Customer Reviews

Transformers: The Complete Series (25th Anniversary Matrix of Leadership Edition)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is THE box set to own. I never purchased the Rhino releases but Shout Factory's treatment of this venerable series is most excellent. From the Dolby Pro Logic soundtrack to the imperfections that crop up in some episodes (no doubt present on the broadcast masters) this is the Transformers as I remember them.

I ordered this edition from Shout Factory directly since I wasn't sure if it would be available from other vendors. All 16 discs were present and accounted for as well as two magnets (Autobot and Decepticon), a 60-page booklet, and a flier for the G.I. Joe collector's set. If you're a Transformers fan this is the most complete edition of the series worth owning to date. Buy it and enjoy!

This set is quite amazing. Period. But as a collector, it really depends on how you roll... er... or how you transform and roll out. I'm a completist. I was too late in collecting the previous releases on DVD and just prayed and waited around forever for this wonderful release.

You can indeed find the complete set for $140 on the SHOUT website; who knows, Amazon often drops their price by the release date, but for now, it can be found, alongside the complete GI JOE set with free shipping.

The packaging, unfortunately, is a lot of thin cardboard -- with the CD cases being cardboard with plastic trays; not very durable, not sure how they'll hold up to the test of time with repeat handling. I wish the outside case, at least, was heavy duty like the GI JOE complete set box, especially for $140; one could most likely collect the individual releases for the same price with how cheap these individual seasons often go down on Amazon. Although, the set does consist of a few rarities not found in the individual releases.

Call me 'Crazy', but I am collecting BOTH releases. I love picture discs and packaging. Especially for the individual releases which contain thin-pak jewel cases and cartoon character pictures on the discs. The characters on the complete set discs are more computer-generated images... NOT CGI, but rather, what a Transformer might look like after being scanned for replication.

On a side note, the "More Than Meets The Eye" introduction DVD, the first five episodes of season one sold seperately, is a nice collectable too, comes in a regular jewel case, and though the image is the same as the first disc in season one, it has a blue background rather than a purple background... subtle, but cool. And, yes, I have this in my collection as well. Crazy.

The collected book (episode summaries) is quite nice that comes with the complete set, it includes some Tranformer bios... the individual releases come with mini-booklets that only contain the episode summaries, both having different cover designs, so again, to me it is worth collecting both releases.

GI JOE side note (for completists); for the complete set, the 17 discs have the same characters as the individual release... however, the complete set discs have the original hand-drawn character profile picture, whereas the individual set releases have the cartoon character image on the discs. And, the individually released introduction DVD "The M.A.S.S. Device" has three figher jets with the red white and blue jetstreams as the picture disc, so they're all quite different. Also, interesting to point out, there's an empty tray slot, an "18th" disc spot for the 1987 GI JOE movie that does not come with the set, hopefully it's released at a later date. Not sure why the Transformers movie wasn't included in the complete TF set. Too bad... or had an empty "17th" disc spot.

Despite being one of the most popular cartoons of the '80s, The Transformers has had an awful time on DVD. The initial DVDs of The Ultimate Doom (released alongside the then-rare "Rebirth" three-parter on single-disc DVDs) had a pressing error which resulted in a batch of the discs including the "Rebirth" three-parter instead. However, the problems really started when Rhino decided to remaster the series by going back to the original 35mm negatives. Those 35mm reels were incomplete, however: every re-take in the series was not present, forcing Rhino to insert the footage from whatever sources were available. Rhino, was not perfect, however, (far from it, in fact), and many scenes were left uncorrected, and others had poor attempts to digitally alter the 35mm footage to match the broadcast masters. The famous transition sequences even had to be re-inserted in the first four episodes, and a great many were of the incorrect type. Adding insult to injury, the new 5.1 sound mix had added effects, and a great number of episodes from the first two seasons did not have the unaltered audio available (and the company responsible, Magno Sound, lied to everyone about the new effects, even after fans identified sounds from Star Trek: The Next Generation, which first aired as The Transformers entered into the land of perpetual reruns).

So, now, leading up to the 25th Anniversary of the fabled animated series, Hasbro assigned home video rights to Shout! Factory, which promptly declared that they would be fixing Rhino's mistakes. The mono mix has returned, lightly stereo-ized but without Magno's alterations (though some episodes, such as The Ultimate Doom Part 3, have reverted from a stronger mix of the effects and music tracks of the Rhino DVDs to the muted mixes that were created in the '80s). And true to their word, Shout! has fixed may of the problems with the prior DVDs. However, there are still a great many errors present, especially in the first season (which was the most problematic of Rhino's releases).

