Released by: Warner Archive Collection
Release: May 2011
Price: $15 US (available in the domestic USA only)
Synopsis: From Gobotron to your home, it's the original 5 episode mini-series that brought the GoBots to life. When Cy-kill embarks on his mad quest to conquer the galaxy starting with Earth, only Leader-1 and his band of Guardians stands in his way. The mini-series that launched a legend! Newly remastered from original film elements, Challenge of the GoBots has NEVER looked this good.
Comments: Back in the 1980s there were two transformable robot lines that dominated the toy world. One, of course, was Transformers. The other, the Gobots. I never saw the Gobots cartoon so this is my first exposure to it.
Unlike the Machine Robo anime reviewed last issue, Gobots was animated by Hanna Barbera in their house style. I'm not a fan of the style personally but the animation is still competent all things considered. The transfer is pretty good--the picture is crisp and colorful. However, the film has the odd scratch or dirt here and there. Perhaps the masters are too badly degraded? Or they simply didn't want to spend the money making it perfect given that the product was only going to sell for cheap anyway. Still, it's better to get something and this does look reasonably good as is.
Gobots has no bonus features unfortunately, but again it's a budget release and I'm just happy to have a good source to watch.
The story, if you're unfamiliar with it, follows the adventures of the heroic Guardians as they battle the evil Renegades on both Gobotron and Earth. Presumably the less straight forward style of Machine Robo is why they opted to do this new series to focus it more on the robots (not that MR is bad or anything but I could see how a kid might have a little bit more trouble trying to follow it casually).
Worth a look if you're into transforming robots (who isn't?) or if you want to replace some older video taped copy. Here's hoping the rest of the series gets released eventually.
