Transformers Animated: Season 2 (Hasbro, 2009)
purchase this DVD (Amazon)

I’ve never really been a big Transformers fan, even back in my childhood. I’ve never understood the cultural fascination with them, or how said fascination has lasted so long. They’re robots who turn into cars…wow. And when that hideous live action abortion by Michael Bay stomped its way into movie theaters back in ‘07, based on its stupefying success, I figured maybe I was the one taking crazy pills. And so it was with some trepidation that I chose to review the Transformers Animated Season 2 DVD, which compiles all the episodes which recently aired on Cartoon Network.

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised.

Not so much that now I’m going to buy stock in Hasbro, the company which produces the toy line which incestuously pairs itself in a 69 position with this series. But I have to say that for a kids’ show that pretty much does nothing but have giant robots fighting each other and doing a lot of property damage, it’s really a quaint bit of fun.

The absolutely best thing that Hasbro did when they reinvented this series (the origins of these characters and their arc are significantly different from the show which ran from 1984-1987) is that they detached it almost completely from Michael Bay’s film–the only true connection being that the heroic Autobots and their nemeses, the Decepticons, are both searching for fragments of the Allspark, the mysterious power source which gave life to all inhabitants of their distant home world, Cybertron. (more…)