For a good reason that is. 🙂 Late last week a new boxed set was announced for the Transformers G1 cartoon series on DVD. After some quick thinking I decided to go ahead and preorder. I had the previously released sets that came out during 2002-2003 and bought them when they first came out. Those sets have been long out of print and shot up in value over the years. After I pre ordered the new set I put my old ones on ebay and they actually sold for the same price as this new set, so I am pretty much breaking even.
There were a few problems with the older set that is supposed to be fixed in this set. On the old sets they used the 35mm masters for the episodes because the original broadcast masters were damaged. This resulted in many more animation errors than there were on the original broadcast versions. This new set they have supposedly corrected these errors bringing them back up to how they originally aired on T.V. The other problem with the old sets is the company that released them added a 5.1 surround sound track and added extra sound fx that did not exist on the original episodes. They did have the option of a 2.0 stereo track which was supposed to have the original audio, but some of the dvds they goofed on and the 2.0 track still had the extra sounds. These new DVDs are now supposed to just have the original unaltered audio.
The boxed set runs $140 which is on par with what I paid originally for the separate boxed sets and it is I believe an online exclusive. Starting this summer though individual season sets will also become available, so that is good for fans who don’t want to spend that much in one shot. This will make the 3rd set of the series that I have owned. The first was back in the 90s when I bought some recorded VHS tapes from a member on an old usenet board before there were any official released, then the set I just sold, and now this new set. Below is an ad for the new set and the official website to preorder is http://transformerscollectorsset.com/ which shows an 3D flash animation of how the set opens up.
