Generation 1 of The Transformers is twenty five years old. Doesn't time fly? Twenty five years and the franchise is probably healthier now than it has been in at least twenty years, thanks to Michael Bay's flashy live action interpretation, whose second installment just released. As a new generation of viewers are discovering the pleasures of robot aliens who turn into cars, and jets, and dinosaurs and bugs and cities and planets and pretty much anything you can think of, Shout Factory and Hasbro are celebrating the past with the re-release of the first season of Generation 1 of The Transformers on DVD, now restored to its original broadcast quality.

This is the same show you watched 25 years ago. The noble Autobots fight the greedy Decepticons to determine who will control their home planet Cybertron, and who will sell more toys. After crash landing on a remote planet during a resource gathering mission gone awry, the Transformers are stranded on Earth for four million years until volcanic activity happens to jolt some to life. Finding a planet full of natural resources, the Decepticons set out to harvest as much energy as they can. The Autobots, on the other hand, decide to serve as defenders of humanity, protecting the fragile humans so that they can still buy toys. Alright, the "selling toys" theme isn't actually part of the story, but the reality is always there, right under the surface: This show was designed to sell toys.

If you were a kid in the 80's you were probably perfectly fine with this. The animated series acts as a starting point for all of the adventures that you were having at home with your own set of Transformers, and it did a great job doing that, establishing characters through slick design and expressive (if cheesy) voice acting. Watching the first season of the original series brings back a lot of nostalgic feeling for the early days, as the voice cast including Frank Welker, Peter Cullen and Chris Latta had a unique chemistry that can never really be recreated. More recent productions might have excellent voice casts, but the original cast defined how the characters should sound. Also, we might be too accustomed to the concept of <i>Transformers</i> these days to realize that a series about Robot Aliens who can turn into cars is pretty much the most awesome concept ever. Ultimately, <i>Transformers</i> is an excellent source of nostalgia for a fan. 

Unfortunately, <i>Transformers</i> hasn't aged particularly well as a series. While the character design and background artwork still look great, the actual animation of the series is pretty rough, and while the writing and voice acting retain a lot of their charm for long time fans of the series, the dialog is still extremely cheesy. Worse, a lot of the stories for the first season are repetitive, causing the stories to blend together if you watch too many in a row. Most of these factors probably won't matter to fans of the original series, as long as they know what they're getting into, but for newcomers and those who haven't seen the series in a long time, the quality of the animation and sound might be a little grating. Additionally, the DVD set doesn't seem to provide too much value to those who purchased the earlier DVD releases. While the new release restores the episodes to their original broadcast quality, the age of the series means that the restoration isn't particularly noticeable. While it is nice to have the entire first season in one place, fans who already have the DVD set might want to pass, unless they are particularly interested in the special features.

The collection includes a handful of special features, most interesting of which is a collection of interviews with some of the creative team at Hasbro who were responsible for developing the mythos for the original Takara, which lends some insight into the creative process, from giving the toys names, to separating them into their factions and advertising to the eager young consumers of the mid-80's. The rest of the special features offer some examples of commercials for the toys, as well as a public service announcement that accompanied the series, and a PDF version of the script of an early episode. Overall, the special features should be appealing to anyone with an interest of the early history of the Transformers, especially the process behind the scenes.

The Transformers: 25th Anniversary Season One release looks and sounds as good as ever, which, unfortunately, isn't that great.  The show is at its best as it evokes pangs of nostalgia for times long gone, and is probably best suited for fans of the series who don't already own it on DVD, or people curious about the origins of the franchise, especially those interested in the history of animation in the 80's. While the dated animation might be off-putting to some, fans of the series will be pleasantly reminded of the past. Really, if you care enough about season one of The Transformers to want it on DVD, and don't own it already, this is pretty much a must-have.

ComicsOnline.com give Transformers: 25th Anniversary Season One</i> 4 out of 5 energon cubes.