Among the things that are still uncorrected:
-Incorrect transitions in the second and third parts of the "More Than Meets the Eye" three parter
-Rampant amounts of incorrect footage in the recaps and previews for many of the multipart episodes
-Numerous shots of missing snowfall in the opening scene of "Fire in the Sky"
-A handful of mis-framed shots in "Divide and Conquer" and "SOS Dinobots" (the former episode as the Autobots transform to meet Prime at the weapons factory, and during the battle with the mindless Dinobots in the latter episode)
-Starscream colored as Thundercracker at 15:33 of "Fire on the Mountain" and 2:15 of The Ultimate Doom Part 2
-The missing background as the Energon Cubes explode at the climax of The Ultimate Doom Part 3
-Rhino's digital tinkering to fix the 35mm footage of Wheeljack and his Shock Blast Cannon in "Heavy Metal War"
-Lava which moves *up* Megatron's face (and gets in his eye) in the last shot of "Heavy Metal War"
-The mis-titled title card for "The Master Builders" (titled "The Master Builder" on the DVD)
-The *correct* spelling of the word "Decepticon" in the title card of "A Deceptacon Raider in King Arthur's Court"
-Missing freeze-frames at the end of two episodes: "Auto Berserk" and "Revenge of Bruticus"
-Incorrect openings for all five parts of Season 3's "Five Face of Darkness": Only parts 3 and 5 have the correct video, and unlike the prior Rhino DVDs, the audio is from the normal opening in both parts.
-"Dark Awakening", which was altered so as to precede "The Return of Optimus Prime", features only the audio from the original airing (which did not feature Victor Caroli's famous narration). In this era of DVD branching, it seems a bit silly that both versions were not able to appear on the same disc (what with the historical significance of the alternate version).

To be fair, the episodes are much improved. "Heavy Metal War", rendered nearly unwatchable on the Rhino DVDs, has only 19 incorrect shots, which is a significant reduction (and many of the differences are rather subtle in those 19 shots). Other episodes with are even more successfully corrected, such as a few seconds of black on Rhino's "Desertion of the Dinobots" Part 1 and the upholding of "War Dawn's" notoriously slowed-down Act 2 (done to cover up the removal of the original-and far more gruesome-crippling of Orion Pax from the final episode). [EDIT: Further investigation by yours truly reveals that the second act of "War Dawn" is still played at the wrong speed-only the voices have been corrected.] Also, the extras are very good, featuring a great number of commercials, an excellent cast reunion, and a conversation with Bob Budiansky that's infinitely better at illustrating his importance to the series than the similar one with Larry Hama that's featured in Shout! Factory's G.I. Joe set. I do, however, find the lack of participation from David Wise (who was at least as important as Flint Dille and Earl Kress, who were re-interviewed for this set, to the series) a bit disconcerting. Also, due to Hasbro's orders, the running order for Season 3 does not match the running order on the packaging of the version of this set offered directly by Shout! Factory as of this writing. However, it is the continued insistence on using the flawed 35mm masters (and not the broadcast masters) that causes the greatest concern with this set, especially when broadcast masters are used on 5 episodes (Season 1's "Countdown to Extinction", Season 3's "The Burden Hardest to Bear", and all three parts of "The Rebirth"), just as they were on the Rhino DVDs, and they look pretty good for their age (and the inconsistency of Sunbow's telecine transfers). Until a more even-handed approach is taken, it's hard to recommend such an expensive DVD box set.

As another reviewer wrote, it is indeed possible to order this directly from Shout, for $140.00 w/free shipping. If Amazon did not offer any discount on this then the Shout offer would clearly be superior. But Amazon DOES offer a discount, which substantially narrows the difference. Further, Shout charges sales tax to orders from California, Florida, Indiana and Kentucky whereas Amazon does not. So, where I live the prices are virtually identical and in fact, Amazon's price with the current discount is .66 cents less for me than if I had ordered this from Shout.

As for the set itself, Shout's website lists it as including "98 episodes, a 60-page Book, Autobot & Decepticon Magnets, 3 scripts w/ handwritten notes, all 5 of the PSA's, 5 featurettes (2 of which are exclusive to this set), a voice cast reunion, Hasbro toy commercials, 2 concept art galleries, a fan art gallery and an animated fan film entitled 'Transformers: Generation One'". Finally, the entire package is housed in one very nice looking box with a picture of the Matrix of Leadership on the top.

This set is well worth the price to re-live your childhood (for those who think its expensive for something 25 years old, think about what you just said. Its 25 yrs old! A lot of work goes into restoration.) Okay, now to get going.

1. Episode Order: A lot of people have complained that the booklet & cases for Seasons 3&4 don't match the dvds. Here's the reasons: The booklet and cases are correct. The episodes were aired out of order. The dvds show them by order of the original air-date, even though they backtrack and skip around. Hopefully this error will be fixed for the individual releases down the road.

2. Color errors: I've seen several complaints about this, but I can't help but laugh. Color errors where you see the seekers in one-anothers' schemes & such, have been present since the original releases, to fix them would require editing the masters. This also goes for voice errors and wrong bots appearing during scenes.

