live or die, some go away for good. Action packed and filled with funny dubbed dialogue by the infamous Hong Kong people who did the 70's Godzilla films and the early kung fu films of Shaw Brothers. Especially funny is Galvatron's voice, sounding like one of the more infamous kung fu villains in cinema history. Unfortunately, the Japanese show contempt for the old school American Transformers, killing them off or sending them away or keeping them in cameo or supporting roles, thus making space for the Head masters. The one old school transformer they chose to keep is Wheelie along with his human partner Daniel, thus emphasizing the Japanese' love of little boys. Fortress Maximus, who becomes the new Autobot leader is easily the worst Autobot leader ever, almost not even fighting when the Decepticons attack, and his final fight scene with Scorponok in the series is the worst contrived fight ever in a Japanese cartoon. The first 25 episodes are good. After that, it's all a failure from there.

Transformers: The Headmasters has its good and bad points. While it doesn't cram all its new characters into three episodes like "The Rebirth," it doesn't devote a lot of time to any of them except the Autobot Headmasters and one or two others. It's also a bit intense for a kids show, not to mention that several episodes feature female characters in revealing clothing, though with the exception of "Head Formation of Friendship" such characters are background and the scenes they appear in can be skipped without losing any vital plot information. Also, way too much Daniel and Wheelie-and I thought they were annoying in English. The subtitling on the Shout! Factory version is also fairly disjointed at times.

Actually "The Headmasters" do get introduced in the last eps of US Version of the Transformers unlike one critic said.

The writing is much better in that the writers finally killed of Galvatron once and for all, but in the same breath Optimus Prime too, but Primes death is really weird. He and Galvatron fight for the Matrix, Galvatron is thrown to it, but Primed dies anyway? Weird.

Its not really the weak part of the Trinity, its good. Theres an ode to Voltron as Autobots start using Swords as weapons as well. If your lucky enough to find a good copy consider yourself lucky, most of the dubbed copies are in horrible condition. The person with a good copy of the subtitled version can be very rich seeing as there is a shortage of good quality episodes on tape.

There Are 2 Problems: 1. The Omni Productions English Dub Is, However Infamous For It's Poor Quality, Full Of Mistranslations, Grammatically Incorrect Sentences, And Incorrect Names (For Example, Blaster Is Named "Billy", Jazz Is "Marshall", Spike Witwicky Is "Sparkle", Hot Rod Is "Rodimus Prime" (Pronounced As "Roadimus Prime" UGH!), Blurr Is "Wally", Soundblaster Is "New Soundwave", Metroplex Is "Phillip", Cerebros Is "Fortress", Fortress Maximus Is "Spaceship Bruce", And The Matrix And The Energon Cubes As "The Power Packs".), As Well As Stilted And Even Bizarre Dialogue, Such As "I'll Send You Express To Hell!" And "Fortress Maximus Has Come Himself". Also, Wheelie Doesn't Speak In Rhyme (But Seems To Have A Slight Scottish Accent), The Dinobots Speak Unusually Normally (Grimlock Does Not Say His Famous "Me Grimlock" At All), Raiden, The Trainbots Combined Form Is Known As "Grimlock" (Huh?), And Blurr Speaks Unusually Slowly (Though This At Least Can Be Chalked Up To The Difficulty Of Imitating John Moschitta's Famous Fast-Talking Style).

2. The Shout! Factory DVDs Of Transformers: The Headmasters Skipped The Previous Episode Recaps, Commercial Bumpers/Eyecatches, And Next Episode Previews. WHAT THE HECK SHOUT! FACTORY?

Ok this series just hurts my head to think about. In the dubbing they screw up names Rodimus Prime = Roadimus Prime, The Matrix = the power pack, vector sigma = the sigma computer, Blaster = billy and Blur = Wally. The stupidity doesn't end there. In one epesode Sixshot tries to get energy from earth so he hides in the shadows in each of his six forms to hide himself. Which ACTUALLY WORKS. He fools the autobots and the decepticons into thinking that its some mystery robot. When its obvious its him. The dubbing sounds like its by five guys in there basement. I'm a transformers fan so that tells you something about this. If your going to watch it don't watch it in a serious frame of mind because you'll just end up with a headache. Its good for a laugh thats about it!