3. I understand a lot of people wishing the movie was released with this set, but I would rather have had the "Scramble City" episode included with the Season 2 special features in its original Japanese dub. The fan commentary on the version included with most recent release of the movie, is down right annoying.

4. If you don't mind paying a little more, get the individual releases as they come out. The artwork is more colorful & the cases more durable, and as I said earlier, maybe the episode order will be corrected on these.

This is a great set for the child in us all. the box itself opens up just like the matrix of leaderships which is really neat. The content is great including all of the episodes from the G1 series, oddly missing the movie though. The biggest drawback is the DVD cases themselves. The ones i received were very thin card board with and i kid you not the discs that sat in plastic bags thing disc shaped wal-mart bags. the DVDs themselves were actually a little roughed up due to this fact. One DVD even had the glue the glue melt from the cardboard onto the data side so I'm not sure if it's damaged or not as of this writing. The dvd cases i've already unfortunately torn trying to get the discs out because of aforementioned plastic bags. Overall the collection is good but i'd recommend getting some hard cases or cd sleeves to put the discs in and just holding onto the cardboard cases for the art that they are

This is a good set of DVDs, for what it is. The packaging is colorful and attractive, if a little gimmicky, and the DVD cases are sturdy. The content is slightly lacking, however. There are some extras like period commercials and advertisements, which are nice, but my real complaint is with Hasbro's continued insistance on presenting the episodes in their original airing order. This is not the intended release order (chronological order), or the order recognized by the episode numbering. It's frustrating to have to exit to the DVD menu to find the next episode in the series because if you select "play all" it may skip 3 ahead, then go back to the ones missed, making no sense at all. Other than that complaint (which is directed at the owner of the Transformers brand, not Shout! Factory), this is an excellent way to get all of your G1 transformers!

You probably didn't know that Shout Factory released two versions of this set. The first, the 2009 or "Fat" set was a great product, well-made and packed with bonuses.

But then came 2010 and the "slim" set. Unfortunately, this is the set I wound up with. It's made of more fragile stuff than the 2009 set, with a less sturdy box, magnets attached to wax paper that seems like it was torn off of something, and worst of all the discs themselves are packaged in CARDBOARD SLEEVES, "protected" by plastic bags! This protection is not enough, and when I got this set many of the discs were damaged and unwatchable. I'm going to return it to the seller I bought it from. Shout Factory should be ashamed of having made something so cheap and fragile!

To be honest, at this point it might be better to just buy the individual Season sets. There's very little here that isn't duplicated here, and most of you just want to watch the episodes and could care less about a bonus interview (which isn't really anything special) and a "collector's booklet" (which is just summaries of the episodes, with lame trivia for about four of them). Not to mention, the "Good" version of this set is rather bulky and, as others have mentioned, does not have space set aside for The Movie. Finally, the seasons can be found for $10-$15 apiece, while the Matrix set will cost you $100-$200 most likely. The bottom line is: if you didn't get this set when it was new, you're better off without it.

If you absolutely MUST have it though, then be sure to ask questions and make sure you're getting the *right* one! Don't get gypped!

I'm a big Transformers fan but passed on the Kid Rhino dvd collection awhile back because of price and unecessary "adjustments" to the show. I had gotten two dvd packs of G.I. Joe from Kid Rhino previously and didn't like the changes at all, since they tend to distract rather than enhance the show. Shout Factory has provided an uncut and beautiful collection. There are only a couple negatives that I can find in these dvds.

First, the severe lack of extras dissappoints me greatly. There are extras, but not on a level that you'd expect from a full series release box set. Only a hand full of things are offered. What I was really excited about was the commercials and PSAs. Unfortunately there are only 4 commercials, and all of them are from the later years of Transformers (Headmasters, etc.) I'm very saddened that this is all they provide. By the way, there are 2 PSA's. I'm not sure why they decided to grant entirely separate sections for these 15 second clips. Again, very dissappointing.

Second, there are scenes that look brand spanking new (from the cleanup), then there are scenes that look aged and blurry. I didn't notice at first but there are a few episodes where the switch occurs every so often and becomes noticeable. I'm assuming these scenes were not available for repair when Shout Factory was putting together this set. However, a big positive is the audio. Sound was sometimes a problem during Hasbro cartoons, for example sound effects would be at whisper volume and were obvious mistakes. The audio, from the dozen episodes I've seen so far on these dvds, is fantastic. I'm not sure if Shout Factory fixed the problems or what but it's great.

Anyways, overall this is a fantastic set. It's all you really need if you're a fan of the show

I have waited very long for this as there were Chinese bootleg versions (thinner version) going around in the market and I have to be very careful when purchasing. I am glad that I have gotten the real deal here and this is definitely a must buy for Transformers fans.

Cheers